Joe Rogan Experience #1763 — General H.R. McMaster Transcript

Transcript

0:00 Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out! Cheers, great to meet you. down and go, all right, buddy, here's what's going on in the world. Yeah, I think so. I mean, And that job, you have to kind of be like a psychologist as well as a national security advisor, right? Because especially if you're dealing with someone like Trump, who's a big groups that can help the president make the best decisions. We always have on the outside,

3:13 is to think through the long-term costs and consequences of any decision and often that The tendency for leaders to think that what they do or decide not to do is decisive toward achieving a favorable outcome. Should we have done it? And of course, that event, I think, was significant in terms of bolstering our confidence, right, And I said, hey, we need to make the most out of this training because the next operations order I give you will probably be in the desert of Saudi Arabia.

6:24 what's going on right now with Russia and China. Hey, turn Kuwait back to the Kuwaitis. Now fast forward, okay, to the wars after 9-11, receiving end of plans and strategies and policies developed in Washington that made no sense from where I was in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. My job at the time was to design the future army. Advisor at Mar-a-Lago.

9:24 So that's why I answered it. You know, on Air Force One. And you interviewed at Mar-a-Lago? At Mar-a-Lago. So you're having, like, I fly back to Washington, right? You know, on Air Force One. job and, you know, of course, calling my wife Where's the man get a steak around here? I mean, so it was quick. problem, right? They didn't frame out the problem. You just kind of design thinking to think about it, right? So when I came into the job, you know, we established, you know, what I thought were the

12:34 that that was the best course of action it's like you're immediately associated with Trump our society today, this partisan politics, I think, okay, why can't we just talk about what When I took the oath of office at West Point, the oath at West Point as a, you know, as a plea there, you know, in, gosh, the summer of No one from the right is going to look at anything that Biden does and goes, that is a great move

15:41 small, you know, this small group, you know, framing session on China, really based on our view of China in the context of the Cold War. So we saw China as a potential And that assumption was that China, having been welcomed into the international order, competition with us. But they were smart about it, right? They took a hide and bide approach. like state support for their main state-owned enterprises and so forth.

19:07 Was there any anticipation at all or did anybody predict that what China's done today is they've developed a sort of unique hybrid economy where they're still communist and they're still run by the Communist Party, and they walk step in step with the orders of the Communist Party. Yes, you have to. Or you'll be disappeared. It's a requirement. others, you know, and Mark Zuckerberg and saw what they were doing to Donald Trump in the United States and said, hey, man, that's not going to happen here.

21:50 but even their hardware, you know, even their fighter jets and their naval ships. the economic dimension, and the informational dimension, the influence dimension, the economic dimension, and the informational dimension, the biggest cell phone manufacturer, Apple, the number one in the country, number one in the world, And if you think about it, it's going to get worse before it gets better, because you mentioned semiconductors and microelectronics and the degree to which that is the critical

24:46 think businesses that get ahead of this, that recognize it's time to adjust, it's time to make genocide. You know, Uyghur birth rates in certain areas are down 60 percent, right? I mean, so I And China's phones are – that's the other thing is like technologically they're at the peak. I mean, like Nike, right? Look at how they cracked down on Marriott, the NBA, right? The NBA, who had, I don't think,

28:31 So if they make a big, bold move to start opening up plants in America and those plants aren't as profitable or at least the profit margin is not as high? Like what can we do to incentivize them? assessment of critical supply chains. If there's a star in that administration, I think it's the vacated. You know, Joe, what happened is under this assumption, right, that China would liberalize,

30:42 which is, you know, a single point of failure almost And in Austin. the reason this became apparent to all of us was at the beginning of COVID, right? When you couldn't get PPE and pharmaceuticals and so forth. So I think we're just waking up to this competition. And this Scores of overflights into Taiwanese air defense identification zone. to choose between Washington and Beijing. And what I would tell them is, hey, that's not the

33:56 And this does not mean that we're on a path to confrontation. Actually, I think, Joe, I do. I do. Because I think really we have to recognize what China's trying to do, right? the party perfect its technologically enabled Orwellian police state, right? Don't help them do that. Don't demand that he doesn't need anybody else, And then once you're in, right, to use that influence for coercive purposes, right?

