i have been in this field for a long time, since i was a young academic in the mid-1970s's in harvard, and a lot of the illusions have percolated over the decade, the way that american academics, political employees, many of us keep winging it when we tried to shape foreign policy. >> your first is for a lifetime america has stumbled and stumbled again in political and military dealings with the rest of the world.

have we done anything right? >> we have done a lot right. we unambiguously won the cold war. we created and shaped the post world war ii economic order. we have performed well in the gulf war in 1991. in the balkans later in the decade, but by and large if one looks back over the lifetime of foreign policy making, it has been a dismal record. i would argue we have lost three if not for wars in a row. the korean war in the fight with china, iraq, which is exceedingly difficult to define,

and now the entanglement in afghanistan. when has -- when one has this background of dismal results in wartime, let alone on-again off- again dealing with the soviets, i would say that is a disparaging record. >> what do you do to make a living? >> i am a managing consultant. it means i work for a company that in vices boards. >> where did it start for you? >> i was born in connecticut. >> where did you go to school? >> i went to school in fairfield. i went to my first couple years of college in france and then 18 months in economics where i

graduated from in 1974. >> what did you do in the early years of graduation? >> i took a year off, spend it as a ski bum, returned to graduate school in short order. i was in the marine corps reserves common -- reserves, and i went to get an a in economics in colombia and became a research fellow in harvard and spent a lot of time before getting of final degree from oxford. >> is that the same thing as a ph.d.? what did you do at harvard, and how long were you there? >> i was at harvard as a research fellow from 1975, 1976 through 1983, and a research

fellow was a marvelous hunting license for leading faculty and fellow work groups, for serving as a tutor at dudley house, for a combination of teaching, research, and also starting a periodical that remains a definitive periodical. it is a quarterly periodical still published by the kennedy school of government at harvard. >> one of the terms you use throughout the book is "in merchant seamen." define that. >> -- emergency men. define that. >> emergency men make their careers around the crisis of the state. in the american notion, it is often times the political

appointees who are enthused by national security policy, more so than any other aspect of public policy, but national security policy with all the evidence of stryker brigades and nuclear deterrence and special ops and so for of and who for reasons of good citizenship, patriotism, personal enthusiasm, worked to influence national security policy. >> can you give some examples? >> one could think of the academic appointees who have flourished in the national security advisory roles, and one would be henry kissinger, who was described as president nixon for whom he worked as having a

passion for emergency. president nixon said in vietnam had not existed, henry kissinger would have had to created for the excitement of the emergency and crisis. >> it is a little long, but i want to read your conclusion. this is at the end of the boat. "we can safely conclude the american foreign policy establishment is not up to the task --

that sounds like you just indicted everyone involved in this foreign securities stuff. >> one looks at the end tuesday as who do shape foreign policy, and -- at the enthusiasts who do shape foreign policies, and you compare it, one cannot help but reach the conclusion that something is terribly wrong. what is wrong is that the so- called national security establishment has a passionate faith in the fine-tuning of american foreign policy, a consistent allusion that they can manage so many difficult problems, that everyone wants to

be like us, but one can have extraordinary returns and do a minimal amount of homework by knowing which directions the river's flow common so it is not an unfair conclusions. it does nothing to do with democrat republicans, conservative, or liberals. it is looking at the way america makes its foreign policies and then looking at the record, which is pretty different from any nation. >> you say the degree to which america celebrates is visible on the $2.4 billion a year speaker circuit. >> that is difficult to estimate, because there is no precise number. among the illusions is this concern with stars or losers.

america is the most obsess celebrity culture on the planet. why is that? it is because we are a democracy, and in a democracy of strong individuals, and a dramatic event has to be attributed to a star, to a person who caused it rather than to a sequence of events, and we carry that over into policy making, which is why for a dangerous amount of time we often give the benefit of the doubt to the national security wizard of the moment, whether it is robert mcnamara for donald rumsfeld. >> you say the hypnotism of fame grew cold as did much during the kennedy years. where do think this came from?

