Michele Flournoy -- Former DoD Undersecretary, Leader, Foreign Policy Expert, Innovator and Optimist

Episode two is with the former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Michele Flournoy. At the time Michele was Defense Undersecretary, she was the most senior woman to ever serve in the DoD, and she was on both President Obama and President Biden’s shortlist for Secretary of Defense. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy is effectively the #3 position in DoD and this incumbent attends the deputies committee meetings of the National Security Council–these are the meetings that develop almost every consequential strategy decision affecting national security. Michele now serves as the managing partner of WestExec Advisors, a firm she helped found with now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and she continues to advise on matters of huge strategic consequence. (https://www.westexec.com/)

We spoke with Michele about the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, the risk of nuclear war, the increasing tensions in the Strait of Taiwan, innovation in DoD, leadership and her hope for the future. Despite the gravity of the subject matter, Michele is a clear-eyed optimist. As a testament to the way Michele approaches the world, she had to postpone this recording by a week because she broke her ankle in five places sky-diving with Navy SEALs for charity the day before our originally scheduled recording. Michele’s passion and insight is palpable, and for those who would like to know more of her thoughts, particularly with respect to China, we highly recommend a recent article she wrote with Mike Brown, the former head of DIU in Foreign Affairs. (https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/time-running-out-defend-taiwan)

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Transcript

Madam undersecretary Michele Flournoy, welcome to the Under Simplified Podcast. It's great to be with you and please call me Michelle. I was hoping you would say that I wanted to get the whole title out there though, because it's an impressive title.  You said the same thing the first time I used it, so, but I, I did it anyways just so folks could, , hear how it rolls off the tongue cuz it, it, it is really cool and we'll definitely get into that.

But, uh, before we do, I wanted to start with a softball, , easy question just to get things rolling. So I'll just get right into it. Uh, is it, is the world really about to end, uh, in your opinion? I certainly hope not , I think, but we are at a very unusual point of history. I mean, I think. A decade from now, two decades from now, we will look back and see this as a geostrategic inflection point, a time when we were, uh, the sort of tectonic plates were shifting, , and really we were ending one era and entering into another, , where competition between great powers.

Declining powers like a revisionist Russia and rising powers like a more powerful China, uh, and the United States and its democratic allies are, you know, that, that tho that competition and managing that competition and both ensuring that we preserve our prosperity and security and way of life in that context, but also that we avoid conflict between nuclear powers that will, that's gonna be the defining challenge of this new era that we're in.

Yeah. Hard to see how you could describe that any more consequentially, , in, in that description. And one of the concerns I have is I, you know, now begin to watch this from a seat outside of government. And you've done this a couple times inside and outside of, uh, governments. So you switched seats a few times and, and seen this from different perspectives.

But right now feels particularly challenging because we're approaching this very different style of, , competition. But the American people. I don't really seem inclined to participate as they once did on the world stage in a way that would be necessary. Do you think that that's gonna be a, a hugely limiting factor in allowing us to do what we need to do or is that just kind of political noise in the background amplified by social media at this point?

Well, I do think our, our internal polarization is a, a problem in that every attempt at sort of sane, substantive dialogue seems to be politicized and turned into a meme or an ideological attack or what have you. But, but I don't, I actually don't think we've done a good enough job sort of explaining the situation to the American people and also, , making the case that the best approach to.

Competing and being effective in that competition is actually investing in the drivers of our own competitiveness here at home. Whether it's science and technology or research and development, access to higher education, smart immigration policy that attracts and keeps the best and brightest from around the world.

 So there's a lot of investment at home that I think would be very, very responsive to the sense of most Americans that we need to, to do that. Particularly in a time where technology's changing, the global economy's changing, and a lot of people are feeling uncertain or left out. , I also think we have to make more of a strategic argument for why allies and partners matter.

That's a huge source of strategic advantage for the United States. But too often in our politics, they're viewed through the v, you know, lens of burden sharing these guys, they're entanglements, they're burdens. But the actual truth is when you look at the challenges we face, , from climate change to deterring China to dealing with Russia or terrorism for that matter, you can't do it effectively without good allies.

And so investing those in, in those relationships is very much in our interests.

You know, I think the US still has a very strong. Narrative in that, you know, we've tried to architect a global order that actually benefits everyone. , it benefits, you know, democratic freedom, it benefits economic growth and development. Look at all of the countries who've come out of poverty to become, , trading partners.

You know, South Korea is my favorite example, but, you know, this order that was architected after World War II has benefited many. Now, of course, it needs to be updated. Of course it needs to be continued to evolve, but we need to do that peacefully and through building consensus and bringing best ideas to the table, not by imposing  a greater powers will on, on, on smaller ones.

 So I think the US still has an indispensable role to play as a leader. Of coalitions,  look at the response to Putin's aggression in Ukraine. Look at, , the response after nine 11. Um, look at, I would hope that, look at the response to climate change. I mean, US leadership matters in terms of bringing countries together, , to take concerted action.

And without that, we're not gonna make as much progress and we're all gonna be lesser for it.  We haven't done necessarily the greatest job of messaging to the American public why all of these things matter. You know, and then for listeners right now, I think up until this point, they, they, they're probably not gonna disagree with what we've outlined.

For the most part. They might quibble over how much we should be involved, how much of our treasure should we, uh, put out there. And, and to that point, you can see right now, both in social media and also in our at least public political discourse, the 120 or 240 character response about sending money to Ukraine, No more money to Ukraine or, or keep the money going to Ukraine.

In fact, you know, double down and give them more. And, you know, that's just such a rudimentary understanding of the problem and, and a and a reframing of the problem that doesn't actually capture it accurately. Do you find yourself frustrated trying to explain to folks, uh, in a longer form than 240 characters why we need to be doing this?

And, and how do you feel when the pushback is less than? Um, well, rule number one is don't try to explain it on Twitter . Yeah, that's, I mean, try to have a, a more full of conversation. But I think you, you know, what you want we have to do is project forward and Okay. If, if, if we allowed Russian aggression against Ukraine to stand and for them to get away with it, what kind.

World. Does that create, in particularly in, in Europe, what, what does that mean for our, you know, for our, the, our largest trading partners, um, and, and our economy? What does that mean in terms of future conflicts and wars? I mean, do we really think if Putin were successful in Ukraine, he's gonna stop there?

