thank you. >> rose: major general h.r. mcmaster, he is command erp of the army's maneuver center for excellence in fort benning, georgia inspect in 2005 and 2006 he led the third cavalry in iraq. he also directed the joint anticorruption task force in kabul, afghanistan, from 2010-2012. last month, secretary of defense hagel. he will oversee the army's think tank which focuses on the future of warfare. i am pleased to have major general h.r. mcmaster back at this table, welcome. >> charlie, thanks. it's great to be with you. >> rose: you as well. tell me what your new responsibilities are. >> it's a privilege to continue to serve in any capacity but it's particularly exciting to join an organization who makes sure our army is prepared as

part of the joint force to deter conflict, to response to crisises and if necessary fight and win in future wars. as americans we don't expect to, and we ought not to have fair fight. so we want to give our forces every advantage we can give them. and so the first order of business is to sort of lay a strong conceptual foundation that defines the problem of future war, and then how we have to preparure forces to fight and win in future armed conflicts. >> rose: are we now prepared it fight two warlz at the same time? >> i think it's been clear from public statements recently tha that-- that-- that old defense strategy of being able to fight two wars simultaneously is no longer feasible given the size of the force and the capabilities and the projections for the defense budget. so the key is, as general oderno or the vice chief of staff has spoken about just in this past week, we believe our army can do the minimum to summit the current defense strategy, which

is to fight one major contingency operation, hold on to another one, and be able to respond to that one later, at a force size of about 450,000, but that's really cutting it close there. of course, there are dangers that we'll fall below that level. but, of course, as military officers we don't make those decisions. in a democracy, you get the army that the people are willing to pay for, and it's our job as general officers and leaders to do best we can with those resources. and make sure we do right by the nation and do right by our soldiers. >> rose: let me talk about something you write about with interest and this why i think general petraeus liked and you people like me who like to read what you say. the first is revolution in military affairs. what do you mean by that? >> this orthodoxy of the revolution in military affairs, it really gained a lot of momentum in the 1990s, and it actually set us up for a lot of difficulties we had in both afghanistan and iraq. this is the idea that advances in technology, and in particular, communications

technologies, information technologies, computing power, precision are you of munitions -- had made war wholly new and future wars were going to exhibit a high degree of discontinuity with all words that had gone before it. the saw. was the application of these technologies to war would make war fast, cheap, efficient, and allow us to dominate any opponent. i mean, the lpg surrounding this orthodoxy was pretty arrogant. >> rose: a lot of that came out of the gulf war from '91, did it not? >> it did, it did. >> rose: we had such a superior military force. >> we did. and i think it was a misunderstanding, though, of the result of the gulf war throad a lot of it. the conventional wisdom came in the wake of the gulf war, the abilities and potential in the gulf war were going to be decisive in the future wars. they undervalued the training and professionalism of our force, which gives us a tremendous advantage, along with

the technology. it also undervalued the iraqis' approach to the war. i think are you can say there are two fundamental ways to fight the u.s. military-- asymmetrical and stupid. and i think the iraqis in 1991 chose stupid. many fought with great courage and honor but they were overmatch nevada ways they could not even imagine because they had at war with the iranian from 80-88. you had the infantry walking at them. and now you had armored formations that could five fireand move forward at the same time and force forces that were confident and well trained. these aspects of our overmatch i think were underappreciateed. >> rose: who has fought the best asymmetrical war against the united states? >> gosh, i think all our adversaries have tried to some degree or another. and you can go back, obviously, to the frontier wars and the wars against native american tribes which were fundamentally asymmetrical. i think you can look at the

fights we've had in the philippines, during the philippines insurrection, fundamentally asymmetrical. >> rose: asymmetrical means? >> it's common sense. if you see the enemy has certain strengths, you don't want to impale yourself on that strength. you want of i want to go around that strength and take advantage of weaknesses. >> rose: most revolutionary forces are asymmetrical. >> they are because they come at the problem from a military weakness so they have to organize military operations in a way that allows them to strike at strengths and make contact with us and fight us on their own terms. and also, they operate on multiple battles grounds, all of our enemies do. >> rose: did the insurgency in iraq have that capability? >> . what was striking about this insurgency-- and i think as well, also the insurgency in afghanistan-- is that they continually evolved, based on