>> there are about half a dozen that are consistent that come from deep within the keel of american culture, the way we think about ourselves, the way we interpret tradition and miss. -- myth. this comes from being a democracy. democracies love star individuals. it is harmless if one is making a star out of britney spears or a share, but if one takes this notion of stardom into national security realm, there lies the mistake. americans give wives but now the stars and wizards really might not be what they are cracked up to be, but in that amount of time, chaos and mayhem can come

to rain. >> how did they get to be stars? >> the ivy league credentials have given extraordinary weight. they are made stars by the press. for example, when nixon resigned, one of the first announcement that his successor made to the white house press corps was that henry kissinger would be retained as both secretary of state and national security adviser. the press corps jumped up, stood, and clapped. here was an inordinate misplaced role by the press as well as the

rest of us. all this can come together mischievously when it comes to foreign policy making. >> why do american audiences spend $2.4 billion a year on speakers? you go in on general schwarzkopf be infected around the country after the iraq war and other people. what is it about us that we want to pay the big money to have people talk? >> america loves stars. america is the most celebrity- obsessed in the country. good we also have a unique appreciation for experts, and that is part of the celebrity culture. americans give a lot of deference to an expert, because we are the busiest culture.

we're always looking for shortcuts. if there is a star i can learn from, if there is an expert aiken delegate some hard task to, that saves time. this is all about the afford to rush. -- if there is an expert i can delegate some hard task to, that saves time. this is all about the afford to rush. a lot of them believe there is a solution to anything, that there are stars of the center of decision-making, when it is applied to foreign policy make ing, that is a whole different story. >> you have this in your book. the first is the sensation that encompasses the belief --

>> isn't that a marvelous american characteristic that everything has to be urgent and russia? we have to live with the next new thing. that is a marvelous american value, and it works terrifically at home and building a 14 trillion dollar economy, but when you apply that sense of urgency to having to transport the entire muslim world within the space of an american election cycle common than that urgency has a whole different consequence. >> solution #two, the faith that american-style business management as started in silicon valley --

>> that is the second key elision of american foreign policy going over the last lifetime, that any problem can be managed, whether it is a showdown with china on the korean peninsula or nation- building in vietnam or in deep managing the red army marshal's in negotiations with the soviet union. any problem in the world can be managed. a dangerous conviction. yet we take the belief in management the does nurtured silicon valley, and we believe we can manage iraq, then it's nation building in afghanistan common manage our allies in

putting together coalitions that time after time do not live up to expectations. >> where did you start it -- start now forming your own views? >> that is when i was at harvard in the 1970's and got concerned about how the soviet empire was misunderstood. i spent time in eastern europe, and i was able to discern, and it did not take much to see the evil in the soviets faith, and when americans became so enthused about the prospects that there could be convergence with the soviet union, that we could persuade done to see our ways, that struck me as an aleutian right there, yet that

was the prevailing view in american academia, certainly through the 1970's. >> how long did you live in russia? >> i did not live in russia, but i made numerous trips there starting at 19. >> how long have you been a management consultant? >> i withdrew full time from academia a number of years ago because i had a passionate interest in entrepreneurship, in building an enterprise, which struck me as the core american experience, so i had been teaching and georgetown one or two courses a year for the past 15 years in foreign policy, but the same time being interested in creativity and peak performance, i spend a lot of time with multinational

enterprises. >> your third is the distinctly american desire to fall behind stars of some experience which seems to glow with -- >> don't we have examples time and time? henry kissinger is an arch example of a superstar -- a superstar in foreign policy. can anyone say that the fine- tuning of those years have long term benefits? it struck me as short-sighted in that the soviets persisted in shipping weaponry to north vietnam that was killing americans, they kept building

biological weapons programs. there is a simple misinterpretation of the american opening of china. it was china rushing to us because of fear they would be attacked by the soviets union. cruxes any of that because of our foreign policy wizards who had set up the building of our military? the strong military. does that matter. >> a strong military is indeed important, and that has been an american assumption since the korean war common-law but what do we match the two? a military does not even exist by itself.

