Sears: [00:00:00] This is Radio Stockdale. Welcome to Radio Stockdale. I'm your host, Michael Sears at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership. I'm in conversation with the sitting secretary of the North Carolina Department of Military and Veteran Affairs. While I can refer to him as Mr. Secretary, I can also refer to him as Lieutenant General Walter Gaskin, United States Marine Corps retired. General Gaskin has been the deputy chairman NATO Military Committee in Brussels, Belgium. Before that, he served as the commanding general of the 2nd Marine Division at Camp Lejeune, where he simultaneously served as the commanding general of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force. Forward Lieutenant General Gaskin led 2 MEF during its year-long deployment to Al Anbar province, Iraq, as the commanding general of Multinational Forces West. Previous assignments include the vice director of the Joint Staff and as the commanding general of Marine Corps Recruiting Command in Quantico. We can go on, but without further ado, Mr. Secretary General, welcome to Radio Stockdale.

Gaskin: [00:01:17] Well, thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Sears: [00:01:20] Let's jump into this. How important is it for a naval officer to know the history and the culture, the outlook of our allies, our adversaries, your sailors and marines, the whole culture of what you do out there?

Gaskin: [00:01:32] Well, first of all, it starts with how we train young officers. First, we teach them the culture of the service for which they are. We teach them about the leaders and heroes and sheroes that were a part of making that particular service and a part of our American defense important. There should be no less diligence in discovering who our friends and foes are all about their culture, what causes them to act the way they do. What caused - what do they think about who I am and how dedicated I am to my way of life? And so, once we dig into that and their structural organizations, their leadership, who are their heroes, then we will find out what our adversary, in most cases, what are our friends like and why do they support us? And what are they considered their interest in becoming a military officer?

Sears: [00:02:38] You know, you and I had spoken earlier, and you have a very interesting perspective on Afghanistan and why we may have had problems there in our day. It was winning the hearts and minds. Can you talk about that a little bit in terms of we know why we're fighting? Do our allies know why they're fighting?

Gaskin: [00:02:58] That's exactly right, because it goes back to my original point of understanding really what? What makes them tick? Why are they fighting each other? And I think when it comes to Afghanistan, one of the things that we have often overlooked is that as a country made up of numerous tribes that are fighting each other. So, this is in essence a civil war. And the military solution is to civil wars is counterinsurgency. Therefore, we have to understand is I am here to help you to win that divide or close that divide, that that separates you, whether that's ideological, religious or just plain terrorists. And that's what we I think we missed in there is that there's often a think that Afghanistan was being invaded rather than imploding. And that's due to the fact that we mis understood that we finally caught on to that in Iraq and was able to help them forge a government that kept both the Shiites and the Sunnis involved. We finally understood that in Libya, whereas the tribes that were in the, in the East and Benghazi versus those that were around Tripoli, we were able to resolve. But I never thought that we ever understood what was happening in Afghanistan, and we were sort of treating the wrong diagnosis.

Sears: [00:04:40] You know, that goes to your first point, I think, and that's about the obligation of a good leader, a good officer to really understand the culture, the cultural aspects of allies, adversaries, et cetera. Let's talk about something else that you and I talked about earlier, and that is the importance of being an expert, competence, but not just passing competence. It's being an expert in your, what I'll describe as a tactical job. Can you say a little bit about what you think an expert is as a naval officer?

Gaskin: [00:05:12] Well, an expert is knowing not only technical aspects of your job, but having the ability to reverse engineer it. You know what makes - why we often say that there is no wrong tactics that anybody can think of of a good idea. But if you haven't found out what? Good idea does to winning, then you have missed the ultimate reason of why you are an officer. Because if you give the mechanical aspects to each part of the unit, whether that be individual or whether that be a team, they can actually follow it. We like to say we give you mission type orders, but it is no good unless there is a commander's intent. What do I want at the end state of this to look like? And what do I consider victory? When you don't take that into consideration, the culture or how someone else thinks, then you are most apt to try to convert the solution into your own eyes, rather than what the solution would be in their eyes.

