[(5:40)] Jax Jones: Just out of interest, is it difficult to work in such a classified position and then lead a life outside of that?
[(5:53)] Colonel Cedric Leighton: It is. That’s a really good question. When I was in the military, I was actually never on social media. Now, of course, Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and all of those things started to exist, and they started to develop their own momentum within their respective categories. But because of the work that I did, I was not on them. After retiring from the Air Force, I only got on those platforms when I thought I could share more of myself with a greater audience.
Then, of course, going into the media is a completely different world than the world in which you’re working with classified information all the time. So, all of a sudden, if you’re talking to a reporter, now, that’s normal for me. In the past, that would have been something where you had to inform the security office, “By the way, I bumped into a CNN correspondent today.” Of course, if I did that now, I’d be talking all the time to the security officer. But that’s the difference there.
And, of course, you have a responsibility to protect the information that you are entrusted with. But on the other hand, being a member of an armed force in a democracy, it’s important to tell people what you can about what you are doing. That’s the difference. So yes, I’ve seen a really big difference in my life. My military life and my post-military life are vastly different lives.
Most people, when they retire from the US military, sometimes end up in consulting roles. Oftentimes, they end up working for defense contractors. And that seems to be a natural progression. So you end up with, “I’ll just pick one at random Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman,” one of those. A lot of my friends and colleagues from the military have gone that route.
In some cases, you have people do something in uniform, and then they show up the next day doing the same thing but wearing civilian clothes. But then, on the other side of what I do, the more traditional consulting piece, I established a firm that I call Cedric Leighton Associates, and it has a subsidiary Cedric Layton International strategies.
That’s where I started my consulting work, primarily in strategic risk, emphasizing cyber risk. There, I am taking what I learned from my intelligence career in the US Air Force and my other experiences and provide advice to organizations of various types on strategic risk throughout the world. That’s what I do in my spare time.
[(8:53)] Jax Jones: So, the cyber risk would be like hacking risks and stuff like that?
[(8:57)] Cedric Leighton: Yes, exactly. I now have a partner, and we have a firm called CYFORIX, and we deal specifically with hacking risk. We deal with cyber defenses. We work with firms, both on the provider side, if you will, and do our own research, and that research deals with, where is the threat coming from? Who’s involved? What are they doing? Who’s at risk? Those are the areas that we actually deal in.
[(9:33)] Jax Jones: I’ve got to know because when you talk about hacking, I imagine just some person in a bunker somewhere and trying to garner some information but purely, either for some arcade game, or like to anti-establishment, or something like that. Obviously, hacking operates on international-government-level people trying to get stuff, and I just wonder, what is it they’re trying to achieve while getting that information on those kinds of risks? Is it to get one up on the competition? What is that?
[(10:16)] Cedric Leighton: Well, that’s one part, Jax. Exactly. So let’s take an example that relates to the defense industry. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter design was compromised because the defense contractors had all the intellectual property. They had all the designs on their websites, buried within their emails and within their IT networks. But Hackers from China were able to find exactly where all that intellectual property was stored on their networks. And they were able to steal that information and electronically download it just like you would download an application.
They were able to take that and then develop the J-20 Chinese fighter as a result of the hack of the F-35 designs. So that’s just one example. So there are several things that people are trying to do from a hacking perspective. One of the things that they do is, like I described, try to get intellectual properties, and that also applies to the commercial world and even in the music world, in your world.
There have been incidents, and I guess the closest one that most people know about would be the North Korean hack of Sony pictures because they didn’t like the movie The Interview. North Korea [crosstalk] for obvious reasons.
[(11:41)] Martin Warner: I remember that.
[(11:43)] Cedric Leighton: And so, this was kind of more from, “I’m going to steal your intellectual property” to “I’m going to take embarrassing information what you’re talking about the various actors and actresses that are appearing in your movies to how much they get paid. How much all the executives get paid.” All of that stuff was publicized by North Korean hackers in an attempt to keep The Interview off the cinema circuit.
There are economic reasons for hacking. There are political reasons for hacking. There are different socio-cultural efforts that are going on where people are trying to influence people. So it becomes not just a battle of grabbing data and exploiting that data, but it also becomes a battle of changing minds, or at least convincing people to do things in a certain way or not do things in a certain way. So it’s a very complex situation.
But, if you take North Korea as an example, North Korea has in many ways perfected the art of hacking for economic gain. It’s a perfect way for them. Well, a semi-perfect way for them to evade sanctions. They’ve stolen money. You may be familiar with the Swift money transfer system that goes between countries, right? They were able to hack into that system, exploiting bad practices at the Central Bank of Bangladesh. And you think, “Okay, what does North Korea has to do with Bangladesh?” It’s all a matter of vulnerabilities, and they knew that the Bangladeshis were transferring a large sum of money to banks in Europe.
And so, they took that knowledge and exploited the money transfer system so that instead of going to banks in Europe, the money went to banks that the North Koreans could access, and then they could gain money. They were caught by the time they downloaded about $81 million worth of foreign exchange. They were working toward stealing $1 billion. They didn’t quite get there, but 81 million is not a bad haul in 4 days’ work. So, that’s why they do it. Of course, there’s money there.
[(14:10)] Jax Jones: That’s a serious threat. This is serious work we’re talking about.
[(14:16)] Martin Warner: You say that at a nation’s level. At a country level, that’s petty money for these guys, but it’s what they’re doing. As you said, it’s what they do beyond it. So, they’re going to take down an industry. Just because you introduced hacking, Jax, you mind if we stay on it for a minute? Cedric, you gave some level of the taxonomy. I just want to be clear. When we think of cyber terrorism or cyberattacks, I think, more broadly, it would be a cyberattack. I understand the intellectual property, so the idea is just going and filter some information. Grab what you can about anything, whether it be a fighter jet, et cetera.
I’m assuming the other one is to propagate information. So, particularly digitally, to push information out the dissemination, fake new whatever is to clutter the airwaves, confuse people with information. You gave an example of North Korea. And the third one is, as I understand traditional hacking and it’s not just military, it’s to get access to be destructive, trojan viruses, all the other malware to basically halt people’s progress and create confusion sometimes that’s economic disruption. Is there a better way, or are there other things you would describe under this cybersecurity area or arena?
[(15:40)] Cedric Leighton: As far as a better way, Martin, the best way to describe it I think is the taxonomy you used here, and it’s really good to say there is the nation-state aspect to it, there’s the criminal gang aspect to it, we’re talking about ransomware, and the ability to go in and block people’s files up and demand a ransom from them. That affects both governments and companies as well as private individuals.
