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General Martin Dempsey and General Walter Sharp · Five Questions for a General

0:00
Speaker A: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Dr. Charlie Faint with the Modern War Institute at West Point. I'm the team lead for the five Questions for our General Podcast and on behalf of our director, Colonel Pat Sullivan, I am thrilled to share this new and exciting series with you. What makes five Questions for Our General unique within everything else we do at MWI is that this podcast series is completely cadet run under the supervision of MWI faculty. Cadets recruit the guests, they do the preparation, they conduct the interviews, they do the editing, they do it all. We have a very talented and motivated staff of specially selected and trained cadets serving as rotating hosts for this podcast and I think they do a really great job. Each episode in this series features a senior military leader answering a series of questions related to their background, experiences and perspective on leadership. The responses to these questions capitalize on the mentorship dynamic inherent in interactions between aspiring professionals and very senior military leaders. This results in a free flowing exchange that provides timely, relevant and inspirational insights for professional development. For our first episode we have a special double header featuring General Marty Dempsey and General Skip Sharp, who are both from West Point's Class of 1974. The Class of 74 is one of MWI's biggest supporters and in fact, the recording of this episode coincided with the unveiling of our class of 74 recording studio. I'm very pleased with how this first Cadet Run episode turned out and I think you will be too. Thank you for your time and enjoy the show. You're listening to five Questions for a General a production of the Modern War Institute at West point. I am Dr. Charles Feint, the team lead for this podcast series which features interviews of senior military leaders conducted by specially selected and trained West Point cadet hosts. These exchanges produce timely, relevant and inspirational insights for professional development of leaders at all levels.
1:46
Speaker B: Welcome to the class of 1974 recording studio and the inaugural episode of Five Questions for General. I'm Cadet Sebastian Witt, your host and it's my pleasure to be here today with General retired Martin Dempsey and General retired Walter Sharp for this important discussion about the past, present and future of our army. Gentlemen, welcome to the show.
2:02
Speaker C: Thank you.
2:02
Speaker B: Gentlemen, the first question I have for the two of you is what are the major world events and future threats you see as challenges for our Army? General Sharp, we'd like to start with you to talk specifically about the Indo Pacific. Then we'll shift to General Dempsey to talk about the rest of the world.
2:14
Speaker C: So there's huge challenges ahead of us. You know you hear a lot about Great Powers Competition. Our Real danger in the future is not great powers, but great alliance competition. Talk today about great powers. We are talking about China, Russia, Iran. Some people throw North Korea in their competitors potential. But when you really look at what's happening around the world, its alliances, some formal like China and North Korea, some not so formal, some for convenience, that are really happening around the world. Both on our side, those who are in favor of freedom, democracy, human rights, and those on the other side also, you know, if you just look at what's happening in Iran and Israel today and then if you get to the Pacific, I fully believe that any sort of future conflict there is not going to be nation on nation, it's going to be regional conflict. So what do we have in the Pacific that that's able to face that? We don't have a NATO in the Pacific. We have several bilateral treaty relationships, one with South Korea, Japan, the Philippines and also with Australia and New Zealand. But those are bilateral. I am very pleased and think it's very important that there is a lot more work that has started over the last several years of trilateral work between South Korea, the United States and Japan. Because again, if North Korea comes south, it will be a regional conflict. And so training, planning, organizing for that is hugely important. But I think it needs to go even further. China invades Taiwan, one way or another, I believe that North Korea is going to be involved trying to tie down troops in the Northeast Asia up there. So I think we have to be ready. So back to, you know, the challenges for the army. How does the army do that? To be able to be rapidly deployable, to be able to fight across different domains and fight against enemies that aren't just nation states, but they are alliances of nation states, terrorist organizations, other types of organizations as we go forward. So I think that from a strategic level is going to be one of the real challenges. And then to get down to maybe the operational, more operational level, I think that what we're seeing today in Gaza and in other places, in other words, urban combat, is going to be the wave of the future. You know, if you look across the world with our satellites and everything else that's going on, if you're out on the normal battlefield, everybody knows where you are. Completely different than it was when Marty and I graduated. Everybody knows where you are. That's not true in cities. In cities it's much easier to conceal and to hide, especially if you get in cities with tunnels, to be able to do that. And what makes it really challenging for people like us and alliances like Us that believe in freedom and human rights and all of that is the way we are going to defend or attack cities is different than the way our opponents are going to be. We do care about human life and civilians and all that where our opposition does not. So I think from a perspective of inter operational intelligence and how you fight in those types of environments where in one case it's you see everything and in other cases you really don't know where folks are and civilians are involved. Now Seoul today is a city of 23 million people, 23 million people in the city of Seoul and the greater metropolitan area of Seoul. And you can do it other places across, you know, Asia and all of that. So just to sum up from a Pacific perspective, I think it is how do you face regional conflict? How do you bring what's right now bilateral alliances and bilateral treaty agreements to be together to be able to fight? Not just fight, but to deter so that something doesn't happen in the future? How do you do that from an alliance perspective? Because that's what we're going to be facing in the future, I think.
