If, if, if, if you like, can you kind of maybe go back and maybe share some of the different things you've done maybe because i see things in el salvador cuba angola whatever it may be any interesting anecdotes you could share about what your life was at times in all these different countries trying to protect America? I

do want to mention my time at Rutgers because there might be some listeners, Jack, with teenagers considering university or at university and um, uh, and this may or may not be useful for parents, but I, um, I spent my junior abroad in Mexico city, uh, as part of, uh, the Rutgers program majoring political science, a minor in, in Spanish, and it was excellent. And living abroad, it isn't just the language, but you're abroad, and do you like it, and do you want more? So it sort of was a litmus test, and is a career in foreign intelligence for me, and it was. What I wanted to say to parents was, this may sound surprising uh it's the semester abroad and the year abroad isn't what it used to be because of um iphones and of course in my day you had a dog-eared dictionary and if you wanted to know the word for beer you looked upset you needed to take a taxi home you needed you if you want to get home, you better speak Spanish. Now with ChatGTP, instantaneous translation, Netflix, YouTube, calling home for free, international calls are free. Frankly, I'm just not sure the semester or year abroad is worth it, is what it used to be. And also because of globalization and then and the proliferation of English still worth it still consider a semester abroad it is just for the language but the language is a big big um big piece of it but from Rutgers uh because I had been in the Marine Corps and sort of was in the special forces of the Marine Corps, force recon, and then I had a degree, a decent degree and a foreign language skill. I was very flattered, but I was hired by the CIA as a junior trainee back in 1984. And what's very important is the Cold War was on. And it was all about the Soviet Union, regardless of where you were going to be posted. But because I had that military background, I went more to our paramilitary side of the house. So there were some Bush wars going around in the 80s, and in Southern Africa, and Central America and in Southwest Asia. And I can tell you that I went as far as I could, as hard as I could, for as long as I could to all those conflicts. But when you're highly motivated, again, because the Cold War is on, it's what I wanted to do. And I totally believed in the mission and the CIA was the vehicle so I could fulfill that dream.

It's amazing. At times, people will talk about, hey, do we have to spend all this money and energy and putting people into all these different countries? Are we spending a lot of money? But hearing you talk, this is the real life. It sounds like this is the necessity. Because I admit, at times, I'm like, why are we all over the world and spending all this money? But hearing you talk, I'm kind of changing my mind. It seems like if we don't do that, it's going to get worse for us. So if you just pretend and close your eyes and say everything's going to be okay, because kumbaya, everyone's going to be nice. That's not how the world works. So you have to have people like yourself and your team that are constantly being vigilant and making sure we're safe jack

it's called the third option this diplomacy doesn't always work or it isn't enough um and we really don't want to and some of my politically conservative friends might be surprised that i say this but we don't want to send 100,000 18, 19, and 20-year back to Southeast Asia, the Iraqi desert, or the mountains of Afghanistan. So between diplomacy and deploying our 18, 19, and year olds, it's the third option. And it's people like me and maybe with some with some Army Green Berets. And what's really important about that third option in between diplomacy and conventional or more conventional battle is we understand that indigenous forces, they're going to have to win or lose their own wars. We can do a lot and we can help, but we just can't keep sending our treasure overseas, particularly with the results that we've had in Iraq and Afghanistan about 20 years each, and we don't have the results that we wanted. So my generation is, I remember a warlord once said to me that a cat is even afraid, a cat once scolded is even afraid of cold water. So I guess what I'm trying to say is it isn't that we can't be afraid to defend ourselves, but we have to be careful about parachuting into every time there's conflict somewhere in the world. And we, frankly, I supported Mr. Trump's position, and I think many Democrats did as well. As soon as there was a Syrian civil war and Assad was about to fall on Damascus, we certainly didn't need the 82nd Airborne Division parachuting in, get in the middle of that. And let's let it play out. Let's see what our interests are. So with age, former gunslingers like me, we take a tad more conservative, not politically conservative in a realistic view of armed U.S. intervention abroad. So

to me, that makes a lot of sense. First of all, I love the fact that you casually just throw in, hey, I'm speaking to a warlord, because that doesn't happen usually, you know, in everyday conversations. But yeah, that makes sense. Because if there must be times where you feel and the CIA and other agencies feel, hey, you absolutely have to do something other times they wait, like, we don't always have to maybe jump in when we really don't know what's happening and whose side are we on and how is this going to play out? So I guess, and how is that decided? Is that decided about the people in the home office or it's on the field or how do you make those decisions? What do we do with Assad like well you know do we let this collapse do we get help make it collapse what happens if it does collapse what does it make it even more dangerous but

so Jack it's um from the intelligence community CIA, we collect or implement the president's covert actions. So we really do not do policy, what you might see in Hollywood, that that's really the Pentagon and the State Department and the White House would set the policy, what to do about Assad. the president, the State Department, and the Pentagon are asking CIA, is Assad going to last? If not, what's going to replace Assad? What does that mean to Israel? What does that mean to the United States? Those are the questions for the CIA to answer.

And they're not easy questions to answer, I imagine, right? Because you don't know, you don't have a crystal ball, how it's going to play out, right? So these are tough decisions to make. So

for perhaps the majority of your audience from the private sector, business leaders, would suggest with your say analysts in your companies it's maybe the colon pal um mantra and that was a ceo might say to an analyst tell me what you know but tell me what you don't know be honest tell me what you know tell me what you don't know. And if I have time and if I want to, I'll ask you what you think. But tell me what you know and tell me what you don't know. So we really need, in fact, probably what got us in trouble in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan is, particularly Vietnam, it's Mr. President, we cannot defeat the Viet Cong on the battlefield because they have sanctuary in North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, and the Chinese and Soviet Union are quartermastering them to no end. Mr. President, we cannot win this counterinsurgency. No one was going to say that to JFK or LPJ in the 60s. I was too young for the Vietnam War, but I studied it. My generation that came after, we studied it very carefully. And there's some ghosts, ghosts that, that, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, ghosts that over Iraq and Afghanistan, because those generals and animals in charge of Iraq and Afghanistan clearly studied, didn't participate in, but clearly studied, I mean, lessons learned from Vietnam, and you can just see how they got drawn into this omnipotence of the United States, and there's tremendous, the enemy gets a vote at the table, so caution. You

mentioned Hollywood, and it does seem that you look at Hollywood movies, and it's this brash, let's do this. And boom, every blowing stuff up. Whereas you hear you speak, it's much more cerebral. It's much more, you know, thinking things through as opposed to just acting first and then thinking later. And really trying to figure out that was like a game of chess. Before we do anything, let's just really be thoughtful where we're going to move our pieces.

So I was mid-career. I was fortunate enough. CIA sent me to a war college, the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. The students, its mandatory reading is Clausewitz on war and Sun Tzu's The Art of War. And so you have an Eastern and Western perspective and Clausewitz is the enemy center of gravity. Once you determine what that is, that's where you mash your force and you can the enemy conventionally, where Sun Tzu is, know your enemy, know yourself, and win, attack your strategy, win without ever going to war. And those, those, Those, I think that what gets us in trouble, there's other opinions out there, please. But because we do have tank ships and divisions and jets, that because we have Clausewitz as an option, we may tend to use it. Other countries without aircraft carriers, they subscribe a little bit more to the Sun Tzu perspective. And that's the whole counterinsurgency piece that the U.S. culturally, we have trouble prosecuting.