 Can we afford to be optimistic these days? I'm Jay Fiedels, one o'clock block, and our host in a variety of shows, Dan Figleaf, retired three star Air Force, and a member of our board is here to help me decide whether we should be worried about, and what we should be worried about. Welcome to the show, Dan. Aloha, Jay. Good to see you. Always gonna be part of the think tech Ohana of Citizen Journalists. There you go. You are that, for sure. So I want to start with something that is, you know, inescapable, and that is I was, I was looking at our own track a little while ago, and you were there touting your regular figment show. And you mentioned that I knew already that you had been a fighter pilot for years and years. And right now, I think, you know, if you follow the news, jet fighters are in the news. They're central, in my view, central in the news. And I know you have thoughts about the Polish MiG-29s and how to deploy them or not, and what good policy sounds like when you're trying to approach a no-fly zone. Yeah, I have thoughts about both topics, Jay, the having enforced a no-fly zone, North and South over Iraq, and thinking about the MiG-29s, I had the same thought on both topics. And that thought is shut up. Why we have brought this into the public sphere, absolutely escapes me. This is a sensitive time-sensitive issue. It should not be at every podium in Washington and DC or anywhere else. And I'm highly irritated by the public nature of our addressing these two sensitive issues. Well, that's part of the president's thing these days about telling you what he knows about Vladimir Putin, what he anticipates from Vladimir Putin. And from some points of view, it seems interesting that, you know, he takes the wind out of Putin's sails, maybe, by predicting based on intelligence what Putin may do. Although- I'm not against that at all, Jay. There's some of that that I like, but when we're talking about what we're going to do, sure less, you know, you don't have to show a picture of your breakfast on Facebook. Well, let me take a peek at your breakfast for a minute. Now, I'll tell you my thoughts and you can tell me that I shouldn't even ask you, but it seems to me that the no-fly zone is really important. I had a couple of thoughts. One is that, here's Vladimir Volenskiy, he's the president and there's a functioning government, a democracy, if you will, in Ukraine. They're under attack, but there's a functioning democracy and he's the president. Then he says, can I get a little help from you guys? It's my airspace. I own that airspace legally under any international law analysis, it's mine. So come on over or give us your planes, whatever it may be. And it seems to me that there's no real answer that Vladimir Putin cannot really answer that. He's the invader. He's not entitled to say it's not your airspace. It is Ukraine airspace. So from that point of view alone, it seems to me that any country that wants to help can help. It's the way it works. The other thing, yeah, go ahead. And not quite that simple. Because in Iraq, as we enforce the Southern and Northern no-fly zones, those were legitimized by UN Security Council resolutions. And so the coalitions that enforce the two no-fly zones have the legitimacy of the United Nations. And right now, we won't have that legitimacy because the acting chair or the temporary chair of the UN Security Council is, help me out, Jay. Pretty sure it's Russia. And I was really concerned about the collapse of United Nations credibility with regard to Ukraine. Having said that, a no-fly zone isn't that simple. And you can't just say, I want the entire world to enforce my no-fly zone. Again, if I were Todd Walters, the Supreme Allied Commander of Europe, who's a great guy who worked for me back when I was a two-star, I think. I'd be doing a lot of things behind the scenes. I wouldn't be doing anything in front of the scenes. You know, the distinction, and at first I thought there was something to it, but now I don't, was that the U.S. policy as announced, perhaps they shouldn't have announced it, was, okay, you know, if you wanna fly these jets out of a NATO base, you know, fly these jets into Ukraine for Ukrainian pilots to use them out of a Polish NATO base, you can do that. But you can't fly them out of Ramstein, which is a NATO, also a NATO base, happens to be in Germany, not Poland. Is there really a legitimate difference between those two approaches? I don't know if there is or not. I do know that I would not debate it in the court of public opinion and press conferences. There probably was a way a week or two ago to bring that capability to the Ukrainians and maybe a way to do quietly in no fly zone where the only notice of its enforcement was a fireball that used to be a Soviet, sorry, there was a Freudian slip, a Russian aircraft, but once you put it into the public sphere, you just, you lose the ability to do it right. Ain't that the truth, especially with a guy like Putin, who is playing to the audience that he's got it on the line and he's not gonna let go and it's macho, it's something along those lines. Jay, if I could, you know, there's a direct historical precedent that I don't think anybody else has brought up. During the Korean War, once we got F-86s over to Korea and the North Koreans responded with MiG-15s. It's not quite in that sequence, but Russian and Chinese pilots operated from Chinese airfields near Dundong. There were as many as 400 MiG-15s operating up, believe it or not, dirt airfields, Zinni Ju, et cetera. And they were flown by Russian pilots. We knew they were flown by Russian pilots, deep on the classified side and the American pilots had a sense of that. Soviet, Mark MiG, et cetera. And they operated with mostly sanctuary from North Korea. This has been done before. If we'd pin a little more imaginative, we could have made things significantly more difficult for Putin's air force. I totally agree and I feel that