HH Addendum EP3 A Four-Star Conversation

What this episode is about

The discussion features Meryl McDonald, a multifaceted individual who served as a commander and chief of staff in the Air Force, flying over 250 combat missions in Vietnam and performing with the Thunderbirds. He shares insights from his extensive military career, including his experiences during the first Gulf War, and discusses his new book, "Roles and Missions," which details his tenure as the 14th Air Force chief of staff.

Key takeaways

• Precision guided munitions: a Vietnam lesson turned Air Force success—missing the target isn't an option today.
• Night fighting dominance? A direct product of Vietnam's harsh lessons, reminding us that darkness is now our ally.
• War’s tech evolves rapidly; ironically, the bigger political lessons seem to languish in a cycle of hubris.
• Institutional memory in the military: like a bush needing trimming, wisdom fades unless actively cultivated and maintained.
• After decades, America struggles to remember war’s lessons—proof that forgetting can be as dangerous as losing.

Who speaks in this episode?

• Dan Carlin (Host) · 39 min speaking
• Merrill McPeak (Guest) · 26 min speaking

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 10:00: Vietnam, Vietnam War, Tet Offensive, Meryl McDonald
2. 10:00 – 20:00: Vietnam, Vietnam War, North Korea, Afghanistan
3. 20:00 – 30:00: Vietnam, Vietnam War, Afghanistan, Ken Burns
4. 30:00 – 40:00: Vietnam, Colin Powell, Ken Burns, Vietnam War
5. 40:00 – 50:00: North Korea, Russia, Syria, China
6. 50:00 – 1:00:00: Vietnam War, Vietnam, Syria
7. 1:00:00 – 1:04:15: Audible, George S. Patton, Roles and Missions

Notable quotes from "HH Addendum EP3 A Four-Star Conversation"

• Four-star general now who was nice enough to come and talk with us by the way you may have recently seen him in Ken Burns his recent multi-part documentary on the Vietnam War as well welcome to the show general McPeak first of all let's get.

  about Merrill Tony McPeak · at 2:30

• Thought now here we are decades later and I thought I would ask you 50 years after the Tet Offensive what do you think we learned and do you think the things we learned for…

  about Tet Offensive · at 3:18

• About how I'm doing and what the result is as a consequence you know the fact is we never lost a battle in Vietnam we just lost the war and so even and I'm not a big fan of…

  about Vietnam · at 20:08

• How to get out of here with my pride and you know reputation and shape I don't see a way to do it we're kind of stuck to the problem in the Middle East and who knows how to…

  about Afghanistan · at 25:59

• Here without mining you a little bit for some knowledge and wisdom myself I'm looking at Syria and I'm looking you had talked about you know in destructive mode right now but…

  about Syria · at 42:32

• Our Air Force that we haven't already shot down a few of those guys but that's a that's terribly dangerous we could be any day involved in a head-to-head fight with Russian…

  about Russia · at 44:28

• About everything dear nothing has worked so far because what we have to do is dismantle this nuclear capability we can't allow in my opinion North Korea to continue to develop…

  about North Korea · at 45:52

• That well I don't think well we'd know that already first of all but remember the North Korean nuclear capability is a bigger threat to Beijing a bigger threat the flat of a…

  about China · at 47:02

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Merrill Tony McPeak — Person · Main guest · 1 mention · first at 2:22
  Primary interview subject: a retired USAF four-star general discussing Vietnam War lessons, civil-military decision-making, media effects, and modern conflicts (Syria/North Korea).
• William Westmoreland — Person · Referenced military leader (Vietnam War) · 3 mentions · first at 5:32
  Discussed as an example of institutional learning and leadership failure in Vietnam; McPeak criticizes Westmoreland’s approach and contrasts post-Vietnam reforms.
  As you say and I'm not sure you know that I have a total totally good answer to it I know that the army coming out of Vietnam was not happy with its performance in Westmoreland…
• Colin Powell — Person · Referenced military/political figure · 3 mentions · first at 8:38
  Cited as a senior leader involved in rebuilding the U.S. Army after Vietnam and later criticized (by McPeak) for his 2003 UN presentation supporting the Iraq War rationale.
  Know we were just you were just talking a second ago about Colin Powell respected military authority but using that authority as part of an effort to sell the American people…
• Meryl McDonald — Person · Mentioned/possibly misidentified guest name (likely referring to Merrill A. McPeak) · 2 mentions · first at 1:22
  Introduced by the host as the interview subject, but the transcript later clearly identifies the guest as Gen. Merrill Tony McPeak; this appears to be a naming error/variant in the episode intro.
  Meryl McDonald he flew with the Thunderbirds the acrobatic team for the Air Force he is a commander a chief of staff in the Air Force and did so during the first Gulf War and…
• Barack Obama — Person · Referenced political figure (supported by guest) · 2 mentions · first at 2:05
  Used to illustrate the guest's bipartisan political involvement; McPeak says he supported Obama and served in a military capacity in the Obama administration and was a campaign co-chair in 2008.
  Chief of staff by the way sort of a bipartisan guy worked for the Bob Dole republican campaign also supported and was in the Barack Obama administration in terms of a military…
• Ken Burns — Person · Referenced documentarian · 5 mentions · first at 2:33
  Referenced as the creator of the Vietnam War documentary in which McPeak appeared; also used as a touchstone for how the war is remembered and presented through media.
  Four-star general now who was nice enough to come and talk with us by the way you may have recently seen him in Ken Burns his recent multi-part documentary on the Vietnam War as well welcome to the show general McPeak first of all let's get.
• Andrew Nixon — Person · Referenced U.S. president (Vietnam-era policy) · 3 mentions · first at 7:30
  Mentioned in relation to ending the draft and secrecy/credibility issues (e.g., Cambodia bombing, Christmas bombings) and as part of the multi-administration Vietnam narrative.
  So they can be informed voters from really knowing what's going on and it started with you know Eisenhower even but even to the end with Nixon and Christmas bombings that were…
• George S. Patton — Person · Referenced historical military figure (book recommendation tie-in) · 4 mentions · first at 11:13
  Mentioned in two ways: (1) McPeak references not knowing Patton when discussing military leadership; (2) the host recommends Patton’s memoir/diary-based book as an Audible pick.
  Four-star general love that stuff but at Viet Nam's not your thing or you're more of a land war person well how about war as I knew it by General George S Patton probably the most famous arguably the most famous Second World War u.s.
• Bob Dole — Person · Referenced political figure (campaign affiliation) · 1 mention · first at 2:01
  Used to illustrate McPeak’s bipartisan political activity; the host notes McPeak worked for the Bob Dole Republican campaign.
  Is called roles and missions which goes over his time as the 14th Air Force chief of staff by the way sort of a bipartisan guy worked for the Bob Dole republican campaign also…

