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Admiral Harry Harris · Five Questions for a General

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:03
  Speaker B: You're listening to five questions for a general, a production of the modern Morris 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.
• 0:24
  Speaker C: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the five questions for a general podcast. I'm cadet Nathan Unks, your host, and it is my pleasure to be here today with retired adams admiral Harry Harris, the former commander of u. S. Pacific command and former u. S. Ambassador to south Korea. Admiral, welcome to the show.
• 0:38
  Speaker A: Man, it's great to be here, even though it is west point.
• 0:42
  Speaker C: Well, sir, I guess that goes straight back into our first question then. So you are the first admiral, actually, we've ever had on the five questions for a general podcast. Or maybe now for this episode, five questions for an admiral. Can you please take a few minutes to describe your origin story, specifically what attracted you to the navy and why you decided to attend the naval academy rather than obviously, the better academy here at west point?
• 1:03
  Speaker A: Yeah. So let me begin by thanking west point for inviting this navy guy today. It shows either real courage or a shortage of army speakers to get to your origin question. Yes, I grew up in the south. I was born in Japan, grew up in Tennessee, and then went to move to Florida with my parents when I was going to junior high school. When I was in high school, I elected navy junior rotc, one of jrotc programs across the country. And from all the services, the high school I went to had the navy. And so that opened up all the doors for me about opportunities post high school. My parents didn't have any money, and so. And my dad told me that if I wanted to go to college, I'd have to earn it myself or join the military and try to get a, you know, GI bill kind of. But I found out during ROTC that there was this thing called the naval academy as well as the other service academies and rotc and that the navy would pay my way through college. And then not only that, if you went to the service academy, they'd pay you. So that. That was pretty appealing to me.
• 2:16
  Speaker C: Perfect combination of the two.
• 2:17
  Speaker A: Yeah. So that's. That's how I ended up joining or applying for the naval academy. I might have applied for other service academies as well, but I was accepted. I got a nomination, then an appointment, and, you know, the normal process, and it was a, you know, the best thing. Never looked back. Awesome.
• 2:37
  Speaker C: I was I was wondering if, if you were born in Japan, you said, and then you grew up in the south in Tennessee and Florida, did you have any military relation beforehand or.
• 2:47
  Speaker A: Yeah, my dad was a World War II in Korea War. Oh, awesome. And my mother's Japanese, so she survived the war in Japan. And then they met during the occupation of Japan when my dad was stationed at Yokosuka Naval Base and my mom was there trying to work. So they met then and they got married and I came along. And he retired from the Navy after 20 years as a Navy Chief Petty Officer E7. And then we went to his home state. He went back to his home state, which is Tennessee, and we lived there, just on the western edge of Appalachia for, you know, 10 years. I went through elementary school there, grew up there, and then we moved to Florida.
• 3:30
  Speaker C: That's a fantastic story. Thank you for sharing that. For our second question, during your tenure as commander of U.S. pacific Command, the strategic environment in the Indo Pacific underwent significant shifts. What do you see as the most pressing security challenges facing the region today? And how should the United States and its allies shift to meet them now?
• 3:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, so I think the biggest shift during that time that you talk about is the rise of China. And, and, and China, to me, remains the biggest impediment to the notion of truly global security. So in that time frame and into now, you have the biggest threats that we face globally are China, Russia, North Korea, and a growing and concerning alignment between those three countries and Iran. And so that's, that's sort of the environment that you all find yourselves in today. And I would say that across my 40 years in the Navy and my time afterward in Korea, this is the most dangerous time that I've seen in my experience. Do we truly live in dangerous times these days, in my opinion.
• 4:42
  Speaker C: And, sir, what about specifically China and the Indo Pacific do you find as a shift from, say, when you were working with the Indo Pacific Command?
• 4:52
  Speaker A: Well, I think the shift is not a dramatic shift over the time, but a dramatic shift. If you look at this time and 20 years ago, 30 years ago, you know, I think we got it wrong as a nation at the end of the 20th century, at the end of the Cold War, you know, 1990ish timeframe, when we thought that China would morph into something like a global force for good and Russia would no longer threaten its neighbors or the west, we got both of those wrong strategically at the end of the Cold War. And I think we're seeing the results of that strategic error. Now. And so you all at West Point, when you graduate, you're going to have to deal with that, just like the folks from the Naval Academy, Air Force Academy, rotc, enlisted women and men, you know, you're going to have to deal with these threats that we face that we have left for you, unfortunately. And I wish you the best. Thank you very much, sir.
• 5:46
  Speaker C: If you were to point something out, because I know, would it be, say, our shipbuilding capabilities, would it be our presence in the Indo Pacific, or what exactly should should America focus on in these next coming years to improve the situation in that area?
