Naval War College

Um, w- everything changed on 9/11.

Uh, I ended up actually going to the Naval War College, um, and I have a master's degree in national security and strategic studies, and it was a combination of my experience on 9/11, my education at the National War Col- at the Naval War College, and then, um, moving over to work at, and I was one of the first employees of the Department of Homeland Security, and I worked in government affairs, um, for Secretary Ridge and for Secretary Chertoff and, um, worked in leg affairs, again, still covering aviation issues.

After I graduated from the Naval War College, uh, the White House reached out to me.

I had no idea they really knew who I was, but they had reached out to me and asked if I would be interested in coming to work at the Homeland Security Council, which today is part of the National Security Council.

Under the Bush administration, it was separately stood up, and it was a parallel to, um, NSC, uh, and it was the Homeland Security Council.

And you're telling me between Driscoll and everything he was doing with drones, Donahue, all these people, George, you're telling me that no one told you, hey, man, this is not as cut and dry.

This is what's going to happen, right? I know for a fact the Naval War College has been working this.

Same with Air University and same with the Army War College because we do it every year.

And so the SM-3 and the SM-6 are capable.

And, you know, if the commander in chief, if he or she makes a decision that isn't that well informed, it doesn't really matter.

I met with a group of Navy strategists who were from the Naval War College.

and you know when we get to the naval war college that's one thing and then there's like a further selection as the top two percent i think who become navy strategists and i said to them look this is not something you may not want to hear but like you can be the greatest strategist in history it's almost irrelevant you know the commander-in-chief is the commander-in-chief and it's it's a either a feature or a bug of our system You know, I've been thinking about this, Jack, a little bit, which is in a parliamentary democracy, it would have been very hard for President George W. Bush to order the surge into Iraq.

Even the leaders of his own party were against it.

Senator Lugar, the head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was against it.

And they say, and I'm surprised by this, that the lessons of these wars are not really being absorbed by the next generation, which I find very surprising.

I hope it's not really the case.

And that at West Point of the Naval War College and everywhere else that, Because we're statistically much more likely to fight an Afghan war or an Iraq war than we are to fight World War III.

So as we're recording this, it's September 10th, uh, the day before the 25th anniversary of September 11th, and your comments on Lutnick require me to tell you a little story.

Um, two years before September 11th, I think it was about two years, um, I co-hosted a scenario exercise on terrorist threats on Wall Street, and the scenario exercise was done in conjunction with the US Naval War College and, and some other folks, senior US government officials.

Um, and it was done on top of the World Trade Center, in, uh, at the World Trade Center.

Ooh.

The commissioner, to his credit, went up to Columbia and created the Fire Officers Management Institute.

And then we started sending selected chief officers and company officers, to some extent, with great potential to the Naval War College and to the Army War College.

And they would get specific assignments, reports to write up and bring something back to the department.

So we increased the level of training for the chief officers drastically.

Then you can really put together, uh, a group of problem-solvers, a group of people who are dedicated.

I was at the US Naval War College working on a project for the, uh, Chief of Naval Operations, and they took together a group of just below fr- flag rank officers who were gonna be promoted, and they gave them an assignment to say what was the Navy going to need 25 years from today.

Mm.

And they had a year.