37:21 Military-civil fusion. is a Chinese Communist Party official accompanied by a Chinese national bank guy with a duffel bag full of cash, right? accentuate. And especially, I would say, you know, the unchecked, unbridled entrepreneurial spirit, right? Chinese technology. And they're going to utilize that technology for AI. In China, yeah. Right. And maybe a breakdown of the of the hostility of the Chinese Communist Party.

41:24 right? Are they able to do that? Like when they get sent over here, I mean, stay here and work for a US company. Now, you have to be careful, right? telling you, they did great work. They did really good work at really starting to focus on this But also you have to just do some decent due diligence, right? And if you especially are international students. Now, I think we should have, I would welcome more Chinese students here,

44:07 And this is biomedical too, is another area where this has been a big problem. particularly if their family is still over in China, others might be reporting on them and reporting back to the Ministry of State Security or into right? A university campus ought to be a university campus, right, that allows for to follow in terms of like a historical competition that we can look at like, well,

47:45 technology and competing against an authoritarian rival with a statist economy. So I think you can right? Which is that the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them. Well, of how deep the rabbit hole goes with China them. And strategically, they've been moving these pieces in place at a kind of frightening rate. He said, OK, we'll stop.

50:54 Shore. It's worth reading anything the guy writes. I mean, but he has this term, strategic empathy that, you recognize, hey, we have to take a fundamentally different approach. And this is which we implemented. And, you know, this strategy was largely part of it. A foundational document Right? and really economic aggression against us, right? And so it was a big shift.

53:43 and there's certain aspects of it that just haven't existed before, Meanwhile, in America, kids are drinking piss and lighting their farts on fire and doing I heard your conversation with Tristan on this, by the way, which was great. 84. And so I think what we have to do is we have to recognize, obviously, That's important to state because I think a lot of people are under the impression that they wanted one party or another party to win.

57:23 What they wanted to do was to raise doubts about it. And so they changed the message to Trump would have won the popular vote if it wasn't rigged, right? But if you stop believing that, She's from the FBI. Why do they do that? I think what the Russians try to do is – Yeah, agent provocateurs from the government. Ray Epps, the guy that everyone keeps discussing because there's a guy who is encouraging people to go into the Capitol.

1:01:14 6th? Like, that's disturbing to the American people. They see something like that, and whether it's poor messaging on her part or whether it's – that accelerated, right? A loss of a lot of good manufacturing jobs. I don't know if you ever saw and there are a large number of Americans who don't have faith obstacles associated with, you know, with education, right? I mean, you know, it shouldn't be determined, you know, based on your zip code,

1:04:53 And, you know, a lot of those people that went to that January 6th thing, they were morons and they were easily manipulated. Well, and that's why we have to really put at the top of our agenda strengthening institutions, right? You know, and, you know, none of our institutions are flawless, obviously, Because the radical idea of the American Revolution was, hey, the people govern.

1:07:15 And judges heard that, you know, and these were, you know, it doesn't matter who appointed these judges, but they were adjudicated. given a speech or he could have said something? Absolutely. Yeah, I think a lot of what we've Right. I won't ask you who you voted for. It should get to really the politics of addition, right? But then then candidate for vice president Kamala Harris, when she said, I wouldn't take a vaccine from the Trump administration. Well, she said that for partisan purposes. Or when then Vice President Biden,

1:10:31 pay travel costs, while the other reporters found one informant even led military training as a part of the plot. Now, I don't know how much of this is real or true. I don't know what's has been sullied by partisan politics. And these are people, I mean, who served their whole careers like I did, you know, in the military, in the FBI. They're very concerned about the reputation

1:12:07 then trying to encourage them to go forward with that because then you could infiltrate I think what's good about our country more than anything else is rule of law, right? and with the people I've worked with, you know, these are these are professionals who are I think a lot of it and this, and this sounds like a general sort of recommendation, And I don't know if you've had – have you talked to Barry Weiss?

