The One CA Podcast

195: Cleo Paskal on PRC operations in Guam

Today, we welcome Cleo Paskal, Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a frequent lecturer for the U.S. military about the Indo-Pacific region.

Cleo came in to discuss the PRC's efforts to infiltrate Guam and the regional islands to undermine US relationships with those communities, the threat it creates to national security, and how we need to do to respond. 

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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail.com 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

--

Special thanks to Noel Flores for the sample of the Album Eat Your Greens and song Anger Management by Anita  Schwab on his channel Jazz of the South Pacific. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/zfRUrnNhwfs?si=Afcsham-r5Gjnjaj 

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Transcript

00:00:04    Introduction
Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website, at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes. Today we welcome Cleo Pascal, investigative journalist for Freedom for Democracies and a special lecturer at the Air War College about the Pacific region. Cleo came in today to discuss the PRC's efforts to infiltrate Guam and the regional islands around it to undermine U .S. relationships with those communities, the threat it creates to national security, and how we need to respond. So let's get started.

00:01:04    CLEO PASCAL
For most Americans, the idea is that there's the West Coast. Alaska,

00:01:10    JACK GAINES
Hawaii.

00:01:11    CLEO PASCAL
Alaska, Hawaii. And then if they're being clever, they might go, oh yeah, there's Guam. But the distance between Hawaii and Guam and the location of Guam is often pretty fuzzy. So Guam is maybe two, three hour flight from Manila and maybe five or six hour flight from Honolulu. In fact, it's the other side of the dateline. So if you're going to be very geeky about it, you'll go, is that the west -western part of the U .S. or is that the most eastern part of the U .S.? Because, of course, it's the other side of the dateline. Right. And then what you really need to do is look north of Guam because Guam is the southern part of the Mariana's island chain. It's its own thing. It's its own territory. It's been... part of the United States as a territory since the Spanish -American War, so since the late 19th century, which includes the islands of Saipan and Tinian, and they are also part of the United States. This is where the United States shares a maritime boundary with Japan, and we're the site of some of the most fierce battles of World War II. We just passed the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Saipan and the Battle of Tinian. That became the busiest airport in the world in early mid -1945, where the B -29 bombers were taking off in wave after wave after wave to hit Japan. And that's where the Enola Gay took off from. And that is all the United States of America. Highly strategic, has been for a long time, right off the coast of Asia. In between Hawaii and Guam, there's a whole other stretch of islands, which is the Marshall Islands, the Federal States of Micronesia, and Palau. which are independent countries, but which have signed this completely unique document with the United States called the Compact of Free Association, which gives the U .S. exclusive defense and security rights and responsibilities in those countries. So these are independent countries, along with what is now CNMI, Commonwealth of Northern Marian Islands.

00:03:26    CLEO PASCAL
were all part of the Japanese Empire from 1914 to 1944. This is what enabled Japan to be in a position to hit Pearl Harbor and created this impenetrable chunk of the Central Pacific, which meant that U .S. forces had to go south through Guadalcanal, through the Solomon Islands, up through Bougainville, and then come up from the bottom through Tarawa to be able to start to fight its way across east to west. So that control over the Central Pacific that Japan had meant that Japan could keep the U .S. pushed towards Hawaii and isolate Guam. The Japanese hit Guam just after they hit Pearl Harbor and took Guam. So that gave them the whole stretch across the Central Pacific. And after the war ended, the U .S. Navy controlled an area that combined is about as large as the continental United States. and administered it under naval control. And there was all sorts of stuff going on. Saipan was closed to the outside for years. On the record, the Naval Technical Training Unit, I think, was the cover for it. But the CIA basically was running operations in Saipan to train a few Tibetans, but more Taiwanese that were supposed to be sent in to mainland China with disastrous results. The Marshall Islands were nuked 67 times in various nuclear tests. This was kind of an active zone for testing, training, very highly strategically important. And there was a real understanding in D .C. because you had people in Congress who had fought in the Pacific Theater, who knew people who died in these islands, who didn't want that to happen again. The U .S. strategic community knew how important control over this area was to keep the threat contained to the Asian coast. But some of that information has now been lost and the Chinese are all over the place. That assumption that the U .S. can safely get across the Central Pacific to get to its treaty allies and to get to Guam and to get to the bases in Japan and South Korea is now being questioned.

00:05:52    JACK GAINES
Is it U .S. defensive officials or is it strategy watchers in the region?

00:05:52    CLEO PASCAL
it U

00:05:57    CLEO PASCAL
Indo -PACOM is starting to get very concerned. And definitely the leadership in Guam and the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas is starting to say, we've got some serious problems here and we need help. And especially currently the governor of Commonwealth of Northern Marianas is saying, we're seeing Chinese activity that is very disconcerting. And we need help. In my mind,

00:06:21    JACK GAINES
we need help. In my mind, I see a lot of water and a few dots of islands reaching back and forth. It's hard to imagine it as a territory.

00:06:32    CLEO PASCAL
Yeah. And what you said is if you put your logistics hat on, a lot of water and a few islands, a few islands become really important. So the less land and the more water, the more important that land is.

00:06:47    JACK GAINES
Yeah. You want to talk about what? it is that's concerning them about the RC's activities?

00:06:53    CLEO PASCAL
Sure. So the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas, which the acronym is CNMI, joined the United States. But when it joined, it kept control over certain aspects of immigration and labor because its economy is so different than the rest of the U .S. Some may remember the issues it had with garment factories, for example. Early on, Chinese interests had set up garment factories there with some pretty horrific labor conditions. But because it was part of the U .S., they could put the Made in the USA label on it. From the beginning, the Chinese were eyeing CNMI's loopholes to figure out how they could use it to gain advantages in the U .S. When China was allowed to enter the World Trade Organization, the value of that disappeared. But it started to shift to earth tourism. where Chinese would come and give birth in CNMI and then they'd have little American babies. You had more recent issues, Chinese -linked casinos. One of them, a few years ago, running more money through it than the casinos in Macau. Billions of dollars. And it was almost exclusively Chinese gamblers. And the way that the money was coming out of China and... Working through corresponding banks to give these lines of credit to these gamblers made it look an enormous amount like money laundering. There was never any proper investigation done by the U .S. government. There are about 40 ,000, 50 ,000 people living in Saipan. And you've got billions in Chinese casino money flowing through the economy. So you can imagine how that distorts politics and the economics of the place.

00:08:39    JACK GAINES
Oh, absolutely. Just trying to wonder, what is it that they're laundering? Is it all the commodity trade that they're doing around the world? Is it the fentanyl?

00:08:48    CLEO PASCAL
It needs an investigation. We shouldn't be wondering. This is U .S. jurisdiction. So there's absolutely no reason that this question can't be answered. If you go to Garapan, which is the capital I've come with under the Marianas, it's the biggest town in Saipan, by far the biggest building. is this casino, which was almost finished. It had started operations, but it had a whole hotel complex on it. And they had a typical Chinese Communist Party -linked style. They had built it on a grave site, so the locals were just horrified. You know, they dug up ancestors, and there was no proper reburial or anything. Like, the whole thing was just horrific. It was very close to completion. And then one of the construction workers fell off the scaffolding and died. And it turned out that they were not there on a work visa. And this gets to this other question of the visas. So apart from these other loopholes, Chinese can get on a plane in Hong Kong and fly straight to the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas with no visa. And the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas is considered U .S.

00:09:54    JACK GAINES
the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas is considered U .S. territory. So they can take a domestic flight from there into the continental U .S.?

00:10:02    CLEO PASCAL
They're not supposed to. Supposed to stay in the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas. But there are successful prosecutions of people who have been illegally taking Chinese by boat to Guam. We talked to the mayor of Rota, which is the island closest to Guam. And one Chinese guy who got off the plane in Rota with an inflatable boat as his luggage. Yeah, there have been cases of Chinese sea people with boats on their docks and knock on the door and ask to buy the boat or to get a ride. And they did it for one of the Fish and Wildlife guys. You know, it's not hidden. But the other thing is that the woman who ran the Bureau of Motor Vehicles in the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas has been convicted of selling. driver's licenses, specifically to Chinese.

00:11:01    JACK GAINES
Oh, wow. So,

00:11:01    CLEO PASCAL
So, yeah.

00:11:03    JACK GAINES
Any idea how many she sold?

00:11:05    CLEO PASCAL
I don't know, but it wasn't one or two. This was a business. So everything I'm mentioning, there have been people prosecuted for bringing Chinese from CNMI to Guam. The Bureau of Mortar Vehicles woman was found guilty. They've also been using the U .S. Postal Service because, of course, once you're in CNMI, that's the U .S. domestic mail. So using the U .S. Postal Service for distributing drugs, over 30 members of Congress led a letter to Secretary Mayorkas. Why does this loophole persist? And that was in November last year. And they finally got an answer, which said that, well, the Chinese contributed a lot to the tourism economy of CNMI in 2008, 2009. So that was the justification. Oh, wow. The regulations that allow for them to come in say this can be suspended on national security grounds. So it's sort of inexplicable. They're now saying, well, we'll change it from no visas to some sort of electronic semi visa. But there's no reason it shouldn't be a normal visa like any Chinese national going to anywhere else in the United States.

00:12:18    JACK GAINES
What else are you finding happening due to the flow of? Chinese tourists into Guam.

00:12:24    CLEO PASCAL
We know that one of the big priorities is Taiwan. And we also know that they want to, as much as possible, win without fighting, which is a misnomer because they're fighting. They're just fighting on a different battlefield.

00:12:38    JACK GAINES
Yeah. Win without major combat.

00:12:40    CLEO PASCAL
Yeah. Win without major loss of Chinese life is probably the more accurate way. But if you're focused on Taiwan, one of your biggest challenges is Guam. You need to disable Guam or take Guam offline somehow. Make it inoperable or ineffective.

00:13:00    JACK GAINES
Sure. Because that's where all the aircraft that are going to support Taiwan defense are going to go.

00:13:05    CLEO PASCAL
Yeah. And other forms of military support and intel support and all that. And we know that Guam already had issues with Volt Typhoon cyber infiltration into critical infrastructure. And you also, ideally, you want people on the ground. To be very blunt, you can blow up the planes or you can disable them, but you can also kill the pilots.

00:13:30    JACK GAINES
But in the waiting without fighting mindset, how do you see their efforts in these islands?

00:13:36    CLEO PASCAL
If you've got the Chinese that have come in to CNMI without a visa, very hard to know who they are. There's no background check. They've just gotten on a plane and gotten off the plane. And then they've illegally come into Guam. you don't know who they are. So you have untraceable saboteurs, whatever. And the U .S. military has found Chinese nationals roaming around bases in Guam and have handed them over to the FBI, and I don't know what's happened to them after that. Guam is a problem for them. And being able to get people onto Guam without detection is an advantage. Now, two of the three countries, Palau, and Marshall Islands recognize Taiwan. If they recognize Taiwan, that gives them an added layer of defense because it means there's no Chinese embassy. And the Chinese embassies operate like these forward operating locations. You can run the influence operations and the intel operations more easily if you've got an embassy. But you're getting a huge amount of Chinese organized crime operating in those countries. which functions to corrupt the political system and destabilize it. And I think, ideally, the goal is to subvert them to the point where first they ditch Taiwan, and then maybe they also walk away from the Compact of Free Association with the U .S. And Broken Tooth, for example, who's one of the big triad leaders who's been designated by the U .S., was operating out of Palau. And in the case of the Marshall Islands, there are two Chinese nationals who bought Marshallese citizenship. and then tried to set up a country within a country.

00:15:16    JACK GAINES
Like a free trade zone or something else?

00:15:18    CLEO PASCAL
Yeah, it's kind of like a free trade plus plus, where it would have its own control over immigration and customs. They were calling it Hong Kong. Oh. Yeah. It was on Ronglap Atoll, which is... an atoll that was irradiated during the bikini tests. And they were saying, we're going to turn this into like a Hong Kong of the Marshall Islands. But basically, they wanted to get this legislation passed that would create this country within a country. And remember, the country itself recognizes Taiwan. So they wanted to create this China -friendly enclave in a country that recognizes Taiwan and that has a critical U .S. military base, Kwajalein. And it came very, very close to happening. I know firsthand that the attorney general of the Marshall Islands repeatedly asked the FBI for help in getting the information necessary to prosecute not just those two Chinese nationals, but the Marshallese citizens that were being bribed by them. And those two Chinese nationals were brought up on charges in New York because the money that they were bribing the Marshallese officials with was being run through a UN -affiliated NGO based in New York. Oh, wow. which had linkages to a whole bunch of other countries as well. And it was never brought to trial. The DOJ let them settle. And because they settled, the evidence never became public. So the Attorney General of the Marshall Islands couldn't prosecute them. They were given credit for time served. And after a very short period of time, both of them were deported, these two Chinese, back to the Marshall Islands. with no case files given to the attorney general of the Marshall Islands. So they were walking around the Marshall Islands free just before the elections. And this is a country that's crucial for U .S. defense and security. So a little bit of help on the corruption files in any of these countries. I mean, the governor of the Commonwealth of Northern Marianas has said, please investigate me. Send treasury officials. Send a resident district attorney. Go after the corruption in my territory. The Attorney General of the Marshall Islands is saying the same. The Attorney General of Palau is saying, I need lawyers. I want to go after these people. I don't have enough lawyers. So if you're talking about defense and security in the Indo -Pacific and countering the Chinese threat, it's fine to send out Coast Guard cutters. But if you send out a few lawyers and a few investigators, you're going to... really have a huge effect that could change lives for the better across the region and reinforce U .S. security. So you need a lawfare task force,

00:18:10    JACK GAINES
task force, attorneys, judges, investigators, prosecutors, law enforcement. Yeah.

00:18:18    CLEO PASCAL
The corruption is like in kinetic warfare, you do aerial bombardment before you land your forces. So the corruption is that sort of softening up of a system before you go in and take over. You weaken it and riddle that infrastructure, that democratic accountability, transparency infrastructure. You just bombard it with corruption to the point where it's ready to collapse and then you can come in and take it over. So it's a form of state capture. Proxies are fine. We didn't really talk about the middle country, the one that doesn't recognize Taiwan, but which recognizes China, the Federal States of Micronesia. The former president of that country, he wrote several letters that then became public describing what the Chinese were doing, completely bypassing his authority, backing independence movements, corrupting his officials. So he openly described it. And then as a result, Apparently, during COVID, there were some who wanted to decline entry to U .S. boats, probably not legal under the Compacts of Resociation, but they're being primed for that kind of a thing. Like in the Solomon Islands or in Vanuatu, where Coast Guard ships didn't get permission in time to come in and land. There were just these inexplicable delays. Kiribati as well. So it's already happening. Everything that we're talking about now is even further down the road in a place like Solomon's. It's worth focusing on this northern central Pacific zone because it is legally tied to the U .S. in a way that no other zone is. So it should be a priority.

00:20:00    JACK GAINES
Well, do you want to talk a little bit about the Solomons as an example of how it could end up if we don't pay attention? Sure.

00:20:07    CLEO PASCAL
If you want to understand how the PRC operates and what its goals are, it is a very useful case study because unusually we have a starting point. The Solomon Islands. recognized Taiwan until 2019. And then in 2019, it switched to China. So there's that preliminary phase. Why did the switch happen? Which is also very helpful to study. And it seems like at least part of the reason was there was a long -term subnational cultivation of Chinese actors, including leadership within the province of Guadalcanal. And so they identify potential leaders at an early stage in their career, maybe at a provincial level, and then back them and build them up. And then eventually they end up in the central government and in a position to be proxies for them to make this sort of a big move. So that's kind of the softening up phase. And you'll see that now in Palau and in the countries that still recognize Taiwan, there is that subnational cultivation going on. But once the switch happened. Then you can see what China really wants. Where does it go after? The Chinese put forward the security deal. We've seen the draft of it. It specifically says that the Chinese, with the permission of the local government, which is becoming more and more of a proxy, can send in forces to protect Chinese citizens and major projects and put down civil dissent. And we're going to do police training with you and give you security. equipment, including communications, and all that sort of stuff. So there's an attempted takeover of that security infrastructure. There was a very good investigation done by a consortium of journalists in Solomon Island that said that the prime minister had a property empire of eight houses on this tiny prime minister's salary, and they named the bank. He's using a French bank to run these mortgages. Well, there's been no investigation done. And that journalist that outlet is called In -Depth Solomon is a very good investigative journalist. And I just want to take a pause for a minute and highlight the work that is being done on the ground by honest people at very great risk.

00:22:17    CLEO PASCAL
just want to take a pause for a minute and highlight the work that is being done on the ground by honest people at very great risk. So these incredible journalists, incredible political leaders, the same thing with leaders in the Solomon Islands who... have been trying to block Huawei from setting up towers in their districts. Their jobs have been taken away. They've been prosecuted, persecuted. Their families have been gone after. Same thing with the journalists. So just to underline that there are alternatives. If somebody says, oh, they're all corrupt, that is absolutely not the case. You have many, many honest people willing to... Collaborate.

00:23:04    JACK GAINES
Up with prosecution, yeah.

00:23:06    CLEO PASCAL
That's right. And if you don't go after the corruption, those people will be suffocated. They'll become examples that the Chinese use to show people why it's not worth standing up to them.

00:23:20    JACK GAINES
Or they'll get tired of it and they'll go somewhere else. Yeah. Okay. And so that's the effect that RC influence has in the regions. Do you see it actually causing CNMI to... disassociate from the United States and actually shift over to PRC? Or collapsing Guam support to the U .S.? Because Guam was part of the U .S.

00:23:40    CLEO PASCAL
Guam was part of the U .S. since the Spanish -American War, and CNMI is only part of the U .S. since sort of the 70s or 80s, they have very different histories. If you're from CNMI, you've seen empires come and go. Your great -great -grandfather would have spoken probably Spanish. Then your great... grandfather might have spoken German. And then your grandfather probably spoke Japanese. And then your father spoke English. Those waves of colonial influence went through there. So they're very geopolitically sophisticated and can be a little bit cynical.

00:24:24    JACK GAINES
I would imagine so.

00:24:25    CLEO PASCAL
Yeah. But... That last thing, I was speaking to somebody in her 90s for the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Saipan, and she went to school under the Japanese, and she was a 10 -year -old hiding in the caves during the Battle of Saipan. You know, when Marines came to her cave and brought her and her family out, they'd been hiding in the caves for weeks. She said it wasn't the starvation, it was the thirst that really got to them. And one of the Marines gave her water from his canteen to drink. And the humanity of the interaction with just some guy from who knows where in the U .S. touched her at a really deep level. And then sort of they went through this process of I mentioned Saipan was closed. And then there was this Congress of Micronesia. And then they had this vote about whether or not to join the United States. And that was the first time in hundreds of years of colonial history that the people of CNMI were given a choice about their own future. And the word she kept using when she talked about the relationship with the United States was this gift of freedom. When the Japanese were in Saipan, the hierarchy was the Japanese were first, then came the Okinawans and Koreans, and then came the Chamorros and the Carolinians. And the relationship with the U .S. was just totally different. This is the first time that they were given a choice. And especially the older generation remembers that. So they're not going to leave the U .S., but Guam is different because there's been an anti -colonial movement in Guam for a long time. And some of it is legitimate.

00:26:17    JACK GAINES
But it's also fermented where they can.

00:26:19    CLEO PASCAL
Yeah. And so what the Chinese are very good at is taking a real problem, exacerbating it, and giving you the wrong solution. I interviewed the governor of Guam, and she said when the Japanese were beheading people in Guam, they were raping people, they were committing horrific massacres. And she said, look, given the geography of Guam, this is our reality. This is where we are. And I would prefer to be under the U .S. military than the Chinese military, basically. But that's not where the Chinese entry points are. The Chinese entry points are through this corruption and the economic things. And I think that Guam and CNMI are much more valuable to China, attached to the U .S. as a kind of catheter through which they can attach venom that goes into the system, directly into the veins of the U .S.

00:27:16    JACK GAINES
Like you were saying, mailing drugs through the post office, getting driver's licenses and probably taking flights in without having to worry about identification.

00:27:26    CLEO PASCAL
You know, we happen to have excellent, honest governors in both Guam and CNMI at the moment. But there's a lot of money arrayed against them so that they're not in place the next time around. The other component to it is... You get these windows of opportunity for investigation when you have somebody honest in power, like the current governor in Commonwealth of Northern Marianas. He says, come investigate me. There should be a rapid response corruption investigation team when they've got that little window to come in before... He gets voted out.

00:28:03    JACK GAINES
gets voted out.

00:28:05    CLEO PASCAL
Yeah, before the corrupt elements get their way to just...

00:28:09    CLEO PASCAL
Look at everything. Look at the casino. Look at, you know, the visa issue. Currently, they're trying to pressure the governor to lobby direct flights from mainland China into CNMI with people with no visas. What the governor is saying is relying on the Chinese tourism sector is not a good idea. What happened in Palau was the Chinese built up the Palau tourism sector and then pulled it all out to try to put pressure on the Palau government to make them abandon Taiwan. So what he's saying is the Chinese tourism sector comes with political leverage. And if something happens with China anyway, the U .S. government could block that tourism. So he's holding the line, but the pressure is growing. So without this rapid response corruption investigation team, you can just see all of these tentacles expanding and making it more and more difficult. for accountability, transparency, and the survival of U .S. strategic interests in a critical region of the Indo -Pacific.

00:29:18    JACK GAINES
It's interesting that tourism is ramped up just in time for the elections. Yep. Plus the gambling, the drug shipping, everything else going on with it.

00:29:27    CLEO PASCAL
Send in the lawyers. I never thought I'd get to the point in my life where it's like, oh, lawyers are the solution.

00:29:31    JACK GAINES
lawyers are the solution. Sometimes lawyers are the solution. Yep.

00:29:36    Close
Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. I'll have the email and CA Association website in the show notes. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U .S. relations, thank you all for what you're doing. This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes of 1CA Podcast.

194: Doug Stevens on faith-based diplomacy

Today Brian Hancock interviews Doug Stevens who is an expeditionary pastor, working faith-based diplomacy to improve international relations. The discussion is on his work travelling to partner nations to reach out to locals and leaders to overcome social trauma from war, genocide and help rebuild communities. 

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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail.com 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

Links mentioned: Hope international ministries: Hope4nations.org

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Special thanks to Dimitar Dodovski for sampling Keith Jarrett's album Spirits 20. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yeh7OX5m4E

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Transcript

00:00:03    Introduction

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes.

 

00:00:38    BRIAN HANCOCK

I'm Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hancock, and I will be your host for this session. Today we have with us Pastor Douglas Stevens to discuss religious outreach, relief operations in Ukraine, and mission opportunities in Ukraine. Doug is a graduate of both Cal Berkeley and Fuller Seminary. Doug is active with humanitarian missions in Eastern Europe. in Haiti and elsewhere. He is a people lover, culture watcher, mountain bike rider, and avid world trader. Isn't that the truth? A quick disclaimer to the audience, a reminder, all remarks are solely those of the presenters. Further, due to the subject matter of our session today, some of the content may be a little bit disturbing to some audiences. Now, Doug, I first met you in the United States. when you swooped in to rescue our church as God's quick response force. Do you remember those days? I do. I remember them fondly. It seems like a lifetime ago to me, so much has happened since, but our church is still standing, so you must have done something right.

 

00:01:36    DOUGLAS STEVENS

It seems

 

00:01:42    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Well, it was a great time. I have friendships from that that continue.

 

00:01:46    BRIAN HANCOCK

Outstanding. Some of the things that you do are similar to what we do in the Army of the United States, or at least there are some similarities to it. The way we view the American military is as an expeditionary force. We often go places with large numbers, with lots of equipment and logistics and partnerships. And oftentimes these areas we are going to are characterized by great suffering. Relief agencies may not be able to get in there to operate. So that's usually when the world often turns to the U .S. military. Now, it seems to me that you've spent much of your life in a similar capacity as an expeditionary pastor.

 

00:02:29    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Well, first of all, I just want to say what you're doing and what you represent is not well enough known as a part of the U .S. military's mission, the humanitarian side of that. And I just want to encourage you. So thank you for what you're doing. Now, my experience is on a different plane and yet heading in the same direction, just trying to help people. and have been in a variety of places around the world. In Haiti, for example, serving in Colombia, South America. I have been to Bosnia during the war back in the 90s when things were very tense. That was with World Vision. I have been to Rwanda in East Africa. That was with International Justice Mission. I have been overseas to places like Beijing, China, Cambodia, in the aftermath of their genocide. And have seen light shining in some of the darkest places in the world, places that you wouldn't expect any good news to come out of. And yet some wonderful people doing some heroic work in those places. In fact, we have just returned from more than a weekend in Ukraine. I know that you personally have a podcast that you host.

 

00:03:34    BRIAN HANCOCK

know that you personally have a podcast that you host. Yes. Very, very inspiring. Hello, darkness. Stories that transform. And I'll tell you, having read about... The scenario in Rwanda you mentioned, I think a number of people have watched the movie Hotel Rwanda. Yes. Very dark. You've got Hutu mothers murdering their neighbors Tutsi Chol. Yeah. You've got massive numbers fleeing. Yes. You have the radio saying there is work to be done. Kill the cockroaches. Right. You have female leaderships in the government calling the men in the camps, often stadiums, other places where, Hutu have herded the Tutsis to kill them brutally with machetes and complaining, saying, well, you need to rape these women before you kill them. And they're saying, well, we're just too tired because of all this killing. It's what they were saying at the time. And of course, the international community, we have some bases there and some other things, but we are not allowed to leave the base. There is no protection that is offered by the international community. There is no sanctuary. Clearly, this was hell on earth. It was. Have you seen some light come out of something like that?

 

00:04:48    DOUGLAS STEVENS

It went on for about 90 days back in 1994. That took nearly a million lives, as I understand it. We were there in the aftermath and the recovery time. And they had these wonderful trials for people who had been convicted of murder. But in these trials, you actually had the opportunity for reconciliation. You had the opportunity to extend forgiveness. potential repair of communities. And so we were close to that. We were supporting efforts as that was happening. There was a filmmaker who was there with us. So that was our time in Kigali and the countryside in Rwanda. And pleased to see the development since then. And of course, there are more complications now politically, and that's happening in our world. So that's a whole nother story.