, he wants to recreate a, so, you know, a sphere of influence, , that goes far beyond Ukraine.  And so, you know, I think we have to project ourselves forward. , and, and imagine the, you know, imagine a world in which China dictates, you know, might, makes, Right? I get to dic, you know, we're the big power in the region.

We get to dictate terms to all of the smaller entities and, , is that really going to be an environment that is conducive to fair? , trade relations. Is it gonna be conducive to competitive American, , companies that can actually keep growing at our economy and creating jobs here in the United States?

You know, is it going to be, uh, in a world in which Americans feel secure? , I, I think too often it's sort of a, both a failure of imagination, a failure of education to really sort of paint the picture of, Okay, well let's play this out. You know, if you, if you go down this road, where do we end up? And is that really a road that's good for Americans?

Now, I know you've said that we shouldn't hold these debates on Twitter, and I of course, wholeheartedly agree with that, but unfortunately, we live in an era where many of these ideas are being moved around on social media. And though I hope our, our strategic decision makers don't put a lot of weight,  in, in those social media debates, they really do affect some degree of public opinion.

And, and public opinion always has some effect on strategic, especially political decision makers. And Elon Musk recently weighed in on a negotiated settlement to the Ukraine and, and Russian War is a great example. He, he, he used to sum up the exact Moscow talking points that have been put out by Moscow's influence engine.

And what a great example of, of, of risk of perpetuating something that is deliberately in, in Russian's, Russia's favor. But even if you exclude that one, there's very smart people out there that have made a number of good points. Even though they don't have necessarily the geopolitical chops to, to weigh in fully on the issue.

They've,, made the point that if, if it's really two choices in front of us, Allowing Russia to accomplish some portion of their goals in Ukraine on one hand and then on the other nuclear Armageddon. Well, framed like that, the choice then seems easy, even if it's a, a sad and, and very disappointing choice.

But of course, many of us know that that argument is, is reductionist and un nuanced and geopolitical decision making is best made with an enormous amount of nuance. And while I'm sympathetic to that argument and I can see its merits, I know that there are more complicating factors to consider, and it seems at least equally likely or more likely that by allowing Putin to achieve his objectively imperialist goals, goals that he stated as imperialist, that he will be emboldened to reach further after that, and that those acts will likely lead to an even greater risk for the world.

Than the one that we face now. And this is to say nothing of the risk of encouraging nuclear black male and what that does to proliferation and, and other powers considering, you know, how they're gonna handle situations like this when, when they come to it, if we are, are shown to back down from the level of nuclear blackmail.

But still, you know, an extraordinarily scary time. And given this debate, how, how do you balance this multifaceted challenge such that we, the world escapes without a nuclear exchange a, a pretty good goal while also checking Russia's imperial ambitions and maintaining some of these geopolitical boundaries and norms, uh, with which we can all agree?

Yeah, I, I think I, I appreciate the concern and, and I think that, , Uh, you know, because of Putin's Sare rattling and because he's clearly losing the war but doesn't seem to realize it, and he keeps doubling down on Ukraine, you know, there is a very real concern about nuclear use. , I don't think it's the likely case at this point, but it is more likely today than it was in February 24th when he first started in this endeavor.

So it is, it is a very real concern and I actually think the administration should get credit for trying to really manage this problem of, you know, how do we meaningfully help Ukraine push back against this illegal and unjustified aggression and brutal aggression, while also avoiding escalation, ensuring that we're not creating a NATO Russia conflict.

And I think so far they've managed that, , quite well. , and I think they're probably thinking hard about how would we manage that even in the face of. Putin if he did a nuclear demonstration shot or something like that. But I, I think, , appeasing Putin does not lead us into a safer world. It leads us into a more dangerous world, because again, today, Ukraine, where's it gonna be tomorrow?

Is he gonna move on Russia, uh, I'm sorry on Georgia? Is he gonna move on somewhere else? Is he gonna decide that, see my nuclear threats work, so I should start doing this more often? I think it actually increases the risk that we could end up in a very escalatory situation if we're not careful. So I think it's very important that, , the US and other like-minded states really hold firm in saying this aggression that's sort of, you know, threatens the whole vision of Europe whole free and at peace.

This is not gonna stand. This cannot stand. Um, and let's find a way. A negotiated way to deescalate a way, an off ramp for Putin that prevents the, the sort of worst case that we're worried about. Do you talking about an off-ramp and a negotiated settlement, Uh, this is also one of those topics that seems, one, there's, there's a lot of experts out there that came outta the woodwork that know more about Crimea than ever did, , six months ago.

Mm-hmm. , it seems everybody, uh, has an, an opinion about Crimea. Uh, do you have in your mind something that could take shape from a negotiated settlement standpoint that, that you think would be acceptable to Putin? Something that we could actually enforce and, and push ahead even with, you know, the Ukrainians maybe not fully signed up to the negotiation, at least at the beginning.

And, and what, what would be the state of Crimea at the end of that?

You know, I am, I'm the first person to say I am not one of those Crimea experts. So, um, and, and I think and you're more of an expert than most of those people. . No, I, this is one of the hardest, this is the hardest question is, you know, the, how does this end? How, how can we both be true to, ,  the interest rights,  of the Ukrainian people and our own values, um, and interests, but also prevent Putin from having his back against the wall and taking us into a broader conflict.

So that is the, the million dollar question, and I think people are working hard on it, but I don't think there's a good answer that, because right now, you know, Putin has, with the mobilization, Um, with, , the additional atrocities and the targeting of civilian cities and infrastructure, he keeps doubling down.

And the more he doubles down, the more he ties the fate of his own survival as a leader, his own government, to what the outcome in Ukraine. Um, even though all indicators suggest that there's no way his military can achieve his political objectives in Ukraine, so Putin has to figure out what is a face saving way to back down.

, and all I'm saying is we have to try to figure out, you know, what's the d keeping the door open to that while, while not rewarding him for his aggression. And that's a very fine line. , and I would argue that even if you had some kind of settlement that the Ukrainians sign were willing to sign up to.

I think as long as Putin is in power. He, his, his regime is a pariah. I mean, he's, he's not, he cannot recover from this internationally. I think sanctions will stay in place as long as he's the leader in Russia. I think his, his own statue is a leader. He will, he will be unwelcome at the leadership tables for many years to come, even if the fighting were to stop.

