this is 30 minutes. >> our next guest has spent most of his life keeping america safe. before retiring in 2023 general mark milley served as the 20th chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the nation's highest ranking military officer and the principal military adviser to the president of the united states, the secretary of defense and the national security council.

before that general milley served as chief of staff of the army. and over his distinguished military career, he held multiple command and staff positions that included tours in iraq, afghanistan, korea and multiple international hot spots. i had the honor of working alongside general milley when i was serving as the assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs and pentagon press secretary under the late ash carter. and i saw firsthand general milley's leadership, his wise counsel and his deep commitment to our men and women in uniform and as general milley enjoys a well deserved retirement. he's actually busier than ever and among his new responsibilities, he's now a senior adviser to jp morgan chase. today, he's going to help us better understand the dangerous world we live in and the threats to our nation and our economy. please join me in giving a warm welcome to general mark milley. [applause]

thanks for being here. it is great to see you. i'm not used to seeing you out of uniform. so, first of all, congratulations on your retirement. are you relaxed now? gen. milley: probably not, but i'm ok. >> good, good. well, we're honored to have you here and to share your expertise and knowledge about it. what is a dangerous world? and, and i know you've given a lot of thought to it and you keep tabs on everything going on the world. let's go around the world to some of the hot spots that you're keeping an eye on. let's start in the middle east. we've seen what's happened over the last few, almost the past year. we saw this past weekend the israeli strikes in iran. you and i in the pentagon been talking about israeli strikes in iran a few years ago. that was a very big deal. it is a very big deal. what's your sense of where this goes next and just how dangerous it is going forward? gen. milley: first, let me thank you and the team for inviting me and, uh, i recognize that i can't see hardly anybody but i

know that the people in the road are controlling basically $24 trillion or $25 trillion of a $30 trillion economy. so good on you for doing that. and you may or may not quite realize it, i know people thank all of us in uniform for our service, but i want to thank you and your service because the two key components of national security and the international scene is a strong military and a strong economy. and i, and i'm here to tell you that the banking community of the united states is strong, 4500 banks across the country. we've got an incredible economy as you just saw with the economists and the envy of the world and a lot of that has to do with you guys. so, thanks so much for your service. [applause] gen. milley: peter, to get to your question on the middle east, look. middle east is a real challenge right now as we know, and you don't need me to necessarily tell you that. october 7th was a horrible day .

hamas in my view, and this can be somewhat controversial, i suppose. and i don't mean to be that way, but hamas is a terrorist organization. there's, there's no daylight in my mind between hamas and what the nazis did at auschwitz sort of thing. their goal, their objective is, is to murder all the jews and destroy the state of israel. and they are dedicated to that goal. they, it's in their charter, they came across that border on the seventh and they slaughtered 1200 people in a couple of if that happened in the united hours. states, the equivalent would be 70,000 americans killed in a couple of hours in brutal ways that don't need description here. so it's, it's understandable from my perspective as a soldier, uh the israeli reaction which was overwhelming military force and they dedicated themselves. their military objective is to destroy hamas as a political and military entity. now, here we are a year later and they have pretty much

accomplished that military task. they have destroyed probably two thirds, maybe 70% of hamas as best i can tell. destroyed most of their logistics and certainly killed all of their leadership. now, hamas is more than just people and guns. it's also an idea and there hasn't been a political replacement to hamas yet, but they've done a lot of damage to hamas. the cost of that though has been extraordinarily high, which is the collateral damage to the palestinian people in gaza. the military task of fighting in a highly dense urban area with a couple million people and a couple of square miles is really, really difficult and the israelis have not gone in there with the intent to slaughter a murder of civilians, but hamas is hiding behind civilians, they're hiding below hospitals, they're hiding inside a mosque, etc. so the military task was extraordinarily difficult for the israelis. but i think now that the leadership is gone, there is an opportunity here. and i think you saw on the news just yesterday where the egyptians are offering to help out with a bit of a cease fire.

at the end of the day, you'll probably see over the course of time, some political program emerge, you'll probably see some sort of hopefully an arab led peacekeeping force, peace enforcement force to go in there and stabilize the situation. but gaza and hamas is only one part of a larger problem. you've got a significant issue going on with lebanese hezbollah on the northern front, the west bank. you've got shia militias that operate out of syria and iraq, you've got the houthis and of course, behind all is iran and you just saw an israeli counter to the iranian attack where the iranians launched a 180 crew -- crews, ballistic missiles at iran or at israel and, and the israelis took those down. but the israelis answered with some precision strikes the other day, limited, not devastating and those strikes were meant to send a message to iran that israel can operate with impunity inside the, inside the iranian airspace. they took out air defense sites, took out some missile sites.

