 forming the Marine Corps to compete with China. That's our subject today on the military in Hawaii, and we have Lieutenant General Emerson Godner, and welcome to the show Lieutenant General Godner. Oh, thank you for having me today, Jake. Please call me Emo. Okay, Emo it is. So there's a lot of things changing in the world, and certainly it starts with the Pacific, which is the title of our show, but we'll also talk about Ukraine, which is the frustration, the outrage of the moment. So let's talk about the changes in the Pacific first. Let's talk about how the Pacific is in a new kind of dynamic. What kind of dynamic that is? Is it a defense dynamic? Is it an economic dynamic? Is it part of a global dynamic? And how does that affect the view of the Marine Corps and the military in dealing with the challenges of the Pacific? Well, of course, the Pacific has changed greatly because the biggest actor in the region, China, has changed economically and also with regard to their ambitions, or at least their enacting their ambitions. So what we see is a more expansive China that is trying to resolve grievances from the past 100 years of history, or 200 years of history, and making aggressive moves and the out, outward from its own coastline. The theater is, it's always been a maritime theater managed, of course, by the commander of Indo-Pakam, but the main player here of China has become much more of a maritime actor. It's become very active in the South China Sea, has actually created islands and put military facilities on them, has essentially taken over Hong Kong, has changed the laws. It's not officially part of China, totally integrated, but it's just a matter of time, their recent laws and much more heavy handedness in Hong Kong. And of course, they've always had the intent of bringing Taiwan back into China proper. So that's been the background. We've seen steady growth on that. Our US grand strategy has been to, has been to treat the threat of China as the pacing factor for the United States. And so that we would draw down our involvement in the Middle East, also reduce our resources and forces in Europe so that we could then concentrate them on this Pacific threat. So what you see now with what's happened recently here with Ukraine is that's upset that balance. It's not, doesn't seem like it's going to be appropriate to withdraw from Europe. If anything, we're already putting thousands of troops in as part of NATO and, you know, given another two or three months, we'll see what the permanent posture change is. But clearly, we're not going to be able to draw down and take resources from European engagement and put that towards the Pacific. We're going to have to increase resources. Then Lieutenant General Dave Berger, who was the commanding general of Marine Forces, Pacific is out here involved in all the war planning, really began to take a hard look at how the Marine Corps was constituted, how it acted. He was transferred from here back to the Marine Corps Combat Development Center and then became commandant in the summer of 2019. In that summer, he put out some planning guidance in which he said his number one focus for his four-year tour was what he calls Force Design 2030. It is to adapt and change the focus of the Marine Corps from being a amphibious force and readiness oriented on all global threats to one that's primarily focused on supporting the naval campaign in the Pacific. He began doing a lot of analyses in this program. He has turned over a lot of analysis about force on force with China, a lot of war gaming, and came to the conclusion that there needed to be significant changes in the Marine Corps, that we need to lighten the Marine Corps, make it more agile. The concept, the operational concept that he sees is instead of the Marine Corps being oriented on large, amphibious assaults in the Pacific, much as we saw them, let's make the Marine Corps more of an arm of the maritime component, the naval component. Let's equip the Marine Corps, what does the Navy actually need? The Navy needs precision fires, long range fires, it needs help in dominating the huge expanse of the Pacific. So the idea is we're off the east coast of the, go into different islands, islets inside the first island chain with forces that have long range precision fires, missile batteries that can shoot 100 to 500 miles. And if you think about if you have let's say five to 10 of these islands and you put marine littoral forces out there on each of those islands, and then you draw a circle around each of the islands, when you get five or 10 of them, and you combine all those circles, you can see that Marines can actually dominate a significant part of the sea space with, if they have the right sensors, and they have the right weapons to go in on Chinese forces. So this then would free up the Navy to focus, to cover more area, basically you have the naval component covering more area. So to get there, we need things, we need more longer range, more effective longer range weapons, we need to be agile, you need to move