The One CA Podcast

Please welcome back Grant Newsham, retired marine colonel and author of When China Attacks,  A Warning to America. Grant came on the show to discuss the state of the Japan Defense Forces and the PRC threat.  This is a two-part episode. Grant's biography: https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/author/grant-newsham/ Book link: https://www.regnery.com/9781684513659/when-china-attacks/ A recent article: https://andmagazine.substack.com/p/the-us-in-the-pacific-getting-the?utm_source=substack&publication_id=746580&post_id=151553726&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=ercjf&triedRedirect=true --- One CA is a product of the civil affairs association  and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership. We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations.  To contact the show, email us at [email protected]  or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org --- Special thanks to the site Cool Jazz Hot Bossa for the sample of Cool Jazz Hot Bossa. (59:00). Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdWUj2NYDYQ --- Transcript: (Part I) 00:00:05 JACK GAINES Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at [email protected]. Or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www.civilaffairsassoc.org. I'll have those in the show notes. Please welcome Grant Newsham, retired Marine Colonel and author of When China Attacks, A Warning to America. Grant came on the show to discuss the state of the Japan Defense Forces and the PRC threat. This is the first of a two-part episode, so let's get started. 00:00:56 GRANT NEWSHAM I was effectively MarforPak's guy in Asia for a number of years. which worked well in both directions. So I was obviously in Japan, but also did a lot of work for them throughout the region, Southeast Asia as well, Taiwan even, which was a lot of fun. 00:01:13 JACK GAINES Yeah. And you've become a foreign policy advocate in the area. 00:01:16 GRANT NEWSHAM Yeah. At some point, maybe seven or eight years ago, figured I'd actually done enough stuff to maybe have a few ideas. So I started writing and speak a lot as well. So I guess I'm part of the commentariat. But I seem to write about once a week some topic related to often Asian defense, but sometimes economics, politics, sometimes organized crime. And I do get invited to speak here and there and seem to get a number of television or radio interviews as well. That's really cool. I didn't say I get invited to good things, but I do get the occasional invitation. I used to think it was because I had such insight. Someone told me not all that long ago that actually, if you'll say yes to an interview, you're likely to get more of them. Because the people who book them, they just want to get somebody on. And I thought it was because of my particular wisdom. 00:02:07 JACK GAINES of my particular wisdom. 00:02:09 GRANT NEWSHAM I'm joking a little bit. But obviously, you must have something useful to say. But it is funny. There's one place in Singapore that calls me a lot. It's like their CNN. And they've been calling me. Probably eight years at least, or almost every time, I'll tell the presenters that basically they don't know what they're talking about. And I always think, well, this is the last one, but they keep calling me up. They mislike you because you're the contrarian. 00:02:34 JACK GAINES mislike you because you're the contrarian. 00:02:36 GRANT NEWSHAM Oh, I can blame things in a way that sort of suits broadcast and that sort of regular people can understand, you know, 00:02:42 GRANT NEWSHAM that sort of regular people can understand, you know, being a regular person myself. 00:02:47 JACK GAINES Yeah, you learn to disagree without offending. 00:02:49 GRANT NEWSHAM Usually. And it's always sort of a relief, actually, when you can have a different look at things. 00:02:56 JACK GAINES That's good. I always thought you were going to say it is a relief sometimes when you just peel the coat off and then yell at them. 00:03:02 GRANT NEWSHAM The facts speak for themselves. Right. And if it's a presenter, their role is different, and they will generally not have the substantive knowledge that most of the people on the show will have. Right. And so much of what I have to say is often not... in line with accepted wisdom, particularly when it comes to Japan. Sure. So it's often that I'll have to present a different take on things, but they don't seem to be offended. 00:03:27 JACK GAINES Right. You mostly talk about Japan in its current defense fashion or in its foreign policy actions. 00:03:33 GRANT NEWSHAM A lot of that because people have a perception of Japan, for example, as a pacifist country. It cannot fight. It's peace loving. Right. etc. They have a nuclear allergy. You know, just the idea of nuclear weapons in Japan is out of the question. You often hear, well, their constitution won't let them fight. And none of those things are actually true. But it's the received wisdom. It's what people think. And when you simply point out the realities of Japan, that ultimately, at the end of the day, it's a country just like every other. And that the stereotypes about it really aren't correct when it comes to defense security. In fact, they use that the Constitution won't let them have a military. You probably heard it. Yeah. That's the idea. And they don't even call it a military. But the fact is they've got a military, which, according to some ratings, is the fifth most powerful in the world. It depends on how you calculate it, of course. But they call it something else. And what is the actual distinction between offensive and defensive weapons? 00:04:35 JACK GAINES It's usually the strike space. If it's inside your own country defending, then it's a defense space. Once you go out and start taking out other people's cities and moving forces in. 00:04:44 GRANT NEWSHAM Well, for example, they don't have much what you call power projection capability very far off their borders. But they do have a submarine fleet, say over 20 submarines. There's no reason you couldn't send them to the coast of China and start sinking ships. 00:04:59 JACK GAINES True. 00:05:00 GRANT NEWSHAM They've got F -16s. You can put long -range missiles on them and you can fly out of ways and cause people a lot of trouble. But their military really, I would say, is not so good at offense. It's not so good at defense either. And that's something that comes as a surprise to a lot of people. 00:05:15 JACK GAINES Well, do they exercise defense and offense? 00:05:18 GRANT NEWSHAM Oh, they have exercises, training, and they put on a pretty good show, particularly when they have visitors come. But they really, until very recently, and even now, they can't do joint operations, which means the air, sea, and ground forces. can't operate together. In fact, they don't even have a radio with which they can communicate easily. They have to jury -rig some relations, these connections. And that's something most people don't understand, because you look at it on paper. Japan has 250 ,000 people in its military, and it's got ships, aircraft, all of it modern and good stuff. 150 ,000 people in its ground self -defense force, their army. But it's not even the sum of its whole. If you imagine each of your limbs, your arms and your legs, each doing whatever it wants without the coordinating function provided by a brain. 00:06:10 JACK GAINES Sounds like me dancing. 00:06:12 GRANT NEWSHAM It would be, yeah. I think that I can picture that, whereas I'm more of an Arthur Murray kind of guy. But it's like that. And nobody can believe that because they think, well, this is the Japanese. It's this advanced modern country, big military, the rich country. And I mean, they can't even do these simple things. Right. The short answer is no, except in some limited circumstances. After 60 years of the U .S.-Japan defense relationship, 80 years after World War II, they still cannot do some of the basic things that a military needs to do, or do them very well, put it that way. But they do train, they exercise, the personnel quality is excellent. You know, we tend to say, well, we've got Japan as our ally, Japan has a military. But the reality is that the U .S. and Japanese forces cannot work very well together. There's one exception, and that's the two navies. The U .S. Navy and the Japanese Navy, called the Maritime Self -Defense Force, they actually do work well. And they show what's doable. 00:07:15 JACK GAINES They probably do dynamic exercises as well as structured ones, so they have to change, have to practice new orders and maneuvers. 00:07:22 GRANT NEWSHAM Well, the nature of naval operations is you can go out... into the sea, and you have more freedom to actually do stuff. But part of it actually was when Admiral Arleigh Burke, who was later chief of naval operations for many years, he was in charge in Japan. He basically laid down the ground rules, which was that the American Navy was going to treat the Japanese like friends, like allies. And that set the tone for everything. So they had a more relationship of equals, people who wanted to operate together. And that is why they have a good relationship today. in my opinion. So as a result, after all these decades, the two militaries are not really very good at operating together. There's no joint headquarters. There never has been in Japan. At best, they've operated in isolation. Do they recognize they don't have a joint access? Oh, they know. The Japanese military knows this. And US Indo -PACOM has not pushed the issue. And then you had... The State Department side, on the civilian side, people saying, well, if we ask the Japanese to get better at defense matters, well, they'll get angry. And if they do, then the Chinese will be mad. So you have the U .S. on the U .S. side. We're thinking of at least 10 reasons why Japan cannot improve its defenses. That's changed enough in recent years. But you see how many decades we've lost. 00:08:51 JACK GAINES Right. I can see part of what the State Department is saying in that a lot of those countries along the Asian coast were under Japanese rule during World War II. They're concerned that by showing favor and coordinating with them in defense might offend places like the Philippines or Korea. It is a concern to be weighed, but I don't know how much weight you would put to it. 00:09:14 GRANT NEWSHAM I wouldn't give it hardly any. With the Japanese, when you actually think about it, I would say within... 30 years of the end of the war, but certainly today, and for the last at least 20 years ago. The new century. Even before that. The Japanese and World War II is not really an issue in almost all of Asia. The Chinese, of course... Play it up. That's a good way to put it. Of course, they do remember what the Japanese did, and it was barbaric. Although the Chinese Communist Party afterwards killed 50 million Chinese in peacetime and good weather, which the Imperial Japanese Army couldn't have dreamed of doing. But World War II is an issue in China. Korea as well, the relationship is dicey. Up to a point. I mean, little old ladies go and sit in front of the embassy still. 00:10:05 JACK GAINES the embassy still. 00:10:06 GRANT NEWSHAM There are, and then you just had a South Korean amphibious ship come to Yokosuka in Tokyo on a visit. In Korea, there's a fundamental sort of suspicion of the Japanese. Sometimes it is a real dislike. But most people, it's not a big issue. But except for those two countries, you go down the list in Asia, and there is no after effect of World War II. I find the Filipinos get along very well with the Japanese. The Indonesians do. They, in fact, see the Japanese as being the people who freed them from the colonial yoke. Okay. The Malays, they actually didn't have that bad a time during the occupation. The Chinese in Malaysia did. So the Malaysians don't have any really hard feelings against the Japanese. Taiwan, same thing. They've got a very good relationship. And then there's one plus billion Indians who actually have an excellent relationship with Japan and see Japan as real friends and vice versa. So you're starting to get a good chunk of Asia, which, as you can see, actually sees Japan as a good country, useful economically. It's been very generous. And they like to see a Japanese military that's strong enough, allied with the United States, able to deal with China. 00:11:27 JACK GAINES Right. And why would we have such a different balance as we do with Germany and Europe? Because no one's questioning this in Holland or in France. That's just another country. They freely trade, they freely access each other. So maybe mindset just needs to shift to say the reform of Japan is just like Germany, and we need to start treating them and partner nations the same and start advocating for a joint staff. 00:11:52 GRANT NEWSHAM And you could do that in an afternoon, but the Japanese will not speak up for themselves. And an old New York Times reporter, Richard Halloran, I remember him telling me once that all the people he ever dealt with in the world... The Japanese were the worst at explaining themselves. And there's a reticence which slows them down. But also the Americans are afraid to tell them what we need. And that is a huge problem, because if we don't tell them, the Japanese are not blind readers, and they won't do what we think we'd like them to do, but we're afraid to ask. And in fact, one of the Japanese prime ministers in 1970, so 50 -some years ago, He gave some very good advice to the Americans, and it was at the time the Americans were trying to put an aircraft carrier into Yokosuka, the naval base near Tokyo. They wanted to assign it there permanently. And the U .S. side was thinking of excuses why it was too hard for the Japanese. They'll cause political difficulties. The Japanese have an election coming up. The timing just isn't right. And finally, the Japanese side sent a message to the Americans saying, tell us what you need. And don't back down. And they said it out of exasperation, really. And it was the best advice the Americans have ever been given. And we've refused to follow it ever since then. And really, it's almost a cultural trait, sort of a Confucian system. They actually are happy to have experts tell them what they ought to do. Sure. Whereas we are more of the Socratic method. And it doesn't, it just doesn't work. That's why after all these years, the Americans and the Japanese forces, except for the navies, And except for missile defense, we really don't operate together anywhere near where we need to be. We're not even close. And another very interesting fact a lot of people don't know is the Japanese military missed its recruitment targets by about 50 % last year. 5 -0? 00:13:50 JACK GAINES -0? 00:13:50 GRANT NEWSHAM 5 -0. And it routinely misses them by 20 -25%. So this, you can see, is a problem. It's now an older force, doesn't have enough people. In order to fulfill its missions, it would probably have to be twice as big, both personnel -wise and in terms of ships and hardware. Its war stocks are basically non -existent, doesn't know anything really about casualty care, combat casualty replacements, logistics. 00:14:20 JACK GAINES Well, if the media looks down on it and the political class looks down on it, it's not going to get a lot of positivity in the public mindset. So that's got to be part of it. It's not a vote -getter to push for a strong defense. 00:14:31 GRANT NEWSHAM vote -getter to push for a strong defense. I mean, if you're a politician, no one's going to say, he's the defense guy, let's give him our vote. But people vote for other reasons. But you do get used to, after that horrific experience in World War II, that for decades people didn't want to really think about defense, and they were glad to have the Americans around to handle it, and particularly when it seemed like there wasn't any real threat anywhere. People were happy with that, and even the U .S. side. didn't mind it as well. But I'd say it should have started to change at least 20 years ago. And it didn't until maybe four or five years ago. Well, 00:15:10 JACK GAINES when did the risk indicators really start popping up with China? 00:15:14 GRANT NEWSHAM I think by... It can't be back when Nixon went. 00:15:15 JACK GAINES It can't be back when Nixon went. Well, it should have, 00:15:16 GRANT NEWSHAM it should have, you know, I think. But about 2005 is when it was obvious what was coming. 00:15:19 JACK GAINES But about 00:15:21 GRANT NEWSHAM when it was obvious what was coming. And even before that, if you knew what to look for. But as I said, some of us... We knew what needed done and what the problems were. And there were Japanese who did too. And that's why when we put together their amphibious force, it was sort of an effort to address the shortcomings in Japan's self -defense force. Also to improve the overall U .S.-Japan relationship because it was so imbalanced. Right. Where the Japanese weren't doing anything near enough to defend themselves. And that over time creates a lot of friction in a relationship. So we were trying to address that with the amphibious force, and that was 2011, which we were pretty successful at that because we didn't ask permission from anybody. I was going to say, if you were successful, 00:16:10 JACK GAINES did you get fired? 00:16:11 GRANT NEWSHAM Well, it's not that people didn't try. 00:16:11 JACK GAINES Well, it's not that people didn't try. Sorry, that was sarcastic. But I was a reservist, so they couldn't quite get a bead on me. 00:16:15 GRANT NEWSHAM I was a reservist, so they couldn't quite get a bead on me. Yeah. And didn't quite know what we were doing. And also you had people like General Gregson, who was then at... Department of Defense, who had been in Japan many years, and he knew the importance of it all. So he would provide some cover. But the real success there was because the Japanese side took the ideas and ran with it. And the Americans provided some cover and some know -how and some advice. But it was the Japanese who did that. Once the Japanese took on the mission, well, what are the Americans going to say? But I was even told that at Indo -PACOM, that there were people who gotten wind of this and were very much opposed because the idea that Japanese having an amphibious force was provocative. Not just provocative, but it was going to cause the Japanese to go on the rampage again, like in 1941. I'm not making this up. 00:17:11 JACK GAINES So when Germany starts building the Leopard 2, were they expected to go on a rampage too? 00:17:17 GRANT NEWSHAM No, those are Europeans. Oh, okay. You know how the Europeans are okay. 00:17:19 JACK GAINES okay. You know 00:17:21 GRANT NEWSHAM But the fact that Germans have been allowed back into polite society. tells you something, and the Japanese are just as deserving of it as well. 00:17:30 JACK GAINES Did you see the movie Godzilla Minus One? No. It's an interesting portrayal of post -World War II Japan. And Godzilla, which is this giant monster, comes out of the sea, tears up Japan, and has an atomic breath that shoots off nuclear explosions, which sounds a lot like the United States in a mythological way. One thing that... the show did that was interesting is it kind of engaged post -military era and had talked about it. And it seemed like it was trying to reconcile the past with now and build out a notion that the military is okay, that after the war, there were good things that happened and that we should embrace a military in the future. So there might be some societal impulses out there that are promoting and supporting a more built -up military in Japan. 00:18:24 GRANT NEWSHAM Well, you're actually right. The public at large has always been pretty supportive of the military. For example, when they have open base days, when they put on so -called firepower demonstrations, which is like an exercise you can watch where they shoot off stuff, that they're always oversubscribed. And people just pour into these things because they're interested. And the central government, or say the ruling class, are the ones who are gun -shy or... I'm really hesitant, but the public at large, you know, when you ask them, you know, should Japan have a normal military? The replies to that are like 85%. Well, yes, of course. And I think they would be horrified if they knew the actual state of the Japanese military. I mentioned this to a Japanese politician last year, and he was horrified at the idea. And the public as well would have a similar reaction. Regular Japanese people say they have a pretty good understanding of what Japan needs to do to defend itself and of the importance of having a national defense, but the government doesn't explain it very well. When they do, the reaction, there's a Japanese expression, it's called like, it's atarimae. And it means like, well, yeah. It's like, duh. 00:19:42 JACK GAINES Abnautually. And that's what it means. 00:19:42 GRANT NEWSHAM And that's what it means. Should Japan have a good defense? Atarimae. And yeah, what's the question here? But if you ask that question in the political world, then you'll get all sorts of emming and hawing. They wanted nothing of that. By the late 70s, certainly by the 90s, that they sort of outlived that. But it was comfortable to continue with it, particularly if you're the government, because you don't have to spend money on defense. And the Americans are covering that. So it was as if the Americans were giving. I'd say at least $50 billion a year in free defense coverage, at least, probably more. And, you know, if you're a government, you think, well, why should we do anything different? And so they got used to that. We got used to it. And then at some point, the friction builds up where you just can't do that. And the Japanese themselves start to be resentful. 00:20:37 JACK GAINES Right. Keeping them handicapped, probably. 00:20:40 GRANT NEWSHAM Yeah. You know, they're not letting us be self -fulfilled. I think that's sort of the marriage counselor's analysis. And so that imbalance was such that it was creating huge problems in the relationship. But the defense relationship, you know, pointing out, well, you know, you guys really aren't very good, except for the Navy. You know, and we can't work with you very well, except for the Navies. And as a result, that's why we are where we are today. By now, if we had a more sort of capable U .S.