now, what will iran do in reaction remains to be seen? so, in the last 24 hours, iran said they would respond, they would use all the tools, but we don't know exactly what that's going to be yet. so we're in an escalation ladder. this could go in a lot of different directions. none of which is exactly predictable right now. but israel has the right to defend itself and that's exactly what they're doing and i think the us is supporting them. exactly right. host: the capabilities that the israelis have displayed over the last year or so, even in the last few weeks, i'm sure you're well aware of them, but they have, as you said, achieved some of their military goals. gen. milley: they have, they've achieved their military objectives to destroy the military entity or the terrorist entity called hamas. they've also taken out the entire leadership of lebanese hezbollah. you saw that over the last couple of weeks. that's incredible. what from military technical standpoint, their ability to destroy the leadership of

lebanese hezbollah is impressive, but lebanese hezbollah is not destroyed just their leadership. now it's a big organization, lebanese hezbollah. and the objective for the israelis, i believe is to prevent lebanese hezbollah from continuing to conduct missile rocket attacks and to push them back probably north of the litani river. again, very difficult task, not yet complete and we'll see where that goes. but again, the bigger issue will be iran at the end of the day. it's my belief and i may be wrong but i think that iran's hidden hand is behind a lot of this and these are surrogates of iran, lebanese hezbollah and the houthis and hamas. so i don't think they're doing things without some sort of iranian approval. the iranians may not have exact command and control in the true sense of that word, but they have a degree of influence that is much beyond, you know, just

talking. so they've got advisers, they've trained, they man equip they give them weapons and so on and so forth. so there's a lot of influence there. and i do think that iran is playing a very, very heavy hand here. so israel's fighting in four or 56 different directions simultaneous. it's not over by a long shot and we will see where it goes. from a u.s. standpoint, our interest is to maintain, to contain this at a level of conflict so it doesn't expand into a very broad, very significant regional conflict where u.s. or european forces have to be involved in some capacity. that is not in u.s. interest. it is a regional conflict in the sense that you've got attacks coming from multiple directions, but it's not a very large regional conflict yet, it could go that way. it may not, we'll see what happens but that would not be in the interest of the global community. it certainly wouldn't be in the interest of the countries of the middle east, israel and

certainly not in the interest of the united states. host: obviously, we have us forces in the area. they're not directly involved except for the u.s. navy sailors out in the red sea helping defend shipping lanes and keeping commerce flowing. any thoughts about the cadence and what's being asked of those? gen. milley: well, we do have troops in exposed positions. so you have ground troops in syria. you've got ground troops in iraq. we do have some folks in israel. obviously, you've got american citizens, you've got embassy folks there. you've got the u.s. naval personnel, we've got air forces deployed throughout the middle east. you've got a considerable footprint in the middle east that are all in various levels of exposure. if it was a broad regional conflict. now, we're capable of defending ourselves. your military is extraordinarily capable in so many ways. and i know general carilla, the commander of centcom has taken all the appropriate force protection measures for his troops. so our guys are at risk though, nobody should underestimate the levels of risk.

our people are at in the middle east right now. host: let's move into europe if we can in the situation in ukraine. some people have described it as a stalemate. how do you see this playing out next? and what, what's your, what's your takeaway at this moment in time about that conflict? gen. milley: well, i think it is a strategic stalemate so tactically at the tactical level you're getting puts and takes on either side, you saw this offensive by the ukrainians in to kursk. you have seen local offenses by the russians. so tactically, you're getting some advances and retreats on either side. so there's some tactical gains and losses. but at the strategic level, it is, in fact, its stalemate. it has been for some time. and what do i mean by that? well, warfare is always about political objectives. so the political objectives of the russians was to go ahead and well, warfare is always about political objectives. so the political objectives of the russians was to go ahead and

topple the uh the government of, of ukraine, the capture or kill zelensky and his government and then advance to the river and then get to the carpathian mountains that failed, that failed a couple of years ago. and the objective, political objective of the ukrainians, of course, is to eject the 202 150,000 russians that are currently occupying 20% of ukraine. so the probability of russia overrunning ukraine is very, very low militarily speaking and the probability of ukraine militarily compelling the withdrawal of a quarter of a million russian troops is equally low. uh neither side really has the military, wherewithal the military capability right this minute, to achieve either one of those political objectives at the strategic level. so it is a stalemate and it has been for quite some time. and now what will break the stalemate? well, we'll see the, we i think in the case of president putin and i'm not a mind reader, but i believe that he is calling on other countries, north korea, for example, to bring in reinforcements.