And so that's a larger question for the Russian people. . Yeah. This is, uh, real tricky, obviously, and, and we certainly won't, um, solve it here. And one of the interesting things that we are,  trying to do with this podcast is somewhat, keep these episodes, uh, evergreen and, , ideally this one will be solved while these episodes are still being listened to.

Um, and, uh, will, will either be shown to be correct or not correct at this point. But what won't be solved probably for some time into the future, uh, is Taiwan. And of course, I think lots of people view this as maybe not,  a different side of the same coin, but certainly, you know, in the same coin collection.

And this is another one of those tricky ones where, , I'll get into discussion around a, ,  dinner table with, with friends and, , inevitably it'll come up. Why, why do we care about, uh, what China does in Taiwan? I mean, even if they're, you know, socially responsible people and, and you know, they can understand why it would not be great for the world.

They can't quite put together why the United States should have a greater and outsized responsibility to help. Prevent China from taking over Taiwan. Do you find yourself in these similar discussions and, and how do you, you know, explain to someone who hasn't given a much thought? We all know in our gut, I think when we thought about it, why, but articulating it to someone who hasn't thought about it, it proves more difficult than I expect each time that I do it.

Yeah, I think there, there are a couple of arguments I tend to use. Number one is, you know, Taiwan is a, uh, democracy, a very vibrant democracy. , and , if we were to sanction meaning accept a situation where, uh, a larger power like China can simply roll in and, and take over by force or impose its will by force, that is a precedent.

And, and again, who's to say China stops with Taiwan? I mean, that would be very embol. I'm not suggesting they'll, . Pursue territorial ambitions across the region, but they'll certainly pursue ambitions of political domination. Um, and, and again, I think if the Asia-Pacific is the, the region that's most consequential to the American economy and American security for the next half century, we need to care what the rules are there and, and, and what kind of behavior we accept.

, but in addition to that, in a much more, you know, tangible sense, and this is something that a lot of Americans , don't realize is Taiwan has become one of the leading chip manufacturers in the global economy.  Their company, tsmc, Um, this council and economic advisors recently did a study that looked at what if TSMC was taken offline either by a blockade or an invasion, or just because now the Chinese control it and we no longer trust it.

Over a trillion dollars of damage in fairly short order to the global. That's really bad news. And that would affect every US manufacturer, every electronics, every, you know, it would have massive effects on our economy and the global economy, and Americans would feel that. , so we need to care. , and it's also the right thing to do from a values perspective.

Um, at the top of this conversation, you spoke very eloquently about America's role in the world and, and how we might do a better job of getting our narrative out there, which is a powerful one. But at the same point, in order to carry out many of our objectives, we have to make some strategic moves as well.

And when we think about the Communist Chinese party's narrative, the CCPs story to the world, they clearly have and are articulating a very good plan. They have a huge population that is mostly pointed in the same direction, though some cracks maybe. Uh, on that front, but small cracks, they are well aligned technologically, militarily, politically, economically, though also maybe some, some growing fault lines in there.

But it still not clear what that's gonna affect on the long term viability of China's plan. And it's just beyond question that they're effectively moving forward with their ambitions and she cementing his control of the party. Just this week at the, the party Congress is, is just a, an exceptionally good example.

So with this as the backdrop, how well is the US matching this growing threat? Well, I think first it's worth laying out what we think the Chinese plan. , so she has talked repeatedly about realizing the Chinese dream by 2049. Part of that is unification with Taiwan, but more recently, , he's also said that although he's, he talks about peaceful reunification use.

And, and, and in the past has used political coercion efforts to envelop Taiwan, , economically shrink their international space by denying them recognition from other countries.  , he's also instructed the pla the Chinese, um, military to be ready with a military option by 2027. I think if you pair that with what we saw after the Pelosi visit and the open.

And full exercising of a naval blockade of Taiwan. And we look at how he's used that crisis to set a new normal in the Taiwan straight where you now have daily incursions into Taiwan's maritime space airspace across the median line. I think, and, and if you, if she's looking at what the United States military is investing in and knows that our posture will be stronger, our capabilities will be stronger in the 2030s, I think there is a window in the second part of this decade where he could decide, you know, if I, I, I, I wish I could do it without force, but I have to do this.

This is a legacy issue for me, and I think it'll be harder if I wait. So, to me, that the real problem, the real name of the game is deterring. She in that period causing him to doubt whether he could be successful, causing him to worry that the cost would be too high, including potentially GA gambling his hold on power if he failed.

And so that's the standard that we need to, That's the standard we need to kind of judge any American planning against. And right now we're doing some good things, but certainly not enough. What is the crunch that will take place in the 2030s that will cause she to wanna move sooner rather than later?

Well, I think US defense planning has us, uh, increasing our posture in the region, increasing the tempo of our exercises, our basing, uh, infrastructure with allies and partners. Um, new capabilities coming online, new weaponry, new command and control systems that are more resilient to attack, uh, unmanned systems that can be paired with man systems, new munitions.

I mean, there's just a lot that's coming down the pike, but it's still 10, 15 years away. , and if she sees that, he could decide, you know, better, better to go. Now, before all of that is in.

You talked about finding a way to  have it resonate with the American people. And, , as you were speaking, I, I was reminded of a,  just a recent example for myself. I'm, I'm down in Florida right now and on a, on a work trip, and I had to, , rent a car. You know, I flew in and, and wanted to rent a car and I just needed it for one day, you know, one overnight trip unavailable, no, no rental cars, uh, at the airport when I was flying.

And they had a very small number that you had to rent for a week was the minimum across all the standard players. And I Googled my way to the answer and. It, it's, Thank you, Covid and to supply chain disruption. Yeah. Yeah. We nailed it. Right? It's, and it's, it's a chip function, right? It's not, it's not TSMC chips mostly, right?

These are are 14 nanometer, these are bigger chips, right? Power end. Yeah. But the whole, , the whole ecosystem, you know, is, is built on old, a dozen or so companies and, and you throw off any number of them, even the higher end chips and, and you're just gonna compound that problem, , exponentially. And so, yeah, I think that that's where we are.

And it's in everything we use, everything we use all, you know, daily life. , I'll go back briefly to, um, just deterrents and, and the situation that, you know, we have to at least prepare for and, and I think you articulated well is, is within the realm of the possible, which is just, is, uh, a difficult thing for me to even think about.

