The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway - Conversation with Admiral James Stavridis — The State of Global Affairs

Episode Date: February 15, 2024

Admiral James Stavridis, a retired four-star U.S. naval officer and author of more than a dozen books, joins Scott to discuss the state of global affairs, the culture of the US’s armed forces, and how to approach national fragmentation.  Follow the Admiral on X, @stavridisj. Scott opens with his thoughts on gambling.  Algebra of Happiness: teaching your kids basic skills.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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NMLS 1617539. Episode 287. 287 Broadway is a historical building located in lower manhattan in 1987 the simpsons debuted as a series of shorts on the tracy allman show let me get this disney owns star wars marvel indiana jones disney world and the simpsons well if they just acquired my parents divorce they would own my entire childhood hold me go, go! Welcome to the 287th episode of the Prop G-Pod. In today's episode, we speak with Admiral James

Stavridis, a retired four-star U.S. Naval officer and the author of more than a dozen books. I wanted the Admiral on the show because I want to highlight more people who engage in public service and to show just what outstanding individuals they are. I think public service is a wonderful thing. I would like mandatory national service. And also, he has been rumored as someone they're going to draft potentially as a vice president should the Democratic Convention feel they need a replacement for President Biden. His name always comes up as someone who's going to be the VP pick for a potential nominee, Governor Newsom or Whitmer. Anyways, kind of interesting, kind of this mysterious guy who commands curious strike forces.

Anyways, I am off the southwest coast of India in the Maldives. I've never been here. I'm trying to do things that I would not do when I was living in America, and I would never dream of coming to the Maldives. A, it is ridiculously far from pretty much everything, and I have always been intimidated by India. The Maldives is not India. But, you know, as I've heard this, it was amazing. And I'm here. And in fact, it is amazing. I'm at a point in my

life where it is going way too fast. And I only have my kids for a few more years. So as I say, I'm an easy yes to anything. Let's go to the Maldives. Let's take our kids here. Let's go to this soccer game. I'm an automatic yes, because if I don't force myself to be an automatic yes, it's almost always a default no. I'm a lazy person. I'm happy at home. I love my favorite activity is nothing, literally. By the way, I think relaxing and doing nothing is fine as long as it's planned. But I'm trying to stay more active and especially kind of lean into my limited time on this planet, specifically my limited time on this planet with my children. Anyways, by the way, one of the really nice things about being older and not

having a real job is I don't have an alarm clock. I just have a Great Dane, which also doubles as an alarm system. So what else happened? The Super Bowl. And it's still the most watched broadcast in television history. An average of 123 million viewers tuned in last Sunday. And overall viewership was up 7% from last year's record. This is very exciting. Not only did the game result in historic watch numbers, sports betting also reached new heights. This is not as exciting, and this is something I'm worried about. And as your glass-half-empty kind of guy, I want to talk about the Super Bowl. First, let's talk about Glass Half Full. I think the relationship between Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, is that it? Jesus, I'm such, I'm literally the biggest wimp in the world. I don't even know the players anymore. Don't really care. Anyways,

I think it's really nice. And when I initially heard about it and they were constantly cutting to her in the middle of games, not that I was watching those games, I kind of rolled my eyes. I don't love her music, but I love her, or specifically, I love what she represents, and I love the idea of having a romantic relationship be on full display that doesn't involve anything other than mutual support from two incredibly successful people. I also like the fact that she is more successful than him, despite his immense success. She is a phenomenon. I'm not sure you would describe him as a phenomenon. And I also think it's just ridiculous that people seem to be so hostile towards it. And it strikes me that if you have a problem with Taylor Swift, then quite frankly, you just aren't used to women being on top. When

David Beckham was dating Posh Spice, everyone seemed to be fine with that because while she was a talented singer, that's a stretch in my view, he was a legendary football player. It strikes me that whenever there is a relationship, a famous relationship where the woman is more powerful, people or a large portion of the populace seems to have a gag reflex. And I think it's bottom line, just plain sexism. She's a phenomenon. She's amazing. And what better role model would you want for young women and also for young men? So how can anything be wrong with that? hundred and forty dollars on the game. That's a twenty three billion dollar total. That's up forty four percent from a year ago. But the thing is, that number is misleading. That's saying about a quarter of America bet on the game or a quarter of American adults. It's not. That's misleading. It probably means about 40, 40, 45 percent of men bet on this game. Why? Because men are more risk aggressive. Men's brain is more hardwired for taking risks. And by the way, that can be a very

