 Aloha and welcome to Figments, the power of imagination. It's great to be back after two weeks and as I'll remind viewers that I'm going to revert to that every two weeks schedule and only show the figments power of imagination segments just because I can only do so much. I'm really excited about today's episode. I'm always excited about the episodes but this one in particular because there's a personal connection and an incredible professional respect for my guest as we talked with Dr. Oriana Scholar-Mastro a dual role scholar about her and what she does and what she thinks. But first let me tell you that this episode like all episodes of Figments, the power of imagination is intended to entertain and inspire you with mostly guests that I've known over my lucky life and share that with you and the real key to my success thus far with over 3500 views is to get people on who are smarter than I am and that's a big plus for the viewers. Big plus for me too because I've gotten to know some extraordinary people and one of them is Dr. Oriana Scholar-Mastro. Oriana Aloha. Hi, thanks for having me. It's great to have you on the show. We go way back 14 years. I did the math it took me about an hour but you know 2008 yeah I think it's 14 years. And when I first met you I was speaking as at the end I think of my tenure as the deputy commander of USPAC I'm at Naval War College the Chinese military capability forum and you were in the crowd right? Yeah no that's correct. I was invited to this conference the organizers had read a volume I had edited the year before I cross trade balance you know we still cared we were talking about Taiwan you know 15 years ago too and this was the first conference I'd ever been invited to I was a really I didn't know that. Yeah it was a first year PhD at Princeton and so they asked me as if it was nothing but I was like I have to go but I had like no money so I you know drove through the night to Rhode Island from Princeton, New Jersey and stayed in like a $30 night motel so I could show up at this conference to talk to other people about the Chinese military. I'm sure glad you did because after I gave what I thought was a great speech I always do you may not remember any of it but you and several other young scholars gathered around and we spoke and it was just kind of working the crowd thing for me you told me you were interested in military service specifically the Air Force. Right so I had just finished after the first year of my PhD at Princeton I did a summer associate program at the Rand Corporation which is a think tank that is associated with U.S. Department of Defense they do really in-depth research for the Department of Defense and I took the whole summer translating Chinese space doctrine for them so what I learned is love their work not interested in sitting in a cubicle doing translations for the rest of my career but they some individuals there had suggested that I get even more military experience or closer to the military at that point that had been the closest to anything sort of defense or military that I had done and so by the time we met I was thinking about the next summer I was thinking about the next steps I was thinking ah maybe it'd be great to come out to Hawaii doing internship maybe I should you know think about and actually I didn't come to Houston I was interested in the Air Force you suggested to me that I should join the Air Force. Okay well given my age I'm allowed to miss remember which I thought was a crazy idea I didn't know anything about the military so I thought oh I'm not 18 I don't know if you remember this but I was like I'm not 18 I can't join the military and you said you're an ancient whatever right ancient 20 23 year old but then you said let me put you in touch with someone to you know educate you on your your options and then yeah we took it from there and the rest is is great history and what you do in the military isn't your legacy it's the people you enable and I think one of the best contributions I've made to our Air Force is that contribution you're now a major in the Air Force Reserve right um but from that conversation you sought an officer's commission and got it and uh I don't remember how many years but it was a process it didn't happen instantly right yeah I mean I had to take a year of leave from my PhD program and two segments for officer school then until school so yeah it seems quite quite involved and it was a huge just personal challenge and change for me it changed the direction of my career in many ways and the reason that I did this wasn't just because she told me that she was attending had attended one good school Stanford who was doing her PhD at Princeton another I am told pretty good school at Princeton um but because there's something about you that told me that not just about your abilities but your um depth and in that conversation I got it and I was right for once in my life I was right I was wrong about the Packers versus the 49ers Saturday but you went to um OTS and you did okay right I you know I'd have to say it was a bit of a wake up call there's a lot of things that I had to learn how to do you know I learned how to be a better team player I learned a lot more about leadership and in that course they they selected me as the OT wing commander um so big deal a picture of me sort of leading the other cadets uh on commissioning day so I had that opportunity um I won the academic award or leadership of course while I was there but you know there was so much learning to be had I remember being called into the um my commander's office he wanted to talk to me about my academic performance and I was like this is I've had that happen but in a different sort of a and I thought like and I said to him I was like I don't understand I ace all of my tests and he said but no one else in your flight does and that's when I started to learn about how thinking about the whole unit that you know it wasn't good enough that I was just thinking of myself and how to excel myself like why wasn't I trying to help those around me and it wasn't just me helping them believe me the amount of time that those other OTS spent trying to teach me how to march and do other things to help me get through officer school but it was that mentality of doing it as a team that that you know I hadn't really gotten before that really changed my outlook that's that's a beautiful memory and it's a it's a great encapsulation of what people should learn from their military experience about worry about yourself take care of yourself perform as yourself as an individual but doesn't matter if the team fails so anyway we could talk forever about