But, we could pres be presented with any number of options, but a couple come to mind quickly for me, you know, a situation where, , the pla and, and president, she. Are able to get their forces aligned in such a way that they won't need much , additional preparation to execute the invasion.

So then, , our, our time to know that he's moving to invade and the invasion could be cut down to a week, uh, in some cases, dependent on how you measure,  the first movements that will not be enough time to steam, , Seven Fleet West and get ino paycom into a defensive posture, right?

That the envision will happen well before we even get everything aligned and, and will be responding to, , a fade accompli. That's one scenario, and I'll just give you the second one, which in me, in my opinion, it actually is harder. We get information well in advance, some kind of major indicators and warnings that the invasion is gonna happen.

Something has happened, some things have taken place that seem to indicate. That this is not a test, this is the, the real deal intelligence or otherwise, and then we have to make a decision to attempt a higher level of deterrence, which could just be the first, uh, exchange of an escalatory action. Which one of those do you think is most likely?

And then, . What do you think about those two scenarios? None of, neither of them are great. And if you have another scenario that I've totally, um, left out the table here, um, I would love to hear it. Yeah. I think there are a range of scenarios and, , the invasion scenario that you described is obviously the high, high end.

And, um, I think we would, there would be challenges whether we had little warning or whether we had clear warning. , they would each present different challenges, . , but I also think another challenge is that they may block. , they may seize a disputed island and see what we do. You know, China so far in the South China Sea and the East China Sea has used more of a boil the frog approach, which is, you know, you keep raising the temperature, but you always keep it just below the point where the frog realizes it's being killed and it, and jumps out of the pot.

 And so it's quite possible that they could incrementally keep changing the status quo to the point where it's almost too late. , so that is also a scenario I worry about, but I do think we need to. Do a couple things. We need to refine our intelligence, , focus and indications and warnings, so we do have a clear picture of, of what we think they're doing.

, two, we need to do a lot of work to what a preparation of the environment, you know, whether it's, , visiting places and, and building up infrastructure in areas where we'd want to be able to disperse and base forces, whether it's building up munition stocks, whether it's operating in the area to gain operational familiarity.

You know, there's just a lot of things that we need to be doing to be more present and more supported in the, in that region, in that environ. We need to be, um, working more closely with Taiwan, um, to make it, uh, on its own defense preparations. I mean, Taiwan's job is to buy time, you know, to, to create a layered asymmetric defense that is complicates.

Life for the Chinese enough to buy time for the US and the international community to respond. So it can't be an overnight fa ACOM plea, but that's a very different defense posture than what they've focused on so far. And it will require a lot of training and assistance as well as, , equipping. Um, I'll tell you, just as a note, you know, we did that for six, seven years between Crimea and this recent invasion with our special ops forces, our collective, you know, multiple  NATO countries training Ukrainian Soft, and it is paid huge dividends in enabling their effective military resistance.

, and then the third, the last thing I would say is we need to really, , look at what we have in hand. I, I liken this to an Apollo 13 problem. You know, if so this could happen in the next two to five years. We gotta look at what do we already have or what's coming online or what's available commercially.

Put it together in new creative operational concepts and with a strategy of either conceal or reveal to sort of really think through. If we got some kind of warning and we thought, okay, now is the moment to really try to convince she this is a bad idea, what would we reveal? What would we do to shake his confidence to rock him back on his heels, to make him think, Well, ooh, I didn't know they could do that, or, I didn't know they could do that at scale.

Or maybe I need to think about this again or take more time. , that is, that's the key piece that's missing in our efforts at scale. Um, and that's where I'd love to see more attention from not only the department, but the intel community and the whole inter agency. So here I have to bring up then secrets.

Keeping them, when to share them. You know, I think it's quite clear that the disclosure of classified information was used very deathly. In the beginning of this conflict, I think Russia was truly knocked back on their heels based on what they learned. When we revealed the intelligence that we did, they, they did not expect us to know as much as we did and, and did not expect us to use it the way that we did.

But on the flip side of that, we horribly mispredicted what was going to happen when Russia invaded. Despite all the knowledge that we had, we were prepared to evacuate, you know, Ukrainian leadership out of the country. We were so convinced that this was gonna go just lightning fast and, and that was wrong.

And so what have we learned from that? And then how are we gonna use that to our advantage in, in the next conflict? And how are we going to anticipate the second and third order effects to what we disclose or what we conceal and then choose to reveal and, and how? Will we possibly keep secret something big enough that once revealed it will cause, you know, someone like President Xi to recalculate what he's doing.

Cuz it has to be huge and the bigger it is, the harder it is to keep secret. So, you know what, what, what do we do to manage all of those just multifaceted, , objectives at the same time. You know, I do think that the remarkable, you know, declassification  of intelligence to deny Putin a false narrative and to deny him the element of surprise was extremely important in alerting the world, in creating the basis for a very str, a coalition that came together re in a remarkably rapid and powerful way.

And I, I think, you know, even though we got some of it wrong, we may have seen the Russian military is 10 feet tall. , I think that strategic choice to declassify intelligence was very powerful and very effective in this case. I think, , that you could imagine a, a similar type of effort with respect to the Chinese.

But I think when I talk about, um, conceal, reveal some of.  I'm also talking about is what capabilities do we wanna have up our sleeve that they may not know about, that we can reveal or unveil, , when it really matters, and in a way that surprises or shakes their own confidence. Part of this is better understanding, where are she's doubts?

 If I were she  and I'm here, I am an authoritarian leader and I've just watched Putin be completely. S surprised and blindsided by the, by the poor performance and preparation of his own military, I'd be really worried that how am I going to get ground truth from the pla? How am I gonna really know what this untested military, this military that hasn't seen combat for many, many decades, or certainly not in its modern form?

How am I going to know that they really are ready, that they really can do this, that I can real, They, they've got the logistics problem across 200 nautical miles of ocean solved. They, they've got command and control under constant attacks solved. I mean, so the more we can understand his doubts and his concerns and , play to those really, , add fuel to that concern, , the better.

So we. A bit before starting the podcast about wanting to keep this evergreen, but as we talk right now in, in late 2022, you know, what we're effectively talking about is a window that is no more than eight years wide right now. So if, if that's true, you know, where, where do we stand right now in being prepared for something disco consequential in what is a very near term?