how they saw our responses to their actions against us. for example, initially the iraqis, the iraqi insurgency was really driven toward inflicting casualties on us and they thought we would leave. and saddam handed out copies of "black hawk down." kill some americans and they'll leave. when that didn't work, they attacked infrastructure, make people miserable, draw pools of popular discontent from which you can draw strengths. and then they began to attack neighborient forces. and ultimately, they formed an alliance of convenience between former saddamists and jihadist organizations associated with al qaeda. this is when zarqawi came into the picture. and their strategy became to perpetuate and accelerate a sectarian civil war, create a chaotic environment, and out of that chaotic environment, try to establish controls in certain territories . >> rose: but the surge drove a

wedge between that relationship. >> it did. i think ultimately we responded to that evolution of the conflict. we were behind. i think we were behind in the beginning, mainly based on ignorance of the problem set there that i think had quite a bit to do the orthodoxy, the idea we would in the future be able to conduct what was called at the time rapid, decisive operations, neglecting some of the continuities in the nature of war it's political dimension of war, the human dimension of war, war's inherent uncertainty, war is a contest of wills. i think we went from ignorance-- i think we went from ignorance to denial to a certain extent. we didn't want to conditional this was an insurgency and a threat to our vital interests and consoldaylight the gains in the iraq and get to a sustainable outcome there consistent with our interests. as the insurgency continued to evolve, we didn't maybe adapt fast enough. and i think when you saw that adaptation was toward the end of

the 2006, beginning of 2007, when it was clear the dominant feature of the war in iraq had become this very struck thive sectarian civil war that still had a problem of insurgency associated with it, still had a problem of transnational terrorism associated with it. but them we were able in 2007 to reassess the situation, ask the right questions, and then develop a strategy and an operational plan to address it. >> rose: is it fair to say-- and i don't-- that the modern american text pook o textbook on counter-insurgency came out of the iraq war? >> i think so. but there can be no textbook-- i think this is where people get confused sometimes. counter-insurgency -- >> did you write a manual. >> we did write a manual but in our army doctrine helps you conceptualize but doesn't give you the answer.

it's like von claus said, military theor senot to accompany you to the battlefield and tell you what to do. it's just like an old professor prepares a student, but then the student has to go on and make his own way. it's not designed to give you a strategy. so i think when some people criticize-- i think now it's become very fashionable, almost conventional wisdom to say, "that didn't work. the counter-insurgency theory didn't work. look at what happened in iraq?" it was never meant to be a strategy. so it can help you request the right questions. can you help you access previous best practices, but you have to understand each these problem sets on your own term? >> zero dark 30 say fallacy, and we know what that means. i'll have you tell me. the idea that specialops can take care of everything. >> the danger of these fallacies is they confused vital

capabilities for strategies and for the answer to future wars. so just as the rm a assumes you can solve the problem of future war by applying firepower on to land from the arrow space maritime domains, its zero dark 30 fallacy is all you need is a global swat team that can do raids against enemy organizations and you can do it efficiently for relatively low cost. and what special operations forces do is amazing. they're keeping us safe -- >> how is it different from what you just said? >> , of course, the enemy has a say and our enemies apply counter-measures to all of these capabilities. i mean, they're traditional-- concealment, intermingle with civilian population. there are technological counter-measures. and all enemy organizations are not the same. so we, because of our global interests and because of our vital interests and those of our key partners and allies, you

know, can be place at risk by nation states and the fielded forces of nation states, and these networked organizations that are quite dangerous because a lot of these organizations-- you can look at hezbollah for example -- >> in syria? >> in syria if you look at alinous ra, and isi, if you look at hezbollah's operations in israel itself, these are nonstate actors who can capabilities previously only-- those are destructive weapons. it's communications. it's the ability to mobilize resources. sufficient financial resources. >> rose: are they dependent on nation states to provide them the,s they use. >> this is the nexus between hostile nations and these forces. for example what, would hezbollah be without iran, really, and what would-- what would al qaeda and associated groups be without at least the ability to establish support