Sears: [00:06:28] Then you don't need to be the best shot in the platoon. You don't need to be the best electrician in your shipboard division. What do you need to be? What is, what is that expert?

Gaskin: [00:06:39] You need to know how to get the best out of the person that's doing it, and that's why we call it inspiration and motivation, because they have those skills that you know, needs to cause the engine to run. But if they are not performing at optimum, you're not going to get the end state that you're looking for. So, I don't have to know how to do everything, but I better know what right looks like.

Sears: [00:07:09] Where does the SNCO and the petty officer come into play relative to the dance? I call it between a JO and a senior non-commissioned officer?

Gaskin: [00:07:20] You know, whether this this happened just because of the evolution of units and cohesion, the idea that you put the person who is academically sound who have done the background study, who knows that with the what we call the practitioner who has the experience, who has done all of this, that you read about through their experience and you bring them together at a certain level of experience with the beginning of the academic understanding. And that team is invincible because together they can do the reverse engineering because what they experience will tell the person who has the academics that this doesn't work because it's been tried and tested, by me. However, I saw that this here works as we do this reverse engineering to build a better capability. That's what the SNCOs and the petty officer brings to the table. Not that they're any less smart, but that experience is always been the best teacher. And having bring together what happens when you when you have a proof of principle,

Sears: [00:08:39] But who's in charge of that relationship? Who's decision counts?

Gaskin: [00:08:44] It has to have who is held accountable for what a unit does or does not do. That's the officer. That's why I said that was ingenious in the structure because with responsibility. Comes accountability and that when you are responsible, someone has to lead the team. So, when you add that statement of leader manager to the structure, you now say, who's in charge? Not because you are wearing a ring, but because you have demonstrated a capability to put all of that together. And that's what you owe them because they look for you to provide leadership in putting together all the pieces of the puzzle and you look to them knowing what their piece of the puzzle is.

Sears: [00:09:40] You know, then I probably ask the wrong question, and I appreciate the way you've gently coax me back to say, you know, finding out who's in charge is not the right question. Who's accountable is, is the critical thing here? Let me segway over to. I mean, you've done a lot of jobs, had a lot of the most senior commands in the Marine Corps and the Naval Service. Let me ask you about the time you spent in Europe, and I'm going to be very specific here. Can you tell me about what it was like to be a senior Marine Corps officer, general officer and a Black American in Belgium, in Lisbon, in as a as a member of NATO, as a most senior member of the NATO military committee.

Gaskin: [00:10:26] That question is very complicated because you strive very hard to in the American military to not be recognized, not by your color, but by your ability, as once stated, was content of character, who you are and what you know about your business. The assumption that's made when you travel into the European sector is that our military is controlled by civilians. Their military has a very intertwined aspect of it. So, they will expect that you not only understand the European politics, but you also understand the art of war. So, when you're dealing with your counterparts then you have to be prepared to discuss what has been put for us by their civilian structure to their military and where the limitations that you have that they don't. And so, what you are discussing is have to first understanding the relationship that you have in your position. Being the Vice Chairman, the Military Committee, it will always be an American 3-Star. Now to you, that's, you know, an assignment it's along with you. You actually by billet senior to SACEUR which is the American 4-Star. But what you also have to realize is what the Europeans have done is that they have placed all of their operations, their own, the military operations, whether it's military in the European continent or what they call out of area. Meaning what happened in Libya, fighting pirates off of Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, they have allowed their military to be subordinate to an American Four-Star called SACEUR.