And if we're not prepared, what are some of the steps that we need to take starting now? Okay. So number one is I think we need to have a very clear eye view of what are the operational challenges and problems. That we're trying to solve and what are the things that we, we, we believe would most powerfully deter or shake the confidence of she as a decision maker.

, and then we need to again, take not, not sort of say, Okay, let's start a new 20 year procurement program that's gonna pay off, you know, three fit, you know, three, five year defense plans down the road. But just more to say, look at what do we have in hand and how do we combine it in new ways to get a different result?

And I'll give you one of my favorite examples. , the Navy has a long range precision munition called L rasm. It is very good at anti sinking ships. , and it's very long range But all of the platforms that the Navy uses to use this munition are well with they're short ranged tactical aircraft.

They're well within the Chinese threat rings, uh, in terms of air and missile defense. So, The trick would be, could you put this longer range munition on a standoff platform like an Air Force bomber that could stand off outside the reach of Chinese defenses, but fire the munition into, , that area and still be successful.

And the ga name of the game is, I've been accused of threatening to sh to sink the entire Chinese fleet. And I was like, No. What I'm talking about is you wanna be able to communicate that you could, that you've got enough munitions and enough platforms and an exercise plan that you could hold the fleet at risk.

That any ship that's leaving the Chinese mainland and coming. To Taiwan is going to be at risk because we have this capability. So this capability has been demonstrated, it's been talked about publicly, which is why I use it as an example. But is the Navy buying enough of these things to do that? Is the Air Force buying enough of L RAs to do that?

Have they funded the actual development and fielding of this capability at scale? No. So that's an example of you take things we already have, you put 'em together in a new way, you have a new capability. To me, the department's leadership needs to be driving those sorts of things into our budget and program as a, a priority so that we have new options to offer the president should we have to deter China in this near timeframe.

So you, I think you, you got into just another fantastic topic in talking about, , a big organization. As is biggest do. D one of the biggest in the worlds attempting to do something quickly with technology and innovation and inside government and now outside government. I spend a lot of time talking about culture and thinking about culture and, and the relationship to innovation and the absolute frustrating event that it is to try and get, uh, a big entity like that to shift even when everyone agrees that it should shift.

Mm-hmm. , like that's the real comical part of this right now. Right. You can very, very hard, You're very hard pressed to find someone who disagrees at least broadly with the idea. But then you look around and you say, Well, but, but we're not doing it for some reason. And finding those reasons. Even finding the reasons is sometimes easy.

It's, it's adjusting them. Yeah, there, there are many, many reasons. I mean, I think the department deserves credit, you know, since really Ash Carter to getting a lot better at finding and, , and experimenting with innovation. I mean, tech scouting in the commercial sector, funding research and development in the defense sector, prototyping things, demonstrating things.

We do a lot of that and we do it really well. The challenge is we don't do innovation adoption at scale. Um, we don't transfer that innovation into rapidly into programs that will actually give new capability, put new capability into the hands of the war fighter, which is where it matters. , and so that's where the culture is a challenge.

So when you talk about culture, you, it's really about human behavior. And why do people behave the way they do? They behave, They wa the way they do because they have a set of. Explicit or implicit incentives, and they're being rewarded for certain behaviors and not rewarded or recognized for others. And in the acquisition world in D O D, the main thing that's driven more and more regulation has been the problem of keep programs on cost and on schedule.

And for major multi-year procurement programs that cost tens of billions of dollars. I absolutely understand why that's an important set of goals, but it's created a very risk averse culture where you don't wanna experiment, you don't wanna divert your focus, you don't wanna introduce anything new that's gonna disrupt your program and your schedule.

You just wanna, Kiana stick to your knitting and, and follow this very sequential process. But so I've argued that what we really need to do is create a sub cadre. Of acquisition professionals, , call them, you know, give 'em a cool name like the Green Berets of Acquisition or something. Mm-hmm. , uh, train them in rapid agile development, , and integration, you know, integration at scale of cutting edge technology.

Train them differently to understand what agile development looks like as opposed to the normal approach. Train them on the very flexible authorities that Congress has actually given. , the do o d like other transactional authorities. , reward them, recognize them, have a different career path that rewards, you know, a more risk tolerant behavior where you may be involved in a program where you have a failure.

You fail fast, Learn fast, try again. Have greater success. , but it, you can't, you can't p expect people to behave differently unless you change that incentive structure. And I, I had some direct experience of this in my, when I was under secretary that really brought this lesson home to me. So what are then the barriers to entry there?

Because I think if you asked around and you asked people, you know, would you, you prefer to keep a huge lumbering program on budget and on time, or would you rather be, you know, sort of the special operations commando of acquisitions and, and programs and contracts? I think most are going to choose the latter.

You know, they're not gonna choose to be part of a ship building program that's gonna take 20 years for which they might never see the results of their work. They're gonna wanna do something agile and, and take funds from one pile and move it to another and act more like a startup and, and fail and, and, and keep trying mightily to do something great against some of these really tough problems.

And, If my hunch is there is correct, that that's what these people want to do, then, then what's preventing us from reaching the, the holy land here in in this process? I think that we have, we've not followed up the change of rhetoric and stated priority that we need to innovate faster and its greater scale with an actual change in incentive.

So we haven't actually trained people differently. We haven't. Rewarded them differently. We haven't created a, a new career path for the, a sub cadre of acquisition professionals. So we're talking the talk, but we haven't actually said, Okay, it's almost a change management problem. How do you actually changes if I, I, it's a silly, it's not silly, it's a small example that I experienced as undersecretary.

We did a big human capital strategy. One of the insights was people were exhausted. There was no more professional development happening. They were demoralized. And we decided we're gonna put a real push on training, even though we have, you know, people are very busy with Iraq and Afghanistan and counter-terrorism and everything else.

We've got to create space for our people to, to invest in our people. And initially ever said, Yes ma'am. That sounds great. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I waited and I got you. Zero training requests. And I said, Well, why? Why am I? You know, you say, all said yes. You all thought this is a good idea. We all decided this together.

Well, we're so busy I can't spare my best people. We'll get to it, you know, next month. And then so I finally realized, okay, incentives. What if we said to every supervisor, you cannot get a five on your performance valuation, which is the highest level which people really care about unless you get 80% of your workforce to training.

