Episode 80. Partnering with Open Eyes – The US-Turkey Security Relationship

Episode Transcript:

Amb. McCarthy: [00:00:13] Welcome to a conversation in the American Academy of Diplomacy Podcast series, The General and the Ambassador. Our podcast brings together senior US diplomats and senior US defense officials in conversations on their work together overseas to advance US national security interests. I am Ambassador Deborah McCarthy, the producer and host. Today we will focus on the US security relationship with Turkey. Our guests are General Tod Wolters and Ambassador David Satterfield. The General and the Ambassador is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy. I'd like to start with a brief biographic introduction of our guests. General Tod Wolters served as commander, US European Command and as Supreme Allied Commander from 2019 to 2022. Previously he was commander US Air Forces, Europe and Africa and Commander, NATO Allied Air Command. Among his other assignments, General Wolters served as the Director of Operations of the Joint Staff and of the US Air Force. Commander 12th Air Force Air Component Command, US Southern Command and Deputy Commander of US and NATO Forces Afghanistan. He also served in key leadership positions at the tactical, operational and strategic levels of the United States military. Ambassador David Satterfield was the US Ambassador to Turkey from 2019 to 2022. His other senior diplomatic assignments include Acting Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs, Director General of the Multinational Force and Observers in the Sinai Peninsula, Coordinator for Iraq and Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State. Us Deputy Chief of Mission in Iraq. Chief of Mission in Cairo and US Ambassador to Lebanon.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:02:11] Currently he is the Director of Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy. General Wolters, Ambassador Satterfield, welcome to the General and the Ambassador. I wanted to start out on this episode by giving a little bit of background for our listeners. Turkey, which has been a NATO member since 1952, sits in a critical area. It shares borders with several Middle Eastern countries, including Syria, Iraq and Iran, and it controls access to the Black Sea. As a result, its territory has been very important for both the stationing and transit of military equipment and personnel for the US and NATO. Turkey has contributed forces to NATO missions in Iraq, Kosovo and Baltic air policing, among others. The US Turkish security relationship has changed significantly in recent years from being one of the largest recipients of US military assistance. It has dropped to being 19th to diversify its sources. Turkey recently, for example, signed an agreement with Russia for a new missile defense system. Turkey also has engaged in cross border operations in Syria and Iraq, sometimes at cross-purposes with the US and internally. Much has changed in Turkey since an attempted military coup in 2016. The government has moved in an authoritarian direction and the Turkish defense establishment has been completely reorganized. I'd like to start with you, Ambassador Satterfield. You arrived in Ankara in May 2019 after a long gap between US ambassadors. What was the state of the US Turkey bilateral relationship when you arrived and what were your top mission priorities?

Amb. Satterfield: [00:03:56] The bilateral relationship is complex at all times because of the weight Turkey brings not just to its immediate neighbors at the region, but to the alliance, to NATO, its relationship with the EU and individual EU states. And of course, all of that impacts upon our bilateral ties. The state of the relationship was not good. It was marked by numerous tensions. I would note the relationship with the EU was severely affected and within the NATO alliance as well. So one of the first undertakings that I, with the backing of the administration had was to do what we could to better set that relationship and to make our focus on the strategic aspects of the relationship. Turkey's position within the alliance. Turkey's position with respect to northern Syria and the groups operating there and Turkey's position with regard to Russia and China.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:04:58] General, What were the US and NATO military footprints in Turkey when you became Supreme Allied Commander and Commander of US European Command? And what were your top priorities?

Gen. Wolters: [00:05:12] The military footprint of the United States and NATO in Turkey was robust. I came aboard as Zakir the same month and almost the same day as Ambassador Satterfield, and we had a meeting at the latter part of May in 2019 to ensure that I was synchronized with his comprehensive plan to do just what he outlined. One of the great advantages that we had in NATO and that we had as a us was the mil to mil relationship that we had with Turkey. And I had previously been stationed in Europe from 2016 to 2019 as the NATO air chief, as well as the US air chief and on numerous occasions had had the opportunity to train alongside Turkey and deploy NATO members and US members in and out of the nation of Turkey on multiple occasions. And what was always the case was the tremendous respect and care and feeding that the Turkish military had for all of our NATO military members and certainly our US military members. It was without a doubt the most hospitable in all of NATO. And that was something that Ambassador Satterfield pointed out to me on day one, that he thought I should continue to emphasize those positives back to our US contacts to make sure that we could do all that we could do from a military perspective to make sure that we could maintain and sustain a sound and solid relationship. And that was the path that we took. And I believe we had success with that approach.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:06:51] You mentioned, General, the early meeting that you had with Ambassador Satterfield. How did you build your working relationship ship? How did you work directly? How did you work through your civilian deputy foreign policy advisor and or through the defense attache at the embassy?