forces around. If you were that close to China, you can imagine it would be a very vulnerable area. And once you shoot a missile or fire some kind of weapon, you put out a signature and you're going to be them become a target. So what you basically have to do is shoot, move, set up in a new place, shoot again, move again. So you need connectors, you need small amphibious ships to quickly offload forces that can do this kind of shooting and then reload them, move to another place. You need helicopters that can also move those out there. So this mobility piece becomes very important. The logistics of any of these operations in the Pacific because of the huge space and remoteness, fuel becomes a really big problem. So you can see that Marine Force will end up having to bring in bladders to service these firing units, etc. and then move them after they shoot, etc. So this is the force you need. The General Berger said the Marines need to be in order to help enable campaign. Well, how are we going to do that? We need to start investing in designing new smaller amphibious ships that are less targeted. And his idea is to divest functions that we now have and capabilities in order to invest. So for example, he has eliminated tanks from the Marine Corps inventory. He has changed all the artillery units, or basically almost all of them, to missile units. So instead of trucks hauling 155 millimeter artillery pieces, we're going to have missiles that can fire from the back of vehicles and even home bees. And so he's going to make the Marine Corps smaller. He's cut the ideas. We're focused on this single threat. We don't really need infantry units as much as we need littoral units that are capable of this mobility and these long range fires. So he first sees to generate the resources, in other words, make this change within the same budget top line that the Marine Corps currently has. So he's going to reduce the size of the Marine Corps by about 12,000. So right now it's around, it was when we started this two years ago, it was around 186,000. And it's going to go down to about 174,000. And he's getting there by reducing about 108 aircraft, in other words, making squadrons from 16 aircraft each to 10, getting rid of tanks, the artillery pieces, etc. And so this is a at least five year and as long as 10 year project to get to this objective force. But he's trying to speed this along because the general consensus is that the threat to China is in after 2025 to 2030. We don't really think we have a lot of time to do this. We need to get on with it. Well, you know, read about long range missiles, naval assets that China has been building. I don't think they have a Navy like our Navy, but they're certainly trying to build a lot of Navy assets. And for that matter, long range missiles. And so it just as, you know, a citizen civilian, rather than a senior Marine officer, I would just guess that, you know, we have to focus on that because that's where they're focusing. At the end of the day, it really is defense. You know, the US is always, you know, concerned about defense more than anything. And if they're doing long range missiles and building, you know, big ships and capable of crossing the Pacific, then we have to be able to meet them on that. So it would seem to me that we better be sure that we have the naval equipment ready to go. And I think what I heard you saying was that that's where we're working. We may be reducing the size of the Marine Corps, but we're probably increasing the hardware in the Navy and the weaponry in the Navy and the long range aspect of the Navy. That's exactly right. It'll be, you know, in terms of end strength, the Marine Corps will be smaller. But for this particular mission, it's going to be much more powerful. We don't have missiles that shoot 500 miles now. And we don't really have the capability. But using the, for example, the F 35 jets that we have, and which have a tremendous sensing capability, you can go out and find targets, you can transmit that targeting information down to missiles. The missiles then can target that ship or whatever it is coming out. And also can put even these new island bases that the Chinese have constructed in the South China Sea, you know, you can put those under threat. And the idea is we're basically expanding the Navy with the Marine Corps. And we are an able force and part of it on there. The only controversy on this, on this within the Marine Corps and people that have looked at this thing, it's been, it's been wholly embraced by Congress and is very well thought of as innovative and bold. And General Berger certainly gets a lot of credit there. The only controversy is that it's almost a singular focus. The Marine Corps never really had a singular focus before. We've always been a global force, you know, we're doing V 22 operations in Africa. And we have, we were a course in the whole, all of the Iraq and Afghanistan thing. And now we're really, we're still going to be able to do some of that, but we're giving up those extra capabilities to focus on