The Dispatch Podcast - Syria, Taiwan, and the New Jersey Drones | Interview: Gen. David Petraeus

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

Jamie Weinstein is joined by David Petraeus—retired Army general, former CIA director, and author of Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine—to break down the latest out of Syria and weigh in on the unexplained drone situation in New Jersey. The Agenda: —Syria and Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham —Striking Iranian nuclear sites —Israel and Gaza —Humanitarian crisis in Gaza —The Taiwan strait —Threat of nuclear escalation —U.S. military involvement in Mexico —The New Jersey drones —The JFK files The Dispatch Podcast is a production of The Dispatch, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including members-only newsletters, bonus podcast episodes, and weekly livestreams—click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein. My guest today is retired General David Petraeus. He needs very little introduction. Most memorably, he helped lead the turnaround in the war in Iraq as commander of the troops in Iraq. He also was commander of troops in Afghanistan. After leaving the army after serving 37 years, he was the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He is now a partner at the private equity firm KKR and author of most recently, Conflict, the Evolution of Warfare, along with his co-author, historian Andrew Roberts. We discuss many topics on this episode, basically going through all the conflict regions in the world and getting General Petraeus's perspective. We also talk about the drones flying above New Jersey and what they might be,

whether he of supports or opposes the release of the JFK files, and a little bit about his influences. I think you're going to find this episode really interesting. So without further do, I give you General David Petraeus. General David Petraeus, welcome to the Dispatch podcast. Good to be with you, Jamie. Thanks. General, it's an honor to have you on the show. I think there's probably only a handful of names, Americans, military leaders they can name, and of those, I think a lot of Americans look to you for insight on what's going on in the world. So it means a lot that you are here, and I hope to maybe take a brief tour of the world and get your thoughts of what is going on in different

conflict zones. I want to begin in Syria, where maybe a month ago I wouldn't have, where a lot has happened in the last 20 days. The rebel army obviously seized Damascus, Bashar Assad has fled. Were you surprised how quick the Assad regime fell? And what do you make? of what just occurred in Syria? Well, I was, and I think so was HTS, which was probing a bit. I think they'd invested. A lot of people didn't realize, I think, how much HTS had done while they were in control to build out essentially what we would know as officer basic courses, professional

military education, building up their forces, training them, organizing them, and all the rest of that. And so they decided the time was right. They could see that Hezbollah was not in a position to come to rescue Bashar al-Assad as they did in the past. The Iranians didn't have as big a presence on the ground with the Revolutionary Guards Court-Quds Force and even some fighting forces as they did again when Bashar was most threatened. And most important of all, Russian air power had been dramatically reduced and Russia was consumed with what was going on in Ukraine. And so I guess that that's what led them to try to take back to the war. control of Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria used to be the largest, of course,

until it was hammered with barrel bombs and lots of other munitions, including a lot of Russian air power. And it fell surprisingly quickly. And they could see the regime forces retreating. And then they tried to, well, let's just see if we can go to Hama, which is just south of Aleppo. And that fell very quickly. And then it was on to Holmes. And then the road was open 100 plus miles down to Damascus. And Bashar al-Assad fled very quickly to take refuge in Russia. And then the Russian forces actually started retreating from the bases in the interior. They've been loading out equipment in their port and tartous and so on. So now you have an extraordinary development, which is that a regime of over 50 years, father and son, and a particularly brutal one at

various points in time, is out. And this organization that once was an al-Qaeda affiliate, Shabbat al-Nusra, then they relinquished that particular association, having also fought the Islamic State. And now the question is, how open, inclusive, secular, inspirational, and diplomatic and scheming even can the new leader of Syria, or at least of that port? of Syria that includes the capital B in pulling the entire country together, noting that there are at least six different groups, maybe more, depending on how you align them, controlling territory in Syria. And it's important, I think, very quickly to revisit them. There's the Free Syrian Army, FSA, and the North. This is the group that we should have done a great deal more to have supported

at the beginning, say, 2012 and so forth, including when I was the director of the CIA. They're largely supported and controlled by Turkey, a Sunni Arab, reasonably moderate group over to their east. In the northeastern part of the country, you have the Syrian Democratic forces, which are the Syrian Kurds, under a very inspirational general Muslim, whom we enabled to build up to destroy on the ground, the Islamic State, with our enormous support by special operations forces, drones, air power, other intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance assets, and they control from that northeast tip, generally down to the Euphrates River Valley. You have, of course, HTS, which now extends from Idlib all the way down to Damascus. There's a force in the south

that was contiguous with Jordan. The southern operations room is sometimes called. Again, forces that we should have supported more in the beginning, somewhat aligned with the FSA. And HTS has got to persuade them to be part of this now. They're actually all riding around their particular, getting everybody there together, noting that there's many, many individual factions within each of these larger conglomerations. HTS alone has dozens of individual militia led by shakes of tribes, individual militia leaders, others. Then you have what's left of the Alawites, the sect from which the Charalasa came, which also had a bit of an affiliation with the Shia, the more Iran did for them. They discovered

how deep that went. And they're up in Latakia on the Mediterranean coast. And then you even have about 155 miles, square miles, that are controlled by the Israeli defense forces as a buffer from the Golan Heights. So think about all of this and think about the fact that even the major groupings are individual factions. And we're now going to see whether or not the individual who has led the most dramatic component of this that toppled the Bishar-Lossid regime can pull it all together and ensure that there is governance that is representative of all the different ethno-sectarian and other groupings responsive to them within means and has perhaps a majority. rule, but very much minority rights, which is critically important in a country like this.