maybe that moment has been lost, but it was available to us at the outset. All we had to do was just take action and not talk about our aspirations or plans. That's a basic rule of the military, isn't it? Well, I think it should be. And as you said, I like throwing Putin's stuff on the table and the revelations that we could have hoped would deter him about their plans for false flag operations and other things. I don't want to give him any hint of what I'm thinking as a potential adversary. Sure. And that's what happened. On the military side, diplomatically different, right? Sure, right. And there should be a separation. Yeah, absolutely. There is something ultimately in war and violence that you have to keep your plans close to your chest. So you are an extraordinary person in the sense that you have been in the fighter cockpit, but you have also been responsible for enormous resources, troops and personnel and material and the commands, Heather and Jan. And so over a long career. And I want to ask you, so by virtue of that, you have been defending the country for most of your life, but you have also been defending the liberal world order. That is to protect people one way or another from dictators who would gobble them up. And I'm sure that you have been faithful to both over the years and thought about both. It's not just the US, it's the world order. We can't afford to have another third world war, another world war. Jack, that's a really striking sort of a question or hypothesis. I didn't really defend our country. I defended because it's what the oath says, the Constitution of the United States, the ideals, the foundational ideals of the country and therefore defended the foundation or ideals that should make a free and open as the current phrase is world with a rules-based order. And I think we're still doing that. And what should concern us is the erosion of rules as exemplified by the Russian incursion in Ukraine but I think elsewhere there's some erosion of rules. The agreement between Putin and Xi is kind of a let's rewrite the rules agreement. Now, I don't think this will work out well because things aren't going well for Putin and thus it will reflect badly on Xi but the rewriting of these rules is of great concern because our ideals in the United States of America are not a perfect solution and they ought not be foist on every other country but they are an exemplar. And when applied well and governed well should be something that the world aspires to not to be like us but to have liberty as we do. I have come to feel that the liberal world order that was put in place at the time of the Marshall Plan and well done in 1945, 46, 47 has deteriorated. There's a million factors about that but you've been in the service, you've seen this from the military side of things from the liberal world order side of things for all these years. And I wonder if you would agree with me that there has been a deterioration globally in this notion of respecting your neighbor and your neighbor's sovereignty. Yes, but I look more internally well, I guess I look internally as well not just in positions on sovereignty or yeah, on sovereignty let's say that's a pretty fraught with the complexity term but also internally. For example, I've really appalled at what happened in Canada not because I support the truckers but the use of the Emergencies Act. I don't think any after the fact analysis will say that that met the criteria and that things were done were appropriate. So it's an overall application of the authoritarianism whether it's inside your borders or beyond that. And every one matters, Jay, that's what I think I've learned in my travels to 72 countries and working with the leaders of military and civilian of every country in Asia Pacific except for North Korea so far, maybe someday is that every country matters. So the one that bothers me the most right now isn't Ukraine, Russia or China, Taiwan that worries me but I'm deeply saddened by Myanmar and what happened there because there was so much potential for the evolution of liberal nation not in a political party sense but with broader rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the right context. Damn it, we lost a lot there when that went south and we lose something every time there's an erosion of an individual life. So what's the role of the United States? What's the role of the military to deal with things like that? I mean, to me, I'm not adverse to the notion of the world's policemen. I think the world needs a policeman and I think the United Nations, you alluded to this earlier has shown as frailty increasingly so. So if it's not the United Nations and it's not the United States and some people would like it not to be the United States, then there's nobody and take the human condition, the condition of the species is a social, perhaps an antisocial animal sometimes and you have chaos. So is the United States the one to step up and be the world's policeman? Wouldn't that be better than having no world's policeman? So let me rephrase that question in a way that won't inflame some and say, are we an exceptional exceptional nation? Well, yeah, we are. That doesn't make us a better nation. We're deeply born, deeply blessed by where and when we were founded and imperfectly founded, but with a lot of isolation, a lot of resources and based on a set of ideals expressed in the constitution. Truly a unique little Petri dish, right? And we got lucky. And because we got so lucky and built an imperfect, but much better democracy, who else? Who else is gonna, and it's not, it isn't just the military, but the military is a key proponent or key element in not spreading the gospel according to the United States, but sharing in our exemplar of how we treat people. And the piece four is another element, everything we do overseas, but I became the, I'm rambling because I have so many things in my head that we can do right and do do right. And