your military the performance you were the individual outstanding company great officer of the year I think something for the Air Force Reserve but right now you're a center fellow at this I'm going to mispronounce as Spooley Institute the Freedmen Spooley Institute that's Spooley the G is not silent that's what I'm talking about for international studies at Stanford you're also a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute you write extensively a lot I'm trying to read it I'm working on it okay and so you you are truly doable you're an academic and you're a military professional but your research is centered and I'm going to really encapsulate this because it is broader than this China China military China security and conflict resolution I'll call it that but as you know from your book that's really complex your passion you told me when we spoke earlier is the Chinese military in terms of understanding it how did that become your passion how did how did somebody who wasn't even thinking about being a military when you come to take the Chinese the the PLA People's Liberation Army on as an area of passionate study you know that's a question that a lot of people I think my parents have asked me that question multiple times you know I originally when I went to Stanford as an undergrad I was very artsy I actually got in partially for drama and piano and I enrolled in this special program that like the nerds of Stanford enrolled in all structured liberal education which was all like philosophy and literature you know I was taking ancient Greek and Latin I loved all that stuff and I started taking Chinese my freshman year because I loved languages I spoke some romance languages and I thought oh I want to learn a different language and this one seems hard I do nothing about China um at that point I started taking mainly courses on Chinese history and literature and then I took a year off in the middle of my undergraduate experience to go to China for the year to do an intense Chinese immersion course and that's when I sort of discovered about in China I was like but that's not the PLA so what was the transition point to security well I got back and it turns out there's not a lot of Americans without close connections to family in China who are fluent in Chinese so I got flooded with requests from the Intel and defense community in the United States saying you should come home for us and that wasn't right for me in that moment but I had never taken kind of a course on international security before so I applied and got into a program at Stanford an honors program at international security at the center for international security and cooperation and I spent a year just thinking about security issues and I loved every minute of it I mean it was just like a natural I just wanted to hear more and more um and I got my first job out of college as a junior fellow at I think tank at DC at the Carnegie Endowment where I spent the whole year working on that volume about cross-strait balance of power and I just thought oh man I want to learn everything there is to learn and being young and naive I thought I'll be fluent in Chinese and then I'll know everything in like two to three years and then I'll move on to something else but it turns out it's a lot more complicated than that and here I am you know 20 years later you know still doing it I was actually just talking to my Chinese tutor for an hour right before we met so it's like never ending cycle of learning. Well learning Chinese is one thing but being fluent enough to and I remember this from one of our early conversations to debate in Chinese I think in Voice of America do I remember that? That's something because I know just enough to to poorly wish Gong Xi Fa Chai Shen and Kuala kind of Happy New Year stuff um and please don't correct me all right don't don't don't correct my pronunciation but to be able to think and speak on complex issues in the flow of a conversation that's unusual. Yeah it took it took a lot of time and undergraduate and then you know it's part of being at the bottom of the totem pole you know being other people's research assistants for 12 years you know work in places like Rand do I have the discipline to sit and translate Chinese military doctrine for eight hours straight? No I do not but when it's my job you know then you kind of have to so in the earlier days I had these incentives in which this is how I got in the door was with my Chinese language you know back then no one cared what you know undergraduate or yet a master thought about China so that was my way to get in to learn to build my expertise and then from there um I you know I got more opportunities to broaden but the Chinese language was definitely a critical part of that career trajectory. So um I've skipped over we have more pictures to show but I have to respect your time you've testified to Congress 11 times. Yes I have to that's the last count I did at Congress or congressional committees because they also have a U.S. China committee on security and economics I've testified for them and I've testified for both the majority and the minority so I take that as a point of pride but they both call me in. And I would take that as a point of pride I was the chief advocate for the F-22 for three and a half years and I haven't been in the Congress that many times so. I've also I've also testified I've also eaten one of the few people apparently to eat a meal while testifying because they had me there for three and a half hours and I was 36 weeks pregnant and I was like all right guys like I need a snack. Okay here keep question. And I breastfed my way through a congressional testimony too so you know both of those are awesome. You're online bio you need to flesh that thing out and get the details in what was the meal. Oh I don't even remember I mean I was I was like I was a very hungry pregnant person and you know with the breastfeeding one of the great things about COVID is everything was done through zoom and so for the eight months for my second kid I did all sorts of things and until he got a bit older and his hand would like creepily like sneak up in the screen like no one would notice there was a couple times had happened and I feel like you know already be really loud okay you gotta calm down like mom has to talk about Chinese maritime ambitions of the house board affairs. I love it. But you know I had to be done. Just to expand on it you know we we have to gloss over because we want to talk China about the whole Oriana but you're a mom we had Alayana and I had a lovely dinner with you and Arzan and Kailua you have a full life and good for you. Yeah those are