Books & papers

• Roles and Missions — Book · Primary recommendation · 2 mentions · first at 1:51
  General McPeak's latest book, discussed as part of his military career.
  Author who's got a brand new book out to add to his catalog of books his new book is called roles and missions which goes over his time as the 14th Air Force chief of staff by…
• The Peloponnesian War — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 6:00
  Mentioned in the context of historical lessons and institutional memory.
  Because every generation comes up we have to relearn some of those same things is there you know when you read like the Peloponnesian War and the stuff from ancient Athens…
• Below the Zone — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 2:15
  One of General McPeak's books, mentioned in passing.
  In terms of a military capacity he writes about his time in Vietnam and his book called hangar flying he's got another one called below the zone another one called the Vietnam…
• Hangar Flying — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at 2:15
  One of General McPeak's books, mentioned in passing.
  Was in the Barack Obama administration in terms of a military capacity he writes about his time in Vietnam and his book called hangar flying he's got another one called below…

Places & events

• Vietnam War — Event · Core topic · 11 mentions · first at 2:38
  Central theme of the episode, discussing the lessons learned and the impact on military strategy.
  Four-star general now who was nice enough to come and talk with us by the way you may have recently seen him in Ken Burns his recent multi-part documentary on the Vietnam War as well welcome to the show general McPeak first of all let's get.
• Vietnam — Place · Key discussion point · 26 mentions · first at 1:39
  Central to the discussion of the Vietnam War and its lessons.
• North Korea — Place · Key discussion point · 9 mentions · first at 17:37
  Discussed as a current threat with nuclear capabilities and the potential need for intervention.
• Russia — Place · Key discussion point · 4 mentions · first at 9:49
  Discussed in the context of current conflicts and global politics.
• Afghanistan — Place · Key discussion point · 4 mentions · first at 10:24
  Discussed in the context of ongoing conflict and challenges.
• Syria — Place · Key discussion point · 3 mentions · first at 42:36
  Discussed as a current conflict zone with multiple forces operating.
• Tet Offensive — Event · Key discussion point · 2 mentions · first at 2:58
  Major event in the Vietnam War discussed in depth.
• China — Place · Key discussion point · 2 mentions · first at 6:35
  Discussed as a potential military adversary and global power.
• Iraq — Place · Key discussion point · 2 mentions · first at 29:10
  Discussed in the context of past military interventions and current stability.
  Because it's represented he would say bomb him back into the Stone Age in fact he did say that and we could have won I mean it had we nuked an away the war would have been over…

Sponsors

• Audible — Product · Sponsor · 5 mentions · first at 0:00
  Sponsor of the podcast, mentioned in the introduction.
  Today's show is sponsored by audible get a free audiobook with a 30-day trial membership just go to audible.com forward slash hardcore history or text the word hardcore history 2 5 0 - 5 0.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 today's show is sponsored by audible get a free audiobook with a 30-day trial membership just go to audible.com forward slash hardcore history or text the word hardcore history 2 5 0 0 - 5 0 0 to get started today it's hardcore history attention when I was designing this hardcore history addendum format I knew that we were going to want to do interviews it's a good way for us to get out content quickly that's interesting and that it involves other people other voices people that you might want to know more about and I knew that we would have authors on because there's always a lot of good people writing intriguing books cuz I'm reading them I knew we would want to have experts on from time to time because after all it's a great use of the medium isn't it and I was hoping that we could get some primary source people on from time to time participants in the events that we were talking about in other words you know

0:58 I'm not a historian because historians Chronicle you know things for history and for footnotes and stuff in books but maybe we could do a little bit of that if we were interviewing people you know who were participants in these sorts of events well today I have somebody that is sort of the trifecta of interviews for this program because he meets all three of those specifications he's an author he's an expert and he's a primary source and participants his name is Meryl McDonald he flew with the Thunderbirds the acrobatic team for the Air Force he is a commander a chief of staff in the Air Force and did so during the first Gulf War and he flew more than 250 combat missions in Vietnam imagine that for a second he's also a noted author who's got a brand new book out to add to his catalog of books his new book is called roles and missions which goes over his time as the 14th Air Force chief of staff by the way sort of a

2:03 bipartisan guy worked for the Bob Dole republican campaign also supported and was in the Barack Obama administration in terms of a military capacity he writes about his time in Vietnam and his book called hangar flying he's got another one called below the zone another one called the Vietnam chapters if you like military history de specially Air Force history merrill tony McPeak is somebody whose books should be on your bookshelf we talked to the four-star general now who was nice enough to come and talk with us by the way you may have recently seen him in Ken Burns his recent multi-part documentary on the Vietnam War as well welcome to the show general McPeak first of all let's get started by suggesting you know the person we were we were contacting your publicist or whatever was discussing the 50th year of the Tet Offensive and when I was thinking about how to start this I thought you know I grew up in that

3:03 generation where we weren't in the war we were in the early eighties middle 80s we were the ones learning about the war in college and the veterans would come and speak in our classes and I remember 60 minutes did a whole big thing on how here we were studying the lessons of Vietnam and what did we learn and I thought now here we are decades later and I thought I would ask you 50 years after the Tet Offensive what do you think we learned and do you think the things we learned for example by the 1970s or 1980s do you think those lessons stuck well speaking as a professional military guy we learned a lot and did not we learned for instance just as an Air Force's a fighter pilot we learned we had to hit what we were aiming at you know we've missed most of the targets I think our average miss distance in Vietnam was like a hundred meters you know and that's not good enough if you're going after a target

