A Conversation with the Chairman: General Martin E. Dempsey
War on the Rocks25 Helmi 2014

A Conversation with the Chairman: General Martin E. Dempsey

We sat down with General Martin E. Dempsey in his office to talk strategy, the profession of arms, military compensation reform, and professional military education. Interview Transcript (courtesy Federal News Service, Washington, DC): RYAN EVANS: Hi, this is Ryan Evans with a very special War on the Rocks podcast. I'm here with General Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I have Jason Fritz, one of our editors at War on the Rocks, also joining us. And we're going to talk about profession of arms, which is, General, a big passion of yours, or one of your central efforts, actually, ever since you were TRADOC commander. How much has your – did your experience joining the post-Vietnam Army in the mid '70s, which sort of went through some similar challenges that we're about to see now, shape your approach to profession of arms? GENERAL MARTIN DEMPSEY: Well, you know, I think you're shaped by the accumulation of your experiences over time. So I entered West Point in 1970, and you know what kind of climate there was in the country in 1970 – not just related to the Vietnam War but related to just a whole bunch of social issues inside the country. So, you know, in that environment, the military had kind of lost its standing with the American people, you know, simply stated. And so even as a very young officer, it occurred to me that if we are to live up to our – and especially as we transition to an all-volunteer force, by the way – it occurred to me that this issue of professionalism would have to become more prominent. And, in fact, in 1998, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, I studied for a master's degree and took as my thesis that issue. And in that particular treatise, if you will, I came to the conclusion that the single most important value in our long list of professional values was the – was the duty – was the value of duty. By the way, I wasn't the first one to turn that up. You may remember that Robert E. Lee said that duty is the sublimest virtue. So that started me down a path of studying what it means to be a professional. How is it different from simply a job? What is it that we owe ourselves internally? How do we hold ourselves to a higher standard? How do we identify that standard? What are the key leader attributes that define us? And how do we deliver them? And how do we make sure we know we're delivering them? And so that's the context in which I entered TRADOC, did some things there, did a few things as chief of staff of the Army, knowing that after 10 or 12 years of conflict we had gotten sloppy. It's not – I've said this before. It's not that the war caused this misstep, if you will, but rather that the tools that we had at our disposal, whether they were education, oversight, surveys, command climate assessments, fitness reports, mentoring and – you know, mentors and protégés, we had kind of broken – you know that – we had kind of broken some of those relationships because of the pace, and in some cases because of modularity, this notion in the Army, anyway, that you can kind of plug and play with units. Well, you can, actually. They're very fungible. But when you do that, you break the mentor-protégé relationship as you plug and play. So we're looking back now and looking forward as well. That's a long answer, but that's how I came to this conclusion that it was time to take a very close look at this. RYAN EVANS: That's a good answer, actually. And I know Jason, a fellow armor officer, experienced – I don't know if, Jason, you want to comment or question based on what you saw. JASON FRITZ: Yeah, I would agree, particularly on the issues of mentor and protégé issues. I was in the first modularized brigade, 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, and, you know, we – going through the pains of transitioning to that model and some of the repercussion over the years with them. I was a brigade planner during the surge,

Jaksot(315)

PODCAST: The war with China you've been waiting for

PODCAST: The war with China you've been waiting for

I had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with PW Singer and August Cole to talk about their new book, Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War. Yes, these two wonks wrote some fiction and it's an impressive piece of work. In Ghost Fleet, they bring us into the future - not too far away - and show us how this war could very well be fought, examining the social, political, and technological issues through the eyes of a massive cast of characters. The way they portray military technology and its myriad effects was, in particular, fresh and interesting. Listen to this awesome podcast (courtesy the awesome media team at the New America Foundation) here: Image: Spike, Art of Future Warfare, Atlantic Council

30 Kesä 201547min

VP's National Security Adviser on the Iran Deal: Colin Kahl Gives an Insider's View

VP's National Security Adviser on the Iran Deal: Colin Kahl Gives an Insider's View

The deadline for a deal on the Iranian nuclear program is on June 30. Just weeks before the deadline, Colin Kahl, the National Security Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, sat down with Ryan Evans to talk about the nuclear negotiations over drinks at the Jefferson Hotel's Quill Bar. Ryan lobbed every objection to the deal he could come up with at Colin. The result was one of the most candid conversations we've ever seen from a senior administration official on what might be a monumental event in the history of diplomacy. Have a listen!

