Adm. McRaven on on the Ukraine War and U.S.-China Tensions

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Now, with president Joe Biden jumping into the fray, today, questions about his age and leadership, as we discussed, at home and around the world takes center stage. From Brussels to Beijing, decisionmakers are gaming out the implications of a second Biden term or a Republican return to power. In four decades as a Navy SEAL, Admiral William McRaven learned a whole lot about leadership. He’s distilled that experience into a new book called “The Wisdom of the Bullfrog: Leadership Made Simple but Not Easy.” McRaven speaks with Walter Isaacson about global hotspots and about an often-neglected virtue, humility.

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WALTER ISAACSON, HOST: Thank you, Christiane. And Admiral Bill McRaven, welcome to the show.

ADMIRAL WILLIAM MCRAVEN, AUTHOR, “THE WISDOM OF THE BULLFROG” AND RETIRED U.S. NAVY FOUR-STAR ADMIRAL: Thanks, Walter. Good to be with you.

ISAACSON: You’ve got this great new leadership book out called “The Wisdom of The Bullfrog.” You were once the bullfrog. Tell me about that and what you learned.

MCRAVEN: Yes, I was. So, the title, “Bullfrog” is given to the longest serving Navy SEAL on active duty. So, remember, first and foremost, as Navy SEALs, we are navy frogmen. So, when you’re the longest serving navy frogman, they give you the title of the bullfrog. And really, the book is about just the leadership lessons that I learned in my 37 years, the military and some of the lessons from my time as chancellor at U.T.

ISAACSON: Let me quote from the book, I often hear it’s hard to know the right thing to do. And then, you say, no, it’s not.

MCRAVEN: No, it’s not.

ISAACSON: You know what the right thing to do. It’s just hard to do it. Explain what you mean by that in the book.

MCRAVEN: Yes. You know, many times in my career people always have the seemingly moral dilemmas, you know, should I do this or should I do that? And yet, they always seem to know the answer. The answer is pretty simple, do what is honest, do what is noble, do what is dignified, do what is respectful, do what you know to be right by your employees, by the rank and file, you know what right looks like, you just need to do it. And invariably, when people fail to do it, when they failed to do what’s right, when they failed to do what is in, you know, the best interest of the organization and the people that work for them, invariably, they have some sort of follow, they built an organization that’s a house of cards that tumbles at the wrong time. So, do what’s right. You know what it looks like, you know what right is, you just need to do it.

ISAACSON: You oversaw the raid that got Osama bin Laden. Tell me what leadership lessons you learned from that one.

MCRAVEN: You know, fortunately, by the time the raid came along, and of course, I had been in the navy about 34 years at that point in time, and I had seen a lot. I’d been involved in about 10,000 missions. Missions that I had either commanded, that I’ve been on or that I had kind of overseen from afar. And so, I knew what to do in terms of the leadership. And the leadership, in this case, was to make sure that, you know, we did the mission in a simple fashion, because if you make it too complex, then, in fact, the risk factor goes up. So, you want to mitigate as much of the risk as possible. You have to inspire the men that are on your team. They were all men in in this particular case. That wasn’t hard to do, because they were going after the most wanted man in the world. But you always have to do things that are going to, you know, again, take care of the reputation, the sense of duty and honor and country that is important for any military organization. So, I wanted to make sure that they understood, look, when we got on target, we don’t needlessly kill anybody. You only — you know, you follow the rules of engagement, you follow the law of armed conflict, you protect yourself and you protect your organization and your unit, but we want to walk away from this operation with bin Laden either captured or killed and with the dignity of the United States still intact. We’re going to do things right.

ISAACSON: One of the maxims in your book involves an attribute that you don’t often hear bold leaders talking about, and I think we really have a deficit of it in our politics today, and that’s humility. And it’s a nice little chapter about building the frog float, but I do think that some of the poison in our politics today comes from the fact that we don’t have enough humility to question ourselves or say, well, we were wrong.

MCRAVEN: Yes.

ISAACSON: Explain what you would do about that.

MCRAVEN: Well, you know, the one thing I’ve learned, you know, over my years of leading, Walter, is, you know, it pays to be humble because you are rarely, you know, the smartest, the strongest, the fastest, you know, the best SEAL in the boat. There’s always somebody out there that’s better than you are. And frankly, what we learned, particularly in combat, is the nature of recognizing that, you know, the enemy — again, the enemy always has a vote, the enemy can be better. If you under play the enemy, you’re likely to get yourself into trouble. And what we tend to do is, before the rangers or the SEALs of the green berets go out on a mission, everybody kind of gets together. And even if you’re the leader in charge, you’re prepared to listen to the comments about the nature of the plan. Well, is this plan good? What do you think, boss? How should we arrange this? But the real critique comes after the mission. So, if a mission has not gone well, you know, and I think the army rangers probably do it better than anybody, they get these young troops back in the room and, you know, metaphorically, they take off their collar devices. So, ranked isn’t an issue. And then, everybody gets to go at each other, you know. Because their lives are on the line. If they fail to listen, if they failed to improve the next time, somebody could die. So, I’ve learned humility many, many times in my career because I’ve been wrong many, many times. I hope the ledger shows that I was right more than I was wrong. But it is the nature of leadership is you’re going to be wrong. So, learn from your mistakes, listen better next time, you know, and try not to make the same mistake again.