Well, you mentioned the spotlight is now on HTS and Muhammad Abdul Jalani, the leader. Well, he's back to his original name now. Now it's Al-Shara again. And that was his come to care, of course. You know, Jalani, until I think today, I think today was now the bounty on his head, the U.S. bounty, if you could capture him of $10 million has been lifted. He was considered a terrorist. obviously he had associations with al-Qaeda. He's spoken some moderation since taking over about reconciliation, not wanting war with Israel. I guess my question to you is, and let me further back, I guess when I think when you were general commanding the forces in Iraq, he was a fighter there and in prison at one point. Oh, he was actually detained. He was detained two years before the start

of the surge. This is a period where we hadn't reformed our detention facilities and hadn't recognized that we need to take the most extreme elements out of them and put them in maximum detention facilities built for that purpose so that you could actually have rehabilitation activities for the rest of them. And it took us a number of months into the surge that started in February 2007 to accomplish that. And it was after some tough lessons. The recidivism rate prior to the reforms that we made in the prison was over 90%.

In other words, they'd be released and it was like a revolving door. They're going to be picked back up again and back in our detention. facility. So he was there at least 18 to 24 months of that pre-reform period and heavily influenced probably made even more extreme by those with whom he associated in these facilities, which are large enclosures of as many as 800 detainees, one of whom included Baghdadi, who would later build the Islamic State. Of course, later, he would fight the Islamic State, be a period of time as an al-Qaeda affiliate, but then swore off that and has been towing a somewhat more moderate line. But we don't know is the answer. And this is why I think it was very good,

first to see him removed from the terrorism bounty list. Let's just take some initiative here and be a bit bold in that regard. It was good that at least some elements. I'm not sure that he actually met with the three individuals from the State Department who went in, the Assistant Secretary for Nearest Affairs, our special ambassador for getting back those who are hostage, because of course we're seeking a number of Americans, including one particularly prominent journalist, and then also the new envoy who's been named for Syria, noting that I'm not sure when it will be that he goes into Damascus, reoccupies the U.S. residents and embassy, in a, I'm sure, a very scaled down and highly secured basis.

So we will see with him. But I think we should be aggressive in setting aside also the designation of HTS as the terrorist group. It would be tragic if months later, because of that, we're unable to provide the kind of humanitarian assistance and other, meet other needs that are reasonably met to help him succeed and see if, he will turn out to be relatively secular, if you will, at least inclusive, and again, someone who commits to protecting the rights of all Syrians, regardless of ethnic and sectarian denomination. The U.S. government often has to make choices between bad and worse decisions. I guess it's a question that I've asked a couple of other guests I've had about the revolution in Syria. Was it in the U.S. interest to have Bashar Assad in power versus

Is someone unknown like Al-Jolani? Is there a better or worse situation between these two? No, I think that Bashar al-Assad allowed Syria to be used as a ground line of communications from Iran through Iraq, through Syria, and then down through the Bekai and to southern Lebanon to continue the arm to build Hezbollah into what was arguably the most powerful militia-slash-military force outside the Israeli defense forces prior to the past year-plus military operations that have It's so damaged. It's literally not just decapitated the leadership of Hisbullah, but it decimated it. Thousands and thousands of leaders killed and wounded through that incredibly diabolically

clever supply chain operation that planted explosives on the pagers that all the leaders of Hispola had and blew up. And then the next day, the walkie-talkies blew up as well that whittled down the arsenal that was as many as 150,000 missiles in Rockies. rockets that could be launched at Israel and with an increasing number of drones as well, to well, well under 25,000, I think now forced his bullet into accepting a ceasefire arrangement that commits them to pull in their forces north of the Latani River, which is many dozens of miles north of the northern Israeli border. And it was those forces, of course, in that area that were able to use the most ubiquitous

rockets and other systems to terrorize Israel. realities such that 65,000 plus had to be moved out of their villages, but now we'll be able to go back in projected, apparently, by the IDFS sometime in March of the new year. So that fact alone, I think, warrants a degree of celebration, not to mention what Bishar al-Assad did to the members of the citizens of his own country, including using all kinds of chemical weapons on them at various points. barbaric use of barrel bombs and then bombing the first responders when they came in as well, violations of the law of land warfare, needless to say, et cetera, et cetera. And of course, the country was in still a state of civil war, albeit with lines that hadn't moved that dramatically in recent years. That goes right into my next area of focus is Iran. As you mentioned, Hezbollah has been decimated. That was their top proxy. But other proxies are also reeling, particularly.

Hamas, but the Houthis are under attack, I think just attacked yesterday. We're speaking on Friday. The greatest threat to Israel, it would seem that remains, would be Iran in its nuclear program. And I would argue also the West in that region, Iran's nuclear program. My question to you is, one, do you think either the U.S. or Israel should attempt to either take out or set back Iran's nuclear program militarily? And the corollary to that is, is Israel capable of doing that, is the United States capable of doing that? The U.S. is capable. It's publicly known that Israel does not have the mass of ordinance penetrator nor an airplane that could carry it, which is a necessity for one of the nuclear sites of the Iranian nuclear program.

They can probably deal with the bulk of the rest of it. But the ideal would be if it is decided to take out the Iran nuclear program, it should be a combined operation. And that will be greatly facilitated by the work that Israel did in their last response to the second of the attacks on Israel, this one by a hundred plus ballistic missiles from Iranian territory. And in their response, they quite impressively destroyed or at least damaged all of the most sophisticated air and ballistic missile defense systems of Iran. also, by the way, did enormous damage to the factory in which solid fuel rockets are made, engines are made, reducing it from several a day to apparently one or so a week.

