 Back for the two o'clock block. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech. We're talking on a Thursday as we always do about the military in Hawaii. And we have a special treat today. We have the just recently retired commandant of the Coast Guard, Paul Zaccum. Admiral Paul Zaccum, if you don't mind. Thank you for joining us, Admiral Zaccum. Well, easy to do since I'm here in the Aloha State, Jay. Yeah. And we did this before, not too long after you presented the Paul Chung Memorial Lecture for the Schindler College of Business. Actually, it was a year ago, wasn't it? Where it was caught in the Groundhog Day mode. Really? You know, we lose time. We lose a sense of time. How's your retirement going? Are you losing a sense of time? Other than, you know, I was traveling all over the world meeting with other foreign leaders, mostly on maritime security matters. And, of course, we'll travel pretty much in a shutdown mode. Most of it's done remotely. And thankful for, you know, technology today, you know, you're not shut out. So, you know, not retired, not writing memoirs, still very much engaged in what is happening, not just in the world around us, but what's happening here in the homeland as well. Yeah, you bet. All of us really. Whether we are aware and conscious of those issues or not, we should be. So, one remarkable thing is I saw your, I saw a news story about you a few weeks ago where you had signed on a letter along with 500 other senior officers in the military, and I guess the Coast Guard too, indicating that you disagreed with the leadership, the leadership actions by this president. And I would like to discuss that with you. You were on national media or you will be about that. Ari Melba, was it? Oh, Jake Tapper, yeah. Correct. And so, what happened there? How did you get connected with that? And what made you feel so strongly that you're willing to put your name on that letter? Yeah, J. Wells kind of goes back to my DNA, and it's always been, you know, truth to power. It reminds me of a great philosopher Edmund Burke, that all that's necessary for the forces of evil to thrive is for a few good men, and I would add women, to do nothing. And so, in this, in the 21st century, you know, your silence signals consent. And what I could not consent to was the erosion of the key pillars to our Constitution. Jay, you took this oath, you're a member of the Coast Guard. I took the oath for nearly 45 years to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. But what are the underpinnings of that great document? It's to provide for a more perfect union. It's to ensure domestic tranquility, and it's to establish justice. So just those three pillars alone, I saw each and every one of them eroding as I look at a nation more divided than I have ever seen in my lifetime. We have miststruck out swinging, actually looking, and almost agnostic to the fact that hundreds of people are dying each day of this COVID-19 virus. Personal to me, because I was part of a task force in 2005 that drafted a national strategy for a pandemic. Back then, it was each five and one. You can cut and paste that strategy, insert, paste, COVID-19, and voila, we have a national plan. Instead, we have complete anarchy, and meanwhile, 216,000 Americans and their family members who are mourning were perished, and the end is not in sight. And then to establish justice, well, we have injustice. We have prejudice, and we have not adequately addressed racism, which is still another pandemic here at home. So that was really my reason for stepping out, because if I'm going to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, let's not lose sight of what the framers of that document had in mind for their vision for this country. Wow. Well, that's saying a lot, and also speaking of courage, if I can say that, because every officer in the military is trained, including you at some point, to follow the Commander-in-Chief. And now you're disagreeing with Commander-in-Chief. That is remarkable, not only on your part, but on the part of others who signed the letter and others who have spoken out and written out about this. Where does that fit? If I believe, as a fundamental point of my education, that I should follow the Commander-in-Chief, he is the source of authority, and I find him off the wall, and I need to speak out. What does that do? What does that do to the military? What does it do to you? Yeah. Well, Jake, quite honestly, I mean, the military is fine. If I was wearing the military uniform today, our military, our service members, they're doing fine, because we have the best leaders on the top down, especially in our military ranks who look out for their people. What really drew me in to this decision point, if you will, it was 2019 in January. There was an appropriation bill that was put before the White House, and the funding level was not there for one of the White House's pet projects along the Southwest border. So, rather than address that with Congress, every member of the Coast Guard was held ransom. Yes, their pay was cut off for three years. Only time a serving service was not paid. And my wife and I, we volunteer, it's called a pantry. It's a food bank distribution, and we would have members of the Coast Guard, especially our junior members. The Coast Guard lives in some of the most high-cost areas on the coastal parts of the United States. And they were embarrassed. They were ashamed that they had to rely on handouts, if you will, to feed their families. I would tell them, you know, you're a member of the world's best Coast Guard, yet here they can't afford groceries. But to hold, without any sense of remorse or compassion, a service, you know, ransom over an appropriation bill was just, for me, inconceivable. So, part of this is going to bat for our people as well. Yeah, that was actually after I met you. That was recently, gee, within a year, within something less than a year. Oh, was there a quid pro quo for it? Was there something that the White House wanted from the Coast Guard that made it held up your pay? No, we just happened to be, you know, part of the Department of Homeland Security. So, it wasn't just Coast Guard. It was every element