Gen. Wolters: [00:07:10] Well, first it was his kindness to invite me to come visit. And we have a phrase in the United States military you haven't lived until you've been Satterfield. And when you have a discussion with Ambassador Satterfield, it's very clear. It's very concise. He has great vision. And his words to me on day one resonated for the entire time that I had the opportunity to serve as SACEUR. The guidance was clear. I stayed in my lane. If I thought there was anything that was taking place that was of a concern to me, that started to even approach getting outside of my military lane. Or there was a military event that I thought had the possibility to attract more attention than it should. He ensured that I passed him a call immediately, and we sustained that relationship for the duration. I contend that it led to our success, but it starts with great leadership, and that is when you deliver clear, concise, strategic guidance at the beginning of a relationship and you stick to the path. Life was very, very simple. It was a very harmonious time for me working with Ambassador Satterfield.

Amb. Satterfield: [00:08:18] Throughout my career, certainly the last 25 years my relationship with a succession of not just commanders of CENTCOM, EUCOM, but also staff, civilian and military has been routine. It's been part of the daily life that I've had as ambassador, as head of the peacekeeping force in the Middle East and as assistant secretary in the department. And the same applies to the Pentagon, to international security affairs, and to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. I benefited, as did so many others in uniform and out from the extraordinary shaping experience and the camaraderie forged in Iraq over the years that I was in Baghdad. And he had made the kind of work that Tod has described easier because we knew the force. We knew each other. We had common experiences that we could cite. And above all, I think for each of us. And Tod, you can comment from your own perspective. You can't address all aspects of a relationship at any one time. You have to focus on the arteries and the key issues that affect US national security interests, then partner interest, alliance interests. I think we did a very good job. And I think despite sometimes extraordinary and quite emotional differences that became unfortunately personalized and not just at the level of the US, but other international relationships with Turkey, we managed to pursue a common goal, which, as we confronted last year, Putin's invasion of Ukraine served us in very good stead and continued to serve us in good stead.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:09:57] I wanted to turn to the issue of Syria after the 2016 coup. Turkey, as I noted, began these periodic cross-border military operations targeting the YPG, a mostly Kurdish militia that is part of the Syrian Democratic forces, also called the SDF. The SDF has been a partner of the US in Syria to fight ISIS. According to Turkey, the YPG is closely associated with an internationally designated terrorist group, the PKK. Ambassador, The issue of the YPG is linked to the 44 year old Kurdish Turkey conflict. What is this conflict and why is it so important for Turkey to fight Kurds outside of the country's borders?

Amb. Satterfield: [00:10:48] Deborah, You tap on one of the existential elements of Turkish national policy and I say national policy because we're going to have an election in Turkey in ten days time on the 14th, at least the first round. The Kurdish issue is not a critical one in that election, but only because there has been a strong diminution in the level of Turkish suffering from attacks at the hands of the PKK and the affiliated with the PKK. It is not a question of Erdogan or the opposition's views. There's a very common view in Turkey in the public that violence, terror perpetrated by the PKK, directed from Qandil Mountain in northern Iraq, is unacceptable and has to be fought. Now we move from that to the issue of Syria. The US in 2014 2015, as a vital part of our counter-ISIS campaign, this was at the time we were working for the defeat of ISIS, not just the enduring defeat of ISIS and the retention of significant numbers of ISIS fighters in detention facilities in northeast Syria. We had to have a partner in Syria. The so-called SDF, or YPG, which is indeed without question associated with the PKK, was the only partner we could find. There is much mythology about others who could have stood up.