And then you have from a purely destructive standpoint that more anarchic thing that you and Jax have talked about where hacking basically started. That was kind of the infancy of hacking, with few exceptions historically. But generally speaking, people would work individually. And then they started developing a collective. And the most famous of those collectives would probably be Anonymous. We don’t hear very much about Anonymous.
[(16:40)] Martin Warner: Not lately.
[(16:43)] Cedric Leighton: But in real life, they’re actually quite active. And in some respects, they’ve become, I almost want to say, responsible citizens of the global internet. In some ways, their policing things.
They’re looking for just information. The famous case with the Russian what they called the Internet Research Agency is so important in the whole disinformation campaigns leading up to the US 2016 presidential election.
Plus also the Brexit vote in the UK. Those are just 2 examples of what the Internet Research Agency and similar entities were able to do from a disinformation perspective. So yes, part of it is still the data, and the other part is manipulating the data. And a third part is, take what you’ve got, what you understand, and what we would call Flood the Zone. In other words, you are providing so much information. Some of it is true. Some of it is half true, and some of it is completely false. It uses the old propaganda maximum of the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it.
That is kind of how they’re operating. They start small. I will tell you some things that are basically true. Yes, there are risks associated with, let’s say, taking the vaccine for COVID-19, but then they amplify those risks, and then the anti-vaxxers get a hold of it in this particular case. And then the message kind of self amplifies itself. It’s like a real, like, a real virus.
[(18:24)] Martin Warner: Okay, wait. The new cycle sucks all the air. Thus, it becomes bigger and bigger and more confusing. It becomes a cloud.
[(18:33)] Cedric Leighton: Yes, and that’s the thing. When you look at those diagrams that people use now with the cloud of different words, you go through the word search, and this is the most prominent word, and then the next word is slightly less prominent. That is absolutely what’s happening and this information cloud that we inhabit right now. It has become very difficult for a lot of people to navigate.
Even people who think they are well educated. It’s easy to get duped, and it’s easy to misunderstand, especially some of the more arcane things that we have to deal with in our lives now. So, we’ve all become somewhat amateur virologists at this point, looking at “How will I deal with COVID-19” on a personal basis.
[(19:16)] Jax Jones: It’s so true, Cedric. I’ve just been noticing because what I’ve enjoyed if there’s anything to enjoy about the pandemic is this global union of us going through the same thing at the same time, which is so rare, right? And then you observe human reaction throughout the whole thing, and the internet is just such a hot pot for extreme viewpoints, and then, as you say, created by these articles, and I guess misinformation, it just catches fire and then becomes rampant. And next thing you know, they’re real-world things where 30,000 people are protesting against something they know very little about.
[(19:58)] Cedric Leighton: That’s right. That’s exactly right, Jax. The good thing that we have the internet is that we can do things like this podcast, and we have the capability to spread our version of what we know to be true. But we also have to remember that other people have the capability to spread disinformation just as easily and, in fact, more easily than what we can do. And part of the reason is this seems to be a human proclivity on a psychological level for more sensational information, the more sensational, the better.
If you look at that and you say, “Okay, wow. Prince Andrew actually did this,” and you start believing things like that. They may or may not be true. Jax, you mentioned that we’re going through this on a global level and that there is a certain beauty in that. There is. Just this morning, I communicated with people from places as diverse as Bolivia and Korea about the COVID-19 vaccine rollouts in their respective countries.
It just happened to be people that I know and worked with before. That’s a really beautiful thing. The problem is, the beauty of the internet, I can also be manipulated for very bad things. And in a democracy, it becomes extremely important that the truth prevails as much as possible. Yes, it’s fun to do the gossip thing. It’s fun to understand or to watch the accident as it happens, so to speak, when it comes to sensational stories, but there’s a certain responsibility there.
And with this wonderful connectivity, there is also this great responsibility that we have, and that’s really where I’ve become so important to come back with this information that’s out there and just tell people the truth, whatever it happens to be. It may not even benefit you, personally. It may be detrimental to your economic well-being, for whatever reason. But the truth is far more important than spreading disinformation.
[(22:22)] Martin Warner: I found that having gone through the last 4 years, I feel like one particular aspect of this propagation or the proliferation of information to confuse people, suck the air out of a bigger bubble, and no one really knows what they’re in, and it’s manifested itself in a lot of things in the US. Not least of all, casual representations that lead to a charge on government buildings, right? Is it fair to say that Republican politics, particularly Trumpism as it was, really swallowed this modern-day rulebook of trying to put out the disinformation and confuse where necessary when there was genuinely just a cock-up, just didn’t handle well, or something was taken too emotionally, or egos got in the way often Trump? And all of a sudden we get a new cycle of rubbish.
[(23:20)] Jax Jones: I read somewhere that Trump became the reintroducer of whataboutisms, which is ways of deflecting information. He was great at it.
[(23:30)] Cedric Leighton: He was. No matter where you stand politically, you’d have to say he was actually a genius at that kind of stuff.
[(23:36)] Martin Warner: They’ve got modern-day rule book.
[(23:38)] Cedric Leighton: And the thing that’s interesting about this, Martin, is that, from the perspective of the Republican Party, the party of the 1980s with Ronald Reagan. And even before that, with the more gentlemanly approach to politics, that party does not exist anymore, except in very small pockets. You may be familiar with the term Rockefeller Republican. That was something from the 60s and 70s where people were fairly liberal on social issues, but they wanted a strong national defense and were economically sound policies, kind of business-friendly, but with a social conscience.
That kind of Republican you don’t find, really. And that’s a very difficult area for the US because what we might go into here in the United States is a party of the reasonable ones and party of the irrational ones. And that would be really detrimental to democracy. You want a reasonable conservative party. You want a reasonable Liberal Party in order to achieve that compromise because perspectives are invaluable to each other.
And unfortunately, it’s become, “You’re from that party. Therefore, you’re my enemy,” and that’s just not how should run a country. You were a political system. You almost have to call it a weaponization of the information cycle. I guess we’ll have to call it the disinformation cycle in many places.
[(25:20)] Martin Warner: Yes, I think of the 2-party system. For the most part, we might have a 3rd party here in the UK, but for the most part, it’s been 2 parties is. It’s really a Venn diagram, right? I mean, in the center of politics, if we have to agree on, and then there’s stuff that sits just left and right of the middle. But if we get extremism, we have fundamental problems nationally and then ultimately globally. I guess I relate to older republicanism than the Republican party today.
But I hope that they find their feet because it’s going to make for a more healthy America and a better getting policy through even though, obviously, there’s a swing vote with Kamala. At the end of the day, there needs to be an identity that somewhat in the middle that leans with that Venn diagram to say, “Yes, this is Republican. Here are the issues. Here are the things we can agree on.” Right now, I feel like that needs to be reinvented again. It needs a new identity.