bases and safe havens within the bound reas of certain nation state. so i think it's important for us to be able to deter nation states, as well as nonstate actors, but also to be able to respond to crises involving the fielded forces of nation states and sold hybrid enemies. >> rose: there is a sense in the country, i think, and you hear it in terms of conversations that a lot of people look and think the future of modern watch is paramilitary and special ops kind of forces. >> right. >> rose: and sometimes it is characterized as sort of a counter-terrorist warfare rather than counter-insurgency warfare. >> right. i think that's a fair statement. i think people would like war to be sort of a problem you can address by raiding. i call it a sort of raiding mentality. it doesn't get you involved in all the difficult things on land, you know, like people and

populationpopulations and securf course, the enemies ar enemies o operation in population. they go to areas that are weak north under state control, so it's important to work with partners, and we have to have the capability ourselves to -- >> if i remember correctly you made your first reputation in terms of analysis to the vietnam war. and part of what came out of vietnam war is hearts and minds. >> right, right. >> rose: that seems to me to still be relevant to modern watch if in fact it's a counter-insurgency that you're fighting. >> that's right. >> rose: bought you depend on them for, among other things, intelligence-- i.e., information. >> right, and what we see, what is common, i think, to many of these conflictses-- and, of course, all of them have unique dynamics associated with them-- but what's common i think in syria, what's common with the conflict in yemen. what you see in northern nigeria, what you see in libya today. what you saw in mali. what you see in many other places --

>> that's most of the hot spots except ukraine. >> right. and what you see is you see these transnational terrorist organizations who take advantage of local competitions, political competitions for power, sources and survival and portray themselves as patrons and protectors of one of the aggrieved parties and that's how they gain access. once they gain access-- you see what they've done in syria. they have their own agenda and establish control by threw brutality, murder, and intimidation. some force has to lift that pall of fear, lift the intimidation -- >> but we have no force doing that, other than the force of the syrian army today, and they have their own fear element and alls of-- >> that's absolute right. i'm not saying we should do this. that's a policy decision,

certainly. but we don't want to be delusional about the ability to achieve or help the syrian people achieve some sort of sustainable outcome there in syria that does anything less than establish security under some sort of political control. >> rose: then where is it going to come from in syria? >> that's the real problem. >> rose: that's not a policy question. >> the society is becoming more fractious and fragmented as the cycle of sectarian violence continues. >> rose: and even elementes of people within fighting each other. >> that's right. >> rose: with levels of violence. >> right. what's i think is important about the syria problem is how we think about it. we've got to really ask the first order questions as we have here-- what is the real nature of the conflict? there's been some great work done on that by international crisis groups other ands that really summarizes the nature of the conflict. and given that nature of the conflict, what can be done. with all of these problems, each of the ones i mentioned, there

is an internal dimension which in syria and getting worse and worse. there is also an external dimension to the problem and some suggest the international community needs to work on the problems from the outside in and prevent the conflict from expanding geographically and becoming more destructive and more of a humanitarian crise but to work towards some sort of political outcome that can break that cycle of violence. and ultimately there has to be some internal political conversation or settlement that removes support for these extremist groups who find it is in their interest to perpetuate the violence. what happens is you have a war time economy that begins to be self-perpetuating and you have powerful people inside of a power vacuum, really, who see it as in their interest to perpetuate it.