6:20
Speaker B: Absolutely sir.
6:22
Speaker D: So I think General Sharpe summarized the challenge in the Pacific correctly. And you know, one could take that and extrapolate it straight over to Europe where we have a revanchist Russia trying to re establish a sphere of influence and using force to do it. And then you have, as General Sharpe also said, you know, you have kind of rogue nations. You know, I might call Iran among rogue nations. You, you mentioned North Korea and then you have non state actors, which is, you know, a large group of terrorist organizations who are still very active out in the space. And so, you know, maybe it would be useful to your listeners to hear how I would kind of describe this to the President. On occasion he would say, well you know, without facing all those threats, what do we do? And I said well first thing we have to do is agree on risk, which is really probability and consequence. So what's the risk of a war with Russia? Well, right now it's actually still pretty low. And what's the risk of a war with China? Well, actually right now it's pretty low. What's the consequences if we end up in a war with that? Really high. And you know, his eyes would open and you know, obviously nuclear states. And so when you go down the list of things we've just been talking about, from you know, near peer competitors to kind of middleweight nations to non state actors, and then the alliance factor that General Sharpe talked about, you apply this probability and consequence paradigm to it. And that's what you have to get ready for. That's what you as a second lieutenant, you have to get ready for the worst case scenario and then be agile enough, you and your classmates and all the young men and women who come in and serve to adapt off of that. Now one other thing I'd like to mention though, in terms of problems really that you know, you will be faced with and our current leaders are faced with is right here at home. And I'm not talking about, you know, domestic politics. That's, that's a, that'd probably be like 12 podcasts and we don't have time for that. But what we do have time to talk about is the all volunteer force and the defense industrial base. And I just want to lay that out there because if we get the all volunteer force wrong, then all the threats we just talk about become far more difficult. And if we get the defense industrial base wrong, that is to say if we be, if we neglect it, which honestly we have been neglecting it, then we don't have the resilience to recover from an initial shock and continue to wage war. So, you know, we can't forget what's happening on the home front while we think about all these things abroad.
8:51
Speaker A: Yeah.
8:51
Speaker C: And if I just add one more that the challenges that we're facing today and will in the future is the whole information domain and to be able to counter what is out there that our enemies are doing and what they're saying, much of it not true, versus how do we be able to do that? To be able to influence, hopefully deter, but to do that. You know, one of the things that I learned over my military career, the importance of not just the military part of it, but how do you pull together the diplomatic, the economic and especially the informational age? I'll just say we are, we're not doing well in the information. It is an ability that we as a nation and we as a military, I think really have got to spend a lot more time thinking about. It's not lies, it's not propaganda. No. But how do you get the truth out what you're really doing and be able to do that is very important today and I think will be one of the challenges if we get there, can help us deter conflict in the future and end conflict can really help us be successful. Because you see the difference that it's making today that what our enemies are doing in that domain that's causing reactions from countries that say because of what's being put Out a lot of it falls that we've got to stop doing certain things and all of that. And so that whole domain, I think is a domain that's going to be critical in the future.