of the Coast Guard, TSA, Secret Service, CBP, ICE, FEMA, over 225,000 public servants whose pay was withheld. But where it really hits hardest is with our most junior members in our service. And I'm sure much more applies than some of the other components of the Department of Homeland Security as well. So Admiral, you've mentioned, you know, you mentioned the Constitution and violations of the Constitution trouble you. And you've mentioned, and this close to home, that Homeland Security had its pay held up for reasons that are not good. But what about other factors that may have led to your concern about the way things were working? For example, we've had some really draconian changes in immigration. That's not too far off from Coast Guard. It's within Homeland Security and foreign policy. And I know that in your career, you've touched foreign policy on various occasions. You are a world traveler and we're diplomatic to go beyond that. So, you know, there are other things that people are concerned about and how this White House has led the country. Do these things, other things enter into your decision process on this as well? Yeah. So, Jay, when I was the Kamala Coast Guard, I had met with every president except Nicaragua and Central America, met with the president of Mexico, met with the president of Colombia, but really to get at some of the root causes of why we are witnessing people voting with their feet, leaving their countries of origin and emigrating towards the United States. And much of this is because of the violent extremism that is playing out in their countries. This is not terrorist activities. You know, these are much of driven by what we call transnational criminal organizations. But one of the main commodities, there's two, drugs and people. But it all began with drug flow and take, for example, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador. Those are nothing more than waypoints for cocaine that moves by sea, comes ashore, and is destined for consumption in the United States. You know, it is our drug demand that feeds into this cycle of violence that comes home to roost in those countries. The reason I mention that is those three countries, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, receive less than 1% of all of our foreign aid. We're a very modest investment to improve the security environment, the economic environment of those countries. You could be a game changer. But instead, you know, we've elected to try to seal it off and then pretend it does not exist. World order is not going to change with the wall. China is already making overtures in our backyard. These are democratically elected institutions. People whose faith in cultures are much more similar to ours than they are on the other side of the Pacific. But we've turned a jaundice eye and even using pejorative terms to these nations. So that did not resonate well with me as well. I spent a lot of time working with our other international partners and their skepticism. You know, is the United States going to continue to carry the torch to promote world order? We've been so distracted with domestic policies. Well, the world doesn't go on pause while we're trying to correct some of the challenges we have here at home. But there is skepticism among our allies. Yeah. Can we count on the United States? Or is it me first? And, you know, pulling out of the Paris Accords is one thing. But what's to take its place? To repudiate best of science, whether it's a vaccine or whether it's climate change. You know, we politicized both of those. We politicized the pandemic. We politicized climate change. Let me just come back to that real quick. I have spent a lot of time on the North Slope of Alaska. I met with the Inuit elders in Greenland and witnessed the migration of land-based ice pouring into the sea at unprecedented levels. And it's going to rise to the sea. And we will have coastal regions in our country awash. Not today, not in two years, not in four years in a presidential term or in six. But it's coming. And we're kicking the can down the road. But what disturbs me is we have muted the best of science in how to get in front of a pandemic or how to appropriately address climate change. Per capita, the United States is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases. We are number one. Volume of greenhouse gas. China owns that as well. Maybe we can sit down with China and have a rational discussion of how do we make this world a better place to live for the next generation? So anyway, just a few of my thoughts from, you know, near and afar. And I continue to stay engaged on these very important topics. Well, you know, hearing you on these points, Admiral, you know, it teaches me something. And that is a lot of my thinking came out of the Coast Guard, because my thinking is right along the lines of what you're talking about. Not everybody has had the benefit of serving in the Coast Guard, but the Coast Guard is an altruistic organization. People join the Coast Guard to save lives. And certainly, you express that. And I totally agree with all of the concerns you've expressed. But one more I'd like to cover, and that is maybe something the Coast Guard, you know, doesn't do as much as the more military services out there. And that is be concerned about national security. National security in a global, of course, is the world order where you need to be concerned about that. And every senior military officer needs to be concerned about. And that has been the case for the past, what, 20 years at least. But national security is more complex these days. And the trouble with Russia, the trouble with China, you know, either sucking up to the wrong country or offending the wrong country, this goes to national security. And I wonder if you have any thoughts about national security, as far as at least your concern, the Coast Guard is concerned, in the time of this administration? Yeah. So, Jay, I look at, you know, look at the globe, if you will. Look where we have, you know, Air Force, Marine, Navy Army, where we have forces deployed across the Great Expanse. But more importantly, where are they not deployed? In one area is the Arctic. Sea ice is