Episode 74. The Power of Two: US Engagement with NATO

Episode Transcript:

Amb. McCarthy: [00:00:11] Welcome to a conversation in the American Academy of Diplomacy podcast series, The General and the Ambassador. Our podcast brings together senior U.S. diplomats and senior U.S. defense officials in conversations about their partnership in carrying out U.S. national security policy. I'm Ambassador Deborah McCarthy, the producer and host. Our focus today will be on our military and diplomatic engagement with NATO. I'm very pleased to be joined by two special guests, General Curtis Scaparrotti and Ambassador Kay Bailey Hutchison. The general and the ambassador is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy. This podcast is sponsored by the Fletcher School Global Master of Arts Program, which allows career executives to earn an executive Master of Leadership in global affairs in one year without leaving the workforce. I'll begin with a biographical introduction for our listeners. Ambassador Hutchison served as the U.S. Ambassador to NATO from 2017 to 2021. In her long career in public service. She served for 20 years as a senator from Texas, including as a key member of the Armed Services Committee, as Texas State Treasurer, as a member of the Transportation Infrastructure Commission and of the National Transportation Safety Board and as a Texas State Representative.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:01:40] General Scaparrotti was the commander of European command and the Supreme allied commander for Europe from 2016 to 2019. Just prior, General Scaparrotti served as the commander of US forces Korea, United Nations Command, Combined Forces Command in South Korea from 2013 to 2016. His other leadership assignments include Director of the Joint Staff, commander of the International Security Assistance Force, deputy commander of US forces, Afghanistan, commanding General of the First Corps and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, and commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division. He commanded forces during operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Zaire, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Liberia. Well, welcome, General Scaparrotti. Welcome, Ambassador Hutchison, to a new episode of the General and the Ambassador. And before we dive into specific challenges in managing the relationship with NATO, I wanted to ask a little bit about your relationship. What can you tell us about when you first met, and I'm assuming, Ambassador, that since you served 20 years as a senator, including as a member of the Armed Services Committee, that you must have met the general in one or more of his senior assignments?

Amb. Hutchison: [00:03:02] Well, that is true. And he is the one that has the better memory because I did go to Afghanistan early in that mission. And Swap, I'll let you say the things that we did because it was an incredible experience to be there so early when our troops were there to train the Afghans and using our equipment, etc. And the troops told me not only did they not speak English, they didn't even read Afghan. That was the first challenge that Skep had, and I'll let you take it from there. Scap In that very first meeting early in our mission in Afghanistan.

Gen. Scaparrotti: [00:03:48] My first memory was, I was the US Central Command Operations Officer and therefore running the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. And I just said, I'm pretty sure it was the McCain trip to Afghanistan. I went to Pakistan as well. And of course, you know, I knew of you by reputation as well at that point, is excited to meet you. But that was a memorable trip. And then also, I think after that, other trips that you made, the co deals were the first ones. And then obviously when we met at NATO, you know, when you came in at NATO, there was so much going on that our first meeting was a fairly long one. And as I recall, it was when we did most of it one on one, which was very much appreciated by me.

Amb. Hutchison: [00:04:31] Well, absolutely. And I just want to add to that gap. And I had a great relationship right from the beginning. We established a phone call that we made generally weekly or every other week to just catch up with what he was working on, what we were working on and what we needed to coordinate together. It was a great time for us because at NATO, probably more than most other places, we're linked. It is a political military alliance. All of the ambassadors would need to know what the military view was on any given issue. And so it was a great relationship that we established. And when I got to NATO, he had been there already. He was working on the reform of the Deterrence and Defense Initiative for the trans-Atlantic. And I was getting reports from my colleagues when I got there about how much they respected what the general was doing and that he was doing everything on time, delivering it as he said he would, even coordinating all of our allies military committee as well. So it was a great experience that we had and a good relationship that made such a big difference.

Gen. Scaparrotti: [00:06:00] You know, Ambassador, I'd point out that there is a unique part of this. I've always viewed that as a military commander, even in a specific country with the US ambassador there, that that's who I worked for. And I was there to reinforce whatever their objectives were in terms of their diplomatic approach. In the case of Ambassador Hutchison, she had the unique role of working with at the time 29 nations and their ambassadors. But she also had unique role of reporting both to the secretary of state and the secretary of defense, who I also reported to. So that dual hat that she had as well was particularly important to both me and to her. And so we had to stay in very close link with each other because we both work in both of those domains. I think is the SAC year. I was almost more diplomat than military general on many days.

