Former NASA Chief: America Has Lost the Meaning of Power | Iran, Artemis II & U.S. Decline

[00:00:01] National Power Basic idea in geopolitics is that states always try to maximize their own power relative to other states in the world. Not necessarily to dominate neighbors, but definitely to deter aggression from assholes. But where do these sources of national power come from? How are they expressed? In the post-World War II era, we saw America develop a massive military industrial complex, a blue water navy that could guarantee freedom of navigation around the world, and a tremendous space program that brought astronauts to the moon.

[00:00:29] These became symbols of American prestige and power. But those symbols don't have the same luster that they used to. Despite incredible tactical proficiency, American military power has been shown to have limits when confronting a third-weight country like Iran, based off a series of unique asymmetries in the region. We've seen the limits of the power of things like sanctions to control states like Russia and their aggressive tendencies in Europe. And China's relative power continues to rise as we move into a multipolar world.

[00:00:59] It's not all doom and gloom, though. The Artemis II program recently returned astronauts to orbit around the moon and brought them home safely. In the process, although it seems like, you know, hey, they just repeated what we've already done, they actually tested and validated a number of new technologies and techniques that allow the United States to continue to explore the stars. Now, how much of that is a real advancement? How much is for show? How much will actually translate into meaningful improvements in the quality of life of the American public? We don't know.

[00:01:29] It was decades before we could appreciate how advancements in technologies that we developed in pursuit of the original space program benefited the lives of the American public and changed the global economy. So where does America stand today? On the backs of successful mission to space, stuck in a quagmire in the Middle East, strained relationships with our allies and partners. Who no longer seem bought into the same global institutions that once projected American power around the world.

[00:01:57] Well, to help us break this down, we have a wonderful guest on today, Sean O'Keefe. Sean O'Keefe has had multiple senior roles in government throughout his distinguished career, including being a former secretary of the Navy and chief administrator of NASA. Really appreciated him taking the time to discuss what current events indicate about the future of American national power. If you've liked this content, please be sure to like, subscribe and share with a friend. It really helps get the show out to more people. With that, let's get to Sean O'Keefe.

[00:02:28] Sean O'Keefe Well, good morning and welcome back to the podcast, sir. How are you doing today? Sean O'Keefe Very well, Scott. It's a pleasure to be with you. Sean O'Keefe I was actually looking. So you were on the podcast thing two years ago. You're like one of the OG podcast guests from back in the day. Sean O'Keefe I was right. Sean O'Keefe Can't believe it took two years to circle back, but very happy you came back on. Sean O'Keefe I'm delighted for the invitation. Sean O'Keefe Now, so we do have a bunch of new listeners that were not with us two years ago.

[00:02:55] So for folks who aren't familiar with your work, could you introduce yourself in your own words to the audience? Sean O'Keefe Yeah, I'm Sean O'Keefe. Sean O'Keefe I have recently been on the faculty of Syracuse University at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, teaching graduate students who aspire to public service.

[00:03:18] Sean O'Keefe That has certainly become an entirely different challenge these days in light of the administration's focus in that particular area. Sean O'Keefe But nonetheless, it is a prominent university that's got a reputation for having been around for a considerable period of time for just this purpose of really looking at the challenges of public service.

[00:03:47] Sean O'Keefe And as a result, I've been really drawn to the activity there. Sean O'Keefe And as a faculty member, I've thoroughly enjoyed the chance to be part of that. Sean O'Keefe But if just retired from that activity and still associated with the university, but not carrying the usual teaching load that I've had in the past,

[00:04:11] Sean O'Keefe But it's an opportunity to now reflect a little bit on what we're seeing today and what could be affected in order to refocus the attention in so many ways on what the value of so much of what the public service does in ways that I think we kind of discount as a society until we wake up and realize it's not there.

[00:04:39] Sean O'Keefe And then all of a sudden, you know, become grossly aware of the fact that there's a deficiency. Sean O'Keefe So this is, you know, one of the objectives I'm going to be focused on in the time ahead. Sean O'Keefe But prior to my time in academia, I certainly have had several different occasions in which I've spent time as a practitioner in this very field of public service as well as in corporate life.

[00:05:04] Sean O'Keefe And so I've gotten a flavor of both ends of that from the public and private sector on the leadership front as well as through academic administration as well as faculty kinds of roles.

[00:05:21] Sean O'Keefe So with all of that, this is a great opportunity to reflect on a bunch of the lessons that I guess that derive from that kind of experience that deal with challenges that we confront today. Sean O'Keefe Well, we're certainly looking forward to taking advantage of some of your experience today. Sean O'Keefe I'll say three things at the start because two of them are directly relevant to the conversation we're going to have. Sean O'Keefe And then one, I just have to say every time I talk to you because you skipped it again this time around.

[00:05:50] Sean O'Keefe But previous life, you were in charge of NASA for a good stint and then also Secretary of the Navy for a time under the first Bush presidency, if I get that right? Sean O'Keefe Okay. Sean O'Keefe We're talking about space and the Navy today. So wonderful experience there. Sean O'Keefe And then most importantly, you were also at Penn State for a period of time. Sean O'Keefe For a period. Sean O'Keefe Yeah, it was early on in my academic dabbling when I was not in public service.