3:58 like a bridge or a rugged vehicle like a tank or a truck so we invented precision guided munitions and you've seen the result a year since we learned we had to be able to operate at night and we now or nobody wants to fight us at night nowadays there are planted a time meter but we we really dominate night fighting now we learned that we had to be invisible on radar so we invented stealth aircraft so I mean from the standpoint of the professional military we learned a lot and we improved a lot because the war lasted so long you know 10 years or all of us got to go there at least once we also wouldn't need to be fixed and we fixed it now if you not ask what did we learn politically or socially I think that the by and large the lessons were not learned at all or if they were they were forgotten we repeat the same mistakes you know war after war it seems to me so technically we learned a lot but big

5:11 picture wise I think we we missed the boat you know I'm thinking about the concept in business of like institutional memory right the ideas that you know you have you have the the fact that the people can come and go in a large corporation but theoretically when new people come in they're trained with the lessons learned by the previous generation I'm thinking about institutional memory in the military so if you guys get a guy like william westmoreland who's the Second World War veteran knows how to fight that kind of war has to deal with this counterinsurgency situation in Vietnam theoretically learns what he's going to learn there but then Westmoreland retires the people who were right below him retire it is is his institutional memory in the military sphere a little like something like a bush in front of your yard that you have to keep cut back because every generation comes up we have to relearn some of those same

6:00 things is there you know when you read like the Peloponnesian War and the stuff from ancient Athens there's the hubris element is Huber is something that that a good punch in the nose can can teach you permanently or do you need to be reminded every now and then I mean I look at the dominance we have right now on the battlefield and I worry that if we got into a major conflict right now we don't have anyone in the institution's at the higher levels now that have fought for example in a real war against another first world military would they almost have to do like the reverse of what Westmoreland had to do where he had to learn to go from a world war 2 mentality to a counterinsurgency mentality mentality if we ever had to fight China in some islands off you know in the East see is that relearning a kind of warfare that Westmoreland understood but we haven't done in so long we don't know

6:46 how to do anymore I'm sorry that's a really long question there but it's a wonderful question because you know you've always heard that we practice to fight the last war you know ha ha I think that's even giving too much credit look your question is our military organizations learning organizations that can benefit through experience I think they are but remember we fought Vietnam with a draftee force conscripted army and it was only after that that Nixon was really forced to abandon the draft and to create the all-volunteer force the all-volunteer force is a different kind of army from a citizen based army and I think it's probably true that a professional force can be a learning organization whereas by and large citizen based armies are not because they're constantly taking in new guys or short term of service and they have to you know train them from the beginning every six months a but above

8:11 bullet look it's a good question it's a profound question it goes back to the Peloponnesian wars or Polk before that as you say and I'm not sure you know that I have a total totally good answer to it I know that the army coming out of Vietnam was not happy with its performance in Westmoreland Westmoreland failures in particular and guys like norm short scoff and: Powell said about rebuilding the culture of the army and they the army who have today I think is considerably better and the one we had in Vietnam which was guilty of fragging its own officers and ant and senior NCOs and drug abuse and other forms of indisciplined on the front lines I don't think you see that kind of army anymore so you'd have to say I think that that we did learn you know from that experience for me to larger lessons though are the policy level lessons of political lessons and there I see no evidence that we've

9:25 learned very much and there I see that there's no ancient Greek problem of hubris still around you know in space doesn't it seem like because he seemed and again this may just be one person shooting an arrow and painting a bull's-eye around it afterwards but it seems to me that there's always this wonderful out that people who want to do something like I want to invade Russia and I'm the I'm the Nazi ver Mach than someone who comes up to me says well you know that didn't work out very well for Charles the 12th didn't work out very well for Napoleon but I want to invade Russia so I say yes but they didn't have the Luftwaffe and they didn't have the ver Mach therefore those historical lessons from the past are not applicable and I feel like there's a human tendency to do that even now for example to say if our military today went and rethought the Vietnam War in the 21st century we could do that and we could win because

10:20 of all this stuff we have that we didn't have back then in other words we can go into Afghanistan and it won't be the graveyard of Empires because they didn't have smart bombs in those old days um do you think that there's any validity to that way of thinking is that a little bit of a of a human nature sort of thing or is there something you can do institutionally that says listen this is how human beings behave so let's insulate ourselves from that typical human tendency does that make sense yeah there is an element of Shakespearean tragedy told told as I'm in man is a failed creature right and so you see these foibles pop up time and again let me I will say this dad I think the professional military especially at the senior level are reluctant fighters that's been my experience now I you know I didn't know George Patton but by and large from my experience in the JCS and senior Washington levels there's nobody looking

11:26 for a fight there their advice uniformly has been slowed down you know it really didn't work for Napoleon so so it's on the civilian side in the case of Middle East problems that we're having still today the neo cons you know the guys who had never worn a uniform Dick Cheney you know had seven excuses for not going to Vietnam and the people around him and at those levels there were anxious to go back and do Iraq again you know to really get Saddam Hussein this time that wasn't military that was wasn't political people and so the hubris that I have seen has been where in the dark blue suits not uniforms interesting I admit general mattis once and he had basically said something similar he was very cognizant of the limitations of military power when when I was talking to him um so then let me ask you this then I it seems to me that there's an institutional bias in this country and it's a human thing

12:37 it's I don't blame anyone against let's call it the can't do general as opposed to the can do general so let's say we're talking about the 50th anniversary of Ted and we're talking about Vietnam and Johnson or Nixon brings in a couple of military advisers and out of the five of them four of them say of course we can win this war let me tell you how to do it put me in charge and I'll do it and one guy says no no no you're not gonna win this it's over let's figure out a way to get out of here with honor isn't there a natural tendency to say listen the can't do guy I'm not gonna go with that I'm gonna go with somebody who tells me he can get it done and isn't there a sense in the military of I don't want to be the guy that says we can't do this I don't want to be thought of as the guy you know who says this is unwinnable of course you put me in charge and I'll get it done seems to me that it's

