“Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”
– John F. Kennedy
I recently returned from what I refer to as “the two best weeks of the year”: teaching hockey camps for Overspeed Hockey at Campion Ice House in Hailey, Idaho. We completed our fourth year and the hockey families and people of Sun Valley, Ketchum, Hailey and Bellevue in Idaho have adopted our staff, including my wife and I, as their own.
Our staff of female and male coaches comes from many different backgrounds and ages from around the country. The camp attracted 220 youth hockey players from ages 6-18, from 16 different states. I love teaching the camp, but I equally love visiting Idaho where we always spend a few extra days to explore, including time in Boise. While there we saw plenty of wildlife including golden eagle, sandhill crane, coyote, antelope, salmon, trout, whitetail deer, mule deer and a massive elk herd that would stop traffic every evening on their nightly crossing of Highway 75 to get to the Big Wood River.
This year’s trip included whitewater rafting in the town of Sunbeam on the Salmon River; kayaking down the Boise River (with a great view of the Boise State campus and football stadium); swimming and listening to a live band at Red Fish Lake with the majestic Sawtooth mountains in the background; sitting in hot springs in Sunbeam and in Ketchum; and touring the amazing lava fields and caves at Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in nearby Arco.
The peace and contentment of the high desert landscape against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains is exactly what I think of when I hear “America the Beautiful” and “This Land is Your Land.” At the risk of sounding overly patriotic, it’s the benefit that we get to enjoy with the freedoms that come with living in our great nation.
But this year we also serendipitously attended an event that reminded me that “We the People” of this great nation must never take our freedoms we have for granted.
The Sun Valley Writers’ Conference happened to be at the Sun Valley Lodge while we were in town, and we had the great fortune to listen to Admiral James Stavridis and retired Marine Elliot Ackerman discuss their new fiction book “2034: A Novel of the Next World War.” It was an amazing talk about their vision of what could realistically occur in the not-too-distant future, especially if we let our guard down. When their talk concluded we immediately purchased the book and got to speak with both of these extraordinary gentlemen briefly at the book signing.
Talk about credentials.
Admiral Stavridis is one of the most impressive individuals I have ever heard speak in person and his background and service to our nation are the stuff of legend. He was the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO from 2009 to 2013, with overall responsibility for Afghanistan, Libya, the Balkans, Syria, counter-piracy and cybersecurity. He has served as the dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, writes a monthly column for Time magazine and is the chief international security analyst for NBC News. He was considered by Hillary Clinton as a vice presidential running mate in 2016 and for a cabinet position with President Donald Trump.
Most importantly to me, he is a man of common sense. He seemed genuinely bipartisan and worried first and foremost about defending our country against our enemies.
Elliot Ackerman is an author of six books and a contributing writer for Esquire, The New Yorker, The Atlantic and The New York Times. He is a former White House fellow and a Marine Corps Special Operations team leader who served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, and received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor and the Purple Heart.
As the two seasoned military veterans began to explain the context of their book — essentially about the threat that China poses in their quest for global dominance — it became very clear that what they were discussing was not only plausible in the future, but much of what they write about is occurring right now.
Here are a few excerpts of my notes from their discussion:
EA: “Look at what recently happened in the South China Sea.The idea that China would physically attack Taiwan cannot be ruled out. Both nations have incredible technology, but it is still within the realm of possibility that human error made by two twenty-somethings could end up creating an unintentional confrontation with catastrophic consequences.”
Active four-star Admiral Till Davis recently said that he could see a conflict over Taiwan “within the next 6 years.”
JS: “The Biden administration admitted that the Chinese launched a massive cyberattack on the U.S. There was little consequence following the Chinese hack via Microsoft. We went after Russia hard after their hacking and have started to turn the tide. We are letting China essentially off the hook. The National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence led by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt concluded that we are not prepared to compete with China in AI. I know Eric and he is a brilliant man and I believe we must confront this growing threat. We have to be better prepared.”
CNBC reporter Sam Shead wrote about this back in March. U.S. is ‘not prepared to defend or compete in the A.I. era,’ says expert group chaired by Eric Schmidt PUBLISHED TUE, MAR 2 20218:01 AM Sam Shead
“America is not prepared to defend or compete in the AI era,” wrote Schmidt and vice chair Bob Work, who was previously deputy U.S. Secretary of Defense. “This is the tough reality we must face.”
JS: “China invests more in AI and puts the same emphasis on STEM as we do to develop Olympic and professional athletes.”
So, while we are sometimes too distracted with “games” the enemy is investing heavily on education and advancements with technological and data that could take us down from within.
JS: “Space is becoming a highly competitive priority for military.”
Not the Branson and Bezos billionaires sub-orbital flight club kind of space mind you. He was talking sophisticated satellites and eventually space weapons.