• 6:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, so there's a couple of different approaches to that question. One is at the national level, you know, you mentioned ship value. We have to improve our domestic industrial base to meet the challenges of the 21st century. And whether that's additive manufacturing, AI, you know, all of the things that are in the news these days. But we have to be able to rebuild, you know, the arsenal of democracy which won World War II. I think we have it in us to do that, but we have to be focused on that. We have to resource it correctly in order to build the industrial base necessary to meet the challenges of the 21st century. So that's on the industrial side. And we have to realize as a nation that allies and alliances matter, that diplomacy and diplomats matter. And I think we do. When I say that, I mean to underscore the necessity of alliances, allies, partners, friends and diplomacy, and diplomats. And we have something that no other adversary, especially those that I mentioned, have, and that's a network of alliances and partnerships. What does China have? They have North Korea. We have all of our allies in the Pacific. We have NATO. We have our network of partnerships like the Quad and the like all of those together set us apart. And I think those are the things we ought to be focusing on.
• 7:24
  Speaker C: Sure. And you mentioned diplomacy. And one of the, one of the events in your career was when you served as ambassador to South Korea, actually the country where I was born. But how did your service in the military prepare you to represent the United States in front of South Korea and those foreign nations?
• 7:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, so I had a number of jobs along the way that helped prepare me for that. But if you read Dana Priest's book that she wrote in the early 2000s about the American way of war, and she talks about the proconsuls and combatant commanders and that kind of stuff, my time as combatant commander in the Pacific prepared me, I think, well, for the role of being an ambassador, because I had to meet with Most of the leaders and most of the US Ambassadors in the region throughout my time as NFACOM commander from 2015 to 2018. Before that, I was a Pacific Fleet commander of the Navy component under pacom. And I met with those leaders then as well. So to be able to see that from the cat vert seat that is the end of PAYCOM headquarters in Hawaii prepared me well for that. One of my earlier jobs when I was a three star, I was the assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs ACJCs. And that's a job whose title doesn't reflect what the job is. And that job is the. Is the fellow that travels with the Secretary of State throughout the world as the direct interface between the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman. And in that job, I met with many of the leaders in the Pacific that I dealt with as a PAYCOM commander. So that that job prepared me well to be the Ambassador. And also just the byzantine machinations of the State Department. I got a good familiarity with all of that when I was in that job. So that helped.
• 9:16
  Speaker C: So joint relations with your other branches and the leaders within those branches, you think helped you a lot?
• 9:22
  Speaker A: Absolutely. That and that and the interagency, you know, the interagency is the intelligence community, the State department, Treasury, Commerce, FBI, all that stuff I was exposed to as the ACJCs, and all of those entities were represented in one form or another on the Endopacom staff. So, you know, those taken in toto, they prepare me well to be the ambassador, in my opinion.
• 9:48
  Speaker C: Yes, sir. And with that joint experience, I know you graduated from the Naval Academy and you're now here visiting West Point. And many times throughout history, the army team and the Navy team have rivaled and also cooperated on and off the gridiron. I think back to General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz in the Pacific campaign during World War II. What have you found most useful in building high performance teams in combined joint and interagency organizations where these rivalries may go deeper than just football games?
• 10:15
  Speaker A: Yeah, so we make a lot of rivalry, but it's really, it's a team of rivalry, if you will. You know, we love each other three and 64 days a year, and then here comes harmony. But it's much more than that. And, but I believe that the key to success in joint warfare, you know, which to say how America fights wars these days, is know your teammates. And you gotta understand your teammates, their institutional histories, their culture. If you do that, then you have a leg up on the challenges that you're certainly gonna face as a joint team.
• 10:49
  Speaker C: And so how, how did you work around learning those cultures and then learning those people and how they what, how they work, where they come from, things like that.
• 10:56
  Speaker A: Yeah. So in my experience, I it the hard way. You know, at one time in my career as a one star, I was sent down to Guantanamo to be the commander of the joint task force there. I had no idea about working with the army. And that's a very army centric organization at the time. There were 1500 guards there. Most of those were Army. The headquarters staff was provided by National Guard. So very army centric organization. So that was my deeper and deep exposure to joint warfare. I did not have the benefit of going to the war college. You know, the Navy gave me an opportunity to go other places and I took those opportunities. But one of the deficiencies in my career has been the lack of professional military education. Jpm, whether it's Naval War College, Army War College, Air War College, or National Defense University, I didn't do any of those. And all of those would have helped. Any of those would have helped. Before I went to Guantanamo to understand the challenges that, that were presented to the joint task force in Guantanamo, there was just every three letter, four letter, two letter entity you can think of was represented there. And so to understand the institutional history and the institutional, historical rivalries between those entities, some of those entities, that would have been very helpful. So I went into Guantanamo with a lack of expertise at the user level and joint command. But I left there, I think, with a deep appreciation of joint warfare. And that helped me immensely when I became the PENCOM commander, you know, a dozen years later.
