REIMAGINE Geospatial Intelligence w/ former NGA Director Robert Sharp

Episode Transcript
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(00:12):
you know, we're really happy
that you're able to join usand and have a good conversation today.
I think there's a lot of peoplein the Jewish community, especially
that love to hear your thoughts andand want to know what's going on with you.
And, and I think you have a great storyto tell about,
your upbringing in thethrough the military and time as director.
So I, I was hoping maybe we could startthere about what you could tell us about

(00:35):
how you how you gotinto this crazy world of ours.
I don't know if it's a great story.
It's certainly a story.
Right.
And, I have said this, certain times,
if you knew if you know Admiral Stavridis
just by reputation,you know, retired as a four star.
He wrote a book calledThe Accidental Admiral,

(00:57):
and, I cringed.
It was a great book, a great read,but I wanted that title.
Right.
Because I, I think if you lookat his career versus my career,
I truly am the accidental admiral.
much more so than he.
I think he was destined to be an admiral.
but, you know,I spent 34 plus years in the Navy.

(01:20):
34 years. Three for four plus years.
All that time
in the intelligence community,you know, as a naval intelligence officer.
I only signed up for two years,
and, I just kept staying.
And every time I takeanother set of orders,
my wife would hold up two fingersand she say,
it's been a little longerthan two years, mister.

(01:40):
but I stay just because of the people,you know, and and the things
that I was able to do and changing jobsall the time, it was it was truly a joy,
you know, and, and a great life.
Yeah.
that's that's interesting.
You mentioned that, you know, you did.
You signed up for two,but then you kept going.

(02:02):
you mentioned some of the peoplewere the driving factors, like what?
What were somewho are some of the people that made you,
make a decision like that?
How did they influence that?
Yeah, I'll I'll give you a, somewhatabbreviated
version of my career in the Navy.
And, at one point,I had the the pleasure of working

(02:26):
for General Jim Mattiswhen he was the Central command commander.
And I was the commander of the jet therefor Intel Center.
And, he was a great customer.
Very appreciative of Intel, but,he always wanted to hear
potential adversaries, his competitors.
Formative experiences. Right.

(02:47):
And so I kind of sharemy formative experiences.
And when you get older, you have to
chunk your career out in blocks,or else it just becomes long, boring.
Right.
So I came in, I was a law school dropout,for one thing.
And I had a brotherwho was, enlisted in the Navy.
He was a slick 32 operatoron the USS Arkansas.

(03:11):
And, he was an electronic warfare technician.
And he said, hey, Bobby,
you should think about going in the Navybecause you're a college graduate.
And and,you could go in as commissioned officer.
but because I was a law school dropout,I didn't want to overcommit,
which is why I signed upwith a short, commitment.

(03:31):
But it was two years activeand then four years active reserve.
and I came in, just after the
the Ronald Reagan buildupand near the end of the Cold War.
So I came in as a naval intelligenceofficer, went through officer
candidateSchool, went through basic Intel School.
And at that time we learnedall about the Soviet Union

(03:53):
and all source operational intelligence.
We even had instructorsthat would dress up like Soviet naval
officers and like, strut out on stageand talk about their their strategy
and how they would defeat the evilempire of the United States.
BecauseI was only signed up for two years.
I also wanted to make sure that I,I got some operational experience

(04:15):
in the fleetto see if I would like doing it longer.
So I was, I received orders
to the USS Ranger kV 61,
and I always tell the youngsterswhen you Google it,
it's not the wooden ship with sails.
Try to see an aircraft carrier.
And I joined them on deployment.

(04:36):
So I somehow made my way out to Diego
Garcia and jumped on boardthe Ranger deployment.
And we were on something called Gonzostationed up in the North Arabian Sea.
And it was a Cold War era, right?
It was Soviet ships
in close proximity, intense situations.
They had Intel collectorstrying to collect off of us.

(04:58):
They would fly reconnaissance aircraft outand we would intercept them.
And when we finished the deployment,we came back across the Pacific.
We went throughsomething called the Bear box,
because the Soviets would launch
long range aviation bear aircraft,
both strike aircraft and anti-submarineaircraft, and we would launch goose

(05:21):
and MAV off the pointy end of the Ranger
and, go try and intercept at 200 miles.
Right.Which was their weapons range. Right.
And I thought that was going tobe my experience in the Navy
and I enjoy I was enjoying that.
But in our turnaround cycle,while we were preparing
for the next deployment,Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

(05:45):
And as, a stellar until last year,
I was scratching my head saying,Who is Saddam Hussein?
And where in the world is Kuwait, right?
But it was, it was a lesson
in expect the unexpected, right?
And adapting to new situations.
So wewe came up to speed as fast as we could,

(06:10):
and we made a shortened turnaround cycle,
and we deployed early and,
chopped in through the Strait of Hormuzinto the Persian Gulf
the day before Desert Storm.
Right.
And wow, that was a formative experiencefor, for then Lieutenant J.G.
sharp. Right.
Because it was constant strike operations,

(06:33):
working with the aircrewbefore they went on their missions, after
they came back from their missions,we had a Tarps, F-14, Tarp squadron.
So we were doing tactical reconnaissance,
and, it was a hook for me.
And, this will come back to play
at the end of my careerbecause after Desert Storm,
the Navy looked at itselfhard and naval intelligence and said, hey,

(06:57):
we need to invest in some deep expertisein some specific skill sets,
that are really important to how we do,
naval aviation and strike operations.
And those were figuring outhow we leverage machines better.
Right.
So some computer equipment,sort of savvy individuals,

(07:18):
we wanted to have peoplewho were smart in collections.
Right.
So how do youhow do you make the national intelligence
community know and respondto tactical edge requirements?
Right.
How do we tap into that system of systemthat's out there?

(07:38):
it was in the early days of using,imagery afloat.
Right.
And we were just testing outa brand new system
that allowed usto receive three images in one hour
afloat.
That's kind of the the technologywe were dealing with then.
And then we said we need to, expertin targeting.

(08:00):
Right.
Which is really bringing that togetherand working with the aircrews,
telling them what they need
to do to have effects,working with the combatant commands.
Right, and getting information off.
And, to me, targeting was all sourceoperational intelligence.
Right?
It's it was built off of whatI had learned

(08:21):
thinking about finding Soviet platformsthat didn't want to be found.
And, I really wanted to do that, you know?
So, I said,I want to be an air wing target here.
And it was the first of three timeswhere people
said, screw you don't want to do that.
It's,
you know, it's something new.

(08:41):
It's not, the standard career path.
and it may put your progression at risk.
And I mentioned thatbecause it was the first of three times
that people told that me that in a career.
And each time, thankfully,I was stupid enough
just to say, well,this is really what I want to do.
But, in hindsight, you know, peoplethat give you

(09:04):
that sort of advice in your careerdo so from, from Hobart.
Right.
They're they're tryingto, to look out for you,
but quite oftenthey're looking in the rearview mirror and
they're looking at what works yesterdayas opposed to maybe thinking about
what's going to work tomorrow,what what's needed tomorrow.

(09:25):
And, that kind of played out through my career.
So, you know, the Cold War era,
the next stage of my lifewas really that targeting.
And I went back to see as a target herefor Air Wing two.
I was stationed in Fallon, Nevada,when Topgun moved from Miramar up
to to, Fallonand we we merged Top Gun, Top

(09:49):
Dome and Navy Strike Warfare Center,and I deployed on the USS
constellation, CV 64
and really enjoyedworking with the aircrew.
Being a little more senior,
you know, and a little more experiencedthis time afloat.
So I got to do some mentoringand and leadership roles.
And I like talking to you so muchthat I decided I wanted to do it again.

(10:13):
Right.
And that was the second time that somebodytold me, oh, you're over specializing.
And I said,yeah, this was tactical targeting.
I eitherwanted to go to a combatant command
or the Joint Staff,and I took orders to the Joint Staff,
and they said, you're over specializing,but it was
it was a great experience,and it was my first,

(10:35):
tour in Washington, DC,
my one and only tours in the Pentagon
and my first exposureto the national intelligence community
and the tremendous talent
when they, you know,when they were sorry, when,
when, when they were saying this to youthat you're over specializing

(10:56):
is the orthodoxywithin the ranks of naval officers
to kind of just get a mix of experience
and then, you know, soyou've done this wide breadth of things.
But if you say, you know,I've been in this lane the whole time,
then you're less likely to get thatthat next,
the next promotion.
Yeah.
Well, it's it's,you know, there's always this, this,

(11:19):
debateon whether or not you want specialists
or you want generalistswithin the intelligence community anyway,
in the Navy, in a lot of the otherprofessional fields, like when you're
if you're driving shipsor flying aircraft or,
or driving submarines,
there's a very set pipeline where you're

(11:41):
you're mastering that platform, right?
There's a little bit more flexibility inwhat we do as intelligence professionals.
But we've had this debate, historicallygeneralist versus specialists.
And at the end of the day,we always come to,
you know, after we're exhaustedfrom debating this from all sides, we
we kind of come down in the middle
saying we need general specialistsand we need special generalists to it.

(12:05):
Yeah, they're both of those are valuedright now on the specialist.
It's one of the reasonswe've been expanding
our warrant officer programwithin Naval Intelligence.
Right.
Well, I thinkI think it's good to master something.
Right.
If it was, you know, as a genuine person,
you know, we've always had the debateswith the all sorts of people, right?