 

00:05:33    BRIAN HANCOCK

I hear you. But I'm also glad to hear that some justice, some reconciliation, some path forward does exist there that you were able to see. Now, in Army Civil Affairs and United States Marine Corps Civil Affairs, both of us work with what we call united action partners. These may be local allies, they may be host nations, oftentimes the non -government organizations. We often can't work directly with them if they need to maintain a neutrality. help both sides, such as Doctors Without Borders. You are for World Vision and I believe a few others. What is it like working with a non -government organization doing this type of work? And did you ever have any interaction with the military in that role? And would you have even liked any interaction with military civil affairs?

 

00:06:30    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Well, we primarily worked with churches and NGOs that were there doing a variety of things, and those folks are the heroes on the ground, often unsung and unrewarded for what they did. But they didn't do it for that reason. They were doing it for the people they loved, the people they were sacrificing for. And we worked very closely with them and wanted to support them because they were the ones who were on the ground. We're going to be there for a long time after we left doing whatever we were doing. And often we were bringing in humanitarian aid. Sometimes we were doing leadership training. Sometimes we were doing reconciliation, conflict resolution, working with local churches that were... suddenly coming back to life again and wanting to encourage them, and the work they were doing in drawing people close to the, well, the work of God, if I can put it bluntly, because what needed to be done seemed impossible. How do you crawl out of this deep, dark hole? But it was happening, and there was a tremendous resurgence of faith in the hearts of many people who were then living it out. Hard to explain how this happened except to call it a miracle.

 

00:07:35    BRIAN HANCOCK

And I'm glad that miracles still do happen.

 

00:07:37    DOUGLAS STEVENS

They do. You have to invest in it. It doesn't happen because you're hoping for it.

 

00:07:42    BRIAN HANCOCK

Right. May of last year, you found yourself in Moldova. Now, that may not be a household name for many folks in America. I knew nothing about it until I went there.

 

00:07:51    DOUGLAS STEVENS

knew nothing about it until I went there. Next door to Ukraine.

 

00:07:54    BRIAN HANCOCK

We have a regionally aligned civil affairs commands who get to know some of these places. And for the European region, civil affairs command is... the 353rd Civil Affairs Command, which is back on the East Coast. And in January 2023, they actually published an excellent article in our flagship publication in the military, the Military Review. You've arrived if you get peer review publication in Military Review. And the functional specialty team, a couple of brilliant captains, published. an article regarding food resiliency in Moldova. So this is a hot topic. Can you tell the audience a bit about the mission that you were doing in Moldova, as well as what you experienced?

 

00:08:41    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Well, Moldova is a relatively poor country inside the EU, hoping to get in, not in NATO yet, hoping to enter, be approved, along with Ukraine, of course. that took in a million refugees in the last couple of years that were flooding out of Ukraine, looking to escape. The Moldovans themselves, many of them literally have their bags packed in case Ukraine is overrun by the Russian invaders. And they know that they would be next and they have no defense. And NATO is not officially obligated to intervene. So right now, for the moment, they look relatively safe, but they have absorbed an awful lot of special needs. coming in from Ukraine. Now, Moldova is also an agricultural country. They produce a lot of what they need, but they were overwhelmed by this crisis that took place. And so there is help coming in from other places. We were able to bring some of those materials in, and we were very impressed by the work of many different missions and churches working together in ways they never have before. And that's happening all across this area. People are working together like they never have. So it's a great thing to watch that happen and be part of it.

 

00:09:54    BRIAN HANCOCK

That's outstanding. And of course, right now, you've got a lot of Russian interference in going Moldavian elections.

 

00:10:00    DOUGLAS STEVENS

We've heard about that. It's still a controversy because Russia apparently is jealously looking at other parts of other countries they would like to retake as part of the Soviet venture. Now, no longer part of the Soviet experiment, which closed down in 1989, 91, somewhere in there. but want to now reestablish, according to Putin, the Holy Russian Empire. And it now has a religious overtone, backed by the Russian Orthodox Church, that basically wants to reclaim all of these lands, whether it's Poland, whether it's Georgia, whether it's Moldova, Ukraine, the Baltic states. We don't know how far this ambition goes, but we've been shocked so far, so nothing right now is going to shock me.

 

00:10:44    BRIAN HANCOCK

I thought we had closed the chapter on large wars in Europe. Maybe not. It sounds like Putin styles himself a bit of a czar. We know how well that worked out. It's a shame that we seem to be heading that direction. Putin's language, of course, is, hey, we want to open another front just to take Ukraine.

 

00:11:02    DOUGLAS STEVENS

And, of course, the war in Ukraine has been going on from at least 2014 when they took Crimea. And then the oblasts in the east, they've been occupying there. And now, of course, trying to come across. Right now, the front is essentially frozen, although I will defer to you and the military for a better estimate of what is actually happening. And we don't know where this is going. And my role, our role, is to come in and support those who are doing this good humanitarian work, especially in the faith -based areas.

 

00:11:30    BRIAN HANCOCK

Yeah, I'd like to tug at that string a little bit, because you just literally, a few days ago, got back from a mission in Ukraine. And I understand that it was a multifaceted mission. You're doing a number of different things, all important works, why you're there. Now, while most of the audience is at least to some degree aware of the mental suffering that's taking place in Ukraine, can you, having some firsthand experience, tell us a little bit about what you saw, what you did, and what you found?

 

00:12:00    DOUGLAS STEVENS

A year ago, when I went into Ukraine, we went from Odessa all the way to Kyrgyzstan, all the way to the front lines, essentially, visiting along the way, doing leadership training, because the churches were asking for that. As people left, all kinds of new people flooded into these churches, which was a surprise to me. I didn't know about that. I wasn't expecting that. I thought maybe they'd be emptied out. But because they are serving so well, not just their own congregation, but the whole community now is looking to the church, even more than the government, which is busy fighting a war to supply those needs. And there are... Of course, other organizations that are there are Samaritan's Purse, World Vision, World Central Kitchen, various other churches in that area. And I had no idea how strong the church was in Ukraine, the evangelical, Protestant, Pentecostal, Catholic working together. Not the Orthodox so much. They tend to be a little bit more aloof. Some of them are still aligned with Russia, even though Russia is the invader. But the other churches working together and mitigating the trauma and the food insecurity and everything else that's needed and providing more than they thought they could. We were there this time primarily to pay for the cost of these Ukraine pastors and wives to come and be there for the week. And we're delighted that there was something practical they could do to really bring encouragement and some relief and renewal. And it was even more than we dreamed of doing. We just felt like a family being together. And, of course, they have to go back now to wherever they were, all within range of Russian missiles that are being sent across the country at random times. And while you were there, I mean, you were hearing the explosion.

 

00:13:41    BRIAN HANCOCK

were hearing the explosion.

 

00:13:43    DOUGLAS STEVENS

We heard a few. We saw a few happening. And, of course, the terrible destruction of the children's hospital in Kiev happened while we were there. And we were right in the middle of that for quite a while. This is the first time my wife had come in. I was reluctant to bring her there because I feel protective. But I'm married to Joan of Arc, so there was no keeping her away. And she wanted to be with the women, with the wives. And she did tremendous work there, even across some of those barriers I mentioned. Nancy is an amazing woman.

 

00:14:10    BRIAN HANCOCK

Indeed. She has my deepest respect, absolutely. Can you share a story or two about the brokenness that you found in Ukraine? And after you share an example of a brokenness for the community, which is... many of which are so disconnected from the reality of what's happening on the ground there. Could you share your thoughts as to what you think the proper response should be for caring individuals who are exposed to these kinds of situations?

 

00:14:42    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Yeah. Well, so many stories. I'm thinking of one that I'm sitting with a pastor who was in a village between Belarus and Kiev at the beginning of the war. They were marching right in, and they were going to take Kiev within a week or two or three. It was ground zero, and they were on that highway going in. They were near Buka, they were near Irpine, and they were in another village. And very quickly, of course, the soldiers took over the houses where people were living after shooting a number of people who were on the streets at the wrong time in the wrong place, just gunning them down. So these soldiers showed up, and in his particular town, in his house, actually, He had sent his family out to the hinterlands where they would be less likely to run into Russian soldiers. But he and his brothers stayed there and these Chechen soldiers.

 

00:15:32    BRIAN HANCOCK

soldiers. And these are very skilled fighters, by the way. These are some of the best fighters in the Russian military.

 

00:15:38    DOUGLAS STEVENS

And even though they had been attacked themselves by Russian forces years earlier, they were now conscripted, really had no idea where they were, what they were doing exactly. When they heard how large Kiev was, they thought Kiev was... you know, a town. Well, it's a city of five million people. They were starting to get a little nervous about how are we going to take this town? Anyway, they were part of a force that was there. They came into the house threatening with their guns drawn. They didn't know how long occupied, whether they were going to be shot, what was going to happen. But they ended up having these conversations. This is the interesting part. This is the kind of the more spiritual part. When human beings meet, and there's not only guns in the room, but also human beings who actually have to communicate with each other, eventually the guns were kind of laid down. In fact, at one point, the commander came in and saw the guns laid down, and he was furious with his own troops, because these guys, the pastor and his brother, could have picked up a gun and shot. At one point, they let him go and visit his family, and then come back, and he brought back bread that his mother had baked. And he voluntarily gave it to, I want to give it to you as a gift. And there were moments when deeper conversation happened. Like one of the Chechens was asking about religion. And you say you're a priest, but you don't have a beard. And then the pastor asked him, he said, well, what is the worst sin according to the Quran? And the Chechen thought for a moment, he said, to kill an innocent person. And so the pastor said, well, then why are you here? Because that's what you're doing. Was that an aha moment? The Chechen had no answer to that. To make a long story short, after a couple of weeks, they had a parade in front of this town. Everyone was in their kind of their dress military uniforms. And the Russian television was there. The propaganda was running. And they were on their way to Kiev. That was the whole point of this television program. The next day, they dressed down. They went back into Belarus. So they didn't do what the propaganda alleged was about to happen. And that's what happens in war. You can't predict and you can't control. And it looked like it was going to happen like it happened to us in Afghanistan, but it didn't happen like that at all. The Ukrainians stood up and they stood firm, and Zelensky and others did not flee as predicted. They stayed the course very brave.

 

00:17:56    BRIAN HANCOCK

Now, in the story you tell, did the Chessian Muslims, after having been confronted... Yeah,

 

00:18:04    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Yeah, and having been there together for two weeks.

 

00:18:04    BRIAN HANCOCK

having been there together for two weeks. Been there two weeks.

 

00:18:07    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Yeah.

 

00:18:08    BRIAN HANCOCK

And being confronted with the reality of their action. Yes. Dead bodies in the street, right? There were dead bodies in the streets.

 

00:18:15    DOUGLAS STEVENS

were dead bodies in the

 

00:18:15    BRIAN HANCOCK

in the streets. Right.

 

00:18:16    DOUGLAS STEVENS

There were terrible things happening, lots of fear. Did they make any attempt at reconciliation before they marched away?

 

00:18:19    BRIAN HANCOCK

they make any attempt at reconciliation before they marched away?

 

00:18:23    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Well, the pastor was, in his own words, reaching out to them, offered to pray for them. And before the Chechens left, there were at least a couple of them who apologized for being there. Wow. We're sorry. This was wrong. We did not know what we were doing. Wow. And that's what they were saying as they left. So a ray of light into the sea of darkness, into this very dark place. Obviously, the danger continues. There are bad actors everywhere, especially back in Moscow. And so the war goes on, and we don't know where it's going.

 

00:18:39    SPEAKER_00

what they

 

00:18:47    SPEAKER_00

are bad

 

00:18:55    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Your second question, which was, okay, now what do we do regardless of if the war continues for years, if it ends tomorrow? Everybody in Ukraine knows that if the war ended tomorrow, there would still be trauma to heal from. There would still be recovery and rebuilding to the tune of, what, half a trillion dollars? At least. Something like that. And climbing. Nobody knows, and where's the money coming from? So a lot is uncertain, which is what happens as a war continues. Yeah.

 

00:19:15    BRIAN HANCOCK

climbing.

 

00:19:23    DOUGLAS STEVENS

But the efforts that the Ukrainians are making to survive, first of all, and secondly, to take care of one another. deserves all the help that we can provide. And it can be governmental, it can be NGOs, it could be nonprofits, it can be churches, it could be individuals who have people of good faith and goodwill. And obviously you want to give through a trusted source, through a channel that you know is going or almost all of it going directly to the need. And the organization that I was working with this time, which is called Hope International Ministries, all the money we raised, 100 % of it, went directly to them because we covered our own costs and expenses. So there was no overhead. Become the answer to your own prayer.

 

00:20:08    BRIAN HANCOCK

Absolutely. You know, Muhammad Gandhi said, be the truth you want to see in the world, right? Yeah. Lead by that example. I really love that story that you shared and why it was a little bit frightening with that pastor having the home invasion. Reflecting on that, you and I both know that Muslims don't always get the best press out there for different reasons, right? And here in your story, what we have as an example, the Russian Orthodox Christians are not operating on a moral compass. But the Muslims in the same situation stop and reflect. Appealing to their conscience. They received that, whereas many of the Russian Orthodox Christians did not. And then they act on that. Yeah.

 

00:20:56    DOUGLAS STEVENS

We pray for the Russian people, too, because they are only hearing one story. It is pure propaganda. They believe Nazis have taken over. They believe their homeland is being threatened. They're believing things that aren't true, but they have no independent way of discerning.

 

00:21:11    BRIAN HANCOCK

They're getting a little bit of independent information we found from YouTube, but the Russian government is working very hard to try and figure out how to close that down. Right,

 

00:21:19    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Right,

 

00:21:19    BRIAN HANCOCK

right. Put up the wall.

 

00:21:20    DOUGLAS STEVENS

up the wall. When you're hearing from 99 channels,

 

00:21:21    BRIAN HANCOCK

you're hearing from 99 channels, one thing and then you've got just this one little outlier voice, right? That can easily be lost. So certainly the Russians does not have access to a reasonable volume of objective information.

 

00:21:37    DOUGLAS STEVENS

And as you watch... The reports that come out of the Ukraine war, I mean, literally every day, if you're watching, there are certain reports that come out. And we know that nearly 600 ,000 Russian troops are casualties of this war. 600 ,000. Now, maybe 200 ,000 have been killed, and the rest have been wounded,

 

00:21:50    SPEAKER_00

,000. Now,

 

00:21:54    DOUGLAS STEVENS

the rest have been wounded, grievously wounded, can't return to war.

 

00:21:59    BRIAN HANCOCK

That's not even including the PTSD and all the other things that happen, right?

 

00:22:03    DOUGLAS STEVENS

And you wonder if those families back home in Russia are raising questions they did about Afghanistan when Russia invaded Afghanistan. And ultimately, Russia quit because they couldn't take it. So here we are yet again. And nobody expected this, but we all should have seen it coming, I suppose, because Putin has dropped signals all over the place. Right. In Syria, in Georgia, where else he's been. But I'm more interested, again, in the humanitarian part and what we can do. I'd like to end the whole thing. I don't know how long we can keep doing this, but we're going to keep doing that as long as we can, just as you and the work that you folks do. You don't hear as much about that as I would like to hear, because what you're doing is critical. I know you're doing it in Gaza as well, trying to help the Palestinians and try to set it up, but it's almost impossible to do that. And of course, you're risking your life.

 

00:22:52    BRIAN HANCOCK

Yeah, one of my colleagues just got back from the Gaza mission. I'm hoping to get him on the show. But that is one of the beauty of civil affairs and the things that we get to do to help. strengthen nations.

 

00:23:03    DOUGLAS STEVENS

These are the taxes I want to pay. I really want you to get it all.

 

00:23:07    BRIAN HANCOCK

I wish you were in charge. I wish I was. You raised the elephant in the room. You mentioned Vladimir Putin. A lot of people say this is Vladimir Putin's war for his legacy, whatever the reason may be. But one of the casus bellies or justifications that Russia is using for what amounts to outright invasion and perpetrating mass murder is the fact that they see this as protection of Christianity. as defined by the Russian Orthodox Church. Can you just give a real quick rundown of the history of that? And what are your thoughts as to whether Vladimir Putin's actions are aligned with Christian principles?

 

00:23:46    SPEAKER_00

of that?

 

00:23:54    DOUGLAS STEVENS

My answer is no, not at all aligned in any form by any distortion of what the Bible is teaching or even what the facts portray. So the story is that... First of all, Ukraine's already part of Russia. He claims it as our own, the larger mother Russia, even though, of course, they've been independent. And Ukraine has a deep history. And they are brothers. Slavic brothers. They're Slavic brothers. And that's why this makes us even more sad that Cain and Abel, you know, Cain's going after Abel. And he has a pretext. You know, he has resentment. Right. And supposedly the Nazis in the form of a Jewish president. That's unlikely, by the way. has taken over and is now an existential threat to Russia somehow. Ukraine is threatening Russia and NATO's behind that. Ukraine is Western and therefore part of Western corruption. And of course, there is corruption in Western culture. There's no doubt about that, as there is corruption in Russia, for heaven's sake, with the oligarchs and so on. So there's hypocrisy all over the world. Does that justify naked aggression? I don't think it does. at all. This is a terrible injustice, and injustice is treated harshly by God. And there's no justification that I can imagine, and being with the Ukrainian people just solidifies what was already obvious to me.

 

00:25:19    BRIAN HANCOCK

Now, when in history does the Russian Orthodox Church split from the Church of Europe? Because they don't see the Church in Europe as legitimate. Well,

 

00:25:31    DOUGLAS STEVENS

the Eastern Orthodox Church. which would include Russian, Ukrainian, Greek, and others split from the Holy Roman Church, the Roman Catholic Church, back in the Middle Ages. So that split took place then. Now there are splits within the Orthodox Church. And the recent split, many of the Ukrainian Orthodox, which was subject to Moscow, they have now broken away because of what this war does. Let me ask you this question.

 

00:25:59    BRIAN HANCOCK

me ask you this question. It's a difficult question. A number of the Ukrainians are claiming that Putin's war in Ukraine, because of the way it's being perpetrated, the indiscriminate shelling, the nature of the targeting, etc., effectively amounts to attempted genocide against the Ukrainian people. Yeah,

 

00:26:20    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Yeah, that argument can be made.

 

00:26:23    BRIAN HANCOCK

It can be. But when we look to the Old Testament, you know, as Christians, You know, we see how God orders the Israelites to attack Canaan and completely wipe out the Canaanites and take their land for their exclusive use, which seems to me very much to be the strategy Vladimir Putin is executing. How is Putin's war against Ukraine different than the word of God to the Israel people? Or is it different?

 

00:26:54    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Yeah. Well, thanks for playing devil's advocate here. That was great. Very eloquent. And I want to punch you out right now, even bringing that up. I was in Bosnia in 1995, and I sat down with an imam there in a village that had been destroyed, where everybody had turned against one another. The Croats and the Bosnians and the Serbians had turned against one another in a village where they had once coexisted. I said, how in the world is this village ever going to recover? He said, well, forgiveness. And I went, okay, I'm not expecting to hear that from a Muslim. I didn't know that was a theme in the Quran. I said, tell me, what does the Quran teach? He said, well, there are two theories. The first theory is that forgiveness can be extended once you have drained the last drop of blood from the last living relative of your last living. enemy that doesn't bode well it said it chilled down my spine when i heard that i said you said there was a second theory yeah what's this other what's the other option he said well you take the hate out of your heart you give it to god who is the judge the only righteous judge and you ask him for the strength to turn your enemy into a friend and i was thrilled to hear that and i said that is in the quran he said well and he smiled we stole it from the prophet isa jesus

 

00:27:01    SPEAKER_01

even bringing that

 

00:28:11    DOUGLAS STEVENS

who teaches this forgiveness, which is an otherworldly kind of ethic. There's nothing in this world that ordinarily leads to that. And the people of Ukraine, many of them are believers in this Christ, in the Christ of the New Testament. And they're even practicing that, and they pray for the Russians, as furious as they are about what is happening to them, as hard as they are fighting, they know that the answer ultimately is, Probably not going to be solved by a war in itself because it just keeps going. And the bodies keep mounting up. And the children are afraid. And the women are being abused. And that isn't ultimately the answer. So we pray for that miracle. We really do. We want to be peacemakers. We want to see reconciliation happen. And we want to see evil stopped, for sure. We want to see it stopped in its tracks.

 

00:29:05    BRIAN HANCOCK

Well said. Now, I want to thank you. Doug, for taking the time here to share the civil affairs community. We also have a heart for service. I know you do. And thank you for what you're doing.

 

00:29:13    DOUGLAS STEVENS

know you do. And thank you for what you're doing.

 

00:29:15    BRIAN HANCOCK

doing. Yeah, absolutely. We're allies in this.

 

00:29:18    DOUGLAS STEVENS

allies in

 

00:29:19    BRIAN HANCOCK

I think we are. For those in the audience who want to get additional information on some of the relief efforts that you've been part of and that are happening in Ukraine, where would you recommend they look?

 

00:29:33    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Well, I want to, first of all, recommend, if you're thinking about Ukraine, there is this wonderful ministry that I've been a part of. It's called Hope International Ministries. And you can go to Hope4Nations .org. Hope4Nation. Hope4Nations .org. Okay. World Vision, Samaritan's Purse, World Central Kitchen. Those are the people I trust and love, and I'm sure there are many others who are doing good work. I appreciate your recommendations.

 

00:30:05    BRIAN HANCOCK

appreciate your recommendations. I know a number of us donate to those organizations, but we're never doing enough. We don't necessarily understand what some of these difficulties are like. Do you have any final thoughts that you'd like to share with the audience before we wrap up the session? I have so many,

 

00:30:21    DOUGLAS STEVENS

have so many, but the first thing I think of is we need to lead from a baseline of gratitude. for all that we have. This adventure that we're on, if it's a time to give and not just a time to take, a time to care about others, not just a time to elevate yourself, this adventure is the thrill of a lifetime. To live grace -based and joy -driven is my motto. I hear it.

 

00:30:49    BRIAN HANCOCK

hear it. And thank you too for the amazing work that you've been doing all your life. And of course, recently around the world. It does matter. It does make a difference. Anyone who says that they alone can't make a difference, that is not true. Many people around the world make a difference. You are one of them. And I can tell you if there are more people like you in the world, Pastor Stevens, this would be a better world to live in. So thank you very much for what you did and for your time here with us today. And thank you so much.

 

00:31:18    DOUGLAS STEVENS

thank you so much.

 

00:31:21    Close

Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. I'll have the email and CA Association website in the show notes. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field, working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U .S. relations, thank you all for what you're doing. This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes. One CA Podcast.

 

193: Patrick Alley on Global Influence (Part II)

Today we welcome Patrick Alley, co-founder of Global Witness. 

Patrick Alley and his team at Global Witness are credited with countering multiple autocrats and kleptocrats worldwide.

The most notable is collapsing the Khmer Rouge by exposing the illegal timber trade that was bankrolling the rebels.

They created the Blood Diamond campaign to counter the De Beers diamond cartel and multiple rebel groups in Africa that used the conflict to fund some of the most brutal civil wars in the late 1990s. 

Their findings were also critical for getting the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Charles Taylor in Liberia and trials for crimes against humanity. 

Patrick and Global Witness conducted similar operations in Europe and the Americas before he retired and published his first book, Very Bad People in 2022, and now his second book, Terrible Humans, which is available online and will be in bookstores around mid-August.

This is part two of a two part episode with Mariah Yager from SMA to cohost the discussion on DOD Integrated Influence. 

Patrick Alley:

Global Witness: https://www.globalwitness.org/

Book, Terrible Humans: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/patrick-alley/terrible-humans/9781800962385/ 

Book, Very Bad People: https://www.globalwitness.org/en/blog/very-bad-people-inside-story-fight-against-corruption/

Ted Talk: https://youtu.be/lUIrYBtkfl4 

SMA version of the interview: SMA version of the interview: https://nsiteam.com/smaspeakerseries_31july2024/ 

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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail.com 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

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Special thanks to the Juanes Channel for the intro sample of Desde Que Despierto Hasta Que Duermo. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZCeqUVeRMU

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Transcript

00:00:03    Introduction
Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes. Welcome, Patrick, to the show.

00:00:40    JACK GAINES
This is a quick introduction, and then we'll get right into it. Patrick Alley and his team at Global Witness are credited with countering multiple autocrats and kleptocrats worldwide. The most notable is collapsing the Khmer Rouge by exposing the illegal timber trade that was bankrolling the rebels. They created the Blood Diamond Campaign to counter the De Beers Diamond Cartel that used the conflict to fund some of the most brutal civil wars in the late 1990s. Their findings were also critical in getting the U .N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Charles Taylor in Liberia and the war crimes trials for crimes against humanity. Patrick and Global Witness conducted similar operations in Europe and the Americas before he retired and published his first book, Very Bad People, in 2022, and now his second book, Terrible Humans. which is available online and will be in bookstores around mid -August. So, welcome, Patrick. With all the unrest in Venezuela, Ukraine, Le Levant, Africa, we live in interesting times.

00:01:36    PATRICK ALLEY
How are you? I'm good, thank you, and thank you very much for asking me to take part. It's a real privilege. I'm a child of the Cold War, and nuclear war was sort of ever -present when I was younger. We were really quite worried about it. And then the world seemed to be quite a nice place for many years. And it seems we've gone back to Cold War II, which is a bit of a worry. Yeah.

00:02:01    JACK GAINES
The reason I brought you on today is because I felt like EOD and the US government overall struggles with strategic competition. We are in action with Russia, China, the four plus one, basically, trying to figure out how to counter their foreign policy goals. And we're finding that they're... more and more using criminal groups or paramilitary groups that have criminal practices to achieve their foreign policy goals. And North and Central Africa are excellent examples with the Russians and Wagner helping to provide coups and then slowly taking over countries' management so that they can get to the mines and to the timber and then selling that to avoid Russian sanctions for the war in Ukraine. Yeah.