good thing. Men make better entrepreneurs. Yeah, I said it. There's some amazing female entrepreneurs, but if you equalize the opportunity, there would still be more male entrepreneurs. By the way, now that we are equalizing the opportunity around law school and medical school, there is going to be more female doctors and more female lawyers. And quite frankly, I think women, generally speaking, will make better doctors. I think they have better EQ, better attention to detail, better dexterity with their hands. I think they're going to make for better doctors. Now, you're allowed to say that. That didn't offend you. But when I said that men make, generally speaking, better entrepreneurs, you had a gag reflex, right? It's time that we recognize. It's time that we recognize

that men and women or people born as men and people born as women are predisposed to different type of attributes, which isn't to say either sex should be sequestered from any opportunities, but it's okay to acknowledge certain types of people have certain types of skills or are genetically more prone to certain types of skills. And that's okay. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. Does that mean we shouldn't have female fighter pilots? Absolutely not. Does that mean men should not be nurses? Of course they should be nurses. Does that mean women aren't going to be great entrepreneurs? No. But it's okay to embrace some of the wonderful qualities that both femininity and masculinity exhibit every day. And one of those attributes of masculinity and of men

specifically is they are more risk aggressive. There is an award given out by the Carnegie Foundation on heroics, and that is people who demonstrate a willingness to risk their own life in the moment to save someone else's life. And last year, I think they gave away 72 of these awards. Sixty nine of them were men. Why? Because men are more prone to rush out into the battlefield to try and save a comrade, even under enemy fire. Whereas generally speaking, women are more thoughtful. They're more thoughtful. They're more risk averse. And by the way, you need both those things. You need that chocolate and peanut butter. Great households with two people in those households. By the way, those attributes can be demonstrated by same-sex couples to the same extent as heteronormative relationships. But that chocolate and peanut butter of someone who's more practical, thoughtful, elegant, has higher EQ, coupled with someone who's more aggressive, more risk-aggressive, bolder, if you will, maybe even a little bit more visionary on some things, willing to take more risk, that is the chocolate and peanut butter that makes a society great. There's nothing wrong with celebrating those attributes. And by the way, those attributes are not sequestered

to people born as male or born as female. Having said that, men are much more risk-aggressive, and the downside is that 85% of people that develop a gambling problem? Men. Closer to 90% of the money spent on gambling? Men. What do we need? In high school, we need to be made aware, or we need to have our children made aware that there are differences between the genders in terms of the types of activities they are more prone to. And young men need to be made aware that they are more prone to engage in risk-aggressive behavior, including gambling. Now, why do I say that and why is it important? Gambling, more than any addiction, more than any addiction, has the highest suicide rate. Why is that? If you become addicted to meth, crack cocaine,

or alcohol, people notice. And typically, if you have people who love you or people who are paying you, they intervene. And sometimes there's nothing they can do, but oftentimes there is something they can do, and their intervention helps. But there are oftentimes no obvious indications that you are addicted to gambling. You can lose your house, your kid's inheritance, your parents' money, and basically have no way out, and nobody knows. And then you decide there's only one way out, and that is suicide. The stock market is a form of gambling. We don't like to admit it, but it is. About $3.5 trillion a year in transactions in the NYC and the NASDAQ.

The markets are essentially a vehicle for raising money for growth for companies. That is their primary purpose, IPOs and secondary offerings so they can raise capital and grow their businesses. That constitutes about $300 billion of that $3.25 or $3.5 trillion. What does that mean? It means about 90% of the trades every day are essentially speculation. I bet the stock is going to go up and the person selling it to me is not as smart as me, just as the person who's betting on San Francisco to win isn't as smart as I am betting on Kansas City. It's gambling and it hits a certain amount of dopamine. And I am not immune to this. I buy and sell options. I try and legitimize it. I try and rationalize it by saying, hey, hey, I'm hedging or I'm creating income from my existing stock holdings by writing covered calls.

But you know what the real reason is? I'm really honest with myself. It's a dope a hit. I enjoy it. And I'm not sure had I had some of the wonderful qualities of femininity, which I do have. I'm more emotional than most men. I think I take my relationships more seriously.

I think I'm more observant. I have a lot of feminine qualities that I embrace. But one of the qualities I do have that is more prone for men, for people born as males, is I love to gamble. I love it. And so what I've tried to do is have an honest conversation with myself around gambling. And it's the following. It's okay. It's fun. Don't infantilize people. Don't be their parent. I have a great time. But I gamble knowing that I could lose it all. It's consumption for me. And be clear when you're betting on the Super Bowl. Be clear when you're day trading. Be clear when you're buying options, quite frankly.