Gaskin: [00:12:37] He is like their Chairman, combatant commander who fights their forces. So, you are a part of that chain that they expect to understand what you know. Now, given the fact that we have the best military in the world and our assignment is based on meritocracy, is based on the fact that these folks have proven combatants. You have instant respect of who you are now. Being an African-American in that position is rare to them. Despite the fact that we have had African-Americans to do well and all of our militaries, they haven't been necessarily assigned to Europe. So, when I showed up as an African-American, you know, my first NATO assignment as the Chief of Staff of Strike Force NATO in Naples, Italy, it was, you know. Wow. You must be a superstar or something, because they aren't used to those, those African-Americans in those particular positions. And when they saw the first Africa Command headed by Kip Ward, they begin to see that an African-American president. So, the issue for them was you were there because you were qualified to do the job. And therefore, the recognition of where you came from might be a little strange. As you know, I told you the story about being in the in Belgium and the Queen, who is now the Queen she was the princess then did not recognize me as an American, but she thought I was from the Congo.

Sears: [00:14:34] And some of that is because Belgium actually had colonized the Congo, and that was her frame of reference.

Gaskin: [00:14:41] That's exactly right. Most of the Europeans address themselves by ethnicity and country of origin, whether it be German, French, Sweden or whatever. And so, seeing me there, American didn't jump into her mind.

Sears: [00:14:57] You made an interesting comment a while ago about being an American as opposed to being a German or a Frenchman or French woman.

Gaskin: [00:15:07] Yes, because that's probably as far as Americans go to Europe and work in Europe. The only thing they have to realize that their boundaries and the and the reason why they had such difficulties with the European Union was formed in the elimination of boundaries. It's because that's how they deal with each other. And this is a Frenchman. This is a German. You know this one, this is from Italy. He's an Italian or he's from Great Britain. It was not, he's an American or he's black or white, as we do in America. So, we became the country in the world that judge people by. He's an African-American. He's a white American. No, he's an American. They will just say he's a Frenchman. And that's what I said about learning cultural and cultural history. We talk about our internal battle. These guys fought each other, whether it be the French, British, German or Italians.

Sears: [00:16:10] So in fact, we have a unique perspective being Americans. Yeah, we've got our issues. But you can become an American mentioned earlier. You really can't become a German.

Gaskin: [00:16:21] That's right. You can never you can be a German citizen. You know, you can have rights and privilege, but you could never be a German. I think I told you the story about the French 2-Star, and we were talking about him being a Frenchman. And he says, you know, there are 45 countries in the world where French is the predominantly the spoken language. But it is not important to speak French. It's important to be French, because that's how he saw it. I'm a Frenchman.

Sears: [00:16:55] Let me ask you one last question, and that is your sense. I mean, having been there and served quite a lot of time in Europe. Share with us what you see as the significance, the importance of NATO to U.S. national security policy.

Gaskin: [00:17:09] NATO represents more than just an alliance with a group of nations. This is alliance of shared interests and shared suffering and shared hardship. And folks don't like to say that the America is the policeman of the world, but an American is truly the greatest person that you bring to the fight. And having all of that behind you pointed in the right direction of shared values and interests is important. So, it's more than about the controversy of the two percent that we pay into NATO. It's more about Article Five, where one for all and all for one. It's more about Article Four, which says that we will have a consultation about everything that we do that involves military force. And it's a greater coalition than the Security Council of the United Nations, because these heads of state all agree that it's one thing that we are going to eliminate together rather than the internal fight that we have. Now, the reason why there is a European Union, which has twenty-two of the twenty-nine nations belongs to NATO, is that Europeans, not all of Europe belongs to NATO. Therefore, there is a lack of understanding that the European Union is based on an economic alliance, and the NATO is based on a military alliance.

Sears: [00:19:06] I'm hearing from a guy who has been there saying that NATO is still makes a difference to the world.

Gaskin: [00:19:13] Oh, absolutely. I think that because of that alliance, we haven't had World War Three,

Sears: [00:19:22] General Gaskin, thank you for spending some time with us on RadioStockdale. Frankly, I'd also like to call you, Secretary Gaskin, because maybe there's more we can talk about later on with Veterans Affairs. Thanks for joining us on Radio Stockdale.

Gaskin: [00:19:36] And thank you very much and I look forward to future discussions.

Sears: [00:19:46] You've been listening to Radio Stockdale, a series of podcasts produced by the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at the United States Naval Academy. You can hear more podcasts at Stockdale Center's podcasts.