Amb. Hutchison: [00:06:50] That's for sure.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:06:51] Well, you overlapped from 2017 to 2019 and during that time in Europe, because of Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea, the US was expanding its military presence. We were pushing hard for NATO members to boost their defense budgets. North Macedonia and Montenegro finally got the green light to become members and the US Taliban peace talks went into high gear, among other things. This is just to give some background to our listeners. So I wanted to start with the issue of burden sharing, which was very much front and center during your time. Long ago, NATO members pledged to spend 2% of their GDP on defense and more recently to devote 20% of their total defense expenditures on major equipment. Can you talk a little bit about how you engaged on the diplomatic and defense side in pressing the laggard nations to do more? I know President Trump was pushing hard in a public way, but I wanted to give our listeners a better sense of the work that you and your teams did behind the scenes on this issue.

Amb. Hutchison: [00:07:58] I'll start by saying that, yes, the president was very vocal and public, but I could always assure my colleagues that every president with whom I'd worked, which started with Clinton and then went through Bush and then Obama and then Trump all said the same thing. They said it in different ways, but they said the same thing. Europe needs to do more for this alliance to continue to be able to perform. And so I think we were able to do that without acrimony. And so many of my colleagues, the other ambassadors, said, we know we need to do more. And many of them said, go ahead, push us, we should do more. We know that. And I'll just tell you a little anecdote. When we had our 70th anniversary in Washington, all of the ambassadors came and I made a point of taking the ambassadors to the US Senate with my former colleagues and having a kind of a round table with all of the ambassadors in the Senate room, the committee room. I brought in the co chairs of our Senate NATO Caucus, Senator Jeanne Shaheen and Thom Tillis, and then we had a couple of other senators come in and we talked about the importance of being positive about defense spending, because in our campaigns, we're positive about spending on defense, we're proud of it. And I wanted our colleagues to start getting the message that you can be really proud when you increase your defense spending because that's the security of your country. That was a point I was able to make in person with our bipartisan senators to just try to get them to understand they didn't need to hide their defense spending. They should be proud that they were doing it. Gap, I'll turn it to you because I know you were doing the exact same thing on the military side, which was also so important to each of those militaries to report back to their parliaments that they needed more of this equipment.

Gen. Scaparrotti: [00:10:17] The reason we stayed in such close contact was because I also talked to the permanent representatives, the diplomats from each of the nations. I talked to their military chiefs of defense, certainly. But more importantly, I tried to talk to the ministers of defense, In some cases, both the minister of defense and the child encouraged me to talk to their prime minister, to talk to their minister of foreign affairs, and in one case, their economics lead because they wanted me to tell their government what they needed. So those are the kinds of things that we did. The other thing I think I would mention is, is that what the United States does is important because when you can show the activity. Of U.S. forces in the trans-Atlantic and in a particular country. That's a real weight. I mean, you can point out what you're doing in their defense, what we've contributed in their defense, and encourage them to pick up the step a bit. And in some countries, although they didn't show it as an increase in their 2%, there were several countries, I'll point out, Romania and Poland, for instance, who agreed to expand or begin construction on better facilities that US forces needed for throughput supply, logistics, an aerial port, etc.. And so we could then point as well back in our Congress to them expending funds primarily to help for the stationing of our forces. All those things work together as we talk to our counterparts in the other countries.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:11:49] Well, during your time, we continue to significantly expand our rotational forces in Europe through the European Readiness Initiative. You supported aid and continues to support deployments, exercises, training, pre-positioning equipment. So, General and Ambassador, can you describe how you and your teams worked to increase these expenditures? It takes quite a bit of lobbying back in respective bureaucracies, as well as working with the White House and the Hill to sustain, if not increase, expenditures and security assistance in a region of the world when there are other competing demands. So how did you work this process together?