It's consumption. It's consumption. And you need to be in a position where if you lost it all, and by the way, 85 to 95% of day traders lose money. If you lost it all, it wouldn't matter. It wouldn't keep you up at night. And that's the litmus test when you're taking these types of risks, especially around gambling. And I worry with immediate access to smartphones, specifically, we almost had a bank run because of smartphones. Do we need regulation? I don't think so. Maybe you price it to its externality and you tax it for programs and education. What we need, again, is to educate young men and young women that young men are more prone to risk-aggressive behavior and to be thoughtful about what it means to gamble, the risks you

are taking, and to do the math. Could you afford to lose all this money? And would it have an impact if you did lose it on your mental health? If the answer is no, then you don't do it. You don't do it. Because what is another attribute of being a grown-up, and this is true of both men and women, having some discipline, thinking about your future, thinking about the people around you, and building a solid base. You are more prone to taking risks as a man, and that's fine. There's some wonderful attributes of it, but you have to be cognizant of it and modulate the downside. We'll be right back for our conversation with Admiral James DeVritas, a retired four-star U.S. naval officer and author of more than a dozen books.

Admiral, where does this podcast find you? I'm in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, professor, and I am headed off to New York City tomorrow. Got it. So let's pass right into it. If you were to stack rank, I mean, it's sort of take a card, any card in terms of conflicts around the world that pose a pretty serious existential threat. How would you stack rank the risks? Where would you focus given that the cruel truth of capitalism in any society is we have finite resources? How would you allocate our resources in terms of leadership,

kinetic power, and attention in terms of the conflicts around the world? Yeah, I probably won't surprise you by saying strategically the obvious contender is China, simply because of scale and size, military capability, and the arc of their ambitions, which are significant. President Xi tells us he intends to be the dominant global power by mid-century. So I'd put them kind of at the top of the strategic stack. I think, however, tactically, operationally, if you will, of Vladimir Putin's Russia poses a significant challenge. And principally because he's in possession of a significant nuclear arsenal, 5,500 nuclear weapons. He's an impulsive, indeed a reckless decision maker.

He is embroiled in a very difficult campaign in Ukraine. And when I put all that together, I worry about Putin's Russia as well. I think those are the two at the top of the stack for me. So let's double click on that. My sense of China is that you have to take the second largest economy seriously. They're obviously ambitious. They take themselves very seriously for good reason. An incredible story. But my sense is they have so many domestic problems, they're not looking for another crisis right now. I'll put forward a thesis and you validate or nullify it. The likelihood that they are going to go after Taiwan right now or create another crisis, I just don't think he's looking to mix it up right

now. 40% decline in the stock market. The GDP has largely been driven by the real estate industry, which appears to have three and a half times the leverage that we did during the Great Financial Recession. Aren't they going to kind of be dealing with their own issues for a while? I 100% validate your thesis. I'll add to it, President Xi is watching Ukraine closely. And what does he see? Number one, he asks himself, boy, I wonder if my generals and admirals are as bad as those Russian generals appear to be, all trained in the same schools. Debacle. Number two, he looks again at Taiwan, is your thesis. And he says, I wonder if those Taiwanese would fight like hell the way the Ukrainians have. He doesn't know.

He's never been to Taiwan. I've been there a lot. I know Madam Tsai, the outgoing president. I know William Lai, the incoming president. I know his armed forces. I think they will fight and they will fight hard. And it would be a difficult challenge. And number three, really to your economic point, President Xi looks in the mirror every morning and says, my economy, it's too big to sanction, right? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. Could we do a lot of damage? Would it hurt his effort, a valiant one, to get out of the irons that he created in the course of the COVID, in addition to the real estate overhang, which I agree makes 08-09 look like a walk in the park? I'll add another one, environmental challenges. The cost to remediate damaged environment in China is extreme. And longer term, the demographics of the nation are terrible, principally stemming from their obsession with one child policy led to a lot of femicide, led to a real imbalance, by the way, not often discussed between men, too many, women, too few in that society. So yeah, China has a host of

problems. They're not 10 feet tall. On the other hand, they're not five feet tall. They're more, you know, kind of six, two with potential. We would ignore them at our peril, but we shouldn't overemphasize the near-term threat. Let's talk about Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Give us, in your view, the state of play and what the media is getting wrong. What do Americans not understand about the war in Ukraine? The word to use correctly is stalemate. We've hit a real stalemate. And Ukraine has become this curious combination of World War I kind of trench warfare. You watched the movie 1917, and it feels like you could see Ukrainian and Russian flags

right now. 100%. And at the same time, you have this overlay of 21st century and pushing forward with artificial intelligence, with, above all, the drone and unmanned. The Ukrainian armed forces have destroyed a third of the Russian Black Sea fleet, despite the fact that they have no warships. They've done it with drones, unmanned, both in the air and on the surface. So the war is a stalemate and a curious combination of what's old and what's new. I think that your main question for us is, how does this end? What happens? And the answer is, I can answer it in three words.