[00:06:16] Sean O'Keefe And then I was at the Louisiana State University. Sean O'Keefe I was there for a period as well after concluding another public service after NASA, as a matter of fact. Sean O'Keefe Nice. Sean O'Keefe Well, as a proud nitty line myself, I always have to bring up the Penn State connection there. Sean O'Keefe Oh, yes. Sean O'Keefe My daughter is too. Sean O'Keefe She'd be so thrilled to hear that Penn State got into the equation. Sean O'Keefe Nice.

[00:06:46] Sean O'Keefe All right. Well, to the news of the day. If you look at the news in the past couple of months, two really interesting things have happened. Sean O'Keefe And from a historical perspective, they both should be massive national stories, but they don't seem to be having the gravity, the weight that they should historically. Sean O'Keefe And those two events are one, the war with Iran, which is in the headlines, but doesn't seem to be impacting a lot of day-to-day life yet. And two, the success of Artemis II.

[00:07:15] We actually sent people back to space, circled the moon. They came back safely. Obviously, this was a massive story. And the world kind of just blew right past it. Sean O'Keefe But both of those are critical events for any nation state to undertake. You know, successfully navigating the moon and also starting a war. Sean O'Keefe So to start off at a high level, I was wondering, what do these two events say about America's national power?

[00:07:44] Because in one event, we have this wonderful technological achievement. And on the other hand, we have this war that doesn't seem to be going anywhere useful. And it's curious to reflect on what the juxtaposition actually means for the state of the nation. Yeah, it's a fascinating way to cast two very important events, no doubt.

[00:08:09] But let me try to take that in context because I would disagree a bit that this has gone unnoted in terms of Artemis. I think there's been a fair amount of enthusiasm for the activity, maybe not as much as we'd like. But in many ways, that has really been covered in ways I found fascinating by a lot of different reporters from many different perspectives

[00:08:38] who have found it to be an uplifting event at a time when this was in need of such an activity. To demonstrate that, yes, we can still do big things. We can still achieve audacious goals in many ways.

[00:09:01] And, you know, the crew of the Artemis II did a masterful job, I think, of really personalizing the experience during the course of the mission itself, as well as all the briefings they've offered thereafter. And you almost got to the point where you felt like you knew each of them for their depth of sharing themselves

[00:09:29] and their own aspirations and their own sense of wonder that they experienced on the mission, as well as the significance and import of what it means, why it was different than anything we've ever done before. And what the challenges are now of continuing to achieve something like that. And I think it has gotten a fair amount of reflection.

[00:09:57] Now, I fully agree that it needs more by virtue of the fact that this is something that isn't going to go away. We're going to say we're going to see another mission here next year in 27 that is going to be a landing. And as a result, this is going to be an interesting and just in terms it's not going to be it'll be an autonomous landing, not human rated.

[00:10:25] That'll occur in 2028 when you see a crew actually return to the moon as well. But this mission was a precursor to set up that next mission, which will be autonomous, and test out a couple of different landing systems to see which one is going to be the most efficacious for future activities and all that stuff.

[00:10:51] And it really is going to be an exciting adventure in that sense. But, you know, an awful lot of folks certainly are sitting back at this stage and saying, well, you know, we've been there, haven't we? You know, isn't this something we've already done? And what's the big deal and all that? The answer is yes, that's absolutely true. We have been there 50 years ago. We were there. And we really were not aware of what it was we were seeing at that time, I would submit.

[00:11:20] With all deference to Neil Armstrong and an extraordinary group of a dozen, you know, astronauts who have been on the moon over that time, they were in a one location, one aspect of the moon itself, did not realize and were not, you know, given the opportunity to realize the scope of what was on the opposite side of the moon

[00:11:47] or the fact that there was water ice that's on the southern tier of the moon itself, which we never had any idea that was involved at the time they went. That was subsequently discovered just in the last 15, 20 years and determined to be, wait a minute, if you've got, you know, ice on the moon, water collecting, that means you've got oxygen, you've got hydrogen, you've got all these different things

[00:12:16] that we thought there was none of there at the time that the astronauts went 50 years ago. Yes, we determined that, you know, a microgravity condition is wonderful for hitting golf balls a long way and all that kind of stuff, you know. But there's only so much of that and flag planting that really is going to draw the attention. That said, we've now figured out what the advantage of some of that is to an entirely different frame.

[00:12:44] And part of what I think has been articulated by NASA and its new leader, Jared Isaacman, is that there is the potential that if you establish an infrastructure there, a capacity to actually conduct operations of things, launching from that surface is substantially easier than it is from right here on Earth

[00:13:13] because there's one-sixth of the gravity there. That's what makes the damn golf ball fly as far as it did. And that same consequence means that you've really, you're able to launch activity for substantially less weight, less thrust, all that other stuff, which means you don't have to carry these massive capabilities

[00:13:39] that we need to just to get off this rock that we live on. That one is a whole lot easier to get anywhere else you might ever imagine going, with anything for any purpose, at a fraction of the capacity that it takes. And today, unlike 50 years ago, we have an infrastructure capacity to build things using 3D printing, all kinds of stuff.