10:14
Speaker D: Sure.
10:14
Speaker B: Thank you, John. Moving on to talking about your careers and particularly the start of your career. Gentlemen, you're both members of the class of 1974. And here I have copies of your entries.
10:24
Speaker D: Oh my God.
10:25
Speaker B: Points yearbook howitzer, General Sharp, John Dempsey here. So, General Sharp, I see you were in company D2. If we talked about earlier and a quote from your Howitzer entry says that any plan of importance must include him then Cadet Shark and General Dempsey, you're an F2 and you were apparently known for your keen wit and concealed diplomatic approach as well as being the first of the party and the last to leave. Gentlemen, my next question there is how has West Point in the army changed since the time you were cadets? Jungkook, we'll start with you first.
10:57
Speaker D: Let me talk post graduation. West Point's in great shape with you and your classmates. The infrastructure has obviously changed. We didn't have women classmates, you know, I don't think we had the same, not nearly the same number of international students that are part of the corps of cadets. There is so much good going on here that I don't want to, you know, eat up our airtime talking about it. I just encourage anyone who hasn't been here in a while to come here and experience it firsthand. But let me talk about post graduation. There was so much change. We entered the army in kind of the post Vietnam. Soul searching. That's how I would describe it. And we got through that. You know, one of the things we talked about earlier is the all volunteer force came into being in, in 1970. The draft ended in 73, the all volunteers force shortly thereafter. But we were really soul searching for what, you know, what's next. The 80s came along and we had this kind of renaissance of training and doctrine that was actually really exciting. It was. And then Cold War ended and we went through the 90s in a another soul searching moment. You know, who are we? What are what, what's our raison d'etre? And then along came the global war on terror in 2001. And we did that for almost 20 years. So. And we're changing again. As General Sharp just said I alluded to. We're in that kind of renaissance of training and doctrine to make sure that we are relevant and ready for peer competition, which is something we haven't had to worry about. Since probably the 80s. So that's the most significant change, it seems to me. And I'll leave you with this thought because I thought a lot of General Rick Shinseki, also a West Point graduate who was the chief of staff in the late 90s again in that post Cold War soul searching moment. He was trying to get us to embrace change. And he said this. If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even more. And you need to think about it that way because change comes at least every decade. And my guess is that in the future, maybe even more quickly than that. And what do you have to do about it? You have to embrace it. You got to own it, got to adapt and be agile and you got to continue to be upbeat about what you're doing. So the soldiers around you are upbeat as well.
13:05
Speaker C: Sure, it's all Marty said, a couple of my talking points. Exactly. But I'll add on a couple points you all that are graduating now and the folks that are getting ready to graduate out here are about to join an army that is truly an outstanding professional, best army anywhere in the world. There's, there's no doubt about that in my mind. It is a professional, professional military. You know, when we graduated, it was not a, an all volunteer force. We had issues, as Marty said, through the 70s and it started to get better in the 80s and all. You know, I tell stories that as a lieutenant staff duty officer at Fort Hood, Texas, I carried a weapon into the barracks every night and had my, my NCO there with me at all times. Drugs were rampant. People didn't want to be in the military because they were drafted in totally different. I mean, just think about this in today's army and it's not just the officers, not just those coming out of West Point, but every single person in the army volunteered to come in the army knowing that he's going to war. In this day and age, you know, those that in the army that have joined within the last 20 years, they know they're going to war and they do it for selfless service. They do it to protect the nation and they do it to be part of a team that is doing something very, very important. So that I think is a huge change. And I, I remain very, very high on the United States Army. You hear all this BS on TV and all that stuff. We've got the greatest army in the world and the people in it are the greatest people in it. And they are selfless servants to follow on with what Marty Said a little bit. And then the other big change and I touched upon this in the previous question is intelligence gathering. I mean Marty and I were both scouts when we were, when we were youngsters and if you wanted to know what was over the hill, you sent the scout out and the scout went over the hill. And that is the truth. And then we had no computers. So they call back on the radio and say we see this enemy at this location. Here's his left and right bounty. What was it? Salute. You know, that size action, all of that type of stuff. That