I don't know. Nobody knows. And I think we all need to be a little more humble about our predictive powers. But I'll give you my guess, again, using a bit of history. I think it'll end like the Korean War did, with static lines roughly where they are now. And the portion of Ukraine that is in the possession of Russia probably ends up in the hands of Vladimir Putin. That's awful. On the other hand, the quid pro quo will be Ukraine that is allowed to join NATO, joins the European Union, is reconstructed. I think it's not impossible to imagine a South Korea-like miracle occurring for Ukraine in that scenario. So anybody's guess where it goes in terms of what the media gets wrong. I think we are underreporting on the efforts of the Europeans in the conflict. As usual in the United States, we tend to think

we are the sole determinant of how things are going to come out all in capital letters. The Europeans have put a lot of money, a lot of effort, a lot of diplomatic engagement, a lot of pressure on the Russian economy with sanctions. The Europeans are a big part of this story. That's why it would be a real shame for the United States to kind of walk away at this point. I think that's a part of the story that needs to be told more forcefully. if you were to say this is how I would deploy kinetic power and human intelligence, how would you approach a war differently having observed what's happened in Ukraine? Yeah, I'll give you three things I've been thinking a lot about. One is unmanned. And, you know, we tend to use the word drone. Really, unmanned vehicles are from space. Satellites are unmanned vehicles. To high-level long-dwell drones, where that word is correctly used generally, to tactical unmanned vehicles that can be as small as a pair of glasses, to surface unmanned vehicles like the Israelis are using in the tunnels against Hamas to surface and subsurface unmanned vehicles going against naval power. That moment is rising. Number two,

artificial intelligence. The ability to knit those unmanned systems together is on the beach at Kitty Hawk right now. But it's moving very rapidly. And the third is special forces, the effects of special forces. And here I don't mean just Navy SEALs, Green Berets and their equivalents. I'm talking elite, smaller teams, cyber warriors are special forces. I kind of think of it as a triad. You and I grew up thinking of the triad as missiles from the ground, minutemen, submarines, and long-range bombers. That's a strategic nuclear triad. This new triad of unmanned artificial and cyber and special forces is the new triad of warfare, and we're seeing it on display in Ukraine. So does that mean we're going to start, instead of West Point, we're going to have some version of MIT?

Absolutely. And it's time we did. By the way, as you know, we just created a space force. I think within the next decade, if not sooner, the space force will begin to bring into it artificial intelligence, the space force as we think about it, unmanned operation, everything we just talked about. And to do that, I think you do need a new academy. Each of the current service academies have sliced programs that do some of this, but it's really time to recognize we're at the Battle of Agincourt again, meaning suddenly English longbowmen slaughter the French knights in their thousands at that battle. This is the Henry V battle. We are at one of those moments in warfare. We're going to need to adopt

not only our systems, as you point out, Professor, but also our training, our education, our culture in the military are all going to have to change. You know, it strikes me in the corporate world, great companies always point to their culture. It strikes me that it's take that times 10. And that's that's what, you know, that's what creates winners and losers and conflict. Talk to me about how the culture of our U.S. armed services has shifted over the last several decades. I mean, we always say we have the best fighting force in the world, and I still believe that. And it creates, I think, a great deal of comfort for Americans. How has the culture shifted? Talk about human capital. Who do you look for when you see someone? You're obviously in the business of trying to figure out who should be in leadership and who doesn't come into leadership. What is the culture of the different, the overall culture of the armed forces remains strongly patriotic, deeply committed to the nation, deeply committed to the idea of serving something larger than themselves. And by the way, let's not forget, over the last 20 years, we became a highly blooded armed force. We were engaged in active combat

in Afghanistan and Iraq. Afghanistan, NATO mission, I commanded 150,000 troops in combat there. So point one, the armed forces remain highly patriotic and I think fairly well respected. Those ratings have come down to about 60 percent. That's still stronger than any other American institution. The Congress is around 10 percent, for example. So I think patriotic and well respected. Point two of the culture is experienced. When you go into a military unit today, be it an aircraft carrier, a fighter squadron, a nuclear submarine, above all, Army and Marine Corps units, you find so many of the mid-level and higher level, both enlisted men and women and the officers who had significant combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And then point three, because of what we're talking about now, because they are students of their profession, which is a part of culture, recognizing that you're a professor, you're a dean, you're part of the academy, people in the military feel the same. They feel it's a profession. And as they watch with professional eye to what's happening in Ukraine, as we just discussed, the culture is innovate. We've got to change. We can't just keep doing it the same old way. So I think those are three things that are very much at the heart of the military culture, really from top to bottom across all the armed forces. In terms of what we look for, because that's our culture, what we want are people who are