13:20 tough for someone to stand up in that sort of situation say let's not do this we wouldn't be successful it wouldn't be prudent does that have any and when you're talking about the institutional failures with the people who wear suits is that a problem that they're gonna run into you know Dan again you put a very deep question to me here but let me just say that isn't the way I have seen the problem formulated during my time in Washington now I'm sure this changes as the cast of characters changes in Washington but typically the president doesn't ask advice of five guys and you know for him say yeah I can do it one says no that what the president says is hey we got a problem here what are my options so he's not looking for a yes/no answer it's not a binary problem what he's looking for is you know give me half a dozen things I might do here tell me the frozen the cons of each thing and let me

14:27 make a decision so in that case it's if you're opposed to taking a military action you just put it in the cons you say here's the cost you know we're going to lose friends around the world we're going to lose international standing traits gonna dry up or whatever you can put an econ in you want but but the the proper approach from the military advisor standpoint is to say okay if you want to do this here's how you here are a set of options and the and the and the and the pluses and minuses that go with them and then it's up to you so it's a little different formulation and the one you put okay so if you're the military advisor and you've been in the role of you've been a chief of staff before you you've been the Air Force a four-star general here if somebody comes you the president I need your advice on this and he says something to the effect of oh god I'm losing my train of thought general I'm getting old now 52 it's just

15:27 I know I'm getting their aging quickly um if okay here's what I wanted to get with that so so the old line about the Vietnam War was the political nature of the president for example operating as a person who's picking tactical targets you know for aircraft to bomb and yet the old argument that we learned back in in military history class for why that might have been necessary was the president's got to worry about you know Soviet involvement the threats of nuclear war you know other things happening including maybe funding the very people you're fighting at a higher level to compensate whereas the guys on the ground the military leaders are worried about okay how do I get victory in this theater of operations um what is the proper balance in your mind between a president who's got to worry about the you know the grand strategy across the world and the general who's got to say listen if you just take your hands off

16:24 of me I'll win this theater for you how do you see the balance of the general says you know general McPeak if the president says general mcpeak help me out here what do you tell them to do visa vie allowing generals to have a free hand versus a Lyndon Johnson who's maybe more worried about the Soviet Union than he is about making sure no more resupply ships get into Haiphong Harbor yeah well this is a problem which is at the heart of limited warfare if for instance you asked Curt LeMay what because it's represented he would say bomb him back into the Stone Age in fact he did say that and we could have won I mean it had we nuked an away the war would have been over right so the war was always winnable it was just a question of what mean how limited are the means you want to use you so you're going to president say okay I'm assuming you don't want to do to use nuclear weapons I mean we have an

17:36 instant case right now that's very relevant North Korea so if we seek to intervene in North Korea the first question we should ask ourselves is this a limited war or the means we're going to use limited now and not just the means here we have a limited amount of time no are you going to put a limit on the amount of money we can spend so you have to decide all of the boundaries of the limitations you're going to put on warfare and then that has to be bought by the president I mean you have to tell President Johnson ok if I have to worry more about the Soviet Union and I do a winning in quotes and say in South Vietnam that's that's fine just tell me that and that means I can't mine Hanoi Harbor and blow up some Soviet boat now are you willing to live with that so the president has to understand then the nature of the war it's going to be limited and that means we may or may not win if it's unlimited

18:46 I know we can beat North Vietnam or North Korea any time so the first question you have to ask are what limitations are you going to put on me so we understand all that now typically today we don't talk in terms of limited war we talk in terms of rules of engagement what rules of engagement is the President or the Secretary of Defense or the theater commander or whatever going to and boson operations and we we need to be eyes wide open about that up front now inside the rules of engagement I would argue you ought to give the military guy as much flexibility as possible I don't want the president picking targets in the basement of the White House no because he doesn't know much about targeting his defense you know he's going to pick the wrong targets or he's going to tell me to attack them from the wrong direction or he's going to tell me to use the wrong munitions or he's going to tell me

19:45 to send too few airplanes or too many airplanes those are those are questions that he knows very little about and what he needs to do is if those rules of engagement tell me what the limitations are and leave me alone and then as long as I operate inside the limitation she should never have a you know any kind of a quibble or complaint about how I'm doing and what the result is as a consequence you know the fact is we never lost a battle in Vietnam we just lost the war and so even and I'm not a big fan of Westmoreland I regard him as rather dumb I mean there's what he did tried to do was stupid in my opinion and not much much not much improved when he was succeeded by Abrams although there's a big school of thought that says Abrams was a much more talented officer and we were on the right track once we got rid of Westmoreland but in any case you know the point is that there are things that

20:53 politicians are expert in and there are things that professional military are expert in and we need to understand who does what here when you're picking targets in the basement of the White House you're on the wrong track and you are going to lose in my opinion because you got the wrong guy doing the wrong thing let's talk about on the right track I think that's a key point so when I'm watching Ken Burns's Vietnam documentary one of the things that just screams at you I was reminded once again of the veterans coming into the class I was in in the 1980s was screams that she was that you don't have any real way of determining how you're doing at any given time I mean the classic way that was used was body count but we understand that if you don't have body counts it's even with but how do you measure progress in a way that's helpful to the heads of the military the political heads and the population as a

21:50 whole and we could apply this to the situation in the Middle East for example right now I mean how do you gauge progress and if progress isn't going the way you want do you double down on the efforts or do you determine that maybe I mean are we even capable of cutting loose was there ever another choice in Vietnam we act like we could just said listen we're losing the war so let's get out but it isn't the most difficult thing in the world to disengage from combat with an enemy strategic level or tactical level so I guess what I'm asking is um how do you gauge progress whether or not you're winning or losing and then do you notice if it's not in your interest to notice that your for example not winning um you know can you get back because in this Vietnam War you're looking at these people that just seemed in retrospect they look like they know the war is over but they can't say it they can't prove

22:40 it they can't they can't operate or do anything about it they seem frozen in the condition so there seems to me to be a real need to be able to measure progress and then have some sort of reaction to the data you're getting um can you can you suggest a way maybe we could do that in the Middle East right now and if we decided it wasn't going well what do you do then well I mean is this the crux of the issue right are we winning or losing and if we're winning or losing what do you do about it I don't think it's going well in the Middle East just to get quickly to the answer but you know there used to be a way of judging it was pretty easy and that is territory you won if if you prevailed if you held the battlefields at the end and the other guy left you were winning right so Churchill could be very worried about what was going on in North Africa because Rommel pushed all the way to Alamein you know he was