[(26:26)] Cedric Leighton: It needs a new identity. It needs new leadership. The current leadership in the Republican party, with a few exceptions, it’s just not there. They believe that they, in essence, have to kiss the ring of Donald Trump, that they have to do the things that he asks them to or demands that they do. And those things may not be congruent with the Constitution of the United States or the system that we’ve established up to this point. And that’s, as you mentioned, a dangerous territory to be.
[(27:01)] Martin Warner: Yes. Let me spin it around. Before we get to defining the global landscape and trying to put a priority on what we think the issues are, perhaps, if you don’t mind, I could challenge you constructively to say, why should the everyday person care about, I guess, politics? But, more importantly, just international relations other than the fact of your culture, the fact that your tourism, and the fact that we meet people on our travels from different places, but why should they care about the big global issues? How would you frame that to my kids, to your kids?
[(27:39)] Cedric: Right. I think, Martin, the big thing about international relations is it’s really the study of human interaction at the macro level. So, what does that mean? If your country is a country that you are a citizen of has bad relationships with other countries, there are a lot of things that you can’t do, for example, let’s go back a couple of hundred years and look at the relationship between Britain and France. In the 1750s, you would have never had trade relations at any meaningful level between Britain and France because they were mortal enemies.
They fought wars. If France had won the Seven Years’ War, I would be speaking to you in French, and we would have a very different conversation right here. You might not even be where you are right now. So, that’s the kind of thing that matters for us. In the past, some of the conflicts were religious space, but the religion was often a mask or cloaking for the state. In places where you had the predominance of, let’s say, the Catholic religion. They would fight the Protestants.
And it’s not just Northern Ireland, but it’s what happened in Europe during the Thirty Years’ War back in the 1600s. So, international relations, if it goes really bad, if we don’t do the right job as a diplomat and establish those relationships with other countries, you will have a mess on your hands, and it could be as bad a mess as having a war. In the essence of war is the failure to achieve diplomatic solutions to international problems.
[(29:29)] Jax: Don’t all leaders just operate from a place of trying to be harmonious. Like, ultimately, why isn’t everyone looking for a harmonious relationship? Because I think that’s how we get the best out of everything. And then, you mentioned war. If it does come down to that, isn’t it then just the fault of the people at the top?
[(29:53)] Cedric: Oh, it can absolutely be that, Jax. Let’s take the run-up to World War 1, a little over a hundred years ago. They had a political and economic system that existed. It was really quite akin to the globalization that we experienced up until the last few years. So, with the pandemic and Trumpism being factors that have diminished some parts of globalization. But when you look at what happened about a hundred years ago, you see a robust business culture between different countries. There, of course, was a large element of nationalism that interfered with some of these things, on the one hand.
But on the other hand, for example, I just learned as I was studying some of this that you could buy stock. Let’s say you lived in Berlin. You could buy stock in Paris or London or New York in 1912, which is because of the use of the Telegraph, and you can do it directly. Those capital movements were actually banned. Well, in World War 1, they closed most of the stock exchanges. But even afterward, they banned the movement of capital from one country to the other, and it was much harder to achieve that level of Harmony.
But, taking that as one element of where we should be versus where we are, there’s a lot of interpersonal chemistry that becomes really
important When leaders meet for a summit meeting. So, that’s why the press pays a lot of attention to when a US president or a British prime minister meet with, let’s say, the head of Russia or the head of China or even when they meet with allies because those interpersonal relationships can color the relationships that develop at a lower level. So, it became really important.
If you go back to the 1980s to see how Reagan and Gorbachev actually got along. Now their wives didn’t get along. Luckily, they weren’t in charge of foreign policy. But the principles themselves, Gorbachev and Reagan, got along at a personal level. And that, I think, made a big difference in how the Cold War was was handled, especially the end of the Cold War.
[(32:18)] Jax: I can’t believe that that affects all of us to that extent. Like, that could change the world.
[(32:26)] Cedric: Yes. Yes, absolutely. If you and I, let’s say, you were the world leader of country A, and I will be the world leader of country B, and for some reason, I perceived a slight and I didn’t get along with you, that could have significant consequences in terms of whether or not we achieved a trade agreement. If we don’t achieve a trade agreement, then perhaps if we share a border, there’s a military conflict, and that I don’t make an effort to really solve it because I get pied, and it goes on and on.
So, there are absolute problems like that, and that becomes really important. So yes, the interpersonal dynamic is important, but also financial incentives become important. If a country is bent on dominating the world, then by the very nature of their desire, they are going to come into conflict with other countries. And that’s where the danger points, the flashpoints, come to the fore because the leaders may get along well, but if they represent different interests, that could also have a major impact on whether or not there’s a trade agreement versus a shooting conflict or skirmish of one type or another, which could then morph into something much more dangerous.
So there are a lot of different factors but even the interpersonal factor’s important, plus the perceived national interests of a country. And that, of course, what are the countries goals? Are they trying to break out and assume more power? A great role in the world? Or are they okay with the status quo? If they’re not okay with the status quo, that’s where the danger signs start coming into play.
[(34:18)] Martin: This is a great segue. As a military expert and particularly analyzing what I would consider geopolitics or the geopolitical landscape, you’ve leaned on what the behaviors of a nation are or their political leaders. But what are the major global issues today? And then, we’ll talk a bit more about, obviously, China, Russia. I think Afghanistan’s extremely topical right now, especially with Biden’s promised to remove the troops and everything. But, can we start with just what you think the big global issues are? And then maybe on that threat assessment.
[(34:54)] Cedric: Yes, sure. I think there’s going to be some similarities with the threat assessment, and what I’ll say is, I think the climate is a very huge transnational or global issue. Water is a natural resource that becomes a huge issue and has been a hidden issue in many cases for years, followed by the economic issues of natural resources. Back in the 1970s, we were all focused on oil that we had the various oil crises that occurred in particular. The one that resulted in everybody shutting down all the petrol or gasoline stations, where people couldn’t buy gasoline for days on end or at least in the United States.
It was based on what your number plate was. Whether it was an even number plate, then you could get gas on even days. An odd plate could get gas on an odd day. Those kinds of natural resource crises can still play a large role. You have those issues. You still have an issue with terrorism. It is not as acute as it was from, I’d say 2000 to 2015, 2016. And then, of course, cyber. Because of the interconnectivity of the world and the dependents that we have on different elements of the internet infrastructure as it exists today.