[00:14:07] We're manufacturing components and items of things on the International Space Station right now that used to require constant flights to go replace components and parts and stuff. No, you can make them aboard the International Space Station now because of the wonders of that technology that has yielded the capacity of taking raw material

[00:14:33] and actually producing an article that you need as opposed to massive forgings and everything else that it takes and factories in order to actually produce volume. Don't need volume. What you need is something to fix the part now. And that's exactly what's going to be the same motivation and capacity that could be employed to establish an infrastructure on the lunar surface

[00:15:02] that then makes any other objective you think about going to substantially easier, much faster, much simpler. And you're on your way in record time to do that relative to what it's taken us to do this over the course of the last five decades. So an awful lot has been achieved. Yeah. And an awful lot has been discovered. And now we're about to, you know, utilize that. Haven't even gotten to the Iranian issue yet.

[00:15:34] The Artemis is a big one all by itself. At the Water's Edge is supported by Grayzone Advisory. Grayzone helps businesses and organizations understand geopolitical risk before it becomes a crisis. If your company is exposed to conflict, supply chain risk, defense markets, or international instability, Grayzone provides executive briefings, strategic analysis, and decision support to help leaders understand what is changing and what to do next. Learn more at grayzoneadvisory.com.

[00:16:03] Yeah, well, it's so fascinating just to hear you walk through that because what you just laid out was a very compelling narrative about all the progress that we've made. But, I mean, my best friend from high school is one of the engineers for the Orion capsule, so I've been following this story for years now. And what you just laid out, I haven't seen put out in the press. Like, that should be a segment on 60 Minutes, that this should be a major talking point for the Trump administration, source of national pride. All these technological advancements with implications

[00:16:31] for military power and this, that, and the other thing. Everything that we saw with the original space program. Sure. And it's just, the silence around it is deafening. Other than the feel-good story of, yep, we went back to the moon and, you know, those four astronauts were, like, some of the coolest people you could ever meet. And the one guy's got the part of the moon named after his wife, who was to see it. Like, that part was amazing. But everything you just laid out seems like it's absent from the national conversation. Yep. Well, it'll get there.

[00:16:59] I mean, it's something, I think it's going to be an objective, certainly, that Isaacman has articulated his intent to do this and to really, you know, be much more open about this and communicate this more broadly. I mean, this has been part of a strategy that was articulated and laid out as a vision, if you will,

[00:17:25] God, 20 years ago, that just said, here's the, you know, the string of activities that could emerge from something like this. And it's going to take doing some very specific missions to test out your capacity to do so. Artemis is just one big example that demonstrates the capacity to do some of the things that were envisioned. So he's following the script. I mean, there's no doubt about it.

[00:17:54] He's got a well laid out, you know, position on this that was established as the vision for space exploration, actually, in January of 2004. Boy, it's starting to lay out just exactly. And we've seen it over the course of the last decade or so come together, but never articulated with, here's exactly what the purpose of each of these things are.

[00:18:23] I mean, so much of what we're seeing in commercial space and all this has come about because of an articulation of that objective. It was articulated as a way to say, look, the reason NASA was put together was for development of things, development of new technologies, development of new capabilities, and then go employ those to explore and discover and yield to the human desire

[00:18:53] to want to know what's on the other side of that ridge. It's something we all are born with. It's a desire to varying degrees. It's expressed from just the curiosity of a little kid trying to understand what something is and wants to get next to it, all the way to Evel Knievel, you know, throwing himself across canyons, you know, and all that stuff.

[00:19:21] All of those are human desires to want to explore and do something different and understand which we don't understand better. And as a result, it is an opportunity to really yield to that. And that was the whole idea of what was, you know, articulated here is what's the reason why we're doing this? It isn't to do repetitive flights.

[00:19:48] Carrying groceries and returning, you know, crews and all that stuff. Let's get the commercial industry to do that stuff. They all think they can do it. They're all beating their chest and talking about how good they are. Great. You guys, you know how to do repetition. You know how to do repeated functions. And that's what SpaceX and Blue Origin and all these other companies have come to really look at is what is going to be the market,

[00:20:18] the business model, the, you know, the potential of really turning this into an enterprise that is the same kind of motivation that got us into the civil aviation business a hundred years ago. So it's, it's, we're just seeing this repeated, this opportunity of how to do this. And the government's role, the public sector's role,

[00:20:43] and NASA's role very specifically is to help pave the way for that, develop the capability to go do that. And once that's developed and demonstrated, you move on to the next problem and turn over that knowledge to the enterprise, the commercial, you know, opportunities to do this on a repetitive basis. And that's what's happening right now. It's fascinating. Yeah.