Amb. Satterfield: [00:12:15] That's not our view. They were the only ones capable of making the fight real. They did. We continued to partner with them, but we do so with open eyes. And I speak now, just not only for myself, but for my partner, Brett McGurk, who worked extensively then and now on this issue. We knew what we were doing. We know what we are doing now. I never maintained any pretence as ambassador in Turkey about the association with the PKK. It was a necessary partnership for a broader US and we would argue regional interest in keeping ISIS contained, not eliminated but contained and maintaining control of the detention facilities, notably in Al-Hol. Now, this is a point of strong contention with the Turks, but we managed to handle that contention in a way that allows US forces in northeast Syria to continue their mission, to allow the SDF to continue their detainee control and counter ISIS mission not without incident, but with manageable levels of incidents. And I regard that as a signal ongoing accomplishment for the United States. It's both a diplomatic and a military constant challenge, but it's a challenge we have been able to handle without existential, fatal harm to what we continue to believe is a vital partnership.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:13:50] General, can I ask you to comment on the military challenges of Turkey's engagement in Syria?

Gen. Wolters: [00:13:56] Many times, as Ambassador Satterfield was working this issue, we shared the phrase that he initiated a partner with open eyes. It was my military task to make sure that that as we partnered with open eyes and executed as Ambassador Satterfield just laid out, I bore the responsibility as a military commander to ensure that, number one, for a US and NATO military forces in the region, that we had the appropriate force protection considerations taken into account. And that number two, where possible, get ahead of the curve and safety, deconflict to the max extent practical so that as many partner nations as possible, from a military perspective, understood exactly what was coming in the future. It was delicate the entire time. It will be delicate for a very, very long period of time. But it was our responsibility from a military perspective to make sure that we had strategic objectives and knew what our responsibilities were. I look back and marvel at the success that we had from a force protection standpoint and. From the safety, deconfliction standpoint, I would be naive if I didn't attribute a lot of that back to what I talked about earlier, which was the high regard that the Turkish military had for the NATO military and US military partners. They put our security and they put safety deconfliction of those forces at the forefront of their activity. And they stuck to it then. And I suspect they're sticking to it at this very moment.

Amb. Satterfield: [00:15:22] There is a false narrative that Turkey is an ambivalent NATO partner, that Turkey wishes to cultivate relationships that are not transactional but fundamental with Russia that are hostile to the alliance. That's not correct. Turkey,and I include President Erdogan in this individually, value enormously the presence of Turkey in NATO. Turkey understands fundamentally who its neighbors are. They are not friends in the case of Syria, Iran, Russia across the Black Sea. They're hostile. NATO is vital to Turkey. It's vital for another reason. General Wolters touched on that. Their presence in NATO, which is not just at presence, it's a critical part of the operations of NATO every day in ways that that aren't given much attention in the press. That's vital to Turkey's own view, that of its armed forces and that of its civilian leadership of who they are, which is a significant trans regional party with a very sophisticated military and a sophisticated economy and tech center to back it. Turkey has no interest in leaving NATO for all of its transactional maneuvers with Moscow, with Beijing and with others. They understand their interests lie in the alliance fundamentally, and I could not agree more with Tod's view that their care for our personnel in Turkey, for the operations of those individuals is absolutely exceptional, has been and I have every expectation will continue to be.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:17:07] In order to illustrate who does what in this diplomatic military partnership, there were a lot of events that took place in October 2019. President Trump abruptly ordered US troops in northern Syria to withdraw. Turkey sent in its troops to push back the SDF. Lots of condemnation of the troop withdrawal from Congress and others. And though Turkey eventually reached an agreement with the US to end the fighting and to create a buffer zone, we had the issue of the US administration imposing sanctions on some Turkish cabinet officials. Can you talk about how you handled issues in that fast paced moment?