-Japan defense relationship, where the two services could... operate together, and we're conducting a joint defense of Japan and the surrounding areas, which includes, say, to Taiwan even, that that would have, I think, deterred a lot of the problems that we're having. But by pretending everything was okay, we've gotten ourselves in a position where we now face a real threat out there. And we're trying to make up for lost time. And I don't know. And I don't know which side I would bet on. I'd bet on ours because I'm an American. But that's how out of whack it has gotten. It used to be maybe till 20 years ago, we were in pretty good shape. But you can see that advantage eroding. And nowadays, depending on how a fight were to take place, if it does take place, it would be less of a sure thing than it once was. And that's, I think, putting it very nicely. 00:22:04 JACK GAINES Well, tell me about the threat. 00:22:05 GRANT NEWSHAM What are you seeing? It's China. led by the Chinese Communist Party. (Part II) 00:00:02 JACK GAINES Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at [email protected]. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www.civilaffairsassoc.org. I'll have those in the show notes. Please welcome back Grant Newsham, retired Marine colonel and author of When China Attacks, A Warning to America. Grant came on the show to discuss the state of the Japanese defense forces and the PRC threat. This is the second in a two-part episode, so let's get started. 00:00:56 SPEAKER_02 It's China. led by the Chinese Communist Party. They built up a military which is just gradually but steadily expanding its reach and its coverage. And it is compared to, say, 2020, now instead of just being able to operate a little bit off their coast, they can reach Guam, Hawaii, and onwards. The Chinese military doesn't tend to develop into a force able to operate worldwide just like the U .S. can. And their ship numbers. They've got more than we do. Something like 350 versus our 290. 00:00:58 JACK GAINES the Chinese Communist Party. 00:01:06 JACK GAINES its reach 00:01:11 JACK GAINES say, 2020, now instead of just being able to operate a little bit 00:01:15 GRANT NEWSHAM off their coast, they can reach Guam, Hawaii, and onwards. The Chinese military doesn't tend to develop into a force able to operate worldwide just 00:01:25 JACK GAINES like the U .S. can. And their ship numbers. They've got more than we do. Something like 350 versus our 00:01:37 SPEAKER_02 Well, fortunately, in terms of quality, they're pretty good. And they know what they need to do, and they're getting better. For some things like carrier operations, they're not at our level yet. But if you look at the speed at which they have developed, they're in pretty good shape. But let's just say the South China Sea, which is one and a half times the size of the Mediterranean. Whenever U .S. ships go in there, and we do publicize our transits and operations and exercises, for every ship we put in there, For every ship we put in, the Chinese can match it with at least 10. And that doesn't include ground -based and air -launched anti -ship missiles, for example. So if the Chinese pick their spot, 00:01:39 JACK GAINES they're pretty good. And they know what they need to do, and they're getting better. For some things like carrier operations, they're not at our level yet. But if you look at the speed at which they have developed, they're in pretty good shape. But let's just say the South China Sea, which is one and a half times the size of the Mediterranean. 00:02:00 JACK GAINES and we do publicize our transits and operations and exercises, for every ship we put in there, For every ship we put in, the Chinese can match it with at least 10. And that doesn't include ground -based and air -launched anti -ship missiles, for example. 00:02:16 SPEAKER_02 if the Chinese pick their spot, pick their timing, I wouldn't want to be the destroyer skipper who's got 20 anti -ship missiles coming at him. 20 anti -ship missiles coming at him. And he's got eight seconds to figure out what to do. The point is they have had de facto control of the South China Sea since about seven, eight years ago. And yes, we can go in there. But once we're gone, the Chinese close back up and they've pretty much got it. Beyond that, it's harder for them, but they're steadily expanding their capability to conduct operations. It's a military that has its problems, like every military, but they are trying to correct them. They are building a military which they want to be able to defeat a country that has aircraft carriers, which is us. In many respects, they are our equals. Have you ever heard a Korean War veteran who said he wanted to fight the Chinese again? And these were Chinese. These was the Chinese of 1950s. It's a very different place today. And I'm not saying that they can't be defeated, but I'm not saying that they can't be defeated. An adversary that could give us a lot of trouble. When their intentions are to first dominate regionally and locally, and then push that farther afield to all the Pacific and beyond. And they're setting up the infrastructure worldwide with ports and airfields to do that. They're investing in long -range transports, these naval replenishment ships that you need to be able to operate the way we do, and that's their mission. And we have pretended until about 2017 that this wasn't the case. In fact, you couldn't even say China was an adversary. And guys who did, like Captain James Fennell, who was the head of intelligence at Pack Fleet. He was cashier. He was forced to retire. He was cashier. He was forced to retire. The then administration hated him and got rid of him. And that's how bad it was. And I saw this all firsthand. Experience some of it, not as bad as Captain Fennell did. So we've allowed them to build up into a military that we had better take very seriously. And the Chinese do see this as a tool for their... 00:02:16 JACK GAINES if the 00:02:17 SPEAKER_03 Chinese pick their spot, pick their timing, I wouldn't want to be the destroyer skipper who's got 20 anti -ship missiles coming at him. 20 anti -ship missiles coming at him. 00:02:28 JACK GAINES figure out what to do. The point is they have had de facto control of the South China Sea since about seven, eight years ago. 00:02:39 JACK GAINES we're gone, the Chinese close back up and they've pretty much got it. Beyond that, it's 00:02:45 SPEAKER_03 but they're steadily expanding their capability to conduct operations. It's a military that has its problems, like every military, but they are trying to correct them. They are 00:02:55 JACK GAINES a military which they want to be able to defeat a country that has aircraft carriers, which is us. In many respects, 00:03:03 JACK GAINES our equals. Have you ever heard a Korean War veteran who said he wanted to fight the Chinese again? And these were Chinese. These was the Chinese of 1950s. It's a very different place today. And I'm not saying that they can't be defeated, but I'm not saying that they can't 00:03:22 JACK GAINES a lot of trouble. When their intentions are to first dominate regionally and locally, and then push that farther afield to all the Pacific and beyond. And they're setting up the infrastructure worldwide with ports and airfields to do that. They're investing in long -range transports, these naval replenishment ships that you need to be able to operate the way we do, and that's their mission. And we have pretended 00:03:50 SPEAKER_03 until about 2017 00:03:51 GRANT NEWSHAM that this wasn't the case. In fact, you couldn't even say China was an adversary. And guys who did, like Captain James Fennell, 00:04:01 JACK GAINES who was the head of intelligence at Pack Fleet. He was cashier. He was forced to retire. He was cashier. He was forced to retire. The then administration hated him and got rid of him. And that's how bad it was. And I saw this all firsthand. Experience some of it, not as bad as Captain Fennell did. So we've allowed them to build up into a military that we had better take very seriously. And the Chinese do see this as a tool for 00:04:30 SPEAKER_02 The idea is if you have a powerful military, well, that's when you can lean on people. That's when you can intimidate people. You can dominate them. And they're happy with the psychological domination, political domination. It doesn't have to be occupying, but dominating. And they're in every field, from outer space, long -range missiles, undersea warfare, really putting a lot of effort into it. And there is a certain sort of ingenuity that goes into their operations. Well, they can't invent things. They don't develop things on their own. They just steal things. So they reverse engineer things. So they reverse engineer. 00:04:32 SPEAKER_03 well, that's when you can lean on people. That's when 00:04:39 JACK GAINES And they're happy with the psychological domination, political domination. It doesn't have to be occupying, but dominating. And they're in every field, from outer space, long -range missiles, undersea warfare, really putting a lot of effort into it. And there is a certain sort of ingenuity that goes into their operations. Well, they can't invent things. They don't develop things on their own. They just steal things. So they reverse engineer things. 00:05:09 SPEAKER_02 Well, it... You know, it's kind of true up to a point, but look at us. The Yankee ingenuity was taking stolen British technology and making it better. And so the fact they may not be as innovative as us, well, sometimes it just has to be good enough. So they've got now a military to combine with this desire for political domination as well as considering their economic power as just as important as the military. And you see how successful that has been. When you have U .S. business leaders giving Xi Jinping two standing ovations last November in San Francisco, that tells you how successful they've been on the economic front. And the Japanese know they have a huge problem. You would often hear the Japanese military saying, one thing Taiwan's defense is Japan's defense. But I've even seen the calculations they did, like at which point the Japanese Navy would be outmatched by the Chinese Navy. And they had the date almost down to when it was. And our side, we were late recognizing this. We refused to. We refused to. 00:05:11 GRANT NEWSHAM kind of true up to a point, but look at us. The Yankee ingenuity was taking stolen British technology and making it better. And so the fact 00:05:20 SPEAKER_03 be as innovative as us, well, sometimes it just 00:05:23 JACK GAINES has to be good enough. So they've got now a military to combine with this desire for political domination as well as considering their economic power as just as important as the military. And you see how successful that has been. When you have U .S. business leaders giving Xi Jinping two standing 00:05:45 JACK GAINES San Francisco, that tells you how successful they've been on the economic front. And the Japanese know they have a huge problem. You 00:05:53 SPEAKER_03 would often hear the Japanese military saying, one thing Taiwan's defense is Japan's defense. But I've even seen the calculations they did, like at which 00:06:03 JACK GAINES point the 00:06:06 JACK GAINES be outmatched by the Chinese Navy. And they had the date almost down to when it was. And our side, we were late recognizing this. We refused 00:07:18 SPEAKER_02 Yeah, as he described it well. Ultimately, the military part of the fight is extremely important. But it's almost a sideshow. But it's almost a sideshow to the other activities, the other fight that China's been waging for the last 30, 40 years, almost ever since we opened up to them. And that has been generally referred to as political warfare, with components being economic warfare, financial warfare, drug warfare, which is the word the Chinese use. So all this fentanyl that's been pumped into America for the last decade that's killed up towards a million Americans, almost all of it comes from China. And they know exactly what they're doing. And so every year they're taking like the equivalent of two or three divisions off the battlefield. You've destroyed neighborhoods. You've destroyed successful economic warfare. Drive 30 miles up the road to Baltimore. Go to Sparrows, Baltimore. Where there used to be steel mills. And now you have Amazon fulfillment sectors at best. But you've seen just the gutting of American society, the so -called working class, the Rust Belt. And this was done intentionally. And this was done intentionally. In large part, Chinese economic warfare directed at the United States. And then you have cyber warfare as well. You have cyber espionage. Well beyond what countries normally do. But they have used it very effectively. And the Chinese just... Recently put out their new fighter. That's called the J -35. That is a dig at the Americans. Because it is based on stolen blueprints for the F -35. I don't know. 00:07:20 SPEAKER_03 Ultimately, the military part of the 00:07:26 SPEAKER_03 it's almost a sideshow. 00:07:29 JACK GAINES sideshow to the other activities, the other fight that China's been waging for the last 30, 40 years, almost ever since we opened up to them. And that has been generally referred to as political warfare, with components being economic warfare, financial warfare, drug warfare, which is the word the Chinese use. So all this fentanyl that's been pumped into America for the last decade that's killed up towards a million Americans, almost all of it comes from China. And they know exactly what they're doing. And so every year they're taking like the equivalent of two or three divisions off the battlefield. You've destroyed neighborhoods. You've destroyed successful economic warfare. Drive 30 miles up the road to Baltimore. Go to Sparrows, Baltimore. Where there used to be steel mills. And now you have Amazon fulfillment sectors at best. But you've seen just the gutting of American society, the so -called working class, the Rust Belt. And this was done intentionally. 00:08:26 JACK GAINES warfare directed at the United States. And then you have cyber warfare as well. You have cyber espionage. 00:08:34 SPEAKER_03 Well beyond what countries normally do. But they have used it very effectively. And the Chinese just... Recently put out their new fighter. That's called the J -35. That is a dig at 00:08:47 GRANT NEWSHAM it is based on stolen blueprints for the F -35. 00:08:55 GRANT NEWSHAM know. It's been a while. I don't know. It's been a while. 00:09:02 SPEAKER_02 Unfortunately, Copperfish is leapfrogging over stages. Yes, it may take them a little longer, but they will popscotch through it. And so... So I take it pretty seriously. Their Y -20, their long -range transport, is basically the C -17. And they've just been immensely successful at this sort of espionage. And at the same time, we've done nothing to push back on them. Then there's the propaganda angle of this, which really good old Jesuit meaning of the word just means to explain yourself or articulate your position. So people understand that they've been very successful in getting Americans to buy the Chinese line. China's rise is peaceful. China's rise is peaceful. China's never attacked anybody. China's never attacked anybody. It's not true. All great nations do this. So who are we to complain? America has its problems, too. America has its problems, too. Who are we to complain about the Chinese taking live organs out of Uyghurs and prisoners of conscience? And we've been able to convince ourselves that we've been able to convince ourselves that we've not only can we not do anything, we shouldn't do anything. This is changing. But you can see we were very late getting started. And this has all been done without firing a shot. Chinese economic inroads, Chinese economic inroads, which leads to political influence, is in, for example, South America and Africa. Just immense how fast that has come, how solid it is. Pacific Island, something similar is going on, something similar is going on. Look at the difficulties the Germans have had, weaning themselves off of this Chinese addiction. And as a result, 00:09:03 GRANT NEWSHAM is leapfrogging over stages. Yes, it may take them 00:09:07 SPEAKER_03 but they will 00:09:09 GRANT NEWSHAM popscotch through it. And so... So I take it pretty seriously. Their Y -20, 00:09:16 JACK GAINES their long -range transport, is basically the C -17. And they've just been immensely successful at this sort of espionage. And at the same time, we've done nothing to push back on them. Then there's the propaganda angle of this, which really good old Jesuit meaning of the word just means to explain yourself or articulate your position. So people understand that they've been very successful in getting Americans to buy the Chinese line. China's rise is peaceful. China's rise is peaceful. China's never attacked anybody. China's never attacked anybody. It's not true. All great nations do this. So who are we to complain? 00:09:49 SPEAKER_03 America has its problems, too. America has its problems, too. Who are we to complain about the Chinese taking live organs out of Uyghurs and prisoners of conscience? And we've been able to 00:10:00 JACK GAINES that we've been able 00:10:00 SPEAKER_03 to convince ourselves that we've not only can we not do anything, we shouldn't do anything. This is changing. But you can see we were very late getting started. And this has all been done without firing a shot. 00:10:10 JACK GAINES Chinese economic inroads, Chinese economic inroads, which leads to political influence, is in, for example, South America and Africa. Just immense how fast that has come, how solid it is. Pacific Island, something similar is going on, something similar is going on. 00:10:27 SPEAKER_03 Look at the difficulties the Germans have had, weaning themselves off of this Chinese addiction. 00:10:34 SPEAKER_02 as a result, they have been able to improve their position politically, psychologically, economically, and they've been able to do this globally without having to use their military. 00:10:36 SPEAKER_03 their position 00:10:40 GRANT NEWSHAM and they've been able to do this globally without having to use their military. 00:10:51 SPEAKER_02 Yeah, that's the idea. Is you don't want to. So our view of warfare is like a hundred -yard dash. Wherever the two sides come to the line, shake loose, and then someone fires a gun, and then someone fires a gun, and then it's game on. To the Chinese, the war has started long ago. And you're wearing down your opponent. You're weakening his ability to resist. You're creating chaos in his own country. There's a word called entropy. Which is just breaking down. Entropic warfare is a word that sometimes gets used. For you're breaking down his ability to resist. And at the same time, of course, the Chinese are building up a military, which is very serious. Yes, it's not showing up off of San Diego just yet. But places closer to China, it's much more of an issue. Japan knows the problem they have with the People's Liberation Army. Pacific Island, Southeast Asia. You are seeing more of a Chinese presence. And the point is, when the time comes, you may not even be able to resist if the Chinese have done this other sort of warfare. 00:10:53 JACK GAINES want to. So our view of warfare is like a hundred -yard dash. Wherever the two sides come to the line, shake loose, and then someone fires a gun, and then someone fires a gun, and then it's game on. To the Chinese, the war has started long ago. And you're wearing down your opponent. You're weakening his ability to resist. You're creating chaos in his own country. There's a word called entropy. Which is just breaking down. Entropic warfare is a word that 00:11:19 SPEAKER_03 sometimes gets used. For you're breaking down his ability to resist. And at the same time, of course, the Chinese are building up a military, which is very serious. 00:11:28 JACK GAINES Yes, it's not showing 00:11:33 JACK GAINES places closer to China, it's much more of an issue. Japan knows the problem they have with the People's Liberation Army. Pacific Island, Southeast Asia. You are seeing more 00:11:46 JACK GAINES Chinese presence. And the point is, when the time comes, you may not even be able to resist if the Chinese have 00:11:52 SPEAKER_03 this other 00:12:31 SPEAKER_02 That's exactly what it is. It's mental warfare. You're attacking the mind. You're attacking how people think about things. Some people use the word cognitive warfare. You're the popular word. Yeah, you're attacking the mind. And so you can see how well it worked. And the Russians had a much poorer hand to play than the Chinese do. Because we do so much business with China. And you see how hard it is to do things like ban TikTok. We can't even get that done. 00:12:33 JACK GAINES mental warfare. You're attacking the mind. You're attacking how people think about things. Some people use the 00:12:42 JACK GAINES You're the popular word. Yeah, you're attacking the mind. And so you can see how well it worked. And the Russians had a much poorer hand to play than 00:12:50 GRANT NEWSHAM the Chinese do. Because we do so much business with China. And you see how hard it is to do things like ban TikTok. We can't even get that done. 00:12:59 SPEAKER_02 We can't even get that done. 00:13:03 SPEAKER_02 Look, 72 hours, if that for the Indians do, we can do it. And you see how Chinese successfully use what they call lawfare, which is using our own legal system. And the idea is that you get proxies, influential foreigners in your target country to actually do your bidding for you. The Chinese have like five aces to play. The Russians might have won, but you can see how successful the Russians have been just with that. 00:13:04 JACK GAINES for the Indians do, we can do it. And you see how Chinese successfully use what they call lawfare, which 00:13:13 JACK GAINES the idea is that you get proxies, influential foreigners in your target country to actually do your bidding for you. The Chinese have like five aces to play. The Russians might have won, but you can see how successful the Russians have 00:13:41 SPEAKER_02 Uh -huh. Uh -huh. 00:13:46 SPEAKER_02 Well, you're right about the Russians, but the Chinese understand that the term gray zone paralyzes Americans. We have no idea what to do because of our view of warfare being until the shooting starts. That it is we're not really at war. There's still hope of working something out. 00:13:51 GRANT NEWSHAM paralyzes Americans. We have no idea what to do because of our view of warfare being until the shooting starts. That it is we're not really at war. There's still hope of working 00:14:03 SPEAKER_03 something out. 00:14:05 SPEAKER_02 That has been our rote response for all these years, is to not get the Chinese mad, don't provoke them, and we have convinced ourselves that we have to have Chinese help with fill -in -the -blank, North Korea transnational crime, nuclear weapons proliferation, climate change, and therefore we cannot challenge the PRC because we won't get their cooperation. That's what we've effectively handcuffed ourselves, but when it comes to that so -called hybrid warfare, it's not all that It's not all that complicated if you recognize what it is and how it fits into China's behavior, its strategy. But you also would do well to attract from other directions where they're particularly vulnerable. And that is where you take advantage of the fact, for example, the Chinese currency is not freely convertible, which means that outside of China, nobody really wants Chinese money. It's like the script at a... It's like the script where you can use it to buy caramel corn and go on the rides. 