(12:27):
It's like, oh,you're just looking at a bunch of stuff.
But really what they're doingis mastering the art of fusion, right?
In the art of intelligence. Fusion.
Yeah.
And it's you know,I think it's a critical point.
Yeah. Also.
And that was my first exposure reallyto the Geo Winters because on the Joint
Staff, my door opened up towhat was the name spaces.

(12:50):
Right as, as NCA was becoming NCA.
And just like I became a target herebased off of lessons from Desert Storm.
And gar was born out of lessonsfrom Desert Storm.
Right.
And while I was there, while I was onthe Joint Staff is when they created Nema,
eventually NCA and then just to finishmy career real quick

(13:10):
targeting became post911 counterterrorism operations,
which is targeting which is all sourceoperational intelligence.
And when I started deployingwith special operations
instead of being afloat as much,that was a third time.
People told me, hey,maybe you don't want to do that.
and then as I left, you know, NCA,

(13:32):
it was a
full circle back to strategic competition,right?
Not the Cold War, not the Soviet Union.
Right.
a different strategic competition,but it's a full circle for me.
And it was, it was a perfect way
for me to culminate my careerbeing an NCA.
You know, I was a target here.

(13:53):
I had been around,Geo Winters my whole career.
And when I got to NGO, I told them,you are my people.
Like, this is, You are peopleI have worked with, deployed with,
been around.
And I love earth sciences and earthobservation.
So, after that,I was like, I'm complete, right?

(14:16):
My career was complete at that point.
That's kind of a perfect circle from cold,where
Cold War,you know, era all the way back to
the world's a crazy place now,but it does seem
to be kind of back to the,you know, confrontation of major powers.
Right.

(14:38):
but so I guess I guessthere's probably a lot of lessons there.
We can, we can ask you about, but,
I, I'm curious about your timeas director of NCA.
I always have this, thought of,you know,
what is it actually like to wake up andand not, you know, to
to just have that much responsibilityof an entire.

(15:00):
It's not.
And so people understand it's not just
that you're leadingthe National Geospatial Intelligence
Agency, you're also leadingthe national geospatial strategy as well.
So there's a lot of different componentsto that.
I'm just kind of curious, like what thewhat is the day
what was the day to day like and like,how did your perception changed?

(15:21):
change.
once, once you started kind ofgetting comfortable with that role?
Yeah. that's a good question.
And it did change over time.
So I was having discovery every day.
And, I still,you know, I, I'm, I'm believe in the,
the value of life, you know, life learner.
and I always encourage people to grow

(15:43):
every day professionally and as leaders.
And even thoughI had been around the agency
quite a bit, I still didn't know everything.
The agency and the enterprise was right,
which kept me very motivated.
Right.
And excited about what the team was doing.
And for some of your listeners thatmay not know the agency, you're right.

(16:08):
The director of NCAholds, more than one role.
he or she is
responsible for running, the National Geospatial
Intelligence Agency, which is,you know, a little shy of 15,000 people,
globally distributed, right?
About 50% of it is in Virginia.

(16:29):
about a quarter of that is outin, two facility out at Saint Louis.
But the other 25% is all over the place
for an NCA support teams and co-located
with customers and with teamsand all the other Intel agencies.
We all combat commands,with international partners.
And it's very connectedand collaborative by nature.

(16:50):
And that's a strength of the agencyitself.
Sure.
But the director is also
the functional manager for all thingsgeospatial intelligence related.
Right?
So for the US government and with incooperation with international partners,
that in that role,you're helping to set standards
to push the envelope with new technology,tactics, techniques and procedures

(17:15):
and to make sure that everybody'sgetting what they need to do their jobs
leveraging, geospatial perspectiveand geospatial technology.
so it
it can be, you know, if you think of that,it's pretty complex, right?
And it operates a very complex system

(17:35):
of systems around the clockand around the globe.
Understandpeople's requirements to go out and cast
a bunch of system of systemsor data sources to help meet those needs.
and it has a very complex,sophisticated IT infrastructure,
right, designed to ingest,

(17:56):
process, store, make sense out of data
and turn it into products at allkinds of different classification levels.
And all kinds of different formats,and disseminate that on multiple different
communication systemsaround the clock and around the globe.
So the, you getting to be the director,

(18:16):
you have to you have to empowerto make something like that work.
You really have to drive decisionmaking down to low levels.
And, just point,
you know, the proper direction,kind of give strategic
direction, empower people, provideresources, remove barriers.
Right.
And be be wowed by the amazing talentthat we have.

(18:41):
more tactical.
You know, I,I still went in every morning early.
and it was
funny because my wife at one pointcalled me out on this.
She said, hey, throughout your career,you've been saying
that you need to go in earlybefore the boss, right?
So you could be prepared
when he or she comes in through the doorand she's like, aren't you the boss now?

(19:05):
I'm might.
Yeah, I am, but, you know, for me,it was quiet time.
It was time before the day startedwhere I could,
I could read, I could calibrate,I could think,
before the day happened, every every day
starts with, an ops Intel briefing.

(19:25):
Right.
Which is designed to to levelunderstanding of what happened
yesterday, what's happening today,where we need to be focused.
it's it's recorded.
Right.
So that people who are on different timezones can still come in and at,
it was run by my director of operations.

(19:46):
It wasn't run by myself and the deputy.
It was really runby the director of operations,
so that there was some level of,
you know, shared consciousness,
and direction.
and then the day happened.
Right.And then we'd come back and do it again.
But it was designed
to make sure we were meetingcustomer needs and properly focused.

(20:08):
And it's not unusual.
That's not, I mean, most of the agenciesdo something like that
throughout my career.
All that the tactical operational unit,you do something like that.
And, that was probably the joy of my day.
I tried to split my time between,
getting aroundand interacting with customers and,

(20:32):
disaggregated team.
Right.
And my guidance to my planners wasI wanted to have my head.
I wanted to be homeat least 50% of the time,
which I defined as havingmy head actually on my pillow
right next to
next to my wife sleeping in the same bed.
And I think we did a pretty good jobof achieving that balance.

(20:55):
But it's a
it's a busy job, demanding job.
But the the agency is just
full of tremendous peopleand the, the partnerships that tenga
and all the other agencies have aretruly are our strength
as an intelligence community.

(21:15):
And it was a joy to to beeither in the building or out on the road.
with members of the community, on a regular basis
in three years,three plus years went by and, right.
And I
well, you mentioned that, you know,the day just kind of happens, right?
And, you definitely had some days.

(21:38):
I mean,you were there during Covid, which is
at least a mile.
I don't think we've had a pandemiclike that in 100 years.
Right. ma'am,
and to navigate that,
and the role that you were in, and to see kind of where it's
where it's at now onthe other side, is interesting.

(22:00):
that was that was that experience.
Yeah, definitely something different.
Right.
And, I think from a positive perspective,I had been the director
for just over a year at that point.
You know, if I had come, if I had dove
right in and like within the first month
we had done that,that would have been hard.

(22:22):
But I knew the agency knew me,and I knew my leaders.
And we had established a really strongworking relationship,
relationship both at the agencyand within the enterprise.
So that played, to our,you know, to our strengths.
But I tell you,it was it was different than anything.

(22:43):
And the thing that that struck methe most was, well, I guess two things.
One was kind of a panic,
you know, that was right.
That was going on.
Not not unique to to Banga.
Right? It was happening everywhere.
and the different nature of it,as opposed to

(23:04):
all the other crises we had dealt with,was that it?
It impacted us at home.
Right?
It had, ithad, tentacles reaching into homes.
But with the panic initially,
I had a lot of people were saying,
hey, we need tell us exactly what to do.

(23:27):
And I mentioned earlier that I believein empowering people, right.
And driving decisionsdown to the lowest level.
And I had to tell them, I'mnot going to tell you what to do
because we're too complex, right?
Everybody's home situation is different.
We have different jobs.
We're all over the place.
I said, but we I'll tellyou what needs to be done,

(23:50):
right?
And early on, we came up with the phrasewe will take all actions
necessary to protectand preserve our force and our families,
while continuing to meet missioncritical needs of the nation.
And then when people would say, well,what about let's say
I said again, my lastall actions necessary, right?

(24:11):
Protect and preserve, meetmission critical needs.
That's that's our left and right limits.
And we will figure this out together.
And, it took us about a weekto re postured the force
because once again,this was very different.
This is a workforcethat when there's a crisis in a community,
right, when there's a crisis, right,they're packing their bags,

(24:33):
they're coming into work,they're like, where do you need
I'm ready to go wherever.
And at this point we were telling them,hey, we need you go home.
Not everybody. Right.
All right.
Or else we can't meet that that balance.
But we need a lot of you to go home.
and and what we said, everybody we met.
Everybody. Right.

(24:53):
And there's complexityin the workforce of uniformed
government civilian contractors.
Sure, but they're all part of the team.
And there's there's different,
rules and regulationsas to what you can or can't do.
But we committed to to figuring that outfor everybody.

(25:15):
Right?
So it took us about a week
to get people convincedthat this was the right thing to do.
And then it took us, probably another couple of weeks
to really get people connectedand to push tools down
at the unclassified leveland to really get our feet underneath us,
thinking about howwe're going to do business differently.