So this has made the job if it comes to carrying out the operation a good bit more manageable because there was concern about the S-300 S-400 systems that Russia transferred to Iran That made this task much more challenging than when, for example, I was the Central Command Commander from late 2008 to mid-2010, the period during which it's publicly known that we developed the plan to destroy the nuclear program of Iran and actually rehearsed it inside the United States one time. So the real question then is, should we do it now? generally, the U.S. policy has been that we will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. That commitment has come from Republicans and Democrats. President Elect Trump has already stated that he's aligned with that. He will not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Whether to preempt that, I think probably it's a very close call, actually, given the situation in which Iran finds

itself now. And frankly, the success that Israel has had against Hezbollah, against elements in Syria, by the way, that we're facilitating the re-arming and material for Hezbollah. Of course, the dramatic degradation of Hamas in Gaza, although there's some additional components that are needed there if we want to talk about that, in my view. And then even now the damage that's being done to the Houthis, along with, of course, the operations the U.S. has carried out largely from our maritime fleet that is off the coast of Yemen. But also with some of our air assets as well. I mean, given we see the problem, North Korea, the fact that they have nuclear weapons

and what they're able to do, can the U.S. tolerate North Korea in the Middle East? I mean, no, I mean, again, this is our policy. I have always strongly agreed with it. And when in uniform was prepared to carry out the operation that was necessary to destroy that program, if indeed they crossed whatever red line was determined by the administration at that time when it came to fulfilling the policy of ensuring that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Now, again, whether you want to preempt that, I think is a little bit more difficult call. It's also, there's a little bit of a legal issue here as well. The president would have to

exercise his Article I writes as Commander-in-Chief, which are essentially self-defense. We've done that before. We're doing it to a degree against the Houthis. This is President And Trump's justification for killing Kassim Soleimani, the more than 20 years leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Quds Force, and my major nemesis in the region when I was in three commands in Iraq, including the Surge, then Central Command, and then later CIA director. So, again, I think it's a much closer call right now than it was before because of all the activities that Iran has enabled and promoted. and encouraged and given, obviously, what happened with respect to October 7th last year, which is important to recall, I think, to put in U.S. terms, noting that we lost not quite 3,000 in 9-11 attacks, the equivalent for us of what losses and hostage taken that Israel

sustained would be 40,000 killed and 7,000 taken hostage. So this was a horrific event. The worst day, I think, without question in Israel's history, as well as the worst intelligence failure, and there were others, as you well know, with Yom Kippur War and so on, the worst military readiness failure, the response to it was wholly inadequate, and the worst political miscalculation at the very top, thinking that Hamas was appreciative of the additional worker visas and didn't have the capability to do what it was that it did, noting that the plans actually had been capture or taken by lower level intelligence officials in the Southern Command, but when they were pushed up mid or upper levels, just discounted it said, this is just not possible. There's no way

Hamas could carry out such a complicated, sophisticated operation, which obviously also was truly barbaric in its nature. Let me ask you a question about the brittleness of regimes that sometimes we build up as strong or almost impossible to imagine the world without. Clearly, the Trump administration's policy will not be for regime change. They made that clear in Iran, even if they were going after, decided to go after a nuclear program. And I don't think it's feasible, by the way, either. I think Iran is a very, very different regime than, say, those that were toppled during the Arab Spring or some of the others. You're right, because we often assess that a dictator, his overthrow or toppling is inconceivable until the day after when we conclude that it was inevitable.

Well, that was my question. I mean, the Assad regime fell rather quickly. This is not a brittle and this is necessarily the regime, but, you know, Vladimir Putin thought his military was going to operate with much more swiftness in Ukraine. Hardly, I don't think he thought that we would be talking about this two years later. Hezbollah was built up and may have been this great force, but was, you know, rather quickly decimated when Israel turned. its attention on it. By brilliant operations. I mean, again, you have to recognize that this was a formidable force,

and it was through this incredible destruction completely of their command control communication system, because if they had retained that, they could have carried out a massive strike on Israel that could have overwhelmed David slamming iron dome, arrow, and so forth. And because they couldn't do that, that threat was eliminated and it allowed Israel just to go after Hezbollah and just hammer them without the same level of fear that the kind of overwhelming attack, air attack could be launched from southern Lebanon. So I guess what you're, you think Iran domestically, the regime has, the forces that they have there to prevent its overthrow is strong. It's not as brittle as we've seen in some places like we've seen just in Syria. Yeah, I do think that is the case. This is not a case where when they confront the equivalent of the demonstrators in Tahrir Square and Cairo,

where the military is going to draw back and say, hey, you know, Mubarak's going under the bus. Why should we kill our own people? We'll just let him go. We'll see who's elected in his place. If we don't like them, we'll topple them, which is exactly. what they did, of course, to the Muslim Brotherhood and will reimpose a new form of military-led authoritarian regime. I think the regime in Iran is much, much more robust, much more durable. You don't just have the traditional Army, Navy, Air Force, Police, and others. You have the