00:02:48    PATRICK ALLEY
In the case of Wagner, and I have to give credit to the wonderful US -based organization, The Century, but I talked to them extensively for my book, Terrible Humans, and the Central African Republic, CAR for short, and how Wagner has sort of infiltrated. And many people in this call may know this well, but it was an extremely clever and strategic operation. Obviously, we all know Wagner is sort of the deniable arm of Russian military or foreign policy. But how they wheedled their way in, the Russian resource of Sochi with the new president promising him arms, and in the end, not all of the subjects of that conversation were made public, but what obviously transpired, was the Russians did everything for that guy. So first of all, they gave him personal security through Wagner. Wagner created a troll farm, and so they started manipulating public opinion. The Russians created the ruling political party, the Mouvement de l 'accord, the United Hearts movement in Central African Republic. The national election server is based in Russia. And as they were doing all of this, they were training the army in everything from straightforward combat to torture. And then... Wagner troops were with the army and various rebel groups against other rebel groups throughout Central African Republic, not just trying to win battles, but creating terror. The motto was leave no trace. So mass rape, mass execution was the order of the day. And you're right, they also set up companies, particularly in gold. diamonds and timber. A lot of this obviously became much more relevant when Russia unreaded Ukraine and sanctions started to bite, because these valuable commodities are leaving Central African Republic, as we speak, and making their way, or the money from them making their way to Russia. And when I finished that chapter, before the book was published, Wagner arrived in Niger, and there was a coup, the president was locked up. And I thought to myself, I wonder how long it'll be before the population are waving Russian flags in the streets. And it was the next day. And you think, well, they didn't just arrive overnight. There's something in the planning.

00:05:16    JACK GAINES
Well, you met the guy that goes out there to prep for an event and passes out flags.

00:05:21    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, I didn't meet him. I talked to him on Zoom. He was only involved in the Central African example, but it's a really good example. He's called Abdullah Ibrahim. And he was related by marriage to senior people in the government and indeed to the president. And when the new president came in and he was voted in and there was no reason necessarily to think he was going to be awful at that time, this guy went back in and started campaigning politically and building up cells in France, the ruling party amongst the diaspora in France. But then it started getting a bit murky and he was asked, initially to organize welcoming demonstrations so when the first armored vehicles came in from russia they were met by enthusiastic crowds and he was the guy who hired the enthusiastic crowd and bought them the baseball caps and the t -shirts and the flags to wave and gave me the numbers which are frighteningly small i can remember top of my head like 25 30 000 bought a demonstration but then he got even worse and he was asked to impersonate a rebel general, and to call on the killings of these people and those people in order so that Wagner could take advantage of the populations and the resources in those areas.

00:06:38    JACK GAINES
so that Wagner could take advantage of the populations and the resources in those areas.

00:06:43    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, black ops, which by that time he felt he had no choice but to do because he was in a very bad situation. In the end, he fled and he's back in France. So basically,

00:06:53    JACK GAINES
basically, Wagner came in, they helped with the governance and security by bringing in forces and training troops. But then they got so close and in tight with leadership in the government, they were able to also dictate the policy within that government and then open up new areas for them to exploit.

00:07:11    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, that's absolutely right. And I think what's interesting about it is CAR is perhaps the best documented of the countries they've gone into. That's arguable, but I think it probably is. Wagner have a presence. And I was thinking, actually, just over the last day, what can you do about Wagner? And that's maybe the subject of this conversation or another, whatever you like. But one of the things I didn't think of, because it hadn't happened very often, is what happened in Mali over the last few days, where Wagner actually lost on the battlefield. And I think quite a few Wagner troops were killed. And that's not a common thing. Usually they've had the upper hand. So maybe there's another way.

00:07:57    JACK GAINES
And do you think that is more of an opposition leader frustrated with doing neocolonial control of the region? Do you think that's a reaction to that? Because I know the Tarigs are famously anti -government in most countries.

00:08:11    PATRICK ALLEY
Yes, I think they are. And I honestly don't know the answer to that question. And of course, there were links with al -Qaeda, IS, etc. So it could be any number of reasons. I think going to the point you're making, which I think is the really important one about neocolonialism, is that's exactly what Russia is doing. They were doing it in Libya and Syria way before the invasion of Ukraine. But with the invasion of Ukraine, it's become probably much more important to them, I think, because of the resources that Africa holds. So in a sense, it's straight back to the colonialism perpetrated by the British, the Belgians, the French, the Portuguese a century or more ago. It's the same thing. And it's just as brutal. And it's just as essential. And the global north wants those resources. And I think those countries that we've talked about are important in their own right from a resource perspective amongst others. But if you start looking at places like DR Congo, which possesses two -thirds of the world's cobalt, essential for the energy transition, if the same thing happens there, and I believe Russia did sign a military pact with the Congolese government over the last few months, then, you know, you've got a globally significant problem.

00:09:27    JACK GAINES
Right. And we also had talked in the past about how you and Global Witness have also mapped some of Wagner's networks for getting either the resources out or funneling money to Russia in order to avoid sanctions that are going on with Ukraine. I remember you mentioning a gold transfer in the UAE, which now has stopped, correct?

00:09:50    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, I mean, UAE, I think, is a very good point to raise because it's kind of mafia central, isn't it? It's where you want to go if you want to launder money or launder resources. So I know the US were particularly looking at the activities of a guy called Colotti, who was one of the major gold refiners in UAE, and literally billions of dollars worth of cash transactions, people actually coming off the streets with gold and walking away over a short period of time with billions of dollars for cash. But I think it goes further than that, because one of the things I mentioned in the book, and this was something I think it was CBS News tracked, is that one of the Aleutian 76 transport planes based in CAR flew into the UAE. They tracked it going there. Another Aleutian 76 flew from Russia to UAE, and those planes shared a runway for eight hours. Then they went back to where they came from. No one actually knows. what happened but my suspicions would be that resources were going out arms or whatever were coming in right in your book you were talking about how small banks in the car were being super funded with millions of dollars those monies were then transferred up into was it russia or was that other points basically well actually it was russia trying to bring money with the exchange of money and and the problem that russia had with that

00:10:58    JACK GAINES
your book you were talking about how small banks in the car were being super funded with millions of dollars those monies were then transferred up into was it russia or was that other points basically

00:11:08    PATRICK ALLEY
that other points basically well actually it was russia trying to bring money with the exchange of money and and the problem that russia had with that was that because most of the correspondent banks, and I think all of the correspondent banks, of banks in CAR are based in France, which theoretically gives the French authorities the ability to monitor transactions. And they thought, well, how are we going to get around that? And then they thought, okay, let's fly the money in by private jet, which is what they resorted to doing in the end.

00:11:37    JACK GAINES
So with Global Witness, they're on the ground where they know people and they've got connections and they're building a case. through these observations on people like Wagner. So can you tell us a little bit about the investigative process and then Global Witness's advocacy process to different partners, either law enforcement or a national partner, and how they use that to create change? Yeah, certainly.

00:12:06    PATRICK ALLEY
I mean, I could give a couple of examples because when we started just over 30 years ago, we had no experience in this sort of stuff. It was just a... a crazy idea in Three Beatles, and we kind of made it up as we went along. But you mentioned in your introduction the work on blood diamonds. And we heard that diamonds were coming out of the Civil War in Angola.

00:12:24    PATRICK ALLEY
heard that diamonds were coming out of the Civil War in Angola. We have looked at Sierra Leone and Liberia, which were all civil wars going on at that time in the late 90s. Diamond -funded wars, and it wasn't actually widely known. It wasn't secret particularly, but not widely known. And it certainly wasn't known how it worked. And we thought those diamonds are flooding into Europe. You know, the biggest entrepreneur for diamonds in the world is Antwerp. So Angolan gems were coming into Antwerp, but nobody knew how they were getting there. It was magic. Magic. And the Belgian authorities were very tolerant of it because it was big business. And so at that time, 80 % of the world's rough diamonds were traded by one company, Tobias, creators of the diamonds of forever. And, you know, diamond being this symbol of love. And so we thought, well, if 80 % of the world's diamonds have been transported by De Beers or bought by De Beers, rather, then they must know something about it. But, of course, they weren't telling. And they told us things like, well, you can't tell where a rough diamond comes from. But we were talking to geologists who were saying, well, you can tell to the mine almost where they come from. So the geologists at De Beers were saying something else. Then we found a book. confirmed what we suspected and written in 1932 by De Beers. So they knew well what they were doing. Our first investigations were kind of going undercover with secret cameras and that, looking at this Khmer Rouge timber trade in Cambodia and Thailand. But you couldn't do that with the diamond industry. It was too closed. Everyone knew each other. We could blag about being traders in tropical timber, even if we knew nothing about timber, but you can't do that with diamonds. And what we simply did was to look at De Beers' annual reports for a period of years throughout the 1990s and what they said. And then we looked at the number of civilians killed in the civil war in Angola during the same period. And so, for example, in 96, 97, I think De Beers' report said, we're purchasing X amount of diamonds from Angola as a testament to the strength and skill of our buying teams. But during that same year, something like 300 ,000 people were killed in a war. And so we put a report together, simply 14 pages or 12 pages, which made those comparisons and brought it out in the open. And what was on our side with this is, for some reason, people find diamonds sexy. It immediately became a news story. And this is when Global Witness had no public profile. The report came out by complete coincidence on the day the Angolan Civil War peace talks collapsed. And so journalists were scrambling for story and it became very big news. And in hindsight, the way I look at this, there are some campaigns you kind of know you're going to win because the argument is so clear. Like no businessman or woman can stand up and say, it's actually okay to trade in diamonds even though all these kids are getting their arms and legs cut off by the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone. You can't do that. Very quickly, in this scheme of things, just a few years, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme on Complic Diamonds is brought in far from perfect. And that's the story in itself. So that was kind of a clear example, a slightly more complicated one.

00:15:43    JACK GAINES
one. Well, first, Patrick, before we go there. So basically, you guys did field research. You did intelligence collection on what was going on, the current conditions. And then you took that evidence packet. And you did public exposure in order to shift the market's behaviors away from all of these groups that were using violence in order to collect diamonds. I'm just trying to show the collection and the influence that you did in order to achieve that.

00:16:15    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, so well asked. I should have said that, taking it for granted. That's okay. Yeah. So half of what we do, we're an investigative organization. So half of what we do is try and get as much evidence as we can to prove whatever case it is we're looking at. And the cases we choose are not random. In this case, natural resources and conflict. So we started off looking at timber and conflict, then diamonds and conflict. So this is a big difference, I think, between often what government intelligence agencies and we do, is that intelligence can be used by government, but we can only succeed with evidence. If we say something might be happening, then no one's going to listen. We're going to prove it's happening. So we have to get that evidence and then use it in the right places. There's no point in having it if you can't use it. So half the job is evidence, half the job is creating change. And each case is different. Who is it that can create that change for you? And in this case, we looked at the major markets for members of the UN Security Council, because You know, all the time we were doing this, there were hundreds of thousands of people dying in wars in West Africa. Getting the media to report on it, and that's not just because you want to get your name in the paper. It's because if something's reported on, then government ministers generally assume that voters are interested, even if they're not. And so they feel compelled to do something, to be seen to do something. That's my kind of unprofessional view, but I think that's kind of how it works.

00:17:47    JACK GAINES
I call it exposure and stigmatization. That's what we used in Afghanistan with the Taliban. We would expose some of the things they were doing in villages that were in the outer reach that they didn't think we had people in. And we used that to warn local leaders of other villages so that as the Taliban negotiated with them, can say, hey, by the way, I know you say that this moderate mosque is open or you'll allow public weddings, but we're seeing that you're shutting these very same things down. in these villages. So the collection of information and then exposing someone in order to elicit change is very powerful. And then you also have worked with law enforcement agencies, State Department, and as you said, the UN, so multinational agencies as well.

00:18:31    PATRICK ALLEY
well. Yes, indeed. And the Liberia example I was going to mention is just an example. And we're going back a bit, but the principle remains the same, where One of those civil wars was in Liberia. Charles Taylor was this terrible reputation. He was bankrolling the war in neighbouring Sierra Leone where, you know, women, kids, men were having their arms cut off by the RUF rebel group. And he had been funded sort of most famously by diamonds and the UN sanctioned diamonds. But then he fell back on the country's rainforests and started exporting timber. From then on, from about 99, For the next few years, Timber was bankrolling Charles Taylor in his war. And we thought, well, how can we stop that? First off, we need to find the scale of the trade. But we couldn't go to Liberia at that time. If we had gone, we would have been killed, almost certainly. But this is an important factor here. We were contacted by a Liberian activist, a courageous guy called Silas Siakor, who ran a very small environmental group in Liberia, despite the terrible situation that was there. And he said, you know, what can we do about this? And cutting a long story short, we managed to get funding to him. Doing all of that stuff was very tricky, going to the ivory coast, meeting him outside Liberia, giving him a wad of cash. And he got his team to infiltrate the main ports in Liberia. So we knew how much timber was coming out. Also, the guy got a job in the main timber company, and that was run by a guy called Gus Kurnhoven. since convicted for all of this stuff, who was Taylor's right -hand money provider. And so we knew how much timber this company was producing and where it was sending it to, how much it was worth. So we had, over a period of time, I'm simplifying it, but really good information, provable information, cargo manifests everything. What can we do with it? Because the tools at our disposal have varied, but... Liberia was a pariah state. It didn't get any foreign aid. The only foreign trade it had was the timber trade. The timber business has governments wound around its little finger, really. It was hard to stop. What can you do? And we thought, well, there are two things, one of which is to publicize what's going on, which we did in various ways, and the other of which is UN Security Council sanctions. It's the only thing we could think of because the Security Council had a mandate to look at that area because of the war. So we started feeding information into the UN expert panel on Liberia. It took us 18 months to really penetrate the message. Let's speak about old timber, it was diamonds was important, but diamonds had ceased to be important. So we're actually trying to get through that just by provision of evidence. And then the advocacy with the member states of the UN Security Council. And so this was only about 10, 15 people at this stage, and not all of them were working on this. the capitals of the Security Council members, but also to the missions in New York, presenting the evidence, trying to get them to agree that sanctions would be a good thing to do. And then you sort of get some on side, some weren't on side. One thing that we could do that governments couldn't do was actually share information between missions with their permission. So, well, actually, the UK is thinking of doing this. Oh, really, are they? We could be thinking of doing that. That was really helpful. critical, I think. But it was very slow and frustrating because A, you had to build up that certain critical mass. But then because of the non -permanent members recycling off, then you had to start with the new ones coming on again. So it took us 18 months. But in 2003, the UN Security Council did impose sanctions on Liberian timber, and it was only a masher of a couple of months before Taylor was out of power.

00:22:16    JACK GAINES
I know that NGOs don't always partner with DOD or State Department or aid, but They also do at times. And have you ever seen a moment where you've worked directly with an agency, either requesting information or using information? And one example that I want to bring up is Sea Shepherd from your book. They were hunting an illicit fishing vessel that was destroying partner nations' maritime security by scooping up all the fish in those sea areas. And they were struggling to find the vessel. But in certain points, that vessel was down in the Arctic, and if they had known a person with a satellite, that satellite would have picked that ship up in about two minutes because of the heat signature. Has that kind of thing happened, or is it something that would interest NGOs in partnership with government agencies on like -minded missions?

00:23:13    PATRICK ALLEY
It would certainly interest NGOs. That'd be crazy not to say that. Obviously, satellite imagery is available. publicly, obviously not as high definition as the stuff the US might possess. But it's very expensive and very difficult for NGOs to do, especially smaller ones. So yes, it's definitely of interest. And if one could find the heat signature of a vessel in the Southern Ocean, which is the world's biggest ocean, that would really shortcut work. And I obviously do understand the sensitivities around that. But I'll give another example. in the forest of Cambodia and found a massive scale illegal logging operation. And stuff was being loaded on barges, which were going to Malaysia. And I took the GPS coordinates to photos, whatever. And I was approached by a US agency after that saying, we're really interested in this kind of stuff. They didn't admit they had satellites, but that's obviously what they were talking about. And said, you know, if you could give us the GPS coordinates in the future, we can take a look. I was saying, well, it should be the other way around, because if I've taken a look, I don't need you to look. Yeah, no, that's you're particularly interested. Much better if you put the satellite on the place and tell me where to go. That would be far more useful. But going more broadly on that question, yes, we've worked with the State Department a lot, probably on virtually everything we do, with the Treasury on issues related to money laundering, with USAID, of course, and sometimes with various areas of FBI as well. And sometimes I suspect with defense as well, but not that anyone ever said so.

00:24:47    JACK GAINES
Right. It just seems to me that an NGO's ability to use a network or work with a network that has reach into difficult places, like you were speaking about, would be extremely helpful in understanding what's going on with the situation and getting firsthand reporting.

00:25:02    PATRICK ALLEY
You know, I think that's right, because I think a country like the U .S. has vast resources at its disposal. NGOs very rarely do. But what NGOs can do is, whereas the U .S. is probably looking at the whole world all of the time and in some bits more than others, NGOs are quite specialists usually. You know, when we worked in various places, information of what's on the ground might have equaled what the U .S. had for all I know. So there's definitely room for exchange.
 

00:01:23    JACK GAINES
Mariah, thanks for coming on and joining me in this interview.

00:01:26    MARIAH YAGER
Thanks, Jack. So in a world of social media and AI, what do you see as the most dangerous disinformation methods and operations?

00:01:36    PATRICK ALLEY
We've done quite a lot of work on this. And I think what we've seen on platforms like Twitter, Meta, whatever, despite their claims of managing out dangerous content, if you look at some of the most tense elections over the last few years, like in Kenya, in India, in Myanmar, the amount of disinformation and incitement to violence that's out there is really alarming. And what we've done is to sort of pose as advertisers and create an advert, submit it to the moderators of those platforms and see what happens. And in virtually every case we've done it, adverts basically trying to incite people to extreme violence and hate, get accepted. I'd hasten to add, we withdraw them before they go out. So I think, you know, the threat to democracies globally, I think is one of the biggest, biggest threats that AI and social media bring. And we'll see it, you know, we see Brexit campaign in the UK, the recent general election in the campaign in the UK, and outbreaks of far right violence across Europe. That's, for me, is the most disturbing thing.

00:02:53    MARIAH YAGER
Okay, so Global Witness was founded in 1993. That covers a wide and interesting period of technological revolution. And so I'm curious with how did Global Witness make that change? It seems to me that you guys were literally at the forefront of seeing how this could be useful or hurtful. And I'm curious just how the organization shifted.

00:03:16    PATRICK ALLEY
I mean, you're quite right. The way we can investigate has changed beyond belief. I sort of quote this figure in the book that when we started, there was something like 1 ,500 websites in the world. Now there are one and a half billion. So the way we can get information has changed dramatically. Also, it means covering our tracks is more difficult. We could just print a false business card a few years ago and you'd be all right. But now you have to have a history. But yeah, so for example, we did an investigation shortly about a month after the Russia's invasion of Ukraine. which showed how Total Energy is in France by the world's oil majors. One of its refineries in Russia, in Siberia, was supplying gas condensate to a refinery, which was converting it into jet fighter fuel, which was supplying bases used to bomb Ukraine. And we were doing that to basically say to foreign oil majors, you shouldn't be there. You should not be working in Russia on these issues. We could not have done that investigation. It was public information. But to actually trawl those databases in the time to be meaningful, the way we disseminate our information, we're much more global than global witnesses in those early days, just in terms of using social media responsibly. So just that information gathering has changed. And also a silly example, our first secret cameras were in a kind of bag slung over your shoulder, you know, and you sort of said, well, yes, it's a camera, but obviously it's inside the thing. It's not a secret camera. You can have something that no one will ever suspect and is much better quality. It's much easier and safer to do what we do. Another example, looking at the use of anonymously owned companies to carry out money laundering or whatever, we managed to put the whole Companies House website, which is the UK's register of all companies, feed in certain criteria and work out how many people who ran companies were on sanctions lists, dead, aged three or under. Or one guy who was a director of 9 ,000 companies from a small office in Manchester and so something's dodgy going on there. So that stuff you couldn't have done before.

00:05:21    MARIAH YAGER
In 1993, printer paper still had the perforated edges.

00:05:25    PATRICK ALLEY
Oh, I didn't know how to use the bloody computer, you know.

00:05:29    MARIAH YAGER
So thank you for that. So talking about publicly available information, what are your thoughts on that burden of proof given the advent of publicly available information? propagation of false information, and the use of deep fakes and generative AI. How have these things changed how we prove atrocities?

00:05:51    PATRICK ALLEY
From our perspective, our entire credibility relies on our information being good. And not just our credibility, our ability to exist, because we will be sued for defamation quicker than you can flick your fingers if we defame someone saying they did something they didn't do. So we can only publish what we can prove. So we're rigorous about that and making sure we have all the background information. We still use undercover stuff sometimes, so we might have undercover footage of stuff. We will get documentation. Public record is probably more useful or more believable, trustworthy, whatever. So from that perspective, we have to be rigorous or a reputation shot and we cease to exist and cease to have any influence. In terms of us being fed bad information, which is a risk that we give information to the US government. They need to believe it. Similarly, when we get given information, we need to believe it, which is why we need to do rigorous fact -checking. And that costs us an awful lot of time and an awful lot of money, but it's essential to what we do. From when a report probably takes another four months to get it out, depending on its length and complexity and how dangerous the opposition is.

00:07:04    MARIAH YAGER
That's actually a really good segue into it. Another question about AI and large language models can be used to identify or verify a distribution.

00:07:15    PATRICK ALLEY
We, as far as I know, haven't actually used AI as yet to do that. But looking more globally at the use of AI, I think it's one of the biggest hurdles we face because it's so good. Deepfake, everything else is so good and it's penetrated. everywhere. So I think that's one of the things that we will have to get a lot better at. We're working on it, but we just have to get much, much better at it. But I think this is a challenge for governments, electoral authorities, and everybody right now. So we're not alone in that.

00:07:52    MARIAH YAGER
What else do you see in the near term, or even maybe the median term, of what are the challenges that these type of investigations are going forward?

00:08:01    PATRICK ALLEY
The challenges in investigations going forward?

00:08:04    MARIAH YAGER
Yeah. So in this... type of work, what are the challenges that you're seeing on the forefront?

00:08:09    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, well, what Global Witness is mainly focusing on now are issues often related to the climate crisis, which we see as one of the biggest threats on a whole load of levels, whether that's militarily, politically, whatever. And of course, in terms of a planet we can inhabit, that's just a broad thing. And so we work on various different issues. So we're looking at the fossil fuel industry in Ukraine in particular. We're looking at transition minerals in Myanmar, again critical to the energy transition. And I think to give one example directly related to your question is one of the things we spend a lot of time on is land and environmental defenders. You know, around four people a week, indigenous peoples and others are killed. Usually by industrial activities, a lot of this is happening in the Amazon, in Mexico and Colombia and across the world. And those people are often the guardians of natural resources, better than governments often prove to be. They're amazing sources of information. They're kind of the feet on the ground. They're already there, but they're being targeted in what is a genuine shooting war in many countries. Without them, the tropical rainforest will be gone. And I'm not trying to exaggerate that. So I think... protecting people like that. We're merely, in a way, a conduit of information. We have our people on the ground, but the people on the ground are the ones we need to protect, and they're very often the victims of what you're talking about with disinformation,

00:09:48    PATRICK ALLEY
physical threat, and a whole range of things.

00:09:51    SPEAKER_03
Thank you. Has Global Witness been targeted with any of the disinformation by any of the target governments?

00:09:58    PATRICK ALLEY
Not that I know of. I wouldn't say it hasn't happened, but not that I know of. And we have as yet not published anything which has got a massive pushback saying that was really wrong. But one of our campaigns is on disinformation, as I mentioned earlier. So we have expert people who are always kind of monitoring that kind of stuff.

00:10:23    MARIAH YAGER
SMA is currently working on a project on integrated deterrence, which is kind of the latest buzzword. And so, spoiler alert, we've kind of changed it. We actually think of it more in terms of integrated influence. You have to look across how you're influencing not just an adversary, but whatever behavior you're trying to change. And then also be able to work across the whole government and with allies and partners. So Global Witness, the work you've done, has been doing that. for a long time. So I'm curious, what would be your recommendations as we really are looking at integrated influence?

00:11:00    PATRICK ALLEY
Probably sum it up in three words, which is follow the money. We didn't use that term, didn't even think about it possibly in that way. But others have said that in 1993, when Global Witness was born and Transparency International was founded, it was the birth of the global anti -corruption movement. So a lot of what Global Witness has done has worked on corruption. And that's not just. cash in a brown envelope. It's the corruption of political systems and the corruption of the entire financial sector. And so things that are really important are looking at money laundering. That's how every dirty deal is done. Money laundering requires anonymously owned companies in the US and the EU, not least because our work in Transparency International now in many places have public registries of companies, which is essential. And we used evidence. To get that, you've got to sort of create the example. That's what we do. For example, years ago, proving that the natural gas supply from Turkmenistan to Russia and then to Europe, at one point in Ukraine, long before the invasion, was controlled by a company no one knew who owned it. And it was a guy called Dmitry Furtash we found out since sanctioned post -Ukraine war. Our message was the European gas supply is... It's at the whim of whoever this is. And so I think those messages are really important. I think also the enablers, what we call the pinstripe army of lawyers, real estate agents, company formation agents, who make this whole illicit financial system work. Everything they do looks on the surface as legal, put it together, and they're basically enabling organized crime and variations thereof. And a spinoff from that, of course. is we and others, both in Europe and the US and elsewhere, we showed how much kleptocrats, oligarchs money is in New York real estate, London real estate, art collections, car collections. There's no point in being a billionaire in Ecuador or Guinea. You want to do it in Monaco. So get your money out and live your luxury life elsewhere. We can close those doors together. And that's kind of going back to the thing about an integrated response. You will never stop. corruption, corruption's at root of most of this, but you can make it more difficult to do and far more expensive to do.