Amb. Satterfield: [00:17:49] I had late one evening, close to midnight, to deliver a letter from the president to the national security adviser of President Erdogan. That letter ended with the line, "Don't be a fool," something I had never quite seen in the phrasing of presidential or cabinet level correspondence with a head of state. But it was an indication of the degree of concern, if not beyond concern, anger at what appeared to be a unilateral Turkish move to act in northern Syria in a way that would have proven extraordinarily disruptive, if not fatal, to our own partnership with the SDF and the ability to retain both the counter-ISIS campaign, as well as the retention of security around detention facilities. But shortly after that letter was delivered, the tone shifted to how do we move beyond this rising level of anger and confrontation. And we and the we is a collective we, the White House, the State Department, the Pentagon and we at the mission agreed that we needed an immediate, high level negotiation with President Erdogan that would diffuse the pressure. Turkey believed it was subject to from PKK associated attacks from northern Syria, but preserved the integrity of our mission in northeast Syria. Frankly, we also wanted to prevent what we thought would be the disastrous consequences of a complete withdrawal, whether as a voluntary act by the US administration or as a compelled step of the withdrawal of our personnel, it would have had extraordinarily negative consequences on our posture in Iraq as well as broader regional concerns.

Amb. Satterfield: [00:19:38] And so we had the Vice President, the secretary of state, the national security adviser of the United States, special envoy Jim Jeffrey and I all at the presidential palace for an exceptional seven hours of negotiation with President Erdogan and his entire national security team, including his minister of defense, the extraordinarily experienced Hulusi Akar, a great partner for us and the chief of staff of the Turkish armed Forces, General Güler. And we came out with an agreement, an agreement which limited the scope of the Turkish cross-border move, which provided President Erdogan with a greater level of assurance regarding border security and area that had been heavily subject to cross-border attack, which preserved the integrity of the US mission in northeast Syria and allowed our partnership with the SDF to continue. And throughout these negotiations we were on the line constantly with the leader of the SDF to make sure that what we were negotiating was, in the end, something that would be acceptable to him and to his people. It allowed the secure extraction from that area without attack. It was a win for all sides, but it showed the importance of diplomacy, of coordination with our military on the ground as well as in Washington. And that agreement has held until today.

Gen. Wolters: [00:21:05] A reflection of the mil-to-mil relationship. Immediately following that meeting, the Minister of Defense, Lusi Akar, and General Guler, the current chief of defense of the Turkish military, took it upon themselves to contact me. They did so immediately because the situation was tense. It was my responsibility. After discussing with Ambassador Satterfield to make sure that the intensity that we've we had always displayed with respect to force protection and safety, deconfliction for the forces that were in place had to increase because that mil-to-mil relationship was the Northern Star in the relationship. It needed to remain that way, to allow the ambassador to have the appropriate maneuvering space to get done what he needed to get done. But I'll never forget, their secretary of defense taking the time to call, which was a tremendous outreach on his part, a reflection of the very, very sound mil-to-mil relationship. And I think that, number one, it was a miracle that we got through it. And number two, it. Was a great example of diplomacy and security working side by side.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:22:12] I wanted to shift to the issue of the US role in supplying Turkey with military equipment. As I noted in the beginning, the percentage of military equipment that Turkey purchases from the US has declined significantly since the 2000. I noted as well that they've diversified their supplies, but they've also built up their defense industry. In July 2019, Turkey took delivery of a Russian surface to air missile defense system, the S-400. As a result, the Trump administration removed Turkey from what is called the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program and later imposed sanctions under what is called the Countering America's Adversaries through Sanctions Act, or CATSA. What did the overall shift to different sources of supply of military equipment mean in terms of NATO's interoperability?

Gen. Wolters: [00:23:10] It actually enhanced our NATO interoperability. One of the largest transitions in aviation for Turkey was the bed down of F-16s, primarily delivered through the US. And it quite honestly has been the most NATO interoperable weapon system that we've maintained and sustained for the last several decades. And Turkey, being a partner in that process, continued to bolster that relationship. And the second part of this goes back to partnering with Open eyes. A lot of give and take with respect to transactions that were taking place. All of us were aware of the government's take on the situation. All of us knew what the challenge ahead was, but all of us recognized the tremendous value of Turkey's military with respect to overall NATO capability. And the mil-to-mil relationship carried the day one more time in my mind, with respect to getting through some very, very difficult times.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:24:07] There were a lot of concerns about the security implications in terms of the F-35 program. Can you explain that a bit to our listeners?