[00:21:10] What do you think the overall impact of the commercialization of space, the privatization of the capability to go to space has been? Because it does seem like the success of those companies has become the story or become the narrative around what space travel, space exploration is in the United States. And the role of NASA has almost drifted to the background of the public consciousness. Do you think this is, do you think that the privatization has advanced our understanding or capability of doing operations in space?

[00:21:40] Or has it distracted from the core mission of pushing the envelope? I think neither. What it really has accomplished is the very objectives of what an agency like this back in the 1950s was founded to go do. I mean, you know, a very instructive read on a very short document that's less than seven or eight pages

[00:22:10] is the original 1958 Space Act. What was articulated in that simple statement that was enacted by Congress was to conceive of an organization, pull together components of an organization to actually be the development incubator, if you will, that will spur the development of technology

[00:22:39] and then its application for the purpose of making it broadly available to the public. And that very concept is what has launched this. No pun intended. It has really put together a means to propel that forward because it isn't about that story. It's about what you do with it. And there's no question, you know, some of the commercial space folk

[00:23:07] are excellent marketeers. You know, they're great salesmen. And I know I banged the drum on a lot of this stuff, but it's very much the same as what we saw in the age where aviation was beginning. And you had a number of civil aviation advocates who were out there who pressed the same kind. This is, you know, the focus that so many have taken in the course of each of these developments

[00:23:36] where you can identify their skills at really articulating what their market is to, you know, bringing people to this experience. And it's part of the reason why, you know, commercial aviation travel across this globe is ubiquitous today. It's part, it has been driven down in terms of its cost and its repetitive capability to the stage where it's accessible

[00:24:06] to nearly everyone on this globe with, you know, not an astronomical cost attached to it, you know. So as a result, all that is the same thing that the commercial space folks were trying to begin as well. And what have we seen yielded so far? A vast improvement in the communication capability, that's for sure. I mean, you know, Web 1, you know, or 1Web, I guess,

[00:24:33] is the program out there, as well as Starlink and everything else that's been produced on this have vastly improved the communications capacity across the globe. It is, you know, and it's basically utilizing all these techniques that were developed, you know, in the course of the space program to launch capabilities and make, you know,

[00:25:01] the principle of Moore's Law, which follows as with all the performance capability increase, you also see a concurrent reduction in its cost. If you're able to, and you see that on any product, any new technology that starts off as a ghastly expensive something or other that then turns out to be something as cheap as, you know, the watches we buy

[00:25:31] and all the things are pieces and parts of what we see in everyday life. And that's a phenomenon that gets repeated with great regularity as just a basic principle of technology development. So, it's been harnessed in this particular case to yield the kinds of things we see today, which were 20 years ago deemed to be way too expensive to do because you've got to launch

[00:26:00] every single satellite on a rocket and do all that. No. Today, you can launch multiples through a CubeSat system with a dozen different satellites on board one rocket that now is a fraction of the cost of what it used to be because you're building them in repetition and in turn launching those into low-Earth orbit to improve the communications and everything

[00:26:30] and everything else that goes along with that. So, the imagery, the communications industry, all those different functions have just unbelievably improved in the course of the last 15, 20 years. So, I think I have an exception to Moore's Law and it ties directly to what we're seeing going on in Iran. I do believe that if you look at defense procurement and the cost of our weapon systems, you will find a bureaucracy in the defense industrial base that has successfully

[00:27:00] resisted the precepts of Moore's Law and we're seeing the complications from that play out in real time in the Straits of Hormuz. So, if we pivot to Iran real quick, we'll just start with that nugget. You know, the cost of the weapon systems that we are using to shoot down cheap drones that can be produced at scale seems like we are inevitably losing a war of attrition and one of the most remarkable things about that is that we had seen everything we needed to see in the international system

[00:27:29] to predict this in 2014 when Russia invaded Ukraine. Well, for the umpteenth time. Starting back then, like we had over a decade of lead time to adapt to a new global environment. People talked about it and now it's 2026 and a third-rate power is making the U.S. Navy look silly, which is quite disheartening to watch in real time. Well, there's a lot there, Scott.

[00:28:00] I don't know a way to talk about these things without packaging them all together. So, yeah, where in that shit sandwich do you want to start chewing? That's the best way I can describe it. I'd rather quit that hors d'oeuvres and move on. But it is a wrong point. I mean, I think you've raised a very valid proposition. And it's so, while we do see vast improvements in lots of different things, again,

[00:28:30] the key that drives again, Moore's Law, all the other technology developments that go along with this, is by making the development product, the actual first prototype that you make and all the ones that follow in that initial development phase, available very broadly on a public basis. That's part of what we do

[00:28:58] as a technology policy that has then in turn risen all boats out there in terms of assuming the technology insertion into a wide range of different things. the production of weaponry, what I found in my time in the Pentagon previously and all the time that I had spent there

[00:29:28] as CFO of the Defense Department and later as Secretary of the Navy was that this is a very different kind of condition where you're trying to satisfy two important features. The first one is what you produce that has that kind of lethality you don't want to make broadly available. That's the opposite of what the objective is on any commercial scale.