Not only do we use it to survive things like the pandemic, but we also use it in a way that blends the virtual world with the real world. And as you get into the area of artificial intelligence, The Internet of Things becomes even more important to secure the worldwide web from, we just call it unauthorized use because it’s supposed to be open to all, but you don’t want it to be misused for ill-gotten gains.
But I would say that the most important challenge from the US standpoint and the UK standpoint, I believe, the number one is probably climate, but followed very closely by what happens with the attempts of China to rise to a higher level and Russia to rise to a level that they believe is commensurate with what they believe is their great power.
[(37:34)] Jax: There’s the source right there in terms of why we should care with the previous answer and this one, and how it can affect all of us if that careful balance isn’t managed.
[(37:46)] Martin: Isn’t it possible that when we think about the layman definition around international relations is that for the most part, it does have a clear outcome, but it’s not overnight. So, with all the things that we’re discussing, you could argue that some of the things that cover things that, let’s say, governments and their spy agencies, MI5 MI6, the NSA, CIA. Who thought people would be literally worried about the scarcity of water and water filtration?
But actually, it’s a strategic issue. And the same with oil, which gets a lot of the good and bad headlines over the years, right? Who has the best relationship with oil-producing countries? And how do they influence that relationship on the price of crude? The average person may hear this in a movie or whatever, but it’s just something they can’t touch. They can’t really understand or appreciate its importance and how that might trickle into a recession if they don’t get it right.
[(38:53)] Cedric: Exactly. And I mean, the thing that’s interesting about that, Martin, I think you’re spot on, and in that assessment is that until it hits you in the pocketbook until you can’t fill up your gas tank of your petrol tank, and say, ” Okay, I could go down, go to work, or go on vacation because I’ve been able to fill up my car.” Guess what. If you can’t do that, that has an immediate impact on you. And the whole movement to alternative energy sources is going to change the equation, but it won’t eliminate the equation.
There’s always going to be some type of dependency that we have to deal with. As you mentioned, the economic issue of scarcity. That’s the whole basis of the science of economics, how do we deal with scarcity in one form or another. And the fact that we can deal with that perhaps in a wiser way is an advantage of modern society as long as we understand what we’re dealing with and as long as we don’t forget the lessons of the past.
[(40:02)] Jax: I think that’s what’s tricky. I think for your average person, you can’t see it until it’s too late. And I actually think that’s part of the symptom of when we talk about democracy and asking your average person to make a judgment on things that you can’t really fathom. I mean, because it doesn’t affect us daily. Even when you were mentioning China and Russia, these kinds of moves for power and just how it went. Everything is operating at the global level, and when you start to think about just where so much of our resources are used up very quickly. It’s just very difficult to comprehend from your average person, I think.
[(40:42)] Cedric: You’re absolutely right, Jax. The average person has to deal with life. They have to earn enough money to get the things that they need. They may have health issues in the family that they’re dealing with or with themselves. It’s not easy. Life, as we all know, can be surprising sometimes. And when you look at the daily concerns that people have, especially if there is a crisis, even a macro crisis that is affecting them, it can be difficult to go beyond the daily concerns.
But the big issue seems to be, “How do you make sure that in spite of the daily concerns, the daily struggles that people have when it comes to living, that they can go beyond those struggles and look for that what’s good for themselves. But ultimately, the greater good and what will then benefit future generations, and it’s really hard to ask sometimes to do that. A lot of the ideologies that have swept the world might have some grand ideas, but a lot of the foot soldiers that made those ideologies a reality in the case of what’s in the Russian Revolution, the American Revolution, or the Chinese Revolution. A lot of the foot soldiers were doing it out of self-interest, out of economic self-interest.
[(42:13)] Martin: This is a great point. We got to address it because you just nailed it, Cedric. I think we’d all say that trade and the economy are big. But the new cycle gets dominated by fear. It’s attention-grabbing, right? And, therefore, it translates to, “We need to worry about our lives in some way because there’s a conflict, or there’s a war going or about to start, or we’ve not been able to get out of something that could exacerbate and get worse.”
But the one that sits in the middle is the person that’s got his hand on the tiller, which is the leader. If we look back, a lot of international relations at the highest level have been down to the will of particular political leaders. And their views on humanity and their views on their own legacy and what they’ve wanted to achieve. And it’s been quite dramatic, the impact. They’ve had, on a global stage, a legacy.
[(43:14)] Cedric: Absolutely. Legacy means everything in many respects. It kind of reminds me of a story. George Washington’s home is in Mount Vernon, and it’s not far from Washington DC. And when Trump was president, he visited Mount Vernon, and he asked the chief executive of Mount Vernon. He asked him, “How come George Washington didn’t name Mount Vernon after himself? And the chief executive was telling the story to several other people and me. He turned to President Trump at the time, and he said, “Yes. Well, he may not have named Mount Vernon after himself, but he has a whole city and the whole state named after him.”
So you look at the definition of legacy, and Trump looked at legacy as a personal thing. In essence, I would say, personal aggrandizement of one type or another. That’s why you have Trump hotels. That’s why you have Trump University, Trump Steak[?], those kinds of things or had them. And I think that when you look at the question of legacy, it seems to me, having studied leaders of various types throughout history, the ones that really stand out are either the really evil ones or the really kind and good ones.
[(44:51)] Jax: Do you think Brexit is like a modern version of a self-interested revolution with Boris leading the charge?
[(44:60)] Cedric: That’s very interesting. I think that’s a great question. I think, in some ways, I had a lot of questions about Brexit and what it would do to the British economy, especially that relationship that they’ve had with the EU and the degree of independence where you could still issue the pound. But you had to follow a lot of regulations from Brussels. So yes, I could see why Brexit occurred, but then you look at what has happened recently with the vaccine rollout, and you’d have to say that the UK has done a far better job than the European Union.
And in many ways, the UK is fortunate that they did Brexit. It’s kind of the rule of unforeseen consequences where vaccine rollout is much, much better in the UK. It actually is one of those unforeseen revolutions that, I would say, kind of a statement that Britain wants a degree of autonomy, a degree of independence that harkens back to British traditions. It also shows that Britain is confident in its own managerial abilities that they don’t want things to be mocked up by somebody else who is not necessarily as competent as they think they are.
[(46:25)] Martin: We’ve always been mavericks, Cedric. There’s no question. And confidence. I think most nations, you’ll find The confident ones amongst every nation, right? But I actually think we made a very good calculative bet there.
[(46:40)] Cedric: Yes, I think it’s worked out that way. I wouldn’t have agreed with you before the pandemic, but seeing what has happened during the pandemic, yes, I think.