• 12:37
  Speaker C: Going off of that for just your service within the military and within Indo Pacific and with the joint branches and all the other organizations that you worked with after that long career of service, what continues to drive your involvement in national and international affairs and what advice do you have for listeners seeking purpose through service in their own communities?
• 12:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, so what I do now, just to more fully answer your question, is, you know, I have three bodies. I call it three buckets of work, really that I do. One is, you know, I sit on boards, whether they're corporate boards or nonprofit pro bono boards. And that's one bucket. I give a lot of speeches. That's bucket number two. And then bucket number three is senior mentoring or mentoring, senior fellowing, whatever you want to call it. And that includes what I'm doing here today with you, what I'm going to do later today with cadets. It includes Work with the National Defense University's Capstone program, where we take 1 stars, brand new 1 stars across the Joint Force, and take them around the world to visit countries and that kind of thing. And so the reason I do those things, especially the bucket number three, is because of a sense of giving back. You know, everything I've gotten, I got through the Navy and all of that. So it's an opportunity to give back. It's also a way to stay engaged. And the stay engaged part encompasses all of the buckets. So there's that desire to give back. There's a desire to stay engaged in what's happening in the world, at least intellectually. And so that's why I did the things that.
• 14:11
  Speaker C: And sir, when you were a cadet, did you find any opportunities maybe that were extended to you by the Naval Academy or maybe that you found on your own, where you were able to get into those mentor type relationships and either mentor, say those back at home, or maybe like you said with the one star general program that you were talking about, where you're able to go and see other countries and.
• 14:30
  Speaker A: You mean when I was a midshipman?
• 14:32
  Speaker C: Yes, sir. A midshipman? Yes, sir.
• 14:34
  Speaker A: Actually, no. When I was a midshipman, it was all I could do to keep up with the program. You know, I did that poorly, so I didn't have time to do other things like. Like what you're doing, actually, and what many of the cadets here that I see are doing and what midshipman that I see at Annapolis are doing. And I'm envious of them. I wish I was smart enough to have had time in my calendar to do that. But between struggling with academics, you know, I was a varsity athlete and that kind of thing, I just did not have the bandwidth to do all the things that. That I wish in hindsight, I could have done.
• 15:14
  Speaker C: And, sir, you mentioned your academics. When we were reading through your biography, we heard the term a couple terms, actually. One was the old goat and one was the gray owl. We have a term here called the goat, and I think it's a little bit different. Our goat is the lowest ranking cadet in their graduating class and they get this thing called a goat fund where all the cadets above them put in a dollar into a pot and then the goat gets it at graduation. But I don't believe you were the go of your class, but you were the old goat and the gray owl. So if you take a second to kind of find what those were, we.
• 15:48
  Speaker A: Have the same thing that you're talking about. We call it the anchorman, anchormanship and owl. And it's, you know, each member of the graduating class puts a dollar into a fund and the anchor graduate gets that, gets that money. So it's a good start. I imagine there's some jockeying for position at that last, but it's kind of risky business.
• 16:09
  Speaker C: It is.
• 16:10
  Speaker A: You might try too hard and end up not graduating. I suppose in my case, I did get through the academy, though. I thought it was a big struggle at the time. But to the specifics of your question, yeah, the old goat is the longest serving Naval Academy graduate still on active duty. So that, that's just a testament to time, longevity and age. Right. So I became the old goat, think in 2017 or so. I'd been in the Navy at that point 39 years. It's based on day graduation and so, and class standing comes in a little bit if there are more than one graduate still on active duty. But I was the last amongst the last graduates on active duty at the Academy in 2017 or so. However, in 2018 when I retired, I passed the old goat on to my classmate who took over Southern Command, Kurt Tidd, and he became the old goat. Then he passed on to another class. The Gray owl is the same sort of thing, but it's, it's the longest serving naval flight officer. Naval flying officer is the backseater, not the pilot, but, but the other fellow earlier on the airplane. It's the longest serving naval flying officer based on winging date. And that's again, it's a testament to longevity, old age and being alive. So I was the gray owl in 2015, and I kept that until I were there, sir.
• 17:39
  Speaker C: And while you were a naval aviator, you logged over your career over 4400 flight hours. Then you served in numerous major operations from Desert Storm to Odyssey Dawn. Looking back, which experiences influence your philosophy on teamwork, risk and decision making under pressure the most?