Gen. Wolters: [00:24:15] What we weren't going to allow and we didn't allow was the simultaneous fielding of an S-400, a Russian integrated air and missile defense system side by side with an F-35. Certainly from a US perspective and a NATO perspective, we were obviously most concerned about protecting the security of the F-35, and we made that very clear on day one. Ambassador Satterfield made that very, very clear. That was another classic case of we're going to partner with eyes wide open. This is the way we are going to approach this. And we will not compromise.

Amb. Satterfield: [00:24:48] Indeed, we will not compromise on this issue at the level of two presidents, President Trump and President Biden and two Pentagon leaderships, I was given the ability to propose to Erdogan, to his senior team, a variety of resolutions, resolutions which initially would have prevented the imposition of katsa sanctions, voided the need for that, kept Turkey in the F-35 program, which was not just in Turkish interests, but very much in US interest. It took us three years plus to relocate assembly lines capable of the extraordinary cutting edge technical work that Turkey was performing on the F-35, its systems, its fuselage at the time of their termination from the program. We tried our best and we tried from a position of this relationship. And Turkey in NATO is so important to us. We have to pursue every possible avenue to allow Turkey to reach a decision which is intensely political. It was not confrontational. It was quite the opposite. In the end, it was not successful. But those proffers over two different administrations show the significance, which presidents assigned to Turkey. One of the first conversations President Biden had was with President Erdogan in Brussels, and it was very much focused on the importance of the relationship and our hope still at that moment that Turkey could stay in the tight relationship that we wanted.

Amb. Satterfield: [00:26:27] But I do have to note, as an ambassador on multiple occasions, as assistant secretary, I have seen the issue of tiered review, that is review by the Congress of military sales transactions over a certain what is now de minimis dollar value stop in its tracks and freeze tiered review is a broken system fundamentally, and I'll give you a Turkish citation. Until the last few weeks, we were unable to move any sale to Turkey, even of equipment related to synchronization of communication systems between aircraft, the so-called IFF identification friend or foe systems, safety of flight for NATO for Turks. We could not move those sales in the face of congressional opposition. In the end, this administration reached the decision to break the hold, move the sales, and it did so without consequence. There's a broader strategic discussion here, but tiered review globally is broken.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:27:41] I wanted to discuss another aspect of our relationship, and that is in calming the water, so to speak, between Greece and Turkey. Since the 70s, disputes between Greece and Turkey over territorial rights in the Aegean Sea and in the Eastern Med have been a major point of contention, bringing these two NATO countries close to military conflict on several occasions. These tensions are related to and complicated by the continued political division of Cyprus and the current scramble to explore hydrocarbon deposits off its shores. I was a DCM in Greece and the embassy had to periodically address Greek reactions to Turkish overflights, for example, over certain Aegean islands. During your time, how did the embassy, NATO and EUCOM, work to diffuse these tensions?

Amb. Satterfield: [00:28:35] I spent the entire spring and summer of 2020 as the single most important issue I was handling working with my partner, the late and very much lamented John Hecker, the national security adviser to former Chancellor Angela Merkel, to avoid a military kinetic confrontation in the Aegean. The Turks had undertaken what in Greece was regarded as deliberately provocative survey ship activity in waters claimed as part of the Greek exclusive economic zone. There was a collision between two naval vessels, which, thanks to our extraordinary partners in the professional militaries of both Greece and Turkey, was count and did not produce a greater reaction. That could have gone a very different way. But because of their professionals and because former Akar, now minister of defense of Turkey, knew all of his Greek colleagues and described them as colleagues and professionals, we were able to help manage the relationship through military channels and through diplomatic channels. It was an effort that very much involved the German government at the highest levels because of their contacts that reinforced and augmented ours. But there's another ambassador here whom I cannot leave this conversation without compliment, and that was a Texan and a dear friend, Kay Bailey Hutchison, the US ambassador to NATO. She was, in a word, brilliant in that role. Nato is an arcane diplomatic structure, not just an arcane military command, but the diplomacy of being the US ambassador to NATO is unlike that to anywhere else in the world. Kay was a master of NATO diplomacy. She worked with me assiduously during this process to assure that we had NATO's support for what we and my German colleague were trying to do. None of it could have happened without the militaries of Greece and Turkey. Being willing to act as professionals and without a concentrated, multinational diplomatic approach to all of this. We got through that summer without tension. We resumed Turkish-greek direct talks and there has been no return in the now three years since to those levels of near kinetic confrontation that we very much feared at that time.