[(46:50)] Martin: We’re going to talk about China and Russia and a little bit on Afghanistan, but I want to just go back. I’m going to give you my own view of the history of leaders and legacy. I’m very interested in your view because you mentioned something to me that I thought was fascinating, and that’s this, do leaders ultimately recognise and elevate or live up to this sense of obligation, right? There is a prescription, whether it be the US Presidency or the prime minister’s role here, of what they should do as leaders.
But I think when you start balancing what they want to achieve within that sense of obligation, they need to have an underlying trait. Even if you find it, you may not have had it. You may be battling with narcissism.
You may be battling with Trump megalomania, but at heart, you have to show compassion, compassion to humanity, compassion to society, and compassion to life. And, I think that it goes beyond even narrower such as kindness, but a compassion for a situation. And I think those leaders ultimately get remembered better. I’m just interested in if you were to single out a trait for leaders, particularly political leaders, what would it be for you?
[(48:18)] Cedric: You know, I think compassion is an excellent one, Martin. I think maybe a combination of compassion and stick-to-itiveness, I guess, would be, in other words, determination. Determination in the sense that they have certain goals that they have to achieve, and it’s compassion coupled with an ability to get things done and get things done for the right reasons. But I do agree with you that compassion is an integral part of leadership. It’s just very interesting. And people who have changed, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Indian leader, Ashoka.
Ashoka was one of my heroes, actually, because he started out being your prototypical sultan of the area that he controlled, and he would be absolutely evil. He would throw people in prison, have them executed on a whim. And then, as I understand the story, he finally went to visit the prison and saw the horrible conditions that the prisoners were living in. And he then had the chief jailer executed, changed his ways completely, and became an amazing leader.
He became this very just, very kind, very benevolent leader. Obviously, the guy wasn’t the Democrat by any stretch of the imagination. But he understood his obligation. And if you have leaders who understand their obligation to a greater good, basically to a greater society, they are very different leaders, and they have to really understand what that obligation is. They’re very different from others. So, for example, you take it a more modern example, Churchill and Hitler. Churchill changed his political stripes. He had some major failures, and then you look at Gallipoli in World War 1.
If you did something like that. If somebody like me to had done something that disastrous, my career would be over. There would be no recovery whatsoever. Luckily, the system that Churchill lived under,
allowed him to recover sufficiently to assume a leadership role when it really counted and when he could bring his vast talents and experiences to bear.
[(50:54)] Jax: Can we talk about China?
[(50:56)] Martin: I would love you to. I was going to say, “Kick it off, Jax.”
[(50:60)] Jax: Yes, I have to know because it’s been coming up in the press a lot recently, and you mentioned it earlier about China’s desire for growth and how we work with that, especially with the US, and Donald Trump has been focusing on it, and Joe Biden, similarly, and all the Western allies now, and generally, for as long as I know, have been at loggerheads with nations in the East like Russia and China. Why is that?
[(51:32)] Cedric: Yes. So, of course, you can go back to history and say there are a lot of reasons for this. So, let me just summarize it this way by saying China sees itself not only as a superpower but historically, they’ve seen itself as the center of the universe. The Chinese name for China, Zhongguo, is, in essence, the middle kingdom. They believe they have the highest level of culture. Their history is very important to them.
[(52:10)] Jax: I know what you mean. I was raised to believe that. I’m half Chinese, and my mum raised me to believe that they have a word for everyone. Basically, everyone whose foreign is a devil.
[(52:23)] Cedric: That’s right.
[(52:24)] Jax: The word is “gweilo.”
[(52:25)] Cedric: Gweilo, right. Exactly. So, you have that attitude. It’s always remarkable to meet somebody from China. Generally speaking, they’re well-behaved toward me personally. And so, you wonder, “Okay, what are they actually thinking?” because we’re having these conversations.
[(52:44)] Jax: It’s narcissism, really. I think everyone has that narcissism built-in like British imperialism. That’s how I see. I don’t personally buy into those things, but that’s how I see. It’s like a narcissism that’s built into countries.
[(53:04)] Cedric: Oh, yes. I think you can say that there is a definite relationship between narcissism and patriotism. It’s kind of like the prime version of narcissism. It’s something that you could definitely extrapolate from that and put on a national level in the form of either nationalism or a feeling of ethnic superiority. And even ethnocentrism, in that sense. So, the Chinese have a lot of challenges, and what they’re looking at is writing the perceived historical wrongs that have occurred to them. And in some ways, they have a point, a very big point. And, you know, Jax, you probably know from your background, you go back to the opium wars, for example, and the unequal treaties.
China looks at what happened to them there as their version of a national catastrophe. And in many ways, they’re right. Now, you compare the way in which China existed in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries with what happened with Japan during the same period. And it is very clear that Japan had a much more robust economy in the run-up to World War 2. They were developing much more quickly. The Chinese were the victims of old-fashioned thinking frankly in terms of whether or not they would catch up with the West. They felt themselves to be superior to Western ways even if it meant that they didn’t have the right weapon systems, for example, or comparable weapon systems to the forces of the British or, later on, the Americans.
So, the Chinese are trying to right that wrong, and as they right that wrong, they believe that not only should they achieve parity from a military and economic power standpoint. But then, they take it a step further. And this is somewhat new, because when you looked at what Deng Xiaoping said after Mao left the scene and went into how Deng Xiaoping develops China and raised its economic level, which started the process of raising its economic level to the road to that we currently have and to the level that we currently have.
Deng’s efforts were centered on securing the Chinese people, the degree of economic benefit that they had never experienced before. And when you look at it later on, what Xi Jinping is doing nowadays is he’s taking that a step further. Deng Xiaoping wanted to keep China as a good regional power, solid regional power with a solid economic basis. Xi Jinping is taking that a lot further, and he is saying very clearly that he wants China to dominate the world, whether it’s in specific areas like artificial intelligence or in trade.
I mean, you look at the Chinese system and what they’ve established right now. In essence, what we’re seeing is a neo mercantilists system where they control the means of production anywhere in the world. So if they’re importing food, for example, they prefer to import from Chinese farmers in, let’s say, Brazil or Zambia as opposed to native farmers in Brazil or Zambia or wherever.
[(56:36)] Jax: Wow. I didn’t know that.
[(56:38)] Cedric: Yes, it’s very interesting. And there’s a whole process that the Chinese are going through where they’re buying up land, whether it’s farmland or mines or timber resources, huge tracts of land in places like Brazil, African countries. Zambia is one of them. Zimbabwe is another. DRC, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The list goes on because what they’re doing is they’re securing their bread baskets.
In order to do that, you also need to secure the lines of the trade from those places in Africa, or Latin America, or even parts of Europe and Asia to China. So, the Chinese want to take over the role that the US Navy has played up to this point. And that effort is one in which the US, along with its partners, like the UK, has controlled what is known as the sea lines of communication, places like the Straits of Hormuz. You look at the Straits around Singapore. You look at the South China Sea. You look at all those things.