00:13:22    JACK GAINES
I guess that's an interesting point. Most of the criminal actors or adversary actors that we know, Russian oligarchs or IRGC family, they live in Western Europe. They go and hide their money in Western banks because they know that Russian or PRC banks will just take them back if that person becomes inconvenient. And so, by making it impossible for them to have that membership at the Monaco Yacht Club or have free access in and out of Europe or shut down their houses in London. Those kind of actions, they remove the demand signal for these criminal actors from doing the things they do because they're going to end up with a lot of money and nowhere to go with it. And so I thought that was a really great point.

00:14:10    PATRICK ALLEY
It's quite right. And I think, you know, We at Transparency International worked on a particular case back in 2016, where a particular oligarch had £400 million worth of central London property. And that led the exposure of that to the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, saying, OK, he'd create a public registry of companies and close down that avenue. And then Brexit happened. He resigned. No government after that, since 2016 in the UK, would take that forward until... the invasion of ukraine and then we've got the economic crime bill within a very short space of time and the oligarchs are kicked out of their houses blah blah blah it could have been done six years before but it wasn't because there wasn't a political will because it's nice to have all that money is filling around your capital so those are kind of the challenges they have to get across there was another point that i wanted to bring up and that is protecting investigative journalists because

00:15:02    JACK GAINES
was another point that i wanted to bring up and that is protecting investigative journalists because You had a story about a mafia group in Slovakia, I believe, that killed a couple of journalists. Can you talk a little bit about the need for investigative journalism and how to protect it?

00:15:22    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, certainly, as they include the kind of work of organizations like Global Witness under that banner, because we were all investigators, all the journalists, you know, there are some specializations. But yeah, I mean, the Slovakia's example is really good because you've got a country which is one of the smallest countries in the EU, but one of its stars, one of its economic stars. And a really big corruption problem, this journalist was killed, Jan Kusiak. And the demonstrations, because of the public anger about corruption, led to the downfall of the government within a very short space of time. So that the prime minister went, the police chief went, loads of judges were sort of caught with compromise and went. And that was local journalists under the auspices with the support of the Organised Crime, Corruption and Reporting Project, which is an organisation that works for the State Department a lot and I respect highly. And they managed to expose this vast depths of corruption. And as one of the journalists put it, what they found proves how cheap it was to buy Slovakia in the context of things. Tragically, you know, people did go to jail for it and whatever. The prime minister who was deposed, whose special advisor was a former Italian topless model with mafia links, Robert Fico, was re -elected just in the last few months. He was the guy who just survived an assassination attempt a few weeks ago. So he's back. He's pro -Russia, anti -support for Ukraine, and absolutely linked to mafia networks. He's back in power of a leading European country. So it doesn't always go our way.

00:16:54    JACK GAINES
Well, just because you get a reform. happening doesn't mean that the people that are opposed to it don't continue to work. And that's the vigilance that has to happen with anti -corruption reform. Exactly, yeah.

00:17:05    MARIAH YAGER
Who monitors the NGOs for accuracy, disinformation, and bias?

00:17:10    JACK GAINES
Civil litigation system?

00:17:12    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, I would say that's the most powerful one. There is no government institution that does that any more than they do with journalists. But yes, the threat of defamation, which is known as lawfare, because it's abused terribly. If you start publishing information on an oligarch, then they will come after you. And the UK is one of the worst places in the world to be come after because the system is so rigged against the publishers of information. And so they could close us down. They could close us down even if we are right, except we have to be very rigorous in fact -checking, going through a series of libel lawyers to make sure what we... A saying is as libel -proof as it can be. But if it isn't, we will go down. Undoubtedly, we're against powerful adversaries that money's no object. It's the easiest thing for them to do. So that's our check and balance. And Global Witness spends probably upwards of four, five, six hundred thousand pounds a year just to prevent those cases coming up. If the cases came up, you're into multi -million dollar territory just like that.

00:18:20    JACK GAINES
I think the second half of that would be... having the connections with governments and officials and the media so that as you're campaigning in the court, you're also campaigning politically and publicly so that you build support for your cause.

00:18:36    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, that's right. But, you know, governments can't stop the court cases. And there are two cases over the last couple of years in the UK, very high profile, one of a guy called Tom Burgess, who wrote a book about Abramovich, mostly one of the key oligarchs. And he was sued. I can't remember. We're talking tens, if not hundreds of millions. And another journalist called Carol Goldwater, who wrote about Russian funding of the Brexit campaign, the Leave campaign. Those cases were lost by the plaintiffs, but not without an awful lot of stress and heartache. And so the bad guys, the very bad people in my book, are the ones who are trying to shut up people who are trying to speak the truth.

00:19:21    MARIAH YAGER
You wrote Very Bad People 2022. Terrible Humans is coming out here in August. So as you're looking into basically the depths of depravity that are possible in humans, was there anything that surprised you for Terrible Humans and putting the book together?

00:19:38    PATRICK ALLEY
I think I surprised anyone books. Very Bad People was essentially eight stories from Global Witness Casebook. It was not a memoir. And my agent said, write it like a TV series. So I did these chapters, an episode. And I think there were no surprises for me in that because I was involved in most of the stuff there. I think what was really nice was to be able to review for the first time what we'd done. Because we never had that. We've never been navel -gazing, as we call it. What do we do? So it was nice to be able to do that. I think with Terrible Humans, that's when I wrote just over half the stories in other organizations and stories I either didn't know well, I didn't know at all. And I guess not necessarily surprised, but so, so impressed by the skill and dedication and courage of the people doing that work and how similar we all found the problems to be. The difficulty of getting information or to publishing the information or... but also the support that we did get from various people, including within governments. So, yeah, I think it was just nice to look back on one level and then to appreciate how many good people are out there and how they really do need that cooperation to help them do what they do.

00:21:00    JACK GAINES
Okay, I'm going to close up, but I wanted to bring up one point for the audience, and that is, as you are looking for... something beyond work or retirement and you're looking for a cause, these NGOs like Global Witness and Global Integrity, O -Corp, C -Shepherd, they are great organizations that could use people with analytical skills, with coordination skills to support the causes that they do.

00:21:25    PATRICK ALLEY
Well, I really appreciate being asked and I hope I haven't brought anyone sideways. So I appreciate it.

00:21:31    MARIAH YAGER
Really appreciate having you on today. Thanks everybody.

00:21:33    Close
everybody. Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. I'll have the email and CA Association website in the show notes. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U .S. relations, thank you all for what you're doing. Stay tuned for more great episodes. 1CA Podcast.

192: Patrick Alley on Global Influence (Part I)

Today we welcome Patrick Alley, co-founder of Global Witness. 

Patrick Alley and his team at Global Witness are credited with countering multiple autocrats and kleptocrats worldwide.

The most notable is collapsing the Khmer Rouge by exposing the illegal timber trade that was bankrolling the rebels.

They created the Blood Diamond campaign to counter the De Beers diamond cartel and multiple rebel groups in Africa that used the conflict to fund some of the most brutal civil wars in the late 1990s. 

Their findings were also critical for getting the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Charles Taylor in Liberia and trials for crimes against humanity. 

Patrick and Global Witness conducted similar operations in Europe and the Americas before he retired and published his first book, Very Bad People in 2022, and now his second book, Terrible Humans, which is available online and will be in bookstores around mid-August.

This is a two part episode. Next week we bring in Mariah Yager from SMA to cohost the discussion on DOD Integrated Influence. So, stay tuned. 

LInks:

Today we welcome Patrick Alley, co-founder of Global Witness. 

Patrick Alley and his team at Global Witness are credited with countering multiple autocrats and kleptocrats worldwide.

The most notable is collapsing the Khmer Rouge by exposing the illegal timber trade that was bankrolling the rebels.

They created the Blood Diamond campaign to counter the De Beers diamond cartel and multiple rebel groups in Africa that used the conflict to fund some of the most brutal civil wars in the late 1990s. 

Their findings were also critical for getting the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Charles Taylor in Liberia and trials for crimes against humanity. 

Patrick and Global Witness conducted similar operations in Europe and the Americas before he retired and published his first book, Very Bad People in 2022, and now his second book, Terrible Humans, which is available online and will be in bookstores around mid-August.

This is part two of a two part episode with Mariah Yager from SMA to cohost the discussion on DOD Integrated Influence. 

Patrick Alley:

Global Witness: https://www.globalwitness.org/

Book, Terrible Humans: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/patrick-alley/terrible-humans/9781800962385/ 

Book, Very Bad People: https://www.globalwitness.org/en/blog/very-bad-people-inside-story-fight-against-corruption/

Ted Talk: https://youtu.be/lUIrYBtkfl4 

SMA version of the interview: https://nsiteam.com/smaspeakerseries_31july2024/ 

---

One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail.com 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

---

Special thanks to the Juanes Channel for the intro sample of Desde Que Despierto Hasta Que Duermo. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZCeqUVeRMU

---

Transcript:

00:00:03    Introduction
Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes. Welcome, Patrick, to the show.

00:00:40    JACK GAINES
This is a quick introduction, and then we'll get right into it. Patrick Alley and his team at Global Witness are credited with countering multiple autocrats and kleptocrats worldwide. The most notable is collapsing the Khmer Rouge by exposing the illegal timber trade that was bankrolling the rebels. They created the Blood Diamond Campaign to counter the De Beers Diamond Cartel that used the conflict to fund some of the most brutal civil wars in the late 1990s. Their findings were also critical in getting the U .N. Security Council to impose sanctions on Charles Taylor in Liberia and the war crimes trials for crimes against humanity. Patrick and Global Witness conducted similar operations in Europe and the Americas before he retired and published his first book, Very Bad People, in 2022, and now his second book, Terrible Humans. which is available online and will be in bookstores around mid -August. So, welcome, Patrick. With all the unrest in Venezuela, Ukraine, Le Levant, Africa, we live in interesting times.

00:01:36    PATRICK ALLEY
How are you? I'm good, thank you, and thank you very much for asking me to take part. It's a real privilege. I'm a child of the Cold War, and nuclear war was sort of ever -present when I was younger. We were really quite worried about it. And then the world seemed to be quite a nice place for many years. And it seems we've gone back to Cold War II, which is a bit of a worry. Yeah.

00:02:01    JACK GAINES
The reason I brought you on today is because I felt like EOD and the US government overall struggles with strategic competition. We are in action with Russia, China, the four plus one, basically, trying to figure out how to counter their foreign policy goals. And we're finding that they're... more and more using criminal groups or paramilitary groups that have criminal practices to achieve their foreign policy goals. And North and Central Africa are excellent examples with the Russians and Wagner helping to provide coups and then slowly taking over countries' management so that they can get to the mines and to the timber and then selling that to avoid Russian sanctions for the war in Ukraine. Yeah.

00:02:48    PATRICK ALLEY
In the case of Wagner, and I have to give credit to the wonderful US -based organization, The Century, but I talked to them extensively for my book, Terrible Humans, and the Central African Republic, CAR for short, and how Wagner has sort of infiltrated. And many people in this call may know this well, but it was an extremely clever and strategic operation. Obviously, we all know Wagner is sort of the deniable arm of Russian military or foreign policy. But how they wheedled their way in, the Russian resource of Sochi with the new president promising him arms, and in the end, not all of the subjects of that conversation were made public, but what obviously transpired, was the Russians did everything for that guy. So first of all, they gave him personal security through Wagner. Wagner created a troll farm, and so they started manipulating public opinion. The Russians created the ruling political party, the Mouvement de l 'accord, the United Hearts movement in Central African Republic. The national election server is based in Russia. And as they were doing all of this, they were training the army in everything from straightforward combat to torture. And then... Wagner troops were with the army and various rebel groups against other rebel groups throughout Central African Republic, not just trying to win battles, but creating terror. The motto was leave no trace. So mass rape, mass execution was the order of the day. And you're right, they also set up companies, particularly in gold. diamonds and timber. A lot of this obviously became much more relevant when Russia unreaded Ukraine and sanctions started to bite, because these valuable commodities are leaving Central African Republic, as we speak, and making their way, or the money from them making their way to Russia. And when I finished that chapter, before the book was published, Wagner arrived in Niger, and there was a coup, the president was locked up. And I thought to myself, I wonder how long it'll be before the population are waving Russian flags in the streets. And it was the next day. And you think, well, they didn't just arrive overnight. There's something in the planning.

00:05:16    JACK GAINES
Well, you met the guy that goes out there to prep for an event and passes out flags.

00:05:21    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, I didn't meet him. I talked to him on Zoom. He was only involved in the Central African example, but it's a really good example. He's called Abdullah Ibrahim. And he was related by marriage to senior people in the government and indeed to the president. And when the new president came in and he was voted in and there was no reason necessarily to think he was going to be awful at that time, this guy went back in and started campaigning politically and building up cells in France, the ruling party amongst the diaspora in France. But then it started getting a bit murky and he was asked, initially to organize welcoming demonstrations so when the first armored vehicles came in from russia they were met by enthusiastic crowds and he was the guy who hired the enthusiastic crowd and bought them the baseball caps and the t -shirts and the flags to wave and gave me the numbers which are frighteningly small i can remember top of my head like 25 30 000 bought a demonstration but then he got even worse and he was asked to impersonate a rebel general, and to call on the killings of these people and those people in order so that Wagner could take advantage of the populations and the resources in those areas.

00:06:38    JACK GAINES
so that Wagner could take advantage of the populations and the resources in those areas.

00:06:43    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, black ops, which by that time he felt he had no choice but to do because he was in a very bad situation. In the end, he fled and he's back in France. So basically,

00:06:53    JACK GAINES
basically, Wagner came in, they helped with the governance and security by bringing in forces and training troops. But then they got so close and in tight with leadership in the government, they were able to also dictate the policy within that government and then open up new areas for them to exploit.

00:07:11    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, that's absolutely right. And I think what's interesting about it is CAR is perhaps the best documented of the countries they've gone into. That's arguable, but I think it probably is. Wagner have a presence. And I was thinking, actually, just over the last day, what can you do about Wagner? And that's maybe the subject of this conversation or another, whatever you like. But one of the things I didn't think of, because it hadn't happened very often, is what happened in Mali over the last few days, where Wagner actually lost on the battlefield. And I think quite a few Wagner troops were killed. And that's not a common thing. Usually they've had the upper hand. So maybe there's another way.

00:07:57    JACK GAINES
And do you think that is more of an opposition leader frustrated with doing neocolonial control of the region? Do you think that's a reaction to that? Because I know the Tarigs are famously anti -government in most countries.

00:08:11    PATRICK ALLEY
Yes, I think they are. And I honestly don't know the answer to that question. And of course, there were links with al -Qaeda, IS, etc. So it could be any number of reasons. I think going to the point you're making, which I think is the really important one about neocolonialism, is that's exactly what Russia is doing. They were doing it in Libya and Syria way before the invasion of Ukraine. But with the invasion of Ukraine, it's become probably much more important to them, I think, because of the resources that Africa holds. So in a sense, it's straight back to the colonialism perpetrated by the British, the Belgians, the French, the Portuguese a century or more ago. It's the same thing. And it's just as brutal. And it's just as essential. And the global north wants those resources. And I think those countries that we've talked about are important in their own right from a resource perspective amongst others. But if you start looking at places like DR Congo, which possesses two -thirds of the world's cobalt, essential for the energy transition, if the same thing happens there, and I believe Russia did sign a military pact with the Congolese government over the last few months, then, you know, you've got a globally significant problem.

00:09:27    JACK GAINES
Right. And we also had talked in the past about how you and Global Witness have also mapped some of Wagner's networks for getting either the resources out or funneling money to Russia in order to avoid sanctions that are going on with Ukraine. I remember you mentioning a gold transfer in the UAE, which now has stopped, correct?

00:09:50    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, I mean, UAE, I think, is a very good point to raise because it's kind of mafia central, isn't it? It's where you want to go if you want to launder money or launder resources. So I know the US were particularly looking at the activities of a guy called Colotti, who was one of the major gold refiners in UAE, and literally billions of dollars worth of cash transactions, people actually coming off the streets with gold and walking away over a short period of time with billions of dollars for cash. But I think it goes further than that, because one of the things I mentioned in the book, and this was something I think it was CBS News tracked, is that one of the Aleutian 76 transport planes based in CAR flew into the UAE. They tracked it going there. Another Aleutian 76 flew from Russia to UAE, and those planes shared a runway for eight hours. Then they went back to where they came from. No one actually knows. what happened but my suspicions would be that resources were going out arms or whatever were coming in right in your book you were talking about how small banks in the car were being super funded with millions of dollars those monies were then transferred up into was it russia or was that other points basically well actually it was russia trying to bring money with the exchange of money and and the problem that russia had with that

00:10:58    JACK GAINES
your book you were talking about how small banks in the car were being super funded with millions of dollars those monies were then transferred up into was it russia or was that other points basically

00:11:08    PATRICK ALLEY
that other points basically well actually it was russia trying to bring money with the exchange of money and and the problem that russia had with that was that because most of the correspondent banks, and I think all of the correspondent banks, of banks in CAR are based in France, which theoretically gives the French authorities the ability to monitor transactions. And they thought, well, how are we going to get around that? And then they thought, okay, let's fly the money in by private jet, which is what they resorted to doing in the end.

00:11:37    JACK GAINES
So with Global Witness, they're on the ground where they know people and they've got connections and they're building a case. through these observations on people like Wagner. So can you tell us a little bit about the investigative process and then Global Witness's advocacy process to different partners, either law enforcement or a national partner, and how they use that to create change? Yeah, certainly.

00:12:06    PATRICK ALLEY
I mean, I could give a couple of examples because when we started just over 30 years ago, we had no experience in this sort of stuff. It was just a... a crazy idea in Three Beatles, and we kind of made it up as we went along. But you mentioned in your introduction the work on blood diamonds. And we heard that diamonds were coming out of the Civil War in Angola.

00:12:24    PATRICK ALLEY
heard that diamonds were coming out of the Civil War in Angola. We have looked at Sierra Leone and Liberia, which were all civil wars going on at that time in the late 90s. Diamond -funded wars, and it wasn't actually widely known. It wasn't secret particularly, but not widely known. And it certainly wasn't known how it worked. And we thought those diamonds are flooding into Europe. You know, the biggest entrepreneur for diamonds in the world is Antwerp. So Angolan gems were coming into Antwerp, but nobody knew how they were getting there. It was magic. Magic. And the Belgian authorities were very tolerant of it because it was big business. And so at that time, 80 % of the world's rough diamonds were traded by one company, Tobias, creators of the diamonds of forever. And, you know, diamond being this symbol of love. And so we thought, well, if 80 % of the world's diamonds have been transported by De Beers or bought by De Beers, rather, then they must know something about it. But, of course, they weren't telling. And they told us things like, well, you can't tell where a rough diamond comes from. But we were talking to geologists who were saying, well, you can tell to the mine almost where they come from. So the geologists at De Beers were saying something else. Then we found a book. confirmed what we suspected and written in 1932 by De Beers. So they knew well what they were doing. Our first investigations were kind of going undercover with secret cameras and that, looking at this Khmer Rouge timber trade in Cambodia and Thailand. But you couldn't do that with the diamond industry. It was too closed. Everyone knew each other. We could blag about being traders in tropical timber, even if we knew nothing about timber, but you can't do that with diamonds. And what we simply did was to look at De Beers' annual reports for a period of years throughout the 1990s and what they said. And then we looked at the number of civilians killed in the civil war in Angola during the same period. And so, for example, in 96, 97, I think De Beers' report said, we're purchasing X amount of diamonds from Angola as a testament to the strength and skill of our buying teams. But during that same year, something like 300 ,000 people were killed in a war. And so we put a report together, simply 14 pages or 12 pages, which made those comparisons and brought it out in the open. And what was on our side with this is, for some reason, people find diamonds sexy. It immediately became a news story. And this is when Global Witness had no public profile. The report came out by complete coincidence on the day the Angolan Civil War peace talks collapsed. And so journalists were scrambling for story and it became very big news. And in hindsight, the way I look at this, there are some campaigns you kind of know you're going to win because the argument is so clear. Like no businessman or woman can stand up and say, it's actually okay to trade in diamonds even though all these kids are getting their arms and legs cut off by the Revolutionary United Front in Sierra Leone. You can't do that. Very quickly, in this scheme of things, just a few years, the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme on Complic Diamonds is brought in far from perfect. And that's the story in itself. So that was kind of a clear example, a slightly more complicated one.

00:15:43    JACK GAINES
one. Well, first, Patrick, before we go there. So basically, you guys did field research. You did intelligence collection on what was going on, the current conditions. And then you took that evidence packet. And you did public exposure in order to shift the market's behaviors away from all of these groups that were using violence in order to collect diamonds. I'm just trying to show the collection and the influence that you did in order to achieve that.

00:16:15    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, so well asked. I should have said that, taking it for granted. That's okay. Yeah. So half of what we do, we're an investigative organization. So half of what we do is try and get as much evidence as we can to prove whatever case it is we're looking at. And the cases we choose are not random. In this case, natural resources and conflict. So we started off looking at timber and conflict, then diamonds and conflict. So this is a big difference, I think, between often what government intelligence agencies and we do, is that intelligence can be used by government, but we can only succeed with evidence. If we say something might be happening, then no one's going to listen. We're going to prove it's happening. So we have to get that evidence and then use it in the right places. There's no point in having it if you can't use it. So half the job is evidence, half the job is creating change. And each case is different. Who is it that can create that change for you? And in this case, we looked at the major markets for members of the UN Security Council, because You know, all the time we were doing this, there were hundreds of thousands of people dying in wars in West Africa. Getting the media to report on it, and that's not just because you want to get your name in the paper. It's because if something's reported on, then government ministers generally assume that voters are interested, even if they're not. And so they feel compelled to do something, to be seen to do something. That's my kind of unprofessional view, but I think that's kind of how it works.

00:17:47    JACK GAINES
I call it exposure and stigmatization. That's what we used in Afghanistan with the Taliban. We would expose some of the things they were doing in villages that were in the outer reach that they didn't think we had people in. And we used that to warn local leaders of other villages so that as the Taliban negotiated with them, can say, hey, by the way, I know you say that this moderate mosque is open or you'll allow public weddings, but we're seeing that you're shutting these very same things down. in these villages. So the collection of information and then exposing someone in order to elicit change is very powerful. And then you also have worked with law enforcement agencies, State Department, and as you said, the UN, so multinational agencies as well.

00:18:31    PATRICK ALLEY
well. Yes, indeed. And the Liberia example I was going to mention is just an example. And we're going back a bit, but the principle remains the same, where One of those civil wars was in Liberia. Charles Taylor was this terrible reputation. He was bankrolling the war in neighbouring Sierra Leone where, you know, women, kids, men were having their arms cut off by the RUF rebel group. And he had been funded sort of most famously by diamonds and the UN sanctioned diamonds. But then he fell back on the country's rainforests and started exporting timber. From then on, from about 99, For the next few years, Timber was bankrolling Charles Taylor in his war. And we thought, well, how can we stop that? First off, we need to find the scale of the trade. But we couldn't go to Liberia at that time. If we had gone, we would have been killed, almost certainly. But this is an important factor here. We were contacted by a Liberian activist, a courageous guy called Silas Siakor, who ran a very small environmental group in Liberia, despite the terrible situation that was there. And he said, you know, what can we do about this? And cutting a long story short, we managed to get funding to him. Doing all of that stuff was very tricky, going to the ivory coast, meeting him outside Liberia, giving him a wad of cash. And he got his team to infiltrate the main ports in Liberia. So we knew how much timber was coming out. Also, the guy got a job in the main timber company, and that was run by a guy called Gus Kurnhoven. since convicted for all of this stuff, who was Taylor's right -hand money provider. And so we knew how much timber this company was producing and where it was sending it to, how much it was worth. So we had, over a period of time, I'm simplifying it, but really good information, provable information, cargo manifests everything. What can we do with it? Because the tools at our disposal have varied, but... Liberia was a pariah state. It didn't get any foreign aid. The only foreign trade it had was the timber trade. The timber business has governments wound around its little finger, really. It was hard to stop. What can you do? And we thought, well, there are two things, one of which is to publicize what's going on, which we did in various ways, and the other of which is UN Security Council sanctions. It's the only thing we could think of because the Security Council had a mandate to look at that area because of the war. So we started feeding information into the UN expert panel on Liberia. It took us 18 months to really penetrate the message. Let's speak about old timber, it was diamonds was important, but diamonds had ceased to be important. So we're actually trying to get through that just by provision of evidence. And then the advocacy with the member states of the UN Security Council. And so this was only about 10, 15 people at this stage, and not all of them were working on this. the capitals of the Security Council members, but also to the missions in New York, presenting the evidence, trying to get them to agree that sanctions would be a good thing to do. And then you sort of get some on side, some weren't on side. One thing that we could do that governments couldn't do was actually share information between missions with their permission. So, well, actually, the UK is thinking of doing this. Oh, really, are they? We could be thinking of doing that. That was really helpful. critical, I think. But it was very slow and frustrating because A, you had to build up that certain critical mass. But then because of the non -permanent members recycling off, then you had to start with the new ones coming on again. So it took us 18 months. But in 2003, the UN Security Council did impose sanctions on Liberian timber, and it was only a masher of a couple of months before Taylor was out of power.

00:22:16    JACK GAINES
I know that NGOs don't always partner with DOD or State Department or aid, but They also do at times. And have you ever seen a moment where you've worked directly with an agency, either requesting information or using information? And one example that I want to bring up is Sea Shepherd from your book. They were hunting an illicit fishing vessel that was destroying partner nations' maritime security by scooping up all the fish in those sea areas. And they were struggling to find the vessel. But in certain points, that vessel was down in the Arctic, and if they had known a person with a satellite, that satellite would have picked that ship up in about two minutes because of the heat signature. Has that kind of thing happened, or is it something that would interest NGOs in partnership with government agencies on like -minded missions?