I got to US Pacific band as the deputy in October, 2005. So 10 months ish after the boxing day tsunami and have been involved in the Pacific ever since. And I would submit that most of what has gone right for the United States came out of the exemplar of our relief efforts following the earthquake tsunami. Sure, that's part of our role. As we are. And Jay, I've got a great story for that. If you have a, if you'll grant me 30 seconds. Granted, granted general. Okay. So this is a longer story than this, but in our first military to military engagement with the Vietnamese, we had a very difficult set of discussions with the Vietnamese two star. I did personally, okay, let's call it an argument. This is a longer and better story. But after that, he went back to his quarters here in Honolulu and had a heart attack and nearly died that night. They rushed him to the Tripler Army Medical Center, cracked his chest open, did a quadruple bypass and he was left in the enemy's hospital. If you will, this is in 2005 or six. He didn't speak a word of English. So, and he was going to have to pay for his medical care which was going to leave him and his family destitute in perpetuity. What did we do? Admiral Fallon and I went and visited him. We put a translator of most of the credit goes to Admiral Fox Fallon at his bedside. We brought him flowers, brought him picture books. And then there were two really extraordinary things. Admiral Fallon convinced the State Department to pay his medical bills and got him a U.S. Military Medical Evacuation Airplane to fly back to Vietnam. He went from being, I'm going to say this as I've said it many times, a commie rat bastard to a proponent and somebody who understood the nature of our country. And Vietnam, by the way, is still a communist country but we have tremendous links. And a lot of them go back to that visibility of how we are as a people and as a democracy. And so that when the military's engaged they get that window into our soul. And I still believe we have a good soul. I've got to be aware of how people see us. Maybe not in one instance or for one day, but over time. And I'm thinking of various places where American troops have been stationed and they made a mess of it. Raping of women would have you getting in crime since Saturday night, that sort of thing. And over time that really corrodes us. I'm also thinking however that in my lifetime anyway I've seen the military become foreign service agents, foreign service representatives, diplomats. The notion of the military diplomat has emerged. I'm sure you've seen that too over the past 20, 30 years. And it's not a burden to be concerned about. It's something that the military can easily do and should do. It's not the same as war, not the same as fisticuffs but it's an example of soft power or it's in a corollary soft power. I'm thinking soft power is what you're talking about with this communist pinko person. And soft power should be the way it works. Joseph S. Nye, the Kennedy School, smart power, soft power, all of that. And we know about that. But somewhere along the line, I think it has declined. I'll tell you there was an article this morning. Forget the general, it was an important article though. A Washington Post. And it was an examination of the countries that did not support the condemnation of Russia and the General Assembly a few days ago. And there were at least 50 of them. And who are those countries? Well, a lot of them are in Africa. A lot of them are in Latin America. And they have relations with Russia and they were quoted in the article as saying, we like Russia. Russia has been good to us. We feel that Russia has earned our respect, our admiration, our loyalty. And we're gonna stick with Russia. Even if Russia does this kind of war crime. And I thought that was really extraordinary. And what it means to me, I'm interested in what it means to you. What it means to me is we haven't been watching the store. We haven't been using that soft power in those continents and those countries. And we really have to get back to doing exactly what you were talking about. Yeah, first of all, I don't like the term soft power because it makes it sound easy. You know, hard power is hard, soft power is soft. It's really difficult. It's more in terms of applying it effectively, I'd like to say four is easy. I've fought some wars. Making the decision to go to war and the next election execution is a lot easier than peace. But I agree. We need to, at the same time, we counter the military challenges, whether they're in Europe or Asia or anywhere else, look for opportunities to apply. Okay, I give up soft power. The best opportunities we have to do that are in humanitarian assistance and disaster response. And there's a cost to that. You know, you can ask, well, what about the people suffering back here at home? Yeah, true, but it's so important. Such an important investment in providing an example to the world and really to providing an example of our servicemen and women. What is expected of this great democracy? Yeah, so it's not only being the world's policeman. It's being the world's savior. That's too hard a word, but the world's... Yeah, the world's trier. We try, at least we try, we screw things up. And I was in Okinawa for four years, stationed in Okinawa. I know the sensitivities, but I also know what the by and large US servicemembers overseas represent their country extraordinarily well. Doesn't minimize the bad things that happen because bad things happen. But yeah, we should be the world's shining light. Okay, that's not a political statement. No, no, it's the city on the hill. We should have the highest moral standards. And expectations. Fair-minded and kind and help people in need. And, you know, be big brother, I guess you would say, in a case where somebody was being a bully. And I haven't seen us doing that. I think, you know, Joe Biden doing a great job in trying to repair our