Gen. Scaparrotti: [00:12:32] Well, one is, is we stayed close. I mean, you know, this could be a delicate matter at times because there were times, for instance, when President Trump had announced that we're bringing forces out of Europe, for instance, at a time when, frankly, I was saying we needed to bring forces into Europe, we needed to increase our footprint, That's what I was testifying to in Congress. My view was and I did have a four year plan basically for what I needed to build what those priorities were. And what sequence would bring them in. And then how I went about getting those basically was a discussion between I and Kay, as well as myself and the Minister of Defense, to determine the right timing of this and what our system would, let's say, stand at the point. I mean, I certainly couldn't go in and say I need all the following things as soon as I can get them. I mean, that wasn't reasonable. And frankly, we couldn't absorb it with stationing of forces and, you know, footprint and logistics, etc.. So we actually had a plan and then we went about that in a methodical way. And frankly, despite the pressures about Europe not doing enough, etc., for all three years that we were in NATO, we increased US force structure throughout this entire three years and resourcing.

Amb. Hutchison: [00:13:50] And we also we got real buy in increasing the defense expenditures over that period that we were working together. The European countries all increased their expenditures and more of them committed to actual plans for getting to the 2%. Now some didn't, but the number increased and the amount increased. But also I think that that's where my dual hat was important because I could see what the Department of Defense was doing with the generals recommendations. They were putting that into their defense budget and they were prioritizing it so that Congress and here's where certainly I had all the contacts in Congress because I was in the Senate. So I knew the chairman of the committees, the Armed Services, as well as Appropriations, and could talk about the NATO role. And honestly, this is one of the good news stories about the NATO relationship with Congress, and that is that bipartisan support for NATO is absolute in the Senate and House no matter which party is in charge. And of course the administrations also support NATO. Even if they are pushing our allies to do more, they are supportive of the basics of NATO. In fact, in our administration, as Scap has alluded, we increased the European defense initiatives all of the time that we were there and our commitments were solid. So our dual hat experience on both the general side and mind did work together with the Department of Defense, with the Congress, to make sure that the priorities that the general set with this new trans-Atlantic structure and command and the increases and the defense initiative, especially after 2014 and Crimea, the Russian activity in Crimea was a real wake up call. Which was a beginning of our build up again. We started that build up on the border when Russia took over illegally Crimea and part of the Ukraine. And then of course, that buildup was starting the training of the Ukraine forces, which I know the general is so familiar with that started getting Ukraine ready. And that all has paid off in so many ways since this horrendous invasion that President Putin has made this year in Ukraine.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:16:35] Well, I did want to turn to talk a little bit about Russia and NATO. There is what is called the NATO-Russia Council established as a mechanism for consultation and cooperation. But after 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea, NATO's suspended civilian and military cooperation, but a political dialogue was allowed to continue at the ambassadorial level. So, Ambassador, can you talk a little bit about this political dialogue? What were the atmospherics when you participated and what the NRC is?

Amb. Hutchison: [00:17:11] Yes, the NRC is a meeting that can be called with the ambassadors of NATO and the representative of Russia. And Russia sent different levels in the ones that I participated in after Crimea. Our policy was that we would not engage in the NRC unless there was a real issue. And part of that was that the Russians would go out of an NRC and they would use the NATO Press operation, which had coverage all over Europe to make their points that were generally not in any way close to the truth. And so our policy was if there was a real issue, we would have one. So we did have a couple. One was when we needed to finally withdraw from the INF Treaty and we were trying to give Russia every chance to respond to show that they were not violating. But we had all of the evidence that they were and we had an NRC about that. The other thing during that time was and here's where the general can talk to you about the constant relationship between the military chiefs of defense. And I think it's very interesting because sometimes if people don't understand that and how important it is that our top military leaders with America and Russia talk, it could be misconstrued that our military was going off base or something, which is absolutely not the case. It is completely supported by our State Department and our whole diplomatic chain that those lines of communication between the top military people, generals from Russia and from the US do speak. And I want the general to address that because he participated in some of those that were reported to us in the diplomatic side right after they happened, what was said, how it was received. All of that was so very important and so supported by our connection between the general and myself. So, General, talk about your experience there and also what our chief of staff in Washington does with the General Gerasimov in Russia, as you also experienced.