Gen. Wolters: [00:31:17] The diplomatic channels point that Ambassador Satterfield mentioned was key. Every single incident required a high degree of fact finding. No two incidents were the same. There were always incidents at numerous levels. And from a NATO military perspective, one of the important points was to make sure that NATO military members understood this was by, with and through the whole of government of Turkey, by with and through the whole of government of Greece. And as a NATO military member, you have appropriate lanes in the road. And getting the facts was always very, very difficult. And the slightest premature comment made over the phone that was not aligned with NATO military or NATO headquarters, thinking to make sure that we were doing all within our power to clarify the facts and to avoid raising the temperature of the incident was very, very important. In my six straight years of serving in Europe as a senior NATO military commander, the number of incidents between Turkey and Greece never slowed down. It could be a large maritime incident. It could be an aviation incident. It could be an incident that occurs at any one of the NATO military headquarters between two officers, one from Greece and one from Turkey.

Gen. Wolters: [00:32:41] Each and every one of those had to be separately reviewed, separately analyzed, and it had to be mediated with the thought in mind that this impacts a whole of government of Turkey and a whole of government in Greece. And if treated any less than that, you could be making a serious mistake. I marvel at Ambassador Satterfield's resiliency. He was he was heads down on many, many occasions working these issues. But that was his job. That was my job. And it was important. And again, I'll say that the mil to mil relationship that NATO has enjoyed with both those countries has always remained strong. And the degree of professionalism back and forth between actors like Hulusi Akar and Christos Christodoulou, who was the air chief. And then for a short period of time, the chod in Greece, very professional on both those gentleman's part and all of the others, and ensuring that we didn't allow this military situation to boil over into a whole of government emergency that would be catastrophic for NATO and certainly for both the nations.

Amb. Satterfield: [00:33:44] There's another level of professionalism here, which we should note. I have served as chief of mission four times, so I'm very familiar with the attache system. I've had the benefit of exceptional attachés, but I have never had as outstanding a set of two star attachés working in the country team with me as I did in Ankara. They were invaluable in the ability to not just sustain the relationship, but to take all with me and at times on their own the most difficult of discussions and most sensitive discussions. It is a tribute to the quality of the US military and its ability to select officers at that level for that service and then promote them beyond that attache role, that diplomatic role to significant command responsibilities that I think contributes to the outstanding level of performance of our most senior military officers.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:34:52] Well, I wanted to turn to another issue so that our listeners better understand the relationship between Russia and Turkey. You noted, General, in your Force Posture Review of 2022 that the Turkish and Russian governments relationship is, quote, competitive and transactional. Both nations view the Black Sea region within their natural spheres of influence, and each continues to oppose the other in Ukraine, Libya and Syria. During your time together, how did you work to make this competitive transactional relationship between Turkey and Russia advantageous to the US?

Gen. Wolters: [00:35:32] To the max extent practical, ensure that the actions executed by the Turkish military, number one, reflect positive enhancements for NATO? And obviously with the dramatic size of the Turkish military in NATO, the vast. Shoreline that they represent in the Black Sea and the control of vessels in and out of the Black Sea. Their responsibilities were very, very large and very, very pivotal for regional security. The transactional piece is just life, the competitive piece in the region, particularly with the Black Sea. There is still a lingering tension that exists between those two nations with respect to primacy and dominance of what takes place. Hence, with the Montreal Declaration and control of what comes in and what comes out and the give and take that goes back and forth between those two nations. There's also a degree of superficiality that exists between those two nations. That's something that we see often. But I think the key for us in the military was to continue to recognize the value added from a security perspective with respect to what Turkey does in the region for NATO, for Turkey, and as it extends obviously into the Middle East. It's just a vastly important region. And having a strong pro-NATO military that Turkey has and continues to possess was very, very powerful for regional security.