ISAACSON: The war in Ukraine right now seems to have really hit a stalemate in some ways. I mean, it’s back and forth, a lot of people dying for very few feet of territory. Do you think that the time may have come for a ceasefire where Putin hasn’t been able to gain what he needs to gain and Ukraine should find some way with the United States to get a ceasefire before we have a spring offensive?

MCRAVEN: Yes, I don’t think so. I actually like the strategy that President Zelenskyy is putting into place now. You know, they are holding the town of Bakhmut. And as you know, you know, from a military strategy standpoint, there’s been a lot of debate even amongst Zelenskyy’s generals about the merits of Bakhmut, and probably from a, you know, military strategic standpoint, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to hold this small town that’s — you know, it was about 70,000 people before folks have evacuated. It is a little bit of a crossroads of some rail lines and important roads. But at the end of the day, I think, Zelenskyy’s general said, hey, boss, we need to do a withdrawal from Bakhmut because we’re losing too many people. But I think Zelenskyy really had the better thought on this, which was, we’re going to stand our ground in Bakhmut and we’re going to stand our ground for a number of reasons, because if the Russians succeed in taking Bakhmut, then it improves their morale, it will negatively affect the Ukrainian morale. It may, in fact, affect the European support and the U.S. support to Ukraine if they feel like the Ukrainians aren’t making progress. So, I like the fact that Zelenskyy has — is holding — doing the best you can to hold Bakhmut. I don’t think we’re ready for a ceasefire just yet. You know, it needs to get to the point to, you know, kind of allow the Ukrainians to start their spring offensive to push the Russians as far as they can. And if anybody is going to ask for a ceasefire, it ought to come from Putin first, because then that’s an admittance that they’re failing. And if they’re failing, then they’ve really lost. And I do think the Ukrainians can win this fight. They win it by ensuring that the Russians aren’t successful in building this land bridge from Donbas down to Crimea. And I do think that Ukrainians can hold territory and push the Russians out just a little bit to ensure they don’t build that land bridge.

ISAACSON: We’ve seen these leaks from the 21-year-old national guardsmen, Jack Teixeira. You’ve been chancellor of the University of Texas, you know, 21-year-olds really well. You’ve been a leader of the SEALs. Tell me what was your thought when you saw this leak?

MCRAVEN: Yes, yes. The one thing I would offer is we’ve got to be careful about overreacting to this. Obviously, the leak is horrible. There was a lot of sensitive information. But the fact of the matter is we have a lot of great 21-year-olds in the military that are doing exactly the right thing. We need to rely on these young men and women because we need them in order to, you know, manage the cryptology that we’re doing, to manage all of the classified material that they get handed. We need them to do the hard work. So, the fact that we’ve got one 21-year-old who kind of got off the reservation, decided that — you know, he thought impressing his friends was more important than protecting U.S. secrets, he needs to be held accountable. But we really need to figure out a way to be able to maintain the kind of chain of custody, Walter. I mean, this is the thing that is — has been challenging in the past. So, the chain of custody for a classified piece of material. You know, when I started in the military, it was all hard copy. It was paper. So, you physically had to sign. When somebody handed you a secret document, you signed a routing slip and that meant that now you were in control of that piece of paper. Well, today, because the electronic nature of the information, it can pass very, very quickly. But if we have a good chain of custody that says, OK, this person read it, this person transferred it, this person copied it, then you’d have, you know, less likely of a chance that a young 21-year-old than can do something incredibly irresponsible and put the nation at risk.

ISAACSON: One of the things that there’s a consensus on in Washington is to be hawkish about China. And both parties seem to want of the out hawk each other. Are we going too far and being provocative in China, and should we be trying to find more common ground with them?