And when you look specifically at the South China Sea, the Chinese are going after that particular area, and they want to make sure that that becomes part of a maritime exclusion zone that the Chinese have on their southern periphery, and that extends South, basically along the entire length of Vietnam and the Philippines. So, that’s where they’re trying to do. They’re trying to get as much territory as they possibly can, and they’re trying to make sure that nobody can challenge them in these areas.
[(58:22)] Jax: Are we in some form of war right now with China?
[(58:27)] Cedric: That’s a really good question, Jax.
[(58:33)] Jax: As it sounds like, they try to take over the world.
[(58:36)] Cedric: Well, that’s, in essence, what they’ve said. They want to do this, at least to the extent that they control all the economic pieces that feed into their economy, all the natural resources, all the goods. They produce the finished product, sell it to the rest of us, and create a kind of system where they hold all the debt, and they also have the military power to enforce whatever rules they want to enforce. It is a type of Cold War. It has its moments. It’s definitely not likely the way in which we had the cold war with the Soviet Union, but it is not peace. And that can be a very dangerous place.
[(59:21)] Martin: I think it’s worth saying that when we think of war, I think the average person would think of it as a military conflict of some kind, but actually, it’s not true, right? I mean, with the political or trade war, it feels to me like that the China thing, I’m not saying it’s got out of hand, but this idea that they want to control all of the arteries to their market, to me, at minimum, is probably a healthy trade war, right?
Because you need that healthy tension in order to create bargaining chips on the global table with other parties, the question is, do we have any evidence, or do we think we’re seeing, other than what they’re saying, it could get beyond trade sanctions, trade negotiations into something that gets ugly like cyberwar, as an example?
[(60:15)] Cedric: Absolutely. Well, I think the cyberwar has basically already started it. And there are no real rules for the cyber the way we’re doing with the cyber conflict between nations. I think the Biden administration has gotten a lot tougher with them. The past administrations have, and Trump tried to be a bit harder with the Chinese. Then, he was with the Russians certainly. But as far as the actual cyber piece, in particular, that’s an easier way for countries to have conflicts with each other because, at least theoretically, you’re not killing people. But what you are doing is you are creating a situation where you get their data. You get the things that you want to get without actually physically having to conquer them.
So, what we’re seeing is a new form of hybrid warfare that will include the cyber realm, and that inclusion of the cyber realm gives them far more options than they would have otherwise. They don’t have that destruction that the wars of old had where you have the large areas of territory that were completely decimated. And, you know, there was famine raged in. These things can still happen, but they won’t be as obvious, at least initially, as they were in the past. So the cyber element, I think, will be key. And yes, we’re already in a cyberwar. On the one hand, it’s the countries like the US and Britain on one side, and China on the other, and then the other extreme, we have the Russians who are also, of course, engaged in the cyber conflict quite dramatically as well.
[(62:10)] Martin: Let’s give a good trade example of Western brands leveraging a Chinese market, whether Zara, H&M, or all these clothing brands. There are accusations of slavery in Xinjiang. What do you make of that? It’s really hard.
It reminds me of the old outsourcing debate. Or America first. Let’s build our products in America. It’s really hard when there are such vast disparities between markets and how you can operate. And it seems that China works so well in this.
[(62:42)] Jax: It makes me think about our contribution to this situation by doing business there as well if we’re talking about how it affects us.
[(62:52)] Cedric: Yes. Firms, of course, look at businesses have long looked at China as being this great market, always consumers. We’re talking 1.4 billion people. If you can get them into the middle class and above, they’re going to be buying a bunch of H&M clothes, and they’re going to be walking around in Adidas sneakers, and life will be good because our bank accounts will be really full. There’s one aspect to that which works. But the other part of it is, of course, it takes a while for a country like China to raise a standard of living.
Now, they’ve done a magnificent job in doing so. And every observer has to admit that the way they are doing this is unprecedented. But it comes at a price. So, you look at the situation in Xinjiang and firms trying to navigate the one hand. They want to make sure that they have access to the Chinese market. And you want to have that flagship store in Beijing or Shanghai or preferably both. That’s one part of it. But on the other side of it, there is a demand from Western consumers of these companies.
Western customers say, “Hey, you need to have a moral aspect to your business dealings. And if they’re using slave labor in Xinjiang with the Uyghurs, I don’t want to buy cotton that is made from slave labor. I want to have some other kind of outlets. I want to be able to make sure it’s cotton that is produced by legitimate workers who are getting legitimate wages.” And so there’s this social consciousness. I think the social consciousness part is good. I wish everybody shared that because the exploitation of Labor has obviously been with us for millennia.
But if you have that, of course, the Chinese are going to be sensitive to it. And they are going to say, “Hey, you are violating when you interviewed the Chinese on the street in front of H&M in Beijing.” And they say, “Oh, they’re going against China. Any company that goes against China is a company I will not buy from.” You hear words like that. So they’ve been fed aligned. They’re holding fast to the view of the Communist Party in China saying that, anything that goes against China and questions its labor practices and its economic practices is automatically bad, and we see it very differently. We believe that any exploitation of labor is bad.
[(65:54)] Jax: But, isn’t that just madness-inducing? When they say this just doesn’t exist, and you’re looking at exists guides, and then they say, “Well, it doesn’t, and because you disagree with us, it’s the end of our relationship.” It’s like you’re trying to make an agreement with a child or something.
[(66:19)] Cedric: Yes, in many ways, it is. Human nature doesn’t necessarily
change because you became the country’s foreign minister or because you’re an adult. Human nature is, sometimes, you revert back to those childhood type types of tantrums which, in essence, is what they are. And yes, it is absolutely maddening. And this is where that moral compass has to come into play as well.
People like H&M, Zara, and any of the others have to be willing to walk away from the table. There is certain goodness that comes from being able to say, “You know what? I don’t like the way you do business. I don’t want to buy something that was produced by what amounts to slave labor. I’m going to walk away until you reform. And if you reform, then I’ll come back. If you don’t like it, I’ll go to Vietnam, or I’ll go to Thailand, or I’ll go to Indonesia.”
[(67:18)] Jax: It’s not China’s first kind of lowbrow association. I remember one of the first places you think of for like knockoffs, is China. If one will go to China to get a cheap, fake Rolex and fake this and that, and they’d be really good. And I remember the age-old trope “It’s made in the same factory, just hasn’t got the stamp.” Do you know what I mean?
[(67:45)] Cedric: Exactly. Rolex without the R, right?