00:23:13    PATRICK ALLEY
It would certainly interest NGOs. That'd be crazy not to say that. Obviously, satellite imagery is available. publicly, obviously not as high definition as the stuff the US might possess. But it's very expensive and very difficult for NGOs to do, especially smaller ones. So yes, it's definitely of interest. And if one could find the heat signature of a vessel in the Southern Ocean, which is the world's biggest ocean, that would really shortcut work. And I obviously do understand the sensitivities around that. But I'll give another example. in the forest of Cambodia and found a massive scale illegal logging operation. And stuff was being loaded on barges, which were going to Malaysia. And I took the GPS coordinates to photos, whatever. And I was approached by a US agency after that saying, we're really interested in this kind of stuff. They didn't admit they had satellites, but that's obviously what they were talking about. And said, you know, if you could give us the GPS coordinates in the future, we can take a look. I was saying, well, it should be the other way around, because if I've taken a look, I don't need you to look. Yeah, no, that's you're particularly interested. Much better if you put the satellite on the place and tell me where to go. That would be far more useful. But going more broadly on that question, yes, we've worked with the State Department a lot, probably on virtually everything we do, with the Treasury on issues related to money laundering, with USAID, of course, and sometimes with various areas of FBI as well. And sometimes I suspect with defense as well, but not that anyone ever said so.

00:24:47    JACK GAINES
Right. It just seems to me that an NGO's ability to use a network or work with a network that has reach into difficult places, like you were speaking about, would be extremely helpful in understanding what's going on with the situation and getting firsthand reporting.

00:25:02    PATRICK ALLEY
You know, I think that's right, because I think a country like the U .S. has vast resources at its disposal. NGOs very rarely do. But what NGOs can do is, whereas the U .S. is probably looking at the whole world all of the time and in some bits more than others, NGOs are quite specialists usually. You know, when we worked in various places, information of what's on the ground might have equaled what the U .S. had for all I know. So there's definitely room for exchange.

 

Part II

 

00:00:57    PATRICK ALLEY
A country like the US has vast resources at its disposal. NGOs very rarely do. But what NGOs can do is, whereas the US is probably looking at the whole world all of the time and in some bits more than others, NGOs are quite specialists usually. You know, when we worked in various places, information of what's on the ground might have equaled what the US had for all I know. So there's definitely room for exchange. Awesome.

00:01:23    JACK GAINES
Mariah, thanks for coming on and joining me in this interview.

00:01:26    MARIAH YAGER
Thanks, Jack. So in a world of social media and AI, what do you see as the most dangerous disinformation methods and operations?

00:01:36    PATRICK ALLEY
We've done quite a lot of work on this. And I think what we've seen on platforms like Twitter, Meta, whatever, despite their claims of managing out dangerous content, if you look at some of the most tense elections over the last few years, like in Kenya, in India, in Myanmar, the amount of disinformation and incitement to violence that's out there is really alarming. And what we've done is to sort of pose as advertisers and create an advert, submit it to the moderators of those platforms and see what happens. And in virtually every case we've done it, adverts basically trying to incite people to extreme violence and hate, get accepted. I'd hasten to add, we withdraw them before they go out. So I think, you know, the threat to democracies globally, I think is one of the biggest, biggest threats that AI and social media bring. And we'll see it, you know, we see Brexit campaign in the UK, the recent general election in the campaign in the UK, and outbreaks of far right violence across Europe. That's, for me, is the most disturbing thing.

00:02:53    MARIAH YAGER
Okay, so Global Witness was founded in 1993. That covers a wide and interesting period of technological revolution. And so I'm curious with how did Global Witness make that change? It seems to me that you guys were literally at the forefront of seeing how this could be useful or hurtful. And I'm curious just how the organization shifted.

00:03:16    PATRICK ALLEY
I mean, you're quite right. The way we can investigate has changed beyond belief. I sort of quote this figure in the book that when we started, there was something like 1 ,500 websites in the world. Now there are one and a half billion. So the way we can get information has changed dramatically. Also, it means covering our tracks is more difficult. We could just print a false business card a few years ago and you'd be all right. But now you have to have a history. But yeah, so for example, we did an investigation shortly about a month after the Russia's invasion of Ukraine. which showed how Total Energy is in France by the world's oil majors. One of its refineries in Russia, in Siberia, was supplying gas condensate to a refinery, which was converting it into jet fighter fuel, which was supplying bases used to bomb Ukraine. And we were doing that to basically say to foreign oil majors, you shouldn't be there. You should not be working in Russia on these issues. We could not have done that investigation. It was public information. But to actually trawl those databases in the time to be meaningful, the way we disseminate our information, we're much more global than global witnesses in those early days, just in terms of using social media responsibly. So just that information gathering has changed. And also a silly example, our first secret cameras were in a kind of bag slung over your shoulder, you know, and you sort of said, well, yes, it's a camera, but obviously it's inside the thing. It's not a secret camera. You can have something that no one will ever suspect and is much better quality. It's much easier and safer to do what we do. Another example, looking at the use of anonymously owned companies to carry out money laundering or whatever, we managed to put the whole Companies House website, which is the UK's register of all companies, feed in certain criteria and work out how many people who ran companies were on sanctions lists, dead, aged three or under. Or one guy who was a director of 9 ,000 companies from a small office in Manchester and so something's dodgy going on there. So that stuff you couldn't have done before.

00:05:21    MARIAH YAGER
In 1993, printer paper still had the perforated edges.

00:05:25    PATRICK ALLEY
Oh, I didn't know how to use the bloody computer, you know.

00:05:29    MARIAH YAGER
So thank you for that. So talking about publicly available information, what are your thoughts on that burden of proof given the advent of publicly available information? propagation of false information, and the use of deep fakes and generative AI. How have these things changed how we prove atrocities?

00:05:51    PATRICK ALLEY
From our perspective, our entire credibility relies on our information being good. And not just our credibility, our ability to exist, because we will be sued for defamation quicker than you can flick your fingers if we defame someone saying they did something they didn't do. So we can only publish what we can prove. So we're rigorous about that and making sure we have all the background information. We still use undercover stuff sometimes, so we might have undercover footage of stuff. We will get documentation. Public record is probably more useful or more believable, trustworthy, whatever. So from that perspective, we have to be rigorous or a reputation shot and we cease to exist and cease to have any influence. In terms of us being fed bad information, which is a risk that we give information to the US government. They need to believe it. Similarly, when we get given information, we need to believe it, which is why we need to do rigorous fact -checking. And that costs us an awful lot of time and an awful lot of money, but it's essential to what we do. From when a report probably takes another four months to get it out, depending on its length and complexity and how dangerous the opposition is.

00:07:04    MARIAH YAGER
That's actually a really good segue into it. Another question about AI and large language models can be used to identify or verify a distribution.

00:07:15    PATRICK ALLEY
We, as far as I know, haven't actually used AI as yet to do that. But looking more globally at the use of AI, I think it's one of the biggest hurdles we face because it's so good. Deepfake, everything else is so good and it's penetrated. everywhere. So I think that's one of the things that we will have to get a lot better at. We're working on it, but we just have to get much, much better at it. But I think this is a challenge for governments, electoral authorities, and everybody right now. So we're not alone in that.

00:07:52    MARIAH YAGER
What else do you see in the near term, or even maybe the median term, of what are the challenges that these type of investigations are going forward?

00:08:01    PATRICK ALLEY
The challenges in investigations going forward?

00:08:04    MARIAH YAGER
Yeah. So in this... type of work, what are the challenges that you're seeing on the forefront?

00:08:09    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, well, what Global Witness is mainly focusing on now are issues often related to the climate crisis, which we see as one of the biggest threats on a whole load of levels, whether that's militarily, politically, whatever. And of course, in terms of a planet we can inhabit, that's just a broad thing. And so we work on various different issues. So we're looking at the fossil fuel industry in Ukraine in particular. We're looking at transition minerals in Myanmar, again critical to the energy transition. And I think to give one example directly related to your question is one of the things we spend a lot of time on is land and environmental defenders. You know, around four people a week, indigenous peoples and others are killed. Usually by industrial activities, a lot of this is happening in the Amazon, in Mexico and Colombia and across the world. And those people are often the guardians of natural resources, better than governments often prove to be. They're amazing sources of information. They're kind of the feet on the ground. They're already there, but they're being targeted in what is a genuine shooting war in many countries. Without them, the tropical rainforest will be gone. And I'm not trying to exaggerate that. So I think... protecting people like that. We're merely, in a way, a conduit of information. We have our people on the ground, but the people on the ground are the ones we need to protect, and they're very often the victims of what you're talking about with disinformation,

00:09:48    PATRICK ALLEY
physical threat, and a whole range of things.

00:09:51    SPEAKER_03
Thank you. Has Global Witness been targeted with any of the disinformation by any of the target governments?

00:09:58    PATRICK ALLEY
Not that I know of. I wouldn't say it hasn't happened, but not that I know of. And we have as yet not published anything which has got a massive pushback saying that was really wrong. But one of our campaigns is on disinformation, as I mentioned earlier. So we have expert people who are always kind of monitoring that kind of stuff.

00:10:23    MARIAH YAGER
SMA is currently working on a project on integrated deterrence, which is kind of the latest buzzword. And so, spoiler alert, we've kind of changed it. We actually think of it more in terms of integrated influence. You have to look across how you're influencing not just an adversary, but whatever behavior you're trying to change. And then also be able to work across the whole government and with allies and partners. So Global Witness, the work you've done, has been doing that. for a long time. So I'm curious, what would be your recommendations as we really are looking at integrated influence?

00:11:00    PATRICK ALLEY
Probably sum it up in three words, which is follow the money. We didn't use that term, didn't even think about it possibly in that way. But others have said that in 1993, when Global Witness was born and Transparency International was founded, it was the birth of the global anti -corruption movement. So a lot of what Global Witness has done has worked on corruption. And that's not just. cash in a brown envelope. It's the corruption of political systems and the corruption of the entire financial sector. And so things that are really important are looking at money laundering. That's how every dirty deal is done. Money laundering requires anonymously owned companies in the US and the EU, not least because our work in Transparency International now in many places have public registries of companies, which is essential. And we used evidence. To get that, you've got to sort of create the example. That's what we do. For example, years ago, proving that the natural gas supply from Turkmenistan to Russia and then to Europe, at one point in Ukraine, long before the invasion, was controlled by a company no one knew who owned it. And it was a guy called Dmitry Furtash we found out since sanctioned post -Ukraine war. Our message was the European gas supply is... It's at the whim of whoever this is. And so I think those messages are really important. I think also the enablers, what we call the pinstripe army of lawyers, real estate agents, company formation agents, who make this whole illicit financial system work. Everything they do looks on the surface as legal, put it together, and they're basically enabling organized crime and variations thereof. And a spinoff from that, of course. is we and others, both in Europe and the US and elsewhere, we showed how much kleptocrats, oligarchs money is in New York real estate, London real estate, art collections, car collections. There's no point in being a billionaire in Ecuador or Guinea. You want to do it in Monaco. So get your money out and live your luxury life elsewhere. We can close those doors together. And that's kind of going back to the thing about an integrated response. You will never stop. corruption, corruption's at root of most of this, but you can make it more difficult to do and far more expensive to do.

00:13:22    JACK GAINES
I guess that's an interesting point. Most of the criminal actors or adversary actors that we know, Russian oligarchs or IRGC family, they live in Western Europe. They go and hide their money in Western banks because they know that Russian or PRC banks will just take them back if that person becomes inconvenient. And so, by making it impossible for them to have that membership at the Monaco Yacht Club or have free access in and out of Europe or shut down their houses in London. Those kind of actions, they remove the demand signal for these criminal actors from doing the things they do because they're going to end up with a lot of money and nowhere to go with it. And so I thought that was a really great point.

00:14:10    PATRICK ALLEY
It's quite right. And I think, you know, We at Transparency International worked on a particular case back in 2016, where a particular oligarch had £400 million worth of central London property. And that led the exposure of that to the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, saying, OK, he'd create a public registry of companies and close down that avenue. And then Brexit happened. He resigned. No government after that, since 2016 in the UK, would take that forward until... the invasion of ukraine and then we've got the economic crime bill within a very short space of time and the oligarchs are kicked out of their houses blah blah blah it could have been done six years before but it wasn't because there wasn't a political will because it's nice to have all that money is filling around your capital so those are kind of the challenges they have to get across there was another point that i wanted to bring up and that is protecting investigative journalists because

00:15:02    JACK GAINES
was another point that i wanted to bring up and that is protecting investigative journalists because You had a story about a mafia group in Slovakia, I believe, that killed a couple of journalists. Can you talk a little bit about the need for investigative journalism and how to protect it?

00:15:22    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, certainly, as they include the kind of work of organizations like Global Witness under that banner, because we were all investigators, all the journalists, you know, there are some specializations. But yeah, I mean, the Slovakia's example is really good because you've got a country which is one of the smallest countries in the EU, but one of its stars, one of its economic stars. And a really big corruption problem, this journalist was killed, Jan Kusiak. And the demonstrations, because of the public anger about corruption, led to the downfall of the government within a very short space of time. So that the prime minister went, the police chief went, loads of judges were sort of caught with compromise and went. And that was local journalists under the auspices with the support of the Organised Crime, Corruption and Reporting Project, which is an organisation that works for the State Department a lot and I respect highly. And they managed to expose this vast depths of corruption. And as one of the journalists put it, what they found proves how cheap it was to buy Slovakia in the context of things. Tragically, you know, people did go to jail for it and whatever. The prime minister who was deposed, whose special advisor was a former Italian topless model with mafia links, Robert Fico, was re -elected just in the last few months. He was the guy who just survived an assassination attempt a few weeks ago. So he's back. He's pro -Russia, anti -support for Ukraine, and absolutely linked to mafia networks. He's back in power of a leading European country. So it doesn't always go our way.

00:16:54    JACK GAINES
Well, just because you get a reform. happening doesn't mean that the people that are opposed to it don't continue to work. And that's the vigilance that has to happen with anti -corruption reform. Exactly, yeah.

00:17:05    MARIAH YAGER
Who monitors the NGOs for accuracy, disinformation, and bias?

00:17:10    JACK GAINES
Civil litigation system?

00:17:12    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, I would say that's the most powerful one. There is no government institution that does that any more than they do with journalists. But yes, the threat of defamation, which is known as lawfare, because it's abused terribly. If you start publishing information on an oligarch, then they will come after you. And the UK is one of the worst places in the world to be come after because the system is so rigged against the publishers of information. And so they could close us down. They could close us down even if we are right, except we have to be very rigorous in fact -checking, going through a series of libel lawyers to make sure what we... A saying is as libel -proof as it can be. But if it isn't, we will go down. Undoubtedly, we're against powerful adversaries that money's no object. It's the easiest thing for them to do. So that's our check and balance. And Global Witness spends probably upwards of four, five, six hundred thousand pounds a year just to prevent those cases coming up. If the cases came up, you're into multi -million dollar territory just like that.

00:18:20    JACK GAINES
I think the second half of that would be... having the connections with governments and officials and the media so that as you're campaigning in the court, you're also campaigning politically and publicly so that you build support for your cause.

00:18:36    PATRICK ALLEY
Yeah, that's right. But, you know, governments can't stop the court cases. And there are two cases over the last couple of years in the UK, very high profile, one of a guy called Tom Burgess, who wrote a book about Abramovich, mostly one of the key oligarchs. And he was sued. I can't remember. We're talking tens, if not hundreds of millions. And another journalist called Carol Goldwater, who wrote about Russian funding of the Brexit campaign, the Leave campaign. Those cases were lost by the plaintiffs, but not without an awful lot of stress and heartache. And so the bad guys, the very bad people in my book, are the ones who are trying to shut up people who are trying to speak the truth.

00:19:21    MARIAH YAGER
You wrote Very Bad People 2022. Terrible Humans is coming out here in August. So as you're looking into basically the depths of depravity that are possible in humans, was there anything that surprised you for Terrible Humans and putting the book together?

00:19:38    PATRICK ALLEY
I think I surprised anyone books. Very Bad People was essentially eight stories from Global Witness Casebook. It was not a memoir. And my agent said, write it like a TV series. So I did these chapters, an episode. And I think there were no surprises for me in that because I was involved in most of the stuff there. I think what was really nice was to be able to review for the first time what we'd done. Because we never had that. We've never been navel -gazing, as we call it. What do we do? So it was nice to be able to do that. I think with Terrible Humans, that's when I wrote just over half the stories in other organizations and stories I either didn't know well, I didn't know at all. And I guess not necessarily surprised, but so, so impressed by the skill and dedication and courage of the people doing that work and how similar we all found the problems to be. The difficulty of getting information or to publishing the information or... but also the support that we did get from various people, including within governments. So, yeah, I think it was just nice to look back on one level and then to appreciate how many good people are out there and how they really do need that cooperation to help them do what they do.

00:21:00    JACK GAINES
Okay, I'm going to close up, but I wanted to bring up one point for the audience, and that is, as you are looking for... something beyond work or retirement and you're looking for a cause, these NGOs like Global Witness and Global Integrity, O -Corp, C -Shepherd, they are great organizations that could use people with analytical skills, with coordination skills to support the causes that they do.

00:21:25    PATRICK ALLEY
Well, I really appreciate being asked and I hope I haven't brought anyone sideways. So I appreciate it.

00:21:31    MARIAH YAGER
Really appreciate having you on today. Thanks everybody.

00:21:33    Close
everybody. Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. I'll have the email and CA Association website in the show notes. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U .S. relations, thank you all for what you're doing. Stay tuned for more great episodes. 1CA Podcast.

 

191: Drew Biemer on Energy Sector Civil Affairs

Today, Assad Raza interviews Drew Biemer, an energy outreach strategist and senior advisor to the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission. Drew has experience leading domestic and international campaigns to support energy sector projects and came on the show to discuss how Civil and Public Affairs are key to building positive relationships between projects and the population. 

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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail.com 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

---

Special Thanks to Sahraoui and Fadela for providing the sample of "Mani" from the album Arabic Groove. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCJI52eWDLw&list=PLloxRkIwt8TNujJnQFxjH7kJ0yjKJkpeg&index=7

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Transcript

00:00:03    Introduction

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes.

 

00:00:39    ASAD RAZA

I'm your host, Asad Raza, and today our guest is Drew Beamer. Drew is a management and communications professional with 20 years of experience in governmental, public, and civil affairs. He is the current administrator of the Site Evaluation Committee, SEC for short, the Agency Directorate for Energy Facility, Sitting, Permitting, and Enforcement of Compliance, in the U .S. state of New Hampshire. Thank you, Drew. I've been following your Baseload Power newsletter on LinkedIn for a while, and you touched on a broad list of topics from leadership to strategy to include civil affairs and information operations. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me.

 

00:01:12    DREW BEAMER

1. It's great to be here. So what got you interested in the topic? Well, my early career was spent in political campaign management, and I segged into public affairs on energy and infrastructure projects in my 30s. That was a very interesting time because I got to see firsthand a lot of the strategies and tactics that seemed to work and that seemed to not work in energy and infrastructure development. I've spent a lot of time in the United States and in Africa working on energy projects. And one of the reasons I'm interested in civil affairs as a discipline and as a strategy is a lot of these concepts translate well. into infrastructure development. And I'm definitely a squeaky wheel on this stuff because a lot of the infrastructure developers don't take these things seriously. They believe they can just go in and they can tell you the benefits of a project and that you're going to support it. And then that's it. So I'm passionate about this topic because as the United States strives for our own energy security, as we strive to extend our hegemony throughout the developing world. This topic is extremely important. And as you've mentioned on your podcast before, this is the last three feet of diplomacy. And the last three feet is probably the most important.

 

00:02:35    ASAD RAZA

Drew, I really like how you are applying civil affairs strategies and information operations to civilian sectors, specifically the infrastructure development. So why are civil affairs strategies important in energy resource development?

 

00:02:48    DREW BEAMER

Well, one thing that energy developers need to realize, every single boot on the ground, is an arm of this operation. Every single person who interacts with the local community, whether you're a line worker on a utility project or you're a soldier in theater, the tactical missteps can create massive strategic problems. And one of the things that energy developers do not take seriously is that even if you're working on a domestic energy project in the United States, the local population is going to view you as an occupying force. That doesn't mean they'll view you in a negative light. It just means that they will view you as an occupying force. Most of the time, your construction workers and your contractors are going to be new people to the region. They're going to have cultural differences that may rub locals the wrong way. And what you really need to focus on is how do we endear ourselves to the local population? How do we let them know that we're going to be good community partners? is not achieved by simply telling them things. You need to actually build that capital and you need to build that capital before you need it. Because a lot of projects will just parachute in and they'll say, hey, we're here to help support our project. And that's not an effective strategy. You need to be on the ground in advance. You need to be listening to folks. You need to be helping them address their problems. And then once you've built capital, then you can call on that capital when it comes time to build something and you need local support.

 

00:04:25    ASAD RAZA

Drew, I like the way how you frame that. When we were in Iraq and Afghanistan, they had a saying about the strategic corporal, that corporal that's on the ground engaging with the local population. Any actions that they're doing can have a strategic impact negatively or positively. So what are some of the common pitfalls that developers fall into during the process? There's a phrase called the engineer's fallacy.

 

00:04:47    DREW BEAMER

the engineer's fallacy. And the engineer's fallacy states that an engineer will interpret any lack of support, any deficit in support as the stakeholders not having all the facts. So what I mean by that is I propose a project. You're a local stakeholder. You oppose the project. The engineer's fallacy says that I will address your opposition with just more facts because I believe in the project so much that I believe. that any opposition from you is just a deficit of facts. I don't take into account that it might be an emotional argument. I don't take into account that I've failed to build capital with you. And this engineer's fallacy is inherent in a lot of civil affairs context. You certainly look at some of the hearts and minds campaigns that we've embarked on in the 20th century and the early 21st century. is you don't win hearts and minds by just telling people why your way of life is the best, right? You don't win hearts and minds on an energy project by going into the region and just selling people on facts alone. You need to build capital with people. So one of the pitfalls that developers fall into is, first of all, they're not in the field early enough. They show up when they support, not before. And then they don't take into account the fact that a lot of these arguments become cultural and or emotional arguments, not necessarily factual arguments. So you need to exercise a good bedside manner. You need to make sure that locals know that you are there to help them solve their problems, rather. And once you've done that effectively, then you're going to get support. or minimally you're going to mitigate opposition.

 

00:06:43    ASAD RAZA

Interesting when you're talking about the engineer fallacy, engineers motivated or driven by facts when other stakeholders, specifically the local populations, are probably viewing the problem through either emotions or some other interest versus just the facts alone. So how do you shift the mindsets for engineers that are focused on the facts and driven by their own views and help them to look at the problem through the local population's eyes? That's a good question. I would say that civil affairs,

 

00:07:09    DREW BEAMER

that civil affairs, public affairs, government affairs is important enough that the person running the entire project should be from one of those disciplines. They should not be an engineer. And this goes into a lot of corporate environments and a lot of governmental environments where people promote subject matter experts, the leadership positions. And there's a saying that when you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. When you're an engineer in charge of a major. infrastructure project, every problem looks like an engineering problem. So one of the things that I did in the private sector as a consultant is I would get put over top of these big projects. They could be adjacent to energy development or they could be like disaster power restoration projects. We have to communicate real time with stakeholders in the community and you need to communicate with local elected officials and local governments to give them real time updates. So in those scenarios, they would call on people like me to lead an ad hoc team that we assembled. And that team would include people who are above my pay grade. I mean, they would have people who are directors and VPs of companies. You'd have external consultants. You'd have people who had more experience. And the way that you get them out of that engineer fallacy mindset, you need the person running it to understand the nuances of the campaigns. You need to demonstrate proof of life on your concepts. You need to be able to demonstrate how focusing on things like civil affairs and public affairs make everybody's life easier. Because when you avoid those small tactical missteps, you don't create major strategic blunders for yourself. And the other issue is once you've painted yourself or you've allowed opponents to paint you as an occupying force, anything you do positively or negatively will be held against you. I've worked in scenarios where we were trying to build an energy project and the developer had let the information space get away from them. And they would say things like, we may have to use eminent domain to get the property needed for this project. And people would say, well, that's corporations taking private property. Then the developer would say, well, we're just going to pay a lot of money. We're going to pay several times value for your project. And the opponents would say, now you're just paying people off. You want to avoid those damned if you do, damned if you don't situations. And one of the issues, circle back to the crux of your question, is the engineer's fallacy is avoidable for the same reason a lot of these types of issues are avoidable. I would recommend against putting a subject matter expert in charge of one of these projects. You need somebody who's more of a generalist and more of a manager. And just like a military operation, you want the commanding officer to understand all the different components. They don't have to be an expert in all the components, but they have to know how they work synergistically with one another to create a holistic operation. And an engineer, generally speaking, is not going to be very good at that.

 

00:10:13    ASAD RAZA

That makes sense. Engineers aren't developed to think like that. They're developed to be engineers and be subject matter experts within their field. So which makes sense. You hit something and you're talking about how your competitors can exploit these tactical mishaps. So how can some of these energy projects become proxy wars between their competitors or their meat peers? In the United States, you have a dynamic that's called astroturfing.