00:14:05 SPEAKER_03 has been our rote response for all these years, is to not get the Chinese mad, don't provoke them, and we have convinced ourselves that 00:14:14 JACK GAINES have Chinese help with fill -in -the -blank, North Korea transnational crime, nuclear weapons 00:14:22 JACK GAINES climate change, and therefore we cannot challenge the PRC because we won't get their cooperation. That's what we've effectively handcuffed ourselves, but when it comes to that so -called hybrid warfare, it's not all that It's not all that complicated if you recognize what it is and how it fits into 00:14:42 JACK GAINES its strategy. But you also would do well to attract from other directions where they're particularly vulnerable. And that is where you take advantage of the fact, for example, the Chinese currency is not freely convertible, which means that outside of China, nobody really wants Chinese money. It's like the script at a... It's like the script where you can use it to buy caramel corn and 00:15:06 SPEAKER_02 That's it. Nobody wants it. So choke that off and China's got some real problems. Another is the just thoroughgoing corruption of China's ruling class. And most of them have wealth overseas, foreign bank accounts. foreign bank accounts, relatives with green cards, relatives with green cards, some operate businesses overseas. And this is illegal. And this is illegal. 00:15:08 JACK GAINES it. So choke that off and China's got some real problems. Another is the just thoroughgoing corruption of China's ruling class. And most 00:15:19 GRANT NEWSHAM overseas, foreign bank accounts. foreign bank accounts, relatives with green cards, relatives with green cards, some operate businesses overseas. And this 00:15:31 SPEAKER_02 And this is where that really scares them. Because in 2011 or 2012, New York Times and Bloomberg actually put out some good stories about the overseas wealth of China's top people, including Xi Jinping's family. I've never seen a reaction from the Chinese like that one. This bothered them. 00:15:33 JACK GAINES scares them. Because in 2011 or 2012, New 00:15:37 SPEAKER_03 York Times and Bloomberg actually put out some good stories about the overseas wealth of China's top people, including Xi Jinping's family. 00:15:46 GRANT NEWSHAM I've never seen a reaction from the Chinese like that one. 00:15:53 SPEAKER_02 More than anything else we've ever done. That's... 00:15:53 GRANT NEWSHAM than anything 00:16:14 SPEAKER_02 One way to do it. Another way to do it. That would be a tactical thing. Say you were to release, say, every Friday. Say at 1 a .m. 1 o 'clock or whenever. 1 a .m. 1 o 'clock or whenever. 00:16:16 JACK GAINES way to do it. That would be a tactical thing. Say you were to 00:16:19 SPEAKER_03 release, say, every Friday. Say at 1 a .m. 1 o 'clock or whenever. 1 a .m. 1 o 'clock or whenever. 00:16:25 SPEAKER_02 Which of the top 50 Chinese Communist Party officials? And make sure it reached everywhere in China. The thing that the public really hates is this corruption. And by the top dogs. And that is something that really bothers them. And you note that the Chinese leadership is very willing to have the average Chinese citizen absorb any amount of punishment. And they even talk about it. 00:16:27 SPEAKER_03 Chinese Communist Party officials? And make sure it 00:16:29 GRANT NEWSHAM reached everywhere in China. The thing that the public really hates is this corruption. And by the top dogs. 00:16:38 JACK GAINES is something that really bothers them. And you note that the Chinese leadership is very willing to have the average Chinese citizen 00:16:49 JACK GAINES they even talk about it. 00:16:51 SPEAKER_02 But when it's personal, then they see it very differently. And this is one of the few ways to really make it personal for them is to capitalize on this corruption. So when we talk about... Dealing with Gray's own operations, we're probably not going to be all that successful. Because they have more ships, they can be in more places. 00:16:51 JACK GAINES when it's personal, then they see it very differently. And this is one of the few ways to really make it personal for them is to capitalize on this corruption. So when we talk about... Dealing with Gray's own operations, we're probably not going to be all that successful. Because they have more ships, they can be in more places. 00:17:14 SPEAKER_02 But expose that. They can do that. Have we made a concerted effort to expose Chinese bribery, the illicit payments, the corruption that they put into everywhere they go? Everywhere there's a Chinese presence, you have corruption of the society, the political class as well. And do we ever target that? Do we consider it a priority effort? I don't even think we consider it an effort at all. Exposure is the one thing that has a huge effect. This is why investigative journalists get big. It's why like Irish. gangsters try to murder them in Malta they get blown up because they're effective because they're effective which is the thing that makes it very hard for corruption to work and that's where I think 00:17:15 JACK GAINES can do that. Have we made a concerted effort to expose Chinese bribery, the illicit payments, the corruption that they put into everywhere they go? Everywhere there's a Chinese presence, you have corruption of the society, the political class as well. And do we ever target that? Do we consider it a priority effort? I don't even think we consider it an effort at all. Exposure is the one thing that has a huge effect. This is why investigative journalists 00:17:44 SPEAKER_03 get big. It's why like Irish. gangsters try to murder them in Malta they get blown up because they're effective because they're effective which 00:17:52 SPEAKER_02 is the thing that makes it very hard for corruption to work and that's where I think We have some real opportunities to make it very clear what's being done. And this is something that, if you expose it, you can really capitalize on it. Just make it too hard to do this. And it also gives oxygen to the honest people in a country. It gives them something to work with. It gives them something to work with. To take on these repressive regimes, these corrupt regimes, these corrupt regimes, administrations. And get rid of them and replace them with honest people. I've never met anywhere, anywhere I've been. Over the years. Where people like to be cheaters. Where people like to be cheaters. Where they like their leaders to be corrupt. I just haven't met it. I've been anywhere. I just haven't met it. I've been anywhere. It's just nothing you can do. But it's just nothing you can do. It really has an effect. And that's where I think government for sources could be effectively devoted. And particularly once you get local reporters in on it. Once you get the local. Honest locals in on it. Honest locals in on it. And that's where I think we could be very effective. Corruption, as you've mentioned, that really is the grease to everything the Chinese communists do globally. Take it away and then take away their access to dollars, convertible currency. And they've really got some problems. But they have played their hand very well today. But in some ways it's a house of cards. I don't think it's that hard to take on. But the longer you wait, the harder it gets. 00:17:52 SPEAKER_03 is the thing that makes it 00:17:54 JACK GAINES corruption to work and that's where I think We have some real opportunities to make it very clear what's being done. And this is something that, if you expose it, you can really capitalize on it. Just make it too hard to do this. And it also gives oxygen to the honest people in a country. It 00:18:16 JACK GAINES to work with. To take on these repressive regimes, these corrupt regimes, these corrupt regimes, 00:18:23 JACK GAINES them with honest people. I've never met anywhere, anywhere I've been. Over the years. Where 00:18:32 JACK GAINES I just haven't met it. I've been anywhere. I just haven't met it. I've been anywhere. It's just nothing you can do. But it's just nothing you can do. It really has an effect. And that's where I think government for sources could be effectively devoted. And particularly once you 00:18:46 GRANT NEWSHAM reporters in on it. Once you get the local. Honest locals in on it. Honest locals in on it. And that's where I think we could be very effective. 00:18:56 JACK GAINES Corruption, as you've mentioned, that really is the grease to everything the Chinese communists do globally. Take it away and then take away their access to dollars, convertible currency. And they've really got some 00:19:12 JACK GAINES today. But in some ways it's a house of cards. I don't think it's that hard to take on. But the longer you wait, the harder it 00:19:28 SPEAKER_02 In regards to U .S. policy, in policy, there really is a... a desire that the United States stays around in Asia, that maintains its military might, and is able to effectively safeguard what you call freedom consensual government. Because if you go around the region, nobody wants to be dominated by the PRC. But they do have a huge advantage, particularly economically, that they're seen by leaders and business people in a lot of these countries. That's really the source of... some wealth, some prosperity. And we would do well, for example, to see the fight as just as much an economic one as a military one. Because we could build up our military, rebuild it, and we could have 800 ships in the Navy, and still lose. If we don't fight on these other fronts, we don't want you here because we're doing too much business with China. And that's where the U .S., along with its friends, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Indians, the Australians, we would do well to operate together more and to see the economic front and the political warfare fronts as a priority effort as much, if not more, than the military. 00:19:30 SPEAKER_03 in policy, there 00:19:31 JACK GAINES really is a... a desire that the United States stays around in Asia, that maintains its military might, and is able to 00:19:45 JACK GAINES Because if you go around the region, nobody wants to be dominated by the PRC. But they do have a huge advantage, particularly economically, that they're seen by leaders and business people in a lot of these countries. That's really the source of... some wealth, some prosperity. And we would do well, for example, to see the fight as just as much an economic 00:20:09 GRANT NEWSHAM one as a military one. Because we could build up our military, rebuild it, and we could have 800 ships in the Navy, and still lose. If we don't 00:20:19 JACK GAINES on these other fronts, we don't want you here because we're doing too much business with China. And that's where the U .S., along with its friends, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Indians, the Australians, 00:20:30 GRANT NEWSHAM we would do well to operate together more and to see the economic front and the political warfare fronts as a priority effort as much, if not 00:20:40 JACK GAINES more, than the 00:20:45 SPEAKER_02 They have a role to play if they're properly harnessed. But you do know that these days you don't see the Yankee trader that used to exist. You'd run to Americans everywhere trying to sell something to do business. Not so much these days. And we've almost ceded the far -flung part to the world. Because, well, the return on investment isn't enough. That's not an attractive enough proposition. Well, then let's make it one. Plus, you do have, say, the Japanese, the Indians, who are much better at operating in these places, to put it together into a coherent plan. Understand what it is, political warfare, and not just block the Chinese political warfare effort, but actually have our own campaign. And it really is worth doing some homework, I think, for a lot of people into what political warfare is. One sees the opportunities, but it takes a certain type of person who's good at it. versus a civil affairs guy. Versus a civil affairs guy. He's going to see different... He's going to see parts of the battlefield in a different way. Yes, sometimes you want the tank. But then there's this other part of it all. That is almost like a liberal arts test. Here you have to figure out the motivations for things. You have to figure out how a society works. And then how do you appeal to it using the things that are parts of political warfare? And this is where you can really make some mileage. You've got to have both. Make no mistake. If you're not able to destroy things and kill people, the civil affairs part isn't going to get you very far. But combine the two, and then you've really got something that's very hard to take on if you're the bad guys. We talk about defending Taiwan, and how important it is, and it is, I think, indispensable, that China does not take Taiwan and enslave 23 million people. If they did that... 00:20:47 JACK GAINES they're properly harnessed. But you do know that these days you don't see the Yankee trader that used to exist. You'd run to Americans everywhere trying to sell something to do business. Not 00:20:59 SPEAKER_03 so much these days. And we've almost ceded the far -flung part to the world. Because, well, the return on investment isn't enough. That's not an attractive enough proposition. Well, then let's 00:21:10 GRANT NEWSHAM make it one. Plus, you do have, say, the Japanese, the Indians, who are much better at operating in these places, to put it together into a coherent plan. Understand what it 00:21:20 JACK GAINES is, political warfare, and not just block the Chinese political warfare effort, but actually have our own campaign. And it really is worth doing some homework, I think, for a lot of people into what political warfare is. One sees the opportunities, but it takes a certain type of person who's good at it. versus a civil affairs guy. Versus a civil affairs guy. He's going to see different... He's going to see parts of the battlefield in a different way. 00:21:50 SPEAKER_03 Yes, sometimes you want the tank. But then there's this other part of it all. That is almost like a liberal arts test. Here you have to figure 00:22:00 JACK GAINES for things. You have to figure out how a society works. And then how do you appeal to it using the things that are parts of political warfare? 00:22:10 JACK GAINES make some mileage. You've got to have both. Make no mistake. If you're not able to destroy things and kill people, the civil affairs part isn't going to get you very far. But combine the two, and then you've really got something that's very hard to take on if you're the bad guys. We talk about defending Taiwan, and how important it is, and it is, I think, indispensable, 00:22:32 GRANT NEWSHAM that China does not take Taiwan and enslave 23 million people. If they did that... 00:22:39 SPEAKER_02 Asia would turn red overnight, as every country tried to cut the best deal they could. No country anywhere on Earth would have much confidence in American promises that will protect them. But one of the ways to actually defend Taiwan is, yes, they could maybe use F -35s and long -range missiles and smart pines, etc. You do have to have all of this stuff. Is it enough, 00:22:39 GRANT NEWSHAM would turn red overnight, as every country tried 00:22:42 SPEAKER_03 to cut the best deal they could. No country anywhere 00:22:46 JACK GAINES on Earth would have much confidence in American promises that will protect them. But one of the ways to actually defend 00:22:51 GRANT NEWSHAM Taiwan is, yes, they could maybe use F -35s and long -range missiles and smart pines, etc. You do have to have all of this stuff. Is it enough, even? Particularly if the other side says, okay, we'll absorb whatever you can send at us, but you're finished. But one of the ways that... But one of the ways is to give them a free trade agreement to improve their economy to the point that the government felt like it had money to spend on defense. 00:23:02 SPEAKER_02 Particularly if the other side says, okay, we'll absorb whatever you can send at us, but you're finished. But one of the ways that... But one of the ways is to give them a free trade agreement to improve their economy to the point that the government felt like it had money to spend on defense. You get a certain confidence in the entire society when they're more prosperous. Salaries are very low in Taiwan. Make it so people feel like they've got more money. Can they can buy a house? Can they can buy a condominium? build up the economy and that has a ripple effect throughout the society and on their military itself. And yet we didn't do that. And I think that's where we should apply some effort. 00:23:11 JACK GAINES give them a free trade agreement to 00:23:16 JACK GAINES point that the government felt like it had money to spend on defense. You get a certain confidence in the entire society when they're more prosperous. Salaries are very low in Taiwan. Make it so people feel like they've got more money. Can they can buy a house? Can they can buy a condominium? 00:23:35 JACK GAINES the economy and that has a ripple effect throughout the society and on their military itself. And yet we didn't do that. And I think that's where we should apply some 00:24:25 SPEAKER_02 I think you're right. And it's essential that we start to understand. You look at much of the debate about us in China. What happens when the two forces go at each other? And that's almost like... Going up behind the Waffle House. Going up behind the Waffle House. To see who's the toughest guy in Prince William County. To see who's the toughest guy in Prince William County. Out back. But think of all the things that go into whether or not the two hoodlums. There's all sorts of reasons why. No, there may not. 00:24:27 JACK GAINES essential that we start to understand. 00:24:32 JACK GAINES us in China. 00:24:33 SPEAKER_03 What happens when the two forces go at each other? And that's almost like... Going up behind the Waffle House. Going up behind the Waffle 00:24:43 JACK GAINES House. To see who's the toughest guy in Prince William County. To see 00:24:52 JACK GAINES whether or not the two hoodlums. 00:24:56 JACK GAINES of reasons why. No, there may not. 00:24:59 SPEAKER_02 Or that will affect the outcome, actually. None of them have to do with force on force. And that's so much of our debate on the US -China military problem. Is that a problem? Would our Navy take on theirs? Is there long -range missiles outrange ours? Yes, it's important. Make no mistake. Yes, it's important. Make no mistake. It's only one part of the battle. It's only one part of the battle. And it's the last part. 00:25:02 JACK GAINES of them have to do with force on force. And that's so much of our debate on the US -China military problem. Is that a problem? Would our Navy take on theirs? Is there long -range missiles outrange ours? Yes, it's important. Make no mistake. Yes, it's 00:25:21 JACK GAINES of the battle. And it's the last part. 00:25:22 SPEAKER_02 And if you look at the other part, it's a political warfare. And every part of that, then you have the chance, one, not to lose. You can actually shape things to your advantage. But if you don't, and the other guy is the only one playing that, well, you're likely to find yourself at 2 a .m. outside the Waffle House, and he's actually ready. We talk about bases. 00:25:22 JACK GAINES if you look at the other part, it's a political warfare. And every part of that, then you have the chance, one, not to lose. You can actually shape things to your advantage. But if you don't, and the other guy is the only one playing that, well, you're likely to find yourself at 2 a .m. outside the Waffle House, and he's actually ready. We talk about bases. 00:25:45 SPEAKER_02 We talk about bases. Well, what if we don't have the access because Chinese political warfare has made us so the locals won't let us into a place? They won't let us operate. 00:25:45 JACK GAINES talk about bases. Well, what if we don't have the access because Chinese political warfare has made us so the locals won't let us into a place? 00:25:53 GRANT NEWSHAM They won't let us operate. 00:25:55 SPEAKER_02 They won't let us operate. Oh, that's a pretty good example. Is that a pretty good example? One hoodlum can't get a ride to the awful house, but the other one can. So we've really got to start thinking about these things from a much broader perspective. And it's unfortunate that we're reinventing the wheel here. But the game's not over. It may be the bottom of the 7th and we're down by 6th. We're the old Washington Senators. We're the old Washington Senators. and debate how far we're behind. At the end of the day, we've got a good hand to play. I hope we start playing it. 00:25:58 JACK GAINES Is that a pretty good example? One hoodlum can't get a ride to the awful house, but the other 00:26:08 JACK GAINES thinking about these things from a much 00:26:15 JACK GAINES the wheel here. 00:26:18 JACK GAINES It may be the bottom of the 7th and we're down by 6th. We're the old Washington Senators. We're the old Washington Senators. and debate how far we're behind. At the end of the day, we've got a good hand to play. I hope we start playing it. 00:26:35 SPEAKER_02 Glad to be here. Thank you. Glad to be here. Thank you. 00:26:40 JACK GAINES Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at [email protected]. I'll have the email and CA Association website in the show notes. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field, working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U .S. relations, thank you all for what you're doing. This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes. One CA Podcast.