the russians have suffered somewhere north of 500 some reports are out there at 600,000 killed and wounded, which is really significant are their ground forces. are the russians still have a capable naval and missile force and air force, but their ground forces have been chewed up really seriously. they've had to have three mobilizations. the russians have over the course of a couple of years. so russian ground forces have lost their tanks, lost their mechanized infantry vehicles, lost a lot of personnel. and i think calling on north korean ground troops is an indicator of the degree of stress and strain that russia is under. and of course, you saw previously where they were using prisoners and so on and so forth. so russian ground forces have been chewed up really, really badly in this war. and russia has suffered having said that though if, if the united states somehow withdraws aid, military aid, financial aid or if europe and nato withdraws that in the coming months or years, that would probably be catastrophic for ukraine and

ukraine would be placed at a great disadvantage. they'd probably still fight, but they'd be fighting at a great disadvantage. and the advantage then would go to russia and russia would get a strategic boost in that and probably end with a strategic win. so that would be unfortunate. so for the united states. i'm in a camp and i think there's bipartisan consensus up on the hill for that to continue to support ukraine militarily. and, and if you think about it in terms of money and you guys are all bankers we've put about, i think it's 3% or so equivalent of the us department of defense budget to support ukraine.

and most of that money has gone into american contractors to build the weapons to give to ukraine and what have, what have, you know, in terms of, and i'm not trying to be cold blooded, calculating here about money and lives. but that investment has resulted in the destruction or the near destruction a couple of times over of the russian ground forces and now the ukrainians have done the fighting. no americans are involved in the fighting, no nato troops involved in the fighting. and i think as a matter of practicality, that's something we need to do, but it's bigger than that. it's much bigger than that. ukraine is not just about ukraine for the united states. it's about how world war i, i ended and what world war i, i was all fought about, which is the so called rules based international order. and it's a matter of principle, it's written into the very first paragraph of the, of the united nations charter. so at the end of world war, i, i, we americans wrote, as you heard jamie dimond say earlier, we wrote the rules that have made us prosperous and made us strong and safe for the last eight decades. those rules are under incredible stress. they're under stress in europe to be sure by the attack of russia into ukraine and the very first rule that underwrites that is that countries cannot use their military to attack

smaller weaker countries arbitrarily to change boundaries unless it's an act of defense. and in the case of russia, ukraine, ukraine was never going to attack russia. so this was an act of aggression, a war of aggression by putin which by definition in the united nations in the post world war i i documents is an illegal act. so he's conducting an illegal act of aggression and the united states stands for something in this international order and it's our job to stand on that principle. now it doesn't require the commitment of troops. it's not a nato article five country, but we are committing all kinds of resources with weapons and money and intelligence and so on. and i think that's very appropriate in order to support ukraine in their fight for their own liberty and freedom. show >> one last question on ukraine, what have we learned here?

we are talking about the north koreans apparently coming in in support of the russians. what have we learned about the capabilities of the russian military? did we think too highly of the russian military? what have we learned? >> the war is a dynamic interaction between competing wills. so the russians clearly underestimated the ukrainian capability. um they are, the russians are fighting a nation in arms, not just fighting the ukrainian military, they attacked with about call it 200,000 or so and seven ax accesses of advance in a conventional combined arms offensive on seven ax accesses of advance and, and uh and they use their air power, the missile power and ground forces. and the ukrainians had early warning from us. we gave them very, very exquisite intelligence. so we acted more or less as the ultra secret for the ukrainian military. and the ukrainian military was able to effectively execute an area defense. and we flooded the zone with the weapons they needed at the time, which were anti tank weapons against the armor assault. in fact, we gave them more anti tank weapons than there are tanks in the world. and, and they were effectively used and through the bravery and courage of the ukrainian people, they were able to defeat that initial offensive defeat,

meaning that the russians didn't achieve their objectives. and then russia readjusted and they brought their troops out of the northeast and they came around to try to create this contiguous land bridge over the summer, first summer and that offensive failed as well for the same reasons. and then ukraine launched two limited counteroffensives which was successful in kan in kharkiv and they were successful. and then over the winter, they tried to build their force with us. and european help to conduct a large counteroffensive in the spring that did not achieve its objectives. so you have, you're back at that stalemate. but i would tell you that the ukrainian people fought an extraordinary fight and are still fighting an extraordinary fight. their resources are not unlimited. and the russian military, i think they're a learning organization. you've shifted now into this. a lot of drone war and a lot of other capabilities of being