[00:29:58] And part of the making things available is when more folks get a chance to look at it they see different ways to achieve that outcome. And every one of them are driven by their own motivation to drive down its expense, its complexity, all those different things. The opposite is true when you're dealing with a mindset of producing assets and capabilities that by definition you don't

[00:30:28] want to be broadly available or broadly accessible. and that creates a mindset that closes out creativity, innovation, all the other things that ultimately are what drive the other phenomenon in any kind of a commercial setting. And again, so it's part of the cost of what you have to do and accept as producing

[00:30:57] capabilities that are designed around a national security objective that by its nature is exclusive, as in you're going to exclude others from it. So we've erected all these export controls and all these other trade barriers on different things to make sure that there isn't capability that is used broadly into a wide range of other capacities,

[00:31:27] which then in turn creates the kind of challenges. Now, you could pass judgment on that one over the last 50 years for that one is we've had a mixed result on this. So this obsession was trying to cover that first point, which is how do I take these lethal capabilities and keep them from becoming more evident or more apparent or more accessible

[00:31:57] to those who would prefer not to have this. The report card on that is certainly no better than a C, if not a D. There's a lot of fun things to pull apart there. Oh, God, yeah. But it's really trying to keep this in a case where you're going to exclude everybody. It takes a battery of bureaucratic frame and everything else to do this as

[00:32:26] opposed to what goes into the other way of looking at this, which is no, the fastest way to really make something not as desirable on a market space is to develop what that next generation is going to be and render that last generation to be not only outdated but maybe even useless. And there's ways to do that and that's part of what

[00:32:55] industrial competitiveness and all that stuff have yielded. That's not accessible within the market space, if you will, the very limited market space that is dominated by arsenal companies that are building the same kind of material, which is excluding everyone else to make it available. And in the process of doing so, it pretty much traps this into very small

[00:33:25] incremental improvements, which inevitably is going to become more costly, more difficult to do, and in turn, potentially obsolete unless you keep way ahead of the game. So it's one of the two major problems that goes with this. The second is one that afflicts this industry, I guess, is, and that again is an artificiality. The first

[00:33:55] one is a lot of policy that's overlaid on top of any creative method of trying to achieve something has as its objective lethality. Something's going to hurt somebody else, some weapon capability. You don't want to make it broadly available. That's what the first one's all about. Second realm is really trying to think about what are the mechanisms out there

[00:34:24] to thwart this capability on any different front. and in that respect the Ukrainians have done an absolutely stunning job of using not much to figure out how to decimate the capability of others to bring lots of chaos to the table. And they've

[00:34:54] really put together an amazing capability to utilize not much in order to do a hell of a lot better than what yesterday's notion was of what national defense capabilities would be that the Russians are employed. It's staggering to see the tolerance of a country like Russia that has now lost a million

[00:35:24] people in this war. And it almost doesn't even show up on the scale. Yeah. It's an incredible tolerance to, and it's part of a cultural phenomenon we can trace back in history with the Russians that is something that has got to be understood. They have a very high tolerance for laws. And Ukrainians know that. And that's the capability that they're really trying

[00:35:53] to employ is how to then reduce the capacity with something that doesn't require that kind of focus. So that the strategy they're employing is by necessity in part because of the cost of all of it, but also by the fact that they're outnumbered and they're motivated to think very differently. And we see example after example of that being demonstrated in this conflict that is truly amazing. We can

[00:36:23] learn a lot from that. Yeah, all that's very well said. And I guess the question that then follows is why haven't we yet? Because we've had advisors embedded in Ukraine since the beginning of the war. Depending on what conspiracy theory you like, we were actually there before the war started. We've seen all of this and the military as an institution and we're watching it operate in real time right now and we can see how little that they've learned over

[00:36:53] the past 12 years in the military these folks are putting their lives on the line. The front line troops have every motivation in the world to adapt and respond, but they're supported by this entire institutional bureaucracy that just seems hyper resistant to accepting new information and new inputs from the wars that we see fought around the world right now. You bet. No, it's the intersection of both of these issues that makes

[00:37:22] any bureaucratic establishment very resistant to accepting these changes. And you're absolutely right. I mean, what we've seen in terms of the demonstration of what we're aware of, what we know, are capabilities that our U.S. military is well versed in and see how it's operating with the Ukrainians is not something they rapidly can insert into a lot of different

[00:37:52] things in defense establishment. And that's part of the argument and debate going on within the Pentagon today is, you know, an administration that wants to look at this entirely a different way. And there's an awful lot of value to that. There's no doubt about it. But the way they're going about it is to trying to make all

[00:38:21] the changes monolithic. Everybody's got to do it the same way. Well, that defeats the point. That's exactly counter to what this is all about. And, you know, in many ways, what the Ukrainians have come to is by necessity, by condition, they have found that this kind of accessibility to their own forces to make decisions right there

[00:38:51] on the ground, all those different things, are all by necessity. If we did that, you know, you'd have this chain of accountability problem that would go on and on and on that we'd analyze for quite a while. For reasons that are not unreasonable, but at the same time, it does slow down the pace of what we're doing. I think to call what we're engaged in today