willing to take a lot of personal risk, not be paid a great deal of money, be willing to deploy for long periods of time away from their families, are smart enough to innovate, are willing to be part, as I said before, of something larger than themselves. That's a hard group to find. And we are, as you're probably aware, having some challenges recruiting right now for the armed forces. Not so much officer ranks, but for our enlisted men and women. Most of the services missed their recruiting targets last year, down about 10 percent, first time in a long time. A number of reasons for that, but the principal one is a booming economy. I don't need to tell a professor at the Stern School about it.

And it creates very low unemployment. And so the military has to compete with that. And many of these young men and women in this high school cohort are either too obese, have mental health issues, have been arrested, have used drugs. That's 75 percent of the graduating cohort from America high schools. So that's a significant challenge to then find the right set of them and convince them to take on this arduous career in the military. It's just so interesting because when I was growing up, there was a group of people who were just intensely patriotic who went on to Annapolis or West Point or, you know, the Air Force Academy. And they were sort of the elite of the elite.

They were smart. They were, you know, there was always that guy who was a great athlete and a great student. And it felt like a quarter of them were bratsy. You know, they just attracted incredible. And then on the enlisted side, quite frankly, it was like the last stop. It was, well, I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. I don't have a lot of options. I'll join the army. And you hear these statistics. and we'll come back to this, but you've been mentioned a great deal of times in terms of potentially holding federal office. What long-term investments do we need to be thinking about in terms of our youth that at a minimum we have a robust fighting force that can defend our shores. I'll give you two or three ideas. One is we need to do more to incentivize and celebrate the idea of service. And by the way, this is not confined to the armed forces. There are a lot of ways to serve this country, and we need high quality people who are diplomats, CIA officers, Peace Corps volunteers, Teach for America, Volunteer for America, our police, firefighters, EMT. There are a lot of ways to serve the country. I think we are underweight in incentivizing that with taxes, educational benefits. But above all, we are underweight

these days in celebrating it, in particularly the non-military. We do a reasonably good job these days with thank you for your service. We ought to broaden that whole concept and create more of an idea of what it means to be a citizen and what are the positive incentives that can come out of this. Business can help at this. And many firms do, as you know, try and hire veterans. That needs to be broadened, in my view, to hire those who are serving in the very broad sense of the term.

Number two, near and dear to both our hearts, I've been a professor, I've been a dean, you're a professor, education. And here, that's a much longer conversation you and I could have about what's wrong with higher education, but what's wrong with our high schools, what's wrong with our elementary schools. I'll give you just one example. I'll pull out of my pocket this supercomputer called an iPhone that I carry around, and I would invite people to consider what age do we place that supercomputer in the hands of a child. The answer is about 10 years, 10 and a half years old. We provide zero education, essentially, for how to manage that device. That's an example within the broader question of education of what we need to be doing with youth

as they're coming along. And the third one, and there's no easy way to get at this, but it's physical fitness, mental health, resilience. Back in the 60s, even before you and I went through high school, but back in the 60s under John F. Kennedy, there were a number of programs that really focused on those aspects of the youth. And I think we're sadly underinvested in those kind of programs as well. So it's physical fitness, it's education, and it's service, I think, are somehow part of the prescription. Do you think that mandatory national service is a good idea? I do not, if what you mean by that is mandatory military service.

Expand it out to health care, senior care, Peace Corps, basically what Israel does. Yeah, I think that we are very close to needing that. Before we jump into that, which would be a huge undertaking for the nation, I think there's a halfway house, which is creating more incentives that would encourage that, broadening that concept, if you will, instead of the GI Bill that we remember, a service bill that would incentivize people to come in. If that doesn't get us moving in the right direction, I'm willing to consider the ideas of national service if they are broadly applied, not just the military. We'll be right back.