(25:35):
And once we got ourselves re postured,I, in my discussion with leadership
and the team writ large, I said, I want usnot only to survive this pandemic.
I want us to use it
as an opportunity to come outstronger and smarter and better, right?
To think about doing thingsdifferently that we hadn't done before.

(25:56):
And, I was pretty proud of the waythat the team took that
that idea and really ran with it.
I think Covid was like ait was like a shock to the system.
Yeah, not just as like our,our national system, but,
you know, like the way that theintelligence community works, right?
I mean, it wasit was like, oh, wait a second.

(26:17):
This is really difficultto do this on these, these networks and
what are some other things we have.
And I think
and I've always I believe thisfor the last, I don't know, maybe 20 years
that the, the unclassified production ofintelligence is where things are moving.
And I think that's pretty evident now.
But, and it really helpedus, you know, we benefited from having,

(26:39):
you know, robust high sidesort of network,
decent collateral networkand unclassified network.
And we had already had resourcesto improve,
you know, already identifiedto improve some of our networks.
We were going to
we were about to
focus on our collateral networks,but we shifted that to the unclassified.

(27:00):
And we pushed push tools down.
And I think uniquelyout of the intelligence community,
the geospatial realm lends
itself more, you know, easier
to doing unclassified workthan some of the other agencies.
Right? Right.
We we found processes.
Now, if you are,you won't find this surprising.
But we found processeswhere we are taking unclassified data.

(27:25):
We are
moving it up to high side systemsdoing things.
Do it.
We are moving it back to unclassifiedsystems and using that for dissemination.
So there's a lot of room for processimprovement for sure.
it still is.
but I think today, peoplekind of get it right.

(27:46):
They're like, okay.
Yeah, this is kind of silly.
And I actually had a podcastwith Keith Mars back and he mentioned
this phrase, which is just stuck in my,my brain is that there's a fetish fetish.
I can't even say the word.
There's a fetish with classifying overclassifying things.
Right. yeah.
But I think it's, it's, it'sa natural reaction,

(28:09):
like when you're, you know,you're in the business of
a part of your business is protectingsecrets, right?
Stealingshirts and protecting secrets and.
Sure. And providing information.
So it's it's ingrained in you like toto make sure you are security conscious.
And we never want tolose that. Right. That's why.
But we also
shouldn't be afraid to questionwhy we're doing things certain ways

(28:32):
and to adapt how we do business right.
And every day people should be saying,how do we get better?
Sure.
Yeah.
I was curious, you know, if there was any,
any moment or lesson learned,like during that time
that just really just sticking with you,the pops, the top of your head?

(28:56):
Yeah, I it was funny because as a,you know,
as we were getting into the pandemic,early days,
thankfully,
you know, we had good communicationsbetween other agencies.
We were sharing,
best practices at the director level,deputy director, chief of staff.

(29:16):
We're talking, you know, downthroughout the organizations.
and one of the things,
that had come out early on was
the McChrystal group had had turned toand put out
some information on leading throughsomething like a pandemic.

(29:37):
And, you came out with
it's it's still I think you can find itstill on their, their website.
And I think they may have turned itinto something more formal.
but it was I had already, you know,I worked for general McChrystal
early days, doing counterterrorism and,
and so had, Major General CharlieCleveland.
Right.
And a number of folksthroughout the organization.

(29:59):
So as,
as, as they were coming upwith their guidance,
we looked at it,we were like, check, check.
We're doing that. Yep.We're doing that. Right, right.
but it reallyit really showed the importance of,
not only communicatingbut over communicating.
Right.
And a loving connect over, overcommunication is my thing.
I believe you got to just you gottait just shows that you're comfortable

(30:24):
and where you're at that you canyou can be wrong, too.
When you're over communicating.But if you're
if you're keeping it flowing, that's actually you could be wrong.
But it's it's okay to be wrong also.
And it's totally fine.
People know and I, I would tell peopleI learned something new
every single day, sometimesfrom the most junior person in the room.
I'm also wrong. Every day.

(30:46):
And once again I would tell them,if you don't believe me,
you can call my wifeand she will tell you he is indeed wrong.
Every day I try not to be wrongabout the same thing, right?
Sure.
but I think that that, connectivity
and communicationswas a key to our success.
And, I think, you're aware, Nick, that

(31:08):
that, we were doing weekly virtual townhalls.
We were sending out, daily updates,
from from myself.
Right.
Or from the leadershipteam out to the, the enterprise.
And I
think it it allowed people towe were very transparent

(31:29):
about how we were handling the disease,right?
How we were, how we were, safelyand responsibly bringing people
into workspaces to make surewe were taking care of force and families.
Right, right.
And, we were we were also able to, to show people,
even at the unclassified level, thatthey were still getting the mission done.

(31:50):
And that was really important.
And one of the things I started doing,
I told peopleI had to get through this myself,
you know, I'm going to take time every dayto laugh
and I'm going to take time every dayto be human and to laugh.
You know, wewe would run, different aspects of,
joking around and r ops until near
the end and earlyon, we had repositioned General Cleveland

(32:15):
over to work from the Pentagonjust spreading this out.
Plus, then we had senior presencein the Pentagon and early on
I started a segment of our opsuntil we called.
I will make we will make a sailorout of you yet Charlie Cleveland
and I would teach him nautical termsand he would banter back.
And when it was the Army's birthday,he ran a segment.
We will make a soldier out of you,Bob Sharp.

(32:37):
But taking time to laugh a little bitduring stressful times is important.
And then to be human.
I was doing daily buddy checks and I wouldI would carve out time on my schedule
to call somebody, I had worked withand I consider a good friend
and check up on them and their families,but also talk about leading

(32:57):
during a pandemicand sharing best practices.
And then also, it was good for me to checkon how the how the joint team was doing
and continuingto provide support to the pandemic,
and I would share feedbackfrom those discussions
with the enterpriseduring the next day's ops Intel. And,

(33:20):
I think that connectivity,
like hyperconnectivity was really important.
the second aspect, I'd say, isit allowed us to push
the envelopein being creative and innovative.
and you may recall this, that
almostI mean, really early in the pandemic,

(33:41):
when we had gotten people,we postured the, Department of Defense
and the government said, hey, we needeverybody's plans for how you're going to
recover and reconstitute, right?
How do you how do you bring people backif this thing's over tomorrow,
what's your plan for for quickly
reconstituting, recovering.

(34:02):
And we startedwe we were starting to do that planning.
And then, we checked ourselves and we said,
hey, we said we're going to change, right?
We said, we will come out of this smarterand better, stronger
if we just plan on coming backand doing business the way we did before,
we'llhave lost all that opportunity to learn.

(34:23):
So we our plan was called reimagine,reconstitute, recover.
The three R plan.
And it generated somesome great discussions because early on,
I was getting feedback from the workforceand from the leadership at all levels,
and they said, hey,that that the team is really excited
about the word reimagine, butthey want to know what you mean about it.

(34:48):
What do you mean by that?
My response was no. What do we mean?
Like at every level, right?
Everybody is is empowered to reimagine.
And that could be an admin process,an operational process.
You know, anything we will.
And we came up with a way of of looking at those ideas,
evaluating them and making sure that we

(35:11):
we adapted and made that
part of the way we started doing businesscoming out of the pandemic.
Right.
What I think you know, what sticks outto me, about your story is,
one of the things I've always,
I think is the cornerstoneof any good leader is humility.
And I just think that you'rea humble person.

(35:33):
You've recognized that.
I don't see that in a lot of people,a lot of leaders
that you could just tell that they thinkwhen they walk in the room, the
the sun and stars are there for them.
but I think humility is, is very critical.
And I think you just you exudethat, right?
You're not going in there saying,
this is what we're doing,this is how we're doing it.
You're saying, I'm here to listen, learn.

(35:55):
We'll make a good decision together.
And I think I think that's
what people really admire about youis you have that humility and like,
you're as as the director of aof a major intelligence agency
to come
in and listen to that lowestechelon person and, and learn from them.
So I think that'sI think that's a critical thing.
And, I think that's whypeople like you so much.

(36:17):
I appreciate that, Nick. And,
you know, it's
I always tell peopleI've never been burdened by brilliance.
That's one of my strengthsis, which is why I'm humble.
Because I need to be humble.
Because I'm not all that impressivefor one thing.
And the other thing is, my strength is

(36:37):
is recognizing the strengthsthat other people,
and and helping them just achievewhat they're doing and, and team building.
and I've always been,
fascinatedand excited about working on teams.
So one of the things I really enjoyedabout the,
the culture at Nar,I lost count of the time.

(37:00):
Every, every single timeI would, I would recognize somebody,
right?
And I'd say, hey, Nick, great job.
I really appreciate that. Sure.
To a person they would say, hey,thanks, sir, but it wasn't me.
It was the team,
you know, and it's it's,
it's a recognition of really ourstrengths, which it's not one individual.

(37:21):
And then, talking about, humility
as an important characteristic of leaders.
At one time, I was I was the,
J2, the Intel directorfor special Operations Command.
And it was my second year.
And General Joe Battelle,who's a phenomenal leader,
was the commander there.