introduced. but the russian military, i don't think they were, were overestimated per se. i think that they executed their operations as we thought they would and the ukrainians beat them on the battlefield. and i think a couple of things that did surprise me, one was the russian air force. so the russian air force did not perform the way i thought they were going to perform. and that's because again, the ukrainians, the ukrainian air defense was extraordinarily effective against the russian air force and they shot down the russian airplanes in the initial part of the fight. and so the russians, all the russians have done now is use their air force from russian airspace, launching long range precision missiles into ukraine. so that was, that was one, the other one that really surprised me was the ineffective use of russian electronic warfare. i thought that was going to be a much bigger factor than it proved to be. and i still am not 100% sure why they didn't shut down all the command and control networks that the ukrainians were using. some people have suggested because they're using the same frequency levels, same radio

types, that sort of thing. i don't know. i'm not sure even today, what the full reason is, but the russian, the full capability of russian electronic warfare, i don't think was brought to bear and there were some other big lessons learned but broadly speaking. no, i don't think they were overestimated. i think the ukrainian defensive capability and the heroic nature of the ukrainian people were perhaps a bit underestimated. >> i may move you to asia now. great indo asia pacific. yes, we've seen what the chinese have been doing to bolster their military. we've seen the south china sea and some of the activities there. we've seen the tension around taiwan that continues. what makes you nervous or what has your eye in the indo asia pacific right now? >> well, look, we're, we're in a uh geopolitical competition struggle uh with china. uh it's going to be multigenerational. this isn't near term like tomorrow, next day it's going to be over. um and there is the possibility,

not the probability but the possibility of armed conflict between two great powers. united states and china. uh china has the natural resource, the people, the population, and most importantly, the money to challenge the united states on a global scale. if you look back when i was, i was commissioned in 1980 i did 44 years of service. during that 44 years, the russian military or the chinese military transitioned from a foot infantry, peasant based foot infantry army with no satellites, no navy, no significant air force, no missile force. then in 1979 deng xiaoping reformed their economy and you know that the chinese economy had a growth rate of 10% or so. for maybe 30 years, it came down to seven now down to four. and they've got internal challenges, but china became an enormously powerfully rich country, second only to the united states. and like most countries

throughout history, when they earned that level of wealth, when they, when they developed that amount of financial throw weight in the system, they also embarked upon a military program to develop their military to be world class. so for the first time in chinese history, they have now 44 years later, 45 years later developed the world class military. now they're not equal yet to the united states military. the united states military is still the most powerful, most effective force in the world. and the chinese know that but the chinese are trying to develop their military to a point where they will be the dominant military in east asia, western pacific, at least by the mid thirties or maybe earlier, president xi has told his generals to develop the capability. he didn't say he was going to invade but to develop the capability to invade the island

of taiwan and seize it by 2027 which is right around the corner. now, that doesn't mean he's going to do it. he told his guys to develop the capability to do it. and there's some symbology there because it's the 2027 is the 1/100 anniversary of the people's liberation army as well. but by the mid thirties, china's intent is to be the dominant military diplomatic economic power in all of all of asia. by mid century. by 2049 it's china's aspiration to be the number one global military diplomatic power, at least coequal but preferably superior to the united states in terms of its economic throw weight and its military. now, will china get there or not very much an open question? and that could go in a lot of different directions. china is not 10 ft tall, they have all kinds of internal problems and so on and so forth. but it is worth, you know, paying very close attention to because they are probably the one country who has the legs and the distance that could literally challenge the united states position on a global scale.

russia clearly is an acute threat and it's dangerous. they obviously have a lot of nuclear weapons and they're engaged in active the biggest ground war in europe since 1945. but it's really china, that is the long range serious challenge to the united states. and it's more complicated. we're living in a multi polar world now. so you've got three great powers, the united states, russia and china. during the cold war, we had two immediately following the cold war. it was a unipolar moment, as people say so for a short period time, the united states clearly was pre eminent and the only real superpower out there. but today, it's clear we're in a multi polar world and that's really growing in a lot of different ways and it's a much more complex world today than it was not too long ago. so we're in an environment internationally geopolitically where you have an active war going on in the middle east. you've got the largest ground war since 1945 going on in europe and you've got china that is certainly becoming much more

assertive, if not necessarily aggressive with their military use in the south china seas trying to intimidate and use military coercion against taiwan. and so it is a, it's a world in which there are a variety of warning flags that are out there now. they, this is not necessarily new. these flags have been fluttering for a good 10 plus years, but they're out there and, and i would just caution as we go forward as a country um for people to pay close attention to what i was talking about this so called rules based order. uh if you go back, at least in european history, uh go back to say the treaty of westphalia which ended the 30 years war in europe, um that, you know, where, where protestants and catholics were slaughtering each other for 30 years. and they come up with this idea of sovereignty and sovereign nations and, and it's called the