 

00:10:36    DREW BEAMER

a dynamic that's called astroturfing. I'm assuming it exists elsewhere in the world. But astroturfing is basically the manufacturing of grassroots, okay, through dark money. So when one company proposes an energy project, you'll see grassroots opposition crop up. They'll all be singing off the same sheet of music. The messaging will be dialed in. They'll have branded collateral materials. They'll have yard signs. They'll have t -shirts. And I would say nine times out of 10, that opposition is funded and ginned up by whoever your competitor is, usually an industry incumbent. Okay. So there's a dynamic that we've seen in proxy wars in the past hundred years anyway. And that is that In a proxy war, sometimes you want to defeat the enemy, but other times you just want to bog them down. You just want them to bleed out money forever and ever and ever. So you were building a hydroelectric project and your chief competitor in the market was a nuclear power plant. The operators of the nuclear power plant are going to have a cost assessment where they're going to say, if your hydro dam comes online, it's going to cost them X millions of dollars a month in lost revenue. So if it's going to cost X millions of dollars a month in lost revenue, then if they can delay you by a year, they've just made X times 12 in found money. So what they will do is they will hire political operatives to create a grassroots insurgency against your project. And bringing it back to the engineer's fallacy, the grassroots insurgency will be based primarily on emotion. It will be people who... at the grassroots level who've been convinced that your project is going to completely destroy their way of life for one reason or another. It's going to have environmental issues. It's going to have cultural issues. They're going to throw a lot of messages at the wall and they're going to see what sticks because one of these messages is going to saturate. And the engineer's fallacy is people will look at this grassroots opposition and they'll say, well, we can sway them on. facts and reason and logic. We're just going to tell them how clean the power is, how many jobs it's going to create, how it's going to improve energy security and lower energy prices. We keep telling them those facts. They'll have no other choice but to eventually support us. And that works almost as well as going into South Vietnam and telling people that the American way of life is the way everybody should live. absent cultural context, absent building capital, the facts are not going to matter, which is why one of the reasons I say, if you think you're going to build something somewhere, get in the field very, very early before your opponents have the opportunity to gin up opposition against you.

 

00:13:38    ASAD RAZA

Drew, I like how you've taken some of these military terms and applied it to the energy sector. I really like the way you've talked about how your competitors can create an insurgency. or in opposition towards whatever project you're focusing on by identifying some of the environmental and social issues that they can exploit and garner that support to counter -counter whatever energy project that you're trying to do in that area. Let's take it to a broader scale. So how is energy policy an appendage of the U .S. global hegemony? Well, if you look at the developing world, they are behind where we are in energy development,

 

00:14:11    DREW BEAMER

where we are in energy development, put it charitably. And they have a lot of issues. Some are security issues, political instability, economic issues. They are going to get their energy from somebody. And it could be us.

 

00:14:24    DREW BEAMER

could be us. It could be near peers. It could be bricks. And what the United States will do recently is we'll try to impose our own cultural values and sensibilities on these countries. And that generally doesn't work. So if you look at a country like South Africa, for instance, they're experiencing load shedding, which is basically rolling blackouts. And the reason they're experiencing rolling blackouts is because the United States and the West pressured them into closing their coal power plants. They were predominantly coal -powered grid. They sourced most of it locally to South Africa. And they had energy security for a really long time. We pressured them to close their coal plants, but they didn't really have a plan in place to replace them. So they're experiencing load shedding. Now, when they come to the United States and they ask us for help with their energy sector, we'll tell them that we'll help them if they implement renewable energy, which is fine. But renewable energy is intermittent, first of all, and it's also context specific. It doesn't all work everywhere. And what they really need is what we call baseload power. Baseload power is a power plant where you flip on a switch and it creates energy. The Russians go into places like South Africa and they just say, whatever you need, we're going to help you with. You're going to build pipelines, we're going to help you. In a drill for natural gas, we're going to help you. So that is how and why you've seen the encroachment of Russian hegemony into places like South Africa and why South Africa is aligning themselves with the BRICS block.

 

00:15:43    SPEAKER_01

going to build pipelines,

 

00:15:48    DREW BEAMER

is how and why you've seen the encroachment of Russian hegemony into places like South Africa and why South Africa is aligning themselves with the BRICS block. Because the United States wants to export our cultural values and sensibilities to South Africa. Countries like Russia go in and they say, how can we help you get more power? And they don't really care if the solution is the politically correct or the environmentally friendly one. Countries that are in a desperate position to get power are going to go with whoever helps them. So context is hugely important. And the United States is still, I believe, the largest exporter of refined petroleum products. And whether or not we move to green energy domestically is a related but separate conversation.

 

00:16:36    DREW BEAMER

We can pursue sustainable energy domestically. And I think that's a noble cause because the more we pursue technology, the cheaper the technology gets. And then we can give that or export that to the developing world. So everybody benefits.

 

00:16:54    DREW BEAMER

Sub -Saharan Africa, they're sitting on massive quantities of fossil fuels, most notably natural gas, especially in Mozambique. Namibia has just made huge discoveries with oil. And their view on the issue is Africa, for most of its modern history, has been colonized. And people have exploited Africa for resources. European and Western powers have exploited Africa for its resources. This is the first time in the modern era that Africa stands at a point where they can actually extract and use their own resources for their own people and their own economic development. And when countries like the United States go over there and they say, no, you should leave the oil in the ground, you should leave the natural gas in the ground, countries like Russia go over there and they say, what do you need? Pipelines, you need technology. Do you need expertise? Do you need engineers? So it's an extension of Western hegemony that we're kind of fumbling the football on right now, to be perfectly honest with you, because if the end goal is to have allies and trading partners around the world, then we should be better at helping those folks solve their own problems. So energy security is a massive issue. It's certainly a massive issue in Africa. They have 600 million people without access to energy. And I think a more thoughtful foreign policy approach would say we are going to empower a lot of these nations to harness their own resources. And maybe only as a bridge fuel. A bridge fuel means a transitional strategy to get them to renewable and sustainable energy. But that's why you see Wagner Group in Africa. That's why you see a lot of political instability. is all poverty in the world basically stems from energy poverty. You can't have industrial agriculture, you can't have heavy industry, and you can't have economic development if you don't have power. So the extent that we can help people get power, we will create more friends.

 

00:19:07    ASAD RAZA

friends. And when you were talking about Russia and their exploitation, or the gaps that we've created in developing countries in Africa, kind of reminded me of the China's Belt and Road Initiative. A developing country would rather partner with someone that doesn't put all these other implications on them to meet some standards that they don't want to meet at the time because they're not prepared, they're not ready, or the population isn't ready for that. Right now, they just want energy and that's what they need. And at times, they're just going to go with who's going to give it to them. So we're talking about civil affairs and information operations and energy development. How do you justify an upfront investment in these type of capabilities in energy development? Well, you can justify it from a cost perspective.

 

00:19:46    DREW BEAMER

at least domestically. If having an effective information operation and civil affairs operation gets your project built on time, then you're not going to have as many overruns on budget. And the cost of an effective civil affairs and information operation strategy is far less, way, way, way less than having your project delayed by a year or two years. When you look at international development in the developing world, especially, The extent that you can control the information space and you can build capital with the indigenous communities and governments, you know, that's a long term investment in resilience because, first of all, it's going to be easier to build a project. But secondly, you're probably not going to have as many security concerns once you do build a project because you've endeared yourself to the local community. So there's no such thing as being too good of a community partner. And I think that when energy developers go into the developing world. I think they look at the security operation as purely like a tactical exercise. How do we have enough force protection to secure the asset? The problem with that is that having an effective civil affairs and information operation, it improves the security situation. It makes it safer because you have less people angry at you. And that's something that's lost on developers abroad and developers domestically, not that domestic. security threats are necessarily a huge issue for power planes in the United States. But the extent that you can endear yourself to the local community, it's definitely, it's an upfront investment in resilience, literally, figuratively, and it's just good practice, in my opinion.

 

00:21:27    ASAD RAZA

It makes perfect sense. Investing in those other stakeholders that are outside of just the bottom line or those that are just focused on the energy side, but focusing on the local population and garner that support in the long run is going to benefit everybody. So, Drew, thanks for sharing your insights on this. You know, it's been really a pleasure discussing the intersection of the use of civil affairs, information operations with the energy and resource sector. It's been my pleasure.

 

00:21:49    DREW BEAMER

Thank you for having me. And I enjoy the podcast. I'm an avid listener. And just keep up the good work.

 

00:21:56    ASAD RAZA

I appreciate your support. That wraps up our episode with Drew today, everyone. Thank you to our listeners for tuning in to the 1CA podcast. Until next time, stay informed and stay engaged.

 

00:22:08    Close

Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting.

 

190: Pavlo Kukhta on Ukraine Reconstruction

Today, we welcome Pavlo Kukhta, Ukrainian Economist and Special Advisor on Reconstruction. Additionally, Mariah Yager from SMA joined me as cohost of the conversation. 

We brought in Pavlo to discuss the current state of conflict reconstruction, the strategy for post-conflict reconstruction, and how to overcome challenges like balancing government oversight with designing a system that removes major corruption while managing Ukraine's transition into the EU. 

I set up this interview because I know that many diplomats, aid workers, and servicemembers are focused on helping Ukraine now and after the conflict.

---

One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail.com 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

---

Pavlo's info: https://ua.linkedin.com/in/pavlo-kukhta-93190091 

SMA version of the interview: https://nsiteam.com/smaspeakerseries_20june2024/ 

Special Thanks to Jamming Edward for the music sample. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/lRboIm0tlqE?si=be0Mai-k4EsIQr3h

---

Transcript

00:00:07    Inroduction

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes. Today we welcome Pavlo Kufta, Ukrainian economist and special advisor on reconstruction, and Mariah Yeager from SMA to co -host the conversation.

 

00:00:52    JACK GAINES

We brought in Pavlo to discuss the current state of conflict reconstruction and the strategy for post -conflict reconstruction, as well as how to overcome the challenges of balancing government oversight with designing a system that removes major corruption while managing Ukraine's transition into the EU. I set up this interview because I know there are a lot of diplomats, aid workers, and service members focused on helping Ukraine now and after the conflict. So let's get started. I think it's critical that people are looking forward to the future of Ukraine, the vision of where it's going and how it could be. And your work has been seminal in going around the international community, talking to leaders, talking to people about how important it is to support Ukraine in its current fight, but also to look at the future and how Ukraine can be a partner in the international community and how they can help support making that happen.

 

00:01:48    PAVLO KUFTA

Oh, and by the way, I have to give a warning to you guys. If I drop out suddenly, this means there is a blackout. Because periodically electricity goes out, unfortunately, these days in Ukraine. So I will be back with you in a minute or two. I just simply need to shift to my mobile. Actually, that's kind of my main job these days. I'm working with a whole bunch of companies, mostly European, mostly from Central Europe, on getting them into the reconstruction effort. Right now, a lot of it is focused on energy. We spend about a third of our time here without electricity. I mean, I have a generator in my house. I'm also installing battery systems now. With all that, I should be going more or less independently. Most of Ukrainians actually live in multi -apartment buildings. Millions of families suffer from that, and into the winter it will be even tougher. And here I actually have to thank the American public for their help, because it's actually USAID spearheading the provision of gas generation. the small steel power plant running a natural gas to Ukraine for the winter to actually make it through. Because the blackouts will be with us for a year or two now, but one thing is to periodically have electricity, another is freeze to death in the winter. We really need that equipment here that aid is quite appreciated. It's life -saving.

 

00:03:17    JACK GAINES

Now, you're private industry, but you're also the senior advisor to the Minister of Finance on... Ukraine Reconstruction, right?

 

00:03:25    PAVLO KUFTA

Reconstruction. We're actually now out. You've heard about the old team.

 

00:03:30    JACK GAINES

Yeah, Mr. Mustafa, right? Mustafa is the head of the agency, and Mr. Alexander Kubrick,

 

00:03:36    PAVLO KUFTA

who was an advisor, he was the deputy prime minister for Reconstruction. Now the team for the Reconstruction is not in limbo, but it's hanging up in the air. We don't know who will be appointed, how will the system work now?

 

00:03:51    JACK GAINES

Well, like most cabinets in war, people rotate in and out because of stress, because of politics, family, everything else. Well, there's politics in every country, right? Yeah. Because as a private citizen working in a private industry, you're able to continue focusing even as the reshuffles occur.

 

00:04:09    PAVLO KUFTA

I've been working on that simply as a voice in Ukraine, respected and heard as one of the top economists in the nation, as someone who has close relationships to literally everyone in the government. These are my former colleagues for many years. Some of them I've known for more than a decade we've worked together. So I'm working with everyone, and reconstruction has been my priority since a short stunt at the front lines.

 

00:04:57    JACK GAINES

We all have skills that we have to go forward with. Right, but your work in economics is much larger.

 

00:05:04    PAVLO KUFTA

The magnitude is totally different. So since then, I've been engaged mostly in the efforts for reconstruction of Ukraine. I've produced some internal reports to the government and how to help construction so that it is most conducive to private sector. Because my firm opinion is that the key to get Western multinationals,

 

00:05:27    PAVLO KUFTA

because that is the type of economic agent. or let's say stakeholders that we lack in Ukraine. I mean, there are many multinationals here. They're working here, they're present in the market, but compared to the more successful economies of Eastern Europe who are in the EU, the share of international companies, multinationals present there is much larger. And consequently, the structure of the economy is much different, much less resource -based. more complex, more production -oriented, more knowledge -based. So that is what we want to do, right? We will not be rebuilding this old Soviet industry that has been destroyed by the war. It's useless. Just to illustrate, so these blackouts, why are they happening? Because the Russians have done a concentrated, unfortunately quite successful, assault and sprained on Ukrainian energy system. But what they have destroyed, they have destroyed all power. That's the bulk of the assets that they have wiped out. They've also damaged heavily old hydroelectric dams, but the main problem comes from these full power plants. These were old Soviet assets, essentially in our conditions in Europe destined for being thrown out. We're switching to gas. Europe is switching to green renewables. That's what happened to them anyway. So what the Russians have done is in a very destructive and catastrophic fashion, but they've... If destruction, that would have happened anyway. Because the coal power plants are out. We're not going to lose. But the question is what to build instead. Because depending on the success on that endeavor, that is actually, you know, the definition of victory here for me. Because victory is not just getting Russians out or getting to some stable peace. Victory is throwing them out, drawing the iron curtain behind them. and then rebuilding Ukraine in a way that would clearly make it as successful as its EU natives. Because that way, we will firmly get this territory and this nation into the West, integrate them in such a way where it will become fixed. In the same way as Poland has become fixed as part of the Western alliance, in the same way as Slovakia has become fixed as part of the Western alliance. Even Hungary, with all these political issues around it, political conflicts. still is firmly fixed in NATO, EU, Western political structures, and ultimately it's not about anywhere. And that is actually the goal, which I believe it's not just about restoring justice, it's not just about stopping bloody war, it's also about finally closing that tissue between the two worlds, between the West and the authoritarian Asia that Russia essentially represents. Because if Ukraine is no more in some kind of gray zone where we don't know what it is, the two sides can fight for it. Or at least Russia can pretend it's fighting the West over Ukraine, right? While the West was not really fighting and then had to come in to help Ukraine. So we close that picture. Once that picture is closed, once it's clear to everybody where the border between the two civilization and the border should run on the eastern border of Ukraine.

 

00:08:38    JACK GAINES

Okay. Have you been working with Parliament on building up better foreign investment laws to protect companies coming in with the government of Ukraine as well as going out into the international community and recruiting foreign investment?

 

00:08:54    PAVLO KUFTA

Actually, that's kind of what my career was mostly about. It's not about fighting groups or some kind of social justice. It's about an old Soviet corrupt model of the economy where essentially, Whoever is in power, whoever has begun, exploits everyone else, extracts resources from them. Versus the modern, liberal, normal market economy, where people earn money meritocratically, right? Whose ideas is better, who work more devoted wins, resources. And that's how it worked. And that's at the core of this question of Ukraine. Because you hear a lot of talks about Ukrainian corruption. Mostly these go nowhere. either descriptions of some corrupt officials, but this doesn't really tell you the nature of what we're dealing with. And we're dealing with this old legacy, because that is how the Soviet system essentially comes. You had the party and their apparatus, kind of keeping everyone else enslaved and then exploiting them. That's international, that's what Soviet Union was. Since that system did not really collapse, rather there was a kind of gradual transition. The former communists declared themselves now to be nationalists and pretended they are pro -independent Ukraine. Well, really, they are the former party bosses. Unlike to the West, unlike in Poland, where the system crashed and the new people came and the old guys were kicked out, and Ukraine did not happen. And that's why Ukraine went on this different path, much less successful. Because then no really quick and sharp reforms were possible. Well, there was a lot of shock here, but there was no therapy. because there were no real market reform. Instead, there was this mishmash of gradual introduction of market mechanisms into the Soviet system, which allowed to generate future profits, which created dollar guards, which created all kinds of injustices, instead of a normal market economy where you compete in whoever is better with. So that legacy is the problem, and that's what we're trying to get rid. And it's a fight right now. These days, it's a fight. I believe to win it, what we need is a proper... integration into the eu so it's kind of a carrot stick where the country has to change its system in exchange for money but not just giveaways for it to grow just hand something into the budget and you know they pay pensions with it no what we're talking about is an exchange okay you change your environment we give you structural funds to build up infrastructure to attract investment So the reforms create a better environment for the actors which we bring in to then change our economy, kick out the oligarchs. And then in a proper market time, really corruption, it doesn't disappear, right? Then you need a strong state, good institutions to fight it.

 

00:11:44    MARIAH YEAGER

Thank you. What is the scope for greater political decentralization as a route to limiting corruption?

 

00:11:52    PAVLO KUFTA

So decentralization has been ongoing in Ukraine. It's been a tool used pretty heavily over Europe. So all European countries were pretty centralized, unlike the U .S. Federal nations, all European countries used to be very centralized at some point. Then they realized that it's very inefficient. And they've started descent. It makes the system more efficient because it introduces competition on the level of local authorities. The decision -making is much closer to people, so it's much more effective and more efficient. It's simply a better system. It's not necessarily a tool for fighting. Because what happens is corruption from the center and it moves to the big cities or towns, local buildings. Not necessarily better. I mean, the examples are everywhere, including the states. We all know, like, towns captured by corrupt officials who then start rigging local election systems. perpetuating themselves in power, even in very developed countries. So these things can happen in any of this environment. So no, decentralization, I would say it's just simply a necessary reform for a modern way of life, because our modern societies are way too complex to be governed for one capital city. And that's why, you know, when people start talking about using some kind of strategist model, free construction of Ukraine, right? Let the state control everything and it will run everything. They don't know what they're talking about because that is exactly the way to create new oligarchy, new corruption, and to fail miserably. We need to keep it as a free market competition, as many Western companies and businesses as we can get, as much Western funding, Western investment as we can get. Let the West build the Ukraine. Let Western businessmen rebuild it. Throw out the local corruption. We don't need the auditors or the guys who are up this nation blind to participate in reconstruction. Throw them out. Vodka.

 

00:13:47    JACK GAINES

Pablo, just a couple of things, though. With the U .S., we've had a couple of experiences with reconstruction. And what we found is that overly accessible market has also caused corruption because the government was then peddling access in order to give people the freedom to sell. My favorite, of course, is China bribing Iraq, and they flooded the Iraqi markets to where local Iraqi industries dissolved. And that's my concern is that a totally free entrance into the Ukraine reconstruction field by commercial entities with minor to low government oversight will allow foreign governments and industries to flood the Ukrainian market, wiping out. Ukraine's own production and replacing it with European ones, which might be good for Europe integration, but it also, you lose your production skills. And that's one of the great things about Ukraine is it has industry, it has agriculture, it has production. And I would hate to see that collapse under BMWs or Toyota.

 

00:14:56    PAVLO KUFTA

You are lucky because Ukraine and all the guards did that job. They played that game for 30 years, so they were being really protectionist. So they've captured all these old Soviet industries that we were talking about, and essentially they've run them into the ground. And now Russians finally wiped them out. So car production is the prime example. Ukraine actually had its own car production from Soviet times, and then it was modernized together with Dell. There were some attempts to get Korean investment in it. Ukraine really protected that car production.

 

00:15:26    PAVLO KUFTA

protected that car production. So in negotiations with the European Union of the integration with the EU on the creation of free trade zone. Ukraine wasted most of its effort on imposing protective tariffs for cars, for automobiles, while losing positions on agriculture. So we played the European game on agriculture, allowed them to impose some quiet protectionist barriers against us for us to keep this card. Guess what? For more than a decade, Ukraine produces zero cars. Protectionism does not win. It's a relatively small market. It's not China.

 

00:16:03    MARIAH YEAGER

So a question. Could you talk a little bit more about how to fight corruption? What are we going to do different this time? Is it a different mindset? Is it some different procedures? What's coming together that's underlying a way to keep corruption down?

 

00:16:17    PAVLO KUFTA

Essentially, when we're saying corruption, we are doing ourselves a bit of a disservice because it's such a nonspecific term. We say corrupt officials in D .C. Austin Trope on American TV. Not necessarily meaning that they actually steal money or do something illegal. Meaning that they are not really fighting for public interest, but more there for their personal gain. Then we're saying some corrupt dictator, someone who has all the power and really exploits the nation. Then we're saying corruption in Germany is someone to provide for some tender. And then we're saying corruption in Ukraine. And these are all different phenomena. One is a bezel, right? Another is just simply a bad part. Black -class leaders. Another is just dictatorship in a poor nation. And another is this strange thing we have here, where there was no legacy as of this Bolshevik regime. In very simple terms, it was a slave economy. That's what Soviet Union was. That was built up in the 1920s, 1930s. Or a small bunch of party officials, essentially all the nation. There was no checks and balances. No oversight of their activities, no freedom of speech, no nothing, right? A bunch of guys, whoever was in charge of them, whoever gave the order, could do literally anything everywhere. Stalin was the person who owned Soviet Union until he died. And then the system perpetuated itself. So Stalin died. It became more dissentery. It was not one person, but a bunch of persons. In essence, the system continued. A bunch of communist officials who no one ever elected. essentially chose each other, owned everything, and everyone else was their slave within a certain level. And then this system suddenly collapsed without these officials going anywhere. So simply, it stopped working at all, because at some point, its inefficiencies were so large that it simply stopped functioning, and the Soviet Union just dissolved it. But then these independent nations, including Ukraine, essentially ended up former slaves and these former masters, suddenly thrown into the realm of democratic politics, essentially try to reproduce the Soviet system with a market. I mean, in practice, it looks like corruption. They privatize all industries into their hands, or they capture public tenders and steal money. But at the root of it, it's not corruption. These people aren't really serving the people, and then they're somehow avoiding their responsibilities. It's not about that. They are in the game to capture power. They come on TV, they screw lies, win elections, and then they just install their people over the place to control the state. But the whole point of the game for them is to use it to fill their pockets and to keep themselves empowered. And that is the essence of Ukrainian corruption. And why Ukraine has been able to keep fighting it is by repeatedly violent, at the end, democratic reactions. So the last revolution 10 years ago in 2015 was violent. People had to use force to throw out the corrupt, wannabe dictator. And that is why the Russians attacked. Because essentially, in Russia, that system won. And then they had right near them in Asia, quite close, linguistically close, watched on by their people, which really showed to them an example how to destroy that. Ultimately, that is the reason for the war. Because essentially, it's a fight between these two systems. So when we're speaking about corruption in Ukraine, we're speaking and breaking it. We're speaking about breaking the ability of someone to capture power and then embezzle it. The best way to do it is by building up a market economy, the commanding acts of which would be run by large national corporations, which would essentially be invincible to influence by these acts. Even if a populist politician manages to fly his way into the ruling, but if the system is functioning, This politician can do nothing. So for that, the first step is the economy. Rebuilding the economy, multinational corporations, EU integration, EU funds, multinational value -added chains, multinational business models. You can't do anything. Nothing to capture, right? All value is created as part of a larger international global system. And then the second step is building up these institutions. The institutions, the justice system. Essentially, it's all about it. It's about law enforcement and the justice system that are strong enough and have integrity to keep everyone in check. So even if someone wins elections, it's popular, you can go to jail if it doesn't. And then this is essentially the state that the Western societies are in. Develop market economies with good, strong justice sectors.

 

00:21:07    JACK GAINES

So are you recommending an economic council to oversee reconstruction?

 

00:21:12    PAVLO KUFTA

It's a collaborative effort. What we're strong at, we will not lose. What we are weak at, we should lose. We don't need it. So reconstruction is actually two parallel efforts. And we mix them up together. That is the rebuilding of the infrastructure in housing. That's thing number one. That's what actually the reconstruction agency was created for. A whole host of digital systems were created for. A very large participation by Western donors is there. invariably it will be funded by public money, but it essentially will be and should be run in tight cooperation with USAID, with agencies like that, under their tendering procedures. I mean, it's not an ideal system, and we've seen from Iraq, for example, it can fail sometimes, but it's better than just handing it over to the Ukrainian government, not even because of corruption. It's just too damn large a project.

 

00:22:08    JACK GAINES

Are you comfortable with the planning that's already in place for post -conflict reconstruction?

 

00:22:15    PAVLO KUFTA

I think Mustafa was doing a good job, what he was doing at the agency, right? This was a bit slow because he was trying to set it up institutionally and make it right. I think it's the correct approach, even though some people were complaining like, oh, we're not rebuilding fast enough. I think generally the trend is right. I'm pretty sure it will not be an easy task, but I'm also pretty sure it's doable. A large measure of Western control is preferable because it keeps the nefarious sectors out and where I believe it will be a collaborative effort, primarily in terms of government. There might be attempts to capture these financial flows for illicit gains. But that's just one thing. The other thing, and to me more important, is... Structural rebuilding of the economy, institutional rebuilding, which is entirely not about building bridges or roads. It is about changing the players and changing the sectors. And that is all about private sector. That is all about getting private investors and getting Western companies and getting these business practices. Changing these old oligarchs who essentially ran into the ground. And luckily, we have this window to detail because they are essentially out by their own mismanagement primarily, but also done by the Russian invasion, which really destroyed many. So these old industries are up there. The new ones have not yet been free. To create them, we need these corporations. And that is at least no less important than this public reveal, or maybe even more. That is also the key to solving this corrupt Ukraine issue.

 

00:23:55    MARIAH YEAGER

All right. Thank you. I have a couple questions about energy that I want to ask. Are there large -scale efforts to decentralize the power grid, solar, wind, geothermal, and to become more resilient to attack? What do you see in there?