[00:39:22] to be, you know, not as effective as we'd like to, I'm not sure I'd go that far. I think that what we've seen in terms of the capability in this conflict of choice that I think, I'm still struggling to figure out what was the objective, what was the success. You know, how do we define success with this? Well, that changes every day, so we can go look on Truth Social right now and see what the latest draft is, but yeah. It's just mind-numbing,

[00:39:52] you know, in terms of how that goes. And I'm mystified by what its purpose is, but in terms of its execution, there's no question there are demonstrations of this capability reality that are really quite remarkable in that sense. There are also limitations to it that we're discovering, and that's the part we've got to factor into anything else we're doing. This very notion of

[00:40:21] just declaring that something is, quote, obliterated doesn't necessarily mean that is true. How you verify that, how you determine its actual condition, effectiveness of the mission that you just did execute, can easily be determined just from what we know in public awareness, as a pretty serious degradation of capabilities.

[00:40:51] But did it completely eliminate the capacity of the Iranians to at some point resurrect a nuclear capability? The answer is no. It's still there. So, you know, if you establish the objectives and the strategy, that's the larger question that comes out of this rather than, in my mind, the effectiveness of the weaponry in some cases.

[00:41:21] That's, you know, we're going to keep refining that to the point where we're trying to get the next increment of capability out of something that already costs a King Kong fortune, you know, to actually deploy. And that's the wrong direction to go. Instead, the strategy ought to be refought to say, let's first and foremost start off with an understanding of exactly what we're really after here.

[00:41:51] And then employ this capability. So, this gets to a really interesting question of, you know, where does national power and national identity come from? What are sources of national power? And we can look at, Artemis is a great example. You know, you mentioned a document in 2004 and now it's 2026 and we're following this multi-generational game plan to develop new technology and test it and then move to the commercial sector and we can't even predict the positive effects from that.

[00:42:25] And on the other hand, we have this war of choice with Iran that we seem to have hopped into quite flippantly. But if we take the longer-term Iran example, as different administrations have come in and out of the White House, our approach to Iran in the past 16 some odd years has varied drastically. And you look at that versus a country like Russia who can absorb to lose a million people. They have tons of political continuity there. Also, corruption and a whole bunch of other stuff, but they have political

[00:42:55] continuity. I guess, what are the key elements of American national power that we should be looking at maintaining, expanding, and are there parts of the American political process that make us more vulnerable than we've previously realized? when it comes to trying to have long-term coherent strategies?

[00:43:26] Well, I say this advisedly because it certainly has a tone of a political edge to it, but it isn't intended to be. so I'm going to try to say this a little more carefully, which is that if your intent is to establish power by coercing others to

[00:43:56] participate and be part of a coalition to achieve some goal, that's unlikely to get you to where you need to go. I think the Soviets discovered that over time, that the Warsaw Pact didn't have their heart in it. Their attitude was, yeah, I hear you, but I'm not on board. And ultimately, it cratered.

[00:44:27] we're dabbling with this approach of looking at, you know, demanding that there be coalition cohesion, if you will, get with us in a kind of approach just based on the argument that we can compel that. Well, that's not how this is going to work. Everybody has got to see every ally, every partner, every, you know, this is

[00:44:56] the same thing that's demonstrated every day in any number of different coalition relationships, that everybody's got to see themselves and what it is is the result here. What are we collectively achieving by being together that we can't do on our own? And maybe part of what we're seeing play out right now is now an awareness that we don't have the capacity to do this alone.

[00:45:26] And therefore, this isn't just a nicety of trying to do this with allies and friends. It's a necessity if you want to really see some coherent long-term thing. The challenge is we have now offended every friend we have. We've basically told every ally out there they're not worth being associated with and yet at the same time demanding that they

[00:45:56] slavishly follow because that's what we want. And we're surprised. When the answer comes back, I don't think so. you've invited us to think a different way. That's what we're doing. And that includes you. We've lost standing. I mean, it is, you know, the integrity of the nation is what's kept us in a very, very dominant

[00:46:26] position, in my view, for the past, certainly, 75 years, since the end of World War II. And it really has established, again, something that has been uneven at times, you know, very difficult to path. There are lots of exceptions. There are plenty of cases in which we went off and found ourselves in positions where we couldn't get out of. And as a result, you know, it kept

[00:46:55] rediscovering the same thing we're dabbling with today, which is trying to do it alone, just isn't going to cut it. And just because we try to compel others to be part of that doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to see the same incentive of following. So, the larger objective over time, what has really given us a leg up is just the capacity

[00:47:26] in almost every other circumstance need to be trusted to follow through on what we say we're going to do, to be viewed as this is really the objective thereafter. And that, you know, let's find a way to align with that is what the alliance partners have looked at and try to determine what they see of themselves in signing up to that. And some chose not to it for reasons that made sense to them,

[00:47:57] but ultimately have brought about some remarkable changes in the last decade. You know, what you see, you know, Sweden and Finland. I mean, the very proposition they would have ever become or agreed to become or want to become part of a NATO alliance was something that was considered inconceivable a decade plus ago. Today, they see themselves in the purpose

[00:48:27] of what needs to be achieved in order to accomplish these goals. They're worthy of making a decision to be part of something that, in fact, is going to take them some effort to work through being engaged in this along with others, and they can no longer, you know, put up the hand of neutrality on a lot of this. But at the same time, the benefits that accrue from it is what they've determined

[00:48:57] is to their advantage, as well as what they bring to the table being to others. That's the way this works effectively. We've just basically walked away from a lot of that. How much do you think our relationship with our allies have changed in recent years solely because of the rhetoric and the approach with tariffs of the Trump administration, and how much do you think is part of a response to a changing world order?