Revolutionary Guards Corps, Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines. You have the Revolutionary Guards Corps, Quds Force. You have the besiege militia. This is nearly two million street thugs who, if necessary, most of whom will, I think, shoot their fellow citizens if it comes to it. And it's in part because they're all part of a regime that benefits, even when the Iranian economy is doing poorly, even when sanctions are imposed, because they largely control the smuggling operations, which are truly industrial strength. If you've ever stood on the hilltop overlooking the strait of her moves and watched South. if you will, after salvo of 15, 20 of these high-speed open boats shooting across the

straight to Iran filled to the gills with white goods and every other conceivable item that is circumventing the sanctions on Iran. And they benefit from that. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the platform that helps you create a polished professional home online. Whether you're building a site for your business, you're writing, or a new project, Space brings everything together in one place. With Squarespace's cutting-edge design tools, you can launch a website that looks sharp from day one. Use one of their award-winning templates or try the new Blueprint AI, which tailors a site for you based on your goals and style. It's quick

intuitive and requires zero coding experience. You can also tap into built-in analytics and see who's engaging with your site and email campaigns to stay connected with subscribers or clients. And Squarespace goes beyond design. You can offer services, book appointments, and receive payments directly through your site. It's a single hub for managing your work and reaching your audience without having to piece together a bunch of different tools. All seamlessly integrated. Go to Squarespace.com slash dispatch for a free trial, and when you're ready to launch, use offer code dispatch to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Turn to Israel, General. Two questions here. One is, has anything surprised you in the post-October

seven operation with Israel and Gaza. And two, I want to give you an opportunity. I know you've written about what Israel should do next to secure its victory in Gaza. If you want to lay that out, that would be wonderful. It's really one and the same because what surprised me is that they have not conducted the kind of campaign, military campaign, that is necessary to achieve the three objectives set out destruction of Hamas, not just degradation, which is what they've achieved, very dramatic degradation. The companies, battalions, brigades of Hamas are militarily ineffective, but there's still plenty of those acting as guerrillas and surgeons, and there's no problem in them reconstituting their forces, their personnel, albeit with Israel rightly taking control of the southern border

between Gaza and Egypt, cutting off the resupply that would have enabled them to rearm and get all the material that was provided through the Rafa crossing and the tunnels that ran underneath the so-called Philadelphia Corridor, that southern border. They also haven't truly prevented Hamas from governing again. Yes, they're no longer the government, the coherent government that existed, but they're still influential because what's running Gaza right now are essentially guys with guns. They're criminal elements. There are Hamas remnants all over the place, and then there are remnants also of Palestinians, Al-Qaeda, even some other elements. And then the third, which is to get all the hostages back.

Now, we may be on the eve of a temporary ceasefire that we'll get some dozens more, but I don't think you'll get all of them through that kind of arrangement. And noting that Hamas now apparently is willing to allow Israelis to be within Gaza to some degree and then also to retain the southern border, which was an objective that they sought to remove Israel from hold. But then also to, I think there should be an additional objective, which is to provide a better life for the Palestinian people, who does it, or tens of thousands of whom have been killed, of course, including probably 20,000 Hamas and others. But again, many, many beyond that. And the destruction and damage to critical infrastructure, homes, schools, etc., has been done. very, very extensive. And if there's to be any chance of peaceful coexistence of Palestinians in

Gaza and Jews in Israel, it seems to me that providing a better future is part of that. No guarantee, given the decades or even longer of enmity, of mistrust, of grievance, et cetera, on both sides, and some particularly problematic actions on the part of the Palestinians, such as the education systems, which teach them that all Israeli Jews are the devil incarnate and a variety of these kinds of things, not to mention pay for slay in the West Bank. But the campaign, very simplistically, that Israel is carrying out is essentially one of clear and leave. Yes, they have established a corridor across the center part east or west of Gaza. But by and large, they go into a neighborhood, they clear it of Hamas, Pidge, other criminal element.

but then he eventually withdraw. And unless you clear hold and build, which is what we ultimately had to do during the surge, that you had to live with the people to secure them, lots of gated communities, walls and entry control points and all the rest of that, only that way can you actually achieve security. And one of the iconic figures of Vietnam, John Paul Van, was fond of saying security may be 10% of the problem or 90% of the problem, whatever it is, it's the first 10% or the first 90%. And there is not security in Gaza. And therefore, you can't get humanitarian assistance

in there in an organized way. It gets hijacked right inside the border at gunpoint. Criminal or other entities take it over to their favorite warehouse and wartime economy and then send them back. You can't have, you can't install Palestinian security forces that we should have been training in the Jordan International Police Training Center for at least over a year by now. you can't get Arab armies to come in. They're not going to fight Palestinians in Gaza on behalf of Israel, nor will Palestinians. You won't get non-governmental organizations in there in an organized way. You do have some on the ground quite courageously, but again, very, very challenging and international organizations as well, and contractors, which can thicken what is, to be sure, a limited pool of soldiers in the Israeli defense forces, which of course is largely a reserve component for the reserve military. To do this, my counsel has been, you should start in the north come, a mile in, east-west wall, a couple of north-south walls, three gated communities across an area is probably maybe 12 at most 15 miles. This is very doable. We would do this

every single night in multiple locations in Baghdad. Then in Fallujah, I think we had 12 gated communities inside there. And we told the people in advance, we're going to make your life better because we're going to get al-Qaeda out of it, and we're going to stay with you, and we're going to provide security until we can get local security forces that can augment us, will thin out gradually, and then ultimately we were able to handoff in the security situation is retained. Vastly more challenging in Gaza, without question, the subterranean infrastructure is incredibly daunting, over 350 miles of tunnel, but actual factories underground and everything else. The troops, an enemy that knows the terrain, very committed and so forth, a population that at best

is skeptical of the Israeli defense forces at worst as hostile. So it would be tough, but I just see no other alternative. And you just then keep repeat the process. By the way, you do biometric ID cards for all those who are allowed to stay in these areas or to come back to them. Then you can provide humanitarian assistance in an organized fashion, restore basic services, get them into better shelter than the temporary, the tentage that they have right now is their homes and schools and clinics and markets and so forth and roads and bridges are rebuilt. And again, just keep repeating the process. And by the way, if you do that, and it'll be tough and it's going to get harder and harder as you go further south and compress the enemy that's left. But at that moment, you can