Amb. Satterfield: [00:37:01] For my part, it was to explain, to analyze to Washington audiences, which really means the secretaries of defense and state and the White House exactly what General Wolters said, the competitive and transactional character of a relationship between two individuals who neither like nor trust each other, but who have the ability to either hurt or in some ways assist the other. Often a mix of the two. That ability to maintain clarity that there were no strategic realignments or alliances being formed, but transactional deals that was absolutely vital to all of the work we were trying to do and recall the circumstances here. A General Mattis as Secretary of Defense never had a meeting with Sergey Shoygu, his Russian counterpart. Relations were so tense, so difficult that at that level there couldn't be a conversation would be easy to fall into a black and white with us against us mentality, which would have been very wrong factually in the case of Turkey and which would not have helped in the lead up to and now during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where Turkey has served both in a military sense, but also as a broker, one of the few in the world who could do things like negotiate the Black Sea grain deal as a partner who has assisted Ukraine and the world to the extent they have at risk with Russia.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:38:40] To conclude our discussion here, I wanted to ask each of you to respond to the following question. What lessons would you impart to rising national security leaders about the importance of the relationship between our military and diplomatic representatives in advancing US national security interests?

Gen. Wolters: [00:39:01] First of all, ensure that as a military member, you understand the responsibilities and the authorities, and they're very clear. Secondly, you understand at the core of our US value system is the civilian controlled military. Part of that civilian controlled military certainly extends into the ambassadorial world. And Ambassador is the president's commander in the field in the nation. And by with and through your ambassador is very, very important and doing your homework to ensure that as you interact with the ambassador, you have to make sure that you stick to some of the basics. And we've all seen them violated before. Speaking clear text English is very, very important and staying away from the acronyms. And I contend our responsibility in the uniformed military is to do all we can to understand that it is our responsibility in uniform to nurture the relationship. I don't think that Ambassador Satterfield had one spare millisecond to take time and coaching me on any of the issues, although I know he would have. What I so deeply appreciated in the opportunity that I had to work for Ambassador Satterfield was his extreme clarity in guidance and intent on what he was doing, and we all yearn for that. He delivered that on numerous occasions and during very, very difficult times. It was actually a dream world for any combatant commander to be able to work for him. And I would hope that that's the case everywhere. I'm sure that it probably is not. But that clarity when it comes to guidance and intent from the commander in the field for the nation on behalf of our country is very, very important. And I think it really helped save a lot of lives in the battlespace with respect to the activities in Europe.

Amb. Satterfield: [00:40:53] Thank you, General. In my 43 year career, which began in the US intelligence community, and I would encompass in my comments to you how you deal with as an ambassador, as a diplomat, the intelligence community, as representation at home and abroad as well. View all of the embassy team as fight partners and to understand their mission. Understanding the mission is particularly true of the military and of the intelligence community means you have got to reach out from the earliest part of your career. To them to understand how they do what they do. What it is that their mission is at home and abroad. How the chiefs differ from the establishment of OSD. What the role of a combatant commander is a unified and specified command. You don't get that from a book and you can't get it in Washington alone. You get it through continuous visits to commands and you get it above all, through service in the field. I had that experience before Baghdad. But four years in Iraq, where there was a seamless mission approach to the battlefield circumstances we faced, that was simply confirmation to me of the fact of greater teamwork yields better or least bad results. But talk, talk constantly. There was not a month that went by that I was not in touch with, sent or present in either EUCOM or CENTCOM or Special Ops Command, talking with the most senior commanders and their teams. So they knew my analysis and I was hearing theirs. And it wasn't remote, sterile presentations. It was. Why do you assess this this way? Why do you assess this that way? It has yielded benefits to me and my career, and I hope it's yielded benefits to the United States. But it's a constant effort on the part of all of us, whether in uniform, in the Intel community or in the Foreign Service. And it starts at the very beginning of careers.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:43:11] Thank you, General Wolters. Thank you. Ambassador Satterfield, thank you for your partnership. Obviously, your many years in the government, your continued contributions. This has been an excellent contribution to the series to increase our understanding across the national security spectrum of the need for teamwork, understanding and dialogue. We really appreciate you participating in the series. This has been a new episode in the series, The General and the Ambassador. Thank you for listening. Our series is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy. You can find our podcasts on all major podcast sites as well as on our website: GeneralAmbassadorpodcast.org. Thank you again for listening.