23:37 inside Egypt right so Cairo and the Suez Canal was threatened because the geography told Churchill that he was losing so we replaced whoever it was with Montgomery it's not so in a linear war where armies faced each other you can tell who's winning by where the front line is at what direction it's moving or at least that's that's one gross approximation now if you're fighting in Gettysburg you're not in good shape yeah totally okay no you got to be fighting in Chancellorsville or someplace down south now it's not so easy anymore with stateless actors like Isis or you know suicide bombers how can you tell if you're winning I mean the guys doesn't have any territory to capture he doesn't have a National Treasury that you can loot he doesn't even really have a life worth living otherwise he wouldn't be in the suicide bombing business right he doesn't care about his own life so in this in this kind of war how do you

24:56 judge where you are I don't think we have a ready answer to that you know there's there if we had a sort of an index of violence if they well the violence is down and we kind of have that but in Afghanistan now we have the Taliban bombing again inside Kabul right and so the number you can plot the number of incidents on a graph and to say well they're more incidents this month than there were last month you're not doing very well and in fact that's what I am doing in the Middle East house were subjectively I don't you know I don't have a chart in my office that I keep track of this specifically but it seems to me I get I have a sense that we're not doing very well in Afghanistan and in Iraq and you know I I don't know how to come unstuck from it this is a tar-baby kind of deal where you say gee I wish I could figure out how to get out of here with my pride and you know reputation and shape I don't

26:05 see a way to do it we're kind of stuck to the problem in the Middle East and who knows how to judge whether we're doing better or poorer than we were you know a month ago a year ago five years ago hard to say I'm just you know it's funny you say that I wasn't expecting that answer because it leads you to the next question which is if you can't figure out how you're doing and if you really don't have any options if you're totally stuck you know I remember being told a long time ago by my stepfather who was trying to explain to me that the wide range of presidential actions that I always assumed was possible was a myth and that when you actually got into the office it was really much more constrained by by what your predecessor left you a bunch of other things like you know I can't fight the Vietnam War the way I want because the Soviet Union might get involved when you look at the current let's call it

26:58 the war on terror situation I don't see I mean how do you get out of that win I mean you know the old the old equation which is it costs these elements that were fighting pennies on the dollar compared to what it costs for us to counter them I mean the long-term graphing out of that situation looks horrible if you you know if I feel like we could be doing a documentary with Ken Burns a hundred and fifty year old Ken Burns years from now having the same conversation about the current situation we're in in the war on terror that I just saw the other night when I was watching the Vietnam War documentary and if that's the case you know you get this feeling like deja vu all over again or a train wreck that you've seen before and that it's happening in slow-motion but you're finding out exactly how limited the people in the late 60s were in terms of their options does it feel like that to you at all or does it seem like a

27:47 topic because the context of the Cold War and all that is so different how similar to you would you feel if you were a president in office in Lyndon Baines Johnson's chair versus Donald Trump's chair this look a key issue is how do you define victory another way of saying that or what our what's our purpose here what's our goal if you tell me what our purpose is in the Middle East I'll tell you how we're doing you tell me how to define victory in the Middle East and I'll tell you whether we're on the 10-yard line the 15-yard line fifty year line where we are but I don't recall anybody ever saying here's our objective you know here's here's how we would define victory and if you don't have a definition of victory then you don't know when to quit or our when to retire or how to get out you know because you can't tell you know we we'd like to I mean George W Bush famously went on a aircraft carrier and stood under a sign

29:03 that said mission accomplished remember that that was how many years ago so at least 15 we're still in Iraq if our mission was accomplished when George W Bush went on that boat and declared victory what the heck are we still doing in Iraq well then you get back we get to the same question though about I mean okay is this is everything we're facing now sort of a bit of blowback I mean do did we stir up a hornet's nest and we're still dealing with individual Hornets and it would have been better had we left you know the Hornet and chief Saddam Hussein in charge because at least we weren't the ones who had to pick up the pieces I mean I guess you know what a mature armchair historians like yours truly do general as you almost certainly know as we look at these and we try to find meaning from the past which is this this this horrible fool's game but but but I mean when you look at this you go I mean you

29:58 almost get to a point where you say would Saddam Hussein and the Middle East we had in 1991 be an applicable trade that a modern politician would would trade today if they could get back to that yes in fact I would have traded at the time I wrote op-ed pieces and made speeches against Iraq too it drove me out of the Republican Party you know I ended up supporting Obama in 2008 I would fact I was the National co-chair of its presidential campaign and the issue for me was how badly that whole Iraq two thing had been handled including my buddy: powell going in front of the General Assembly and making outrageous claims claims today I thought I knew in fact at the time were wrong about Saddam Hussein's having weapons of mass destruction or the other lies that were told you know Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were good buddies baloney there wasn't any al-qaeda in Iraq as long as Saddam was

31:10 famous I think they hated each other or that we would be welcomed as liberators you know people would throw bouquets of roses as our guys going into Baghdad meloni as it turned out so I said that it's a dime and and you know a trillion dollars later and thousands of lives later we're stuck with in Iraq that is much worse than what it was when Saddam Hussein was run of it so you know the real issue here is what are our purposes how do we define victory what limitations are we going to put on our use of violence to achieve these purposes these are very deep questions very hard questions to answer and and then frankly most most presidents need as much help as possible to get to these answers and they need help from you know wise and good military advisors which I don't think they they always get now you know we were just you were just talking a second ago about Colin Powell respected military authority but using

32:20 that authority as part of an effort to sell the American people and the world on on a particular foreign policy move and it occurs to me you know one of the things that that watching the Ken Burns Vietnam documentary really brings home is the context of what a different America it was back in the days when Vietnam was first heating up the early 1960s I was born during the yah Drang battle I mean it's so 1965 when things are really heating up with ground troops the government at that time was assumed to be telling the truth by just about everyone it was a black and white good and evil world the you know I always tell young people when I'm talking to them I always bring up the First World War and I talk about a generation of people that could watch the unit in front of them step out of the trenches and go over the top and be machine gun within ten yards of the trench and then the next wave will do