Please welcome Grant Newsham, retired marine colonel and author of When China Attacks, A Warning to America. Grant came on the show to discuss the state of the Japan Defense Forces and the PRC threat.  This is a two-part episode. Grant's biography: https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/author/grant-newsham/ Book link: https://www.regnery.com/9781684513659/when-china-attacks/ A recent article: https://andmagazine.substack.com/p/the-us-in-the-pacific-getting-the?utm_source=substack&publication_id=746580&post_id=151553726&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share&utm_campaign=email-share&triggerShare=true&isFreemail=true&r=ercjf&triedRedirect=true --- One CA is a product of the civil affairs association  and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership. We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations.  To contact the show, email us at [email protected]  or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org --- Special thanks to the site Cool Jazz Hot Bossa for the sample of Cool Jazz Hot Bossa. (59:00). Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdWUj2NYDYQ --- Transcript: (Part I) 00:00:05 JACK GAINES Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at [email protected]. Or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www.civilaffairsassoc.org. I'll have those in the show notes. Please welcome Grant Newsham, retired Marine Colonel and author of When China Attacks, A Warning to America. Grant came on the show to discuss the state of the Japan Defense Forces and the PRC threat. This is the first of a two-part episode, so let's get started. 00:00:56 GRANT NEWSHAM I was effectively MarforPak's guy in Asia for a number of years. which worked well in both directions. So I was obviously in Japan, but also did a lot of work for them throughout the region, Southeast Asia as well, Taiwan even, which was a lot of fun. 00:01:13 JACK GAINES Yeah. And you've become a foreign policy advocate in the area. 00:01:16 GRANT NEWSHAM Yeah. At some point, maybe seven or eight years ago, figured I'd actually done enough stuff to maybe have a few ideas. So I started writing and speak a lot as well. So I guess I'm part of the commentariat. But I seem to write about once a week some topic related to often Asian defense, but sometimes economics, politics, sometimes organized crime. And I do get invited to speak here and there and seem to get a number of television or radio interviews as well. That's really cool. I didn't say I get invited to good things, but I do get the occasional invitation. I used to think it was because I had such insight. Someone told me not all that long ago that actually, if you'll say yes to an interview, you're likely to get more of them. Because the people who book them, they just want to get somebody on. And I thought it was because of my particular wisdom. 00:02:07 JACK GAINES of my particular wisdom. 00:02:09 GRANT NEWSHAM I'm joking a little bit. But obviously, you must have something useful to say. But it is funny. There's one place in Singapore that calls me a lot. It's like their CNN. And they've been calling me. Probably eight years at least, or almost every time, I'll tell the presenters that basically they don't know what they're talking about. And I always think, well, this is the last one, but they keep calling me up. They mislike you because you're the contrarian. 00:02:34 JACK GAINES mislike you because you're the contrarian. 00:02:36 GRANT NEWSHAM Oh, I can blame things in a way that sort of suits broadcast and that sort of regular people can understand, you know, 00:02:42 GRANT NEWSHAM that sort of regular people can understand, you know, being a regular person myself. 00:02:47 JACK GAINES Yeah, you learn to disagree without offending. 00:02:49 GRANT NEWSHAM Usually. And it's always sort of a relief, actually, when you can have a different look at things. 00:02:56 JACK GAINES That's good. I always thought you were going to say it is a relief sometimes when you just peel the coat off and then yell at them. 00:03:02 GRANT NEWSHAM The facts speak for themselves. Right. And if it's a presenter, their role is different, and they will generally not have the substantive knowledge that most of the people on the show will have. Right. And so much of what I have to say is often not... in line with accepted wisdom, particularly when it comes to Japan. Sure. So it's often that I'll have to present a different take on things, but they don't seem to be offended. 00:03:27 JACK GAINES Right. You mostly talk about Japan in its current defense fashion or in its foreign policy actions. 00:03:33 GRANT NEWSHAM A lot of that because people have a perception of Japan, for example, as a pacifist country. It cannot fight. It's peace loving. Right. etc. They have a nuclear allergy. You know, just the idea of nuclear weapons in Japan is out of the question. You often hear, well, their constitution won't let them fight. And none of those things are actually true. But it's the received wisdom. It's what people think. And when you simply point out the realities of Japan, that ultimately, at the end of the day, it's a country just like every other. And that the stereotypes about it really aren't correct when it comes to defense security. In fact, they use that the Constitution won't let them have a military. You probably heard it. Yeah. That's the idea. And they don't even call it a military. But the fact is they've got a military, which, according to some ratings, is the fifth most powerful in the world. It depends on how you calculate it, of course. But they call it something else. And what is the actual distinction between offensive and defensive weapons? 00:04:35 JACK GAINES It's usually the strike space. If it's inside your own country defending, then it's a defense space. Once you go out and start taking out other people's cities and moving forces in. 00:04:44 GRANT NEWSHAM Well, for example, they don't have much what you call power projection capability very far off their borders. But they do have a submarine fleet, say over 20 submarines. There's no reason you couldn't send them to the coast of China and start sinking ships. 00:04:59 JACK GAINES True. 00:05:00 GRANT NEWSHAM They've got F -16s. You can put long -range missiles on them and you can fly out of ways and cause people a lot of trouble. But their military really, I would say, is not so good at offense. It's not so good at defense either. And that's something that comes as a surprise to a lot of people. 00:05:15 JACK GAINES Well, do they exercise defense and offense? 00:05:18 GRANT NEWSHAM Oh, they have exercises, training, and they put on a pretty good show, particularly when they have visitors come. But they really, until very recently, and even now, they can't do joint operations, which means the air, sea, and ground forces. can't operate together. In fact, they don't even have a radio with which they can communicate easily. They have to jury -rig some relations, these connections. And that's something most people don't understand, because you look at it on paper. Japan has 250 ,000 people in its military, and it's got ships, aircraft, all of it modern and good stuff. 150 ,000 people in its ground self -defense force, their army. But it's not even the sum of its whole. If you imagine each of your limbs, your arms and your legs, each doing whatever it wants without the coordinating function provided by a brain. 00:06:10 JACK GAINES Sounds like me dancing. 00:06:12 GRANT NEWSHAM It would be, yeah. I think that I can picture that, whereas I'm more of an Arthur Murray kind of guy. But it's like that. And nobody can believe that because they think, well, this is the Japanese. It's this advanced modern country, big military, the rich country. And I mean, they can't even do these simple things. Right. The short answer is no, except in some limited circumstances. After 60 years of the U .S.-Japan defense relationship, 80 years after World War II, they still cannot do some of the basic things that a military needs to do, or do them very well, put it that way. But they do train, they exercise, the personnel quality is excellent. You know, we tend to say, well, we've got Japan as our ally, Japan has a military. But the reality is that the U .S. and Japanese forces cannot work very well together. There's one exception, and that's the two navies. The U .S. Navy and the Japanese Navy, called the Maritime Self -Defense Force, they actually do work well. And they show what's doable. 00:07:15 JACK GAINES They probably do dynamic exercises as well as structured ones, so they have to change, have to practice new orders and maneuvers. 00:07:22 GRANT NEWSHAM Well, the nature of naval operations is you can go out... into the sea, and you have more freedom to actually do stuff. But part of it actually was when Admiral Arleigh Burke, who was later chief of naval operations for many years, he was in charge in Japan. He basically laid down the ground rules, which was that the American Navy was going to treat the Japanese like friends, like allies. And that set the tone for everything. So they had a more relationship of equals, people who wanted to operate together. And that is why they have a good relationship today. in my opinion. So as a result, after all these decades, the two militaries are not really very good at operating together. There's no joint headquarters. There never has been in Japan. At best, they've operated in isolation. Do they recognize they don't have a joint access? Oh, they know. The Japanese military knows this. And US Indo -PACOM has not pushed the issue. And then you had... The State Department side, on the civilian side, people saying, well, if we ask the Japanese to get better at defense matters, well, they'll get angry. And if they do, then the Chinese will be mad. So you have the U .S. on the U .S. side. We're thinking of at least 10 reasons why Japan cannot improve its defenses. That's changed enough in recent years. But you see how many decades we've lost. 00:08:51 JACK GAINES Right. I can see part of what the State Department is saying in that a lot of those countries along the Asian coast were under Japanese rule during World War II. They're concerned that by showing favor and coordinating with them in defense might offend places like the Philippines or Korea. It is a concern to be weighed, but I don't know how much weight you would put to it. 00:09:14 GRANT NEWSHAM I wouldn't give it hardly any. With the Japanese, when you actually think about it, I would say within... 30 years of the end of the war, but certainly today, and for the last at least 20 years ago. The new century. Even before that. The Japanese and World War II is not really an issue in almost all of Asia. The Chinese, of course... Play it up. That's a good way to put it. Of course, they do remember what the Japanese did, and it was barbaric. Although the Chinese Communist Party afterwards killed 50 million Chinese in peacetime and good weather, which the Imperial Japanese Army couldn't have dreamed of doing. But World War II is an issue in China. Korea as well, the relationship is dicey. Up to a point. I mean, little old ladies go and sit in front of the embassy still. 00:10:05 JACK GAINES the embassy still. 00:10:06 GRANT NEWSHAM There are, and then you just had a South Korean amphibious ship come to Yokosuka in Tokyo on a visit. In Korea, there's a fundamental sort of suspicion of the Japanese. Sometimes it is a real dislike. But most people, it's not a big issue. But except for those two countries, you go down the list in Asia, and there is no after effect of World War II. I find the Filipinos get along very well with the Japanese. The Indonesians do. They, in fact, see the Japanese as being the people who freed them from the colonial yoke. Okay. The Malays, they actually didn't have that bad a time during the occupation. The Chinese in Malaysia did. So the Malaysians don't have any really hard feelings against the Japanese. Taiwan, same thing. They've got a very good relationship. And then there's one plus billion Indians who actually have an excellent relationship with Japan and see Japan as real friends and vice versa. So you're starting to get a good chunk of Asia, which, as you can see, actually sees Japan as a good country, useful economically. It's been very generous. And they like to see a Japanese military that's strong enough, allied with the United States, able to deal with China. 00:11:27 JACK GAINES Right. And why would we have such a different balance as we do with Germany and Europe? Because no one's questioning this in Holland or in France. That's just another country. They freely trade, they freely access each other. So maybe mindset just needs to shift to say the reform of Japan is just like Germany, and we need to start treating them and partner nations the same and start advocating for a joint staff. 00:11:52 GRANT NEWSHAM And you could do that in an afternoon, but the Japanese will not speak up for themselves. And an old New York Times reporter, Richard Halloran, I remember him telling me once that all the people he ever dealt with in the world... The Japanese were the worst at explaining themselves. And there's a reticence which slows them down. But also the Americans are afraid to tell them what we need. And that is a huge problem, because if we don't tell them, the Japanese are not blind readers, and they won't do what we think we'd like them to do, but we're afraid to ask. And in fact, one of the Japanese prime ministers in 1970, so 50 -some years ago, He gave some very good advice to the Americans, and it was at the time the Americans were trying to put an aircraft carrier into Yokosuka, the naval base near Tokyo. They wanted to assign it there permanently. And the U .S. side was thinking of excuses why it was too hard for the Japanese. They'll cause political difficulties. The Japanese have an election coming up. The timing just isn't right. And finally, the Japanese side sent a message to the Americans saying, tell us what you need. And don't back down. And they said it out of exasperation, really. And it was the best advice the Americans have ever been given. And we've refused to follow it ever since then. And really, it's almost a cultural trait, sort of a Confucian system. They actually are happy to have experts tell them what they ought to do. Sure. Whereas we are more of the Socratic method. And it doesn't, it just doesn't work. That's why after all these years, the Americans and the Japanese forces, except for the navies, And except for missile defense, we really don't operate together anywhere near where we need to be. We're not even close. And another very interesting fact a lot of people don't know is the Japanese military missed its recruitment targets by about 50 % last year. 5 -0? 00:13:50 JACK GAINES -0? 00:13:50 GRANT NEWSHAM 5 -0. And it routinely misses them by 20 -25%. So this, you can see, is a problem. It's now an older force, doesn't have enough people. In order to fulfill its missions, it would probably have to be twice as big, both personnel -wise and in terms of ships and hardware. Its war stocks are basically non -existent, doesn't know anything really about casualty care, combat casualty replacements, logistics. 00:14:20 JACK GAINES Well, if the media looks down on it and the political class looks down on it, it's not going to get a lot of positivity in the public mindset. So that's got to be part of it. It's not a vote -getter to push for a strong defense. 00:14:31 GRANT NEWSHAM vote -getter to push for a strong defense. I mean, if you're a politician, no one's going to say, he's the defense guy, let's give him our vote. But people vote for other reasons. But you do get used to, after that horrific experience in World War II, that for decades people didn't want to really think about defense, and they were glad to have the Americans around to handle it, and particularly when it seemed like there wasn't any real threat anywhere. People were happy with that, and even the U .S. side. didn't mind it as well. But I'd say it should have started to change at least 20 years ago. And it didn't until maybe four or five years ago. Well, 00:15:10 JACK GAINES when did the risk indicators really start popping up with China? 00:15:14 GRANT NEWSHAM I think by... It can't be back when Nixon went. 00:15:15 JACK GAINES It can't be back when Nixon went. Well, it should have, 00:15:16 GRANT NEWSHAM it should have, you know, I think. But about 2005 is when it was obvious what was coming. 00:15:19 JACK GAINES But about 00:15:21 GRANT NEWSHAM when it was obvious what was coming. And even before that, if you knew what to look for. But as I said, some of us... We knew what needed done and what the problems were. And there were Japanese who did too. And that's why when we put together their amphibious force, it was sort of an effort to address the shortcomings in Japan's self -defense force. Also to improve the overall U .S.-Japan relationship because it was so imbalanced. Right. Where the Japanese weren't doing anything near enough to defend themselves. And that over time creates a lot of friction in a relationship. So we were trying to address that with the amphibious force, and that was 2011, which we were pretty successful at that because we didn't ask permission from anybody. I was going to say, if you were successful, 00:16:10 JACK GAINES did you get fired? 00:16:11 GRANT NEWSHAM Well, it's not that people didn't try. 00:16:11 JACK GAINES Well, it's not that people didn't try. Sorry, that was sarcastic. But I was a reservist, so they couldn't quite get a bead on me. 00:16:15 GRANT NEWSHAM I was a reservist, so they couldn't quite get a bead on me. Yeah. And didn't quite know what we were doing. And also you had people like General Gregson, who was then at... Department of Defense, who had been in Japan many years, and he knew the importance of it all. So he would provide some cover. But the real success there was because the Japanese side took the ideas and ran with it. And the Americans provided some cover and some know -how and some advice. But it was the Japanese who did that. Once the Japanese took on the mission, well, what are the Americans going to say? But I was even told that at Indo -PACOM, that there were people who gotten wind of this and were very much opposed because the idea that Japanese having an amphibious force was provocative. Not just provocative, but it was going to cause the Japanese to go on the rampage again, like in 1941. I'm not making this up. 00:17:11 JACK GAINES So when Germany starts building the Leopard 2, were they expected to go on a rampage too? 00:17:17 GRANT NEWSHAM No, those are Europeans. Oh, okay. You know how the Europeans are okay. 00:17:19 JACK GAINES okay. You know 00:17:21 GRANT NEWSHAM But the fact that Germans have been allowed back into polite society. tells you something, and the Japanese are just as deserving of it as well. 00:17:30 JACK GAINES Did you see the movie Godzilla Minus One? No. It's an interesting portrayal of post -World War II Japan. And Godzilla, which is this giant monster, comes out of the sea, tears up Japan, and has an atomic breath that shoots off nuclear explosions, which sounds a lot like the United States in a mythological way. One thing that... the show did that was interesting is it kind of engaged post -military era and had talked about it. And it seemed like it was trying to reconcile the past with now and build out a notion that the military is okay, that after the war, there were good things that happened and that we should embrace a military in the future. So there might be some societal impulses out there that are promoting and supporting a more built -up military in Japan. 00:18:24 GRANT NEWSHAM Well, you're actually right. The public at large has always been pretty supportive of the military. For example, when they have open base days, when they put on so -called firepower demonstrations, which is like an exercise you can watch where they shoot off stuff, that they're always oversubscribed. And people just pour into these things because they're interested. And the central government, or say the ruling class, are the ones who are gun -shy or... I'm really hesitant, but the public at large, you know, when you ask them, you know, should Japan have a normal military? The replies to that are like 85%. Well, yes, of course. And I think they would be horrified if they knew the actual state of the Japanese military. I mentioned this to a Japanese politician last year, and he was horrified at the idea. And the public as well would have a similar reaction. Regular Japanese people say they have a pretty good understanding of what Japan needs to do to defend itself and of the importance of having a national defense, but the government doesn't explain it very well. When they do, the reaction, there's a Japanese expression, it's called like, it's atarimae. And it means like, well, yeah. It's like, duh. 00:19:42 JACK GAINES Abnautually. And that's what it means. 00:19:42 GRANT NEWSHAM And that's what it means. Should Japan have a good defense? Atarimae. And yeah, what's the question here? But if you ask that question in the political world, then you'll get all sorts of emming and hawing. They wanted nothing of that. By the late 70s, certainly by the 90s, that they sort of outlived that. But it was comfortable to continue with it, particularly if you're the government, because you don't have to spend money on defense. And the Americans are covering that. So it was as if the Americans were giving. I'd say at least $50 billion a year in free defense coverage, at least, probably more. And, you know, if you're a government, you think, well, why should we do anything different? And so they got used to that. We got used to it. And then at some point, the friction builds up where you just can't do that. And the Japanese themselves start to be resentful. 00:20:37 JACK GAINES Right. Keeping them handicapped, probably. 00:20:40 GRANT NEWSHAM Yeah. You know, they're not letting us be self -fulfilled. I think that's sort of the marriage counselor's analysis. And so that imbalance was such that it was creating huge problems in the relationship. But the defense relationship, you know, pointing out, well, you know, you guys really aren't very good, except for the Navy. You know, and we can't work with you very well, except for the Navies. And as a result, that's why we are where we are today. By now, if we had a more sort of capable U .S.-Japan defense relationship, where the two services could... operate together, and we're conducting a joint defense of Japan and the surrounding areas, which includes, say, to Taiwan even, that that would have, I think, deterred a lot of the problems that we're having. But by pretending everything was okay, we've gotten ourselves in a position where we now face a real threat out there. And we're trying to make up for lost time. And I don't know. And I don't know which side I would bet on. I'd bet on ours because I'm an American. But that's how out of whack it has gotten. It used to be maybe till 20 years ago, we were in pretty good shape. But you can see that advantage eroding. And nowadays, depending on how a fight were to take place, if it does take place, it would be less of a sure thing than it once was. And that's, I think, putting it very nicely. 00:22:04 JACK GAINES Well, tell me about the threat. 00:22:05 GRANT NEWSHAM What are you seeing? It's China. led by the Chinese Communist Party. (Part II) 00:00:02 JACK GAINES Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at [email protected]. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www.civilaffairsassoc.org. I'll have those in the show notes. Please welcome back Grant Newsham, retired Marine colonel and author of When China Attacks, A Warning to America. Grant came on the show to discuss the state of the Japanese defense forces and the PRC threat. This is the second in a two-part episode, so let's get started. 00:00:56 SPEAKER_02 It's China. led by the Chinese Communist Party. They built up a military which is just gradually but steadily expanding its reach and its coverage. And it is compared to, say, 2020, now instead of just being able to operate a little bit off their coast, they can reach Guam, Hawaii, and onwards. The Chinese military doesn't tend to develop into a force able to operate worldwide just like the U .S. can. And their ship numbers. They've got more than we do. Something like 350 versus our 290. 00:00:58 JACK GAINES the Chinese Communist Party. 