(37:42):
And we were just having a sessiontalking about leadership.
And my deputy at that time isis a good friend
and one of the best leadersI've been around, Keith Lawless,
United States Marine Corps, 30 yearsin the Corps, and then a senior civilian.
And he said,
hey, all the great leadersI've been around

(38:04):
have three characteristics.
One is honor, right?
They, it's never about, you know, it's
they will do the right thingbecause it's the right thing to do.
Right? They are.
They are people of honor.
It's humility.
It's like you said, it's never about them.
It's about the team.
And then it's.

(38:25):
It's humor and, humor.
You know, your attitude is somethingthat you get to choose for yourself.
There's so much about your dayyou don't get to choose,
but your attitude, you get to choose.
And as a leader
or as a person in general, butas a leader, certainly it's infectious,
right?
Very positive ways or negative ways.

(38:46):
And General Votelhad one of his leadership
principles was be a happy leader.
And when he he said, when I tell peoplethat they they kind of chuckle.
He's like,no, no, I really mean it. I mean,
I mean, be a happy leader, right?
Because
your energy transfers to your people,right?

(39:07):
It sets it sets the tone.
so I try
and remember that, you know,throughout my day.
And one of the leadership tipsI give to to, leaders as they're
stepping up in their roles is,
take time every day to walk around
a little bit and interact with your people

(39:29):
and take time
deliberately out of your dayto make at least
one person that works foryou know how special they are,
right? And that they're doing a good job.
And at the end of the day,you can have like a horrible day.
But if you do that, those two things,
on balance,you're going to have a good day every day.

(39:51):
I think that's
interestingwhat you're saying about humor, because
it seems it seems to methat humor plays a critical role.
The more serious the job isor the more serious the role is.
You know, like likethe Seals are notorious for having like,
you know, this six sadistic senseof humor, which which is great, right?

(40:13):
Because you can't imagine being inthe conditions that they have to work in.
And I think it's the same for,
you know,
working in intelligence. Right?
Everything we do is critical and timesensitive and, and super important,
and we try to be as detailedas humanly possible because
we want to make sure that ultimately, thethe people that are in acting,

(40:35):
on our information are,
you know,have the best possible knowledge.
And I think it's interestingand I think probably eye opening
to some peoplethat you mentioned humor as a key thing.
I don't think it in normalfor a normal person walk in the street.
Thanks. Oh,the director of an intelligence agency.
Yeah, he'sprobably a pretty funny guy, but,

(40:57):
you know, I can attest Bob.
Bob does have a good, a good sense of humor.
this is a great saying.
calm breeds calm.
Panic breeds panic.
Right? Right.
that sort of mentality. And it really is.
You see it in, a lot of high performingteams that are in stressful situations.

(41:19):
There's a balance, right?
I mean, you're focused when you'rein those stressful situations, but time
sometimes just a little bit of humorcan can defuze the stress, right?
That's right. It's in the room.
So during it up,you know, being focused and,
and everything is, is really important.

(41:40):
And then in between it's, it'sgood to relax and recover.
You mentioned the Navy Seals.
I workedwith, quite a few throughout my career.
And there were there were twothat were commander, deputy commander
and had known each other,you know, grown up forever and,
one of the things they,they always tried to do was sneak rocks

(42:00):
into each other's like,rock rucksacks or like, baggage stuff.
It was like a ongoing,
go about it you had with.
Right, right, right. Yeah.
Make the pack a little bit heavier. carry around.
that's a good one.
we used to do that in Army as well,but I'm sure we'll say

(42:20):
that the Seals probably had bigger rocks,so I'll just throw that out.
so, you know, you talked about your careercome start to starting in the,
in that Cold War era and then, you know,all the way through Covid and, and kind of
now we're back in this, kind of samestrategic warfare type of position.
and I want to ask you about that,you know, based on current events

(42:43):
a little bit later.
But, I'm curious about whatwhat are you up to now?
So you you leave the agency?
you know, I know you've had some,
some things happening
in your personal life that are, you know,
add contacts.
but, what are you up to today?
And, like,what gets you out of out of bed now?

(43:03):
It's funny, what gets me out of bed?
every morningnow is my Australian shepherd
right there because she.
She's like an alarm clock,and she's getting old.
She's, like, 15 years oldnow, and, she's one of the pets.
My my wife acquired.
She had amy wife had a, knack of acquiring pets.

(43:24):
If I went on long deploymentsand come back and,
so she she got the Australian shepherd.
I was two yearsand a company over in Bahrain, but,
although she's getting old in the morning,she's a puppy again.
She wants to go for a walk. And,
so that gets me up.
Move in.
my. I'm,

(43:45):
you know, make your bed.
disciple of of actually, I'm a craven.
I had the pleasure of working for himdirectly as a sitcom commander,
and then also deployedwith him out in Afghanistan
and as an, as an entail careerIntel officer.
You know,I always I've always been an early riser.
I'm a morning person.
Like, obnoxiously happy morning person.

(44:08):
So, getting up nothing that is obnoxious.
That's the most innocuouswhen people are so happy in the morning.
And I can be like that sometimes.
But I think for the most part,it's like I'm struggling.
You know, it takes me a secondto get the wheels spinning
at the Office of Naval Intelligence.
I was thereand we were having a family day,
and one of my O6 commandersmet my wife and and he said

(44:29):
he said, hey, man,this is the ever like this every day.
And she said, yes, he is.
And it can be exhausting.
but but
what, what motivates methroughout the day?
You know, I like to tell people thesedays, I'm, I'm dabbling.
Right?
I, I work for for me, you know,I started,
llc b sharp Global Solutions.

(44:52):
Well, my,my strategic vision is to help people
who are trying to make the world bettersucceed.
a shorter version ofthat is just to continue helping
great people do great things.
And I'm doing a combination of,
of some consulting
with a numberof the established companies.

(45:13):
Right.
I signed initiallywith Quest Advisors and,
and, knewsome of the people working with them.
The other principles that I really liked,
I stayed connected with Saint Louis
because I'm really passionate about
what is going on in Saint Louis.

(45:33):
It's happening out there in it. Yeah.
Leveraging leveraging the investment of, replacement construction.
Right.
the the area is doing a great job
of growing themselvesas a leader in geospatial technology.
Isn't that interesting, too?
Because, I mean, in Saint Louis, you know,and Jay's been out there forever,

(45:54):
but it seems like this just gettinga new building is like, has made it.
Wow. Hold on a second.What is going on over here?
And I think, yeah, I think over the last,the last decade more, more,
the more that the technologies improvedand made it more accessible,
I think people are like, oh, this is cool.
And not to mention the

(46:15):
the information that can be derivedor you're starting to see that
more businesses are leveragingGeo went for different things.
And it was it's really cool to see SaintLouis kind of like grab a hold of it.
And I know, you know,Saint Louis has some issues.
You know, I was out there for thethe symposium, a few
it was a couple years ago.
Or was it last year, last year, last year,and then the year before that.

(46:39):
The the driver from the airport,he's like, oh, you guys are here
for the conference.
You're the only people that havebeen downtown in the last,
you know, month.
but I think,I think something like that could really
spur, spur innovation in the cityand, and drive businesses there.
I know that there's businesses that arestarting to invest more heavily there.

(47:00):
So I think it's a great thing all around.
Yeah.
So, I think you're tracking I'ma, I'm a fellow a research fellow
with University of Missouri, Saint Louis,the public university out there. And,
we're helping themstand up a geospatial collaborative
and not only given certificationand degree programs within the university,

(47:21):
but then also using it as a hubfor a multidisciplinary research.
and then the Chancellor wants to help be
a thought leader in K-Through-12 K-12.
Sure.
If you're 16 or,
developments and
so on the people side.
And, you know, I'm, I'm passionate
about people and futureworkforce generation and those things.

(47:44):
So it, it keeps me connected out there.
And then in between those things,I'm working with a bunch of, smaller,
great companiesthat are in the business and doing
either some startups or somethat are have been in the business.
I'm working with a great companycalled Geo Al.
You may.
Oh yeah, I know them.

(48:04):
I hear they're I hear they're great.
no, you've it's been greatto have you and, obviously getting,
getting a chance to knowyou a bit more and, and learn from you.
I'm kind of curious like that.
You know, you mentionedyou're working with some startups.
You are.
We've been around for a little bit.
I wouldn'tI wouldn't consider us quite a startup.

(48:26):
Consider a startup either.
I think more like I think you're.
Yeah, you're in transition, though.
Sure, sure. Absolutely, absolutely.
but what's that like,working with startups?
you know,
that's that's like flipping the switch.
That's day and night between,you know, going from, military
service into,oh, I'm in the startup world now.

(48:47):
Yeah. It's, it's been an education for me.
For one thing.
You know, I learned I've been learninga lot, and I'm finding that I can have way
I can have impact in ways that I couldn'twhile I was in uniform,
which is exciting to me.
One of the things I really lovedabout being in the military
was changing jobsevery couple of years, right?
Right, right.
It may be a little,internal ADHD that I have when I like,

(49:11):
I like constant change.
And, it was actually Keith Moss backand some others
who I've been talking about to about,
you know, this next phase in my lifethat recommended that
I carve out some time for startups and,it's exciting.
Let's go. And, I, I'm trying
not take on

(49:31):
too much and kind of spread the portfolio.
So I'm helping out companiesthat are in different, aspects.
But, it's,it's exciting to, to be on small teams
that are,that are kind of young in their journey
and to helping to advise them
as to how they can be successful.