relationship with the EU and NATO, this is great. I disagree. I will tell you, I have to say that I'm, this is not a political statement, but I am stunned by the significant ineffectiveness of the Biden administration. I'd say incompetence, but not on a political sense, not in a political... I understand that, but what are you referring to? I'm referring to their inability to enact their agenda. Afghanistan, the ignite bit most popular figments was about Afghanistan and failure to hold a count. The economy and we see that at the pump and elsewhere. The Marie Antoinette moments of saying, hey, can't afford gas, buy a Tesla. But the engagement with China and there's not enough time to do that. So I don't think they're doing very well in terms of governing. And by the way, like most of the other governments, we still don't have a budget. So I want every government that's elected, duly elected to succeed. And I don't feel like the Biden administration is succeeding very, very much. Well, so we're talking, we're here to talk about concerns, okay? Yeah, that's my big concern. That's your big concern, but I mean, where does it go? My concern, I have two concerns. I have concerns domestically that we haven't solved these problems, the problems that everybody's focused on before Ukraine. And we're not really all that effective in terms of dealing with the Ukraine crisis either. So, and people are dying by the thousands every day. So I'm saying, hmm, I have concerns about both ends of that. And ultimately I have concerns about the influence of the United States, its role in the world and protecting the liberal world order. We've talked about that. But also about its ability to carry on and function as a democracy you talk about, the city on the hill. And I'd like to know if you have concerns about those things, where the United States actually falls off the precipice and is no longer the country we want it to be and no longer has the influence or the internal ability to govern itself. I do have concerns that I think that the, but I also know that our democracy's performances has been pretty cyclical since it started the 19th century. Sometimes we do really well. Usually when we're forced to do really well as a democracy. And sometimes we have this partisan divide, acrimonious stuff that we're mired in right now. So I think the foundation is still there in the constitution and the other elements that are the framework of our democracy. But we'll see. You know, one of the things that concerns me too and I guess different people in different places, different roles in the country, different positions, official positions, non-official business, media, whatever your life is have different opportunities. But I feel that although we here on Think Tech we can speak about these things. So there's a tremendous value in having some kind of platform where you can actually open your mouth and express opinions, report facts, whatever, or a combination of two. And my question to you is the ordinary stunk who's walking down the street. He probably feels, I'm sure he feels there's nothing he can do that this isn't his, it's not his solution and therefore it's not his problem. He may be ultimately touched. He may not see that it's coming his way, but he feels at the end of the day there's nothing he can do no matter what. And my question to you here in the last couple of minutes of our show is what can he do? What's your advice? Make the whole country your command, okay? That'd be a job, wouldn't it? And speak to them and tell them what they should be thinking about this and what they can do to put the train on the track. Well, first of all, that's a big job you just gave me, Jay. That's the first thing I'd say is vote because that is the core of your power. And vote thoughtfully and don't, yeah, vote. So start with that. And secondly, even though my optimism is waning these days, have some faith. Have some faith in the history of our democracy. And for me, faith in God matters. So if that works for you, let that work for you, but have some faith. These are not the worst times our country's ever seen. Folks, you know, that's not a suck it up buttercup statement. It's that these are not the worst times we've seen. So take charge of it and ask yourself about what you're letting the government do for you because your loss of power comes often from a relinquishment of power or because of how you vote or how you acquiesce to government overreach. And that's, again, not related to political party. Take charge of your life and of your destiny. It's not gonna be easy over the next couple of years, but it's not going to be as difficult as it has been at other times. I think we have to have one more message for you. Okay. And because you've taught me to look up at the clock and we talked about this ahead of time. I was a think deck host, man, I'm looking at the clock and trying to meet standards. So time matters. And Jay, I just want to say happy birthday because I happen to know that you've had a significant round number of birthday. And at the same time on behalf of everybody on the think deck host panel and the board and the people who follow the 30 plus shows a week. Thank you for the energy you put into this endeavor because you are making a difference and you're giving not just a citizen journalist's voice, but through us, I think you're giving those folks who feel a little hopeless, a voice too. So I'm very grateful to be part of this and thankful for your leadership. I'm gonna leave it right there, Fig, but thank you very much for those kind words. And thank you for coming on the show and discussing this and I was gonna say we have to do it again. We have to explore this because obviously it's a moving target. Ooh, can I say that? It's a moving target. The moving targets are hard to hit. I've done it in combat. I know. It's hard to do. Thank you, General Dan Figley. Appreciate you coming on. Aloha. Pleasure to you. Aloha.