my boys I do everything for those boys. Well good good for you and I'm happy proud thankful to know you. I gotta take a break so we can talk about China so give me 30 seconds Oriana. All right figments the power of imagination back again in two weeks and my guest will be Pete Gumatow-Tow Ruer Admiral retired and the director Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies Daniel K. Inway Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies one of my favorite places I was the director there for five years. Pete can update us and tell us how APCSS changes the world. Tune in Pete's a great guy the right guy to fix what I broke and you'll enjoy it. So back to Oriana now on the real stuff about China and your clear view I call that because as I said earlier I think it's thoroughly researched and thoughtfully objective. How do you do that? How do you keep your politics out? How do you not build an agenda as I got ready for this show I thought well I don't think she has an agenda do you have an agenda did I miss that? Yeah I don't and people kind of don't believe it but I think over the years I've demonstrated that. I mean the bottom line is this issue is way too important for politics. This is you know competition with China and ensuring that the United States its interest in security and those of our allies and partners is protected goes beyond anything else and this is something I came to realize when I was an undergraduate living in Beijing this is one of the main reasons I didn't go into business like the rest of my colleagues. I thought we need people to manage this relationship moving forward and I thought I could do it better than most you know so that's what I was really committed to and every time I have an issue and I'm trying to figure out what's the best thing for the United States our allies to do I really have to be as sure as I possibly can which means getting as much information you know analyzing things with such rigor so that when I make a recommendation or I make an argument I'm confident because at least at this stage in my career I'm lucky enough to have some influence within various governments that things move a bit you know not maybe drastically but things do move when I make certain remarks and so I really need to feel like I'm correct and there's no room for politics and good empirical analysis. Amen and you know the value of being self self-critical not in self-flagellation sort of sense but in saying will this argument hold up I'm as you know I'm writing my memoirs soon to be a major motion picture I'm sure but I was writing about the F-22 and how we arrived at the number of 381 my number one goal was to produce analysis from the right number of F-22s that would withstand any argument I didn't know what the right answer was and and your approach to your research always shows that I do want to mention I'll mention it then we'll go on to China you wrote an award-winning book about peace talks during conflict and that's an area I'm very interested in but a really thoughtful piece and I encourage readers to go to our website which we showed on the screen at some point I'm sure we'll but we need more people to do objective analysis of conflict resolution and making peace because it's really hard it's much harder than making war but on to China given your thoughtful objective and exhaustive studies of the Chinese challenge what's their intent what is the Xi Jinping's intent if you had to divine it from what you've learned so I actually think that this is in some cases the easiest question to answer and shouldn't be particularly controversial which is China wants to accumulate enough power to be able to make whatever decisions it deems best for itself at whatever time with minimal pushback the Chinese call this strategic space I don't think there's some things that Xi Jinping the Communist Party that China 100% has decided they want right like unification with Taiwan but I don't think they've had this like a 100-year plan or 200-year plan in which they know every step of exactly what they want their role in the world to be I think they're testing it out you know they're doing the whole Deng Xiaoping picking up stones while they cross the river but they do know that they don't like to be deterred you know like the United States or other countries to step in the way to try to shape their choices they want to be able to do what they think is best for them and so I'm working on my second book which looks at how they've been able to build power over the past 25 years to go from you know an insignificant country when you look at economic political military stats back in the early 1990s to a great power today and that is that is an impressive feat one that only a handful of countries have been able to achieve in all of modern you know human history and so I think it's worth studying how the Chinese managed it let's de-conflict our book releases so mine has some hope of selling a few copies well what yeah and I applaud your use of the term unification by three unification we can talk about that later but given that that what I would describe as a very self-centered view from the CCP you know it's kind of focused on what's best for them what worries you the most with regard to China and US-China relations so before answer I should also mention a controversial point which is I think that Chinese territorial ambitions are very limited I think that if you gave them the south China sea east China sea Taiwan that would be the end of it you know we they wouldn't then be trying to occupy Japan or occupy Australia but my view is that even those limited ambitions are too much because given the US interests in Asia we cannot have a potentially hostile power controlling all of that territory and of course it would be not to the advantage of the people of you know the island of Taiwan for example so you know my main concern is I don't see a way to square this circle the Chinese have decided that they cannot achieve their goals as long as the United States still has a role in Asia and the United States has decided that we can't protect our security and our interests if we don't have a goal of Asia so how those are just fundamentally conflicting interests so a lot of people talk about you know inadvertent escalation conflicts that happen by mistake you know I'm not worried about those I'm worried about deliberate and purposeful conflict between these two sides because China comes to the conclusion that the only way it's going to get the United States out of its way is to you know push it out of its way so I just I don't see I have recommendations for how to push conflict down the road and then