this. And so that's a bit of a risk historically. But one that the commandant feels is worth taking. So you don't see now in the Ukraine situation, you don't, there's no Marine involvement. That's traditionally an army theater. But also if you think that while this is all going on in Ukraine, we need to kind of watch what's going on on the other side of the world and see if China is trying to take advantage of our focus on, on Europe right now. And so the Marine stand ready here and are the other, the other fist, if you will. Well, the press has been full of that possibility, you know, that the Chinese have been fairly arrogant about their moves in Hong Kong and against Taiwan and those islands you talked about. They're, they're very focused on that. And, and also the possibility that somehow Vladimir Putin's adventures in Ukraine will encourage them. For example, logically, if he prevails in Ukraine and he may do that, that makes the Chinese all the bolder, all the bolder and doing the same kind of thing with respect to Taiwan. And so this theater is always important, isn't it? It's always important. And, and you know, you always have to look and see what else is going on in the world to evaluate the risks and the possibilities here. Absolutely. No, and absolutely correct. Whereas normally the Chinese are very outspoken about other countries respecting territorial rights. Here we see Russia, you know, using, you know, the old, old Russia concept, Russian Empire concept on Ukraine. That's not a lot of different than China looking at Taiwan as part of China. So, you know, we need to go in there and, you know, you can see China making the argument that they're very clear that they're going to do everything possible to get Taiwan back in. So it's just a matter of how are they going to do that? Is that going to happen peacefully? So sort of two logs going down the river that just eventually converge. You see that with all the business and the air travel between the two, between Taiwan and China, etc. Or is it going to be just done forcefully, which is what Russia is doing in Ukraine? Then if you take that step one, think thought process one step further, we see how the world is reacting to Russia. We're not reacting to Russia with force on force. All the troop movements and everything else are in sport, are bolstering the defenses of countries around Ukraine. And the primary instruments being used to deter Putin are economic, diplomatic. And they seem to be, they seem quite strong and they seem to be effective. I think China is watching that as well. Of course, they're a much larger, much more important economic force, but they also have, they're also very vulnerable to that. Well, talking about Ukraine for a minute, that's what everybody's thinking about, Gregory. Certainly, Europe has changed in the past week, if not the past month. And Europe is afraid, the countries in the EU, the people in the EU are afraid, the people in NATO are afraid that Putin is just ramping up to do more. And that Ukraine is a part of a step transaction. And that would seem his way of thinking, step transaction. You take the step, that step, and you gauge the result. It's slightly pathological. But I suppose we understand him better now, after a few weeks of this. And what's interesting from, I'd like to see it through your eyes. You've had a long career in the Marine Corps. You've been concerned with national defense and readiness for how many decades. And now you see a Cold War that you thought went away. We all thought went away and it didn't go away. And it's back and it's worse than it has been through our lifetimes, General. We never saw this in all the years after World War II. This is really unprecedented all that time. And for a military man, you must have a specific view of it because you have seen the Cold War. You've seen the containment of Russia, in a way, the fall of Russia. And now we have this. And it really, what it says, is we had better think twice before we turn our backs on them. We'd better think twice before we let our guard down. This is a time when America has to protect itself and the rest of the free world, more perhaps than we have in the past several decades. Well, of course, one of the big takeaways here is the Europeans themselves now get it. Germany has done tremendous change in policy. They've always been long-time members of NATO, of course, but they've always tread lightly when it comes to Russia, necessarily. But and there was a lot of doubt and uncertainty about where they're, how they were going to deal with Russia in this case. But now it's quite clear. They cut off the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. They have been right there on all the sanctions. You have hundreds of thousands of Germans actually demonstrating in Berlin for stronger defense and spending up to the the previous NATO goal of 2% of GDP. And so we have to hope that it's too little too late. I think the real risk that we are being very effective, I think with these economic and diplomatic measures, it's