[00:49:27] Because we're past the unipolar moment, China and Russia are ascendant, you know, America, we're still the most powerful country in the world, but are we more powerful than the rest of the world combined like we used to be? Open question. It seems like some change in our relationships and in the alliance structure is inevitable. So how would you divide out what the Trump administration and their rhetoric is pushing versus what are natural evolutions in the system that we should be expected or that we should be

[00:49:56] prepared to live with long term? Sure. No, I think you're posing a very, very important challenge that both of which we're encountering at exactly the same time. is the determination of what our position is within the alliances and the rhetorical force that's going along with that that really

[00:50:26] has proved to be offensive to a lot of allies and also just the changing condition of what's there. And in this respect, I think the changing order of things has really had a profound impact on an awful lot of what allied and coalition partnerships have looked to over time, in part

[00:50:55] because they see what is a common challenge. I mean, there's a question. One element, I don't like the means by which the administration has forced this question of what the allied responsibility is and contribution is to the defense of Europe. The way they've gone about it is just very ham-handed, no doubt about it. But the ultimate core of what they've

[00:51:24] motivated in this is a conclusion on the part of the allies of the European partners is that by and large we're not certain any longer that we can trust the United States to be a very active partner in how we would proceed with this. So we've got to be prepared to do this alone as a potential condition and do this

[00:51:54] ourselves and take up more of the responsibility of being there. That's not an undesirable outcome. That said, it's got to be an outcome that would be designed for the purpose of what is then the redefinition of the U.S. role in this. And that's the part we've kind of skipped on. There's an assumption that, okay, the nuclear umbrella is what we bring to the equation every time.

[00:52:23] And the answer is, no, last I checked, there is capability out there that they're seeing among themselves to achieve just that themselves. And if that's all that you think you bring to the equation, then we need to talk. And that's what we fail to do, is really have that engagement of discussion of what does become the nature of the U.S. engagement here.

[00:52:54] And that has become, that's been typically viewed as the primary anchor of what's involved, is the nuclear capability there. And there's no question, it's got a very strong historic grounding to that, and the logic to it is one that is intended to avoid proliferation of that capability, no doubt about it. But,

[00:53:23] you know, at this stage in the game, we're seeing lots of nation-states that have gone it alone and have found their way into that condition. And as a result, this is no longer the singular guarantee of what the United States could bring to the table. It is more of the, you know, what we've had really over the last 50 plus years is just the convening authority, the capacity

[00:53:52] to bring everybody together to see what a common purpose is and how common objectives could be attained. That's when we've been at our best. And it's less about what it is we guarantee and more about what we can do to motivate that kind of cohesion. And that's the part we've given up. That's the part we've walked away from in this environment, which operationally, you know, the good news is I don't

[00:54:22] think that's entirely gone. There's still a sense of that because you've got an awful lot of continuity with career, you know, military leadership and so forth. But boy, it's dwindling and it's diminishing quickly because of the way that we're going about implementing that now, which says, you know, Ukraine, that's your problem, folks. You get to go deal with it. That's everybody's problem.

[00:54:51] And this could happen to any nation state. And this goes back to, you know, I think the very framework of what motivates the kind of coalition value that has been built for a few hundred years, okay, that demonstrates this very, I mean, this is Westphalian and its nature. It says, wait a minute,

[00:55:21] national sovereignty matters a lot. Yeah. And that was established hundreds of years ago and we have maintained that as being a anchor that really does deal with this, which says, to the extent that anybody decides that doesn't apply to them, that's cause for all of us to be concerned, is it could just as easily be you next to it. when we look at the future of American security as we enter this, you know, multi-pool world great power competition,

[00:55:51] all that fun stuff, is the biggest threat we face an erosion of our internal capacity to either, you know, project power or make good decisions or have an industrial base that's effective, supply chain risk, or is there a larger risk from external factors like the erosion of the rules based international order, collapse of alliances, no longer respecting sovereignty? You know, if you're looking at a bunch of graduate students at the

[00:56:21] Maxwell school that they're going to go out and try to, you know, make their world a better place, God bless them, do they need to be focused on what's going on at home or what they see in the front yard? Well, I think it is more of a ladder in budget, you know, the collapse of the order itself, and I shouldn't say collapse, the evolution of that order, the changing nature of that world order is something we need to