33:15 the same thing and I said we wouldn't do that today in the same way that much of the stuff that a 1962 era American would have considered a truism would be met much more skeptically by a 21st century American how much did you know the so called credibility gap over several administration's in that era do you know lasting the boy who cried wolf type damage to our government's ability to be trusted with statements like how the war is going or anything else was to be sort of letters did we lose our innocence I guess it's a classic phrase from my 1980s Vietnam War military history class yep well I think in particular the Pentagon Papers represented a sea change you know after they were published in the New York Times and later in the Washington Post Americans came to understand that a succession of administration's both Democrat and Republican had systematically lied to the American people and I don't think that was that

34:29 our country has ever been the same again the skepticism which that whole episode properly aroused has been with us ever since and I know frankly it is a loss of innocence for us and if you look at you know our history we were never a great power until after World War one so our our experience on the world stage was pretty limited you know maybe fifty years of experience as a real actor in international affairs and then finally we've woke up a bit we saw how that or if they haven't it's not that government that weren't cynical before I think the Brits were the British government has been cynical you know for a long time but Americans were truly children of the frontier you know with the thing with a sort of o western heritage frontier heritage and we wanted to believe that our government was telling us the truth but we learned in the Pentagon Papers that that's not so and ever since we've

35:48 been I think properly skeptical why do you think a question is why do you think they lied I mean you know I think the tendency would be to blame some president from the opposite political party and and demonize them but as you said this was a multi administration effort to keep from the people who are supposed to understand what's going on so they can be informed voters from really knowing what's going on and it started with you know Eisenhower even but even to the end with Nixon and Christmas bombings that were secret I mean what was I guess was it kept secret in your mind for for military reasons or was it kept secret because the reaction of the American people to their own policies was what the government was worried about I think it was the latter really the government didn't the president didn't want to be embarrassed embarrassment is the worst possible right situation for a public figure and

36:55 so the bombing of Cambodia for instance was secret from the American people it sure as hell wasn't secret from the Cambodians here you know or the North Vietnamese army which was using Cambodia for sanctuary they knew all about it so it's secrecy there wasn't a military necessity at all the enemy quite understood what was going on the the the secrecy was required to keep the American people in the dark and the only you know the only reason the government would have been embarrassed to admit what was going on that's the worst possible reason to classify a any information is to protect to protect yourself from embarrassment but that's exactly what was going on do you think that the efforts of the media today are I want to compare them to the the media efforts in Vietnam which were you know so scrutinized and yet perhaps so influential on what went on and I just I'm not even sure we're talking apples and oranges here in the

38:01 ability to compare them but how would you compare today's media coverage of America's conflicts and that for example take 1967-68 because it was very different in 62 but how would you how would you compare the media's job how they cover with the restrictions by the way that we understand I mean they don't have the same kind of ability to show this I mean the combat footage that it not to change the subject but but the thing that rocked me in Ken Burns is documentary the most and I have no idea how he did it is there's segments where you'll see 35 seconds in a row of footage that looks like it was shot yesterday High Definition stuff and you know for people like me who've seen a lot of that footage I couldn't figure out if it's computer enhanced or what but but when you're looking at what the media is able to show back then and the difference in the coverage today can you compare in your mind's eye the pros and cons of the

38:54 way we did it then and how we do it now the media coverage in Vietnam was by and large positive in my opinion except for photo coverage you know the impact of a photograph or today video is so much more pervasive or influential or shocking you know you had a photograph of a police general in Saigon shooting a guy in the head or a very young girl running away from the village it's been a bomb with her skin on fire these pictures are convey a message in a way that written journalism or broadcast journalism cannot and and they were very negative I mean Buddhist monks burnt it you know emulating themselves in the streets of Saigon when you show that you show it on television it just is merciless in the end the message if debase and so for my money until Walter Cronkite came on CBS News and said hey we're not winning guys after 10:00 the the coverage was pretty universally supportive the written coverage but the

40:29 photographic coverage underlie just underst undermined everything that was being said in print now today if the coverage is much more visual much more video oriented and photo oriented and so the bad news hits earlier I think because quoted for you know you don't see a photograph of of ribbon cutting so as downtown Baghdad is liberated you see these awful scenes of devastated towns that we're creating in the Middle East there's no getting around a word were we're no large-scale destructive mode there in the Middle East and that's what people are seeing they're not seeing any upside you know you can talk about upside all you want and how well we're doing and so forth but what we are seeing is awful the consequences of the combat there and so I think the the coverage today is much more pessimistic and down and you're skeptical and even perhaps cynical but because they are showing not just telling and from now on

41:50 I expect that's a way that coverage will be because this general you know younger Jen raishin is much more video aureus and and won't read the New York Times watch it on you know on Facebook yeah and once upon a time it used to be Radio Free Europe trying to boot get a little teeny signal you know over the the Iron Curtain now that if we were fighting the North Vietnamese army they would have a troll of people on Twitter you know giving their side of the story or pretending to be Americans complete with photographs and maybe fake photographs yes well then let me ask you a little bit of and not really changing subjects but I can't have a four-star general on here without mining you a little bit for some knowledge and wisdom myself I'm looking at Syria and I'm looking you had talked about you know in destructive mode right now but to an armchair person like me it looks like a terribly small

42:47 theater to have that many different forces operating in and us hoping to keep everything clean with no major mistakes and whatnot you had talked about North Korea as well can you talk to me a little about those two hot spots and if there's a third one you would add to the mix of places we need to be careful right now well I think Korea's the most important and threatening problem that we face anywhere in the world worried or have faced for a long time I really think we're up against a sort of a Cuban Missile Crisis so it's been that long you know since we've really been looked down the barrel gun barrels as far as Syria goes it is an awfully small theater of operations especially on the air side we're talking about aircraft like the f-22 that that's supercruise in other words they're supersonic they're running around the sky at 1.7 1.8 Mach all the time and that makes Syria pretty small countries