MCRAVEN: Absolutely. Yes. So, my position on China probably diverges from a lot of those hawkish folks out there. Because, look, I believe we need to hold China accountable. We need to hold them accountable for the Uyghurs, we need to hold them accountable for Hong Kong for violating the WTO, for using the Belt and Road Initiative to kind of leverage small countries. But at the same time, we need to find common ground with China. And we need to find common ground on trade, we need to find it on climate, on space, something, so that when things do get tense, we have kind of avenues of conversation. I was talking to a senior official in the White House not too long ago who said they have more conversations with Russia than they do with China. Well, that’s not good. The fact of that matter is the world needs China. We need Chinese human capital. We need the Chinese economy. We need what China can offer the world. Once again, you know, we need to hold them accountable. But I think we can, in fact, maintain a two-track engagement with China. One hold them accountable. Be strong on defense, so we have a good deterrent capability in the Pacific. But at the same time, build a path for some level of engagement. Because if we don’t have that engagement, we are pushing China further and further into the arms of Russia. And if you have a strong Chinese and Russian alliance, that’s not good for anybody in the world.

ISAACSON: Well, let’s talk about that Chinese Russian alliance. I mean, one thing Bismarck told us is that you really can’t push your two adversaries closer to each other than you are with them. What can we do now, since Russia seems to be the great threat in Ukraine, to try to stop this growing alliance between Russia and China?

MCRAVEN: Well, for one thing, back to the previous comments, we’ve got to find a way to engage with China, and we need to have some sort of olive branch that we extend to China in order to, again, begin to separate them a little bit from Russia. They —

ISAACSON: Wait. Let me ask you about that. Give me an olive branch that you would offer if you were in charge?

MCRAVEN: OK. So, right now, climate. I mean, the Chinese understand that climate change is an issue. Let’s at least start with something simple that is — that I think both countries can agree on. Let’s try to fix the climate problem. OK. We won’t probably get very far on that, but at least we can have a conversation. Let’s talk about the South China Sea. The concerns about the Chinese’s kind of aggressive activities in the South China Sea. What’s happening now is things are beginning to escalate. Of course, we are, you know, partnering closer with our allies in the Philippines, which is good, but we’re going to establish bases in the Philippines. So, now, everybody is beginning to ratchet up the level of engagement in the South China Sea. Well, let’s find a way to kind of lower the heat there. Let’s figure out how we can work together on trade. I think there’s a number of opportunities out there where China would be willing to engage. You know, the fact that matter is, Xi has been, you know, trying a couple of times of this charm offensive. You know, he’s kind of brokered the — a little bit of the peace agreement there between Iran and Saudi Arabia. He is, of course, trying to broker a peace agreement in Ukraine. You know, these are opportunities where maybe we can partner with the Chinese to look at some ways to, again, lower the tensions globally.

ISAACSON: Are you worried about a move on Taiwan and what can we do to prevent that?

MCRAVEN: Well, I am always worried about a move on Taiwan. I do not think that it’s imminent. And of course, what we’re doing is we are building up the Taiwanese military, we are partnering with our allies in Japan and South Korea and the Philippines to create — I think what we’re hoping to create is a deterrent effect by putting more military power, both U.S. military power and allied military power in the region. Now, once again, we’ve got to be careful about, you know, pushing too far. When you take a look at the 2023 budget and the 2024 proposed budget, it’s really all about China. You know, we’re buying more F-35s, more sub marines, more ships, more things that can counter and near pure competitor. And I think that’s all right. Don’t misunderstand me, but we’ve got to make sure that it doesn’t become a self-fulfilling prophecy that we end up, you know, building up the military and we’re looking for the enemy, and the enemy just happens to be China. I’m all about a deterrent capability. I think that’s very important, but we just need to understand that while we are building that deterrent capability, we need to be working on diplomacy as well. Because the last thing China wants to do and the last thing the United States wants to do is to go to war with each other.

ISAACSON: You wrote in 2020 that the world’s no longer looking up to America, and you endorsed Joe Biden for president at that point. How do you think he’s doing and do you think the world is looking up to America more now in the wake of the Ukraine war?

MCRAVEN: Well, let’s take it back even before the Ukraine war. I think the evacuation out of Afghanistan was, I think, as the chairman said, kind of a political disaster. Now, the fact of matter is once the 82nd Airborne got on the ground and got organized, it was a remarkable feat of military professionalism to evacuate 132,000 Afghans in two weeks. But any way you cut it, it did not look good in terms of American leadership internationally. Now, having said that, I will tell you that I think the administration has done a pretty good job in Ukraine. When the war first started, I thought they were a little slow on the uptake, but I think they’ve gotten their legs out — gotten their legs underneath them, and I think they’ve been doing a pretty, pretty good job. So, I think the world — as the world looks at the administration today, particularly in light of Ukraine, I think we have some — we’ve regained some credibility.

ISAACSON: Admiral Bill McRaven, thank you so much for joining us.

MCRAVEN: My pleasure, Walter. Thank you for having me.