destroy Hamas, not just degrade them. and you can prevent them from reconstituting, which is the key to keeping an enemy destroyed. We've learned the hard way that Islamist extremist, terrorists, and that's what Hamas is, that they can reconstitute if you take their eye off them. That lesson was learned very much the hard way by the Prime Minister of Iraq after our final combat forces left, and he pursued highly sectarian actions that caused his forces to focus on Sunni demonstrators rather than to keep a very close eye on al-Qaeda, then had become the Islamic State. That's what I think they should do. I understand the

reservations they have about it, the concerns, and I also understand, frankly, the domestic politics, some elements of which would really just like to get rid of the Palestinians from Gaza in some fashion that's never been explained to me. But again, if you don't do this, I think there's absolutely no chance of a better future for the Palestinian people in Gaza. It can't be an example of what could be done in the West Bank if everyone would work together. Again, no promise whatsoever. But there's absolutely no promise if you just continue with what we're doing, which is just an absolutely horrific humanitarian situation for those who are left on the ground. I think you mentioned you don't think they would come in, but is there a role for the UAE troops to come in here and try to implement maybe what you suggested?

No. No. I've talked to their leaders. I was just in the UAE again earlier this month. There's no way they're going to come into Gaza until it has been completely secured, or at least areas have been secured by the IDF and the IDF committed to doing the rest as well. Then they'll come in. So would I think the Saudis, so would other Gulf states, whether with civilian and or military, providing financial assistance for it as well, then you can bring in large. scale humanitarian assistance organizations, NGOs and international organizations, and you can bring in contractors who I think can thicken what they do. Keep in mind that in Iraq during the surge, one of the generally unstated big ideas that I had, along with clear, hold, build, promote reconciliation, pursue the irreconcilables even more fiercely and relentlessly, was I want to contract out everything that we can so that those uniform can do what only they can do, which is to go outside the wire and engage the enemy and the population. Let me ask you about another hotspot that has been a focus of the show, which is the Taiwan straight between China and Taiwan. Is that a place where the U.S. can defend Taiwan? If we learn tomorrow that China was invading Taiwan, do you think the U.S. is in a position to stop that? Well, first, I don't think the Chinese forces are in a position to do it at least. And I'd say at least until the 2027 date that President Xi has mandated for them to be ready to carry out such an operation.

And the truth is that our forces are very much being transformed as well. If you think about what the new and still somewhat new, Indo-PACOM commander said to Josh Rogan in the Washington Post, where he described that what he wants to do is to transform our forces so that they can create a hellscape in the Taiwan Strait and make that 110-mile crossing. just impossible for them. And what he described, this is all publicly out there, the concept had been around for some time, but it had never been exposed in the way that it was when he explained it, again, in the Washington Post interview, which I agreed with, by the way, because the enemy needs, the potential enemy needs to know what it is you have in store if it is to be contributing to deterrence. Keep in mind, deterrence is, of course,

the function of potential adversaries assessment of your capabilities, on the one hand, and your willingness to employ them on the other. And in this case, Hellscape would be composed of massive numbers of unmanned systems. Many of them not remotely piloted, but algorithmically piloted, program to carry out certain tasks when certain conditions are met. Under the water, on the surface of the water, in the air, on ground, in outer space, cyberspace, anywhere else, where this might be helpful. Now, again, we have to go through some considerable transformation of our forces or parts of our forces to shift from a small number of huge platforms, incredibly capable, heavily manned, exorbitantly expensive, and increasingly vulnerable to a massive, almost incomprehensible number of smaller, again, unmanned systems that increasingly will be algorithmically not remotely piloted.

and still quite capable, and could indeed transform the Taiwan Strait into what Admiral Preparro wants it to be, which is he described as a hellscape. We, General, we actually had Josh Rogan on the show last week. We had two figures previously in the last month, one on the side of more restraint in the Taiwan Strait and one on the side of we need. I'm for restraint unless, you know, you should not be needlessly provocative, but you should be firm. And I think we do need to be firm. I think it's a lack of firmness at various junctures previously that allowed the situation to develop as it is now, not just with additional islands

built in the South China Sea, but then the militarization of them, of course, and the pushing around of Philippines and other allies and partners in that region. Ukraine, obviously, has been one of the great conflict zones in the last two years. It seems like the incoming administration wants to see if they can negotiate a deal to end the war. Do you view, what do you view as the most likely outcome, a most likely deal to that could be negotiated to end this conflict? Well, let me describe first the conditions I think that would need to be established to have meaningful real negotiations.

And second, what the bottom line for Ukraine and the West should be as a negotiated settlement. So first, I think Ukraine is not in a position of strength right now. They are losing incremental ground every single day. And now for the first time, there could be a real strategic setback on the ground of Krofts, which is a very important strategic transportation hub and so forth and meaningful physical location is taken. And it's quite increasingly threatened right now. Noting the Ukrainians have had achievements.