retreating. And there's a good likelihood within the next 10 to 15 years, the Arctic could be ice free. Russia has claimed as internal waters sovereign, the Northern Sea Route, basically a Suez Canal, and they've even claimed up to the North Pole as their sovereign right. About 13% of the world's oil that has yet to be exploited by a third of the world's natural gas up in the Arctic, much of that in our extended continental shelf and within our 200-mile limit. But we really haven't addressed the Arctic. And this is an area where the Coast Guard needs to be a force provider. And so the good news is we are now building, in great credit to the current comma Admiral Carl Schultz, we're now building what we're calling polar security cutters, ice breakers that can serve a multitude of missions to include military missions, if necessary, up in the Arctic. The other thing I looked at was in the East-South China Sea, freedom of navigation, some ambiguity. China has pretty much taken the US Coast Guard trademark, if you will. They merged four of their five maritime services to form a China Coast Guard with a racing stripe. Even the font of the lettering looks eerily familiar to the United States Coast Guard, but these are dread knots. And so they're challenging our Navy. So we are now deploying Coast Guard cutters. Coast Guard cutters based here in Hawaii that are doing freedom of navigation exercises in the East and South China Sea. Two can play at this game, but what it does do is it leaves a little bit of trade space if there's a confrontation. It doesn't immediately escalate to warfare. And so that's where we find ourselves today in a national security environment in terms of potential foreign adversaries. It's a very gray world and make no mistake. Russia is breeding chaos. Vladimir Putin is not our friend. He still takes umbrage over the fact that he lost the Cold War, so to say. Their GDP is about the same as that of the state of California. Yet they are wreaking havoc, mostly in a cyber domain, but probing our patience in contested areas, especially in the Arctic. And now we're even seeing deja vu, if you will, in the what we call the United Kingdom Greenland Iceland gap. And most of that is in the undersea domain. But clearly there's a role with the Coast Guard, which is why I was honored to sit with the Joint Chiefs for my four years as Commandant, as does the current Commandant to bring our broad expanses of authorities and where they best fit. But more importantly, where they leave options that don't immediately escalate. Yeah, well, you know, I'm reminded of first of all, you know, my observation of the military academies and the cadre in all the military services that that they are really terrific. They're terrific. They're well educated. They're smart. They have the right sensibilities. And they are the best military in the world, for sure. The problem is that is that you've got to have the best leadership to make use of them properly. And I think there was an article in the paper this morning about mistakes, about pulling troops out of Afghanistan, when, you know, that that's going to lead to trouble. We made lots of mistakes around Syria. And so you've got to have leadership that understands what you and I are talking about, that understands, you know, the tremendous power and leverage of our military can use it in the right way, soft power, smart power, what have you. And if you don't do that, you're squandering this fantastic force that is the pride of the country. And I think, well, to me, that's a big problem. I wonder how you feel about that. Yeah. Well, in this, you know, this is goes back to the previous administration, where we would set timelines and withdrawal of troops based on a timeline and not based on the conditions on the ground. And so whether, you know, the adversaries would just wait us out. The allies would know, you know, we're pulling out. And so, you know, they would lose incentive as well. So as a member of the Joint Chiefs, it was our job to provide best military advice. We're not warmongers. We're not advocating that we want to go, you know, go fight the next war. There needs to be an end state in mind. And oftentimes we come in militarily. But we really don't have a good sense of what the diplomatic outcome of that is. How do we offer it from these campaigns that we've been in now for, you know, 19 years in county. And quite honestly, no end in sight. The biggest challenge is, as we find ourselves in Boyle, what I would call these almost proxy wars, it dilutes our force readiness for larger scale wars. Not that we want to go to war, but we want to make sure that no other nation would even want to think of picking a fight with the United States. It really comes down to deterrence. When you start to lose that leverage, when you start to bleed off forces to support these proxy wars. But we went into those without a good diplomatic offence. Yeah. Well, clearly we can do better. We should, we need to do better. We absolutely need to do better. But I want to go to one other thing before we run out of time, Ed Rowan. And that is the role of the military in the transfer of power that's coming up. The president has made it clear that if he loses, he won't leave. And that's a great concern under the Constitution and for the benefit of the country in general, for the rule of law, if you will. And he's threatened to use, you know, the military, as well as his own quote, army end quote out there of a right wing militia to preserve his power. And I wonder how you feel about that. I mean, where is the military now? If I called upon the military, if I advised the, you know, chiefs of staff and other senior officers on an order, a particular order, which may not be constitutional, may not be lawful, what would happen? Does the president control the military? Can he, will he, would he, could he use any part of the military to, you know, surround the White House and preserve his power after this election where presumably he will lose? Yeah. So, Jay, what we're talking about here, really, it alludes to the Pase Comitatis Act or for the Department of Defense, which for the most part, prohibits them from engaging in military