00:01:06 JACK GAINES its reach 00:01:11 JACK GAINES say, 2020, now instead of just being able to operate a little bit 00:01:15 GRANT NEWSHAM off their coast, they can reach Guam, Hawaii, and onwards. The Chinese military doesn't tend to develop into a force able to operate worldwide just 00:01:25 JACK GAINES like the U .S. can. And their ship numbers. They've got more than we do. Something like 350 versus our 00:01:37 SPEAKER_02 Well, fortunately, in terms of quality, they're pretty good. And they know what they need to do, and they're getting better. For some things like carrier operations, they're not at our level yet. But if you look at the speed at which they have developed, they're in pretty good shape. But let's just say the South China Sea, which is one and a half times the size of the Mediterranean. Whenever U .S. ships go in there, and we do publicize our transits and operations and exercises, for every ship we put in there, For every ship we put in, the Chinese can match it with at least 10. And that doesn't include ground -based and air -launched anti -ship missiles, for example. So if the Chinese pick their spot, 00:01:39 JACK GAINES they're pretty good. And they know what they need to do, and they're getting better. For some things like carrier operations, they're not at our level yet. But if you look at the speed at which they have developed, they're in pretty good shape. But let's just say the South China Sea, which is one and a half times the size of the Mediterranean. 00:02:00 JACK GAINES and we do publicize our transits and operations and exercises, for every ship we put in there, For every ship we put in, the Chinese can match it with at least 10. And that doesn't include ground -based and air -launched anti -ship missiles, for example. 00:02:16 SPEAKER_02 if the Chinese pick their spot, pick their timing, I wouldn't want to be the destroyer skipper who's got 20 anti -ship missiles coming at him. 20 anti -ship missiles coming at him. And he's got eight seconds to figure out what to do. The point is they have had de facto control of the South China Sea since about seven, eight years ago. And yes, we can go in there. But once we're gone, the Chinese close back up and they've pretty much got it. Beyond that, it's harder for them, but they're steadily expanding their capability to conduct operations. It's a military that has its problems, like every military, but they are trying to correct them. They are building a military which they want to be able to defeat a country that has aircraft carriers, which is us. In many respects, they are our equals. Have you ever heard a Korean War veteran who said he wanted to fight the Chinese again? And these were Chinese. These was the Chinese of 1950s. It's a very different place today. And I'm not saying that they can't be defeated, but I'm not saying that they can't be defeated. An adversary that could give us a lot of trouble. When their intentions are to first dominate regionally and locally, and then push that farther afield to all the Pacific and beyond. And they're setting up the infrastructure worldwide with ports and airfields to do that. They're investing in long -range transports, these naval replenishment ships that you need to be able to operate the way we do, and that's their mission. And we have pretended until about 2017 that this wasn't the case. In fact, you couldn't even say China was an adversary. And guys who did, like Captain James Fennell, who was the head of intelligence at Pack Fleet. He was cashier. He was forced to retire. He was cashier. He was forced to retire. The then administration hated him and got rid of him. And that's how bad it was. And I saw this all firsthand. Experience some of it, not as bad as Captain Fennell did. So we've allowed them to build up into a military that we had better take very seriously. And the Chinese do see this as a tool for their... 00:02:16 JACK GAINES if the 00:02:17 SPEAKER_03 Chinese pick their spot, pick their timing, I wouldn't want to be the destroyer skipper who's got 20 anti -ship missiles coming at him. 20 anti -ship missiles coming at him. 00:02:28 JACK GAINES figure out what to do. The point is they have had de facto control of the South China Sea since about seven, eight years ago. 00:02:39 JACK GAINES we're gone, the Chinese close back up and they've pretty much got it. Beyond that, it's 00:02:45 SPEAKER_03 but they're steadily expanding their capability to conduct operations. It's a military that has its problems, like every military, but they are trying to correct them. They are 00:02:55 JACK GAINES a military which they want to be able to defeat a country that has aircraft carriers, which is us. In many respects, 00:03:03 JACK GAINES our equals. Have you ever heard a Korean War veteran who said he wanted to fight the Chinese again? And these were Chinese. These was the Chinese of 1950s. It's a very different place today. And I'm not saying that they can't be defeated, but I'm not saying that they can't 00:03:22 JACK GAINES a lot of trouble. When their intentions are to first dominate regionally and locally, and then push that farther afield to all the Pacific and beyond. And they're setting up the infrastructure worldwide with ports and airfields to do that. They're investing in long -range transports, these naval replenishment ships that you need to be able to operate the way we do, and that's their mission. And we have pretended 00:03:50 SPEAKER_03 until about 2017 00:03:51 GRANT NEWSHAM that this wasn't the case. In fact, you couldn't even say China was an adversary. And guys who did, like Captain James Fennell, 00:04:01 JACK GAINES who was the head of intelligence at Pack Fleet. He was cashier. He was forced to retire. He was cashier. He was forced to retire. The then administration hated him and got rid of him. And that's how bad it was. And I saw this all firsthand. Experience some of it, not as bad as Captain Fennell did. So we've allowed them to build up into a military that we had better take very seriously. And the Chinese do see this as a tool for 00:04:30 SPEAKER_02 The idea is if you have a powerful military, well, that's when you can lean on people. That's when you can intimidate people. You can dominate them. And they're happy with the psychological domination, political domination. It doesn't have to be occupying, but dominating. And they're in every field, from outer space, long -range missiles, undersea warfare, really putting a lot of effort into it. And there is a certain sort of ingenuity that goes into their operations. Well, they can't invent things. They don't develop things on their own. They just steal things. So they reverse engineer things. So they reverse engineer. 00:04:32 SPEAKER_03 well, that's when you can lean on people. That's when 00:04:39 JACK GAINES And they're happy with the psychological domination, political domination. It doesn't have to be occupying, but dominating. And they're in every field, from outer space, long -range missiles, undersea warfare, really putting a lot of effort into it. And there is a certain sort of ingenuity that goes into their operations. Well, they can't invent things. They don't develop things on their own. They just steal things. So they reverse engineer things. 00:05:09 SPEAKER_02 Well, it... You know, it's kind of true up to a point, but look at us. The Yankee ingenuity was taking stolen British technology and making it better. And so the fact they may not be as innovative as us, well, sometimes it just has to be good enough. So they've got now a military to combine with this desire for political domination as well as considering their economic power as just as important as the military. And you see how successful that has been. When you have U .S. business leaders giving Xi Jinping two standing ovations last November in San Francisco, that tells you how successful they've been on the economic front. And the Japanese know they have a huge problem. You would often hear the Japanese military saying, one thing Taiwan's defense is Japan's defense. But I've even seen the calculations they did, like at which point the Japanese Navy would be outmatched by the Chinese Navy. And they had the date almost down to when it was. And our side, we were late recognizing this. We refused to. We refused to. 00:05:11 GRANT NEWSHAM kind of true up to a point, but look at us. The Yankee ingenuity was taking stolen British technology and making it better. And so the fact 00:05:20 SPEAKER_03 be as innovative as us, well, sometimes it just 00:05:23 JACK GAINES has to be good enough. So they've got now a military to combine with this desire for political domination as well as considering their economic power as just as important as the military. And you see how successful that has been. When you have U .S. business leaders giving Xi Jinping two standing 00:05:45 JACK GAINES San Francisco, that tells you how successful they've been on the economic front. And the Japanese know they have a huge problem. You 00:05:53 SPEAKER_03 would often hear the Japanese military saying, one thing Taiwan's defense is Japan's defense. But I've even seen the calculations they did, like at which 00:06:03 JACK GAINES point the 00:06:06 JACK GAINES be outmatched by the Chinese Navy. And they had the date almost down to when it was. And our side, we were late recognizing this. We refused 00:07:18 SPEAKER_02 Yeah, as he described it well. Ultimately, the military part of the fight is extremely important. But it's almost a sideshow. But it's almost a sideshow to the other activities, the other fight that China's been waging for the last 30, 40 years, almost ever since we opened up to them. And that has been generally referred to as political warfare, with components being economic warfare, financial warfare, drug warfare, which is the word the Chinese use. So all this fentanyl that's been pumped into America for the last decade that's killed up towards a million Americans, almost all of it comes from China. And they know exactly what they're doing. And so every year they're taking like the equivalent of two or three divisions off the battlefield. You've destroyed neighborhoods. You've destroyed successful economic warfare. Drive 30 miles up the road to Baltimore. Go to Sparrows, Baltimore. Where there used to be steel mills. And now you have Amazon fulfillment sectors at best. But you've seen just the gutting of American society, the so -called working class, the Rust Belt. And this was done intentionally. And this was done intentionally. In large part, Chinese economic warfare directed at the United States. And then you have cyber warfare as well. You have cyber espionage. Well beyond what countries normally do. But they have used it very effectively. And the Chinese just... Recently put out their new fighter. That's called the J -35. That is a dig at the Americans. Because it is based on stolen blueprints for the F -35. I don't know. 00:07:20 SPEAKER_03 Ultimately, the military part of the 00:07:26 SPEAKER_03 it's almost a sideshow. 00:07:29 JACK GAINES sideshow to the other activities, the other fight that China's been waging for the last 30, 40 years, almost ever since we opened up to them. And that has been generally referred to as political warfare, with components being economic warfare, financial warfare, drug warfare, which is the word the Chinese use. So all this fentanyl that's been pumped into America for the last decade that's killed up towards a million Americans, almost all of it comes from China. And they know exactly what they're doing. And so every year they're taking like the equivalent of two or three divisions off the battlefield. You've destroyed neighborhoods. You've destroyed successful economic warfare. Drive 30 miles up the road to Baltimore. Go to Sparrows, Baltimore. Where there used to be steel mills. And now you have Amazon fulfillment sectors at best. But you've seen just the gutting of American society, the so -called working class, the Rust Belt. And this was done intentionally. 00:08:26 JACK GAINES warfare directed at the United States. And then you have cyber warfare as well. You have cyber espionage. 00:08:34 SPEAKER_03 Well beyond what countries normally do. But they have used it very effectively. And the Chinese just... Recently put out their new fighter. That's called the J -35. That is a dig at 00:08:47 GRANT NEWSHAM it is based on stolen blueprints for the F -35. 00:08:55 GRANT NEWSHAM know. It's been a while. I don't know. It's been a while. 00:09:02 SPEAKER_02 Unfortunately, Copperfish is leapfrogging over stages. Yes, it may take them a little longer, but they will popscotch through it. And so... So I take it pretty seriously. Their Y -20, their long -range transport, is basically the C -17. And they've just been immensely successful at this sort of espionage. And at the same time, we've done nothing to push back on them. Then there's the propaganda angle of this, which really good old Jesuit meaning of the word just means to explain yourself or articulate your position. So people understand that they've been very successful in getting Americans to buy the Chinese line. China's rise is peaceful. China's rise is peaceful. China's never attacked anybody. China's never attacked anybody. It's not true. All great nations do this. So who are we to complain? America has its problems, too. America has its problems, too. Who are we to complain about the Chinese taking live organs out of Uyghurs and prisoners of conscience? And we've been able to convince ourselves that we've been able to convince ourselves that we've not only can we not do anything, we shouldn't do anything. This is changing. But you can see we were very late getting started. And this has all been done without firing a shot. Chinese economic inroads, Chinese economic inroads, which leads to political influence, is in, for example, South America and Africa. Just immense how fast that has come, how solid it is. Pacific Island, something similar is going on, something similar is going on. Look at the difficulties the Germans have had, weaning themselves off of this Chinese addiction. And as a result, 00:09:03 GRANT NEWSHAM is leapfrogging over stages. Yes, it may take them 00:09:07 SPEAKER_03 but they will 00:09:09 GRANT NEWSHAM popscotch through it. And so... So I take it pretty seriously. Their Y -20, 00:09:16 JACK GAINES their long -range transport, is basically the C -17. And they've just been immensely successful at this sort of espionage. And at the same time, we've done nothing to push back on them. Then there's the propaganda angle of this, which really good old Jesuit meaning of the word just means to explain yourself or articulate your position. So people understand that they've been very successful in getting Americans to buy the Chinese line. China's rise is peaceful. China's rise is peaceful. China's never attacked anybody. China's never attacked anybody. It's not true. All great nations do this. So who are we to complain? 00:09:49 SPEAKER_03 America has its problems, too. America has its problems, too. Who are we to complain about the Chinese taking live organs out of Uyghurs and prisoners of conscience? And we've been able to 00:10:00 JACK GAINES that we've been able 00:10:00 SPEAKER_03 to convince ourselves that we've not only can we not do anything, we shouldn't do anything. This is changing. But you can see we were very late getting started. And this has all been done without firing a shot. 00:10:10 JACK GAINES Chinese economic inroads, Chinese economic inroads, which leads to political influence, is in, for example, South America and Africa. Just immense how fast that has come, how solid it is. Pacific Island, something similar is going on, something similar is going on. 00:10:27 SPEAKER_03 Look at the difficulties the Germans have had, weaning themselves off of this Chinese addiction. 00:10:34 SPEAKER_02 as a result, they have been able to improve their position politically, psychologically, economically, and they've been able to do this globally without having to use their military. 00:10:36 SPEAKER_03 their position 00:10:40 GRANT NEWSHAM and they've been able to do this globally without having to use their military. 00:10:51 SPEAKER_02 Yeah, that's the idea. Is you don't want to. So our view of warfare is like a hundred -yard dash. Wherever the two sides come to the line, shake loose, and then someone fires a gun, and then someone fires a gun, and then it's game on. To the Chinese, the war has started long ago. And you're wearing down your opponent. You're weakening his ability to resist. You're creating chaos in his own country. There's a word called entropy. Which is just breaking down. Entropic warfare is a word that sometimes gets used. For you're breaking down his ability to resist. And at the same time, of course, the Chinese are building up a military, which is very serious. Yes, it's not showing up off of San Diego just yet. But places closer to China, it's much more of an issue. Japan knows the problem they have with the People's Liberation Army. Pacific Island, Southeast Asia. You are seeing more of a Chinese presence. And the point is, when the time comes, you may not even be able to resist if the Chinese have done this other sort of warfare. 00:10:53 JACK GAINES want to. So our view of warfare is like a hundred -yard dash. Wherever the two sides come to the line, shake loose, and then someone fires a gun, and then someone fires a gun, and then it's game on. To the Chinese, the war has started long ago. And you're wearing down your opponent. You're weakening his ability to resist. You're creating chaos in his own country. There's a word called entropy. Which is just breaking down. Entropic warfare is a word that 00:11:19 SPEAKER_03 sometimes gets used. For you're breaking down his ability to resist. And at the same time, of course, the Chinese are building up a military, which is very serious. 00:11:28 JACK GAINES Yes, it's not showing 00:11:33 JACK GAINES places closer to China, it's much more of an issue. Japan knows the problem they have with the People's Liberation Army. Pacific Island, Southeast Asia. You are seeing more 00:11:46 JACK GAINES Chinese presence. And the point is, when the time comes, you may not even be able to resist if the Chinese have 00:11:52 SPEAKER_03 this other 00:12:31 SPEAKER_02 That's exactly what it is. It's mental warfare. You're attacking the mind. You're attacking how people think about things. Some people use the word cognitive warfare. You're the popular word. Yeah, you're attacking the mind. And so you can see how well it worked. And the Russians had a much poorer hand to play than the Chinese do. Because we do so much business with China. And you see how hard it is to do things like ban TikTok. We can't even get that done. 00:12:33 JACK GAINES mental warfare. You're attacking the mind. You're attacking how people think about things. Some people use the 00:12:42 JACK GAINES You're the popular word. Yeah, you're attacking the mind. And so you can see how well it worked. And the Russians had a much poorer hand to play than 00:12:50 GRANT NEWSHAM the Chinese do. Because we do so much business with China. And you see how hard it is to do things like ban TikTok. We can't even get that done. 00:12:59 SPEAKER_02 We can't even get that done. 00:13:03 SPEAKER_02 Look, 72 hours, if that for the Indians do, we can do it. And you see how Chinese successfully use what they call lawfare, which is using our own legal system. And the idea is that you get proxies, influential foreigners in your target country to actually do your bidding for you. The Chinese have like five aces to play. The Russians might have won, but you can see how successful the Russians have been just with that. 00:13:04 JACK GAINES for the Indians do, we can do it. And you see how Chinese successfully use what they call lawfare, which 00:13:13 JACK GAINES the idea is that you get proxies, influential foreigners in your target country to actually do your bidding for you. The Chinese have like five aces to play. The Russians might have won, but you can see how successful the Russians have 00:13:41 SPEAKER_02 Uh -huh. Uh -huh. 00:13:46 SPEAKER_02 Well, you're right about the Russians, but the Chinese understand that the term gray zone paralyzes Americans. We have no idea what to do because of our view of warfare being until the shooting starts. That it is we're not really at war. There's still hope of working something out. 00:13:51 GRANT NEWSHAM paralyzes Americans. We have no idea what to do because of our view of warfare being until the shooting starts. That it is we're not really at war. There's still hope of working 00:14:03 SPEAKER_03 something out. 00:14:05 SPEAKER_02 That has been our rote response for all these years, is to not get the Chinese mad, don't provoke them, and we have convinced ourselves that we have to have Chinese help with fill -in -the -blank, North Korea transnational crime, nuclear weapons proliferation, climate change, and therefore we cannot challenge the PRC because we won't get their cooperation. That's what we've effectively handcuffed ourselves, but when it comes to that so -called hybrid warfare, it's not all that It's not all that complicated if you recognize what it is and how it fits into China's behavior, its strategy. But you also would do well to attract from other directions where they're particularly vulnerable. And that is where you take advantage of the fact, for example, the Chinese currency is not freely convertible, which means that outside of China, nobody really wants Chinese money. It's like the script at a... It's like the script where you can use it to buy caramel corn and go on the rides. 00:14:05 SPEAKER_03 has been our rote response for all these years, is to not get the Chinese mad, don't provoke them, and we have convinced ourselves that 00:14:14 JACK GAINES have Chinese help with fill -in -the -blank, North Korea transnational crime, nuclear weapons 00:14:22 JACK GAINES climate change, and therefore we cannot challenge the PRC because we won't get their cooperation. That's what we've effectively handcuffed ourselves, but when it comes to that so -called hybrid warfare, it's not all that It's not all that complicated if you recognize what it is and how it fits into 00:14:42 JACK GAINES its strategy. But you also would do well to attract from other directions where they're particularly vulnerable. And that is where you take advantage of the fact, for example, the Chinese currency is not freely convertible, which means that outside of China, nobody really wants Chinese money. It's like the script at a... It's like the script where you can use it to buy caramel corn and 00:15:06 SPEAKER_02 That's it. Nobody wants it. So choke that off and China's got some real problems. Another is the just thoroughgoing corruption of China's ruling class. And most of them have wealth overseas, foreign bank accounts. foreign bank accounts, relatives with green cards, relatives with green cards, some operate businesses overseas. And this is illegal. And this is illegal. 00:15:08 JACK GAINES it. So choke that off and China's got some real problems. Another is the just thoroughgoing corruption of China's ruling class. And most 00:15:19 GRANT NEWSHAM overseas, foreign bank accounts. foreign bank accounts, relatives with green cards, relatives with green cards, some operate businesses overseas. And this 00:15:31 SPEAKER_02 And this is where that really scares them. Because in 2011 or 2012, New York Times and Bloomberg actually put out some good stories about the overseas wealth of China's top people, including Xi Jinping's family. I've never seen a reaction from the Chinese like that one. This bothered them. 00:15:33 JACK GAINES scares them. Because in 2011 or 2012, New 00:15:37 SPEAKER_03 York Times and Bloomberg actually put out some good stories about the overseas wealth of China's top people, including Xi Jinping's family. 00:15:46 GRANT NEWSHAM I've never seen a reaction from the Chinese like that one. 00:15:53 SPEAKER_02 More than anything else we've ever done. That's... 00:15:53 GRANT NEWSHAM than anything 00:16:14 SPEAKER_02 One way to do it. Another way to do it. That would be a tactical thing. Say you were to release, say, every Friday. Say at 1 a .m. 1 o 'clock or whenever. 1 a .m. 1 o 'clock or whenever. 00:16:16 JACK GAINES way to do it. That would be a tactical thing. Say you were to 00:16:19 SPEAKER_03 release, say, every Friday. Say at 1 a .m. 1 o 'clock or whenever. 1 a .m. 1 o 'clock or whenever. 