 

00:24:09    PAVLO KUFTA

Yes, there are. And actually, they all plan to get through this wind. That's actually where these small -scale power stations, because they're also decentralized, and they also produce both heating and electricity. You can put like 10 of them around. much less vulnerable to Russian strides. In the times there is more supply, there is more production, there is demand. Batteries help to even that out. So the large -scale batteries for you, there is a big plan. I firmly believe in private sector providers. Heavily, I'm involved with several such projects. So that will be life -saving. There is also a sort of parallel plan by parts of the government to build up nuclear power. I'm skeptical of that because I don't see how that helps in the short run. And in the long run, I don't see why we need more. It will be too much. These people also have their own arguments. So there is, to some extent, a competition. But they don't really contradict each other. I believe mainly, though, in the decentralization. Some European nations, like Portugal, produces 70 % of its electricity. They've even taken a look at building nuclear power plants and they said like... We don't need it. There is no sense. It's very convenient. It's very clean. Green allows them to really protect the environment. The nature is good. The air is good. People migrate there. People move there. It's relatively cheap, right? Once you've invested so much into it, it's cheap for them. Sometimes they have negative prices. The renewables are definitely the way to go. And of course, given the green transition, given the fact that European Union has provided structural funds specifically for this kind of green rebuilding, it's only natural that Ukraine will be rebuilding based on renewables. But natural gas will be playing a role still. And it's funny, it will be American. Recently, there was a first sale of American LNG to Ukraine. So Ukraine possesses the largest gas storage facilities in Europe. It's very conveniently situated, essentially, in the middle of Central Europe. So you pipe gas there and then use them to sell off consumers around Europe. And that was the Russian business model, right? They were selling gas to Ukraine. Now that is cut. There is some transit still, but it will be over. It clearly will not be buying Russian gas, nor will it be transiting. But then the U .S. has come back. U .S., it offloads LNG in Greece, in the south. And then there are all two pipelines going from there to the north. The LNG gas is transmitted by pipelines into these gas storages in Ukraine, and that's sold over Europe and in Ukraine as well. The first 2 billion cubic meters of gas have been secured for Ukraine. So US LNG will be the gas for Europe.

 

00:26:57    MARIAH YEAGER

Right, thank you. As you're rebuilding the energy infrastructure, do you have to focus more on long -term solutions, or is it really survivability in a constant?

 

00:27:07    PAVLO KUFTA

It's essentially the same thing. So right now, quicker solutions need to be installed, which is these gas generation systems, batteries, stuff that can be installed quickly before winter. Actually, they complement each other with, let's say, solar photovoltaics, because photovoltaics generate energy when the sun is up. You don't control that. If you have battery storages, you store that energy. So it's all building up the same system in this renewable -based decentralized energies. That's its modular. It's much less centralized. We don't need one big one person. You may go by with much less regulation. The energy sector is over -regulated in the renewable, right? Because the regulations that were needed to run a few nuclear power plants, big coal power plants are necessary to run mostly. So you get into a much more exciting environment. And then different sectors can build it up. As long as the markets work, there are price signals. So what's your point? The energy. Here are five. Right.

 

00:28:14    MARIAH YEAGER

So giving your views on the importance of inward foreign direct investment, what is your view on near and midterm access to the Black Sea?

 

00:28:22    PAVLO KUFTA

Ukraine has preserved its main force. The Russian Black Sea fleet has been eventually driven out to the western part of the Black Sea. They lost a third of their ships and they can't really operate anywhere near Ukraine. Ukrainian ports are now open, despite the fact that the Russians did everything they did. They were simply beaten. So I don't see the Russians realistically capturing the main access to sea.

 

00:28:49    MARIAH YEAGER

All right, thank you. What are your thoughts on the regional partnership opportunities for reconstruction?

 

00:28:56    PAVLO KUFTA

It's essentially EU, other Eastern European nations, and Germany at its core in Europe. Just the same way as... countries like Poland or Slovakia. It's kind of German -driven. The U .S. will open a very large role. It's not just about the economy, it's about the security. We clearly understand that it's going to be over by a century in our separate Russia. But it's important that Ukraine is protected by some kind of security arrangement that makes it unviable for Russia to reverberate. The whole problem there is the grace of the whole fighting. that's been going on in the region in the last day is because it was not Russian anymore, not wanting to be Russian, not going to be Russian, but not Western security protected at the same time. It kind of raised my plateau. But it has to be all by one civilization or another. The Russians will try to build some kind of market -based Soviet Union, which I'm pretty sure will end quite miserably. But at least the competition will not be this military clash. The U .S. has to play a role. But economically, I think it will be more Europe. Of course, I mean, at least this LNG deal by Venture Global, this U .S. corporation that did the sale, already shows what it will be, right? So then the new gas corridor will be partly running from the U .S. The U .S. will replace Russia and the European gas market, which is a huge shift. Just mind -boggling, actually, because for 70 years, it was like a centennial strategy for them. They've inherited it from the Soviet Union, and now they've lost it in three years. Two Americans.

 

00:30:39    JACK GAINES

Hey, this is Jack. I get what you're saying about the transition away from government control to a commercial sector to rid yourself of political corruption. On the other side of that spectrum, of course, is... Economic corruption where you have a monopoly or an oligopoly that's running the country because government doesn't have strong enough institutions to give structure or allow local companies to grow because these large companies are basically just pulling them up by their roots. Do you see Ukraine building the type of judiciary and monitoring and reach back to be able to stop that type of action in creating an economy?

 

00:31:23    PAVLO KUFTA

Well, look, I mean, that was the model Ukraine operated on. And that is the model of Russia. It's a monopoly that captures it. And they did not capture it because the state was weak or they somehow built up a business and created a monopoly. It happens just in an entirely different way. They simply capture the state. What they do is they get money. They use this money to win an election. Then they get their people in power. They put them in positions of power in the judiciary system. And then the judiciary system works for them. That's the model. I mean, the states in this post -communist part of the world, they are quite strong. I mean, this is not, I don't know, some Latin American country or some African country where there was no indigenous state machine, where a foreign corporation can come in, create a monopoly, capture the nation. Nothing of that sort. This is a place where it's called KGB origin. It's the state that captures the monopoly. Whoever controls the state controls the nation. And that is the problem. Because that's where the monopoly is. The monopoly does not come from captured markets. Sure, they create market monopolies, but they exist as long as they control a part of the state. The moment you lose control of the state, your monopoly is gone. It's disassembled at a moment for someone else to take it over. That's how it works in Eastern Europe, because of this communist legacy. So that is what we should be afraid of, and that is why we need many multinational corporations working here. in partnership with local actors, that is the way to avoid this kind of situation because then the state will not be strong enough to capture that company and to take it away and to take it, you know, pick up. All right.

 

00:33:03    MARIAH YEAGER

Well, I have one question just to maybe wrap things up. So at the end of the day, what are your top two to three recommendations as to what the U .S. and maybe other allies could do to support Ukraine right now in terms of economic construction?

 

00:33:17    PAVLO KUFTA

With the U .S. Get a stable piece by providing support, such heavy pressure in Russia, to get them to ceasefire, and then to provide Ukraine with credible security guarantees. That is the number one thing that can actually be done.

 

00:33:34    MARIAH YEAGER

All right, thank you. Jack, did you have any final questions?

 

00:33:37    JACK GAINES

No, I just appreciate that you finally got you on here and that you were available. I appreciate this. Thank you. Pablo, please, thank you so much for your time. Thank you.

 

Close

Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. I'll have the email and CA Association website in the show notes. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field, working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward US relations, thank you all for what you're doing. This is Jack. your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes, 1CA Podcast.

189: Phillip Smith in discussion with Brian Hancock

Welcome to One CA Podcast.

Today, Brian Hancock talks with Phillip Smith about his experience as commander of the 451 Civil Affairs Brigade, his time as a student at the Army War College and his work designing how Civil Affairs can respond to domestic crises and disasters. 

---

One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail.com 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

---

Special thanks to "Traveller" for the sample of Federico Abuele's "Contigo." Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-AL7q5mDSc

---

Transcript

00:00:04    Introduction

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes.

 

00:00:40    BRIAN HANCOCK

I'm Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hancock, and I'll be your host for this session. Today we have with us Lieutenant Colonel Philip Smith. He serves on an active duty tour at the Joint Staff J -5 in the Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasian Affairs Division. In his civilian capacity, Lieutenant Colonel Smith is an Assistant Attorney General in the State of Texas. where he works on general civil litigation. Quick reminder for the audience, all remarks are solely those of myself and the prosecutors. Now, you've done many things in your 26 -year military career, and can you walk us through your journey where you started in military intelligence, then moved to psychological operations, and now are in civil affairs. Tell us a little bit about that journey.

 

00:01:29    PHILIP SMITH

Absolutely. So going all the way back to 2002, coming out of Texas Tech, I don't really know that I had a great bead on where I was going to go. And I knew that I wanted to do military intelligence. I recall at advanced camp when I went through in summer of 2001, before 9 -11, we had what you call branch orientation day and all the branches presented their best foot forward. And I recall that we had the G2 from I -Corps there. And he didn't really put on much of a presentation. It was a lot like, hey, I get 5 ,000 or however many applications. And I know that he was addressing the active component there. But I had things pretty well sewn up as far as a unit. The 413th Civil Affairs Battalion was going to take me in as their S -2. So I knew that I had everything locked in. Well, then 9 -11 happened one month almost to the day after graduating from advanced camp. And I recall that they had to rebuild the sessions packets from scratch. Normally by about Thanksgiving, you would get your branch assignments, but we didn't get ours until spring break in March of the next year. So it was a different time moving from there to OBC. I went to Fort Huachuca at a time when seeing the ground invasion in Iraq happened, OIF -1 happened while I was at OBC. And I thought, oh my God, just like everything else that had occurred prior to this time. Desert Storm, Panama. It was going to be over before I had a chance to get over there, participate in something that made history.

 

00:03:05    BRIAN HANCOCK

You're concerned that it's going to be over before you can go in and lend a hand. That's very impressive. It's what you train for. You never hoped for it,

 

00:03:12    PHILIP SMITH

for. You never hoped for it, but when it happens, you want to be part of that effort. You want to be part of that victory. And so I moved very quickly afterwards to get to deploy over there. I went with... field artillery battalion for the West Virginia National Guard, and then stayed there for another year. So I did two years back -to -back because the unit that replaced us was the Texas National Guard. And being able to then spend that year in Iraq with those folks was another opportunity that your friends that you grew up with in Iraq can be able to partake in an effort of that magnitude with them. It was just a tremendous opportunity. So I stayed there another year and then came back home, finally, And then went and took a tour after I sat for the LSATs at the Joint Analysis Center and RAF Molesworth from USUCOM, working on counterterrorism capabilities for several North African countries and leading a team that put those together and directing them and helping to guide their efforts was another great opportunity. From there, law school, three years. for 15th Civil Affairs Battalion then after that. And then got back home to Dallas after graduating, went to the 345th PSYOP in Dallas. And from there, had the opportunity to go through the PSYOP -2 course with you and then got ready to deploy to Horn of Africa. Preparing for deployment.

 

00:04:45    BRIAN HANCOCK

for deployment. Do you remember those heavy days?

 

00:04:48    PHILIP SMITH

Brian, I absolutely do. And we had a great group in that class. It does seem like a lifetime ago, and that was a great opportunity to be able to exercise those skills that we learned. I think from one of the best in the trade, Greg Cisa, I think absolutely one of the best instructors that we could have hoped for and gotten really prepared us well for deployment. And then also my experience at the SOC pack. built upon those prior experiences. But yes, it has been a while. And I look back fondly. I don't know how fondly I look back at Camp McCall. But, you know,

 

00:05:26    BRIAN HANCOCK

know, we would take the bad. Now, the coordinating assignment for successful officer careers, of course, battalion command. Now, you were the battalion commander for the 451st Civil Affairs Battalion. What was that lot?

 

00:05:40    PHILIP SMITH

Just a tremendous experience to be able to work with some of the finest in our profession. in our regiment to take the 451 battalion that was coming off of COVID and in many respects not seeing each other in at least a year. It was a very trying time because you have to have that physical face -to -face. So that was one challenge that we inherited when I took command. We went in two CTC rotations, NTC, JRTC, and then we had a warfighter just before I relinquished commands.

 

00:06:19    BRIAN HANCOCK

That's a pretty ambitious schedule just coming out of what it mattered to a year at Reset. You're getting back together and trying to establish policies, procedures, stand up training and prepare for the mission. And then the missions just fall in on you back to back. Absolutely. How did you overcome them?

 

00:06:38    PHILIP SMITH

Correct response to a situation is sometimes no response, but to let the situation transpire a bit, get you a little bit more information and not to knee jerk, I think was one of the biggest lessons that I distilled out of battalion command. Sometimes you need to let things transpire or let your subordinates make the decisions and run with things and not interject. Let them grow and develop or let the situation transpire.

 

00:07:09    PHILIP SMITH

instance, we had a lot of unsatisfactory participants. And the problem was essentially getting people to physically show up. You mentioned problem solving and everything starts with framing the problem. How do we get people back to drill? So what I did was I sat down with my sergeant major and chaplain, and we decided to develop what we called the battalion wellness working. And what we did through that was we would have the sergeant major, the chaplain. And the first sergeants from the companies sit down and just see how can we engage these soldiers? Who are the problem soldiers that we're recognizing some of these signs and that we're not seeing things that we're having contact with, but we're not able to connect with? And how can we connect and bring them in? And our chaplain was tremendous in being able to facilitate that and provide some ideas and being a conduit for our companies to be able to bring. and reconnect the soldiers. So that post -COVID world was a great challenge. The other one that I have sticking out in my mind was NTC, which was our first CTC rotation. And we had a trucker strike. Our truckers would not cross the picket line to go into California. You just can't make this stuff, right? Not one bit. So I have soldiers there at Fort Irwin with no equipment. And it's, sir, what are we going to do? And basically it was, hey, you're going to have to try to hitch a ride. You know, a lot of it was just questioning the company commander to try to lead him to the right conclusion. And together we worked on it to resolving it was basically a nut you can't crack. You can't materialize those vehicles there. But at the same time, you know, you need some transport. So you're going to have to really knuckle down on that relationship with the supported unit. You're really going to have to do something at least until the strike breaks. So a lot of what I found working with my company commanders, and I had a tremendous slate of company commanders that were great. I had Courtney Bone was my HHC commander during the warfighter. I had Matt Horschow as my Charlie company commander. Both these challenges developed into something where I think that as a commander. You are more of a shepherd insofar as you've got to work with your people and you've got to lead them to the resources. Part of development and growth is to cause them to exercise the six most important inches of real estate on the battlefield. And that's the gray matter between your ears. And I think as commanders, we have to facilitate that.

 

00:09:43    BRIAN HANCOCK

Right. Give them the estate and give them positive feedback. I think that positive feedback may be something that we don't do the best job in the military. I'm not sure we coach and mentor as effectively as we could at times. But critical to learning, it seems like we have to experience things ourselves for us to really cement that learning. Well, let's look at the flip side. We've talked about some of the challenges. We know that it's not easy to be a battalion commander. And sometimes, at least in Comp3, there have been some difficulties in getting enough people to manage this. So, curious to you for throwing your name in the hat and getting selected. In that time, I imagine it was a very valuable experience, though. Did you do anything particularly novel or anything that you found in your good time? And can you tell us a bit about it?

 

00:10:31    PHILIP SMITH

Absolutely. I think that each one of those events and the outcomes from them are something that remain a source of pride for me during my command tenure. I think that the legacies that... Sergeant Major Hardy Hay and I left for the 451. I would like to think that they echo to this day. All of them are a testament to the dedication of the soldiers of the 451. One is Resolute Sentinel, Guatemala, where we sent CA teams down there. We had an enduring presence. They're going to Southcom and supporting efforts down there. And to great aplomb to the soldiers down there, that was something I'm proud of and how we were able to achieve effects. And then finally, the three -quarter warfighter exercise, we supported 1st Cavalry Division. A great opportunity to be able to go down there, interface with our active component brothers and sisters, and support them in an exercise of tremendous magnitude. Again, achieved tremendous effects in many cases. I couldn't have been prouder to see our soldiers really shine a light and set the example. That was the capstone for my command.

 

00:11:40    BRIAN HANCOCK

command. Earlier, we'd see one of the regional groups has had such a kind of doings, filling all the battalion command positions. They did the public report for how to be studied on. I think it was a missed opportunity that many of the battalion commanders that I had talked to and said, look, this is a very demanding timeline. You're looking at, oftentimes, 20 plus hours a week doing various things, whether it's... Signing papers, drafting things, reviewing things, making decisions, building plans, political coordinations, etc. So you've got that road when you are sitting as a battalion commander. Then you've got clearly a very challenging civilian career. Do you have any advice for the audience, those folks who find themselves in a very demanding civilian job, at the same time as a very demanding military job? How do you manage your time to make sure that you stay healthy?

 

00:12:37    PHILIP SMITH

I found that really kind of prioritizing things helps and sitting down and setting the time aside for all of those aspects that you mentioned really helps. And I've found just from other leaders and mentors that I've talked to and worked with, and this is what I've adopted, is setting aside the time to give to each one of those aspects every day. Obviously, when not on orders, what am I going to do? I've got a lot more time dedicated than to the civilian job. But I always set aside at least maybe an hour every day or period of time to look at the prioritized issues, especially when in command, what's being presented to. Now, that's not to say that fires don't pop up, things don't occur that demand immediate attention. heavily empowered my subordinates. I think you've got one battle as a commander where you really knuckle down on assessing your AGR full -time staff leadership. That paramount when you take command because those are the folks you're going to be relying on and you've got to assess everything. Exactly. And those are the people that are going to become the threshold filter and you've got to assess your confidence in them and where that contours of that confidence lie. And so, I was always confident in my operations officers that I gave them signature authority. My SSA, I gave Ms. Glasgow 451, I gave her signature authority because I could trust them. And that's the thing, trust and confidence. And you've got to assess that immediately because you don't have time to wait a few months. I think the other thing is sit down and say, hey, look, for a week, I need to come in. maybe that first week after I take command. That's how you support Bolton. You just set the time aside for them, and you have to do it. Otherwise, something's going to give way. In many cases, it's like juggling.

 

00:14:43    BRIAN HANCOCK

Yeah, I know that drill. In company command, certainly my family took the short end of the stick, and I suspect command is even more demanding. Thank you for doing what you did there. Let's transition over to your current duties for a bit. Right now, you're a resident student at the Army War College. Can you walk us through the typical day for someone who is in resident Army War College?

 

00:15:12    PHILIP SMITH

Absolutely. So at Carlisle, classes started at 830 and went to 1130 on most days. You would have sometimes an optional lunch lecture on different topics. you had the rest of the day to yourself. And generally, I would spend that studying for the next day. The class was broken down into a seminar. So we had, I think, 24, 25 different seminars. And there was about 15 or so folks in there. Usually you'd have one from compo three, one from compo two. And then you'd have three or so international fellows. And then you'd have a couple in there from... either the fee services, the Air Force, Space Force. And that was great. There's 15 in my seminar. I was in seminar one. We had tremendous time and we're still very much in touch with each other and everything like that, even though we've all gone to the four quarters of the globe. But since we graduated now over a month, it's funny how time flies.

 

00:16:16    BRIAN HANCOCK

how time flies. I think that's pretty prescient. These types of schools are the book of day club, as we refer to them. And that is very real. So folks have to have, I think, a fire in their belly to want to be doing a lot of learning. I suspect the hours are pretty long here trying to get all of your material together. And the coursework you mentioned, I assume there are electives in there as well. So you have to do the core. You're going to have to do these electives. And then I understand there are opportunities to get advanced degrees on top of that. Can you tell us a little bit about that part of the experience?

 

00:16:52    PHILIP SMITH

There's the foundations course that you start with. Then you go into the core courses. You've got military strategy and campaigning was probably the biggest block of instruction. But then the electives, I took an advanced regional studies course and focused on Europe. Just a tremendous opportunity to be able to receive lectures, talk with the MILSEC at NATO. We got to sit down with former MILSEC for NATO. We had a couple of ambassadors come in. A lot of researchers from European think tanks talked about various issues that Europe was facing and really get to think about those kinds of issues. It culminated in two weeks. We went to Greece and Sweden. So in Athens, we got to meet with the Greek defense minister. We were hosted there by them. Instructors had set aside, interestingly enough. Thucydides Day. As we walked through Athens, you kind of see the wall that was built between Athens and Piraeus and how you could see from the Acropolis down to Piraeus. And you could almost see Pericles advocating for the building of the wall as the Peloponnesian War started and then moving on to the Agora and seeing how the daily life might have been in Athens at that time. And from there, we went to Stockholm, Sweden, and we were the senior most delegation to go to Sweden since it had entered fully into NATO.

 

00:18:28    BRIAN HANCOCK

That's very impressive. Based on how you described it, I know I certainly would be interested in the kind of curriculum that you experienced at work college, but the application process. Can you tell us about that? When is the application process for work college? And do you have any advice you could give perspective? attendees who want to apply to senior staff college or senior service college, how they can maximize their chance. If I'm correct, only about 2 % are picked up for residents, how could someone manage their application to increase their chance of being in that 2 %?

 

00:19:06    PHILIP SMITH

So for me, I looked and saw when the MILPR came out, and I think it generally comes out around about this time, I want to say, for Next academic year, some AY25 is starting at the War College. Probably within a few weeks, they'll start having their in -processing and everything. But there's a lot of other opportunities out there besides Carlisle Barracks. There's the Naval War College. There's the Air War College. I think there might even be sites at the Marine War College. Then there's also fellowships. You can go and be a senior service college fellow and go to... Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, but I think some folks have gone to University of Texas, Texas A &M, Stanford. You can go to, I want to say that there's also opportunities at think tanks. It runs a gamut and it's all outlined in OPR and basically rank, order your preferences. So I did that. And then I think the list came up and I was on the primary list for distance education, which. by all contentions, is much harder than the resident because that's two years of very diligent study. And then they came out with another Milper, I want to say, around about the fall period. And so I put in then on that second tranche, my preferences, Army War College was first. I just thought, well, you know, it's our senior service college, so it's a recognized element. Then that list came out. I distinctively remember it was the 23rd of December of 22 because people started congratulating me. And I thought, why are you congratulating me on War College? I already know that I got selected for distance. And they said, no. Go back and look. And I said, oh, holy smokes. I got selected for resident. Now that's a big decision point. I've got to reach the subject with my civilian employer and let them know because it's going to become inevitable that I'm going to have to depart on active duty orders. And so very exciting. I had tremendous outpouring of support from the folks that I work with in the general litigation division, the Texas attorney general's office. They were highly supportive. They still are. And so the orders were cut when I was finalizing and we were wrapping up at the warfighter. And so I had orders in hand to report in July of 23. And the rest, as they say,

 

00:21:33    BRIAN HANCOCK

they say, is history. So if you have your heart signed on going to senior state college, don't give up. First list isn't necessarily in the answer.

 

00:21:42    PHILIP SMITH

Don't expect to get it on the first go around. You put in the following year to get it. I didn't have any expectations when becoming a primary for a resident. So you did a variety of research while you were there.

 

00:21:53    BRIAN HANCOCK

variety of research while you were there. And one of those topics that you took a look at resonates with many of us was looking at domestic incidents. Now we talk about humanitarian assistance disaster relief. Defense supports civil authorities. What is the domestic incident exactly?

 

00:22:16    PHILIP SMITH

Domestic incident. DOD doesn't have a working definition. What I did was I kind of coupled together a definition relying on the Stafford Act. Basically defines a domestic incident that based on two components. And the first is a major disaster. And the second is an emergency. And so major disaster. Includes those natural catastrophes, fires, floods, explosions, basically where the president determines this event has caused damage of sufficient severity that warrants assistance under the act. And then an emergency is basically anything that you need. Federal assistance is required in those circumstances to save lives, protect property, public health, safety, and lessen the threat of a catastrophe. And you've got... A number of other subsequent statutory authorities, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 goes into terrorism. We've had global challenges like the COVID pandemic, sort of black swan type events. So that's what I took to define domestic incident. The National Defense Act of 2012, which provides a framework for the Army Reserve to respond, is another guidepost. It really deals with what we would generally think of as a natural catastrophe, terrorist event, pandemic -type events.

 

00:23:43    BRIAN HANCOCK

events. That's a pretty horrible name. It sounds like it can be both natural or man -made, conus in nature. So there's a lot of terrain there to potentially execute a variety of missions. When we take a look at the Reserve Civil Affairs formations, based upon what you learn about domestic incidents, We see this as a mission that civil affairs should be engaging in. What would we need to do to man train and equip civil affairs formations to ensure that we have success in domestic incidents?

 

00:24:20    PHILIP SMITH

Well, I've focused on a couple of things, and some of that really comes down to the training and the partnerships. Training, domestic response, emergency response, emergency management, DISCA training. North Com puts on a great program. FEMA puts on another great program. One of the training opportunities that my alpha company did was to go through and do some of the emergency management training during one of their ATs. They went out to Galveston County, got a run through the emergency operations center out there in the airport, got to meet with the county judge. County judges in Texas are generally the first light as far as being tasked with the emergency management responsibility. They're the ones issuing the local disaster declaration. And my soldiers got to sit down and talk with them, exchanged information, let him know if there was a need, who he could get in touch with as the local commander, and I would do what I could do as far as having those additional resources. Of course, the Stafford Act requires those requests from local officials in writing. we can support that in the immediate response. And also with the EPLOs, they're the FEMA liaisons, and they coordinate as a focal point between DOD and FEMA, getting to know those folks and working that liaison aspect and understanding their role and having them be more of a forward presence. As we have these changes that we're seeing in weather events and the severity and the magnitude of these events, and the frequency occur, we're going to have to have a response that includes the total force. In some respects, interstate agreements between states may not prove that you've got all the resources that you need. At least you know in the back pocket you've got the Army Reserve. And so that was originally where I was going with my research in command and control. We can help the EPLOs coordinate and work with them and augment to do their job. We can do what we would also do overseas in an OCODIS environment. We could do that in CODIS. We could help. Because I always found it ironic that we do have as one of our core tests in civil affairs is DISCA. But I don't know that we've ever really done it at home.