[(67:49)] Jax: Exactly. And it was the recent lawsuit where BMW took a Chinese company to court where they release the car, which essentially looked identical to one of the BMW where this issue over intellectual property and China will go on record saying, “No, it looks nothing like a BMW. What are you talking about?” Could they be as rich as they are now, as powerful as they are now, if they hadn’t done a lot of this stuff, stolen ideas, taking products from Western inventors, and stuff like that?
[(68:21)] Cedric: The answer, I think, is no. Both the US and Britain, and the European Union are trying to get the Chinese to abide by intellectual property rules by Western forms of economic and business governance. That is something that can happen, especially as the Chinese develop more and more of their own products and more and more of their own intellectual property. And by own product, I mean things that they build and design and see through the entire production process as part of what they do. But I think that when you’re trying to get a country to abide by the rules, and they will tell you, “Well, these are rules that we didn’t make,” then it’s going to be a very hard sell to get the Chinese to change their ways. They profited from doing things the way they’re doing them. In some ways, we can probably accept a few fake Rolexs here and there, not that I’m advocating that. Just dealing with the art of the possible.
On the other hand, we want to make sure that they don’t take advantage of us to the extent that we lose business and potentially our security, which is a really tough dynamic. The Chinese clearly see things from a different standpoint, and what they’re trying to do is they’re trying to outrun the clock. They know that they have demographic issues. They know that they also have political issues. They have to do everything they can to maintain the stability of their system to avoid some kind of internal implosion that I think is definitely possible in a country as dynamic and potentially volatile as China.
[(70:14)] Martin: I want to, I want to just give you guys a 30-second story. In my days, when we created a 3D printer, we did distribution deals all over the world, including China, and very hard to get China to put up money for products upfront and getting them to abide by intellectual property rules. They don’t even agree to contracts. They’re not worth a lot. There are fascinating cultures, but what I found really interesting having assessed this because we assess the threat of our propriety technology being copied and then being re-landscaped across the world, and what history has shown us, and there’s some hard research here that they’re only good at copying products with the influence of the originators.
So they can copy stuff. They can build stuff. But what they can’t do is transfer that successfully back to the world. And if you look at any of the large industries, they’re good at little knockoffs. But Rolex will never become a competitor to Rolex, and it didn’t happen in my industry. It hasn’t happened in automotive. It’s fascinating that, yes, they can copy, but they’ve not yet conquered the ultimate thing that they want. Get the proprietary technology and propagate it simultaneously or asynchronously across the industry. That said, I think, Cedric, you’ve probably got some pretty good views around military-grade products like fighter jets or whatever.
[(71:46)] Cedric: Right, well, you look at the education system too. The Chinese system is based in large part on rote memorization. And the idea of being creative is something that is, yes, of course, there are people who are Chinese who are creative, absolutely, but they have a much harder time inventing things, getting things patented, having their own intellectual property kept safe, and not stolen. And that that is a really large issue. But yes, the society is, in my view, you look at the education system, you have a lot of rote memorization, you look at the culture, a lot of Confucian influences.
Confucian influences focus on obedience and undoing things in a specific way through many layers of tradition, and that is antithetical to creating a Macbook or creating an iPhone. Yes, the component parts are absolutely made in China, but, as Martin said, this is one of those things where you can put it all together, yet the same product is not there. While I’ve never flown a Chinese fighter jet, obviously, I would venture the same thing. In spite of the fact that they have copied the designs for the F-35 and the F-22, the fighters that they have built, to the best of our understanding, are not at the same level as their Western counterparts.
[(73:28)] Jax: It sounds like they might end up at a creative revolution at some point.
[(73:34)] Cedric: That, I think, will happen. I think that will actually happen, and that will be very interesting to see.
[(73:39)] Martin: Well, wow. That, my friend, is a very visionary statement because there is a lot of correlative effects right now that we’ll assume with what’s happening with education in China that they could become incredible product designers over time. And capitalism is pretty much there. The idea that they could burst things as good as other parts of the world is, I think, an inevitable conclusion at some point. We’re under some clock pressure. I’d love to cover 3 things if we can.
One, let’s talk about Russia quickly, and we can talk about Russia for we have a whole conversation on Russia, and perhaps we should, but, Cedric, a couple of questions. Putin. Is he all cracked up to be what it is? Like, is it good or bad? He’s an interesting strong leader that’s imprinted a design for Russia on federalism and expanding Russia’s influence, and perhaps the perception that Russia should have a greater role, or perhaps, it’s still this dominance like China. What do you make of Russia and the threat of Russia on the global landscape, whether it be the US or the rest of the world?
[(74:52)] Cedric: I think Russia is clearly a power that wants to stay relevant.
Unlike China, China has a good shot at becoming either a peer competitor with the United States or even surpassing the United States in some areas. Russia does not have that chance, but Russia is a master of asymmetric efforts, whether it be asymmetric warfare or asymmetric intelligence operations, which also can be influenced operations. That’s what you see Putin doing. Putin, of course, with his background of being in the intelligence services.
[(75:29)] Jax: What do you mean by asymmetric operations?
[(75:32)] Cedric: Asymmetric, in other words, traditional military things would be force-on-force tanks versus tanks. Instead of that, you have a tank versus a cyber attack. And that that is what you’re dealing with in very broad terms. So, what they’re doing is they’re using a simpler, cheaper, but more sophisticated way to get at the US and its partners. Is Putin a ten-foot-tall? No. Is he vulnerable in many areas? Yes, but he has a vision for Russia. It is a vision that is very similar to, in some ways, what Stalin had.
He looks at what happened with the fall of communism as being a quote, the great catastrophe, unquote. But on the other hand, he’s also a board a lot from the czars, from pre-revolutionary Russia in terms of how power should be expanded for the Russians. His problem is he’s running against several clocks. And one of the clocks is demography for Russia. The Russian birth rate is very low compared to the death rate in other countries, and he’s also running against his own biological clock.
At some point, he’s going to run out of steam, and that will be a problem for Russia because he doesn’t have a successor who is identified. And that exposes the weaknesses of, well, call it Putinism. Although, it isn’t a real ideology. It’s not as robust as, say, communism was. So, from an ideological sense or some of the other possible philosophies that could have governed Russia.
[(77:13)] Martin: Is it worth throwing in there? Russia’s lack of power, particularly at the trade level, is its economic disparity. We don’t look at Russia and really think, “Jesus Christ, it’s the third world. This is Africa, of course, it’s not,” but actually, there is a massive economic disparity. You’ve got the largest geographical country globally, and what they’ve been able to do is rape the poor and put in this pseudo kind of corrupt economy, and there’s just not a lot of prosperity for Russians, and yet their education system is okay.