00:16:25 SPEAKER_02 Which of the top 50 Chinese Communist Party officials? And make sure it reached everywhere in China. The thing that the public really hates is this corruption. And by the top dogs. And that is something that really bothers them. And you note that the Chinese leadership is very willing to have the average Chinese citizen absorb any amount of punishment. And they even talk about it. 00:16:27 SPEAKER_03 Chinese Communist Party officials? And make sure it 00:16:29 GRANT NEWSHAM reached everywhere in China. The thing that the public really hates is this corruption. And by the top dogs. 00:16:38 JACK GAINES is something that really bothers them. And you note that the Chinese leadership is very willing to have the average Chinese citizen 00:16:49 JACK GAINES they even talk about it. 00:16:51 SPEAKER_02 But when it's personal, then they see it very differently. And this is one of the few ways to really make it personal for them is to capitalize on this corruption. So when we talk about... Dealing with Gray's own operations, we're probably not going to be all that successful. Because they have more ships, they can be in more places. 00:16:51 JACK GAINES when it's personal, then they see it very differently. And this is one of the few ways to really make it personal for them is to capitalize on this corruption. So when we talk about... Dealing with Gray's own operations, we're probably not going to be all that successful. Because they have more ships, they can be in more places. 00:17:14 SPEAKER_02 But expose that. They can do that. Have we made a concerted effort to expose Chinese bribery, the illicit payments, the corruption that they put into everywhere they go? Everywhere there's a Chinese presence, you have corruption of the society, the political class as well. And do we ever target that? Do we consider it a priority effort? I don't even think we consider it an effort at all. Exposure is the one thing that has a huge effect. This is why investigative journalists get big. It's why like Irish. gangsters try to murder them in Malta they get blown up because they're effective because they're effective which is the thing that makes it very hard for corruption to work and that's where I think 00:17:15 JACK GAINES can do that. Have we made a concerted effort to expose Chinese bribery, the illicit payments, the corruption that they put into everywhere they go? Everywhere there's a Chinese presence, you have corruption of the society, the political class as well. And do we ever target that? Do we consider it a priority effort? I don't even think we consider it an effort at all. Exposure is the one thing that has a huge effect. This is why investigative journalists 00:17:44 SPEAKER_03 get big. It's why like Irish. gangsters try to murder them in Malta they get blown up because they're effective because they're effective which 00:17:52 SPEAKER_02 is the thing that makes it very hard for corruption to work and that's where I think We have some real opportunities to make it very clear what's being done. And this is something that, if you expose it, you can really capitalize on it. Just make it too hard to do this. And it also gives oxygen to the honest people in a country. It gives them something to work with. It gives them something to work with. To take on these repressive regimes, these corrupt regimes, these corrupt regimes, administrations. And get rid of them and replace them with honest people. I've never met anywhere, anywhere I've been. Over the years. Where people like to be cheaters. Where people like to be cheaters. Where they like their leaders to be corrupt. I just haven't met it. I've been anywhere. I just haven't met it. I've been anywhere. It's just nothing you can do. But it's just nothing you can do. It really has an effect. And that's where I think government for sources could be effectively devoted. And particularly once you get local reporters in on it. Once you get the local. Honest locals in on it. Honest locals in on it. And that's where I think we could be very effective. Corruption, as you've mentioned, that really is the grease to everything the Chinese communists do globally. Take it away and then take away their access to dollars, convertible currency. And they've really got some problems. But they have played their hand very well today. But in some ways it's a house of cards. I don't think it's that hard to take on. But the longer you wait, the harder it gets. 00:17:52 SPEAKER_03 is the thing that makes it 00:17:54 JACK GAINES corruption to work and that's where I think We have some real opportunities to make it very clear what's being done. And this is something that, if you expose it, you can really capitalize on it. Just make it too hard to do this. And it also gives oxygen to the honest people in a country. It 00:18:16 JACK GAINES to work with. To take on these repressive regimes, these corrupt regimes, these corrupt regimes, 00:18:23 JACK GAINES them with honest people. I've never met anywhere, anywhere I've been. Over the years. Where 00:18:32 JACK GAINES I just haven't met it. I've been anywhere. I just haven't met it. I've been anywhere. It's just nothing you can do. But it's just nothing you can do. It really has an effect. And that's where I think government for sources could be effectively devoted. And particularly once you 00:18:46 GRANT NEWSHAM reporters in on it. Once you get the local. Honest locals in on it. Honest locals in on it. And that's where I think we could be very effective. 00:18:56 JACK GAINES Corruption, as you've mentioned, that really is the grease to everything the Chinese communists do globally. Take it away and then take away their access to dollars, convertible currency. And they've really got some 00:19:12 JACK GAINES today. But in some ways it's a house of cards. I don't think it's that hard to take on. But the longer you wait, the harder it 00:19:28 SPEAKER_02 In regards to U .S. policy, in policy, there really is a... a desire that the United States stays around in Asia, that maintains its military might, and is able to effectively safeguard what you call freedom consensual government. Because if you go around the region, nobody wants to be dominated by the PRC. But they do have a huge advantage, particularly economically, that they're seen by leaders and business people in a lot of these countries. That's really the source of... some wealth, some prosperity. And we would do well, for example, to see the fight as just as much an economic one as a military one. Because we could build up our military, rebuild it, and we could have 800 ships in the Navy, and still lose. If we don't fight on these other fronts, we don't want you here because we're doing too much business with China. And that's where the U .S., along with its friends, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Indians, the Australians, we would do well to operate together more and to see the economic front and the political warfare fronts as a priority effort as much, if not more, than the military. 00:19:30 SPEAKER_03 in policy, there 00:19:31 JACK GAINES really is a... a desire that the United States stays around in Asia, that maintains its military might, and is able to 00:19:45 JACK GAINES Because if you go around the region, nobody wants to be dominated by the PRC. But they do have a huge advantage, particularly economically, that they're seen by leaders and business people in a lot of these countries. That's really the source of... some wealth, some prosperity. And we would do well, for example, to see the fight as just as much an economic 00:20:09 GRANT NEWSHAM one as a military one. Because we could build up our military, rebuild it, and we could have 800 ships in the Navy, and still lose. If we don't 00:20:19 JACK GAINES on these other fronts, we don't want you here because we're doing too much business with China. And that's where the U .S., along with its friends, the Japanese, the Koreans, the Indians, the Australians, 00:20:30 GRANT NEWSHAM we would do well to operate together more and to see the economic front and the political warfare fronts as a priority effort as much, if not 00:20:40 JACK GAINES more, than the 00:20:45 SPEAKER_02 They have a role to play if they're properly harnessed. But you do know that these days you don't see the Yankee trader that used to exist. You'd run to Americans everywhere trying to sell something to do business. Not so much these days. And we've almost ceded the far -flung part to the world. Because, well, the return on investment isn't enough. That's not an attractive enough proposition. Well, then let's make it one. Plus, you do have, say, the Japanese, the Indians, who are much better at operating in these places, to put it together into a coherent plan. Understand what it is, political warfare, and not just block the Chinese political warfare effort, but actually have our own campaign. And it really is worth doing some homework, I think, for a lot of people into what political warfare is. One sees the opportunities, but it takes a certain type of person who's good at it. versus a civil affairs guy. Versus a civil affairs guy. He's going to see different... He's going to see parts of the battlefield in a different way. Yes, sometimes you want the tank. But then there's this other part of it all. That is almost like a liberal arts test. Here you have to figure out the motivations for things. You have to figure out how a society works. And then how do you appeal to it using the things that are parts of political warfare? And this is where you can really make some mileage. You've got to have both. Make no mistake. If you're not able to destroy things and kill people, the civil affairs part isn't going to get you very far. But combine the two, and then you've really got something that's very hard to take on if you're the bad guys. We talk about defending Taiwan, and how important it is, and it is, I think, indispensable, that China does not take Taiwan and enslave 23 million people. If they did that... 00:20:47 JACK GAINES they're properly harnessed. But you do know that these days you don't see the Yankee trader that used to exist. You'd run to Americans everywhere trying to sell something to do business. Not 00:20:59 SPEAKER_03 so much these days. And we've almost ceded the far -flung part to the world. Because, well, the return on investment isn't enough. That's not an attractive enough proposition. Well, then let's 00:21:10 GRANT NEWSHAM make it one. Plus, you do have, say, the Japanese, the Indians, who are much better at operating in these places, to put it together into a coherent plan. Understand what it 00:21:20 JACK GAINES is, political warfare, and not just block the Chinese political warfare effort, but actually have our own campaign. And it really is worth doing some homework, I think, for a lot of people into what political warfare is. One sees the opportunities, but it takes a certain type of person who's good at it. versus a civil affairs guy. Versus a civil affairs guy. He's going to see different... He's going to see parts of the battlefield in a different way. 00:21:50 SPEAKER_03 Yes, sometimes you want the tank. But then there's this other part of it all. That is almost like a liberal arts test. Here you have to figure 00:22:00 JACK GAINES for things. You have to figure out how a society works. And then how do you appeal to it using the things that are parts of political warfare? 00:22:10 JACK GAINES make some mileage. You've got to have both. Make no mistake. If you're not able to destroy things and kill people, the civil affairs part isn't going to get you very far. But combine the two, and then you've really got something that's very hard to take on if you're the bad guys. We talk about defending Taiwan, and how important it is, and it is, I think, indispensable, 00:22:32 GRANT NEWSHAM that China does not take Taiwan and enslave 23 million people. If they did that... 00:22:39 SPEAKER_02 Asia would turn red overnight, as every country tried to cut the best deal they could. No country anywhere on Earth would have much confidence in American promises that will protect them. But one of the ways to actually defend Taiwan is, yes, they could maybe use F -35s and long -range missiles and smart pines, etc. You do have to have all of this stuff. Is it enough, 00:22:39 GRANT NEWSHAM would turn red overnight, as every country tried 00:22:42 SPEAKER_03 to cut the best deal they could. No country anywhere 00:22:46 JACK GAINES on Earth would have much confidence in American promises that will protect them. But one of the ways to actually defend 00:22:51 GRANT NEWSHAM Taiwan is, yes, they could maybe use F -35s and long -range missiles and smart pines, etc. You do have to have all of this stuff. Is it enough, even? Particularly if the other side says, okay, we'll absorb whatever you can send at us, but you're finished. But one of the ways that... But one of the ways is to give them a free trade agreement to improve their economy to the point that the government felt like it had money to spend on defense. 00:23:02 SPEAKER_02 Particularly if the other side says, okay, we'll absorb whatever you can send at us, but you're finished. But one of the ways that... But one of the ways is to give them a free trade agreement to improve their economy to the point that the government felt like it had money to spend on defense. You get a certain confidence in the entire society when they're more prosperous. Salaries are very low in Taiwan. Make it so people feel like they've got more money. Can they can buy a house? Can they can buy a condominium? build up the economy and that has a ripple effect throughout the society and on their military itself. And yet we didn't do that. And I think that's where we should apply some effort. 00:23:11 JACK GAINES give them a free trade agreement to 00:23:16 JACK GAINES point that the government felt like it had money to spend on defense. You get a certain confidence in the entire society when they're more prosperous. Salaries are very low in Taiwan. Make it so people feel like they've got more money. Can they can buy a house? Can they can buy a condominium? 00:23:35 JACK GAINES the economy and that has a ripple effect throughout the society and on their military itself. And yet we didn't do that. And I think that's where we should apply some 00:24:25 SPEAKER_02 I think you're right. And it's essential that we start to understand. You look at much of the debate about us in China. What happens when the two forces go at each other? And that's almost like... Going up behind the Waffle House. Going up behind the Waffle House. To see who's the toughest guy in Prince William County. To see who's the toughest guy in Prince William County. Out back. But think of all the things that go into whether or not the two hoodlums. There's all sorts of reasons why. No, there may not. 00:24:27 JACK GAINES essential that we start to understand. 00:24:32 JACK GAINES us in China. 00:24:33 SPEAKER_03 What happens when the two forces go at each other? And that's almost like... Going up behind the Waffle House. Going up behind the Waffle 00:24:43 JACK GAINES House. To see who's the toughest guy in Prince William County. To see 00:24:52 JACK GAINES whether or not the two hoodlums. 00:24:56 JACK GAINES of reasons why. No, there may not. 00:24:59 SPEAKER_02 Or that will affect the outcome, actually. None of them have to do with force on force. And that's so much of our debate on the US -China military problem. Is that a problem? Would our Navy take on theirs? Is there long -range missiles outrange ours? Yes, it's important. Make no mistake. Yes, it's important. Make no mistake. It's only one part of the battle. It's only one part of the battle. And it's the last part. 00:25:02 JACK GAINES of them have to do with force on force. And that's so much of our debate on the US -China military problem. Is that a problem? Would our Navy take on theirs? Is there long -range missiles outrange ours? Yes, it's important. Make no mistake. Yes, it's 00:25:21 JACK GAINES of the battle. And it's the last part. 00:25:22 SPEAKER_02 And if you look at the other part, it's a political warfare. And every part of that, then you have the chance, one, not to lose. You can actually shape things to your advantage. But if you don't, and the other guy is the only one playing that, well, you're likely to find yourself at 2 a .m. outside the Waffle House, and he's actually ready. We talk about bases. 00:25:22 JACK GAINES if you look at the other part, it's a political warfare. And every part of that, then you have the chance, one, not to lose. You can actually shape things to your advantage. But if you don't, and the other guy is the only one playing that, well, you're likely to find yourself at 2 a .m. outside the Waffle House, and he's actually ready. We talk about bases. 00:25:45 SPEAKER_02 We talk about bases. Well, what if we don't have the access because Chinese political warfare has made us so the locals won't let us into a place? They won't let us operate. 00:25:45 JACK GAINES talk about bases. Well, what if we don't have the access because Chinese political warfare has made us so the locals won't let us into a place? 00:25:53 GRANT NEWSHAM They won't let us operate. 00:25:55 SPEAKER_02 They won't let us operate. Oh, that's a pretty good example. Is that a pretty good example? One hoodlum can't get a ride to the awful house, but the other one can. So we've really got to start thinking about these things from a much broader perspective. And it's unfortunate that we're reinventing the wheel here. But the game's not over. It may be the bottom of the 7th and we're down by 6th. We're the old Washington Senators. We're the old Washington Senators. and debate how far we're behind. At the end of the day, we've got a good hand to play. I hope we start playing it. 00:25:58 JACK GAINES Is that a pretty good example? One hoodlum can't get a ride to the awful house, but the other 00:26:08 JACK GAINES thinking about these things from a much 00:26:15 JACK GAINES the wheel here. 00:26:18 JACK GAINES It may be the bottom of the 7th and we're down by 6th. We're the old Washington Senators. We're the old Washington Senators. and debate how far we're behind. At the end of the day, we've got a good hand to play. I hope we start playing it. 00:26:35 SPEAKER_02 Glad to be here. Thank you. Glad to be here. Thank you. 00:26:40 JACK GAINES Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. I'll have the email and CA Association website in the show notes. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field, working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U .S. relations, thank you all for what you're doing. This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes. One CA Podcast.

Today, we welcome Sam Cooper, an author and journalist based in Ottawa. He came in to talk about his reporting on PRC political and economic warfare, its impact on Canada and the United States, and how those tools are being used worldwide, including Taiwan, to undermine the rule of law and each nation's sovereignty. This episode goes fast and has a lot of great information on how China sets conditions for winning without fighting.  The One CA Podcast is here to inspire anyone interested in working in US foreign relations. - Often  called the last three feet of diplomacy. We bring in practitioners from all walks of foreign service including the military, diplomacy, nongovernmental, development, and field agents to talk about their experiences and work.  To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail (dot) com or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org Special Thanks to Cafe Music BGM channel and their release, "Hip Hop Jazz & Smooth Jazz Instrumental." Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5yTtDZZiHg ----Transcript---- Transcript: 00:00:00    JACK GAINES Today, we welcome Sam Cooper, author and journalist based out of Ottawa. He came in to talk about his reporting on PRC political and economic warfare and its impact on Canada and the United States and how those tools are being used around the world, including Taiwan, to undermine the rule of law and each nation's sovereignty. This episode goes fast and has a lot of great information on how China sets conditions for winning without fighting. So, let's get started. 00:00:27    SAM COOPER In the course of reporting, I discovered the compound of Tiger Yuan, an individual that was directly investigated in this Chinese underground banking story, had the most weapons in Western Canada, if not across Canada, for a citizen. And so, when my sources said this person is or was PLA, this person has connectivity to the highest levels of organized crime. And this person is very politically connected, and their activity outside of organized crime appears to be directing Chinese state -friendly people what to do in Western Canada. That's when I really started to dig into and understand the Chinese interference story, starting on the West Coast and then moving across. Literally, I started reporting from Ottawa. That's when I got into the political side of it. 00:01:20    JACK GAINES So how many weapons are you talking about? And are you talking about small arms, large arms, tactical, technicals? What was it that you were able to find? 00:01:29    SAM COOPER I'll start with the big picture. I was directed to a compound in Chilliwack, British Columbia. This is very near the United States -Washington state border. It's just outside of Vancouver, and it was a compound of tremendous luxury. In an underground massive parking lot, there were about 80 luxury vehicles. that indicated huge-scale money laundering. There were American military jeeps and vintage machine guns. There was a fire truck. There was a diesel-type rig. There's Ferraris. And so, I was told that this person has vaults of restricted firearms. So, we're talking tactical weapons that you hold against your shoulder and extend your arm out as far as it can. 00:02:16    JACK GAINES Yeah, long guns. 00:02:17    SAM COOPER Right. Long guns. These are military-style weapons. I can't say they're AK -47s or Noriko. He didn't let you in there to mark all the numbers and he didn't give you the inventory sheets. 00:02:24    JACK GAINES let you in there to mark all the numbers and he didn't give you the inventory sheets. 00:02:29    SAM COOPER He didn't give me the inventory sheets, but Canada has to keep a log of the weapons out there as best as it can. And in an open-source photo, you've got a gangster sort of standing downstairs beside a luxury car with a, I believe it was sort of a burp gun. And then in the back corner, you could see an open door with just a room stacked with weapons. You could literally see a vintage machine gun, one of those ones that would have a sort of stand so you can shoot out of a trench, maybe back in the 50s or 60s. And my sources said, we know that this person has the largest cache of restricted and unrestricted weapons in Western Canada. As I wrote in Willful Blindness, this is... Chapo Guzman -style wealth in a Canadian property, and it makes no sense. 00:03:19    JACK GAINES Well, it sounds like this person is a hub for gun running and money and probably drugs. Because if he's got storehouses for weapons, that means he can rotate them out for criminal groups that are moving through the area so that no one really gets tied to a weapon if there's ever a crime committed. But it also sounds like they've got connections 00:03:47    SAM COOPER Yeah. Well, I would say you nailed everything in your question. And to unpack that, on the organized crime side, the information is this person is literally a revered hero from the People's Liberation Army. It's not that China did well in their border assault on Vietnam. They did pretty badly. But this person, Tiger Yuan, is glorified in various Chinese language documents. military veteran, is assessed by Canadian federal police to be in charge of gangs. He would be a person that is handling Chinese mafia in Canada and giving them directions to meet some of the Chinese Communist Party's political objectives. 00:04:30    JACK GAINES So, he's a kingpin. 