• 17:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think it goes back to maybe one of the earlier questions that you asked. But, but the, the lesson is that teams matter and people matter. So you have to understand the people who are on your team and try to get to know them and what drives them so that as a functioning team, you can do better. So that's the fundamental lesson, is that teams matter, whether they're small teams or big teams. But teams matter, leadership matters. And that's what you're learning here at West Point and what I learned at the Academy, at the Mayor Academy, that leadership and leaders matter. And with regard to risks, yeah, everything we do shows up somewhere on the risk scale. So you have to understand the risks. But in order to understand the risks, you have to understand the rule sets, right. So if you're going to take a risk that involves bending or breaking a rule, you have to know those rules first so you know how far to take it. But everything we do, whether it's working in an office or working in a program or being on the front lines in combat, involves risk. And hopefully the things that you're learning here at West Point will help you to understand that so you can be an effective risk taker and effective risk manager once you out there with the forces.
• 19:13
  Speaker C: Yes sir. And as a naval aviator I know I was wondering with your also joint experience with working one with other branches and other nations as well, did you ever work as a naval aviator specifically with say other branches like the Air Force or maybe other countries? Maybe the, maybe the French Air Force or Navy or maybe.
• 19:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, you know, I'm, I'm a maritime for patrol aviator. So that's P3 Orions. Now it's P8 Poseidon aircraft. Land based, not carrier based. So we, we were working on deployment all the time with host nations. In my time the P3 was an ubiquitous airframe platform globally. And so the Japanese, Koreans, Australians, New Zealanders flew that. The French didn't fly the P3 but they, they flew the Atlantic. The Brits flew the Nimrod and, and all of that. So. And warfare was a global task during the Cold War. And so we work with host nation militaries all the time. During Desert Shield there's a storm, we're doing surveillance, working with all the countries that were doing a similar mission in support of ground forces in Kuwait and Iraq and that followed on in OEF Overland Afghanistan, using those sensors to look for ground targets and OIF interact. Now the Navy is flying the P8 Poseidon, which also has become an ubiquitous airframe for the long range surveillance and anti submarine warfare mission sets.
• 20:44
  Speaker C: And sir, you said those are not carrier based, so. Did you ever have to spend that much time on a carrier on a boat? I couldn't imagine personally.
• 20:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, no, I did one tour on an aircraft carrier but it was with the ship's company, it wasn't in a flying role.
• 20:59
  Speaker C: I think you got the best of both worlds.
• 21:01
  Speaker A: I think so. But yeah, I went to Naval care, so.
• 21:04
  Speaker C: Well, best of both worlds always has at least one disadvantage, doesn't it? You alluded to your academics and I wanted to ask you a question about your major and how you decided to Pick what you ended up with and what your process was for that.
• 21:16
  Speaker A: Yeah, so that's, that's not a great story, but it's a long story. You know, we select our majors then during the second semester of our plebe period, it may have been the end of the first semester at any rate, you know, they encourage. Urge you to select a technical major. And I selected marine engineering, which was really nuclear engineering. I don't know why I did that. I mean, you know, it's one of those things. But that did not go well for me. So in my youngster year, during year, I guess sophomore year, I decided that I wanted to be a math major, which was probably really the dumbest thing I've ever done. It might have been, would have been.
• 21:56
  Speaker C: Mine too as well.
• 21:57
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'm trying to go from something that's like a 5 math to like real math. Right. I mean theoretical Einstein stuff. So I failed in math and, and I'll just say for your listeners that it is possible to get a zero on a test because I got one on a test once, a zero out of 100. So recognizing that math was not my strong suit at the beginning of my second class year, my, my junior year had changed. I shifted into physics, which was like another dumb decision. And I quickly failed out of physics and was allowed, thanks to the vocabulary, they allowed me to shift once again, change my major again for the third time into general engineering. General Engineering is the engineering major that folks who fail out of the hard engineering, you know, the electrical engineering, systems engineering, mechanical engineering, real engineering, if you will. They fell into general engineering. So I said that's what I did. I passed, I passed all my courses. I had enough credits to graduate and I graduated on time. But it was a struggle throughout my youngster year, my, my sophomore year and my second class year.
• 23:14
  Speaker C: So I think that shows some, some real resilience a lot of us could learn from. Do you believe that that resilience of having to go through all those different majors or come back from that many, many failures of your own, did that help you, I guess either in your career or building your resilience in that way? Yeah, sure.
• 23:31
  Speaker A: I got exposed to that sort of resilience issues early on and that clearly helped me throughout.