This year I went from zero training requests to hundreds of training requests in a matter of weeks because suddenly, Oh, okay, now you're serious. You're telling me that I'm actually gonna be evaluated on this and that my future promotion. May depend on this. So it's a very simple example, and I'm not suggesting it's that simple in, in the innovation adoption, but it's an example of a tweak to an incentive that gets a different behavior.

And we need to do that in a much more systemic way, kind of looking at every bear, every point on the spectrum and going after that. And oh, by the way, you know, it's not something the pen agon can do by itself. It needs to be the prime mover, but you gotta bring Congress along here and that's a whole nother, uh, kettle fish.

Yeah.  There's the incentives piece. , yours is, is kind of like a, , a carrot in this shape of a stick, I think is what that that one is . Um, and, uh, but there's also, , I think the removal of barriers, right? I don't think it would help with the training example that you gave, but, and, and I think in a lot of the, the extreme high performers that I've been around, In my, uh, various careers, they were going to rise to the level of high performance or as high as they could regardless of what incentives were drying up there.

They were gonna go for the top mm-hmm. , wherever the top was. And oftentimes we artificially put the top much closer to the ground for these, uh, high performers. They can't bust through it because of a regulation or a bureaucracy and or we make it impossible for them to, can continue on the path. So, I mean, I'll give you an example of a young Air Force captain who shall not be named, who was literally in fact, the Air Force's top expert on ai.

And he was as un as an individual performer, just having huge impacts helping. This was a few years ago, helping the Air Force figure out how to start on the AI journey in earnest. And along comes his detailer and his mentors who say, You know, you've been doing this incredible work for the chief of staff, but if you wanna make major.

You gotta go out to a squadron and be whatever. I don't, I, I mean, and do some line job, which is a wonderful, worthwhile job for somebody, but not the Air Force's number one AI expert, . Right? And so there was no way he could keep going in his career unless he broke from where he was adding most value.

That's a problem of incentives. And, and I, and I think the Air Force actually is quite aware of that example and is working on changing that. But, but that, that is, that's a one example of a thousand I could give you from across the military. That is a, a barrier at a very individual level to. Keeping people on the path of contributing the most they possibly can to innovating for the, the, the most important problems.

So you've , put me into a great, uh, transition here because, uh, you have, uh, a really big fan, a young naval officer that's currently working on the National Security Council staff. Uh, I'll leave her her name out of it, uh, for all the obvious reasons, but you are one of her heroes, no exaggeration.

I just got, I just talked to her about this this past week when she. I found out you, I was gonna be talking to you on the podcast and you just reminded me something about her because she elected to take this national security staff position, despite the fact that it wasn't necessarily on her list of things that you have to do in order to stay on track for promotion.

But she felt, you know, I want to go and experience all of those things for professional reasons, but also just because that's something I wanna do in my life and I think it'll make me a better naval officer. Which of course, she's absolutely correct, right? She's learned more about policy and how to get things done and how to move things along and, and what happens when you turn this dial in, in the foreign policy arena or turn that dial.

 I, I told her, I said, Stay this path. There's no reason, , to follow that, that tried and true path because you. Intuition here is correct. Whatever you gain here will allow you to make up time, , down the road. , so that's her story. But in, in this, she transitioned us to the next thing I wanna ask you about, because it's just so huge.

, and, and she sees you as a hero because of how far you've made it. , as a woman within a system that is still predominantly, , men, at least at the top, you were, and you still are, at least according to Wikipedia, , the highest ranking member to have. In the do o d I'm happy to say I'm now surpassed.

I was wondering if this was Wayne Hicks, who is now the deputy secretary who, um, worked in my office when she was an intern  in the Clinton administration and has been, , honing her skills as a fantastic defense professional for 25 years. She's now the deputy secretary, so I am quite happy to say there is a more high, higher ranking woman than I was when I was under s.

I will edit your Wikipedia page immediately after this podcast, , um, to reflect that at the time I was the highest in, That's, that's true, but I think it's still sunset. But, but now I've been happily surpassed, and that should keep, She, we should keep going. That's, that's great. But I mean, that, that still puts you, you know, in the number two position, which is such an amazing feat.

But at the same time,  you were on the short list, I think twice, and again, you can correct this or not, uh, for Secretary of Defense, or you can tell me, um, uh, no thanks. I've talked about this one, uh, way too many times. , but just, I wanna just hear your thoughts on one serving in, in such a high role and, and what that means.

You know, how that's resonated in your life and what you felt about that. Do you even feel like that's a measure you, you wish to be, you know, a ruler you wish to be measured by, and, and then, you know, how, how do you feel about coming, , a Harris breath away from, , the top job and being able to really implement all of these things, or at least try to implement all of these things that you have, uh, on your list?

So on the question of, , being a high ranking woman in defense, you know, when I started there were no , There were virtually no women. You had some informed policy, but not hard defense. And, and I had that experience for years and years of always being the only woman at the table. And I got a little tired of that.

So early on in my career, I decided, you know, I wanna try to help change that. And so a lot of my, what I'm most proud of in my career is,  not the title of my biggest job, but more the fact that I've really worked hard at cultivating a talent pipeline that is much more diverse and that is tapping into the incredible talent of the US population at large.

So like, why would we leave half the population off the table when we're trying to recruit the best and brightest for national security? It goes for gender, it goes for people of color, um, whatever orientation. I mean, we want the best and brightest. No. No, no matter their, um, their gender, their race, their orientation, et cetera.

And, and I think, , it's also been one of the most rewarding parts of the job, uh, my career in that, you know, policies come and go. You can work really hard on a policy and the next administration, boom, it's out the window their first day. When you invest in people and you help cultivate people that never goes away, that is there forever.

And you, you know, and you, and they go on to do amazing, wonderful things. So I feel very strongly that that is something that we all need to pay more attention to and invest more time into. And for me, it, it's both one of the most important things that I've done, but also the thing that it gives me the most satisfaction that I'm most proud of, I'd say.

Well, that was just an absolutely love. Answer, And I think you answered a question that I didn't actually even ask directly, but, but had wanted to about what you would hope would be the, the most remembered legacy that you left behind from those positions. I still want to circle back and ask the question, what was it like to be on the cusp of being Secretary of Defense?