00:04:31    SAM COOPER He's a kingpin, an intelligence handler involved in organized crime at the highest level and also with the capacity to direct these high -level triads. I think we're talking about what's known as the company. This is elite China -based triads that are active running weapons and drugs sentinel around the world and yet have connections at the highest level to military and intelligence and political figures for the parties. So yes, the type of person involved in trade -based money laundering, the ability to send weapons in and out of Canada, the ability to collect weapons from... Chinese visitors who happen to buy guns in Canada and then want to get rid of them. As you said, this military veteran can be a node to move them. I'm told through police sources; this person is suspected to be involved in the Chinese police station activity. So, as you know, that would include what was exposed by the FBI in New York, where we have purported community associations that are actually running these illegal... 00:05:38    JACK GAINES Community police stations in other countries. 00:05:41    SAM COOPER Exactly. And these would be used to harass dissidents, to go after Xi Jinping's so -called fox hunt targets. So, Tiger Yuan would be central to that. He would be central to meeting with Chinese language journalists. And I'm told giving them directions or coaching on the type of reporting they should be doing. He would be central to types of... fundraising activities that could blend legitimate business with illegitimate business and have those monies go into Canada's political system. Well, 00:06:17    JACK GAINES after reading your book, Willful Blindness, one thing came to me, and that is that it looks like China has successfully mixed profiteering and foreign policy so that they can successfully tie the profits from narcotics to influence and persuasion in countries to achieve their foreign policy goals. I had John Cassara on recently, and he talked about that China has probably half of the global illicit trade profit coming into it. And when people measure China, they measure its GDP. They don't measure that black economy. Because most of it goes right back out into the world to fund these illicit criminal groups that are also complicit with the PRC and the money that goes to the pockets of people willing to take the influence dollars to do what PRC wants. But it was really your book that opened that perspective. And it sounds like what you're seeing is the tuning of that process. and how they're really bringing it to bear to see how far they can go and being successful in moving a country's orbit into the PRC influence space. 00:07:37    SAM COOPER Yeah, I agree with everything you said there, and thank you for saying that. I do think my book had a little bit of a cognitive advance in showing people that when we're speaking about the mercantilism of the People's Republic of China and the trade mixed into that, by design, I believe, is trade -based money laundering in which, of course, there are some honest tycoons or almost as honest as you can be within China's system. But there are many that have both legitimate and underground casino facilitation, capital flake facilitation, direct narcotics trafficking, weapons. But China doesn't look at those people as the government should have a distance from them. China sees those people as ones that have connections abroad, ones that have great influence in diaspora communities. And business persons that are involved in organized crime in Beijing's playbook should be used to influence politicians that are looking for votes in the diaspora. 00:08:43    JACK GAINES Do you think that Xi Jinping and the PRC allow a certain amount of wealth and influence or affluence? in these people that are expats around the world in exchange for conducting these types of operations? 00:09:00    SAM COOPER Yes, I think there's a lot going on, and I'm always trying to clarify my understanding, but some have coined the term strategic corruption. This is what we saw in Ukraine for years before Putin made his move. We saw the oligarchs and the tycoons, people like Semyon Mogilev ich, had great control over the Ukrainian resource industries. A person named Boris Berstein, who settled in Toronto, was a major underground banker and money launderer with connectivity to the KGB. So, we've seen this playbook in Ukraine, having people with gang connections or direct intelligence connections corrupt foreign governments and try to pave the way. And I think China is doing a bigger and even more sophisticated variation on that now, where they want people that are, as I've reported in Canada, we have major real estate developers, major portions of Vancouver and Toronto are in fact Chinese or Hong Kong money. And these big real estate developers, there's no question that Beijing has relationships with them, that they will be protected in their illegitimate business activities if they deliver objectives. to Beijing. And there's so much more going on, but yes, in a nutshell, Beijing offers protection to the highest-level criminals in the world if they will deliver political objectives wherever they are. 00:10:27    JACK GAINES Are you seeing a cohesion of operations between them? How closely tied are they to Beijing? Or is it decentralized to where they say, look, if you build influence and you just let us know who you have contacts with, we'll let you know if we need you. Is it more of a mafia style relationship? How closely tied are they? 00:10:46    SAM COOPER Well, that is the trillion -dollar question. I mean, I'm always trying to get my understanding. And I'm sure they don't just show you. 00:10:52    JACK GAINES I'm sure they don't just show you. Here, here's our relationship map now. I mean, I spent a lot of time thinking about it. 00:10:55    SAM COOPER here's our relationship map now. I mean, I spent a lot of time thinking about it. And as best as I can understand, and I'm always talking to experts to understand more. Sure. But it's not as hierarchical and rigid. I've been told that it is the most fluid. entrepreneurial system you can imagine. There's all types of competition. We have something called Guanxi, which is this very deep sort of transactional cultural relationships between people at high levels in China's system. And we have interrelationships of gangs, interrelationships of intelligence agencies. We have competition among both of those forces. 00:11:40    SAM COOPER To boil it down, I don't think Xi Jinping is able to say, OK, mafia leader A, you're going to go to Canada, specifically Toronto, and achieve this. It's more that we have what you know is the united front system. That is, all these community groups at the end of the day have been co -opted by officials in consulates around the world so that the community groups are controlled directly by Chinese intelligence officials in embassies and consulates. And they have various levels of tasking to these community groups, who I am saying are almost exclusively involved, high -level tycoon type gang associates. And then within these United Front networks, you have intelligence handlers of the type to circle back to this BC case of this PLA veteran, Tiger Yuan, who is able to be like an area manager of legitimate and illegitimate. business activity in various regions. In my understanding, we have some bosses in Toronto, Ontario, for the Eastern Canada, who are this blend of an intelligence handler and a very high-level organized crime person. We have similar bosses in Western Canada. And I'm sure because I've read a corruption case involving a senator in San Francisco. We don't need to name the name, but this senator was allegedly involved in offshore arms trading, an FBI sting operation got him. He was involved in talking to the various families in that area. By families, I mean triads. And so, I have to believe in California, we have these very same type of PLA intelligence handlers that are into that fluid mix of gangsters, businesspersons, politicians. that one way or another, they'll get their guanxi from Beijing if they deliver objectives. Right. 00:13:40    JACK GAINES And then you have the community police there to track people down if they take their wealth and disappear, or if they're not producing, or if they don't feel like they're part of the fold. 00:13:51    SAM COOPER Yeah. The CCP police station really just made everything we're talking about in this fluid network much easier to understand because they had little bricks and mortar shops. Right. that the FBI and others have discovered have both gangsters and traveling CCP officials involved to look over the community. 00:14:11    JACK GAINES Right. Because you have to have an enforcer. If you're going to run a loose network of criminals, you have to have an enforcer of some type in case people get their own ideas or their own ambitions to get them back in line. 00:14:22    SAM COOPER That's absolutely true. I'll keep circling back to this person in the Vancouver area with the largest collections of personal weapons. You're a fan. 00:14:30    JACK GAINES You're a fan. You want to go check out that fire trick. I mean, I know I do. I don't think either of us will be invited in the near future. 00:14:35    SAM COOPER don't think either of us will be invited in the near future. But look, who's the person that's going to be able to keep gangsters in line, keep politicians in line? Right. It's a person with a lot of guns and a lot of respect. Someone that's revered by the diaspora. 00:14:49    JACK GAINES A lot of money. A lot of money. 00:14:50    SAM COOPER lot of money. and a lot of money that they're happy to donate to Beijing's operations because they will have, in turn, the protection to run their operations. 00:15:00    JACK GAINES Sure. So, it's a cooperative. 00:15:02    SAM COOPER It's a cooperative. With a line with teeth. 00:15:03    JACK GAINES With a line with teeth. Okay. And then you were able to go to Taiwan. Was that to talk with Taiwanese officials about what's going on in Canada? Was it to do strategy on their upcoming elections? What were you doing that you can talk about? 00:15:19    SAM COOPER I can say that just as I launched my new journalism platform, I got the invitation from - You got to plug the platform, 00:15:25    JACK GAINES got to plug the platform, start over. 00:15:27    SAM COOPER Yeah. Okay. So yeah, I mean, what I can say is, as soon as I launched the Bureau, my new independent journalism platform - Beautiful. 00:15:36    JACK GAINES Beautiful. 00:15:36    SAM COOPER Beautiful. Right? So that I can report with the depth that I did in my book. I can do this in Canadian media. I was invited by the officials in Taiwan to travel to Taipei in September. And I think their interest was they had understood that I had a good grasp on China's political warfare and election interference in Canada. And I had talked to the officials in Ottawa from Taiwan and they said, there's a lot to report on. We want to have good relationships with international journalists so they can tell the story that Taiwan is an important democracy that really should be understood and valued by the rest of the democratic world. that's under deep threat right now, as you know, Jack, from the People's Liberation Army and all sorts of political warfare. So, I was invited to travel with 17 international journalists, and we had deep and great access to Taiwanese officials, including the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of the Mainland Affairs Council, which is essentially, I judge, an intelligence agency. It's the only one that can deal with Beijing because, as you know, Beijing will not talk to Taiwan government to government. They see it as a renegade province. I did four reports from Taiwan, and my focus was, of course, I'm exposing China's activities in Canada, but I'm always looking for corroboration and context and understanding. So, I was asking the Mainland Affairs Council officials. I'm seeing, for example, Fujian organized crime figures running CCP police stations in Sharon and Vancouver. I'm seeing them involved in election interference transfers. Can you tell me about similar activities? And it was very refreshing for me to get a direct answer from an official. He told me, I'm going to break news for you about this new scheme we've discovered. China is using underground gambling networks. in Taiwan, in efforts to influence our upcoming election, they are trying to... And you threw your arms up and said, that's what I said! 00:17:46    JACK GAINES And you threw your arms up and said, that's what I said! 00:17:49    SAM COOPER Well, I said, thank you for confirming from a high -level official of another country what I'm seeing. That is, China is using people that are running underground casinos in Canada to interfere in our elections in very complex ways. And in Taiwan, you're telling me that there's underground betting markets on elections and they try to skew the gambling odds so that this feeds into the actual election day result. 00:17:54    JACK GAINES of another country what 00:18:13    SAM COOPER that this feeds into the actual election day result. 00:18:16    JACK GAINES Right. 00:18:16    SAM COOPER And they told me officials from Beijing are not only working with these organized crime gambling networks, but they're directing them in election interference. So, yes, I think that was a great little story for me to break. I'm not looking for confirmation bias. I'm looking for corroboration, but I got it there. But it's nice to get a little confirmation bias once in a while. 00:18:33    JACK GAINES But it's nice to get a little confirmation bias once in a while. Yeah, it is. Everyone likes a bone. 00:18:35    SAM COOPER Yeah, it is. Everyone 00:18:38    SAM COOPER They threw me a bone, Jack. 00:18:40    JACK GAINES Well, it's interesting because, as you know, the U.S. has a base in South Korea, and the Chinese know about it, and they didn't open their own base in Korea. They opened a casino right in the same area. And I was just like, man, how typical. Yeah. Because that way they're making money and they're able to do espionage at the same time instead of costing the Beijing government a dime. They're actually profitable as they conduct foreign policy and influence in the area. I have to admit, I think it's smart, but it's also the end result that they come out with is not a good society. Because if... Their free trade zones were successful and they started building casinos and pretty soon there's an illegal industry that's so powerful that it's swaying the government to its will. What ends up happening is you get this totalitarian financial government that really leaves out all of the public citizens and just runs things the way PRC wants. And it just doesn't handle well. Does that make sense? I see that as the problem with the PRC's model. 00:19:56    SAM COOPER Yeah, no, I mean, that really resonates with me. I mean, first of all, you're exactly right. It is devilishly clever to use a casino that pays for itself, and they can use that for their gathering. But as you say, it's amoral, right? So, I really do believe that governments are a reflection of the people and the parties that the people elect. To get a little philosophical here, I mean, I think the Chinese Communist Party totally cut corners trying to catch up. And they are just in a moral operation. As I've reported, they leveraged these Hong Kong tycoons and said, look, you teach us how to do capitalism and we'll let you do your organized crime business and we'll profit together. But when you get in bed with the devil, there are other people around the world that don't like it. Right. And so, I think my struggle in Canada is. Maybe I've been a little bit at the tip of the spear. Maybe it's because the upbringing, my father went over to a school in Switzerland and was supposed to be a big businessman and diplomat. And he tossed that aside and became a Christian minister instead. And maybe he hammered it into me that there's good money and there is bad money. I really do believe that. And Beijing, in their mercantilism, they'll use any dirty type of business to try to... overcome governments in the Marshall Islands or what they're doing in Africa. And in Canada, it's my own view that for too long, our elites have turned a blind eye, or as I wrote, they've been willfully blinded to the downside of this Chinese mercantilism. And I do believe that when you see cities start to be overrun with tent encampments because of opioid addiction and fentanyl, you're now directly seeing the price that's paid for that trade -based money laundering. And as I've written, people that work honest jobs being pushed out of the center of cities in Canada because without any exaggeration, illicit flows from China have become material to prices of real estate in Vancouver and Toronto in the same way that the Latin cartels might have influenced real estate in Miami. You just don't win in the long run when organized crime starts to take a big chunk of your economy and they're working for a foreign government. 00:22:10    JACK GAINES So where do you see Canada going? 00:22:12    SAM COOPER It's hard for me to say where Canada will go because there's a Foreign Interference Commission coming up. It's actually going to start at the end of this month that will examine this election interference story that I broke with my former employer, Global News. and that I'm still writing on and still exposing every week for the Bureau. But I don't have a great degree of confidence, and many others don't, that the mandate of that commission is really set up to get to the bottom of the issue. I don't want to get into too much information here, but I've already done reports to the Bureau showing that a mandate only focusing on election interference at the federal election in the past two Canadian national elections. is literally only the tip of the iceberg of China's interference. And my stories through documents have proven that. So where does Canada go? Others that I've interviewed and quoted in my stories say, look, Canada, through no exaggeration, we're facing a saturation of China's influence and interference networks to the point where there's corruption. And Canada is in a position where we need to change some laws. We need more enforcement. for police so they can handle these organized crime networks. We don't have a RICO Act that is a racketeering act in Canada. We don't have a foreign agent registry, which, Jack, I'm sure you're aware, is the very key law that is used in every case so far in the Chinese police stations investigated by the Department of Justice in the United States. Canada lacks these laws, so I won't have any confidence that we're going to turn the corner until we have a government that... put some of these very basic modern laws against hostile state activity in place in Canada. 00:24:03    JACK GAINES Do you think that Canada is in danger of losing its 5i status because of the amount of influence? Or do you see still a core of law enforcement and military that's protecting civil society and protecting that intelligence cooperation? Or how deeply corrupt do you think the influence is? And do you think it is threatening Five Eyes? 00:24:28    SAM COOPER My very basic answer is yes. I think Canada's status in the Five Eyes has already unofficially been downgraded. As you know, Jack, Canada has been left out completely out of AUKUS. And I do believe that part of the reason Canada is not at the big boys' table of the Western alliance... is that we have lost trust. We can just point to examples like this RCMP corruption Cameron Ortis case. Canada's highest intelligence official for law enforcement leaked secrets to international Hezbollah networks. As I've reported, there's another angle to the case. Cameron Ortis have leaked signals intelligence to Beijing. And so that's just one case. But I think this political infiltration... story is an even bigger reason why Canada has lost trust within the five eyes. And I would like to have confidence that the bond of the sort of post -World War II alliance will continue just out of tradition. But practically speaking, I just think it's natural that if Canada keeps going in this direction of having deep interference in each and every federal election, that it would only make sense that Washington starts to leave. out of conversations. 00:25:48    JACK GAINES Or constricting certain accesses. 00:25:51    SAM COOPER Absolutely. It's only prudent that Washington should be starting to hold its cards closer to its chest. I know it's not very easy to say things like that diplomatically, but I just think these are the real conversations. 00:26:03    JACK GAINES Now, you also mentioned Hezbollah. And I remember in our last discussion, you mentioned that Hezbollah and I believe Iranian illicit networks are also had ties in Ottawa. Do you want to expand on that a little bit? And do you think that they're also collaborating with the PRC? 00:26:23    SAM COOPER What I know about Hezbollah really starts with my interest in the transnational money laundering story and how Canadian cities have just been overrun by Chinese networks. So, I started understanding that. And then I had conversations with people that were very involved in the DEA special operations. The DEA has a lot of intelligence around the world because they have access to these elite organized crime actors that have direct connectivity to Russia, Iran, Beijing. And so, through my sourcing, I understood that they were very at first surprised back in around 2008 to uncover that cartels in Colombia had direct relationships with Hezbollah actors. And then furthermore. Hezbollah, I was told, had agents in about five to six Canadian cities that were believed to have command and control of some global Hezbollah networks. And again, my U.S. sources said they went up to Ottawa and said, Canada, you've got a problem. Let's work together on this. We're working together with Australia. 00:27:40    SAM COOPER People running these transnational crime networks know that they can operate in Canada without getting wiretapped because our legal system just isn't set up that way. It's not very enforcement friendly. My sources in the States were just deeply shocked and confused that the RCMP couldn't cooperate with them and do taps on these Haskell operatives. So, I have followed the money laundering story. And as I was reporting on Cameron Ortis, I knew this was big, but... We started to hear more evidence come out that there were networks of Iran -connected currency traders in Toronto running literally billions of dollars through Canadian banks and offshore. One currency trader alone that's been named in an FBI case in California is also an organized crime that moved $3 .5 billion through Canadian banks for these Iranian Hezbollah slash organized crime drug money laundering global networks. Your question was, are they working with China? And my answer is I've seen open source that at some level, Iran and China are working together and they're wanting to see division between Canada and our allies on the Middle East issues. They're wanting to see Western ships blocked up by the Houthi rebels. Chinese ships can pass through there. So, yeah, I think China and Iran are working together. 00:29:09    JACK GAINES Been an easy interview. Is there anything else you want to add or plug? I mean, we've talked about your book. We've talked about your site. Is there anything else you want to discuss? 00:29:21    SAM COOPER Yeah, sure. I think a lot of people often ask me or say, Sam, at the Bureau or your previous work, you were at the cutting edge of reporting on some dangerous people in Canada. People often say, you know, does that get scary? Or do you or Canadian journalists? ever face threats. And Jack, just days after I testified in Ottawa about China's interference against Canadian politicians, Canadian intelligence had warned me as a journalist that Chinese operatives had been tasked in Canada to research my journalism and my networks and to look into my life. And a little bit ironically, maybe shockingly for me, a couple of days after my testimony, The RCMP warned me that they had a threat due to my reporting on the People's Republic of China. And Jack, it wasn't a comfortable experience, but what I want to tell you is I took some measures. I decided I'll find ways to cope for myself and those close to me. But what I'm reporting on must be pretty important if Canada's national security force is telling me that I'm angering China. I have to continue because I have more information. And I just think it's important for your listeners to know that. I'm a proud Canadian, but as I've said, we're at a point where some very deep and serious changes need to be made in this country so that we can get back to being a great Five Eyes partner.  