They still hold some portion of Kerskoblast in Russia, and they have sunk one-third of the Russian Black Sea fleet without having a Navy. They've done it, of course, with aerial drones that find the Russian ships and then maritime drones that sink them and force them out of the Western Black Sea, which is huge because it allows the Ukrainians to export grain by ship rather than the tortuous overrout and water route. That's the alternative, and that's crucial to Egypt because some 25% of the world's grain exports come from Ukraine. and that's a major source of their food security. But on the ground, it's exceedingly difficult for Ukraine. They haven't been able to enlist and then to train, equip, and organize sufficient forces to hold the lines. They are through enormous innovation, throwing thousands of suicide drones every day at the Russians. That is what's keeping them for overrunning forces that are heavily outnumbered.

numbered and outgunned on the Ukrainian side, but it's not enough. And they really need to galvanize, again, their whole system for conscription, again, training, equipping, organizing. Beyond that, we have overly delayed critical decisions time and time again. I think the administration did a superb job in the initial response to the invasion, but we have temporized repeatedly over critical decisions that clearly we're going to be yes, and we all could sense that. We knew it. It had to be. You had to go to F-16.

There's no more MIGs. You had to give them our tanks. And by the way, our delay in those decisions typically delayed others in doing what they would do, such as the Germans giving the okay for the lay-apard tanks to go to Ukraine. But time and again, we've done that. I hope the administration in its final weeks will just push everything in the pipeline that they possibly can, and I believe they are doing that. And I should note, I'm non-political. I don't even register to vote, much less support candidates or endorse them. And I talk to members of either party. But again, we need to provide Ukraine the ability. And now it's all of us together. So the Europeans who have done an aggregate more than we have, but not on security assistance, to enable Ukraine to get to a position where they change the dynamic on the battlefield, such that Putin has to recognize that he cannot achieve further gains at an acceptable cost, noting that he's

take an incredible cost. He's lost from the battlefield, 500,000 killed and wounded that could not be returned to the front lines. Another 200,000 actually were wounded and reportedly returned to those lines. So he's willing to take enormous cost, but he is apparently now more and more concerned about the ability to recruit additional soldiers to the point that he's going after North Koreans, Yemenis, and others that are out there that are sort of unemployed and have some modicum of military training. So if we can enable President Zelensky to change the dynamic on the battlefield with his military, then I think you could have real negotiations with President Zelensky for the first time publicly acknowledging that he might have to give up the 20% of the country that's occupied by

Russia, not forever and ever, but certainly during the period of a ceasefire. But then we would have to absolutely guarantee this with boots on the ground from ideally European forces that are meaningful and effective and capable. Even better would be U.S. and European forces. I mean, the best of all would be NATO membership, but probably Hungary, maybe some other Eastern European countries may not support that. So it'll have to be a coalition of the willing. Without that, Ukraine is in the same position it was when the Budapest memorandum was signed by, you can. U.S. and Russia, which said, we will ensure your security to Ukraine if you give up your nuclear weapons. And frankly, the U.S. can use all the skill that it has. I know Lieutenant General retired

Kellogg, by the way, he was my two-star division commander in the Great 82nd Airborne Division when I was one of his brigade commanders. I'm confident he recognizes all of this. And the question is, how can you establish conditions that can have a ceasefire? Ukraine does give up that 20% that is out of their control, but in return, they get a durable ironclad security guarantee that, again, can only be manifest by boots on the ground from credible forces. Perhaps the greatest chit that Vladimir Putin has is at least the threat lurking in the background of nuclear war.

Do you worry about that at all? Is that overblown? Is that something that we should be concerned about if we provided more weapons to escalate in different ways? How do you evaluate that? We should be concerned about it. We should worry about it. But I think when President Xi of China and Prime Minister Modi of India publicly said don't even think about it, that he presumably will have stopped thinking about it. You know, this is the kind of thing that people say, well, shouldn't back him into a corner. I don't think this backs him into a corner. It forces him to accept 20 percent that he has taken. taking control of, of course, including Crimea and the Donbass, which he sees back in 2014, and to recognize that it's not going to go any farther if we enable Ukraine sufficiently and then provide that ironclad security guarantee that I've described earlier. I don't think that, again, even threatening to take back some of the areas would be enough. So, you know, he can be backed into a corner even.

He still has something left to lose, his life. So, no, I think this is a lot of nuclear saber rattling. He's repeatedly tried to use this to weaken the knees of European leaders, worry Americans, inject concern in the rest of the world. And that concern has actually been met by his closest ally China's leader. And then one of his biggest crude oil customers, India's leader, saying, don't do this. And, of course, the U.S. is also threatened. And it's never said specifically what it would do, but certainly among the range of options would be using our conventional forces to carry out devastating attacks in Russian forces

on the soil of Ukraine and in the Black Sea. Mexico, the president-elect has raised the possibility of using U.S. troops to take on the cartels in Mexico. Do you see a role there for U.S. troops? And how would that play out? Well, I do see a role for special operations forces. together with obviously the elements, some elements of the agency that I was privileged to lead, the CIA, FBI, DEA, other federal agencies that have often had substantial capabilities

on the ground in Mexico, but it's waxed and waned, and it's been more in the waning category because of the populist government of Lopez Obrador and now of his successor. But the idea that would jump the 82nd Airborne Division in there somewhere and make short work of the cartels or even more specific capabilities or more targeted, I just don't think is all that realistic. Keep in mind that you don't operate on someone else's soil without their approval, their support, their coordination, and so on. Second, keep in mind that Mexico has repeatedly taken out the kingpins, the leaders, these aren't just drug cartels anymore. These have to be thought of as criminal insurgencies. And the reason they should be thought about that way is because

you can't just topple the kingpins and expect the rest of it to die or atrophy. New ones will come up. So you've got to, again, carry out clear hold-build operations. Ideally, of course, with Mexican forces that could be relied on. We saw this in Monterey, the manufacturing colossus of all of North America, frankly. It's an extraordinary expanse of very, very substantial manufacturing, many of corporations from the U.S. and also now increasingly from China and elsewhere in Europe. What they did 15 years or so ago was they recognized that they had, at that time, it was largely a narco-trafficante problem, but they were already into other kinds of criminal activities, extortion, kidnapping for hire, murder for hire. intimidation, really taking over control of some of the local institutions, including in some