hopefully I've come up with more ideas in a couple of years from now but I've yet to come up with a strategy that ensures that war does not happen between us and China you know indefinitely wow I'm going to take some time to process that after the episode I think it's very thoughtful and insightful does anything give you hope other than that you may have time to craft those those measures that will get us beyond war beyond conflict because so what really gives me hope is in spite of both this administration and the last administration so it's not you know one party right I do think the republicans tend to do it a bit more ideology has not played a major role yet in this competition there is not a vilification of China now the Trump administration did kind of go that direction a bit which they were you know talking about the communist party and the communist party separate from the Chinese people the communist party is evil but the Chinese people are not like of course you need a degree of those separations but it it tends to understate the degree to which the average Chinese person supports China's great power ambitions right like unification with Taiwan it's not like that's something the party pushes and the average Chinese person is not super excited about but the bottom line is that at least this is anecdotal I haven't done extensive research but it doesn't seem like the average American hates Chinese people and from my interactions in China it's not like the Chinese hate Americans so we haven't reached in this competition an emotional component or an emotional level you know our different political systems create some issues but ideology hasn't been at the center and that gives me hope that we can sit down and work something out and I was thinking today about conflicts I've been involved in and there's a great danger in personalization of conflict and vilification you know we weren't alive in World War II but in conflict since there has been a vilification of our adversaries and you can't you can't just pick and choose you know if you vilify the Japanese emperor or the Japanese leader that creates a different dynamic that makes peace even more difficult that's a very complex topic so before we go and I know you have very important duties to pick up one of your kiddos at daycare the you're a woman a very powerful strong woman and that was part of just the person you are regardless of gender is part of what made me want you to serve our country but you're still in a pretty male world how the how's the experience been being the smartest person in the room which I you know you can deny but I'm pretty sure you always are and so what's that like as a woman when you go into a conference or meeting or how do you feel about truly equal opportunity and equal acceptance of your input from your experience thus far in any realm you know it's exhausting it is like I think it is absolutely exhausting the equal input you know I always say you really I really have to have the power of argument because the bottom line is when I walk into a room none of the men in there want to hear what I have to say about war that is pisses me off oh but that is the assumption I mean you should hear the death threats I get on twitter when I go on tv it's talk about war you know this is a whole separate issue you know our male colleagues don't get you know I get you know really creepy handwritten letters you know delivered to my office at Stanford you know men don't have to deal with any of that even you know years later I still get asked if I want to take notes in meetings we talked about that at dinner so I'm going to interrupt you and I know we have to finish on time I'm going to interrupt you to say how stupid and short-sighted that is the American security community so let me just talk about that a country that still does that is hurting itself so this is not political correctness we need every great mind we can find and a diversity across our population to craft and implement our security solutions or will fail so I'm going to be angry thanks to you Oriana for the rest of the day because it's it's stupid and self-defeating so you know how many times I miss instead of doctor that's why when I you know I send a media guide to remind people like you don't have to use titles but if you're using titles don't call this man who doesn't have a phd a doctor but then give me miss I mean all of this is to say when we think about strategy China there's so much mirror imaging happening and I think diversity at home is so important because it's not surprising to me if individuals cannot conceptualize that someone sitting next to them for whatever reason gender religion socio-economic upbringing you know sexual identity whatever it is that someone else's experience desires skills are different than theirs then I'm not surprised that they are incapable of understanding that what China wants how China competes is fundamentally different than what the United States is doing so I think we need this diversity of mindset to help us be better strategists and so better strategists and a more complete exemplar exactly yes and you know I go through these phases of you know when I'm the only person at the table right talking about China which is which has happened a lot I'm at a table with a lot of foreign people my first response is to feel very self-important you know like look at me I get to make all these decisions but very quickly that follows with like am I the best and only person who can do this like where are the other people and this is why also most women don't even fight to get to this point you know where I am they get worn out you know it's too hard to get tenure when you're trying to have kids it's too hard to fit in your military service when they make it hard for you to bring your kids with you and you're doing your dirty all this stuff it's exhausting but we need all the great minds you've done it and you have a kiddo to pick up so I'm going to cut you loose I'll close I'm so grateful not just for having you on figments but that you're serving our country and that I have the pleasure of knowing you and and learning from you Oriana thanks so much give my best to Arizona and give the boys hug and avoid the virus and everything else and perhaps we'll do this again sometime of course or the pleasure was mine anytime great for chat all right I'm going to player you off I'll close the show thanks Oriana take care folks this is another segment a segment of figments the power of imagination in the can and the the the next episode as I said will be Pete Gomet how how I look forward to seeing you there on figments the power of imagination