Gen. Scaparrotti: [00:19:50] Well, I think, first of all, it's very important to talk to our adversaries even more so when there's a crisis or confrontation. And so from the beginning, I wanted to reestablish a connection with the Russian chief of defense there at one time had been a hotline between the headquarters that I commanded called Shape Supreme Headquarters, Allied Command, how Allied Powers Europe and the Russian chief of defense's organization. It took us some, I think, something like four or five, six months to work diplomatically to get a phone call between I and General Gerasimov. And we agreed in that phone call then to reestablish the hotline. So we got that done. We can call each other's headquarters. That I think was an important move. We took two or three phone calls and then finally agreed to meet. And in the course of the time I was there, we met twice in Azerbaijan. They were fundamentally critical meetings. Why is that? I think it's so important for the two chiefs of defense to be able to talk about, in my case, the SAC. You're in him, the chief of defense, to talk about where our forces are in close proximity. What's the intent of those forces? What are the concerns? What are each of us doing that gives concern to the other? Now, I would say, frankly, we didn't agree on much in the 2 hours that we met each time wrote more than that the second time.

Gen. Scaparrotti: [00:21:16] But we began to understand the perspective each had on the activity the other was doing. And we had the opportunity to lay out the facts to them that in some cases their fears were just unfounded. And that kind of understanding is very important. At the time, there was very little conversation going on with the Russians. Our chief of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was talking to Gerasimov also on a fairly routine basis. And then in Syria, the commander that we had in Syria, the three star, had contact with the Russian commander in Syria to de-conflict activities each day. So that was the regime. And actually we were the ones that we're talking to most of the Russians and I think had a better perspective as a result of how they were thinking about things. One last thing. I'll point out why it's important when we talk about deterrence in Europe of Russian aggression, deterrence is about an impact you have on the decision maker, the person that makes that decision. On the other side, it's a cognitive exercise, basically, to convince them that whatever they choose to do, the risk and the costs are going to be much greater than any benefit. And to do that effectively, you have to know how they think. And that's the other reason I really wanted to talk to Grissom off and begin to understand him.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:22:35] I wanted to turn to talk a little bit about Ukraine and the security assistance and the training that began soon after 2014. General, can you give us a sense of how this pipeline of assistance and training helped Ukraine develop capabilities that are important today in fighting Russia's second invasion of the country?

Gen. Scaparrotti: [00:23:00] Well, I can tell you for sure. I mean, I saw the Ukraine army and its military. It's one of the first trips I made is to secular. And I went to the front lines. I got to know their chief of defense extremely well. What I saw in 2016 and what you saw here in 2022 was significantly different military. Why is that? Because in the course of those eight years from 2014 on, from the initial Russian incursion into the Donbass and Crimea, the Ukrainian forces looked at the problem set and used every bit of that time to train their military to change what they needed to change in their security apparatus to be ready for the next fight with Russia. For instance, we changed the way that they thought about command and control. They had been trained on a Russian system of top down. We began to train them in the more western means of Mission Command, which is the use of initiative, the allowance of initiative. At a tactical level, the idea that you can have an NCO corps and you have experienced enlisted personnel that you can embrace, and therefore with authority and responsibility, make your units much more flexible and adaptive. We then began to train on new systems as well. The javelin was eventually given to them and while it was held during my time off the front line, we trained them in that system that you can now see has had such a significant impact on the battlefield. It was one of the key weapons that we trained them on that allowed them to defend their country against a great onslaught by the Russian armed forces.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:24:36] Well, a lot of countries were assisting. I wanted to ask you, Ambassador, of how you coordinated with your colleagues so that not all the assistance was overlapping. To add another element, we briefly suspended our assistance to Ukraine, which received a lot of press play. How did that affect your relationship with your other colleagues and how did you manage the messaging on our ultimate objectives in Ukraine?

Amb. Hutchison: [00:25:04] Well, I thought it was so very important what we were doing in Ukraine. I went to Kiev and met with the ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, who was excellent and did a great job. And it was still when Ukraine was having corruption issues. And that was one of the reasons that all of us were trying to encourage and promote the reform measures that some of the parliamentarians were pushing, which were good. But the pushback from other parliamentarians was an issue. So I went there and we were all trying to be helpful. There was that, I think, very unfortunate situation with the administration, which really didn't last too long. And I don't think that there was a significant change in the aid that we were giving to Ukraine. There were requests made that were not maybe being fulfilled, but I don't think that there was a stopping of the support for Ukraine and certainly not at the military training level. All of us, all the colleagues in NATO have been supportive of the Ukraine from the beginning. Just one point I will say, and the general will know this as well, when we're talking about giving aid to a country like Ukraine, it is the Department of Defense. It is General Scaparrotti. It is the secretary of defense that has the overall needs that are being requested. And then the general or the secretary of defense will assess what the country needs and then they will assess which country in NATO or partner of NATO is most capable of delivering that kind of equipment. And the general can expand on that. But that's why you don't have everybody giving the same arms.