Do you, do you still have ambitions to that? No one will ever answer these questions when we ask them, but, but sometimes you, you surprise. Um, yeah, so I, I, I have the public service gene. I'm young enough, um, to believe that I still have more time to serve if I'm called to service by a president that I believe in.

, I think we're at a moment where as we've been talking, you know, really focused on urgent. F , action to bolster deterrence and our leadership and our alliances and our capabilities. It's, it's a really critical time, um, where the stakes are very high. , but, , this is one of those things where, , it's, it's not in the individual's control.

, the first time it came around, I had life circumstances that prevented me from saying yes. My had a, my youngest son was very ill at the time. Um, and it just wasn't a time where, you know, I could, I could do, take that, that responsibility on mm-hmm.  and President Obama was amazingly wonderful and forgiving  about that.

um, and understood. , and so, , all I can say is I have the public service gene. I feel passionate about the mission, whether I'm inside government or I'm out, I'm going. Try to contribute to the mission. I'm gonna try to keep speaking up, writing, mentoring, helping, advising, doing whatever I can to move the ball in the right direction.

Yeah. That's awesome. I'm, I'm glad to hear it and, , I'm glad to think, ,  that you're, um, still young enough cuz you obviously are still young enough and I think, uh, many of us look at you and, and think that, uh, yeah, we hope to still be able to do so many things, um, for so many years. Well, I started working for Bob Gates when he was 67 and Leon Panetta when he was 72.

So I figure I have, have some time. Yeah, I think, I think Leon Panetta would say he's still ready to come back if they ask him again. Yeah, exactly. He's ready to go. He's, uh, we, we used to call him, I don't know if we were supposed to, but we used to call him Uncle Leon. Uh, yeah. Not to his face, of course, though.

I, I know he would've probably loved that. Um, but he probably love that actually, he, I think I had five directors, um, some around there. I mean, just hands down. Um, my absolute favorite for so many reason. Brave leadership and, and just straight to the point. Um, yeah, a gifted, a gifted leader. , okay. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go down.

I'm gonna do a little bit of a, an entertaining, uh, path. Not entertaining.  Entertaining is the wrong, , framing a, a little bit of a,  way to bring, uh, into a person's mind, the picture of, of what an under Secretary of Defense, under Secretary of Policy too, at that, uh, does, uh, because I think most people, uh, don't quite understand the, the power and, and, and responsibilities of that position.

So, , come along with me here for a little bit of imaginative, , descriptions here and, and see if, see if we can, , help people understand it. So, uh, you're still under Secretary of Defense for policy and 3:00 AM your, your phone rings, uh, your secure phone, and it's your chief of staff for whoever, uh, or the watch office and says, you know, met him under secretary.

Uh, President Putin has just detonated a low yield nuclear nuclear weapon, uh, in Ukraine, it's 3:00 AM. Uh, obviously you're, you're wide awake now. Walk me through what the next 12 hours looks like. So I think what would happen is that either convene a secure call immediately or people would start getting their cars and driving to the White House for, to convene the deputies committee, , and to start flesh fleshing out, first of all, understand what the situation is, um, what we know about it, and then immediately start flushing out both, , and an immediate, , How are we gonna respond, you know, in terms of communications and statements and diplomacy and so forth.

But then, , what are the president's options? Um, so just to bring people, bring people along here, the Deputies committee. Uh, these will be the anyone that is appointed by the, the principal, so the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of State. These will be sort of the number two, but it's not. Readily apparent who's in that spot, right?

Yeah. Right. So the deputies committee is it, it's usually the deputy secretary of an agency, but in the case of Department of Defense, the deputy secretary is normally like the COO of the department running the operations and mm-hmm.  business side of the department. And so the under Secretary for policy is traditionally used as the policy deputy and the representative and the deputies committee.

This is a perfect example of what I think, you know, folks maybe don't understand that the power of the deputies committee, when they sit in the, , White House and start talking, this is where the white board, uh, essentially happens, right? When the principals are in there, this is gonna be decision time.

We're gonna go around the room and, and present cases, and then execute a decision with the president in the room. The deputies are in there with maybe the vice president or the National Security Advisor, white boarding those solutions ahead of time. This is where the real meat of decisions gets made in the US government.

Right? So, and that was you at that time. It's where the options get developed. It's where the options get assessed, framed, where dissent is noted, where you know risk factors are noted and it, and then all of that is. Sort of packaged and fed to the principals who then review it, , and, and further discuss and refine, sometimes sent back to the de deputies to do more work.

, often it's just an ongoing iterative process. , and then at some point you bring in, you know, the president and have a formal National Security Council meeting or a meeting in the Oval Office where he's actually gonna make some decisions. So, , yes, I would, I would think that, um, if that call came in, first of all, I would hope.

That before the call came in, there would've been a lot of activity contingency planning, um, that you would've had the deputies if they were doing their job as soon as start, Putin started, uh, seriously rattling the saber, the nuclear saber, they would be saying, Okay, what if he did this? First of all, what would he do?

What would be the different impacts? And let's start contingency planning from a whole government perspective on what would our response options be. I mean, if this happened in Ukraine and we were caught with no preparation in flat footed, I mean, shame on us. I mean, they, I think the, the warning order is gone up.

He's talking about it. So I have no doubt there's a full fledged contingency planning effort just in case, because ultimately the job of the deputies and the whole NSC process is to give the president well thought through options when in the timeframe he needs them. And that means anticipating and getting started before things actually happen.

that, that's a great, , overview of the process and it's an extremely complicated process. Having been, , an outside observer of that process numerous times, it was always fascinating to behold for me, and, and imagining being at that table and, and doing that brainstorming and, and planning was always, uh, both a thrilling, uh, thing to imagine.

And at the same time a shockingly debilitating thing, uh, to imagine because of the consequences usually of those, uh, decisions. But you, you hit on something that I wanna ask about real quick,  you said he's already been threatening it, and  the idea keeps coming up that tactical nuclear weapons might be part of the, , the threat that he's implying, but he hasn't actually said, to my knowledge,  anything about the use of tactical nuclear weapons or, or may, maybe not even the idea of the nuclear weapon being used inside Ukraine.

Now, supposition would allow us to get there pretty quickly, but do you feel like he's said something that to you pretty directly implies tactical nuclear weapon because it's, it's a different paradigm. It's a different response to a tactical nuclear weapon than to a strategic nuclear weapon. And, and everybody talks as though he, he has made that threat explicitly with tactical nukes, but, but I haven't found it anywhere where he's actually said it so clearly.