So let's use national service as a segue back to our tour around the world and talk about the war between Israel and Hamas. It feels to me one group of people is fighting for their nation and their existence, and the other is fighting for—I mean, they're both pretty committed fighting forces. It's different than Russia and Ukraine. You know, I would argue I'm obviously very pro-Israel, but they're both very committed fighting forces. And, you know, you want to talk about a clash of cultures, but summarize, if you will, the atmospherics there, where the conflict is, and do the same sort of analysis on where you think this might head. First and foremost, Israel vastly overmatches Hamas militarily. Israel is not facing, in any sense, an existential conflict. Hamas is. And at the end of this, Hamas, which we need to recall,

is a terrorist organization that perpetrated unbelievably vile and horrific acts on innocent civilians deliberately. So I have criticized the Israeli defense forces for the levels of civilian casualties, but there is a world of difference between trying to avoid civilian casualties, which the IDF does, and trying to inflict civilian casualties, which Hamas did and continues to do and continues shamefully to use civilians as human shields. Where will this go? Israel has destroyed, at this point, by my estimate, I'd say about half of the combat power of Hamas, about a third of their leadership. They're closing the net around what remains to the south in and around Rafah. Israel has some hard work to do in deciding how to separate the civilian from the military population. No easy way to do that.

Going to have to use cordoning, closing gradually, as I say, a noose around Hamas, using biometrics to identify, peeling out the young military-age males, screening each of them. A lot of hard work ahead, and you've got to create sanctuary for the one million or so Gazans. These are enormous tasks. When those tasks are underway, and that'll be a two-month process, then and only then can Israel really close the switch on what remains of the combat in Gaza. So I think you're looking, Scott, at two to four months of significant combat activity. Now, break, break. We're on the cusp, I think, of a probably six-week ceasefire that's been generated by needs on both sides, Israel to accommodate international opinion, Hamas, because they're losing so badly. I think we're going to see a

six-week or so. I think we'll see some hostages exchanged. And in that period of time, perhaps there's a level of negotiation that can follow that, I'll give you one theory, would be the Hamas leadership. Some of them are allowed to escape, if you will, the way the PLO left at the end of the Intifada. Some level of Israeli control in the Gaza, but joined by some other group, perhaps Arab League, perhaps United Nations, perhaps some combination of all three. And at that point, you can begin trying the principal task from a humanitarian perspective of reconstructing some form of life in Gaza, where by most accounts, 50% of the infrastructure is destroyed. So not a pretty picture, but I think the next action step here is probably a ceasefire. Let the parties step back, exchange some more

hostages. And at that point, I think you can reset the table somewhat. So this plays to your strengths, but my sense is that Biden doesn't get enough credit for immediately deploying two carrier strike forces and that these strike forces have effectively to date cauterized this from becoming a regional conflict, that people don't appreciate just how much we invest. And the return on that investment is that we can deliver unprecedented levels of firepower within days anywhere. What's the role that the carrier strike forces play here? You correctly categorize it. And the first question a president typically asks in a crisis is, where are the carriers? These are unmatched machines of war, 100,000 tons, 5,000 people, 80 combat aircraft.

It was a clear, distinct, understandable signal to Iran to cease and desist. Now, the Iranians, being the Iranians, didn't immediately bring everything to a halt. And the Houthis have been throwing some missiles at our troops and locking down some aspects of Red Sea commerce. And we've seen radical Shia militias launching attacks on U.S. positions in Syria, tragically killing three servicemen. So it's not perfectly clean. But what we haven't seen is Iran unleash Hezbollah, which has 130,000 service-to-service missiles and is an existential threat to Israel. We haven't seen Iran shut down the

Strait of Hormuz. We haven't seen Iran use its military capability against the United States. I would argue a significant part of that was the presence of not one, but two nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, plus, don't forget, Expeditionary Strike Force, Amphibious Readiness Group. That's 2,000 U.S. Marines, plus a couple of hundred Air Force aircraft in the region, in and around Doha, Bahrain. This network, this alliance we have is powerful. And then you can use those carriers to jumpstart particular areas. And I think President Biden used them wisely in that way at the beginning of the crisis. That's part of why it hasn't spread into a wider war. You said something

in front of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that really resonated. You said, the bad news is no external power in the end is going to defeat us, but within ourselves, if we can't overcome the kind of polarization that we're experiencing today, that we may have real challenges. How do you think we overcome this type of polarization? I agree with you. If this was a horror movie, the call is coming from inside of the house. How do we reunite, if you will, or at least diminish that, well within our means to handle the United States of America. We were this vast continental power protected on both sides by oceans, benign neighbors, North and South, remarkable innovation, education, natural resources, oil and gas. We've got it all, except we are a very fractious people. We always have been, right?