[(77:51)] Jax: No. It’s a small group of people.
[(77:55)] Martin Warner: Right. It’s not trickling up.
[(77:58)] Cedric: Exactly. This is a big irony, and it’s excellent that you brought up the point of their education system. It is an excellent education system in how they can impart technical knowledge, mathematical knowledge, and reasoning. All of those qualities are extremely important to develop a modern society. Interestingly, they have not been able to use that educational advantage to their benefit, except for, perhaps, the cyberworld. You could argue that, there, the educational system has paid massive dividends because they’re employing people with great talent in a major way. But that’s only a really small segment of the population.
So if you want to be somebody in Russia, you better be an oligarch or somebody who has access to the oligarchs. And that disparity between the haves and the have nots is what did the Russians in 1917, the Russian czars in 1917, and it’s what’s going to do Putin and his kleptocracy in as well. It is not as solid a state structure as the Chinese structure is. And we talked about how vulnerable China itself is, but Russia is even more vulnerable. If Putin disappears from the scene, at some point, there will be some major challenges for Russia and for the countries around Russia because that kind of situation with nuclear power could be very, very dangerous.
[(79:32)] Martin: And what do you make of, obviously, Biden? They’ve been talking about Afghanistan for ages and removing the troops. Is our work done or not done. And just that gives the right to further opportunities for the Taliban. What do you make of it, Cedric? How would you analyze this situation in America’s role?
[(79:53)] Cedric: Right. Martin, I think it is time that we at least called an end to the war. I think 20 years is a long time to be any place. Part of the issue is a semantic issue. We still have troops in Germany, for example, but we don’t call it a war with Germany or haven’t done so since 1945.
[(80:15)] Jax: We’ve still got troops in Germany?
[(80:18)] Cedric: Right.
[(80:19)] Jax Jones: What’s their purpose there?
[(80:20)] Cedric Leighton Well, their purpose is multifaceted, but generally, to be a counterweight to Russia right now, and the Germans want them there. And in fact, we’re increasing our level in Germany by 500 more troops. So, it’s not like they’re unwelcome. For both countries, it’s a good thing. And the other part of it is, of course, the wake of both World War 1 and World War 2. The other European powers wanted a damper put on potential German ambitions for even further mischief of World War II. And that’s something that’s more of a historical reason, but still a reason before that.
So when you look at Afghanistan, I think we should have changed the name once Bin Laden was killed, and declared victory at that point, and then said, “Yes, we’re just here to advise and, hopefully, the Afghan government will take care of business, like they’re supposed to.” I don’t think they will. Part of the problem is endemic corruption. Unfortunately, a lot of the games that we see in terms of rights for women, rights for minorities in Afghanistan, at this point, will probably be curtailed under in eventual Taliban regime.
I personally would not like to see the Taliban back in Kabul, but I believe that is probably what will happen at some point. And that bothers me a lot. But on the other hand, it does not make sense, given the technology and given the capabilities that we have to stay there in the form of a large troop presence beyond this point. I’m
very concerned that it could still come back to be a jumping-off point for terrorist forces. Instead of a troop presence there, it requires intelligence overwatch. That means paying attention to the social dynamic of Afghanistan, not just who’s got how many tanks, but what they’re actually thinking. And that’s what’s really important.
[(82:51)] Martin: Good point.
[(82:53)] Jax: So, you’re genuinely concerned that in the future, the Taliban regaining power of Afghanistan, and they could potentially take revenge for 20 years of occupation.
[(83:03)] Cedric: Oh, they will. There’s no doubt in my mind that if they do gain control, they will take revenge. They’re not known for their 12-step programs of anything. So, I believe that they’re going to be very tough on their opposition. I don’t think they will treat the government officials of the current Afghan government very well. And I think that we have to do everything that we can to protect those Afghans who have supported the NATO operations in Afghanistan. We have to protect them beyond what we would normally do for people like that. So yes, I think it’s going to be a very difficult time. I don’t see very much good coming out of it. But the Afghan government, on the other hand, has had over a decade to prepare themselves for an eventual takeover of [inaudible], I should say, the eventual departure of the American and NATO forces.
[(84:06)] Martin: To me, I listened to your view, and I kind of share some of your view. We’ve got a return to a very strong autocracy. I think of it as lots of fiefdoms. And the view that what can you expect having the fact that this could just become a hotbed for the whole bunch of things from terrorism to drugs and humanitarian problems for the people of Afghanistan. And yet, what you’re actually saying is right with technology and the military technologies that are out today. What you’re saying is after 20 years, it’s a rethinking of the way we approach Afghanistan or the way America might approach other way Britain approaches it.
[(84:49)] Cedric: Right. Absolutely. Historically, we’ve had so little experience in places like Afghanistan. Obviously, that experience level has ramped up quite a bit. People are more familiar with the culture, with the language, with the politics of the various tribes in Afghanistan and the various regions of Afghanistan. But it is something that is very hard to stay in a place like that forever. And we should have never thought that we could do so, that we were the exception, that’s this one is those intractable problems that exist. And we have to recognize that fact and just deal with that reality.
[(85:31)] Martin: And given this is an anglo-American conversation with an American on one side, a Brit on the other, and me, kind of straddling in both. I’m going to say to you. Let’s leave it on a really positive point. Tell me why the American-British relationship is so special. Given, I think, for the most part, with our ups and downs, it’s been an important relationship.
[(85:54)] Cedric: It has. It has been, I think, the most important relationship for the US, and I think, also for Britain. I think the really important part of that is that we feel comfortable in each other’s shoes. There’s a lot of sympathy in the United States for Britain. By sympathy, I don’t mean pity, but I mean understanding and the ability to relate on a cultural level. The fact that there are so many really strong cultural connections between our countries.
As the old joke was that we’re divided by a common language. Well, I think we’re bridging that gap even within that common language. I’m just so grateful that I’ve had the experiences on both sides of the Atlantic and that we’ve been able to do some really good things together, whether it was in the military or in my civilian career. It’s been a very important part of what we do, and it’s an important part, I think, of our shared cultural heritage that we can do that. And that’s why this bond is so critical and so unique.
[(87:13)] Jax: I think with a view of continuing positive trade relations, I’ll send you a copy of my music, Cedric, to broker some joy in the Pentagon. Perhaps it could harness a positive interplay between the world leaders. Yes. Lighten the mood. The next time that you’ve got quite a tense conversation with China regarding some knockoff Cadillac or something, you’re like, “Guys, back on subjects, Jones. We’re going to simmer down.
[(87:47)] Cedric: That’s right. Simmer down. You got to listen to Jax. This is the way it’s going to work. You must listen to Jax.