>> the marlin perkins, wherever he was staying, he was not on the battlefield of-- but he sent jim,000er to do that. and your point is? >> we're searching for the easy solutions, and one of the easy solutions we're in danger of seizing upon is we'll get other armies to do that for us, and we'll be like marlin perkins, stand off and provide capabilities and advisers. this ignores important continuity in the nature of war. war is essentially political. it depends on the agree which your interests, first of all, align with those of your partners you want to fight on your behest, and it has a lot to do with the interests of these various groups. we've encountered some of these pitt fails. why were the kandahar police officer so unreliable for so

long. it isn't because we didn't -- >> kandahar was their-- >> it had been their ideological center, and we unwittingly in the early years of the war helped create the excluesary political economy that helped leave key population outside the tent. and that's the tribal population from which the taliban grew strength and came back in. mali is another example beeper doing a great job training the armed forces and a portion defected to fight with al qaeda. i think one of the key things now that we've learned in iraq many lessons associated with this, with the ministry of interiors and forces-- we have to put the politics at the center of these efforts and

recognition want degrees to which our interests are incongruent. >> rose: the final fallacy is we can opt out of it. >> that means we ought to in this case listen to trotsky who says you may not be interested in war but war is interested in you. ( laughter ) this is a tendency we have -- >> look but look what happened to trotsky. >> i know. the war did have an interest in him. it caught up with him. >> rose: it sure did. >> i think what that we can, we tend to be as americans because we're optimistic people and we have a belief as we should in our strength and power, an example of owrp economy. we tend top define the world and the problem of future war in relation to us. it's a somewhat narcissistic view. if we set out this course and rely on these narrow rank of

capabilities for our natural defense the world will comply with that. but, of course, we have interacted with enemies within wars, structures of iraq and afghanistan, as the conflicts evolve over time. but we also interact with adversaries and potential enemies in between wars soap if you stake out sort of say narrow suite of capabilities and upon say this is what i'm am going to bank onure our adversaries are going to figure out a way around is that. i think system appropriate to have a broad range of capabilities. this is aerospace power, this is cpower. increasingly, cyber capabilities. but it's land forces, right, and ultimately, all the problems in the other domain it's aerospace,

cdomain, they're land based. people live on land. if you want to deter war by placing something of value to your -- >> is that why we kept troops in europe and korea? >> , of course,, of course, yeah. >> rose: otherwise it would not be an effective deterrent. >> i don't think it would be. >> they had come storms down. >> rose: they'd come storming down. i think you can see this for example in putin's calculation in the crimea. >> rose: which is? >> the calculation he can use land forces to reassert russian power on the -- >> because of geography and-- >> right, geography and geopolitics as well. how we define our final interests-- >> and elements of previous divisions that have left people

who might favor a russian regime are on the other side of the border. >> people go to war today and will in the future. for three multiplal reasons. fear, honor, and interest. >> rose: who said that first? >> rose: they go to war for interest, for fear, and -- >> honor, fear, and interest. here are three things you talked about, the age-old truth about war. war is political. we have been talking about that. it is. who was who first said that war is simply politics-- >> by other means. this was carl von claus -- >> is he the smartest analyst of war there has each been. he writes in this delectic, so

he puts out a thesis and synthesis. you have to read it in the round. >> rose: who was he? >> he was a prugz who helped found and teach the prugz war-- this is in the article 19th century. he is a product of the napoleonic wars, and they were trying to institutionalize the-- generating a deep understanding of the nature of war and watch. and, of course, he's coming at a real shift in the character of war, whereas in the past, it just been earns that had very narrow campaign seasons tied to monarchies. >> rose: was that because of napoleon? what motivates soldiers? >> it was also the raetion of

the french revolution. and the accept theiments associated with the french nationalism, that led to the extraordinary power. >> of you have to study napoleon, i think. he's one of the greatest innovators. one of the great field command-- he learned from a guy named bcialtion orse, who preceded him in the french army who came up with a system to operate in mountous terrain. that's frant, cavalry, and artilly. each of these capabilities are not decisive in and of themselves. it's now you combine them. i it's not one or the other. there's no single service or

single around solution to war. it's how to accomplish your policy foals and objectives as part of the plx of all elements of national power. what i think nepolian understand was how the fight concombined arms, but he he had very capable commanders in his early campaigns. he understood what mission orders. >> rose: let me go three things. war is political. war is human. >> yes. >> rose: always human. >> always war is human. it gets down to fear, honor and interests. what really fundamentally drives conflict? what is driving the conflict now in syria? >> rose: what is driving it? >> i think peer on the fa part f