With regard to alliances, both authors were critical of the Trump and Obama presidencies.
JS: “We have shaken the confidence of our allies in NATO, South Korea, Australia, Israel and India. We have to ‘tend the garden.’”
As I mentioned earlier Admiral Stavridis is bipartisan and, if anything, perhaps he leans slightly Democratic. Yet he is very critical that President Biden is recalling ground trips from Afghanistan.
JS: “While it’s never easy to lose soldiers, only three U.S troops died in 2020 in Afghanistan. More troops died in accidents on military bases during training. I am against the dismount going on in Afghanistan. There are 2,500 U.S. troops and 8,000 NATO troops there. If we leave, the NATO troops will leave.
The admiral said if we pull our troops there are three likely outcomes:
1. Afghan trained security forces will put up a good fight (only with our logistic support and military advisors). He was skeptical this will work. In fact, we have already started evacuating and the Taliban recently slaughtered 22 Afghanistan troops.
2. Complete vacuum and chaos will ensue.
3. China, Russia or Iran will move in and broker a deal with the Taliban to run the country. A country that aside from its opium trade has mineral resources that we know the Chinese covet.
Consider this dire warning from a June 22, 2021 Wall Street Journal column by William A. Galston, “China Has Stopped Biding Its Time – A bipartisan U.S. consensus emerges on the scale of the threat from Beijing.”
“The accession of Xi Jinping to the peak of Chinese leadership marked the end of the era defined by Deng Xiaoping’s famous maxim, ‘Hide our strength, bide our time. Mr. Xi is asserting China’s strength, not hiding it. And he believes that China’s time has come.”
Galston cites five strategic pillars that Xi is implementing that are considerable threats:
1. China’s government has reined in all industry and business and dissenting voices are being shut down once again.
2. China’s goal of technological superiority and in economics is being given the highest priority.
3. China’s massive military expansion. China now has the largest navy in the world and is establishing a global system of ports to give its forces global access.
4. China is using its economic clout to extend its diplomatic reach and developing countries who lack funding are welcoming the absence of environmental and governance constraints that Western countries demand.
5. Most ominously, Xi is deploying the full force of Chinese Nationalism to support the resurrection of his country’s power to complete its reunification. In early July, 28 Chinese fighter jets conducted exercises over waters just south of Taiwan.
These recent events led NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg to state, “the balance of power is shifting” and “we need to respond together as an alliance.”
EA: “The public still looks at war as WWI and WWII. A distinct beginning, a turning point and an end and we win.”
Admiral Stavridis stated three priorities where we need to focus:
1. We need to “tend the garden” and continue to grow our relationships with our allies around the world. Specifically, we need to pull India to us.
2. We must be better at developing technology, whether AI, satellites, cyber-security or slowing down social media propaganda campaigns coming from abroad.
3. We must deal with divisions within the U.S. The political divide is helping our enemies and we know they are actively influencing events here and with our allies. Very concerned about the culture in our country. Our enemies are dividing us.
JS: We also need to celebrate service in this country: the military, frontline workers, our police and fire, but also diplomats and the Peace Corps. If I am allowed to be cautiously optimistic…I believe our military will keep the chain unbroken. Need to fight for an apolitical and bipartisan government. We must incentivize “service to the nation.” To promote education with honesty and purpose.
In their book, Stavridis and Ackerman purposely have a president that is neither a Republican nor Democrat.
EA: “I would encourage you to find candidates who are willing to reach across the aisles. It’s up to us …We the people.” He continued, “In the Marines you never get to say I. It’s always WE. We are Marines. We are the People.”
When the facilitator asked Elliott, “What does it mean to be a patriot?” he responded, “You love your country. It means putting ‘WE’ ahead of ‘I.’”
EA: “We have the best form of government and laws in the history of the world. Admittedly we execute them imperfectly, but we also recognize we have our flaws. But you need to love your country. There are lines of people around the block trying to get into our country at immigration offices. You cannot go to China and declare yourself Chinese.”
I have always wanted our children to be open-minded, empathetic, good citizens. But I also don’t want them to be naïve. There will always be individuals with evil intent, and you must be on your toes. Trust but verify. Measure twice, cut once. I am not being xenophobic. There are good people all around the world. But I am being prudent.
I believe Admiral Stavridis would make a great leader of the new “Common Sense Party” that I have promoted in previous articles. Fiscally disciplined, socially responsible, willing to reach across the aisle for the greater good, respects our country and will defend our way of life.
I want to continue to be able to travel to Idaho and across our land and want my children’s children to have the same freedoms.
As Admiral Stavridis finished his final comments, the facilitator made note of the rather dour scenarios that were discussed. But the wise admiral interceded and said, “I would still bet on democracy. I would still bet on We the People.”