treaty of westphalia. that westphalian system was in order in europe that prevented major outbreaks of continental wide war for about 100 years until it broke down in the 17 fifties. uh in the uh in the seven years war in europe and in the united states of the french and indian war. uh and then that lasted for 65 years where europe ripped itself apart. it leads the american revolution, it leads the french revolution. uh it leads to the napoleonic wars of 20 years. and then in 1815 napoleon wars were over napoleons in elba and they say, you know, we can't do this again 65 years. so they set up the concert of europe and that lasted for 100 years to 1914. and it breaks down into world war. i where we now go into 30 more years of war between 1914 and 1945 and 150 million people get slaughtered in the conduct of great power wars. so in 1945 we, the united states gathered people together as jamie was saying earlier at bretton woods and we set up nato, we set up the un and of course other countries participated, but it was the united states that took the lead.

we're in the 80th year of that, that, that so called rules based order. and there is stress on that in the international system and there is stress on that domestically as well. there are many people domestically who want to pull back were overstretched and these are legitimate concerns. but if you throw out that rules based order, you really run the risk of, you know, creating this hobs and world of only the strong survive. and that's a very dangerous world. i was at normandy several different times but one of the times recently i saw a sergeant from the 82nd airborne division who jumped in and parachuted into normandy the night before the amphibious landing. and i leaned over to him in my uniform and i said, sergeant, tell me, tell me your great lessons of world war.

i, i, and i thought he'd tell me some tactical lessons about shoot straight or stay low or something like that. and he looked up with tears in his eyes and he said, general, never let it happen again. and you know, don't let that happen. the same message that my dad hit the beach at iwo jima, same message as my mother had, who served in the navy in world war. i i, the great power wars are horrible, terrible things and we need to make sure that we put a great effort at maintaining our superior economy, maintaining a superior military, maintaining mature, seasoned leaders that are thoughtful deliberative, not impulsive, not going to get out there and, and get us wrapped around the axle with a great power of war. so that could be a very dangerous thing. so history doesn't repeat itself, but as mark twain says, it rhymes and we're in one of those moments when history can rhyme. so i throw a flag out there for folks for the next 1015 years are going to be very determinative for our children and our grandchildren. and i think that you should have confidence in your military. your military is dedicated to the constitution and they're not going to turn their back on it. they're going to defend the u.s.

>> we got time for one last question and i want to try and combine that thought right there about the current us military, the capabilities of our women and men in uniform. how good are our people? and then i pointed for those transitioning out of the military. i'm not encouraging anyone to leave the military, but tell me why these bankers should consider hiring someone leaving the military? >> look, you have a great military and anyone who says otherwise either never served no want to serve, dodged their service or don't know what they're talking about. so i can assure you, i can assure you from private to general. you have an exceptional military that is highly trained, very well led, very well equipped right now. you're, you're running probably about 100 to 150 ships in the oceans of the world, keeping the sea lanes safe for commerce.

you're running about probably 5000 sorties of aircraft every day. you've got 180,000 us troops deployed in about 100 120 countries around the world, maintaining some of stability. that's not happening because of pixel dust and magic dust. that's happening because of well trained, well resourced, well led troops around this world and many of them are in harm's way. so every single day, we should be thanking the lucky stars that we have young men and women that are willing to answer the call to the colors because they're out there on freedom's frontier every day, allowing you to be bankers, allowing americans the right to vote in next week, allowing americans freedom of speech and the right to protest and so on and so forth. those rights are the down payment for those rights. the down payment is the blood of american soldiers and that has been paid for for 2.5 centuries. so you have every right to be

proud of your soldiers, your sailors, your airmen and marines because they're the ones on a day to day basis that are providing the environment for you to enjoy the freedoms that we have. and i will tell you that those that do separate from service, i would just ask you to really consider hiring a vet, what you're going to get is a mature young man or woman. you're going to get someone who's dedicated, hard worker who wants to get ahead. they're well disciplined and they're good people and they're going to, they're going to do great things for america. one of the things that the american military does and does very well is create great american citizens and we take them from high school or college and whether they're officer nco or junior enlisted, every single one of them is dedicated to this country and they're never going to turn their back on the constitution show less text on that note, general millet. thank you for your service. thank you for being here today. appreciate it. oh, great. we're gonna head out this way.