my argument would be that less might be more as america engages with the world. these ongoing attempts at fine- tuning, that any problem can be managed, that we can work our way, the political military clout is needed for such problem-solving often works against ourselves. it is argued that the key approach to pakistan to enhance stability might be new tariff rules in the united states. why should we erect barriers to pakistani industrial or textiles? imagine if they have freer access to the market? no, we have an atavistic political military solution that seems a bit simple rather than

engaging economically. >> if you had been asked to advise the president on what he should do, what would you have said? >> killed evildoers, and do it in the way it was done initially with special operations forces, targeted, focused, and going for the kill, but then when one segues into nation-building and seize enemy seizesees enemies, a constant failing has been -- and sees enemies, there was a chilling year when american started going big into vietnam. ho chi minh was the premier dictator of vietnam.

the soviet party boss was in hanoi and alarmingly said, you had better settle with more troops, and ho chi minh response, let them send in more troops, the argument being that, let's go stumbling about in areas we know little of, and it will be counter productive, and going after the evildoers' following 9-11. we fall into the hands of our opponents by crashing into iraq. >> why did we go into iraq? >> we went into iraq because it seemed to be easy. we were thinking the notion that this could be solved within six weeks, six months or less, the notion that we could transform

the middle east and the muslim world in general, the idea that everyone wants to be like us, all whole slew of illusions plus truly sloppy intelligence. >> aleutian #4 -- -- illusion #4 -- >> this is what separates it from me your hubris or wishful thinking. -- from mere wishful thinking. it imagines that one can accomplish enormous returns by sheer strength of will, high-

tech and imaginary friends of allies, but the will look -- the willfulness that can easily be accomplished, that is exhibit a with iraq. >> you write about korea and our involvement with china. >> consider korea. we had to rescue south korean, and the ministration did it promptly. the north vietnamese were thrown back, but then the exact same words we know today came to the fore, but the entire peninsula had to be it lead -- to be liberated and rebuilt, and knowing nothing about north

korea and not too much about china, we pushed into the biggest military ambush. >> what is your take in this business? >> my take is that he was the most brilliant and accomplished military commander of his generation. certainly no one else conceptualized the notion of turning the pacific ocean into a highway and going all the way from australia into tokyo bay, leafing island by island. he is also the most extraordinary of commanders in combined operations, and working together with navy, air, and ground, so an extraordinary commander, and as anyone would acknowledge, his role as three builder of postwar japan was a

phenomenal political accomplishment. >> what about their role in korea? >> that was far more troubling. yes, the attack in the counter attack was one of the triumphs in american arms, but the other question is what happens now. we had achieved the objection. we pushed the north korean spy above the 38th parallel. objective achieved. now what. it is a mistake of most historians to say that macarthur himself went charging up to the river on the chinese border. it was not that simple. it was not just macarthur pushing north. we were all in this together. a whole command structure from president truman, george marshall, who had returned to public service as secretary of

defense for a year -- everybody was into this, and it was not just macarthur. we thought it would be over for six months and that the entire korean peninsula would be liberated end liberalize. >> would you have fired him? >> we had no choice. time and again, one cannot have military officers, no matter how distinguished common cross civilian authority. one of the glories of america is civilian supremacy in political affairs, and that cannot be compromised. >> why did we go into vietnam? >> we went into vietnam for mistaken notions of analogy- making, which is that making analogy's is a characteristic

american style. the analogy used in vietnam was that this was like munich in 1938 -- hitler pushing into helpless territory, or that it would be an easy win like the american intervention in greece from 1947 until 1950, or indeed by that point that it could be like korea in which we would at least accomplish the original mission, so these were all motivations that brought us into vietnam -- the easy win, the false analogy making, the conviction that this could be pulled off by special operations forces. >> what would have happened if we had not gone into vietnam? >> it would have resulted as it did today. it would have been swallowed by north vietnam. i do not think there was any

doubt about that, and that was the reason we started going in big in 1964 and in 1965. >> did we waste our men and our money? >> that is a sad, ongoing debate, the extent to which that was blood and treasure squandered we perhaps came close to winning by 1970 or 1971. didn't buy us time for thailand to go stronger or for indonesia to swing to the american camp? these are arguments that have no conclusion and no end. >> #5 is conjuring powerful but simplify images from the depths of history to rationalize huge end --