(49:53):
And so I'm working with,
you know, some companies are doing remotesensing, some companies that are doing
artificial intelligence, machinelearning, types of things,
working with quantumcomputing company and,
you know, it's, it's amazing stufflike the technology that's out there.

(50:13):
And I think, us as a nation
and like minded nations
figuring out how we,
adopt
new technologies in these, these emergingdisruptive technology areas
and how we figure that out is at the core

(50:35):
of strategic competition, right?
Technology is just technology,and it can be used for good or evil.
Right?
Throughout history,we've demonstrated that.
And I just think that there are some the,
the, proliferation of sensing,
like knowing what's happening,where the availability of data sources,

(50:58):
quantum
computing and artificial intelligence,machine learning,
partnering with machines,all those things individually
are game changing,but they don't exist individually either.
No. Right.
They're interconnected andand we need to make sure we're in a race,

(51:18):
which is which is why you're you'rewell aware that,
you know, all of these directorAI issued, moonshot challenge.
We stood up moonshot labs.
We were very deliberate about harkeningback to the 60s space race.
because I think we'rein kind of one of those times in history
now where we're ina, we're in a competition of consequence,

(51:41):
one that we're not winning in every area.
And it is in the best interestof the free world that we win
100, 100%.
That's that's a great segue,because I wanted to talk about
some of the things that are happeningin the world and, and obviously
the emergence of technologyseems to be on everybody's mind.

(52:02):
Unmanned. Right?
I mean, unmanned.
Well, now that, I don't can you sayunmanned anymore, like it's uncrewed now,
I don't, I don't, I don't even knowwhatever UAS, those are cool.
I'm curious to know, like what?
What your perspective is on, you know,some of the things you've seen,
working with startups and working,in the military of, like, what?

(52:27):
What do you think the next phaseof artificial intelligence is?
I think in my perspective,
I think AI is going you mentionedthat convergence of of technology, right?
It's it's a compound growth ofof new technology.
All happening at the same time. Right?
It's just getting betterand better every year.
And it's getting betterat getting better every year.

(52:51):
I think there's so many thingsthat are beyond
beyond what we can even
figure out between the two of us.
I think there's thingsthere's just going to be like, what?
you know,they're going to be mind blowing,
but what what are some interesting things
that you've witnessedor that you can kind of see,
on the horizonin as far as technology is concerned?

(53:15):
It's to
me, the, the easy onethat's already occurring at some level.
But it's just we're just scratchingthe surface of the utility of it is just
partnering with machines and automating
things that that our people do right now.
And I can tell you that while Iwhen I came to to Enga,

(53:35):
there had been some sort of disruptivechanges
from my predecessoron, on trying to move down that path
of becoming more dataenabled and digital and partnering and,
and there was still,
I wouldn't say suspicion, but skepticism,I guess, would be the right word.
Right? Right.

(53:56):
But as soon as you start to show peoplethat, that you can change the way we do
business workflows and,and what used to take somebody
eight hours takes them 30 minutes.
They become, believers right away.
And that's an everything we do.
So I think the, the early opportunities

(54:17):
are, are just in that automationand continually looking at processes
and thinking how we do thingsfaster, smarter, better.
and then the the next stepI think is looking at that
from an integrated fashion.
Right.
And, it's one of the things you andI have talked about before,

(54:39):
and I talk to a lot of people about this.
I'm excited about not only whatindividual companies are doing,
but what they perhaps couldand should be doing together.
Sure, partner, to figure out things for
for the nation.
And I think we need to createthat environment

(55:01):
that also, once again, why we were talkingabout the 60 space race, right?
Because we found a way of coming together
between government, industry, academia,
nonprofits, international partners,right to figure things out.
And I think that's going to be
a key aspect of how we

(55:25):
how we stay at the,
the, the forefront of figuring out how
we can leverage some of these technologiesto to greatest effect.
Like I said, I think you're you'redefinitely on to something in terms of
getting companies to work together,because you see a lot of these
AI companies that are popping up now,they have different types of data

(55:48):
in different, you know, different waysthat they work with data.
different standardsthat they use for their own
stuff, different, ways of,
of collecting the data,different ways of distributing the data.
But it seems likea lot of these companies,
if you could just smash them togetherwith two, you know, two other ones,
they would just be like,oh, you know, the things that

(56:09):
that are the art of the possible.
I think I once heard that creativity
is really just the art of puttingtwo things that are dissimilar together.
You know, that's really what it is.
and I think that thatwhen it comes to technology, creativity
is actually going to be the, the thingthat gets us, to the promised land.

(56:31):
I say promising gets us where
we want to go with this stuff, you know,and I think, I think creative creativity.
Right.
An innovation is, comparative advantagethat we have as a.
Absolutely.
And so that's our innovation. So,
yeah, the United States, I mean,

(56:51):
look, we we have our problems.
We, we we, we, we know that,
but there's there's not a day or a weekthat goes by that,
I don't read about some new things,
a new company that's started or some,
you know, new technologythat's that's coming up.
That's interesting.
And, and I try to reada lot of a lot of news, and I'm always,

(57:15):
I'm always seeing it like, okay,a new company here, a new company here.
And, that, that is our strength.
You're right.
Like,just being able to the fuel to the fire.
Right?
It's like if you don't have any,
any wood going into the fire, it'sgoing to it's going to burn out.
But that's the that's the fuels,the innovation.
So I think, the more we lean into thatthe better.

(57:37):
That's right.
And, you know, our strength is our people
are rightand our partnerships and partnerships.
So I'd, I'd always tell people we
we not only have good friends,we have friends that are really good
from international partnership,but part of that partnership
is working together between commercial,you know, private,

(57:58):
public, at a, at a different level
in this creating the environmentwhere we can think through things.
Two things, based on you know, just,
following through on a couple of thingsyou said there.
One was that creativity, like,combining things was one of the things
I really loved about the Trident specter,

(58:20):
demonstration series was the technology.
And it wasn't the individual technologies.
It's when technologists who are in closeproximity and they start saying, yeah,
I think we can combine these things,right? That
that I think is very powerful.
And it's it's part of,who we are as a nation.
And I may have shared with youwe've this, this story, but,

(58:44):
at one point, you know, I was workingat a combatant command, right?
And the four star
general had all the three starsand all their staff sitting around,
big map.
Right?
And because everything's geospatialand we're
talking about some of the challengeswe face, and he turned to all his leaders
and he said,we come from the land of Thomas Jefferson.

(59:07):
We will outthink the sons of bitches.
And it's it's timethat we create that environment
where we just unleashthe creative genius in our people, right?
And and challenge them
to help us make surewe're at the forefront of figuring out
how we adopt and adapt,
using these emerging technologies and,

(59:30):
and how we,we leverage technology to great effect.
So I, I think we're up to the challenge.
It's just,you know, if if we're not successful, it's
because we're holding ourselves back.
Yeah. Well,
I think there's,
There's there's a lot that can hold usback.

(59:52):
especially over the last few years.
What are your what are your thoughts on.
Well, before we get into, like, kind ofwhat's what's happening in the world,
I was curious to know
you actually served under President Trumpand also President Biden.
And I'm not asking.This isn't a political question here.
This is just was was there a shift in tone

(01:00:14):
that you noticedfrom one executive to the other?
Like what?
Like what were the major differencesthat you noticed
from your, your role as, as the director?
and like, likehow did you I'm curious to know
how that how that impacts thingsbecause, you know, as you hear this,
you know,

(01:00:35):
you've heard this, this, termthe deep state, right,
which is just this cabalof, of bureaucrats that are
supposedly controlling government.
And and there's a bit of that. Right?
There's it's a big government.
I'm just curious to know,like when the president
changes. Right.
Is there is there how does that impactsomething like an intelligence agency?

(01:00:57):
Like is there the president comingin there say, oh, you're all wrong, Bob.
You know, we're doing it this way nowor is it.
Yeah. It's they listen to you.
You know, that's a good question.
And, you know, certainly throughout my career,
I worked for a bunch of differentpresidents.
Right.
Sure.
And, and through different, administrations,

(01:01:18):
you know, as you become more senior, you,
you feel it a little differently,recognizing you may be,
either directly involvedin some of those changes or not,
you know, and moreso than than, than a president,
changing.
It's alsothe, the change of cabinet members

(01:01:41):
for a change in the team and,
at multiple different levels, the,
the continuity, you know, that occurs,some of that is, occurs
just by the, the challengesthat we're facing don't change.
Right? Right.
Just because a new president comes in,

(01:02:02):
it doesn't mean like the world hasn'tchanged.
Sure.
National security perspective,there may be different
perspectives as far as priorities.
Right. And and things.
But those aren't those aren't
normally I haven't experienced those inas really drastic
changes, especially,
beingwithin the intelligence community when

(01:02:25):
the the demand to know what's happening,where to make informed decisions.
Sure.
It's kind of universal, right? It's right.
So, you know, I, I live my career,you know, putting political,
personal political leanings on the side,or at least,
you know, keeping close to my heart and,when the election's done,

(01:02:49):
I just, I pray forwhoever is in leadership to be successful.
Right. Because it's our it'sour nation and our planet.
And I focus on making
sure we provide those individuals
the best information, continueto provide those, individuals
the best information to help themmake informed decisions.