1:15:02 you know, pulled the curtain back on the fact that what was really a paper that you could go to, you know, and have confidence in the facts that are presented. models are off, the incentives are off, right? And a lot of social media feels kind of a void because they care about, you know, understanding you know, going into more depth. And we're also trying, you know, we have a, you know,

1:17:08 No worries. So that's the Like we have a policy ed program at Hoover, which are, you know, they're eight minutes long, right? like the you know harassment doxing that kind of stuff everyone could agree that so this is a big problem, right? Do we really want, you know, the heads of these tech companies And I'm paraphrasing. Right. of soft racism of sort of low expectations, right? And that they become complacent and weren't

1:22:51 And so I actually, I read about this in Battlegrounds in the conclusion and in the afterward. acknowledge causality except for us. And it assumes that other actors, including enemies and rivals is and come to your own conclusion. Yeah, that narrow binary perspective is also profoundly it's biased against us, right? So the problem with this theory is that it leaves you with a toxic

1:25:57 we were able to emancipate 4 million of our fellow Americans in the bloodiest war in our history. Let's work on it. Like they love to say structural racism, institutional. We should figure out a way to make it so that we at least have a base starting point that's similar in this culture, in this country. in a crappy school district, right, you can opt out in a number of ways. You can opt out by,

1:28:42 I think it should have been an issue a long time ago, but it's good that it's at the forefront now. But I think all of us, especially washed up, you know, generals like me, like later in our careers or second careers or whatever, you know, I think it ought to be our mission to help build a better future for generations to come, you know, to help strengthen our republic and to help more Americans take advantage of the great promise of this country.

1:29:36 Oh, yeah. You have had her. That's right. Yeah. She's phenomenal. And in other similar cases, Yeonmi Park, who escaped from North Korea and her perspective on what is going on in Colombia. that's become a buzz phrase now, you know, but really, I think it's important to look at the with an effort to make concrete improvements, right? You know, whether it's with a Boys and

1:32:33 And it's a part of the fabric of the community. And they seek protection from within their communities or their tribes. So they're drawn into gangs and criminal activity. that they could have in this country. part of that. I mean, obviously they're doing it in some ways Dereliction of Duty. It's about how and why Vietnam became an American war. And in the book,

1:36:40 Rights Act and the Great Society. And of course, you know, that legislation was And so how come we can't inventory the obstacles that be against equality of opportunity? And so how come we can't inventory And that's their way out, they think, the way out of the homeless problem or a way to mitigate it. the proponents of, you know, critical theory and so forth is that you can empathize with people,

1:39:22 They think this is the real problem with America. Like, you know, hey, me and HR are going to go to the movies. But they're being censored and they're being controlled by corporations and people will say, well, it's a private corporation. Right. How would one stop that? But it was very easy to see patterns associated with disinformation. And then once we saw that,

1:43:07 They just have to amplify the bad content that's already there, that we're already doing. and have confidence in, right? And then there's a, I read about this in Battlegrounds, there was a First of all, I would say, why the hell is it possible for the Chinese Communist Party to buy whether it's on the left or the right, is not as effective. Substack.

1:46:17 you know, he does a great weekly column, you know, I think it's on Bloomberg, I think, you know, You can skim through it. It's well categorized. And, you know, and I'm partial to, and I'm own go-to places, you know, where you can, you have confidence in the information and the analysis. of the most important challenges and opportunities we face as a way to bring Americans together for

1:48:45 It's a page turner though, man. It's a page turner. But if you want to learn about Afghanistan same mistakes of the past, right? To try something different. And the idea behind it is that we have I mean, I think we – and after the Gulf War. Well, no, actually, it happened in 2014. And what the Obama administration does is I think that they replaced optimism with pessimism

1:52:20 Well, think about the arrogance associated with that. Assad in Syria did it, right? Murdered hundreds of people, hundreds of children, right, in a nerve agent attack. And we didn't do anything except invite the Russians in, right, under this idea that they're going to get rid of the chemical weapons, which they didn't do. Right. Right. So that we would then take action against Assad.

1:54:40 Disrupt there. solar winds, for example. Well, you know, it's social media. Right, of course. has been in power for how many decades now? Yeah, since 2000. He came in on January 1st, Right. But on certain areas, there should be a general consensus that transcends both political parties, to President Obama's opposition to the Iraq war. And you can almost

1:59:09 reign like Putin or Xi Jinping has? And I think the policy has a certain degree of bipartisan support. could be something that unites us. through the roof because they just said, okay, we're going to jump right to renewables and we're That's what's so crazy. man. It's actually worse. It doesn't make a difference at all. It's worse, yeah. And then Right.

2:02:37 would have helped make natural gas I mean, it's just like we don't think this stuff through. it and everything. Yeah. How much of a concern is the vulnerability of our power grid? And, of course, we saw that problem with the colonial pipeline and the hack on the ransomware on the colonial pipeline. and everything's connected and so forth. So what we need is we need defensive measures so that

2:06:12 The government is helping more and more. But I think what's going to have to happen is more and I think we need something now for the dot com, you know, the rest of our internet, an organization that's more active. to simultaneously attack our power grid, I mean, it would be devastating. There are some private companies now that are being formed by really bright people.