>> what i tried to do is get into why we keep screwing up. we screw up in foreign policy, which is probably not news to most people. there are countless books right now on afghanistan or iraq, but why do we keep making these mistakes time and time again? why do we keep making these false analogies, whether in korea, vietnam, or iraq? a lot of this comes in the keel of american experience. on one hand we love history. good we are a nation of lawyers. tocqueville observed the lawyer was natural in america. lawyers love president.

we are a country of tomorrow. we always live in the future. we have a mismatch approach. he called analogy making the style, and it is a troubled have it. we make these analogies and screw up that comes deep within, looking for precedents, and yet not getting serious about history because we are always in the future. >> finally, the repeated belief america can shape the destiny of other countries overnight and that the hearts and minds of distant people -- >> yes, and let me step to the purpose of this book, which is

to show why we have these allusions. not to say we screwed up in vietnam or perhaps we are doing it again in afghanistan, and why do we use the same language decade after decade? why do we believe other people want to be like us? i would believe it is from the immigrant experience that people who transform themselves rarely believe that other people in their home countries can be transformed. it has as much to do as well with how we have such minimal understanding of the rest of the world. as a great nation of immigrants, so that the views of the world come from the assimilation experience. on one hand we believe an immigrant who comes to america,

a 17-year-old the enemies refugee who becomes a silicon valley ceo transforms himself or herself overnight, surely the home country can be transformed. this is the result of the immigrant experience. another result might be having a minimal interest in the homeland as the generations go by, or seeing the original homeland in stereotypes of dancing peasants or decadent urbanites in an old europe. so many of these ways in which we looked at the world, all of this comes from the wind within the american culture mesyth, and that is the contribution i believe this book makes to policy right thing, the reason why we keep falling short. >> i read your notes, and there were all kinds of questions, and

there are a lot of ad hoc questions that have no connection, but it was interesting, and i want you to fill in the blanks. it will be a little out of context for the audience, but i insure you can put it in context. this is out of chapter 1. i interviewed many of the principles -- what is that all about? >> i would argue we do not have a thorough understanding of the cold war itself. an example may be the way "the

new york times" on memorial day, the number of fatalities in the korean war dreadfully wrong. the experience of the society you cited is another unknown parts of the cold war, which in the late 1970's early 1980's was an extraordinary ad hoc within the government effort to counteract soviet astronauts. >> of columbia university president coined the term super power in 1934. >> yes, that is where it came from. what is he describing? the archetypal superpower was not necessarily america or the soviet union but the world wide globally deployed british empire. good >> i have to say this is personal because when i first came to town this man lived in

the building where i live. marshall used the phrase several times as a biographer bj -- >> he is one of the greatest of american military authorities and biographers, and he wrote a four volume biography on marshall. general marshall was described as comparable only to george washington in the american pantheon. >> this is 30. it is something about the past in vietnam " in the decision.

this seems to be used in caution. -- >> this got much attention. it strikes me as far-fetched that george bunn days would be so contrite in his final years, and he might not have been in the best condition to offer an

insightful interviews. >> who is bundy? >> he is the youngest team harvard college ever had. he was the star intellect of his generation, an aristocrat. >> why did you sign -- why did you decide to release the information? >> because it was important to the attention this last boat had garnered. is -- his last book had garnered. it is a testament to the man that is not somebody -- that this is not somebody who would suffer with internal regrets.

