Interview of GENERAL JAMES L. JONES, USMC - The Stimson Center

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its budget request cut by, what, eleven billion dollars when Defense went down nine [billion dollars]? So, proportionately, it’s orders of magnitude greater. We’re not building up the nonmilitary toolkit. What’s your comment on which way we should be going and which way we are going? JONES: Well, it is worrisome. I believe that in the 21 st century, at least for as far ahead as I can see, American leadership, for it to be substantive and effective, is going to have to be of a little bit different take than it was in the 20 th century, which was—in the last half of the century—really the American half of the century in terms of global leadership, global preeminence, not only militarily but economically. You can argue the cultural expansion around the globe of things American was what people aspired to in millions and millions of different ways. This is a different century. This is not a century, so far, where we are faced with a future‐classic—a conventional—war with a major power. The asymmetric threats: proliferation, the energy problems, the unification of narco‐trafficking, organized crime and terror, which are increasingly collaborating together, is a real threat—it’s not just a national threat, it’s an international threat. So I think as we look at the so‐called Arab Spring breaking out, the solution set is going to have three characteristics to it. One is the security pillar, and you’ve got to have that. But accompanying that, you have to have an economic package that gives people who don’t have any hope, hope for a better future. That’s the answer to the terrorist threat, really. The radicals preach that we’re the evil, but if we’re able to come at them with a plan where their lives are going to get better in the future, economically, and their children’s lives are going to be better, that’s a powerful tool to counter the terrorist propaganda. And the third one is governance and rule of law, and I include corruption and all of those other things. But those three pillars have to kind of be working together. If only one of those works—and usually our strong suit is the security pillar—and it’s not accompanied by the other two, then you probably have a much longer and much bigger problem because, eventually, the foreign military presence in other countries, for long periods of time in a fight, regardless of whether you’re trying to help them or not … bad things start to happen. We learned that lesson after World War II; we rebuilt Europe, we rebuilt Japan. That was an example of an enlightened view of things. The Marshall Plan, I’m told, politically wasn’t very popular in this country, but we went ahead and did it. I’ve heard some talk—that I find very much agreement with—about thinking of a way in which the international community of the half‐nations if you will, to include the newly wealthy nations like Brazil and India and other rising economic powers, can get together and help these countries migrate towards a freer society, a more democratic society, perhaps.
I think Egypt is extremely important. In a short period of time we understand that we cannot afford to lose Egypt to become another Iran or something like that. But it’s not going to be just about the military here, it’s going to have to be the security package plus some economic package which can be international. And I think the United States can play a huge role in helping [to] develop that. And then the governance and rule of law piece I think is extremely important. BLOOMFIELD: Well you’ve used words like “aspiration,” you’ve talked about perception, you mentioned propaganda. Is it not possible that the United States could be writing some big checks and not getting the perceptual result among the House population? Pakistan comes to mind in the recent past, where we’ve made these longterm pledges of billions of dollars, but the anti‐Americanism doesn’t seem to be affected by that. And I think the question is: Can you elaborate on what it is that the United States can be doing? In addition to the President associating our goals with the aspirations of people around the world, which I think is fundamental … but beyond that, how do we get into that space? Secretary Gates gave a speech in 2007 at Kansas State, I think, and he talked about the media. And he said the enemies of the United States, the extremists are using these new forms of media to great effect. We invented half of this stuff, but it’s being used against us, [and] we need to get our game up. Are there things we’re not doing that we should be considering in this 21 st century environment to get that perception across of what we stand for, what we intend to do, and how it affects people on the street? JONES: That’s really the million dollar question. One of my conclusions after four decades in uniform is that we can’t want things for people that they don’t want for themselves. I think I learned that as a twenty‐two year old second lieutenant in Vietnam. When I left Vietnam in 1968, if somebody had asked me, “What’s your opinion of the South Vietnamese Army? Do you think they’ll fight if left alone to face the North Vietnamese?” I would have said “Absolutely not.” From what I saw, from where I was … there were some good units I’m sure, but I didn’t detect—in the people that I was around and in the army that we were supporting—the will to really achieve. They were happy to let us do it, but I wasn’t sure that they were… BLOOMFIELD: Care to venture a comment on the Iraqi security forces as we face these deadlines? JONES: Well, I think they’ve been given the tools. I probably think that they will be okay. I’m not sure that that okay will necessarily translate with what we would like, but I think that the Iraqi security forces will be adequate to do what the
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Page 3 and 4: BLOOMFIELD: It has changed in size,
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Page 7: would you still like to see happen?
Page 11 and 12: We have to analyze our own situatio
Page 13 and 14: JONES: Well, there’s no doubt in
Page 15 and 16: eing in these rather long engagemen
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Interview of GENERAL JAMES L. JONES, USMC - The Stimson Center

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