would be some transmitted back, transcribed and passed to other people and transcribed back to Nile where today it's all digital. You don't have to send a person or even around to know what's over the next hill and all of that. So it gets back to what I was talking about earlier. But that whole information domain and the rapidness of being able to know and to make decisions and the need to be able to rapidly do that. We've got better weapons and all that. But from what I see from a military capability perspective, that is the biggest difference that we do it and how to be able to utilize that information, hopefully to deter. But if deterrence fails to be prepared to attack and win and the training that is going to, through to our military days is so, so much better than it when we first graduated. I can remember in my first duty assignment of Fort Hood, Texas, I was head of tank platoon leader and we literally got broomsticks and walked around the parade field and practiced different formations. Couldn't afford the ship, we had to have a battalion commander's permission to start a tank. It was that bad in the 70s and fast forward it was before NTC and all these other young training centers and all that. Marty was one of the kings of pulling all together and everything. The training is outstanding and I keep going back, I said it alive. But I really believe it's the greatest military in the world and it's because of the people and the training and everything that goes with it.
16:28
Speaker B: So General Jeffrey, one thing you talked about is being agile. General Sharp, I wanted to direct that next question to you. Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give a younger version of yourself starting your career over today?
16:40
Speaker C: Couple points. First off, I think it's critical. You're going to be leaders. Cadets coming out of here are going to be leaders. So know the mission of your unit, know the mission of and the purpose of your subordinate units and those units above you understand if it's still called this the mission essential task list, you know, what is the essential task? Become an expert at that. I think as a leader, that's absolutely critical. The second part of it is to be able to kind of form a team within whatever size unit you have is, is critically important. So, so how do you do that? I think the main ways that you do it is that you, you know your business, but you empower your subordinates and you trust your subordinates. And it's not just bs, it's you truly empower your subordinates to do what they do, give them the leeway to be able to actually do their mission out there, show them a value, allow them to have initiative that forms then I think an unbelievably strong team, people that will be trying their butt off to be able to do the right thing. You know, I've always believed that if, you know, one of my subordinates failed at some task or something, a lot of the time was because I really hadn't properly articulated, here's what we're trying to accomplish and you know, what those goals are. But it's not micromanaging. It is empowering and truly being able to do that. So that's, I think number one, I think number two is when Marty and I joined, you know, the saying was if you wanted, if the army wanted you of a wife, they would issue one. And that was more than just a saying. It was, it was. There was no family readiness. There was nothing back there. I mean, all the way up to really desert storms where family readiness really kind of started. But there's none of that. But families now are huge. Great majority is married, you know, with families and all. And those families are part of the military. I truly believe they are part of the military. You know, I got married three days after graduation. In my 37 year career, we moved 23 times. And that family moved with us and they were part of the team, part of the support and all that. So leaders have to not only understand that, but embrace it. And if you get that team part of it, building part of it together, it just makes your military team, I think, even a lot stronger as you go forward. And then I would say the credit. When good things happen within a unit, the credit's not yours. It's those who actually made the work happen. The last thing I'll say is the advice would be, have fun. If you are in the military and you're not having a blast, yeah, there'll be bad days, obviously. But if you're not generally having fun and thinking you're doing something important and challenging, get the hell out. There's other people that will come in to be able to do that. So have fun as you do that. One of my things that I could say as a military officer of 37 years is I only lost one day of leave in 37 years.
19:35
Speaker D: Wow.
19:37
Speaker C: And I did it. And this wasn't a pencil leave or any. It was truly, I lost one day a leave because I believe that was important not only for me, not only for my family, but if you don't take leave, you're not empowering subordinates. You're saying to your subordinates, I don't really trust you because I got to be here. Otherwise things are all going to get all screwed up. Oh, that's part of the fun. That's not all the fun part, but it's part of the fun part. So work hard, know your mission, know your details, empower subordinates, form the teams and have fun.