>> there is no rhyme or reason why would want to bring this up other than to decide if you listen to this show. sean hannity said -- why did you want to make that note? >> it shows the recklessness of so many foreign policy emergency enthusiast. this was a crisis that occurred during the presidential campaign, which was analogize to munich and to which enthusiasts on the left and right believe we should stand by georgia and stand up to russia, and something as preposterous as sending in military weaponry to shoot down russian aircraft. >> how often do you hear remarks

like that on talk shows you wish you could correct? one hears careless discussion of all the time, and it is by a lot of a steamed professors who might not have benefited from diving deep into the russian language archives. it is that the intelligence comes to the conclusions that only later are shown to be un- supportable it is a prevailing casual approach to american foreign policy making. >> the use speak russian? >> i used to work with the dictionary. i spoke dutch as a child. >> explain that, because your father was dutch. >> he came to the united states during world war ii.

my grandparents and cousins live in holland, and i benefited from being able to spend summers overseas. >> your father fought in the american military? >> he escaped the nazis. he served as a radio broadcaster in occupied holland, and he joined the dutch free forces. >> the abrasive secretary of state was the self-styled vicar of foreign policy under ronald reagan and fostered -- >> internal bickering has characterized a lot of american national security policy making, and keep in mind, why did these characteristics befuddle so many of america's approaches to the world bowman -- to the world? it is because we do not have a large foreign service that is pivotal to making foreign

policies. so many of our foreign policies are made by political appointees, so it leaves so much room for constant quarreling. >> i am just picking up a little bit from your foot. footnote 33 -- he spoke of the hit-and-run exile raids as probably exciting -- >> that is troubling. there was a lot of high adrenalin in the kennedy administration from the top down, and that was evidenced in foreign policy and with special forces that got us more in vietnam. >> an alternative view can be seen in my moscow discussion.

who was george kennan, and when did you have this discussion? >> he was the primary russians scholar who was pivotal for the notion of containment, and he became in a steam academic. in 1981, i encountered him in moscow, where he had a less than healthy view. he was denouncing the reagan administration as childish to the soviets, warning them the new administration was belligerent and so forth, and that was troubling to your and fueled the in a fears of the soviets to begin with, and the debate was arranged were represented a contrary view. >> you basically say he was

lionized by the media and the academic world, and what did you think of him in the aunt? >> -- what did you think of him then? >> he was prone to disparity. he insisted the cia give him a cyanide pill because he was certain he would get kidnapped. he was a troubled man who knew russia extremely well but and often had averaged views on his own country, and the american experience. >> the last note is i was discussing the new administration with richard perle and his own role during a

visit to a house in late may of 2001. that is before all the wars. why did you mention this? >> because richard perle along with other enthusiasts are smart, well-intentioned men and women. often they are working under the greatest of self deceptions, the belief that any problem that can be solved, that they have a short amount of time in government and that they will solve it while in power, in this book mentions a lot of names of people i have worked with over the years. >> what do you think mr. perot's impact was on the iraq war situation? >> that has been examined by many people, the role of the

neocons, which strike me as decisive, but there is no need to single out the mistakes of the neocons, because one can see this in the best and brightest of the kennedy years and the truman years in korean. time and again the players coming in and trying to fine- tune foreign policies are for the best. >> this includes an assessment -- why did you call him compliant? >> 1 concede that in the memoirs of douglas 5, an undersecretary of defense.

one can see that in interventions in which they apparently threatened frank with his job. >> what was his job? >> his job was ahead. rumford's job made a claim one could not cross the office of the secretary of defense, and to that end, compliant people work for him. >> could you work for the government? >> i have complied with them. >> what was walters during at the time, and why were you talking with them? >> i took it upon myself to visit the chinese embassy in paris, not realizing it was extraordinary for an american student to wander in may.

he became the deputy -- the deputy adviser. >> what do you think of the council in foreign relations, and how does it fit in this dialogue? >> it is an esteemed research think tank. i was a member for a number of years. it is the oldest foreign policy association in the united states, and it has excellent scholars and enthusiasts that work for the benefit of american foreign policies. it is an example of the think tanks that attract lots of enthusiasts, some of them experts, some of them qualified experts that shape policy making. this is not done in other parts of the world.