the allies and the ones who think the fate is tied to the suicide of us all. if there is a political order that doesn't have room for them and fear of jihadist organizations in isis. it's also a sense of honor. >> rose: is it they're caught between two hostile groups. >> the people don't adhere to these rye just when you are living if-- in the case of syria-- for gen rakes underneath a dictatorial regime, there's no space for political p high school opposition. what we would call liberals, to their culture and political history and culture, they're

voiceless and powerless, the only organization is they can really have any power after the collapse of a regime or as a regime is beluge of leaguured, and i think this helps explain to some degree the rise of the muzz lum brother hoot who is organized in the wake of the collapse of the regime. >> rose: the people in tahrir square had no real organization, no political organization. they were of those were people in obviously to the government for years. >> in iraq you see the only people who are organized are want expatriate opposition groups and were able to-- and what the iranians have done in iraq is backed a lot of different horses. an iranian said the difference

between iranians and americans, americans are like chickens, make a lot of noise and lay one eggs. we iranians are like fish-- we make no noise and lay thousands of eggs. they've backed various groups in iraq. they often play them against each other. they tried to unseat prime minister maliki and that backfired when he did the charge of the nights operations in basra and took over operations in sadr city. my personal view of what iran is trying to do in the arab world is i believe thatter trying to keep the arab world perpetually weak so they can continue to advance in interest. what you saw in iraq is sort of a meas blah model for iraq where you have a weak government that is dependent on iranian support to survive. >> rose: we live in a world of high-tech. we live in a world of drones, of

a different kind of warfare. >> instantaneous communications. >> we live in the world of the possibilities of cyb erp warfare. it's the whole range of capabilities that are important. i think there's an emergent capability, long-range ballistic missiles connected to -- >> that's the biggest threat. >> rose: let me stop you there. do we believe both have long-range ballistic missiles that can carry nuclear-- >> we don't know-- i mean, i don't know. obviously, i'm shiewrp we have the best people working on this. >> rose: let me stay with it. but the fear you have-- >> that's in the future. >> rose: long-range missiles that have the potential to carry weapons of great destruction. >> right. and there's been some great work done on this, on long-range

missiles. it's not just the missiles but a strike network. something tanks here and new york and d.c. have really looked at this and done some really good work and said the advantages we banked on, information technology, that kind of a network, strike network, reconsense strike network will be available to adversaries. there's never been a silver-- you had the su-- we have to recognize that our future adversaries are going to have some of the capabilities we have now and be able to disrupt what they perceive as our strengths. what is our answer to that? i think it's a balanced joint force that can play rock, scissors, paper with anybody and not just had a rock or paper or scissors. you have tiebably to put it all together. while many have written about and did work on anti-access area

to-- to deny our forces to get somewhere for ability of access. it begs the question, acsort for that. i think this narcissistic tendency we have we are seeing as only a defensive threat and i think it's an opt i was threat that could be analysis to the v1 v2 stretch in london. >> rose: former secretary of defense has said to me at this payable or other places. they are not necessarily military bit can play a strategic role, that we have not deployed those enough and some are trying to influence and change the direction of the crungz this a state of which you had a lot to do with in afghanistan. why was i that so difficult? >> oh, gosh, i mean, again, it

goes back to really politics right. the problem ultimately inia afghanistan is this was a state destroyed by the the soviet occupation which the resist attendance the rowpgz from 1992-1996 and a taliban machine that destroyed any niewgzs we would recognize. enabling muhahideen militias through our airpower, our advisers, after the collapse of the taliban-- which i think was a physical collapse but it was a psychological collapse because every afghanistan was vinceed of the defeat. you had to help pull the pate together so you get to some sort of viable estate. you have the-- really, the institution building we didn't have enoughasty so these state