No, he's, he's raided, he's raised nuclear use as an option, but I don't think, you know, it could be conducting a nuclear test. It could be a nuclear demonstration shot in an, in a adjacent area. It could be tactical battlefield use. , it could be, , Right. Something else. But, so I don't think he's specified, nor do I think, nor do I think he would.

, but I think that those are all of the options or the scenarios that planners need to be thinking through. And in each case, what would be our response options and how might they differ across that range? So you now remind our listeners, if anybody wasn't paying attention at the beginning, since we've, I, I brought this thing, not we, I brought it full circle, um, to this topic that you, you see this likelihood across most of those, that whole range probably as, as still low, still unlikely, uh, more likely than prior to the Ukrainian invasion, but still in the unlikely, uh, scenario at this point.

Did I capture that correctly in paraphrasing? I think, I think that's right. , uh, so I don't think it's the likely scenario, but I think that it's more plausible or possible given how Putin has played his hand so far than it was at the beginning. So you've been in a couple of unique positions in your life.

You know, you've been in positions where you've been in the room holding positions where you've dealt with some of the most enormous challenges that one could face from a leadership position. You know, only the toughest problems will have risen to be decided by some of the people you've, you've been in the room with and, and risen to the level where you had to decide them.

If, if they were easier problems, they would've been decided at a, at a lower level. But they've risen up to you and, and now they're, they're left to you to decide. So you have those challenges that you've dealt with, but then you've also, as you've mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, you know, you've had this, this other aspect of being, in some cases, the only woman in some of these rooms or in some of these positions.

And that's another factor that. It just, you had to balance as you decided these things. And I just wonder, you know, given all of that, do you have any, uh, advice for other young people who have the public service gene and, and want to be able to make big decisions in a room full of people who are made up of just all different types and, and how to deal with that?

Yeah, sure. I think the first piece of advice I would give is you have to be your authentic self in these roles, especially if you're in a leadership position, because if people smell phony, your credibility is out the window. So you have to find a way of being your true self and bringing that to how you are, how you act as a leader.

, number two is you have to have a clear eye notion of. , why you're there. And one of my early experiences was having a close friend who was a direct report to President Clinton, who notoriously ha had a bit of a temper. Um, you know, and this person said, Look, as a political appointee, you're, you're, you're me.

You're, you know, your goal is not staying in the job or job security or being liked. It is you have to speak truth to power. Your job is to tell the boss what they need to hear, not what they wanna hear. Because the system will duck the people who are careerists, the people who are trying to stay forever and ever.

They won't wanna be the ones to say, But that's your job. Your job is delivering the hard truth and to stand up and do that, even if it's some risk to yourself. , the third thing is, , if you have a choice, Choose the boss, not the job. I have found that my choice of bosses, mentors, teams far surpassed the, the job title description, portfolio description in terms of determining both how much I grew in the position and how much I felt I had an impact and enjoyed the work.

And then the last thing is you gotta figure out what kind of leader you wanna be. , and I think the best leaders are the people who, they do have a vision. They communicate that, they get others to be bought in and excited about it, but then they really empower and enable their, their team to actually go do, do the work, , and reward them, but also hold people accountable, , when they fall short.

And, you know, these problems are so massive and so complicated that. You can't be a good leader as an individual performer. You have got to figure out how to unlock the magic and the, the energy and the passion and the talents of your teams. That was a, a great answer. I think, uh, I would go back and change the way I took a couple of jobs, um, with this mentorship, uh, you're offering me right now.

I, I couldn't disagree. I wouldn't disagree with a single thing you said, and, and you demonstrate this, um, that our listeners can't see it. But you're, you're powering through this podcast right now with your leg up on a chair because you broke your ankle, uh, 10 days ago, jumping out of an airplane with Navy Seals.

So, yes, as my friend said, jumping out of a perfectly good airplane before it landed. . Mm-hmm. . Yes. Uh, actually it was a helicopter, if truth be told, but Oh, yeah, definitely not. Yeah. Okay. You jumped out of actually jumping out of a helicopter. For people who don't know is easier than jumping out of an airplane because Yeah.

You don't have the wind dynamics. Yes. But, um, that didn't affect your landing. So unfortunate. You, unfortunately, that was, uh, you've got a good story for a broken ankle. Better, better than, as you said earlier, um, stepping off the curb and it was an amazing experience. I, I loved every single moment until the very last one.

I'm sure that seal, uh, you jumped tanem. I guess. Uh, it, it feels. Incredibly bad. I can't imagine. Yes, it is. No, it is No one's fault. These things happen. Um, he, he should not feel badly. He's a, he was, he's an amazingly experienced person, and I was lucky to have the opportunity to jump. Well, we both know a lot of Navy Seals.

He absolutely thinks it's his fault, whether it is or not. And, uh, we, we hope he recovers from that quickly. , , I'll just, one, one very quick question that we'd like to end on. , right now, we, we went down into the depths of, , very scary things. , we, we barely came out. , but for a couple of breaths, you just hit one with your, your leadership, um, your three, three things to think about for leadership, which I think were great.

What, right now, whatever pops into your mind, what, right now are you optimistic about? What, when you look at the world right now and you think, Wow. Lots of pessimism to be hold out there, but I, I, I see this and, and I have hope. I actually, I get a lot of hope from working with young people and seeing their passion.

To change the world for the better their, their desire to serve, , how unaffected they are by so many of the differences that seem to polarize the older generations. It's like they're like, get over it. Like we're all, we're all Americans, we're all here, we're all capable. Let's, let's just work together and get, go forward with it.

So I get a lot of, , both joy and hope from working with young people who are coming into the field, and especially young leaders who are really starting to distinguish themselves and figuring out how to make a difference. That's perfect. , and I hope we get a bunch of them to listen to this because you're a fascinating person.

You've had a fascinating career. We definitely are rooting for you to get, uh, at least one more, if not multiple, more shots at the public service, , option there. And, and, and hopefully the right leader will come along to do it for you. That's gonna be a critical point of this, , equation here. But thank you so much for spending this time with us and thank you so much for what you're doing and, and please let us know if there's anything we can do to help out.

Yeah, thanks so much and best of luck with the, uh, podcast. Thank you.