43:55 even do a 180 do a 180 degree turn in no and the Russians are there sharing that airspace with us now we've so far been able to coordinate that air activity pretty well even though the Russians did lose a fighter to a circus to a Turkish ground fire so but the less you know we're running the head-to-head against each other in a very small airspace and it's a tribute to the professionalism of our Air Force that we haven't already shot down a few of those guys but that's a that's terribly dangerous we could be any day involved in a head-to-head fight with Russian aircraft and we're that you know that that's got the potential to go to escalate to go anywhere so it's dangerous in my opinion it's less dangerous than the situation in North Korea where we have apparently a crazy guy in charge of a government that is that does possess nuclear weapons and is rapidly developing the capability if it

45:11 doesn't already have them to deliver those nuclear weapons against American cities I think that's an awful situation I think we can't allow that to continue I believe we must intervene and do something there now what should we do well I'm in favor of using all the tools you know in the in the toolbox if you think diplomacy will work by all means let's do it if you think we can you know economic sanctions will work let's impose them if you think the Chinese can help us or the Russians can help us by all means let's involve them at the end of the day I think we've tried just about everything dear nothing has worked so far because what we have to do is dismantle this nuclear capability we can't allow in my opinion North Korea to continue to develop nuclear I mean you know threats against American American homeland property and citizens and institutions and so forth that has to be dismantled and I believe

46:22 it has to be dismantled relatively quickly we don't have forever to deal with this problem or it will get to a point where we can't deal with it now I think we should deal with it with conventional weapons and I'd rather than use nuclear weapons against North Korea and I think we still have the capability to do that - just to help you know them dismantle this capability well we need to get with it pretty soon because you know time's running out on us here what if that you to go back to some of the constraints maybe that a guy like Johnson was operating under what if the Chinese or Putin's government tell us no don't do that well I don't think well we'd know that already first of all but remember the North Korean nuclear capability is a bigger threat to Beijing a bigger threat the flat of a stock and it is to Honolulu or Chicago so there's every reason believe that they would wish to cooperate with us if not then so be it

47:32 you know we we have the means to deter China and Russia we've shown that already well the questions we don't I think know for sure or with a great enough probability that we can deter North Korea I mean I've heard it argued that this guy Kim jong-un is a rational person all he wants to do his whole power therefore he has something to lose therefore he's datura bow and I think that's probably right my question is what if it's wrong what are the odds that he's not be turrible say there say it's only 10% so do we want to make it a bet again we want a bet Chicago or New York City that he's datura bawendi odds are 10% say that he's not the terrible I don't think we want to take that bet and by the way in the overview ought to be here about nuclear proliferation where are we going to draw the line is it okay for Nigeria or Honduras or bailey's to have nuclear weapons what is the what is the point of which we're

48:55 going to put our foot down say no we've gone far enough you know it's it's enough that ten or so countries that are acting responsibly so far have nuclear weapons but that's enough the world is dangerous enough you know without Estonia having a full up nuclear delivery capability so but in any case we now have a case which I think is as clear as can't be that says we we need to stop this process here if America possesses Armed Forces for any reason it is to protect the property in the institutions and the lives of Americans against threats like North Korea a nuclear-armed North Korea I believe we ought to draw the line and we ought to give a deadline you know spy-1 January next year either the nuke the North Koreans are dismantling this capability under international inspection or we will help dismantle it you know it's funny you jumped the gun and went right to my next question which was about nuclear non-proliferation

50:14 because I wanted to ask you is it specifically a North Korean problem or is it it is you mentioned Belize right okay is it a Belize problem so here's my question though this reminds me a little of like certain naval treaties between the two world wars where we're telling certain powers listen this is 70 plus year old technology the basis for nuclear weapons right and and when you're telling other countries that they can never develop that capability isn't that the equivalent of locking them into second power status permanently in the way that the PIGE a potential ships I mean is that it's it seems to me the farther we get away from from when that technology was invented the weirder it gets to tell people listen you can have anything but something that was invented darn near a hundred years ago is that say should the foreign policy of the country be that no nuclear powers that aren't currently

51:11 nuclear powers should be allowed to become nuclear powers no the foreign policy of this committee a world without nuclear weapons we would be much safer I mean our superiority and conventional warfare is so pronounced that if nuclear weapons disappeared everywhere in the world it would improve the safety and security of the American people enormous Lee so our policy ought to be zero nuclear weapons for anybody now how do we get there I have no idea because country like say Israel which commonly is understood to possess an inventory of nuclear weapons it's not going to renounce them given its security situation you know into the geography that it lives so I don't know of a practical way to get to zero I think it ought to be our objective and I think we ought to work on it and try to get there and eventually hopefully we can get there but that ought to be our policy objective and in the meantime we ought

52:26 to say yes nobody else can doesn't have them now is going to get them and it's going to reduce them to second-class status and that's too bad going to have to live with it but but you know the world is increasingly dangerous the more people get that capability and so it does freeze people into a sort of a formulaic position like we try to do with capital ships at one time remember though we this is not the first time we've we big outlawed chemical munitions right sure worldwide hopefully and now and we ought to enforce that I mean so we can put certain limitations that we hope are universal on the condom munitions that are available for use in hostile engagements okay what about a conventional situation then of a change in power so you look at something like an Iran in their region all of us history not to know that that traditionally Iran or Persia is one of the we'll call them the regional

53:38 superpowers right and they wax and wane but sometimes they dominate the region it seems like the policy sometimes is we're not going to let anyone change the power relationships that are currently in place is that a viable it seems to me a hegemonic power sort of way of looking at it but is that a viable way to look at something like the Middle East and say no you're not going to expand your influence into Syria even if that's a traditional Persian area of expansion do you see where I'm going with this I mean how much can we will call it the United States as the tip of the spear but we all represent a bunch of major powers how much can we be the Congress of Vienna but constantly you know making sure that things stay stable we'll call them stable for lack of a better word so nuclear stability you're all for what about even like regional power shifting stability uh we are no doubt a status

54:31 quo power because we're the top dog right so we don't want that to change and hopefully I hope it never changes I mean if this country lasts a thousand years and we all pray it will we we want to be at the top of the heap for that whole period of time however you can't stand up the beaches edge and and order the tide not to get your feet wet you know so change is inevitable and what we have to do is to find constructive ways to allow change to occur that doesn't threat to our position and there's every reason by the way that we ought to be able to do that I mean certainly the technical change that we see in the last a couple of decades has been led by us we've created the instability on the you know technological front so it serves our purposes to be in the vanguard of change where it's positive we just have to figure out whence it positive went to negative now in the case of Iran he's been a long time since Darius the great