I mean, if you look at our history, we declare independence in 1776. We can't agree a constitution till 1789, 13 years later. Then we have the Shays' Rebellion, the Whiskey Revolt, the Civil War. We're a fractious people, and that is our Achilles heel. So what do we do about it? I think in times where we have overcome this fractiousness, it's required a couple things we already talked about, service and education. One particular place I'll hit on because you and I are both educators, I think community colleges have an enormous space for good in the United States. Community college is where education really ought to be free. It largely is. With community colleges, you can create a true middle class that can find its way to a meaningful life in the middle. So education and service, we've already discussed.

I think third and most obviously, it's leadership. It is finding and electing candidates who are willing to work across the aisle. That's what's really hamstringing us right now. And by the way, a big part of the problem are the political parties. And personally, I think it's time we started thinking, we, the big we, all of us, about particularly those of us who are kind of in the middle, be thinking about are the Republican and Democratic parties as currently constituted serving us well. You know, we act like somewhere in the Constitution, you know, Article XX, it says there shall be two political parties.

One shall be Republican, the other shall be Democrat. Hey, we didn't start that way. We started with Whigs and Federalists. We had Nationalists. We've had the Star Party. We've had the Progressive Party, the actual name of Teddy Roosevelt's party, we've had the Star Party, we've had the Progressive Party, the actual name of Teddy Roosevelt's party. We've had a lot of political parties. I think it's time to start exploring what a new political structure would look like. It'll require three things, a charismatic leader, money, big money, a Michael Bloomberg kind of money, and it'll require ideas. What are the central ideas that we can all roughly agree on? And you're a master of polling and looking at statistics. You know this very well. Across the big spectrum of issues, you can build pretty quickly a 60% consensus

in America. We just need money, ideas, and the right person to lead that. And I think if we hit those, things could change. And by the way, I just wrote a novel about all this called 2054, as in the year 2054. And it is a period of time in which Republicans and Democrats are gone. But my sense of the history of political parties and democracies is we always get very excited and it makes a lot of sense for additional parties. And usually the vision is for the party to be less extremist, to be a centrist party. Would a more effective way of getting to the same place be reform around de-gerrymandering and rank choice voting and final five such that, quite frankly, we just had more moderates. I see the problem as just so deep red and so deep blue in the election system where we

have kind of the crazies of the crazies basically show up and determine who is going to be our elected leaders. They haven't served in the same uniform the way they did in the 50s, 60s and 70s. So there's literally no connective tissue and nothing gets done. Couldn't we get to the same place with voter reform? I think in particular rank order voting, it could be an enormous part of this. And we've seen recent examples of that in a couple of the states. I think that, yes, I'd be willing to consider all of those. And that could be part of an idea, a set of ideas moved by a charismatic leader or two, money, and if not an entirely new political party, a system that rewards the kind of centrism you're talking about. I'll close with this very practical example. I spent five years as dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy

at Tufts University. So I lived in the People's Republic of Massachusetts, the most liberal state in the country. Who was the governor the whole time I was there? Was a Republican, Charlie Baker, who was the governor the whole time I was there? It was a Republican, Charlie Baker, who has consistently voted the number one governor in the United States by his peers. We can find these leaders. And if we can do the tactical things you talk about, terrific. If not, it's time to go after the strategic framework, which is the two political parties. So you referenced your book, 2054. You envision a future where we have artificial intelligence that leaders don't understand and can't fully control, and a United States ripe for civil war. How realistic do you think that is? And what sort of threats or opportunities do you see AI presents to the nation?

I think it's unfortunately quite realistic. And however, I did not write the book as predictive fiction. I wrote it as cautionary fiction. And in this case, I worry about AI in particular because it can do three things very well, none of which will surprise you. One is it can deepfake us and lead us down the wrong bolt holes. Number two is it can introduce significant economic disruption as tranches of workers are displaced by AI. And thirdly, it can become a kind of a false god that provides answers that are dangerous to us, as in they click into our own views in ways that move us en masse. All three of those things worry me.

So, Admiral, your name pops up regularly. You were vetted by Secretary Clinton as a potential vice presidential candidate. You were interviewed to be part of Trump's cabinet. And the most recent speculation that's come across my screen is that at a Democratic convention, if in fact they feel that Biden is not up to the task, if you will, for a variety of reasons, that Governor Whitmer is drafted and you are the VP pick. How real is that? I mean, you're out obviously talking about your book, so you can use that as cloud cover for being on my podcast. I came on to talk about my book. But are you interested in, if you will, laying the groundwork, sort of ready to serve in a federal capacity should the opportunity serve? Well, first of all, my name is Stavridis, which is too long to fit on a bumper sticker. And you haven't met me, but I don't meet the height requirements. I'm 5'5 on a really good day. So I'm not that admiral out of central casting. And I'm not a cabinet post by Donald Trump. I think that is two