cases the police, the prisons, the judicial arena. And so they fired the entire police force, replaced it with handpicked individuals, well-trained, well-equipped, doubled the salary, put them in protected housing, kids went to protected schools, they overhauled their judiciary and got their prisons under control so the inmates weren't running them. And they produced produced a really successful situation for a number of years, although even there, there's encroachment by, again, these criminal insurgencies. Keep in mind that some insurgents in past have been animated by, of course, Islamist extremism, others, if you think of those in communist insurgencies in history, including North Vietnam, really the Viet Cong

were the insurgents, the North Vietnam were regular forces. And, of course, they were animated not just by communism, but also by nationalism in their lights. But in this case, it's criminal activity. And these are criminal empires that have to continue to grow. And, of course, they'll bump up against each other and they'll fight and so on. They're very heavily armed. They have increasingly sophisticated equipment of all different types. And in some cases, they've taken over really complete states, not just large communities. And where they control, the businessmen all pay them 10 or 20 percent. They influence what goes on there and so forth.

And you have to fight to get that back. The problem is that successive presidents, and I talk to two of the more recent ones in detail about this problem, having, of course, conducted two counterinsurgencies as a four-star and laid out what they needed to do. And the challenge is they shrink from the price of that and from the reality that is going to get worse before it gets better, as it did, for example, in the first five months or so. of the surge in Iraq before it started very dramatically trending down. So this is very, very serious in Mexico. The populist government of Lopez Orbador for six years announced his policy of

hugs, not bullets. That wasn't particularly impressive to these criminal empires insurgencies. And what they need to do if they're going to get it back is to conduct some kind of comprehensive civil military counterinsurgency campaign. And they don't have an understanding of that. If they do, they shrink from it because it is going to be so challenging. So that's what really is the essence of the problem. Yes, they're trafficking in fentanyl and other illegal narcotics. Yes, they're trafficking in human smuggling. I mean, they're into every criminal activity in the areas that they control, and they're making tons of money from it. And, of course, trying to build infrastructure in the U.S. as well, which we need to be keenly aware of in fighting to make sure it doesn't

atastasized. But the idea of us taking them down just does not seem to be realistic to me, although we certainly could help with this. And we did in the past. We did a considerable amount of this. When I was the director of the CIA, and we were asked to provide certain intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance assets and capabilities, and did enable them in a variety of ways, although, again, they just lacked the kind of substantial forces needed to capitalize on some of the achievements that I'll remain unstated during that time. Drones. I think my wife would kill me if I didn't ask you about what you think of the drones

or what people perceive as drones above New Jersey and elsewhere. Are those anything we should be concerned about? Do you have any theories of what they are? What are your thoughts on these drones and this? I do think we should be concerned about them because basically many of them are flying in places where they should not be flying. This is a result of a number of different factors, I think. first, it's just sort of a paranoia that any blinking light in the sky is seen as some

kind of alien drone. And I'm sure that my old agency has checked on Area 57 to make sure none of them have gotten out and it's still disill, re-instilled disappointing. Do you believe in aliens? Do you believe, having, no, no. It doesn't mean they couldn't appear at some point in time, but I don't think this is a result of aliens flying drones. I think again, you never saw any evidence during your time in, no, there are, there are unexplained phenomena. and, you know, it's possible some of these could be extraterrestrial, but I'm a bit skeptical of that. I don't think this is the case here. I think this is a result, first, of many more drones in the sky, period. People are buying more drones. Then the FAA allowed them to be flown

beyond sight, if you will, so you could actually go over the horizon for the first time. And I don't think that the FAA has yet really sat down and said, here's where you can fly drones and up to this altitude and, you know, map all. It's a three-dimensional airspace. We did a lot of this when I was a commander of the 1001st Airborne Division. We had 275 helicopters. So really familiar with how you do airspace management and control. And I don't think we have sufficiently delineated.

You cannot fly within this airfield or within this prison or this stadium or this whatever. And then enforce them. And, of course, we're woefully inadequate when it comes to counter drone technologies that aren't lethal because you don't want stuff falling all over the place necessarily. You're certainly not rounds. They all land somewhere. And you're also going to begin to see major chains. I would suspect Amazon.

I know Walmart has a contract with a major drone producer. I'm invested in one of them, so I actually have a sense of it. They're about to start delivering all kinds of items to our backyard or front porch. And so the proliferation of these is just really beginning. The FAA needs to get ahead of it. The organizations that are going to do, the delivery are already working. They're certified by the FAA. They'll have transponders.

They'll have the others. But I think there's going to have to be much more in the way of policy and regulation for normal drones and limits on how they can be used, where they can be used, up to what altitude, what corridors, et cetera, et cetera. And we're just, I think, quite behind on that. And so with all the additional drones, with the degree of, you know, maybe even arguably paranoia, or at least public interest, many objects in the sky that blink, I think, are being seen as drones. And when people dig into it, they discover

that this is that aircraft or that airplane or that airline, while there are still some that undoubtedly are unidentified. The incoming administration has, or President elect seems to have made clear he wants to release the JFK files. Do you have any view of whether that is good or bad? I don't have a clue. I remember looking into it one time, and I wasn't particularly impressed by any revelation. There wasn't something that smacked me in the forehead. I know, General, that you've done your best to stay apolitical and not going into politics, but I'm wondering if the president-elect ever calls you for advice.