• 23:38
  Speaker C: After failing at something, how can you change your mindset to end up succeeding in another way? That I believe that's a lesson that everyone should be able to take away from as we all fail.
• 23:48
  Speaker A: Yeah, if I failed, then I would, did not have the opportunity to be an officer. You Know, not have the opportunity to graduate from Annapolis, in your case, West Point. And so that was a powerful motivator, and that's what drove me. I didn't want to fail completely. You know, you can have intermediate failures and ultimately succeed. And that's what in my definition of ultimate success back in. Back in the 70s was to graduation academy, right? So I could fail here or fail there, as long as I kept my eyes on the. On the big prize, which was, you know, graduating with my class from the Naval Academy. You have the little failures, you just brush them off and keep the ultimate goal in mind. You know, I mentioned earlier I was a varsity athlete. I fenced for the Naval Academy, and I spent a lot of time trying to get better at it because I had never fenced before I went there. And so that enabled me to vent a lot of my frustrations from the academic side and defensive. Now, you could ask, well, why didn't I just quit fencing, focus on academics? I. I could have done that, I suppose, but I wanted to help my teammates out, and I wanted to fence at the intercollegiate level. And so, you know, I was, you know, we're all making choices, and I was making choices along the way. You know, how can I manage my academic side? And I'm asking enough credits to graduate in a real, you know, degree, and can I keep fencing and can I, you know, march off all the durants I had, and can I hone that craft to figure out what I want to do when I graduate? All those things which suck up all the time in the day, but it's no different now than then. Rather, it's no different then that I believe it is now. You know, it's one of the things that academies teach young men and women is time management. And I was really crappy at time management for the longest time, but all those experiences helped me when I graduated to learn how to manage my time and to keep my focus where my focus needed to be. I'll just close this question off with a comment that as much as I struggle academically at the Naval Academy, once I graduated, all the gauges were reset to zero. So everything started over again from the day I was commissioned as an ensign in the name all my academic struggles, all my academic records, all that stuff was. Was left behind. So I started over afresh, the same place in time as my other classmates. And that's a. That's a good thing to keep in mind if you find yourself struggling, in my opinion, if you find yourself struggling here at West Point.
• 26:30
  Speaker C: Yes, sir. And that all that leads to our final question, and that is knowing what you know now, what advice would you offer your younger self?
• 26:39
  Speaker A: Not to sign up for Marine Engineering as a first major and then math, physics as second and third majors. There's very few things I would do over again. That majors thing at the Naval Academy was one of those. But I believe that I picked the right branch aviation. I picked the right platform P3s. I kept my focus on operations, and it worked out well for me. And so we know our own crews better than we know anyone else's and we think that our path is the best path. I'm not naive to try to pass that on to anyone else, especially West Point cadets that are going to go into the Army. But I would say that to focus on the job that you're doing and to look ahead to the next job and maybe dream about the follow on job, but never look beyond that. You know, I've had classmates when, when they were at the academy, they were talking about becoming an abbot. You know, all I wanted to do is graduate, right? That was my goal. And when I was in aviation, folks were talking about, you know, they were going to command aircraft here or something 25 years down the road. I tried to focus on the job I was in, but we had to fill out this thing called a preference card. You know, tell your. Tell the personnel people where you want to go next. So I thought about that and then I dreamed about the following job. But that was just a fantasy for me. You know, the focus was the job I was going to do the best I could do at that, to make the outfit, the unit, the squadron, the division, whatever it is you're in the best. And then think about, you know, laying the groundwork for the next job, whether it's to be an instructor somewhere, whether it's to go be a White House fellow, which I was never, whether it's to go be an admiral's aide somewhere or to be on some staff. But you have to think about the next job. But you know, if you think beyond that and you're really fantasizing. So that was my approach, and again, my approach worked for me. So I think that's the best approach. But you know, you're going to have mentors and people who, excuse me, who influence you. Pay attention to them. Pay attention to your mentors and seniors who are going to take the time to take you under their wing and advise you.
• 28:48
  Speaker C: Yes, sir. Well, I appreciate this chance of mentorship and also for all of our viewers and the mentorship that you also subsequently provide them as well. But Admiral Harris, thank you for your time today and for an excellent discussion about strategic leadership, team building, and the security challenges of the Indo Pacific. On behalf of Colonel Pat Sullivan, the Director of the Modern war Institute, and Dr. Charlie Feint, the Director of this podcast series, it is my pleasure to present you with this rare and coveted MWI coin. Thank you, sir. And I do have to say, be Navy.
• 29:18
  Speaker A: Thank you very much.
• 29:22
  Speaker B: 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.