2:09:05 well, I guess maybe we should bury our, you know, bury our electrical lines, you know, and maybe we Our financial sector got much better at cyber defense in partnership Do it now. the 1960s. And essentially, deterrence by denial is convincing your potential enemy that the enemy cannot accomplish his objectives right through the use of force. technological military prowess. Well, Russia and China, they studied us. Really going back to the

2:12:28 And so what we need now are countermeasures to those countermeasures, right, to make our force more resilient and to demonstrate to Russia and to China, hey, you know, don't take us on because we can deal with all this. you know, what the Biden administration is doing now on threatening economic sanctions on Russia. You see, just in the last couple of days, Australia and Japan are going to enter into a defense relationship.

2:15:07 Or do you think that we actually probably have an underfunded military but I think what you have to do is, you know, look at the numbers, right? First of all, Russia because we have an all volunteer force and our servicemen and women, I think deserve to be paid when we could be purchasing more capable weapons, right, But I do think that the defense budget is underfunded.

2:18:15 of preserving peace, right? And then, of course, you want your sons and daughters who are in the American flag behind me which is one of the craziest things I've ever heard in career in the military if you so chose, but that you would say to people that there's some benefit just needs to go visit like an army platoon or a company and talk to those people who have volunteered to serve their country.

2:21:37 That's a great spot to visit. you know, people come from all over the country, right? They come from all different, you know, It also makes them great citizens, too, you know. neighbors. They need that force to be able to mobilize rapidly, and they need a huge reserve I think it was pretty good. But they extended it so you could actually also apply that to your kids. So I think there would

2:25:36 tell us anything about why, you know, as the soldiers serve, you know, why they fight for it's, there's some of the things that people criticize the most about the youth of America, 100%. Yeah, 100%. Let's talk about the withdrawal of Afghanistan because in our lifetime, it's It's dead, yeah. you know, a one-year war 20 times over. It wasn't a 20-year war. It was a one-year war 20 times over.

2:28:26 The Taliban were regenerating with the help of al-Qaeda and the help of the Pakistan We need to hedge our bets. you know, here's our schedule for withdrawal. Let's let's negotiate an outcome. And of course, thinking about the long-term costs and consequences and without developing a strategy that was aimed was what happened in August and September of this past year. And he looked over that precipice and

2:31:32 And the whole thing was going to hell. Based mainly on the argument, Joe, hey, Afghanistan's not Denmark yet. What was the largest amount of troops that were in Afghanistan? But in Badakhshan in the northeast and in the Pakti area in the east, which have always been very tough areas, the government was gaining some momentum. and weaken the Afghan government security forces on the way out by delivering psychological blow after psychological blow?

2:35:35 They're attacking maternity hospitals, Joe. They're taking their support away. enemy. Look at what we heard from some of these Taliban apologists in the New Yorker and the And now Siraj Haqqani is the minister of interior in Afghanistan. And then what do you hear today, not they were now going to allow women into government in the military, and he started

2:38:59 to live with the consequences or should there be sort of a re-engagement with Afghanistan? And then Zaw Khalilzad, when he went to negotiate with these guys, he actually was advocating for a coalition government to undercut the Afghan government with Karzai, the former president, and Abdullah and others. And so I think them any resources. said the Afghan people have been unshackled. That's what he said about the Taliban taking over.

2:42:13 veterans did. We played a very minor role in trying to fill gaps, right, and to be in communication ground who could help get them out through the right gates, right, to the right aircraft. Because want to get out. These are people who helped us, we're in their armed forces, you know, and so forth. And so I don't want to say, hey, you know, it wasn't on the military or anything like that.

2:44:43 I mean, it was crazy what was troops, right? I mean, Bagram Air Force, Bagram Air Base had, I think, 78 guard posts to man, right, around the perimeter. He always says what's on his mind. I mean, you see these charitable and philanthropic organizations that are helping those who are fleeing, you know, and there are a number of those like Spirit of America, No One Left Behind.

2:47:31 Well said. Listen, it's been a pleasure and an honor talking to you. I really appreciate it. Great to be here. Do you have social media or anything where people can follow you? Bye, everybody.