Welcome to the One CA Podcast. In this episode Assad Raza hosts Henrique Garbino, Joao Mauricio Dias Lopes Valdetaro, and Jonathan Robinson as they discuss their paper and the competing concepts around civil military planning and operations.    You can find "Civil Military What?" online at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/378267976_Civil-military_what_Making_sense_of_conflicting_civil-military_concepts   Special thanks for Nakaboncajon for posting pandeiro // bossa nova. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npixMWE0QWk --- 00:00:06    Introduction Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. Or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes. Also, today's guests would like to state that the comments in their interview are their opinions and represent themselves and no other organization. So let's get started. 00:00:52    ASSAD RAZA Welcome to the 1CA podcast. I'm your host, Asad Raza. And today our guests are Henrique Gabino, Jonathan Robinson, and Jao Valdeterro. The authors of Civil Military What? Making Sense of Conflicting Civil Military Concepts. First, I really love your title. As a former civil affairs guy and working with the United Nations in the past, it really demonstrates the different perspectives that we have about civil military operations globally based off of these different lexicons that are out there. So before we start, can you quickly introduce yourselves with a little bit of background for our listeners? 00:01:29    ENRIQUE GARBINO Yes, I can start, I guess. So Enrique Garbino and thank you for having us here. Before I start, kudos to João for the title. That's his creation. So I started off in the Brazilian Army as a combat engineer officer. So I was there for about 12 years. I joined to work with peacekeeping operations after my first deployment to Haiti. I worked with Show Brazil Peacekeeping Training Center, and there I was coordinating the military coordination course with João, who is here with us. And we realized there were a lot of confusions with different concepts, Brazilian concepts, UN concepts, American concepts, regarding civil military relations. I worked for different NGOs, for example, and was in The Hague Civil Military Cooperation Center of Exile, COE. I also worked with a comparison, conceptual analysis between EU and NATO civil military concepts. That was when the CCOE became the department head for semi -military cooperation for the EU as well. And now I'm at the Swedish Defense University, where I don't study semi -military relations, but I'm working the use of landmines by non -state groups, landmines, IEDs, booby traps, things like that. 00:02:42    JOHNNY ROBINSON Thank you. Who wants to go next, John or Jao? Yeah, I don't mind jumping in. Johnny Robinson, and I'm porting the U .S. Naval War College's Humanitarian Response Program. So a global fellow at Brown University's Center for Human Rights Humanitarian Studies. For that, I spent almost a decade working in the Middle East for various humanitarian conflict resolution and private entities. We focused on aid worker security systems for civil military coordination analysis for the Carter Center, Caritas, Switzerland, the International NGO Safety Organization, amongst others. As you can tell from my accent, I'm not originally from the U .S., but I was born in the U .K., but ended up in Prince, Rhode Island, marrying my wife. So, yeah, and I got part of the project. And so, yeah, we've been on this journey together for a few years now. 00:03:34    ASSAD RAZA Hey, John, thank you. One question. You talk about being a fellow at Brown University. Do you know Stanislava? Yes. 00:03:40    JOHNNY ROBINSON Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know Stanislav. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stanislav did an interview with her, 00:03:40    ASSAD RAZA Yeah, 00:03:42    ASSAD RAZA did an interview with her, I think, last year on her book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, when Rambo meets the Red Cross kind of thing. 00:03:48    JOHNNY ROBINSON meets the Red Cross kind of thing. Like, wow, really, really good. Yeah, no, it's great. Yeah, it's great. Perfect, 00:03:53    JOAO MAURICIO DIAS LOPES VALDETARO, John. Thank you. Thanks, Ata, for having us. And my background's a little different from both of them. I'm still in the Army for the last 21 years. I'm a major engineer reg in the Brazilian Army. I've been working in peacekeeping issues for 10 years already. So I shared, we've got, you know, we worked structures back there in the Brazilian Peacekeeping Operations Center. Regarding Civil Affairs, I had two deployments in Haiti. One of them, I was a platoon commander, but dealt a lot with CEMEC inside the Peacekeeping Mission. And my second deployment, I was T3 of the Brazilian Engineering Company, and also had a lot of publics to attend to. I've also been deployed at Central Africa Republic. We literally set up the first CEMEC branch in the Central African Army. And that's it. This paper has been worked for a while already, and I guess it's almost ready to be published. 00:04:53    ASSAD RAZA Jao, thank you for coming on. It seems like you have a wealth of experience. So let's get into the topic here. So in your opinion, based on your research, how have the definitions or applications of civil military concepts varied among the different organizations like the United Nations, the European Union, and NATO? 00:05:10    ENRIQUE GARBINO This is Henrique. Could you take a quick look at the conceptual framework? like the concepts used by different organizations to organize the relationship between civilians and military actors there is room for a lot of confusion so i'm going to give us some examples so we can kind of visualize them more for example the u .s army civil affairs concept it's a military capability that tries to achieve the military mission through showing civilian actors right The UN civil -military coordination, so the concept used by military UN peacekeepers, is a similar approach. NATO civil -military cooperation is also similar. So you have civil affairs, military cooperation, civil -military coordination, three different terms that mean roughly the same thing. Of course, there are differences between them, but overall, they all mean the same military capability. And you can also have the same term that mean different things. For example, the UN mission has this semi -military coordination for military peacekeepers, but they also have the UN humanitarian semi -military coordination, which is a concept dedicated to promoting and preserving the humanitarian principles in the interaction between military and civilian humanitarian actors in crises and emergencies. So it's a very different thing. The European Union also have the semi -military coordination concept, so the same term, but it's about the coordination between the headquarters level, military bodies, and the civilian bodies in Brussels. So it's something completely different from the other two concepts. The same terms being used, meaning very different things. And then if you start a little digging deeper, you come up with different concepts that you don't really know in which basket you put them, like military civil fusion, a concept being used in China at the moment. Civic military unions, a concept we found in Venezuela. So it's really hard for someone who is not really familiar with that organization in particular to really understand what that term really means. It can get very confusing. And I think the irony here is that most of these civil military concepts, they have a shared understanding between civilians and military actors. The concepts cannot agree among themselves. So I think that's a bit ironic and that's a gap we try to fill. 00:07:34    ASSAD RAZA And I think a lot of people are confused on the different concepts or the terminologies. I myself at times was a little confused. You know, I had the opportunity to work in northeastern Syria and we would coordinate the UN civil military coordination center that was in Jordan on humanitarian aid and trying to de -conflict HA that was coming in from the UN into Syria and some of our operations that not really having a good understanding could never got tied to what these organizations did at the time. So it was a bit confusing. But it was a British guy on the other end. So John, you know. 00:08:03    JOHNNY ROBINSON Yeah, no, I was on the other side, as it were, from you. So I came in from the humanitarian community. And so we also got confused as well by all the different terminologies and civil affairs versus SIMCORD versus SIMIC versus humanitarian -military interaction. And so, yeah, it's a cool problem, right? I think it shows that. It gets complex quite quickly when you have these multinational civilian military environments. 00:08:30    ASSAD RAZA Absolutely. So I know we talked about some of the challenges that you've experienced ourselves as practitioners on the ground. So is there any other challenges that we talk about that we might have missed? 00:08:40    JOAO MAURICIO DIAS LOPES VALDETARO, Maybe you want to talk about Brazilian in Haiti. But it's the same as the Assad was saying. It was something that we used to do back in the old days, but we didn't call it civil affair. We had been doing that for a while. battalion to Haiti. The battalion commander was the man that, hey, send us your semi -mobster to the meeting. And then they were like, what's semi? We were dealing with local population. We were dealing with people in the Amazon forest. We were dealing with civil defense, but all different stuff. So when we arrived in Haiti, and we were teaching in the peacekeeping center, we had a lot of students who just arrived and say, oh yeah, we have this civil social action the army would do to the local population or dealing with local authorities. And when we started to study the UN SEMREC doctrine, it also developed through the time after the mission haze. Within the SEMREC doctrine, what we used to do as civil action, people were arriving in the mission in the beginning, and they were doing exactly the same that they were doing. back home, but we were able in the end to highlight what CIMIC was for them, and they started to do the right stuff. Not under the first contingent, but at least, I can say, half of the mission on, we were doing the right stuff in the head. 00:10:12    ENRIQUE GARBINO I think another aspect of this issue is that what this is referring to is a military civic action. Before, it was done by a soldier in Damned Force. It's not a specialized function. You don't go to special training to do this. The army giving dental care or toys or food to the population. And then in the UN mission context, then you should do much more. You should partner with local organizations. You should not take the lead as a military actor. And those clashes of principles, clashes of modus operandi, that was visible. It's something you need to unlearn first so we could learn the new doctrine. 00:10:50    ASSAD RAZA Yeah, it seems like a really big challenge because you're trying to learn on the fly, on the ground, which causes frustration with some of the other participating organizations, right? Kind of going back to the biases that some people have, especially in a nonprofit NGO organization, like don't want to work in the military because of some of those challenges. So let's go into talking about your analytical tool, your concept that you guys develop. I know the paper, you were talking about like the four core parameters. So can you guys talk about your analytical tool? Yes, of course. Well, the main goal of the project was to come up with a way to sort different concepts so we can see which concepts are similar from each other, 00:11:19    ENRIQUE GARBINO goal of the project was to come up with a way to sort different concepts so we can see which concepts are similar from each other, which ones are different, and also why. So we can learn from each other when comparing, for example, civil affairs experiences with NATO -specific experiences, but we cannot really compare EU and SYNCORDS, so the EU and humanitarian and humanitarian coordination with civil affairs. So this was an abductive process. So we would study a specific concept in detail, like go to the guidance documents, try to break it down into what it means. Then do the same thing for the second concept and the third concept, and then try to find current aspects of that concept. And we tried maybe 20 different parameters, but it boiled out to four, which are the perspective that the concept takes, the scope of the relationship between civilians and military, The level of applicability and the structure. So for the perspective, is it mainly a military concept? It's a concept that serves the military mission. Or is it a civilian concept? A concept that serves the work of civilian organizations. Or is it a joint concept that serves both in an equal level? In terms of scope, to where the relationship between military and civilian actors are placed. For example, is it about internal coordination? For example, I mentioned the European Union concept of civil -military coordination, and that's an internal scope because it's about coordination within the EU, not between the EU and external actors. Other concepts are mainly external, so it's about, for example, the humanitarian organization dealing with military external actors. Some concepts are both internal and external. For example, if you take the UN civil -military coordination concept used by military peacekeepers, That has both an internal component, which is about facilitating the relationship between the UN military component within the mission with the civilian and police components of the same mission. And an external component, so between UN military component and externals and million actors. In level capability, we chose the classical tactical operations strategic level. Some concepts are more in the Dewey aspects, more tactical. Others are more in a coordination operational level, and others are more in setting goals, decision -making processes, the strategic level concepts. Or some also pick up into all levels. The fourth parameter, which we call structure, is whether a concept is a mental tool, something to keep in mind when you're doing your work, or if it's a dedicated structure with personnel, resources, structures, procedures, capability. something that someone is in charge of. So these are the four core parameters, and we took those concepts used by the US, NATO, the UN, and the EU. 00:14:17    ASSAD RAZA the EU. I really like the way you broke it down. You've taken a complex problem and not going to say simplified it, but put it in a way that someone that's working in this space can see the differences or how to engage with these different types of organizations. I really like the main perspective, and I really like the structure. As a practitioner on the ground, we see these terminologies and our assumption is that there's a dedicated personnel there, right? That there's structures and resources dedicated to this mission, but at times not. It's almost ad hoc. 00:14:48    ENRIQUE GARBINO Exactly. And I think that this problem becomes more emphasized when you come from a specific background, in your case, U .S. civil affairs. You expect that your counterpart has a similar understanding of what the concept means. But then you're going to work with an organization that doesn't have the civil military capability as a structure in the US context. So these clashes also happen because of your previous assumptions and experiences. 00:15:13    ASSAD RAZA Yeah, absolutely. We all have our own biases based off our own work experiences. So you kind of always default back to your perspective of how you utilize within your own military, taking that for granted and not really understanding outside of your inner circle. 00:15:27    ENRIQUE GARBINO Exactly. Again, about analytical framework used by the US, EU, UN and NATO, we came up with four ideal concepts. And one of them is what we call semi -military relations or CMR. And that's mostly a strategic level principle, but it's mainly related to how relations should be conducted at a broader strategic level. So here we're talking about... The relationship between the Ministry of Defense and the President, for example, or the Amateur Forces in society as a whole, things like that. And the second concept is civil -military interaction, which is also a non -dedicated function, so there's no one in charge of that, but it's the everyday interaction between military and civilian actors. The idea is that if you are deployed as a soldier or a military actor in a crisis, If you were a cook, if you were a driver, if you were a planner, it doesn't matter. Then you're going to interact with your counterpart somehow in the checkpoint or during your patrol when you go to the groceries. It doesn't matter. And then you have two concepts that are dedicated functions. One takes the military perspective, which we call CIMIC, semi -military cooperation. So then US civil affairs, according to our... Definition would fall into this archetype. And the humanitarian counterpart, which is the military coordination concept, or CMCORD, which is also, again, a dedicated function on the humanitarian side, facilitating interaction between humanitarian actors and the military. Sometimes it may just share information and ensure that humanitarians are not in the same time and space as the military. And sometimes they can be more cooperative activities as necessary and as suitable for the region. So with these different concepts, we can categorize them like that. 00:17:27    ASSAD RAZA Thank you, Henrique. I really like your framework and the archetypes that you just mentioned right here. In your view, do you see NATO or the UN or someone implement it in their doctrines? 00:17:38    ENRIQUE GARBINO I hope so, but I don't want to be too ambitious about it. I think that more than anything else, this could be used as a training and education tool. So what organization can make sense of down -drop training and how it relates to others? 00:17:53    JOAO MAURICIO DIAS LOPES VALDETARO, One important thing, you're going to be deployed, you're going to find organization max, Y, and Z. So we can go there and at least get an initial idea how that organization will work and if they have a dedicated function. And also because of that, we put all the references. Or if you want to go deep on that specific organization, the main reason... or the fact sheets, exactly that. So I'm going to be deployed it. I want to know how that specific organization that I will follow on the ground works. So at least you're going to have an initial idea on how they work, how they organize, and if they're going to have a point of contact. 00:18:32    ENRIQUE GARBINO Well, their feedback was that there's a good approach to looking to different concepts, protection of civilians, for example, as it is stood by the UN versus NATO versus other organizations. or other similar buzzwords used in crisis response. And also some criticism. Okay, so what about the police? How is the police included in this study? And this is a shortcoming we acknowledge in the research that we consider police to fall into the civilian category and black box it there, but there is a way for more research. And it's something that if my main takeaway from this whole project is how many questions we got by conducting this research. And so I think we have a wealth of research questions for the future. 00:19:17    ASSAD RAZA Absolutely. I think you brought something important to the surface because I think for some countries, for example, Panama only has police, but they do also want to get into the UN type mission sets too. So how would they apply this not being military? I think a lot more questions can arise once we start seeing a lot more different capabilities from our partner nations. 00:19:36    JOHNNY ROBINSON Yeah. I mean, I think that was our hope that, you know, people could really use this as a jumping off point. as a tool to start those discussions. You know, we're not trying to say this is the exact way to interpret or use these concepts, but it can be used as a starting point to then compare and contrast the different concepts and hopefully allow for that cooperation to happen more. That was exactly my point. Thanks a lot. Can you kind of talk a little bit about your main findings? 00:20:01    ENRIQUE GARBINO you kind of talk 00:20:02    JOHNNY ROBINSON a little bit about 00:20:02    ENRIQUE GARBINO your main findings? The main finding here is that the four concepts seem to be comprehensive enough. properly fulfilled. And I thought it was interesting, the terms being used, we didn't explore why certain terms are used versus others, but that's what I meant as well. We found that the concept, the term civil -military relations was used to signify all the four archetypes. So we had, for example, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement uses the concept of civil -military relations. along with what we understand as civil -military relations, the strategic level interaction between military and civilians. We also have a known state army group, the More Islamic Liberation Front, for example, that uses civil -military relations as a concept to signify a military capability. We also have CARE International, NGO, that uses CMR, humanitarian and civil -military coordination. So this unilateral humanitarian capability to ensure that humanitarian principles are protected. And then you also have Caritas Internationali's concept of relations with the military, more of a semi -military interaction, the idea that this are non -educated concept that is present in everyday interaction between the militarians and the military in a crisis context. So the same concept or the same term, CMR being used to signify or the other four ideal types. In some terms, you can really see there is an intention about how strong the link between civilians and military is intended. So, for example, you see military -civil fusion, and before that, civil -military integration, which is about capabilities supporting the military effort. So, it's really about joining forces towards land security goal. So you can see that terms used also signify how strong the links between the two sides of the relationship. Some concepts are a bit more into the extreme, which start to be a bit more neutral, like similar military affairs, similar interaction, coordination, and others are a bit more into doing action, similar military cooperation, similar collaboration, similar engagement. So it's interesting to see how these terms vary. A final comment here is that there is a... Clear convergence in the terminology used in the CIMIC category, so the military concepts. Basically, most of them are either following the U .S. tradition called civil affairs, especially in Latin America, so all of these countries have the civil affairs label to it, and civil military cooperation following the NATO tradition, so the CIMIC variant. So it's understandable if you think about interoperability, if you think about multinational deployments within NATO, EU, UN, and other multilateral organizations. So that's no surprise in that. What I think is interesting is that on the other side, in the humanitarian sector, then there is a clear divergence of terms. It seems like every organization wants to be unique. 00:23:23    ASSAD RAZA That's interesting. I like the point that you brought about interoperability and the convergence of CIMIC or civil affairs within the allies, NATO. some of our partners in the Western Hemisphere. And my assumption is that the divergence piece coming from the humanitarian actors, does that contribute to some of the confusion on the military side? 00:23:41    ENRIQUE GARBINO I've had the opportunity to work with the International Great Trust. It's an organization that does not have humanitarian -military interaction nowadays. And before it's a military coordination, they are unique. They are their own thing, which is interesting. It also makes sense from a humanitarian perspective. They've tried to keep their neutrality as much as possible. Working with the military or working with military counterparts, negotiating access, doing visits of prisons of war, delivering aid in territories occupied by another group, this is the bread and butter of the organization. Every job in their COC were supposed to do that. So for that organization, it doesn't make quite sense to have an overarching concept to coordinate that because that's what everybody's doing already. So what I think that this study shows where there might be a gap, it also pretends to understand why is this the case. But of course, this can cause confusion. If you apply as a civil affairs officer expecting to find a counterpart in a humanitarian organization, you most likely will be frustrated because most of them don't have it. And if you're expecting... that your experience working with EU and OCHA is going to be the same when you're working with WSP or with the RCSC or with any other organization, you're going to be frustrated again. So you have to relearn as you go, and that's something that we hope to facilitate with the fact checks. 00:25:09    ASSAD RAZA Henrique, thank you. That's a really good example about ICRC and coordination with the military. So you've identified some conceptual gaps there. Are there any other challenges you want to talk about? 00:25:21    JOAO MAURICIO DIAS LOPES VALDETARO, One thing that we found also is that not all the doctrines or concepts that they find are totally developed. I can say that. So even though when they talk to some people and say, oh, yeah, so we had the manual, we know what we had to do, but we don't have it specifically already developed within the organization. They know what they had to do, but they're not doing it yet. 00:25:51    JOAO MAURICIO DIAS LOPES VALDETARO, Civil military doctrine you follow. We follow the U .S. one. Okay, do we have our own medals? No, no, no. We just follow the U .S. one. So, some countries also had this figure for the U .S. Army or the U .S. doctrine. And they're still following or they're still trying to develop their own doctrine or their own way to do stuff. 00:26:11    ASSAD RAZA Wow. Yeah, that's interesting. Some nations don't have their doctrine. They're following U .S. doctrine. Ones that do have doctrine aren't seeing and training their forces to be able to implement that doctrine. There's a lot of competing priorities and sometimes coordination aspect of civil relations kind of go to the wayside as they focus on other things. So, JV, thank you on that. Any other challenges you guys want to talk about? 00:26:36    ENRIQUE GARBINO Maybe to use this framework to identify conceptual gaps within an organization. And if you look, for example, into the UN system, We found within the UN four different concepts. So you have the UN -SIMIC, you have the UN -CM -CORD, and WSP has its own military interaction concept, and before that had the simulatory coordination concept, which is similar to SIM -CORD, but tailored to the specifics of WSP. And here you can see that all of these concepts are at the operational levels. So there is no overarching strategic level semi -military relations concept, for example, we see in the organization. Does this mean that they need one? That's up for debate. There are other concepts that can be used to fill this gap, like comprehensive approach concept. Try to organize not only the semi -military relations at a strategic level, but the civilian and civilian relations and the military and military relations in a specific context. So it's a broader, beyond semi -military concept. But that could fill this gap, for example. We also saw the UN doesn't have a civil military interaction concept that aims at facilitating the everyday interaction between civilians and military, even though they are not specialized. The relationship between a UN peacekeeper, a civilian UN staff, this concept doesn't exist in the UN. But also think of NATO. It would be interesting to apply our framework to all semi -related concepts of NATO members and see how they match with the NATO standards. Or when one specific organization is deploying into a multinational organization, let's say Brazil deploying to a peacekeeping mission, how does the Brazilian concept matches or differs from the UN concept? And that you can identify and foresee some challenges. in how that member organization is going to adapt to the concept. Here we can foresee some practical challenges, for example. If a U .S. civil affairs officer who is used to receive strategic level guidance on their business, they deploy to a UN peacekeeping mission, then UN CIMIC, which is the equivalent of civil affairs, there is no presence at the strategic level. So they have no specific guidance. from a strategic level on that matter. So they have to sort it out themselves at the operational level. This is just some examples that how our framework can be useful for this type of analysis as well. 00:29:20    ASSAD RAZA It's a perfect sense. People conducting their analysis to see how they're going to engage the different type of concepts that are out there. They're going to engage with their partners for academics operationally flowing to an area to identify some of the challenges on the ground. I think it's a really good tool. So in the future, how do you envision this tool being utilized across the different organizations? 00:29:41    JOHNNY ROBINSON Yeah, I don't mind taking this upon this. Throughout that probability, I think it's a really valuable tool to highlight the differences, similarities, and that can build relations, right? If similar ways of approaching certain problems or challenges within those civil military concepts, I see value. I think it's also... interesting discussion to have looking at the difference between the humanitarian community and how they've approached largely on the operational and tactical level to civil military interaction, coordination, cooperation, whatever you want to call it. Whereas on the military side, it's more of a top -down strategic operational tactical. And I think kind of, you know, where that can meet in the middle is where great coordination and cooperation can happen. In terms of future, I'd love to take the project and look at the civil military training opportunities around the world from different entities, civilian and military, and to also understand that ecosystem. I think that also has value if there's redundancy or occasion of efforts or complementary efforts in places. I think that would be great, particularly for the humanitarian civilian community. Often don't have such a good perspective of what training opportunities. there are out there it's also good to highlight that the fact sheets are made by us we read the concept we read the trend and we came up with the fact sheets so the fact sheets don't apply the organization so our interpretation a specific concept would be good too for someone who are going to be deployed it for someone who wants to study a little bit more specific about that country or that concept itself 00:31:02    JOAO MAURICIO DIAS LOPES VALDETARO, out there it's also good to highlight that the fact sheets are made by us we read the concept we read the trend and we came up with the fact sheets so the fact sheets don't apply the organization so our interpretation a specific concept would be good too for someone who are going to be deployed it for someone who wants to study a little bit more specific about that country or that concept itself 00:31:30    ENRIQUE GARBINO Definitely. And organizations use these concepts in a consistent way. If we expand the research or the framework and start looking into how the media or even academia uses concepts, it's often that in one paper, the author wants to come up with a concept that is really specific to what they're studying on that particular publication. And then they come up with something different. If we expand an academia, then the number of concepts would skyrocket. That's for sure. So there's much less consistency there. When you strive for specificity, we also lose the shared language to relationship between civilians and military actors. And I think that's the greatest irony. 00:32:12    ASSAD RAZA Enrique, that's a good point. The more people you have involved, including academia, media, and more snowball into something bigger and cause a lot more confusion from what you were trying to do is simplify it and have something consistent throughout the different organizations that are working in this civil arena or humanitarian space. that have all these different actors. So that makes perfect sense. Gentlemen, I really want to thank you for taking your time to share your research on this important topic. I've been being a civil affairs guy on the ground before and seeing some of these different concepts. at a time as a young officer not really having an understanding of these different concepts. I think this is a really important research and I really appreciate you guys creating this analytical framework and I hope it gains traction within the different organizations that are working in this space. So thank you for your time and I really appreciate it and we'll see you on the ground somewhere. Thank you. Thanks for listening. 00:33:02    Close listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U .S. relations, thank you all for what you're doing. This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes. One CA podcast.