putting huge, Putin has made some mistakes in how in his assumptions and how fast this was all going to go and how effective he's going to be. And so he's going to start feeling pressure is supporters, the oligarchs are now being sanctioned. All of these measures that are going to start having an effect on the population, he's going to feel pressure. And I think he's going to have to limit his goals in Ukraine. He'll probably annex some of the eastern portion there, which will allow him direct access to the Black Sea from Russia. But then he'll probably be willing to accept some sort of Ukrainian government as long as it's not as much more neutral. He wants more of a Switzerland kind of government or something between Russia and NATO. But how he gets there, I think the big change for us is comes back to this theater. We see how much has to be done to be able to deal with China. And we have to develop the forces and invest in the forces to go do that. And right now, we're going to do diverting. I mean, even the Democrats today on the Hill, we're talking about a 10 to $20 billion supplemental right now, the fear for Ukraine. Well, how long are we going to be able to do that? And where's that money? That is money that we were hoping to invest in against China. Well, I mean, what it comes down to is this is a message that we have to be in both theaters. We have to beef it up in the Pacific wheel. Also, I mean, I really think this changes American policy and American defense policy in Europe. If they're scared, we should be, you know, appropriately concerned. The other thing is, you know, a couple of days ago, Putin said that don't forget we are nuclear power, which is really rattling saber, isn't it? We haven't heard those kinds of words in a long time. And I said to myself, why now? What is this? I'll give you a theory. And I wonder your thought about it. I think, although the US and for that matter, Western Europe has said they don't want to put boots on the ground in Ukraine. I think his escalation of the attack does suggest to a lot of people that from a humanitarian point of view, maybe we have to reconsider that simply to save lives on a humanitarian basis. People are dying and will continue to die in large numbers. And so his concern right or wrong is that the Western Europeans may think more and more about putting boots on the ground in Western Ukraine and possibly the US, although, you know, the president has made it clear he's not going to do that. It's an issue that could be considered again, if things get worse. And so I think his Putin's mentioning his nuclear capability, his threat is a way of saying, don't put boots on the ground, because if you do that, we're going to have a nuclear war. And it was an anticipation. It was one of those step transaction moves as part of a whole, you know, long plan that he's engaged in. What do you think? I think that I think there's low probability that NATO or the US would put boots on the ground in Ukraine. I think we'll do things to facilitate once, you know, right now we have a million refugees have already left the country. It's theorized another three million will be coming out. You're going to see a lot of support for those in Moldova and Poland and Romania, etc. But I think as a counter theory to what you proposed there, this could also be a warning from Putin is don't squeeze me too hard on these economic and diplomatic things. You know, this is going to follow out. I'm committed to certain goals here in Ukraine, and they're not exactly clear. But I'm going to continue to do that. And if you start, you know, how much can we squeeze them? We cut off all their oil. We cut off everything. This has been much more drastic than anybody thought. At what point is he going to then say, well, I still have one tool left in my on my belt here. So, you know, and that's real the real risk. I don't think he thinks he's, you know, how is it? It's going to get messy in Ukraine. They're going to resist. You know, I've no doubt that he'll he'll take over the cities. But as we saw in Iraq, if you have a population that has insurgency running throughout it, you know, the Russians experienced in Afghanistan. And, you know, it's the same. And it's very difficult. You can take territory, but you can't hold it. You can't really occupy it. And it's very costly. And so this is really a wrong move for Putin, because his economy and diplomatically there, this Russian Empire, he's trying to recreate difficult to see how it moves forward. Yeah. And there have been interesting reports. Let me just mention a couple. Of course, his economy is suffering and will suffer more. I mean, it's a long, it's a momentum thing. And within a few weeks, it'll start to take hold. And, you know, he'll have a problem not only in terms of the economy de facto, but in terms of people's reaction. And those body bags are going to come back now to Russia. And people aren't going to like it. They don't like it already. And so he's going to have a certain amount of resistance. At the same time, you talk