bullets whizzing by my head at really close range. I am all about serving the country, but I think the path for me to do so is not through elective office. So last question here, Admiral. You served in the agency of something much greater than yourself. That's how you have made your career. And I would imagine it's been sort of the centerpiece of your life. What advice, a lot of young men listen to this podcast and most young men are trying to find their way. What advice would you give your younger self? What advice do you give to young men who come into your office and say, you know, I'm not entirely sure. I don't—this, meaning my youth, manhood, adulthood, is harder than I thought it was going to be. Do you have any sort of, you know, advice

to your younger self or advice to young men in terms of what has held the test of time in terms of truisms or principles? Yeah, I'll give you two very practical things and one philosophical thing. The two practical things are, one is stay physically fit. It gets harder and harder as you get older and older. It is the gift of youth. It is the burden of old age. Stay physically fit, not just because you'll look better in a Speedo, but you will do much better in terms of your mental acuity, your energy level, the decisions you make, the way you are around people. Physical fitness really matters. Find time every single day to work out. Number two, read. Read endlessly. You are what you read.

The most important day of your education is the day you graduate from the Stern School of Business and Professor Galloway no longer tells you what to read. That's when your education begins because you're the one that gets to pick it. And you ought to be reading voraciously, both fiction and nonfiction. So I'd say read, read, read and work out. The philosophical thing is find time for service, find time to serve others. And that can be as big as taking a commission in the Navy and banging around on a Navy destroyer for four years, or it can be as small as making the persistent, steady commitment to go to a food kitchen every single day for a year or two, small tactical contributions of service. I think those three things make people, not just young men, but people, make people better. So strength, reading, and service. Admiral James Stavridis is a retired four-star U.S.

naval officer. He is currently partner and vice chairman, Global Affairs of the Carlyle Group, a global investment firm, and is chair of the board of trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation. Admiral Stavridis has published 12 books on leadership, the oceans, maritime affairs, and Latin America, as well as hundreds of articles and leading journals. His 13th book, a novel co-authored with Elliot Ackerman titled 2054, will be published on March 12th. He joins us from the great state of Florida. Admiral, it's trite and it's redundant, but it's sincere. Thank you for your service. And as I said before, there are a lot of ways to serve this country, Professor.

Education being at the top of my list. Thank you for your service. how's your happiness i talk a lot about my kids and i virtually signal a lot and people say oh what a great father you are when the reality is there's i have a lot of blind spots in terms of being a father and they're all in full display here on vacation now the first is the vacation starts off as sort of this very supportive yoga retreat. We're all talking, you know, my kids, I'm very patient with my kids and reinforcing every movement and asking them how they feel. And by the end of the vacation, it's like a supermax correctional facility where I am threatening them with physical violence unless they get in line and eat their goddamn lunch. But the real deficiency I've noticed is that I have not done what my father did and most dads do,

and that is my kids are pretty void of skills. I think they have strong values. I think I've done that. I think I've done that pretty well, but they don't have a lot of skills. And what I mean by skills is they don't know how to play pool. They're not very good at ping pong. They don't know how to play backgammon. They sort of know how to play chess. And I've thought, OK, that's on dad. That's on me. My father, I'm not sure he gave me a lot of great values, quite frankly, or maybe did served his country. That's kind of a harsh thing to say, isn't it? Anyways, my dad left my mom and, you know, moved across the country. And I think I still haven't forgiven him for it when I was eight.

But he did go out of his way to give me some skills. He taught me how to iron a shirt when I was eight, but he did go out of his way to give me some skills. He taught me how to iron a shirt when I was like nine. I can iron like no one's business. Not that I iron a lot, but when I do iron, anyone around me, if anyone was around me when I was ironing, would be impressed. My dad learned how to iron in the Royal Navy. My dad spent a lot of time teaching me how to work out. I've been really good about that, teaching my kids how to work out, but I haven't taught them basics around kind of dude stuff, right? How to mow a lawn, how to, you know, again, play pool. I got them out on the tennis court today and I'm committed to teaching them how to play backgammon, getting them a little bit more

involved in chess. I'm like, there's just a certain number of skills that every young man should have. And what I realize is that while I've been so focused on values and big picture shit and virtue signaling, they just don't know. They just don't have some of the basics. So tonight, it's snooker and checkers at the Galloway household. Teach your boys some basic skills around games,

around the simple stuff, the little things. This episode was produced by Caroline Shagrin. Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer, and Drew Burrows is our technical director. Thank you for listening to the Prop G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn, and on Monday with our weekly market show. No pickups, that's right. This bitch rules the planet.