institutions and functions were captured by the muhahideen, and resulted in-- they were driven by criminal agendas but really mainly by a political agenda which is to amass power in advance of the post-u.s. afghanistan. and it was written boy a lack of faith and -- >> they were counting on a post-united states. >> the real problem is how do you convince key afghan leaders it is in their ps to take on the-- the political settlement that emerged in sachg was to some degree dependent on unchecked. upon criminality. if i give you the ministry of confidence, fore, and i low youd to in that ministry of defense,

what are you going to do, extract of extractings bribes and so fert. the settlement that emerged in afghanistan i think everybody after the end of 2004, early 2005, was increasingly reliant on organized crime and criminality. serve on focused on president karzai. it's parof the problem to convince him to take on the problem but the problem is a lot more complicated and a bit more dispute about that. the key to the whole thing is political and i think incument on all of us to play a supportive role -- >> supportive of what? >> supportive of reform.

upon a lot of them were killed but there are so many who p who are ve of rezit unit, and are-- >> rose: i'm asking very simple questions but the idea was why couldn't we have supported them more expensively wielep early stages of u.s. involvement. when the taliban was at its weakest. >> this was 2002 and 2003. >> i think it was a missinged faint assumptions about the nature of war. war is not just about the application of military pure of power against enemy organization. certainly that's a big part of it. you have to defeat enemy organizations. that's the part of war that we were probably best at. have

some bases of security and to be able to-- we've said we're not going to do nation building anymore. but we also had to enp engage some degree of activity to upon-- in the wake of any military operation. if you look at the panama invasion, dominican product. if look at the suz engagement in the philippine. >> rose: what generals in the united states have been at the top level of strategic thinkers? i think there are a number of them who dealt with very difficult circumstances and disappears through imagination, coverage, and leadership. i think mortgagech-- he was an amazing leaders and commander. i think if you look at the-- eye

brilliance. >> rose: when i come to world war ii. >> you have tock loot george marshall as the organizer of victory. each of these generals have their strength, and if you want to look at patrickal demoons. montgomery, bradley, and you see their different files come to of a lits. in vietnam i think you have to go with crayton abrams. he was a tank combined arms man who also found the modern average rangers. he was-- as a general, it means you're not doing specific things anymore. you have to do general things. you have to look at the whole army. >> rose: and when you go to the gulf war. >> in the gulf war you can-- i

think there are debates about all of these but certainly i think the idea to avoid animal strength, execute a turning movement. who did that. that he was-- they did a sort of long envelopement. and the seventh corps go the flank, you know, attack into kuwait. what people forget about the gulf war, they think, that was easy, quick, efficient. but what made it different as i mentioned earlier was the enemy not being very smart about how they fought us. given the objective of the status quo. give the quantity-- >> mary: is churchill considered-- he had a couple of

things that were doozies gln some of the becaused words you hear now in terms of future forces is we're going to be anlil, nimble, lean, and all those are important qaez qualities for forces rapidly organized for the mission and ultimately fet there passed. what you have to do-- the forces of upon. them i have ipflexibility on command. in gla lil 52 upon. you for the-- it will disrupt landing plan. the alternative is to continue to imfail yiers weapon you can learn from all of these campaigns but learning from

history i think is the not going to give you the answer. >> the old notion that the general is also fighting last war. >> no. i think generally when you see problems associate associated w. we studied the lessons of the last-- to make it easier -- >> not asking the right questions. the other thing i ask, and this is my find question, if you have someone in the military who is iconoclastic and rattling the cage of established patterns, is that among the military services and at the pentagon a welcome voice? >> absolutely it is. i think that -- >> you're sure. >> i think there is a misconception-- i'm sure about it. i lived it. seen other people. i think the military is one of the places that welcomes candid

assessments. and of situations. and candid feedback because the stakes are pretty darn high. they involve life and death. so, of course, as in any organization, you find leaders less or more receptive to that. >> rose: but the interesting thing is in war, if you make a mistake it's easy to see the consequences. >> it is. war is the great oddterof military institutions. and we have to be careful as we think about future wars that we don't do so in such a way that we underpin our capabilities with flawed notions about-- and ideas about what's adequate to secure our vital interests. >> rose: major general h.r. mcmaster, thank you. >> thank you, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. thank you