20:05
Speaker D: You know, we should have compared notes. I have to pick up new stuff. I love the one about, you know, master the fundamentals of your trade at whatever level you find yourself and keep learning. I mean, I, I know and I'm sure you do too, Skip. You know, there's, there are officers we've encountered who just stopped learning along the way to decide they, you know, they've got it all figured out. And you know, honestly, if you're not learning every day, you're, you're not get, you're not appreciating how complex this is. But like when you come into the military, whatever mos or branch you choose, master it. There's a great story that. It's actually not a story, it's a, it's true. And that is about Kobe Bryant and who I got to know was through USA Basketball and he used to go to the gym and with a personal trainer about an hour before practice. And in that hour he would do nothing. No basketball. He wouldn't touch with basketball. He would just practice his footwork. And one day there was a journalist there watching this and he said to him, what are you doing? Practice. Practicing footwork. At 5 o'clock in the morning, you know, you're the greatest player in the world. And Kobe said, well, how do you think I got to be the greatest player in the world? Fundamentals. And that's true in our profession. Absolutely true. Second bloomer your planet. I often encountered young men and women, especially as I became a little more senior, who always were wondering about the next job or thinking about the next job or Maneuvering for the next job without focusing on the job where they are. So I used to use the phrase, yeah, I'd go to, I'll use Annapolis because I'd like to throw Navy under the Bus podcast. And I'd ask the cadets if they had or the midshipman if they had any question. And one would say, how do you get to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? And I said, well, I can tell you you're not going to be the chief because you should not be worried about that as a midship. So. But it's really the idea of blooming where you're planted. Number three, relentless. The best leaders I've ever run into are relentless. They don't run into a wall and then go back to General Sharp and say, hey, I found a wall here. What are you going to do about it? They owned it. They owned the problem. They may not be able to fix it themselves, but they'll come back to you and say, I've got a problem. Here's what I recommend. So you got to be, you got to be relentless. If you're a leader, you have to be relentless in trying to solve problems. Leaders are problem solvers when you really come right down to it. And then the last one I'll say is, I used to. And I'll bet you did too. Skip I when I was doing my performance reviews of if I was a general, it was colonels and lieutenant colonels. If I was a captain, it was lieutenants or lieutenant colonel, it was captains and majors. But you do performance reviews a couple of layers down and you have to decide to actually make a decision about who is doing better than the others. And the ones that you didn't give the, the highest rating to would always question why. And one common thing I always found was they might have had the best statistics in like, let's say it was a colonel in Iraq and I'm the two star commander and you know, I've got seven brigade commanders and I've got to evaluate them. One of the things I always look for is, is that colonel building leaders below him who want to be like him or her for that matter. Because they could have the best maintenance stats, the best, you know, training statistics, they could have the best disciplinary statistics. But if they're not building or inspiring the next generation and maybe the one after that, they're not doing what we really need them to do, because that's a big part of the job of leadership as well. So the way I used to describe that is you're not memorable. Nobody's going to remember you. And which is a harsh thing to say looking back at it actually, but you need to be memorable. People need to remember you as a leader for all of the things that you meant to them on and off duty, for their family and for them as soldiers. So I'd say bloom your planet, master the fundamentals, be relentless and be memorable.
24:07
Speaker B: Gentlemen, I have a couple pages to add to my PL300 notes. I'm going to take back the class with me. General Sharpe, sir, You mentioned this a few times. You're both graduates of the class of 1974 and it's also the 50th anniversary of the start of all Volunteer force. A few things you mentioned a few times, but I'll hit the nail more, more straight on the head. But how has the all volunteer force versus a force of draftees and professionals like the army had in the past changed the army?