55:50 so I don't know how much Persian influence as you know Syria recently has certainly been in Ottoman Empire was not Persia no Syria was a was a Ottoman province it was hacked up by scientific oyez yeah at the end of World War one and and by the way Lebanon was created separately I mean Syria considers Lebanon a Syrian province yeah the Christian French Enclave right so the question you ask requires sophistication in the answering it required sophistication in the asking but so so statesmen are judged by their ability to recognize what change is coming anyway and running around and getting in front of it right that's how we define statesmanship and cheap politicians are defined as people who don't understand don't understand precisely that problem I've sat here and and mind you for wisdom on current affairs and wisdom on the Vietnam War at no point did I ask you about the drama though of flying

57:12 hundreds of missions into that situation and and what I would assume was a more tense situation as as anti air defenses got stronger and stronger this is the understated question of all time but can you describe to me just for a second what the heck I mean when you look back on it I did things that were nothing like what you did and I think God I was crazy and do you ever look back on that and just think to yourself was that a different person or is it like yesterday for you do you miss it yeah I miss it huh combat is invigorating I loved it partly because of hubris I mean I was arrogant still am probably I mean my friends my friends my saying I was arrogant but I when I get him strapped into an airplane I don't think anybody can beat me so I never was for me it was the matter of bravery or courage to go out there because I I knew I was going to kick the crap out of the other guy rather than the reverse so for me combat

58:23 I flew 285 combat sorties and I loved every every minute of it and I miss it I mean it's really really fun and it's hard to explain I mean I'm a professional warrior you know so that's that's what I was cut out to do and I enjoyed it a lot and I'm gonna recommend that people read your books to get a really a more detailed version of everything we were just talking about general did I did I ask everything you would like to talk about is there anything that you'd like to bring up that I left out no this has been a pretty wide-ranging conversation and more philosophical than and I am equipped to deal with you ask your questions are are too good I mean nobody had including your rottenness you spoke at the Peloponnesian wars nobody has answers to these questions and they're not it's not good to ask a professional military guy you've got a these are questions for the philosophy professor not for me but but certainly

59:34 has been as wide-ranging as I could desire and and more so than I really any good at handling general you under appreciate yourself i tailored those questions after watching you talk and i think you're absolutely and you know what's funny is when i met general mattis i thought that's how he thought too you're very well versed in wide-ranging yourself i appreciate it thanks very much i after talking to you buddy my thanks to general mcpeak for coming on the program and putting up with my traditionally unusual and long-winded questions his books are available everywhere we will link to some of them on our website his latest as i said his roles and missions cataloging his time as the 14th chief of staff of the air force he's a fascinating guy i think you can agree and i appreciate him coming on the program I am a true believer in the idea that reading makes you a more formidable version of you and it's hard to read

1:00:40 these days isn't it to find time to devote to simply looking at a page for hours it's wonderful I love it but it's hard to do isn't it in this busy world a lot of people like to combine things they have to do with things they'd like to do got a drive somewhere in traffic why not make yourself a more formidable version of you and enjoy a good book while you're doing it of course you got to keep your hands on the wheel you got to keep your eyes on the road so let's make it an audio book if you're gonna do that let's get it from audible the long-running sponsors of this program who helped make it possible for you to educate yourself entertain yourself and read while you do something else it would be hard to find anyone who's made it easier figured out more angles and things that you would like as part of the process I mean you sign up for audible you get a free 30-day trial membership you'll get a free audiobook

1:01:35 you sign up for good that they just keep coming and audibles figured out a way to do this better than anyone else I mean take for example their whisper sync for voice aspect to this whole thing we can switch back and forth between reading text and listening to the audiobook across a whole bunch of devices I mean you're reading on your Kindle and then you have to leave so you go into your car you listen in there you get out of your car your Amazon echo plays it right from where you left off that's pretty cool isn't it don't miss a word you can share a book from your library with anyone if it's their first time accepting a book and they can listen to it for free and you own your books this is key to me I don't want to buy something and then not own it with audible you own the books that you purchase through them now what book should you purchase well of course whatever you think is going to make a

1:02:29 more formidable you but for me I am just addicted to reading the accounts of participants in things like the extremes of the human experience I mean take for example Tony McPhee who we just had on four-star general love that stuff but at Viet Nam's not your thing or you're more of a land war person well how about war as I knew it by General George S Patton probably the most famous arguably the most famous Second World War u.s. general this book is a little different because it is his remembrances and stuff out of his diary but he died before the actual work that he was going to put together came out but it's about as close as you can get the narrator even sounds a little Patton ish I mean if you want the definitive account that exists from General George s Patton Zone you know written words go get war as I knew it if you're a military history person it should be on your bookshelf anyway if

1:03:22 you are a person who does a lot of driving who can listen to books while they work well then maybe you need the audible version too or as I knew it by General George S Patton go pick that up inaudible and go to audible.com forward slash hardcore history and you know basically virtually digitally tell them I sent you you can also text all one-word hardcore history to 5 0 0 - 5 0 0 and get started with your free audiobook today the policy here is to let you hear the shows and then decide for yourself what they're worth we sort of rely on the honor system as our business model and so far so good thanks for all your support it keeps the lights on around here go to Dan Karlin comm for information on how to donate to the show

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "HH Addendum EP3 A Four-Star Conversation"?

Dan Carlin (Host), Merrill McPeak (Guest).

What is "HH Addendum EP3 A Four-Star Conversation" about?

The discussion features Meryl McDonald, a multifaceted individual who served as a commander and chief of staff in the Air Force, flying over 250 combat missions in Vietnam and performing with the Thunderbirds. He shares insights from his extensive military career, including his experiences during the first Gulf War, and discusses his new book, "Roles and Missions," which details his tenure as…

What is mentioned in this Dan Carlin episode?

23 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Merrill Tony McPeak, Vietnam War, Vietnam, North Korea, Russia, Afghanistan. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "HH Addendum EP3 A Four-Star Conversation"?

The episode runs 1 h 4 min; the transcript is about 10,365 words in 59 timestamped sections.

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