Gen. Scaparrotti: [00:27:08] Very well said, Ambassador. You mentioned Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who was in Ukraine at the time. You know, as the EUCOM commander, since I wore two hats, I was also the senior US commander. I also had 51 countries and ambassadors in each of those countries that I worked with, and I worked with Ambassador Yovanovitch very closely, obviously because of this, because she supported me in that I had to increase fairly significantly the number of military personnel in her embassy in order to manage the amount of equipment and the training that was going on. She was always extremely supportive of that. But secondly, she was ultimately responsible for all of that, even though I supervised it too. It was in the country she was the ambassador for, and we had a great relationship. In fact, I invited her to go with me to the front and she took first a plane ride and then a helicopter at low level, because if you got too high, the Russians could find you on radar and that wasn't a good thing. She went with us in the winter out to the front, spent the day, came back. We got back in like at 630 in the evening, and she had to run to another diplomatic affair. It was a long day. It was cold. But really one of my good memories. And whenever the general and the ambassador in the country shows up someplace together, that's like that's double power. That tells a country that we're very serious. We've got the state representative, the senior representative from the nation and the senior general looking at something in your country. You can't maximize anything better than that.

Amb. Hutchison: [00:28:42] That reminds me, if I could just jump in the trip that General Scaparrotti put together and led to Afghanistan and took the framework nation ambassadors with him and his plane to Afghanistan. And that was another major thing that we did together, along with the ambassadors that were the heads of the regional headquarters in Afghanistan. And we visited those headquarters and the general was able to assess how each of those framework nations were doing and what we needed to add or not. We stayed in an underground. I don't know what you would call that, but very primitive circumstances. But we had the most significant informational trip that I took while I was ambassador, and it was led and put together by General Scaparrotti.

Gen. Scaparrotti: [00:29:44] Those trips gave us the opportunity, the ambassador and I, to talk to each of these ambassadors from the key countries very candidly and very private way to see it firsthand. And then on the plane on the way back, we had some very good one on one conversations for me, an opportunity to explain in military terms just what they saw and maybe what they didn't see or they didn't understand. It's travel, but you got to do it. And I think it's effective diplomacy.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:30:13] Speaking of diplomacy in Afghanistan, during your time, the negotiations are going on between the US and the Taliban. The agreement was finally signed in 2020. How did you keep your colleagues informed of this negotiation process, which was obviously close hold, but had implications for all Natal members?

Amb. Hutchison: [00:30:35] We reported on those talks constantly. It was moving very slowly, as everything does in a complicated situation like that, but we were keeping everyone informed. But one of the things that I think has been missed is when that agreement was signed, it was based on conditions. It was not an absolute. And it's so important that people know that because when the time came and the withdrawal was ordered, our allies did not want to leave and our military did not want to leave because we were getting a lot of stabilization in Afghanistan and a lot of intel capabilities that were strategic as regards to Pakistan, as well as Afghanistan. And remember, our whole reason for being in Afghanistan with our NATO allies was because we were trying to assure that a terrorist group could not form and train and be able to be exported to Europe or to the United States. Again, I mean, we were in Afghanistan because NATO invoked Article five for the only time in its history that it has, which is if one of us is attacked, we're all attacked. I will say from my viewpoint, we should not have left Afghanistan. We were getting a lot of capabilities by having the presence there. And even though it was still very tense, we had stabilized that country that the Taliban were attacking, but they were being held by the Afghan soldiers that we were advising. We were not in combat in Afghanistan after 2015. We were advising the Afghans. They were the ones that were dying and they were willing to for their country. So I think from my diplomatic side, I was very, very sad that we left Afghanistan because I think that now we're seeing the results of that. We're seeing more terrorist groups forming. We are seeing the girls that had been able to go to school and relative safety now are being clamped down and not able to do that. And that is going to retard the capability for the Afghan country to become stabilized as it was in the process of being done. I was very sad about that.