24:33
Speaker D: We were enthusiastic about it. You become enthusiastic about the all volunteer force when you had the alternative. I mean, look, with the, by the way, conscript soldiers were, you know, they were good. I mean they were, you know, they performed their duties and they, you know, I don't ever want to disparage, die for our country. Yeah, a lot of them died for our country, but at any given time, I don't know, let's say statistically 30% of them didn't want to be there. Well, when you have a force that volunteers, first of all, you can shape it, you can make sure that it will better reflect the society it serves. Secondly, they are more committed, period, meaning as a group. So you have a unit. Every one of them has volunteered, you know, you know that they want to be where they are. Not all, not all the time, not every day, but in general. And then I think the third thing is we keep them longer as a rule and so that continuity actually serves us well. The reason I mentioned problems to be solved by your generation is you, you're going to have to work hard to sustain the all volunteer force and. But it's a fight worth fighting.
25:37
Speaker C: I think the other thing that I would add, and it's still true today is what has changed drastically is the support of the United States, the support of the people of the United States. My father was a career army guy and I can vividly remember going when he came out of Vietnam, he flew back into Louisville, Kentucky. We were, my mom and sisters and I stayed at Fort Knox, flew back into Louisville, Covenant, you know, just on a regular airplane, got off the Airplane People were literally yelling at him and throwing stuff at him as we took him through the airport to get them home. Fast forward to Desert Storm when Marty and I came back to parades and all of that. But I think, I think the professionalism, the voluntary force helped with that to be able to say, okay, these are our men fighting for us and doing things. And you know, that has held true in, you know, all types of conflicts. And I think it's still true today. You know, we got issues and all that, but it is unraveling. And Marty hidden at this in the all volunteer force, fewer and fewer. And I don't, I knew the statistics at one time, but the number of folks joining the military today coming from military or military related families is well over 50% and it's coming from just certain regions within our country. So how do you maintain a force that not only is all volunteer but has connections back to the military, back to their communities? And all I think is going to be important into the future. Some of the things that do help with that, I think are the National Guard and the Reserve force. You know, we have National Guard forces all over the United States that volunteer again, that part of the National Guard in communities and all of that and that helps with it. But when you look at the combination of those that, you know, have some desire to get in the military, which is fairly small, have the physical and mental capability to get into the military, which is incredibly small, it's becoming more and more difficult to maintain an all voluntary force. And then you think about the potential conflicts in the future and what we need for a size of the military and the cost of the military, all those come together. So one of the challenges I think you all face and it's, you know, it's now, but it's as you move forward and is also is how do you maintain a force that is all voluntary, that is professional and that's connected back to our nation? I mean, even if we had all the volunteers we needed, but it was only from 25% of the country, that would not be a good thing. And we're seeing some of that. I think now, you know, there's fewer, fewer people that are in Congress that have any military background at all. So that connection back to the United States in support of the United States States, it's a challenge that we're doing okay now, but this is going to be really, really challenging in the future, I think.
28:30
Speaker B: Absolutely, sir. Well, gentlemen, thank you so much for your time with us today and for The Class of 1974's extremely generous donations to the Modern War Institute, which helps make podcasts like this one possible. On behalf of Colonel Pat Sullivan, the director of MWI, and Dr. Charlie Feint, the director of this podcast series, I'd like to present you with this rare and coveted MWI coin. Sir.
28:52
Speaker D: Thank you.
28:53
Speaker C: Great. Thank you.
28:55
Speaker B: And these engraved ammo cans.
28:58
Speaker C: Oh, all right. All right. I'm glad I drove up now.
29:04
Speaker B: Also, gentlemen, on behalf of the cadets involved in the Five Questions for a General Podcast, we'd like to present you with modern versions of the patches from your cadet companies.
29:13
Speaker C: Outstanding. Well, thank you. Great job. Thank you. Great, great job.
29:19
Speaker A: This has been an episode of Five Questions for a General, a production of the Modern War Institute of West Point. If you like what you heard today, please download, like, subscribe and share this podcast to help us reach an even larger audience. All statements in this podcast represent the personal views of the speakers and do not represent an official position of the United States Military Academy or the United States government.