about insurgency. There was an interesting report this morning of some, I think, Vladimir, you know, Zelensky, yeah, he, Zelensky said that he had given permission for some 16,000 people who volunteered from the outside to fight in Ukraine. And I think that's only the top of the iceberg. There'll be more. It's very appealing to fight for the right. And they're volunteers. It's not like they're, you know. There were some, I saw, I actually saw online some application forms for that. Do you fill it out? And you send it into the Ukrainian embassy in Washington. They have a list of things you should bring with you, you know, bulletproof vests and this kind of boots, et cetera. This reminds me a little bit of the Spanish Civil War. And you have the Lincoln Brigade and had all these other outside forces coming in. Yes. And it's very interesting that the people who might volunteer for that could be retired military from U.S., U.S. military. That's a golden there. I didn't ask. But it is a question. So, I mean, we're going to get involved in this one way or the other on the ground and we're going to provide them, you know, weapons and food and clothing and whatever we can. And I think that's all totally appropriate. And it doesn't challenge Putin, you know, in his essential strategy. It just helps on the humanitarian level. There's going to be a new, there's clearly going to be a new status quo. We'll have former and refugees to deal with in those countries, which are already suffering inflation and, you know, from the refugees from Syria a couple of years ago. And we're also going to have now Russia will be directly up against the NATO countries, you know, the Ukrainian, the borders directly up against Poland. And, you know, so there's how much, how much further is he going to go? He is trying to establish a circle of buffer countries around him, Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and then also now Ukraine, Belarus. You know, one thing that strikes me, I'd like to ask you about is this. You know, Ukraine has never attacked Russia. It's always Russia attacking Ukraine. And the U.S. has never, you know, they may have accepted the invitations, rather the applications of a variety of Eastern European countries to come into NATO. But that's only membership. That's not aggressive, you know, policy. It's not aggressive military moves. It is simply membership in a, you know, community defense. That's all it is. And so, you know, people say, oh, this is the fault of the U.S. This threatens Putin. And we understand why he's doing this. But I don't understand that at all. I see only one side here taking aggressive steps. And I wonder if I'm missing something. Could it be that the United States has been aggressive in some way? Could it be that the expansion of NATO is such an aggressive move in terms of, you know, military defense policy that he should be concerned? Or is it all, you know, silly? It strikes me that the United States is, right now and for a long time, is a defensive company country. It's not interested in taking over new territories. It is not interested in taking aggressive steps or invasions against anyone. And here we're, you know, we're dealing with somebody who does exactly that. Why, why, what are your thoughts about that? I don't think we're being aggressive in Ukraine. I don't think we're at least in any way interested in and putting any boots on the ground there. I think this stems back from the late 90s with this Budapest mental random in which in order to get Ukraine to give up the nuclear weapons that they had left over from the old Soviet Union, we said that we would guarantee their territorial integrity. Russia also signed that. And that's what this kind of all goes back to. So here their territorial integrity has been violated by one of the signatories to this memo. And you're right, we're not, I do not see as any aggression on our part that we got involved in this the first place for the right reason to get nuclear weapons out of Ukraine, less nuclear weapons that close. And that was accomplished. But in a way that has led the Ukrainians on to think, and they're naturally more oriented in being aligned with Europe and the EU than they are with Russia. And be more of a global trading place if they sold their IT. I read an article where the actual percentage of imports to foreign countries is now China is actually as more Ukrainian imports than Russia. Yes, I saw that too. Yeah. So I guess the larger question is, and so Ukraine would never attack Russia. Ukraine doesn't want nuclear weapons. I mean, it's absurd. And now this fellow is he's making a parking lot out of Ukraine and killing people left and right for reasons that are really hard to understand from, you know, a casual observer and the public all over the world. And so it's hard to predict, isn't it? You know, where this is going. It's hard to predict what's going to happen next week. It's hard to predict how this is going to settle if it ever settles. It's hard to predict how it's going to change the face of