Gen. Scaparrotti: [00:33:18] I strongly support what Ambassador Hutchison just said. I feel much the same way, exactly the same words. I guess what I would point out for your listeners that they may not know is that as the SACEUR, you're in Europe, I had a key responsibility in Afghanistan. When you think about Afghanistan, we Americans think about it as a US conflict. But frankly, at that point in time there were far more NATO troops there than there were US troops. That commander, although a US general was also a NATO commander, and he reported to me as the SACEUR. So I made regular trips to Afghanistan. I took reports all the time. As a result of that, I was also in close contact with Ambassador Khalilzad. I had known him from when I was the operations officer in the Middle East and CENTCOM. So we had a personal relationship as well as this professional one. So he kept me well informed. We encouraged him to come by, to come to Brussels whenever he finished a key round of negotiations or establishing the peace process so that we could keep our native allies informed. And generally he would come meet with the ambassador and I and the secretary general and a closer group and then address the NAC. And so that's one way we helped keep our native partners informed so they could hear it from the person that was doing the negotiating. And I think that was a key aspect then what we were able to do and help them come along.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:34:42] Well, I wanted to ask one other question about NATO before we go on to the final question about lessons learned for the younger generation that's rising and that is about NATO membership. It's a very long process to become a member of NATO. During your time, North Macedonia and Montenegro finally became members. We did a podcast in this series on North Macedonia's accession, but there are other countries, Georgia, Ukraine, who would like to become members. Can you briefly explain why the process takes so long? In contrast, we have Finland and Sweden who've applied to join and they seem to be on a fast track basis.

Amb. Hutchison: [00:35:24] Let me start on that one. NATO doesn't invite members. It responds to countries that want to join NATO. There are requirements before a country will be accepted and those requirements are resilient: democracy, a rule of law, free press and human rights. All of those things are necessary and certainly anti corruption is part of the resilient democracy and the rule of law and the free press. The Ukraine and Georgia knew that they had issues in several of those areas. There were efforts made at reforms in corruption, but they knew that they were not there yet. They did not have full control of their parliaments. They had dissidents that were not in alignment with the reform measures that were necessary. We all are, as I mentioned earlier, working with both Georgia and Ukraine, because they are trying and Ukraine is certainly paying the price right now. And Georgia has also in the past seen what Russia is doing, hardening the borders where the Russians have taken over the two provinces of Georgia. So that's what has made it harder for those two. On the other hand, Finland and Sweden are enhanced NATO partners. They have resilient democracies. They have been in all of our missions and made significant contributions, and they have defense budgets that are quite relevant. Finland and Sweden have carried a special place in NATO in that their ministers of defense and their ministers of state have participated at least every year in the meetings. And so they're totally integrated into NATO already. So their accession should be short because they meet all of the criteria, the basic criteria, and they are interoperable with us already, and it will be a seamless transition when our last little procedure is done, which is the parliaments of each country have to accept the memberships. And I think we're all the way down to one or maybe two in that process now.

Gen. Scaparrotti: [00:37:47] I agree fully with that, and I'll give you some examples. For instance, in Finland, Sweden's case, they took part in the ministerial, but when we had exercises that were tabletop exercises, strategic war games, the only two partners outside of the members of NATO that had access during the time I was there were those two countries. That's how close they are to NATO. So while not a member, they weren't let into everything, but they were let into more than most of our partners, so they're better prepared to take part in it militarily. On the other hand, for instance, an example of what we did during the time that we're trying to prepare Ukraine to come in, we ran a series of programs through the Marshall Center with US support and German as well for the Ukrainian members of their minister of defense and their security apparatus, along with their senior generals. What force to begin to help them understand how a security apparatus, civilian and military, works in a democracy? We were building that kind of understanding, helping them construct that kind of a Defense Department, have the kinds of conversations between their military and their policy leaders that we take for granted in the United States but is not a part of a country that's never had that experience. We worked with ambassadors on the US side. I did with my folks, with the ambassadors in these countries in Georgia and Ukraine, both to help them with their development of civil society and the campaigns they had. One would be surprised the military might have a part in that, but we do because we have very good information systems and experts that can plug in to an ambassador's program and really help them get their message out. So that's just a couple of ideas. It's not like it's stagnant. There's an actual process to help them prepare to meet those.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:39:43] To wrap up, I wanted to ask a final question. What recommendations would each of you make to rising national security leaders, be they diplomats, young military officers, new members of Congress who are interested in international affairs?