11 Kesä 20151h

PODCAST: National Security and the Schoolhouse

PODCAST: National Security and the Schoolhouse

This is a very special Schoolhouse edition of the War on the Rocks podcast series. As many of you know, our Schoolhouse series is concerned with the intersection between policy and the academy. Is scholarship relevant to the policymaker? Is the academy preparing people to go into the policy world? Our guests grappled with these questions and more, telling their own stories of how they came be involved as scholars in the policy world, in the field in Afghanistan, and the private sector. We were joined by Frank Gavin of MIT, Erin Simpson of Caerus Associates, and Stephen Tankel of American University. Have a listen! Image: Marcus Hansson

20 Touko 201559min

PODCAST: War on the Rocks goes to Istanbul

PODCAST: War on the Rocks goes to Istanbul

Four members of the War on the Rocks squad ended up in Istanbul this week. What could go wrong? Afshon Ostovar of the CNA Corporation, Aaron Stein of RUSI, Joshua Walker of GMF, and Ryan Evans of your favorite outlet on strategy, defense, foreign policy, and booze join you from a lovely garden a stone's throw from the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia to talk about the Turkish elections, the implications of the Iranian nuclear negotiations, Turkish-Iranian relations, the Syrian civil war, and Istanbul's best watering holes. Have a listen!

7 Touko 201537min

The Fog of Peace: Defense and Uncertainty

The Fog of Peace: Defense and Uncertainty

Editor's Note: I was honored to attend Professor Patrick Porter's inaugural lecture, celebrating his appointment at the University of Exeter as the academic director of the Strategy and Security Institute. Patrick is one of the most insightful and engaging scholarly speakers I know. Using Carl von Clausewitz and Hans Morgenthau as guideposts, he discusses Western strategic mishaps and proposes means by which states might navigate the fog of peace. Have a listen -RE Image: GerryBuckel

30 Huhti 201546min

The State of the World: A Conversation with Lawrence Freedman

The State of the World: A Conversation with Lawrence Freedman

Yesterday, Lawrence Freedman of King's College London joined me for a conversation on the state of the world atop the ME Hotel's rooftop bar in central London, Radio. From the Middle East, to Russia, to China, to Britain's role in the world, the discussion ranged widely as we sat in the afternoon sun (an unusually lovely, breezy day in London). Have a listen! Lawrence Freedman has been Professor of War Studies at King's College London since 1982. His most recent book is Strategy: A History (OUP, 2013). He is a contributing editor at War on the Rocks. Ryan Evans is the editor-in-chief of War on the Rocks. Image: AlexLoves.com

29 Huhti 201518min

PODCAST: The Islamic State's War in Iraq and Syria

PODCAST: The Islamic State's War in Iraq and Syria

This is the podcast in which War on the Rocks fixes the Middle East...ok, we kid, but it is a fascinating conversation with some of the most astute and informed U.S. experts on Iraq and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). Have a listen! We were joined by: J.M. Berger, author of the new book, ISIS: State of Terror (along with Jessica Stern) and a nonresident fellow in the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution. William McCants, author of the forthcoming book, ISIS Apocalypse, a fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy and director of the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World at the Brookings Institution. Denise Natali, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University (her views do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. government). Douglas Ollivant, a senior national security fellow with the New America Foundation and a managing partner and the Senior Vice President of Mantid International. Ryan Evans, editor-in-chief of War on the Rocks, moderated with Lagavulin 16 neat in hand.

15 Huhti 201556min

Cybersecurity over Sazeracs

Cybersecurity over Sazeracs

We got together a great panel of experts to talk all things cybersecurity, with a little bit of ClintonEmail.com and comedy troupes mixed in. Listen here to Jason Healey of the Atlantic Council, Shane Harris of The Daily Beast, and John Amble and Mark Stout, both of War on the Rocks, as they talk about cyber over drinks. (And yes, only Jason had a Sazerac, but alliteration won out over absolute accuracy. We trust you'll forgive us.) Image Credit: Paul Hartzog, CC

5 Maalis 201552min

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