[00:56:50] concentrate on much, much more. And it is different than what it was established initially post-World War II or wherever, you know, as a long standing kind of position of where that line up occurs. occurs. It isn't going to anchor itself nearly as clearly around each of those alliances as it once did. And each of them, you know, again, they've got to look at this from that standpoint,

[00:57:20] and that's exactly opposite of what we're doing now. And the focus of where we are is looking at that strategy and saying, no, it's all about, you know, again, this thesis of America first and narrative, how that defines it as an isolationist move is something that I think has got lots of disadvantages to it, in addition to what is perceived or articulated

[00:57:50] as being an advantage. I'm still trying to figure out what the advantage is. The disadvantages are becoming more and more evident by the day. So, that's where I think we need to put the attention. Yeah. Does that mean you exclude, you know, the point that you raised of all the other features of our capability to actually participate in this through the supply chain variances and all the challenges that go with that? Absolutely none. We're going to be focused on that

[00:58:19] as well. But that becomes more of a managerial function, in my mind, to be concentrated in a very specific way, to manage that objective as opposed to leading on this particular strategy of looking at how the world order is changing. And it is. And it's not something we can just articulate or alter by

[00:58:49] simply demanding that it do so. That seems to be the approach that's being test driven now with no results. Okay. I wouldn't say there's no results, just not very useful ones. Not useful. That's a far better way to describe that. There's definitely results. I stand corrected. You're absolutely right. But it just isn't yielding the concept ones that was intended, apparently.

[00:59:19] But at the same time, I think that's an area that we are going to have to really struggle to reconstruct in some way in the aftermath of all this. Yeah, we're coming up on time, but before we go, if you had the opportunity to give some advice to the Trump administration, and ideally they would actually follow it, what would you tell them for how to solve this quagmire or extract ourselves from

[00:59:48] this quagmire we seem to have found ourselves in and focus on for the rest of his term? Boy, I do not flatter myself that there is anything I could possibly say that this administration would find to be persuasive. given the source of where it's coming from, I have no standing whatsoever with this administration and have been at

[01:00:18] peace with that. Please, Sean, tell us how you really feel. That's just the bottom line. I'm just happy to be here. But nonetheless, I think the summation of an awful lot of what we've talked about here is how do you define success? What is it you're trying to accomplish here? And start with that proposition and have everything else that follows than in pursuit of

[01:00:48] that particular statement of what it is you see as the success of any of these objectives. What is the outcome you're looking for? and start with that and stay with it throughout. And what we're seeing instead in every one of these, now I think they're calling them excursions. I mean, you know, there's lots of different rhetoric that's going on here to gussy this up from

[01:01:18] saying what it is, which is an all-out miserable war. There's just no doubt about it. And it's one that isn't just necessarily the issue of what's its purpose. It's what's the intent of the outcome. Where are we trying to get to? And that can't be articulated in 15 points and all that stuff that just keeps getting trotted out. And that changes with great regularity.

[01:01:48] That's just the current situation. In every other condition, that has been pursued, it's been the same challenge. It is all transactional. It is less about what is the larger objective we're trying to achieve with this particular goal. And in the course of doing so and maintaining this incrementalism, this transactional kind of focus to things, it leaves everybody

[01:02:17] else to their own interpretation of what we're really after. that's dangerous. How do you beat back all those different errant interpretations? You don't. I mean, there's just no way. Once you've unleashed it, one of the ultimate elements of strategy we've realized in the last century is consistency on this point is always going to prevail

[01:02:47] as the primary basis upon which you're trying to accomplish something. You may not achieve it, but it certainly is one where there's no ambiguity about what the objective is. You can't answer for anything in this situation. It changes just right, you know, from everything from no nukes to we need this for a ballroom.

[01:03:17] Every reason in the world. Maybe one day we'll wake up and find that it's changed something that we can actually accomplish and wrap this up. But, you know, here's to hoping. Well, that's right. And I mean, I guess one way to look at that is brings us back to the very first topic we got into. That's the wonder of what we've achieved with our demonstrated by its success. That we are, as Americans, still capable of big things.

[01:03:46] And when you do it together, given the fact that, you know, the Canadians and others were involved as well, these are our friends. These are the folks and this allied approach to this, this coalition approach to this has got great value to it when everybody sees themselves in the outcome. Well said. where it is. Well, Sean, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate

[01:04:16] your insights. Good luck in, I don't know, which retirement for this is, you retired from public sector and then private sector and now academia? Well, I don't know. You know, I mean, every day it's a new opportunity to go pursue different things and I'm staying plenty busy, that's for sure. so it's, I'm still trying to figure out what this retired thing is supposed to mean. I don't have any idea, but it is, it's a different environment

[01:04:46] than the one I've been in, but it still is one that's terribly rewarding because of the opportunity to continue to be with students and do all kinds of interesting things in that arena and not have to worry about putting together a syllabus. Somebody else's problem. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Done my time on that. I appreciate it, Scott. Thanks for

[01:05:16] having me on. This has always been a pleasure when we did this once before and I was looking forward to this opportunity and not have been disappointed. So when calendars align. That's it. Thank you, Scott. Thank you.