(01:03:11):
Right?
Yeah.
The big picture, you know, Nick,sometimes is how people consume
information, right?
That'sand that's not unique at that level.
It kind of happens at every level.
When you're in this business,there is a very big difference.
When, when I startedas the Intel commander for the,

(01:03:34):
joined Intel Center at Central Command,
first I worked for General Petraeus,and then I worked for General Mattis.
Were very different humans, right.
The way they processinformation was completely different.
And you have to be able to adapt to,
to understand, like how they how they what
their requirements are,how you can provide that information

(01:03:57):
that's going to be in the right formatat the right time to help them
make decisions.
So I think that's the biggest change forsomebody comes in is figuring out
how they
consume information,what are the right decision points
where you can have impact,and that sort of adaptation?

(01:04:20):
That's that's pretty interesting.
I, I think it's it'svery patriotic as well.
I think it's probably one of the,
the biggest misunderstandingsof the intelligence community is that
there's a lot of peoplethat just like you, they're
they they wantthey want the president to be successful.
I think the president'sa polarizing figure.
I don't care who it is,because half of our country votes one way.

(01:04:40):
They have the votes the other way.
And I don't know about you.
I mean, I'm sure you're the same way,but I
you know,I want the president to be successful.
I mean, look, I'mnot voting for Joe Biden.
I don't think there's no mystery there,but I want him to be successful.
As in, I want him to make good decisions.
I want him to have winsbecause it's good for the country.

(01:05:01):
And, yeah, you're
right.
Exactly. The fail.
Yeah.
And and and the crazy part,of course, is that this,
this sense of patriotism,
which is that you want Americato do to do good no matter what.
Because even that's become politicaland polarizing now, which is

(01:05:22):
mind blowing.
Right?
this there's been a, a shift
to, I don't know, in the last five years.
It seems to me,
at least on the far left,
a shift to
denounce patriotism,which is to say, yesterday

(01:05:43):
I saw, you know, the Palestinians,they took down the American flag.
They put up the Palestinian flag on the, a college campus.
I think it was NYU or somethingin New York. Right.
but crazy stuff happens.
There's crazy people there.
They're usually a fringe minority, but
it's just it seems like it's gettingit seems like it's growing.
It seems like thatanti-American sentiment is growing.

(01:06:08):
And I never wantthat to be in the intelligence community.
I want I want the intelligence communityto actually believe in
what this country stands for.
And I think for the most part, thatthat it does, I think I think it does.
It is something that no matter whatyour political affiliation is and your
your beliefs, we all raise our hand and,and take the same oath, right?

(01:06:29):
To support, defend the Constitution.
United Statesagainst all enemies, foreign, domestic.
So I think it is something that unites us.
yeah, I thingI think about our business, you know,
I think I may have shared this with you.
I call it my great American theory. Right.
And I truly believethat people in our profession
don't wake up in the morning saying,
I hope I suck todayand I do something meaningless

(01:06:52):
today.
They generally, you know,want to do something that really matters
and they want to do it exceptionally well.
And it's important for us to keep that
in our minds, right,so that we assume good intent,
with ourwith our colleagues and coworkers
and yeah, I do think that at this time

(01:07:18):
there is,
disproportional
hearing or a voice given to both extremeleft and extreme right.
based off of the way news reports,
you know what is, what is being covered.
And then also the way thatthat the internet kind of functions,

(01:07:39):
I think of, of I think there's more,
similarity than dissimilarity in beliefs,
especially especially on the what,what issues need to be challenged.
Right.
And then you get into
discussion and debating, like how do youhow do you attack those problems.
So there's definitely a differencein how we prioritize things.

(01:08:03):
You know, howwe legislator don't legislate.
That is things.
it's one of the things
I love about taking Ubers around is, especially in the DC area, is
I get to interact with a lot of sometimeslike first generation Americans, right,
who are very appreciative of,being in this country

(01:08:25):
and what this country represents or,you know, from time and military
and traveling around the world,you get a good appreciation for,
you know, despite faults that we have.
Right.
And no country is perfect, right?
We got a lot of positive things that goalong with being

(01:08:45):
a citizen of United States of America.
Right?
If you don't think so, you should go tosome of these other countries.
And in and see what it might lookfrom a different perspective.
then yes, try holdingdrag Queen Story Hour inside of Gaza.
It's not going to go very well with, the fact that we can be very tolerant

(01:09:06):
the second we can be critical aboutour country is is a blessing.
Absolutely.
But freedom of speech,that's it seems to be more and more.
I think I was listening to Joe Roganthe other day.
They're talking about a,
European country that is really,
you know, they want to lock people up for

(01:09:28):
hate speech, you know,
and this is a very European thing.
I think that's whywhen this country was founded, they said,
no, we're not going to do that.
You know, this is you can talk here.
Elon Musk is getting into hot waterwith the Australian prime minister
because because,you know, he's allowed this

(01:09:48):
video that is violent, does depict violence, but it's it's real.
It's a real video.
And, you know,they want to one of the officials
in Australia was like,oh, we got to throw Elon in jail.
I was like, okay.
But you know, I think you got a
freedom of speech.
Is is there's a reasonthat's the First Amendment.
You know,it's the most powerful thing in the world.

(01:10:10):
It's how you hold people accountable.
It's how you let bozosair out their dumb ideas.
And you can identify who the bozos are.
we can all be a bozo sometimes, right?
Me included.
I think it's.
I think like this, this moment in time
is is a time when we
we really need real leadersthat believe in America.
I believe in the United States, believesin the First Amendment and these values

(01:10:33):
that and by the way,that means that if you want to,
you know, raise the Palestinian flag,go for it.
But don't expect
to expect my adulationor anyone's adulation.
And certainly don't expect anyoneto say that you're right.
Right.
it's just it
seems it seems wild what's happeningon some of these college campuses?

(01:10:53):
what it is.
But you're getting collegestudents, right? And you can.
Sure, sure.
Absolutely, absolutely.
And that's, you know, that's the X factor.
And I think sometimes in the newsthey take they take it a little bit too
serious, like, yeah.
Well you know I was donewhen I was in college too.
yeah.
I mean sometimes things are going bad.

(01:11:15):
I think the whole issue,
you know, they don'tthey don't want to go to a campus
where you're having peacefulprotest and dialog,
but that's happening in our countryas well. And.
Sure.
And we we went through this, also earlier during the pandemic and
in some of the riotsafter, right, right. And,

(01:11:36):
one of the
things when I was, you know,I was still doing, you know, weekly town
halls and I told my, my team just,you know, where I stand on things.
I, I completely support the right
to protest in this countrypeacefully, 100%.
I do not support the, the right to,

(01:11:56):
you know, destroy property
or block traffic.
Can I just say that blocking trafficis one of the worst things
that is not peaceful protest.
You know, if you're stopping peoplefrom getting to work on time
or picking up,put down on a different level, though,
then like bustingwindows, stealing, right?
Absolutely.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, I supportI support law enforcement.

(01:12:17):
You know,I come from a family of law enforcers.
I don't support law enforcement officerswho break the law.
Right.
But the the the percentage of lawenforcement officers that break the law
is, is small compared to those that don't,very small.
The the percentage of protesters that loot

(01:12:37):
rightand and destroy is very small compared
to those who are tryingto actually protest peacefully and, and,
you know, use their,their rights to do so.
And it's, it's importantfor us to keep that in perspective.
It's smaller numberson the fringes that people point at.

(01:12:57):
And then I would tell people,I think whatever you
I think whenever you see,I think they're all blank are blank.
You're probably yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm saying if there's a role in terms,I will say that's a what was that?
After the George Floyd
riots, there was, was that $20 billionworth of damage done to these cities?
So I don't think that I don't thinkthat that was a fringe minority.

(01:13:18):
I think there was a there was a,a fuel of hatred there that was causing
a lot of people to do damage and the riotand loot and do all these things.
I still think it was a minorityof protesters, number wise.
Sure.
I mean, maybe, yeah, maybe in thethe totality of it all.

(01:13:38):
but I don't I don't think thatthat's a helpful way to think about it.
Right.
You, you're there's this term, mostlypeaceful protesters.
Well, that doesn't
that doesn't matterwhen the building's on fire
and there's, you know, looting happening.
It's like, okay, well,
I don't know.
yeah.
So the owner of that business,it doesn't really equate.

(01:14:00):
Right? Right.
you know, you could say that
October 7th was a mostly peaceful day.
Oh, except for those,you know, 1200 Israelis that were killed.
so I did want to ask you aboutmaybe not necessarily that,
but about some of these conflictsthat are happening in World war.
Like what?
What your general thoughts are onhow we're handling them.

(01:14:21):
and we could start with that,with Israel and Palestine.
Yeah. I just,I feel like I feel like I've.
I'm like having deja
vu, you know, I there seem to be a period
when Israel and Palestine were okay,you know,
like it was okay if things have kind ofcalmed down there, whatever.

(01:14:43):
And then obviously October 7th happened.
and then
it has kicked up the,the hornet's nest of,
you know, Lebanon with Hezbollah and,
obviously I ran now
shooting whatever they're trying
to shoot at Israel, drones and missiles and things like that.