>> this is under the chapter "star power." many of us who work these issues found the indulging to be naive and outrageous. >> that comes from mistaken work by the esteemed historian, the biography of henry kissinger. there is nothing to lot about the way u.s. soviet relations were handled in the 1970's. certainly the indulgence to whom we've bent over backwards and the back channels that were always designed to share information.

it was contrary to our interests. >> why did the state department do it? >> it was not the state department. this was part of american policy making. we have the political appointees calling the shots. we do not have a foreign service the way england does, france those, and so forth. our foreign policy is made largely through political appointees, sending in these enthusiasts to high political office. >> footnote 21, was it was among those that -- >> yes, there was a lot of sloppy thinking leading up to iraq, and indeed, the oklahoma

city bombing was initially blamed on errors, and in the late 1990's, many well-intention foreign policy enthusiasts' worked to line of the united states to oppose saddam hussein to the extent of war. >> what do you think of jim bolten? >> and enthusiastic, public spirited individual who served with distinction as the u.s. ambassador in arms control negotiation and as the cia director under president clinton and who got woefully off track in his ability to fine-tune the middle east and the muslim world in general. >> the nbc pentagon correspondent, you refer to him as excellent. why?

>> i thought so, because there are many excellent people in press and academia and foreign service, and one can be astute and dispassionate and not have illusions about solving every problem on the planet or fine- tuning stop waziristan -- south waziristan. one can have a limited engagement and can be more productive. good >> you love that about the foreign general. you say that you worked with him several times on the essay about international security. why were you doing that? >> that is a magazine i was a co-founder of at harvard university in 1976, and working with general taylor shaping the

essay was an extraordinary experience, but it also provoked me to wonder how somebody of that stature and brilliance and ability could have gotten vietnam so wrong. but is not my conclusion, but the book had come of the previous year. >> later on, he used to be the chief. the admiral is considered -- who says so? >> the common opinion in the navy to this day. his ability, his competence in reshaping the navy. >> here is one --

were you listening? is that why you heard that? >> that example is the most deplorable instance of sloppy use of history by a secretary of state and the national security advisor who recalled donald rumsfeld and condoleezza rice were talking about the so-called not see hit teams appearing in baghdad. >> this is a very serious book. you quote j.k. rowling. i do not believe in magic. why? >> one has to have a sense of dark humor in looking at the past life time of american foreign policy making, because so much of it is done with the

best intentions and the world. the medical -- the magical belief we can transform a people and places while doing minimal homework, the belief we have an understanding of transforming history as well. that is magical thinking, but of course magic is not real, and the sixth founder of magic, j.k. rowling, the creator of great fantasy novels of recent times, is a reminder that this is not the real world. >> you dedicate the book to genevieve. >> a very smart, kind, courageous woman i admire. >> who is she? >> a friend. >> thank you very much for joining us. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]

>> for a dvd copy of this program, please call. now for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit our web site. "q&a" programs are also available as c-span podcast. >> tonight on prime minister's questions, british prime minister david cameron response to recent terrorist threats and budget cuts. also a review of midterm election results and what that means for congress. later, another chance to watch "q&a." tomorrow, the texas governor

talks about his new book, "said up -- fed up." it is part of his book tour. >> let me ask the prime minister in all seriousness -- is it really a wise judgment when he is telling everybody to tighten their belts to put his own personal photographer on the civil service pay roll? he asked the questions because he has not got the answer to anything. >> now time for prime minister's questions. this time they talk about recent

terrorist threats and the prime minister's decision to put his personal photographer on the payroll. he also talks about reducing unemployment and cuts in health spending. >> questions for the prime minister. john robertson. >> thank you, mr. speaker. i am sure the house will wish to join me in paying tribute to blanchard, who died on saturday. the work they do to make various safe for our soldiers and local people requires unbelievable acts of personal courage and self one -- selflessness. they are the bravest of the brave. william was a talented and caring soldier. our thoughts are with his family and friends, and we will not forget what he did. mr. speaker, this morning i had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. i shall have for the such meetings later today. >> john robertson.

>> and i associate myself with my hon. and right honorable friends with those comments for our soldiers and armed forces, particularly at this time. they will not be forgotten. now it is not the right hon. gentleman's problems that 555 of my constituents may lose out due to the education things being done away with in scotland. .