quasi law enforcement operations here in the homeland. This would be the equivalent of there's a great book called White House Burning, you know, the War of 1812. Well, the White House isn't burning. We're not under insurrection by British forces coming up the Potomac River. This is really a civil matter, not a military matter. And quite honestly, it would set a very, very dangerous precedent for our military. There are much better options, much more palatable options. And quite honestly, a lot of this is mere conjecture. Today, we've had 17 million plus people have already voted. Perhaps it's because of the pandemic. I've voted absentee ballot for over 40 years, never concerned that whether my ballot was going to be counted or not. And it was. But I can't verify that. But here in the state of Hawaii, all of us are doing mail in that. And I do so, I sleep well at night and doing that. But it concerns me that we at the White House level have injected fear into our electoral process. And that's just not appropriate. So in terms of transfer of power, I do anticipate if there is a transition, it'll be a smooth one. It'll be a cordial one. I'll leave that to others to speculate. But it will be this incumbent, the president took an oath when he took this office to ensure that we have a smooth transition of power. But this is not an area where our U.S. military needs to engage. This is strictly a matter of law enforcement, civil authorities, absent a foreign insurrection on our White House. Vis-à-vis the military, vis-à-vis all the branches of the service, what would you like to see in the administration coming soon, the next administration, if you will, as the kind of environment that will give proper roles to the military, that will bring them to a kind of normalcy, an ideal normalcy, what would you like to see happen to make the military more useful, more relevant, more effective going forward? It really comes down to a vision, Jen. What is our national security strategy? Because right now it's very reactionary. It's very transactional. The tweets certainly clutter the battle space. And I don't mean to use that in terms of how it's been used in the past, but it creates confusion. And so it would be helpful to have what is the role of the United States in promoting world order? Where do we stack our chips? Maybe where do we pull some chips off the table? But to clearly convey, not just to our military, but to our citizens, what is the desired outcome that we're looking for right now? We're kind of all over the place. And almost knee-jerk reactions one day to the next. Okay, we're tired of this campaign. Let's just stop it now. That does require better collaboration, but it really begins here at home is what is the blueprint for national security? And not just for one administration. We really need to have one that's enduring and doesn't get tossed over the side. And we start all over in a four or if it's a two-term eight-year cycle. We need a longer range vision. And that's what our military people today. I don't expect them to cite it, but they should know why they are serving overseas in a particular campaign. And what it is, what is the outcome? It's the old NASA model where you could ask a janitor in 1964, what was his job? It was his job to put a man on the moon because that's what the president, that was where the bar was set. So every member of our armed services should be able to have the very same reply to what the long-term outcome is of their commitment, their commitment of blood on wavering where we're fighting overseas today. Wonderful to hear you say that, Admiral. So we have this letter. You and 500 other senior military officers, I wished I'd been able to sign it. If I'd thought about it, I would have stayed in the Coast Guard longer. In the possibility, I could have stayed around, signed a letter like this. But can you say what was in the letter? Who joined you in the signature? To whom was it delivered? This is really a consortium of very senior officers, some of them with what I would say, recency in this administration and also in the prior administration as well. But most of it was about the principles and not so much a personal attack on the incumbent, but the principles of our democracy, the principles of our constitution that are being eroded. This is probably the first time ever in my 45 years of military service where I've seen this many senior military officers come out and convey their concerns with the direction that our nation is heading. Are you confident that this view is held by those who are on active duty, those senior officers that essentially control the assets of the military? So when I was common on the Coast Guard, you're agnostic to the political landscape other than dealing with members of Congress, working your appropriation bills in a sort. And clearly, the Hatch Act prohibits any such activity as an active duty serving member. But when you reflect upon the many years, you know, the four and a half decades that I served, and then you see the direction the country is heading, you're hoping that when your watch ends, you can say, wow, the world is a better place than it was when I entered active duty. And I can't say, you know, unabashedly that that is the truth today. Wow. I'm so glad you're retired in Hawaii, Admiral, because, you know, you're a clear asset. And I, and I hope that you and I can do this again, because frankly, there'll be other issues to discuss, possibly other letters to write, and other analyses to make going forward, not only for the military, but for the country in general. So you're you're a valuable asset to us all here. And I'm so glad you're here. Well, I just thank the Ohana here in Hawaii, and it's the Ohana that makes this the, you know, the happiest state in the United States. So when I had the option of living in any state in the United States, when I retired, it was a no greater. The Aloha State was where we dropped anchor. Well, that's great. Admiral, polls have come. Just recently, former commandant of the United States Coast Guard, I'm so happy to be able to talk to you, and I hope we can talk again soon. All right, Jay, God bless you. Aloha, and God bless you, Admiral.