(01:15:05):
What are your thoughts onhow we're handling it?
And from maybefrom an intelligence perspective?
what are your general thoughts onwhat's happening there?
Yeah, a couple thoughts on it.
You know, I would,
I would, tell the team when I was stilldirector of energy and Park as well.
Hey, the good news isyou have job security.

(01:15:26):
The bad news is you have, like,way too much job security, right?
Like the complexity, some of the securitychallenges that are facing the world.
Right?
And. One of the
the dimensions that are,that are important
or the aspects of the challengethat we're facing
are they're not local problems. Right?

(01:15:47):
There's no such thing as local problemsanymore.
Anymore that cross national boundariesand regional boundaries.
This global dimension to them.
Nor do they exist in isolation.
So some of the security challengesthat we're facing
really are interconnectedin complex ways, right?
So it's hard for us toto fully understand them.

(01:16:10):
And then there's a there's a desire for,
for simple solutions to complex problems.
Right.
That's it.
One man that is that is it rightthere, isn't it?
Yes. There's so much in nuance,you know, I know it's going.
Yeah.
So it's it's really easy to criticize,right,

(01:16:30):
when you're lookingat some of these challenges and, and,
but it's really hard to come up with what,what anybody can do
just to completely address
and diffuse the situations.
All right.
So, from the intelligence community,I think, the,

(01:16:51):
the community is, is doing a good job in,
in collecting, understanding,
you know, warning those sorts of things.
you know, warning is a tough job.
And you saw the Israelisbe very self-critical on, on themselves.
Right.
Which is part of, of the business.

(01:17:12):
Right.
Going back and thinking about how goodwhere you have,
how not good are youand how do you get better at things.
but you know, from a I'm an
optimist by nature,so I'm, I'm pretty happy with the fact
that that the conflict right nowhasn't spread further,

(01:17:33):
right, that they're even thoughthey're interconnected, as you said, it's
really complex because it starts to evoke
emotion and, and problems
where were or areas where you could be
in a hot conflict in a heartbeat as well.
And I'd say right now,

(01:17:54):
you know, the the conflict is,
is fairly contained,
but I think it's,that's a day to day thing, right,
where it could change in a moment'snotice.
I've, I've always had this,
this thought about
these types of,I don't know if you want to call them

(01:18:16):
wars that we havewith these other countries, but,
you know, you mentioned the termhot conflict, which to me is
two countries had, you know, boom, boomgoing at it right?
I think most people agreewith that. That's what that is.
But when you were dealing
with countries like Iran and they're justthey're funding things right now.
No, check this out. Right.

(01:18:38):
They're funding Hezbollah,they're funding Hamas, they're funding
these terrorist organizations.
Who knows what they were doing with ISISor whatever.
At the same time,
we're funding Ukraine, right?
And I'mnot I'm not putting those on parody.
Ukraine was invaded by Russia.

(01:18:58):
And they have, you know,they have a certainly
a right, a will,and they should defend themselves.
but isn't that like it's like
we use the way money is used to enact war,
but somehow could keep the personthat gave the money, you know.
Oh, sorry. We just we justwe just gave them money.

(01:19:20):
We're not actually into this.
We just gave them $200billion worth of stuff.
we're not actually in this war. And
I just.
I don't understand
how any world leader could be, like,not hold that country accountable.
Right?
If if we're attacked, let's say

(01:19:41):
911 is a perfect example, right?
We were attacked. The 911.
We know for a fact that a lot of those,
terrorists were trained byor at least funded
by Saudi Arabia.
or people in Saudi Arabia, I should saynot necessarily tied to the government.
I don't I don't know enough about that.

(01:20:01):
but it doesn't seem likethere was any accountability
there, like what happenedthere at the same time,
Iran can fund Hamas
and Hezbollah and we don'twe don't hold them accountable.
I don't I don't understand that.
And then,
you know, herewe are funding Ukraine justifiably,

(01:20:22):
for funding
that to, to the extentthat it needs to be for peace first.
But, to get there, sometimesyou need to have a little muscle.
but this,
I don't know, there's a discrepancy to mebetween.
Oh, it'sjust money and boots on the ground.
To me, it's like

(01:20:43):
the same,
you know, $200 billion is a lot of moneyyou get.
I mean, that's athat's a lot of money worth of stuff
that we're giving to Ukraine.
And I just I think I had this conversationtwo years ago, whatever.
But are we not involved, like,are we not involved in a war right now?
We're just luckily not sending our sonsand daughters,

(01:21:06):
especially in Ukraine.
Like, what are your thoughtson this crazy kind of economic
funding of warfare?
Yeah, that's that's the complexity of of,
how much how you how you provide support.
Right.
And you can probably recall, early days of after Russia
invaded Ukraine,

(01:21:26):
in some of the discussion, debate
as to what sort of support wouldor wouldn't be provided and,
and, a discussion and debate as to
what sort of weapons systems would be.
Okay, right.
To provide and, discussion, debate on
is it a defensive weapon system,is it offensive weapon system?

(01:21:47):
so I think there's the right discussionsto have.
Right. Those are the right.
that's why it's so hard to to pass
support for funding.
and some of the stipulations,
and that's, that's our democracy and
in operation. Right.

(01:22:10):
is getting into those details on that,but I, I guarantee you
that it would be a whole levelof different discussion if,
if all of a sudden we said, hey,we're going to send forces in there,
right?
It's I agree, they're related. Right.
But if I'm Russia, I just Ithis is the part I don't if I'm Latimer.
Putin. Right.

(01:22:30):
Latimer Putin who all agrees
you know he's obviously
he has support from his people.
I know we tend to make these comic book,
expressions of people, but he's evil.
He's an evil human.
I mean, just look at what he's doneover his lifetime.
how how is he not saying.

(01:22:53):
Yeah, we're at warwith the United States. Like the.
How is that any different? Right?
I just don't, that's so much.
We're giving them so much stuff.
Like, there seems to be
like, that's a provocation
beyond just, you know.
The norm.
That's a 200. Oh, man.
I don't know how much moneywe've given them at this point.

(01:23:13):
It's probably $300 billionor something like that.
Worth of there's been military equipmentthat have gone in there, Victor.
You know, Russia's also receiving,
equipmentright from other countries. And.
That's right.
That's right. We're at war with them.
So I just I do think it'sthe complexity of, what is conflict?

(01:23:36):
What's competition?
What's conflict, you know, what is
and it'sthere's a it's kind of a continuum.
And I think that,
that we've decidedwe're comfortable in doing certain things
and not doing other things right,which continually gets,
evaluated and be evaluated.

(01:23:58):
And you're right, sometimes we wewe are critical
of, of support that Russia would receive.
But we're throwing rocksfrom a glass house, right?
We right forget that we're doingthe same thing with with Ukraine.
Well, we also support Russia, by the way.

(01:24:19):
Just,
if if you look in there,if they're missiles, they have components
from Texas Instrumentsand all sorts of American made components
inside of their, their, their weaponry,
you know, that gets sourcedthrough third party countries
and makes its way to trickles in throughnon, non attributable, sourcing.

(01:24:40):
But we are 100% in a weirdkind of way also.
are providing stuff for Russia.
you're mentioning China herewithout without saying China.
But obviously China is a critical,
you know, the most the most
realistic,

(01:25:01):
I think, threat to the United Statesover the next 50 to 100 years.
I mean,you just look at what they're doing
from buying farmlandnext door military installations to
walking thousands, tens of thousands of
Chinese nationals acrossour southern border, which is happening
like they have their own Chinese campsand stuff like that, through,

(01:25:22):
you know, that surpass the Darién Gap downand in Central America
and make their way upthrough, up to California.
not to mention theirthe amount of Chinese nationals
that are in our universities,they're known.
They're known,Belt and Road Initiative, the
their entire strategyfor stealing our intellectual property.

(01:25:44):
I mean, this is this is a countrythat is, you know, got bad intentions.
what are your
thoughts on on China's like, what?
What could we do as short term
thinkers like, I want to say this because
our our leaders,they're there for four years.
You know, thethe the president of United States

(01:26:06):
is there for four years, maybe eight,if they're lucky.
but this PresidentXI guy, he's not leaving, right?
He's not he's going to be aroundin 20 years, 30 years.
And so they can enact thesekind of long term strategies.
And that's what the Belt Road Initiativereally is all about, flexing this economic
muscle in parts of the world, to gaininfluence and control and, and ultimately,

(01:26:29):
to dominate those, those markets and,
pull that money back, back to China.
what are your thoughts on China?
What are your thoughts on,
we couldgo more into semiconductors in Taiwan,
but what are your thoughts on, on China?
Right.
I think that is or or pacing competitor.

(01:26:52):
Right. And that,
just as with other competitions,when it's nation, nation, it's not that
the citizens of that nation, it's,it's the government.
Right. Sure.
The different worldviewsthat are represented,
between China
and what we believe in as a, as a people,

(01:27:15):
right, that are fundamentally at oddswith each other.
so that's, I mean, that'sthat's at the heart of competition
and competition of consequenceand talked about and that's
where I focused with the, with directorsintent when I was a director of NCAA,
was to let people know thatwe're in a competition of consequence.
And it's not a tomorrow competition.