I mean, you are one of the foremost- I mean, not this time. You know, I was actually brought in last time after he was elected and asked to consider being Secretary of State. We had a very good interview in Trump Tower up on Fifth Avenue. I was called that night by a member of his team, and they said, okay, we're going to announce you tomorrow. I said, okay, but, you know, I need two more conversations.

I need one that does much more in terms of substance, so I assure myself that I'm sufficiently aligned that I could wholeheartedly carry out the policies, and I need one other in terms of reference. What are the authorities that I'll have? What authorities will be retained by the White House or the NSA staff or whatever it may be to get into detail? Because, again, you know, I'd left government. I was a partner in a major investment firm, KKR, this is a big action for me.

And I would have done it if we'd been able to do those. But that night he had dinner with Rex Tillerson and President-elect called the next day and said, well, General, we're going in a different direction, but we'll have something for you. And I said, okay, well, you know, that's fine. And so it went on from there. I did deal a lot with members of that administration. And I'd assume that a number of these likely appointees or confirmed positions would reach out as well. It's been the case with either administration, particularly in certain areas of the world and in certain areas in which I've still got a bit of expertise.

Would you consider a role if they offered you at this time around? I think it's totally inconceivable, given what I see as the criteria for people that have been. nominated so far. This is not, they're not going to take some non-political person, I don't think, and put them into a role in this administration. It doesn't appear. Let me just close with these final questions, General. These are more broad and kind of fun.

Well, the first one is maybe not fun. Of all the subject, we talked a lot of regions of the world where this conflict, what area, what hot spot, what issue keeps you up at night at all? Well, the truth is, nothing keeps me up at night since leaching government. I mean, occasionally I might toss and turn over a particular issue that's important in my position at KKR or the other endeavors in which I'm engaged. But at the end of the day, I think that there's no question that of all the different plates that we're keeping spinning, the plates representing challenges and issues and so forth, and threats that we and our allies and partners, and we always want to have them. with us are keeping spinning. The one that matters more than all the others combined is that which represents the U.S. Western and partner relationship with China. That is the issue that

cannot be allowed to go off the rails. It's the one that has to be the highest priority. I strongly believe in supporting Ukraine, Israel, providing leadership to the world, but bringing all others into it and ensuring that they're doing their part and some of them still aren't completely and President Trump is right in that regard. But at the end of the day, the one that really could just demolish the entire global economy, far more than just the damage that might be done in destruction to those engaged in a war with China, that's the one that has to be managed most intensively. That is by far the highest priority in a world in which, look, we're always allocating shortages.

whether you're a military commander or someone in the White House. And what you have to do is determine priorities and the priority has to be the relationship with China. And I think that the Trump administration previously changed the conversation appropriately for China. I think the current administration has cobbled together a very good comprehensive, integrated whole of governments with an S on the end approach to China, particularly bringing some countries more firmly back into the fold, Philippines, foremost among them, but also others. Yes, there's an absence of a trade component. We shouldn't have walked away from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, but that's no longer feasible now. And the next administration, I think, has to build this out further.

And I think that there's every likelihood that that's what they will do. Is there a historical leader you most admire? Well, if you look at the U.S., partly because, of course, I was in uniform for over 37 years, and it's privileged to command a couple of wars, it has to be Ulysses S. Grant. He had his shortcomings. They're all well known. He failed at everything he did from the time that he resigned from the Army as a young officer, in part because of alcohol issues and loneliness.

His wife was back in the Midwest, and he was out in the far west. And then he was brought back into uniform. And I would argue that he's one of the very, very few. military leaders in our history, who was brilliant on the battlefield at the tactical level, so multiple brigades, the operational level, multiple divisions, Vicksburg, one of the greatest maneuver battles of all time. And then he has brought east at the strategic level. And he is the man who saved the union. That's a title of a great book. And I think it's an accurate assessment of his role in the civil war because he ensured the re-election of Abraham Lincoln in November 18,

which was the most important event of the Civil War, because had the opponent won, McClellan, he had vowed he'd committed to suing for peace and we would not have the union that we have now. Instead, Grant crafted the overall strategy for the first time for all the union forces, orchestrated their execution, achieved the victories at Atlanta, Savannah, Shenandoah, and so forth that ensured that Lincoln was reelected before Grant's, uh, that was by no means certain. With Lincoln's re-election, the outcome was going to be certain. Grant was already pursuing Lee's army and others on the battlefield in a very impressive way and ultimately obviously tracked him down and achieved the surrender at Appomattox and then the surrender of the

other armies as well. And finally, General, besides being a four-star general, you're also a PhD. I wonder if there is three books or two books or one books that you can point to that most shaped your worldview? This is shameless, but the second edition of conflict, the evolution of warfare from 1945 to now Gaza, just came out. It was a New York Times bestseller in its first edition. I was co-author with the great Andrew Roberts of the UK, now Lord Roberts of Belgrave, the first book of his 20 for which he had a co-author. I actually think it is very, very relevant to what's going on around the world today. A lot of the concepts that I described in our conversation are laid out there,

plus the intellectual construct that I developed and used when I was a strategic leader, get the big ideas right, communicate them effectively, oversee the implementation, determine how to refine them and do it again and again and again with lots of subtasks and nuance. And that was the prison through which we examined each of the conflicts in the book all the way up to Gaza. I hope we'll do a third volume, which will include Syria. But again, I know that's really shameless, but it's still a few days before Christmas and Amazon can get it to your home in that time. With one of the drones, hopefully one that does not begin to cause some issues over New Jersey.

General David Petraeus, thank you for joining the dispatch podcast. I wish to be with you, Jamie. Thank you. You know,