Europe. But query, has it changed the face of United States defense? Has it changed the face of, you know, the Marine Corps and its presence, Hither and Jan. You mentioned that the Marine Corps is not in Europe right now, but it could be. And maybe we have to think more globally about, you know, deploying our assets. How does this change that deployment? Oh, I think that, you know, there are Marines in Europe, of course, we used to have routine deployments in a Mediterranean. We pulled back on those. We didn't do those. Now we'll start thinking about having those will start happening again. But I think right now what you're seeing is the Army is going to be given the European focus. It's their traditional theater. They have, I think it's on the order 7000 troops they put into various countries there. And let the Marines focus on the Pacific. The Army recently in recent years has shown greater interest in the Pacific and is oriented has a, you know, a Pacific focus that is done on that. But I think now that the country, you know, we have to focus on two theaters now. And I think that will be divided between the Army and Marines. Army will still clearly be it's so much larger than the Marine Corps. And it will still clearly have a Pacific emphasis. But the our main focus must be Europe. Yeah. You know, we've talked to a number of people in Europe over the past few days, you know, correspondence and people who either have been in Ukraine or are in Ukraine. We've had some shows just like the cable, the cable TV is that. And one thing seems clear. They are delighted with President Biden. They are delighted with the presence of of the US in Western Europe. They are delighted with our interests and our support in all the ways we're supporting them. So to the extent that in the last administration, you know, we undermined our relationship with NATO and the EU, which we did on a regular basis. That that has been that has changed. And now we are returning to a time when the Europeans by and large love to hear about America. They love us for what we have done, even in the recent weeks. And I mean, that's very, you know, that's that's very encouraging that we're back. We're really back. And that will last a long time. Don't you think? Absolutely. The well, the importance of NATO and the importance of collective security is very clear. You know, one of the other takeaways here is it's not always got to be with arms. This whole economic, the sanctions and the diplomatic, these countries have all moved relatively quickly, very fast. Germany has changed within two or three weeks its attitude toward now. It seems to be all in. And and that is that is something that getting back to that to have this tighter in there. I do think that we we did some damage in the last administration, we in a way with the NATO, I think we undermined it to what extent did that motivate Putin to become more aggressive, you have to think about that. But it's clear we're going to go back to stronger NATO. We've we stress tested our quick reaction forces. I think they're going to have to make some adjustments there. And you're going to start seeing, you know, increased defense spending, not only by the US, but by those countries. What is it they're going to buy? That's going to have an impact on the US too. Now, I mean, there's a lot of jets. We sell jets. We sell missiles. And they're going to buy those and the so. Well, what we do, it's clear, it's clear that what we do has an effect on other countries. They're potentially aggressive countries. What we do is it helps to maintain the world order, the liberal world order. And if we're active and moral about it, we will maintain the world order. If we turn our backs on it, then this will happen. And so, you know, I totally agree that our participation, our lack of participation in the last few years encouraged Putin. Our participation now is going to show him a new way. And all of that is going to show the Chinese that that we're here. But we're going to, you know, another interesting thing is we don't really have a NATO here in the Pacific. We have alliances, a lot of bilateral alliances. We have this ANCAS, which is this new arrangement between Australia, UK and the US, where we're now getting Australia to be nuclear, have nuclear capability. So how would it, how would this train, if you think about how were these events, if China turned it and was going to do something similar in Taiwan, how could we pull together the rest of Asia and the West from Pacific to coerce China? Would we be as effective? So I do think that you're going to see heightened activity here to pull the countries of Asia together and start to, you know, get towards this idea of collective security. That's what we need. Absolutely. And we're learning lessons on a daily basis about that. Thank you so much, Emo. Emerson, Gardner, Lieutenant General Marine Corps, retired. Thank you so much for joining us today on the military in Hawaii. There's much more to discuss and I hope we can circle back with you soon. Okay. Thanks very much.