(01:27:36):
It's a ongoing competition.
As a matter of fact, we were
we've probably been in the competitionlonger than we even realized.
Right.
as we,
as we had, as we largely focused
and concentrated on trying to,
to cooperate and partner with China,

(01:27:58):
thinking that they would be somethingthat they're not.
Right.
As a, as a Communist party.
so I think that that is at the,at the core of,
of our competitionthat that's the core of,
like protecting informationand intellectual property.
And that's at theat the core of figuring out

(01:28:20):
how we make sure that we don't
lose the race for,
developing, implementing,setting the rules
for how these new disruptivetechnologies are going to be used
right within, within the world. So
that's that's where we need to be focused

(01:28:42):
as a as a Navy.
Admiral,what are your thoughts on on Taiwan?
Obviously, you know, the waterwaysthere are, are the game, right?
That's the game.what are your thoughts on,
you know, if something were to happen,should the United States
defend 100% of boots on the ground, defend Taiwan?

(01:29:06):
you know, how critical are
these semiconductors to the United States
over the next, you know, 5000 years?
you know, or is it does thatis that the threshold?
Is that. Oh, they're going into Taiwan.
That's a we're there.maybe not boots on the ground.
Maybe you have, flippers on the ground.
Maybe that's what we'll have there.

(01:29:27):
But I think, you know, it'sone of the things is, you know, you
you fund and you field militariesand support them for two reasons.
One, you know, first and foremost,to prevent conflict.
Sure.
And then second, to windecisively is called upon to do so.
So I do think that that,

(01:29:47):
it is of significant national interest,for the U.S.
and for a number of nations
for China not to invade Taiwan.
Right.
That would be something that wouldthat would require
some level of response, you know,and whole of government sort of response,

(01:30:09):
and that we should not be precluding
military options as part of that.
You know what?
We're what we're thinking about,what we're planning for.
you know,and it would depend on the situation.
But, you know,
first and foremost,we need to make sure that that every day
that China is waking up and saying is,today we do something like this.

(01:30:34):
They say, no,today is not a good day to do that.
And you talk about the Navy and,
the maritime sort of aspect of thecompetition that we're in.
a few years ago,
before right before I took overin, there was,
a Chinese naval admiral
who was part of theirtheir think tanks and, first,

(01:30:59):
strategy divisionthat had come out openly and said,
critical of the United Statesin our resolve
and in his his comments.
The gist of his comments were,I don't think the U.S is as strong
as people think they are militarilyand in their resolve
to protecting the sort of the waterwaysout here in the South China Sea.

(01:31:24):
And he suggested thatthat maybe they should test
that resolveby sinking an aircraft carrier or two.
And at that point, when I wasspeaking on different platforms, I would
I would talk about these commentsand I said, I take that personally, right?
Because that sure upsit's not too big chunks of steel.
That's a lot of humans,10,000 shipmates right from.

(01:31:50):
So we
need to make sure that, thatif they're waking up
and they're saying, hey,we should test the U.S.
resolve, maybe sink a carrierthat they're their decision
process,like today would not be a good day.
And for us to toto make them say today would be a good day
means we need to have aa strong and capable force.
Right?

(01:32:11):
And if they make the mistake in sayingtoday was a good day,
we need to have the capability to quickly
make them realizethat today was not a good day,
right?
So that needs to meet the focusof where we're investing.
And, the capabilities that were
were building in the, in the Navyand the Joint force,

(01:32:34):
I think I think it's such a it'ssuch a wild situation, isn't it?
It's just like this one company on thisone little island is making
the things that power our modern,you know, everything in the modern world,
you know, and you know, the next companymaking
semiconductors is so far behind.
it's not even.

(01:32:54):
It's just it's a crazy thing.
It all comes down to this onelittle island.
If you look at, you know, mappeople got a beautiful map behind you.
I love it.
So we're just, it comes outas one little island that could really be
the the catalyst for things outside.
If you're working at thethe Taiwan was at Taiwan
Semiconductor Company or whateverit's called, TSC.

(01:33:15):
I'm I might be wrong about that,but the name of the company but
are you thinking, oh man, if the Chinese
come in, I'm going to put in my bestmy best effort tomorrow.
You know,I have the feeling there's got to be
some of the
people in Taiwanprobably would be pretty opposed to,
you know, the Chinese coming inand saying, make chips for us.

(01:33:36):
again.
But if you have a gun to your head, you'regoing to do what you're going to do.
I don't think they're going to just go,you know, willingly into work
the next day and say, sure, China,you can have whatever you want.
You know, there's got to be a little bit of that.
And not to mention our response to,

(01:33:57):
how we would,
you know, attack China, essentially,or should
I say, attackhow we would react to something like that?
China is relying on usand we're relying on them.
And this weird type of
this weird type of dance, you know, like,I think Walmart is, like,
the most popular store inChina or something like that.

(01:34:20):
and obviouslywe get a lot of a lot of goods from China.
so it's it's just it's crazy.
It's just crazy that all these entangled,relationships
from trade,
can kind of
fall into play here on this onelittle island
and, you know, and their desires to what,take back the island?

(01:34:42):
it's just it's it's wild to me.
It's just seems like the most
right in their mind is not taking back.
It's it's part of China, right? Right.
Yeah. It's theirsbelongs to us. It's mine.
but, and, you know,I was, I had, I did not visit Taiwan until
I was out of the military, and,

(01:35:05):
I visitedjust a little bit over a year ago.
I went out with, the GermanMarshall Fund, I think tank
out of Harvard, and I was part of,
a a U.S., European UnionEuropean delegation
with five delegates from from each.
And we met with the president,we met with cabinet members and,

(01:35:27):
and,
I learned a lot while I was out there.
Great.
And, certainly bolstering there.
Anything you can share?
I mean, bolstering your own defensivecapabilities, right, so that they.
Right.
They're not taking over
by military means.
There's certainly some that they are interested

(01:35:49):
in that we are interested in.
That's,
and then going back,I think that my conjecture is, I mean,
we just we we need to be lookingat where we have vulnerabilities
and and that's a massive purchase.
Yeah.
I mean, massive cereals.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's it's it'salmost my mind boggling that it's

(01:36:14):
allowed the it got
to this point where they're that companyis just so far ahead.
I mean that we don't have the science.
We don't have the engineers,we don't have the, the trained
labor to produce, you know,
the quality and numbersof these semiconductors.
it's like, man,

(01:36:34):
come on, Elon,we need you to figure something out here.
Get get something wrong.
But we're we're way behind.
and then you saythe complexities of the relationships.
I think a lot of nations are
are starting to realize that
what at one pointlooked like a really good business deal
in, in right, partnering with the Chinese

(01:36:57):
as longer term negative consequences.
Right.
So sure, I think there's,
they want conformity realization of this.
And I wasI was with one of our most valued partners
and talking about maritime infrastructure.
Yeah.
And one of them said to me, I'm,I'm sorry to say that

(01:37:20):
our business community has bartered usinto a very precarious position,
because, yeah, because of some of the,the deals that were made there.
But the good thing ispeople are starting to realize that,
that it's to some challenges, right?
As opposed to being,

(01:37:40):
having blinders on.
you mentioned youmentioned, nuance earlier.
I mean, nuance is really what it's
what's what it's all about.
You know, I think what's coolabout these, about podcasts in general,
is that you can kind of talkthrough these things a little bit
and kind of get more detail as to, okay,why is that an issue?
I think I think a lot of peopledon't understand,

(01:38:03):
at least in the United States.
What? Like what what's happening?
Like, why is Taiwan an issuethat, you know, I think if you ask
the average person on the street,they'd be like, What's like why?
So it's very simple explanation really.
It's just there isthere is some nuance there.
And obviously.
And your response to that,we would have the a potential Chinese,

(01:38:24):
takeover would be a nuanced,you know, required nuance thinking.
And it seems to me like a lot of thingsin the news or whatever, they're so
simple, right? It's just
everything'sso simplified and made to be digestible.
But the world is complicated.
You know, there's a lot of nuance there.
You got to know what's going right.
it's interestingyou should say that, because in

(01:38:46):
with some of the European nationsthat were part of our delegation
and we were havingthe same sort of discussion,
and how do youhow do you raise the awareness that
that Taiwan is important,
that Taiwan isn't some small island offthe coast of China,
that Taiwan is a is, a liberal democracy?

(01:39:07):
is it in potential risk?
Right.
And and what it means to the world
and how once again, it's it'snot a local problem.
Right.
the, the complexity of it crosses regionsand really has global implications.
Yeah.
super cool.
Bob, I really appreciateyou being being on and chatting with me.

(01:39:31):
thank you
are one of the, one of the treasuresof the giant community, I should say.
And it sounds like, you know,
you have a lot of experienceas an all source, you know, targeting and,
and kind of these different typesof these different types of roles.
So you're notjust can just pigeonholed you.
And to do it, you are a generalist, Bob.
So let's see how we got to the generalist.

(01:39:53):
I'm a general,so I'm, I'm a special generalist
and a special generalist.
very cool. Bob, thank you so much.
really appreciate it. Great to have you.
And looking forward to maybe one day we dothis, in person in the studio here.
There'll be a lot of fun. Great.
Very good.
Well, cool.
Appreciate it.

(01:40:14):
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