Gen. Scaparrotti: [00:39:58] I think, first of all, is they need to study warfare. In the history of warfare. We got into a period here, 70 years of peace in Europe primarily, and then in the nineties when we were really the only power, we got into the idea that conflict could be controlled, that crisis would be short, that we were dominant. We're not in that age anymore. And what we're seeing in Ukraine is actually a reminder of the nature of war, that it's unruly, that it's unpredictable, that it is very destructive and it can get out of hand very quickly. I want our policy leaders to understand the history of warfare when they see conflict and what is reasonable and what's not. Putin got a lesson in the history of warfare and the nature of war here recently. We could, too, if we believe that the fog and friction of four doesn't apply to us. The second is getting back to strategy to think strategically. We've been conditioned to think in short terms. We consider a conflict like Ukraine as a local or regional conflict. It's not. It's global. All of our adversaries have global impact today. Information has global impact with speed. So thinking about strategy and the final one is the importance of our allies. You know, we can talk about being isolated and pulling back to ourselves, but really we defend the United States outside the United States. We defend it on the other shores through helping our allies and supporting the rules based international order. And we won't do anything except with allies. And if we try to, I don't think we'll be successful. So that's an investment we need to make. And it's very worthwhile, particularly in an age where we have an ascending China.

Amb. Hutchison: [00:41:45] I will just pick up on that last point because it is so important for our young military, our young diplomatic corps and our new members of Congress to understand the importance of the NATO alliance. It's important to America. Sometimes people tend to think, well, why should we be helping Europe do what it should be doing on its own? America is the essential leader of NATO, and almost all of our allies want us to be the leader of NATO. In fact, I would say all of them, when push comes to shove, want us to lead because they know we have the best intelligence, they know we have the best trained military, and they know that we spend the most on defense to try to make sure that we are staying current, especially with the adversaries that we are now facing, like Russia and then potential China. And they know that we also are the ones who will assess a risk and then deter against it. NATO is there to deter war? We deter it through strength and the show of strength. And the Europeans know that we're the ones who will assess that risk and we'll start the deterrence. And we have to bring the Europeans along, as well as our outside partners. When we first announced that China was going to be our strategic possible adversary, our European allies said China, what what would we be talking about? China, We do trade with China. And so we had to start building up the evidence of how China was building up and how they were violating the rules based order, how they were using their economic leverage for predatory lending and taking over of infrastructure assets, how they were doing the Belt and Road Initiative to force their way into the ports that would create a dominance of navigation on the seas of the world and how they were using their economic leverage to get what they wanted.

Amb. Hutchison: [00:44:06] In a country like Australia, for instance, where Australia had rules on communication systems that would have not allowed Huawei to bid on their government communications, and the Chinese started retaliation techniques because they were the largest trading partner for Australia, and Australia stood firm. America was the first to start putting all of these pieces together and our European allies know that. And the second reason that it's important for America is that we don't speak. With one voice. We speak with 30 now going to be 32 voices of the strongest economies in the world. And China is going to be looking very carefully at that if they decide to. Go outside of the rules based order. If we stay unified, then we're speaking not for America, we're speaking for NATO and our allies and partners. And that is a much stronger voice. And it is the biggest point of leverage that we're going to have in this looming conflict if that occurs with China. And the second thing is our defense and industrial base is the one that our allies want to buy to be interoperable with us. So it's in America's interest to be the leader of NATO and to continue to do the great modernization of our industrial complex by having all of the allies buy the F-16s, the F 30 fives, the equipment that has to be NATO interoperable for us to be effective. And that's an American positive for NATO. So we're not just defending Europe at NATO, we are solidifying American security and the American industrial base and American deterrence of any potential adversary if we lead NATO and we stay unified.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:46:16] Ambassador Hutchison, General Scaparrotti, I am so thrilled we had this conversation. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. Lessons learned on US leadership and the value of one of the key institutions set up by our forefathers not so long ago, and that stands strong today. So thank you very, very much. This has been a new episode in the series The General and the Ambassador. The series is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy. This podcast was produced with the support of the Fletcher School Global Master of Arts Program, which is a program for career executives to earn an executive master of leadership and global affairs in one year without leaving the workforce. You can find our podcasts on all major podcast sites as well as on our website. GeneralAmbassadorPodcast.org. We welcome all input and suggestions and you can email us directly at General.Ambassador.podcast@gmail.com. Thank you for listening.