 

00:26:44    BRIAN HANCOCK

A little bit. For COVID, the medical staff to move around. But in terms of large -scale integration, I think that's an opportunity that we have. With force caps being what they are and demand increasing, the National Guard, who often handles many of these missions in campo too, they just may not have the resources. And there are legitimate disasters or states of emergency where they need every resource they can get. And if we were to pre -coordinate that, and as you mentioned, we have 38 golf officers now in civil affairs who specialty is disaster management. We need to be tied into these state disaster plans. They need to have a checklist, a trigger -based release, where they know Title X may not be the first resource we bring to the table, but they need to know clearly what that threshold is. And when it's crossed, how do they get us involved? And then how do we spin up to be as effective? That's exactly what I concluded.

 

00:27:42    PHILIP SMITH

what I concluded. We need to have a greater liaison because the commitments of the National Guard, they've got... The ability to make agreements with other states that their guard can fill in while the focus states guard is out on deployment. You've got the local acumen that resides right there with regard to the reserve. The APLOs report through the 76th Operational Readiness Training Command out in Utah, the Army Reserve Center for DISCA. And that's where I think that interface and that liaison really can come to a forefront. And civil affairs has just that unique skill set. Like you mentioned, it's a great opportunity to provide liaison training to our local civil affairs battalion commanders, brigade commanders, our local CA assets to be able to liaise. And in the event they're called upon, they're ready.

 

00:28:38    BRIAN HANCOCK

We're running out of time, but I always like to ask this question. For those who are interested in the things that you've talked about, and want to learn more about your mental models, what are some of your favorite books and podcasts that you listen to for your own professional development, and what do you appreciate about it?

 

00:28:59    PHILIP SMITH

Absolutely. So, of course, one of the great podcasts I listen to is 1CA. Couldn't have said it better myself. I'll put that right up front. But in addition to the 1CA podcast, I listen to a variety. podcast from Modern War Institute, Rand's Policy Currents. I listen to From the Green Notebook. Oh, that's a great one. Absolutely. And then on a daily basis, New York Times is the daily. I listen to What's News from the Wall Street Journal, The Economist's Podcast, Marketplace. So those are generally what I'm listening to. What I'm reading right now, I am reading a book called Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy by Sherman Kent. book written in the late 40s and is sort of a seminal training book for CIA officers out there. And then another book I'm reading is called Behave by Robert Sapolsky. It's the biology of humans at our best and worst. It really gets into some of the deep... biology of human behavior and motivations and oxytocin and testosterone and the interplay and the amygdala and how those brain chemicals are driving certain things.

 

00:30:18    BRIAN HANCOCK

Oh boy. It sounds like it should be a required book for parents.

 

00:30:21    SPEAKER_00

Hey, Phil,

 

00:30:21    BRIAN HANCOCK

Phil, really appreciate you coming on the show today. A lot of great material that you've presented and we look forward to catching you up on I'm a future episode of 1CA podcast. Thank you, Brian. It's been a pleasure.

 

00:30:35    Close

Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. I'll have the email and CA Association website in the show notes. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U .S. relations, thank you all for what you're doing. your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes, 1CA Podcast.

188: Part II, Mickey Bergman on Diplomacy in the Shadows

Please welcome Mickey Bergman, lead author of the book "In The Shadows," where he discusses his experiences negotiating the release of hostages and people unlawfully imprisoned in some of the most restrictive places on Earth. 

In the book, Mickey takes the reader through his time working with Governor Bill Richardson and, after his death, transforms his legacy into the non-profit Global Reach, where he now brings in a community of people to continue the work. 

This is part two of a two-part episode. Check out last week's episode to hear part one. 

Global Reach Website: https://www.reach.global/

Link to the book: https://www.amazon.com/Shadows-High-Stakes-Negotiations-Americans-Captured

----

One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail.com 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

---

Today's music is a tribute to James Chance, who passed away this week. The solo is from his album White Cannable. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/vUfcWDHMEQY?si=gPGLKe6_05aFSE24

---

Transcript

00:00:01    Introduction

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes. Please welcome Mickey Bergman, lead author of the book In the Shadows, where he discusses his experiences negotiating the release of hostages and people unlawfully imprisoned in some of the most restrictive places on earth.

 

00:00:49    JACK GAINES

In the book, Mickey takes the reader through his time working with Governor Bill Richardson, and then after his death, transforming his legacy, into a nonprofit called Global Reach. This is the first of a two -part episode. The second part will air next week. Enjoy. I really appreciate you guys reaching out. I did finish the book. It was great. And in my perception of it, it kind of encapsulates the work and legacy of Governor Richardson and then that transformation that you had to do with his death into Global Reach. So it was kind of both a historical document. and continuing the work through the aggregate of other specialists in the field, and then continuing on with the mission. Is that similar? Am I right on your goals?

 

00:01:36    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, no, you're right. It's interesting because, look, I wrote the book. Obviously, the governor was alive, and he hasn't even read it because I was waiting until the manuscript was final in order to share it with him because the governor referred to him as Gov. He was like my six -year -old father. You know, father figure, but also juvenile as a six -year -old. And I knew for the first time in his life, somebody else was telling the stories and the role that he played and not him. And that's a great thing to have. And I think it comes out really, really well in the book, but I knew that he's going to nitpick and find something and give me hell for it. So I was really, really dreading. point. And so I wanted to give it to him when it's done, when I can't do anything about it. It's already published, boss. What can you say? But then he died. And I'm sad that he didn't get to read it. But after he died, I figured that I can't publish a book and not address his death. So basically, I wrote it in one day. I wrote this section to him and telling the story of how I found out and then touching on the first mission that we did after his death. And that's where Global Reach kind of came in. So it was not intentional in the design of the book, but out of circumstances, it was important to convey that this continues. And not only that, the mission to Venezuela, where the book ends with us going, the book does not cover the actual mission and the fact that 13 Americans came home in December, partially because of that mission. So I like that dynamic. At some point, you have to cut.

 

00:03:13    JACK GAINES

You have to because you're constantly on another mission. Correct.

 

00:03:16    MICHEY BERGMAN

Because they just continue to go.

 

00:03:18    JACK GAINES

Yeah. Reading that last portion, that was my perception is you were focused absolutely on a good ceremony and burial for the governor. But this Venezuela issue was on the back of your neck the whole time. And so to me, reading it, it felt like you were like, all right, the best way to appreciate this is after the ceremony. Get back to work and finish his mission, his goals, and then find a path forward from there.

 

00:03:43    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, and not only that, we had the trip to Venezuela was planned before he died. And we had a whole process. We knew exactly where the deal was stuck. We had an idea for it. We wanted also to make sure that the two Green Berets that were there in Venezuela, Luke Denman and Aaron Berry, are included in it because they were never designated. by the U .S. government as wrongfully detained, we were very worried that they would not be included. So we needed to get that commitment directly from the Venezuelan leadership to lock them into the deal. And we had that all set up to the extent that the day before the governor died, I actually shared with the families that were going. And then when I got the news the next day, and I was like, the first thing, of course, is the personal grief that you have. The second thing is, oh, shoot, he was my access over there. He had a relationship with Maduro. He had a relationship with Jorge Rodriguez. You know, I was like, oh my God. And it took about 24 hours to figure out, oh, he would love me to use his death for one last mission of rescue. In the WhatsApp group of the team and of the mission, we call that group the governor's last rescue.

 

00:04:56    JACK GAINES

Right. Wow. And that brings up an interesting point.

 

00:04:59    JACK GAINES

brings up an interesting point. And that is what in the tech community, they call the founder's curse. And that is the founder starts a movement or an organization and they are so entrenched in the details in the process that it's hard for them to separate the program from themselves. And often if that transformation doesn't happen, the legacy dies with the person. Almost sounds like he brought you in because he was considering his legacy and brought you into the fold and in the details to the point where he didn't predict his death. But he knew that by bringing some people like you and others in to understand the details and the nug work within the negotiations, he was sort of a life preserver to the mission versus passing away and the whole thing just goes flat.

 

00:05:45    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, well, it's funny because, look, in his mind, he was immoral. Yeah. Of course, like typically they are. And he had a huge personality and a huge presence. And I worked with him for 17 years. You know, he gave me compliments and then he would balance them with punches. That's typically his management style, which was a lot of fun, right? But towards, in the last couple of years, he had these little sessions with me that were just so uncharacteristic to him. We just like to say, Mickey, you're better than everybody else just because you don't have a government title. Don't you realize that you get it better than the high officials? So he was very encouraging from that perspective, but he never spoke to me about what happens after. That is a conversation that we had without him, with his board, not because we expected him to die. Obviously, he died too soon. There was no underlying disease there or something that was expected. It was a surprise, but his mortality was not a surprise. And so we had that conversation. And then with the board immediately after, with the board of directors of the organization, because you're right, it's not the first government organization that I worked with. I've seen the founders curse. I've seen what happened immediately after the founders death, not even stepping away and retiring, just death. There is so much emotions and nostalgia because the board is made of his friends. Right.

 

00:07:10    JACK GAINES

Or chaos because no one knows all of the different things that are going on in the process and they have to rediscover it. Yeah.

 

00:07:16    MICHEY BERGMAN

But emotionally, we were all, including myself, like, oh, my God, we have to create a legacy. We have to continue with this. And everybody's like, no, we'll step in. We'll make sure it happens. And I remember the day after his funeral, breakfast with the board. Just informal. It wasn't a board meeting. It was just breakfast. Just to debrief. And I told him, look, the governor and I actually had a conversation after Kofi Annan passed away. The Kofi Annan Foundation kept the name, and they wanted to keep this because they were. blown in with that kind of emotional response to it. But we talked about how it just feels like all they're doing right now is fundraising full time just to keep the lights on. But there's no substance left. And it's a miserable way for an organization to die out. And so I raised it with the board. I said, look, we can try. We can see if there's sustainability in it just for a couple of months to see where things settle. But I know that despite our very raw emotions right now, life continues. And life happens. And I do not want to spend all of our time just keeping the lights on because that's not what he would love. He wanted to find a way to keep the work going. So if we can't keep it as Richardson's center and there is a law of diminishing returns on the name, let me work and put a proposal in front of the board of what it looks like to do the different pieces of this legacy. One, of course, hostages and prisoners, which is a huge chunk. And that came out to be global reach. Another one was around the program we did with the Rohingyas and humanitarian work that we did. And that we basically have moved it, found a different home for it. It's going to continue at the Stimson Center instead of the Richardson Center with the funder that funded it is moving there with our guy, Steve Ross, who's the director of that program. So he's moving over there as well. And third, I wanted more of a name legacy piece. And that's when we established and announced the... The Bill Richardson Heart of a Patriot Award, which we hope will be known as the Billy. We're trying to make that stick. And that's going to be awarded every year at the Foley Foundation Gala. And the award is going to be given to former political and policy principals that, after leaving government, use their credentials and their gravitas to help bring Americans home.

 

00:09:35    JACK GAINES

Let's just make it stick. Let's just start calling it the Billy Awards. I like the Billy.

 

00:09:37    MICHEY BERGMAN

like the Billy. The Billies. The Oscars, we have the Billies.

 

00:09:43    JACK GAINES

Well, I apologize if I cut you off on your string, but that makes total sense. So how do you guys stay afloat? If it's something sensitive, I won't add it to the show. Oh, no,

 

00:09:52    MICHEY BERGMAN

no, no, absolutely. No, as you can tell, we're an open book. We love that. So we were lucky enough that during the pandemic, because there was just no commercial flights, but we still had hostages and we still needed to go there and get people out. And the governor has met an American businessman named Steve Menzies. He's an insurance guy out of Omaha. He runs a reinsurance company called Applied Underwriters. And he's done very well for himself financially. But he's one of those, you don't see him flying rockets to space. He's a quiet guy. He does his thing. And he and the governor got to this. He said, hey, you can use my jet for some of these missions, especially in places that you can't go commercially. Right. But I'm coming with you.

 

00:10:37    JACK GAINES

Of course, he wants the experience. He wants to feel a part of the cause. Yeah,

 

00:10:41    MICHEY BERGMAN

he came with us in the middle of the pandemic on a mission to Venezuela. Later on, he did a few other missions with us to Russia, including the return and recovery of the Taylor Dudley. That was a month after Brittany Griner came home and we went to Russia and got the former Navy guy, Taylor Dudley, out. That's the one where you're driving through Poland.

 

00:10:59    JACK GAINES

the one where you're driving through Poland. That is correct. And that was Steve's plane.

 

00:11:01    MICHEY BERGMAN

is correct. And that was Steve's plane. But it's not only his plane. At that point, he already started integrating his logistics skills into this and helping us really set this up. And so when the governor passed away, Steve and I sat together and he said, Mickey, we have to continue this, not only for the name of his legacy, but for the work that it is. And he says, but. I'm no Governor Richardson. I know that what he did with you was unique. So you tell me, Nicky, if you didn't have budget constraints, how would you build that and structure this in a post -Richardson world to be not only as good as what you did, but better? And so he gave me basically a blank check to put a structure together. And we looked at, A, the piece of what we did with the governor, which was this intergovernmental mediation and negotiations. And on that, I said, well, I'm going to run that part, but I'm not going to replace Governor Richardson with a single person because there isn't such one person.

 

00:11:58    JACK GAINES

Right. You did an aggregate.

 

00:12:00    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah. I wanted a bunch of people that we have worked with over the years, former diplomats, former politicians, Republicans, Democrats, business people. It doesn't matter the people who are actively in this and have the relationships. And just to have them to agree they're not going to get into the organization, they're not going to manage it or run it, but they agree that we can call on them if we need them to be a principal in a case. And that's something that to me, over the years of working with the governor, there were every now and then there would be an occasion in a location in which these relationships were not good. Sure. And there would be somebody else. So whether it's in terms of timing, like actually right now, it would be better to have a Republican do that, something like that, step into it. And I would suggest it to him. And he would say, no, it was the Richardson Center. Every now and then he would let me do that. But that was a little bit of a constraint. And I wanted to make sure that I don't set up an organization with similar constraints. And we're assembling that board. We have about six people on that board already on that advisory board. And they're fantastic. And it's like different elves and different walks of life and different political affiliation. And they're all like, we staff it. We put together the theory of return. We build up the thing. And then we call on them to actually be the face of it and bring their gravitas. And they're working on wood here. It's working up to now pretty well. So that's one Steve told me, actually. He said, but beyond what you did with Richardson, are there other capabilities? in our field that still don't exist outside of government. Because he says, I have the resources and I have the ability to do that. And that's when we realized, wait a minute, there's capabilities around investigative capabilities. There are research capabilities. It's not writing research papers.

 

00:13:45    JACK GAINES

Backgrounders on people you're going to be dealing with, culture, the relationships. Relationship,

 

00:13:49    MICHEY BERGMAN

Relationship, yeah. Relationship mapping,

 

00:13:50    JACK GAINES

yeah. Relationship mapping, absolutely. If we have a hostage,

 

00:13:52    MICHEY BERGMAN

we have a hostage, and I'll give you one example in which both of these came into play. There's a Princeton PhD student, Elizabeth Surkov, and she was kidnapped in Iraq in March of last year, so almost a year and a half ago. And at first, nobody knew where the hell she was. We knew that she was kidnapped, but we didn't know by who in Iraq. You never know which militia, which group. Yes, government, not government, Shia, Sunni, you never know. And everybody was trying to figure out how to do it. And Steve walked into this. And this is before Global Reach was actually established. Steve walks into it and said, wait a minute, I can buy the cell data of the exact area where she knows, the coffee place where we know she was kidnapped. And we knew that she had the emergency back surgery eight days before. So we knew the medicine that her captors will have to pick up in order to keep her healthy. Otherwise, she's not worth anything to them. And so he bought that data too. And then he shared that data with the FBI. Our own people analyze it. And we traced phones that were in the coffee place on the day that she was kidnapped and then phones that picked up that medicine. Right.

 

00:15:03    JACK GAINES

And so you could correlate between the different digital signals and triangulate the location. Absolutely. Exactly. And found her. I've never experienced that in my life.

 

00:15:07    MICHEY BERGMAN

triangulate the

 

00:15:10    MICHEY BERGMAN

experienced that in my life. Of course not. Never. Nobody. And we're able to find her. Not the exact house, but the village where she's being held. And again, our government has the capability to do it.

 

00:15:22    JACK GAINES

But the risk of going in with ground forces or CIA to actually work human and negotiate with people to find her location is way too risky for a government organization.

 

00:15:34    MICHEY BERGMAN

It's costly. There's a lot of red tape and we're able to move it like that. And so that's the investigative part that we never had before. Richardson, I would never have had that just because of resources. He would have loved it, but we didn't have the resources for this. And so that's something that added. And then in terms of once we realized where she's at, we started researching, we realized which militia has its headquarters over there. So at that point, we had a pretty good confidence of who has her. And once you know who has her, you're able to do different things in order to solicit a proof of life from them. And in November, you know, it took eight months of nobody hearing from her. In November, we got a video with a proof of life from her. And that allows us, I can't go into the details of what happened since because it's an ongoing case. She's still there and we're working really hard on it. But the point is that these are capabilities that we never had before outside of government. And we're not in competition with government. We actually collaborate because we're able to accelerate things. And trust me, there are people at the FBI extremely happy that somebody else is buying this stuff and giving it to them because then it's like we're giving them a bunch of toys. as well to look at. And there's results. And we all have the same exact intention is getting people back home. Sure. So that's kind of the birth of global reach. And so for the first time, it's not just the governor and me and the advisor. I actually have a team of executives. Right. I have Rob Saleh, who is the director of the hostage recovery infusion set at the FBI. I think I kind of dragged him out of retirement just to help us set it up. Would you take pictures with his kids at the ice cream store saying,

 

00:17:07    JACK GAINES

you take pictures with his kids at the ice cream store saying, hey, come on down and get a scoop and we'll talk about it.

 

00:17:12    MICHEY BERGMAN

He's a great guy and he's a good friend. And we worked together while he was in service. And so we were able to convince him to come in at least to help us set it up. I don't think he'll say he's set up for retirement. He's done. But he helps us set it up. And then until we find a permanent person to run it. So there is that kind of caliber. that we didn't have before. And one of the first decisions we made when we established Global Reach and Steve Menzies is the co -founder of it and the chairman and the CEO was to look at the other organizations in our field, namely the Foley Foundation and Hostage US. Each of them are unique and effective organizations, but they do things that we don't do. Advocates in government. They give a government report card every year. They change policies. They work with families in the general advocacy. Hostage US, they help families physically and with taxes, with social work, with therapists, a bunch of volunteers going and helping because these families need it while their loved ones in captivity and when they come back. And that's Hostage US. We don't do that. They do that and they're damn good at it. And so we looked at who is their biggest donor and each of these organizations and we matched that because we had the resources. So we became funders of them. And that's how you... create within an environment of non -for -profits the competition over resources, which prohibits you from collaborating even if you really need to, we completely dismantle that. So we're working extremely closely. The three large non -for -profit entities in this field are working extremely closely in supporting each other. So when I have a case, I immediately bring in Foley Foundation for the functions that they can serve for the families, and I immediately bring Hostage US for the part that they serve that we can't do.

 

00:18:54    JACK GAINES

And actually it saves from building those specific functions within global reach because then you're just competing with the same skills and people to do the job. So it makes sense that you would have built a network of networks that is an umbrella of all of the hostage support services that are out there.

 

00:19:11    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, and they're very good at it. All we do is provide them additional funding so they can be even better. And Nizar sits with the CSIS Commission. on wrongful detention and hostages. And again, it's another government commission. John Alterman is running it with Jason Rezaian, who's a former prisoner, and Robert O 'Brien, Donald Trump's former national security advisor. And it's a bunch of us. Nizar sits on that commission with me and with a lot of other leaders in this field. But that commission is looking at ways to recommend to the next administration, whoever that is. Get a report on how to do deterrence policies. What are the parameters of how to look at these kind of negotiations? And what are the best practices on this? And what are the things that can do better? Because we do know this is a national security crisis. Have you heard of hostage aid? Hostage aid worldwide. Yes, of course. Zalzaka is the head of it. And that organization is made of former hostages and volunteers. And their niche of what they're trying to get beyond the advocacy that they're doing, mainly online, they're trying to build data. Right.

 

00:20:16    JACK GAINES

And the thing is, by doing that, I think that the State Department's notices on travel advisories would be more effective. Because if they could put in there that there is a steady increase or there's a predicted increase of hostage taking in a country, American citizens will read that and say, well, now I know I've got to either stay in the hotel or not go.

 

00:20:37    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, it's true. I have to tell you, Americans, they don't... Look, I'll give you an example. But Turks and Caicos wanted to crack down on the fact that Americans were traveling into the island for some reason with ammunition, not with guns, not with arms, but with ammunition. Some of it was just careless, but it became a big issue politically in Turks and Caicos. And so all policy is domestic. And there was kind of a fight of who's going to be stronger on crime, on American crime of bringing ammunition into the island. So they put a law in that. A required sentence for anybody who's bringing ammunition into the island is 12 years. Right. And then they had to implement it. And before we knew it, there was a whole bunch of Americans who were detained and on trial on their shore way to have 12 years of imprisonment.

 

00:01:13    MICHEY BERGMAN

Turks and Caicos wanted to crack down on the fact that Americans were traveling into the island for some reason with ammunition. Not with guns, not with arms, but with ammunition. Some of it was just careless, but it became a big issue politically in Turks and Caicos. And so all policy is domestic. And there was kind of a fight that who's going to be stronger on crime, on American crime of bringing ammunition into the island. So they put a law in that a required sentence for anybody who's bringing ammunition into the island is 12 years. Right. And then they had to implement it. And before we knew it, there was a whole bunch of Americans who were detained. and on trial on their sure way to have 12 years of imprisonment. Now, it's not political imprisonment. It's not wrongful detention. These Americans violated. It's law enforcement, so it's not something that Global Reach does. But one of those incidents that did go to us was a young couple who went there on vacation, two kids back at home.

 

00:02:19    JACK GAINES

And a P9 submachine gun.

 

00:02:21    MICHEY BERGMAN

They flew from Oklahoma. On the way in, nobody noticed anything. On the way out... In the carry -on bag, they saw two of hunting rounds. And the husband said, oh, shit, I completely forgot he was there. It's for my hunting thing. So sorry. No, I don't use it. Yeah,

 

00:02:38    JACK GAINES

surrendered it at probably Visa or inspections.

 

00:02:40    MICHEY BERGMAN

inspections. But no, they took both of them into custody. Now, their kids are at home. Young kids. That got to my attention. I said, wait a minute. Look, I get it. He made a mistake. That's fine. That's a legal thing. They'll figure it out. They'll have lawyers. But why the hell did you detain the wife? It's not hers. It wasn't her bag. You have no right to do that. She needs to go back to her kids.

 

00:03:02    JACK GAINES

And he stated that it was his rounds. Correct. Yeah, he said. So she's indemnified. Yeah.

 

00:03:07    MICHEY BERGMAN

But it took time. And I actually have a good colleague of mine, John Franks, who also steps into this. And he works on this. He's a fantastic tactician, a very creative young guy.

 

00:03:16    JACK GAINES

Now it's not John Franks, the Star Trek guy. No.

 

00:03:19    MICHEY BERGMAN

And John Frank, yeah, I worked with him on political. I worked with him on Trevor Reed. I worked with him on Taylor Dudley. I worked with him on cases in Mexico. So he took that on because it was on the global reach. We actually brought us in to try and help him a little bit. And the first thing that we did when we researched it, when we do our due diligence, we looked at the State Department warning. You put State Department Turks and Caicos in it. You see red flags. All Americans, please notice. It's mandatory 12 years imprisonment for taking ammunition. Right. Please don't do it. Nobody's looking at that. Now, John Franks, I have to give him credit. He seems to be on the route to fixing the law and making exemptions on the law in terms of chaos. Again, he's a dog with a bone on this one. He's fantastic. It's not political detainment, but it is something that needed to be fixed. But it's a long story. Right.

 

00:04:10    JACK GAINES

There needs to be some form of amnesty as your entry to the nation.

 

00:04:13    MICHEY BERGMAN

It's a long way of answering a very short question you asked me that those. warnings from the State Department, unless we're able to work with the airlines, that when you book a flight, you get a notice and saying, yeah, we don't want to scare you from this, but here's information that you should know. Here are some of the things you need to be aware. Hey, you should register with the embassy just so there's a tracking. You should sign a Privacy Act waiver in case something happens. All these places that are high risk, that needs to happen. But that's putting the burden on the travelers. Part of what we do with CSIS Commission is actually looking at how do we put the burden on the governments that are in those places. And that's not more complicated, but doable.

 

00:04:57    JACK GAINES

It's kind of like when you fly into Sri Lanka and there's that big sign as you go up to visa passports that says, if you're carrying drugs, punishment's death.

 

00:05:05    JACK GAINES

Yeah. And I'm sure that's a fantastic deterrent.

 

00:05:09    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah. You know, it's another problem that we're facing. When I'm telling these stories, it's not to ridicule the people who do it and, oh, they're careless and stuff like that. People are people and they make mistakes. It's just that sometimes there's no recourse in these mistakes. But there's a lot of former American military people. So these are servicemen, people who serve our country. And they serve in the Middle East and in places like Kuwait is one of the examples.

 

00:05:31    JACK GAINES

Right. So they're used to traveling internationally armed. Correct. But they're also used to having the protections of the U .S.

 

00:05:34    MICHEY BERGMAN

they're also used to having the protections of the U .S. uniform. and then leave their service. And some of them go back into contracting, private security, stuff like that. And they forget that the same protections don't apply anymore. And so sometimes in places, look, Kuwait is very clear in its laws. Bringing drugs into Kuwait or having drugs in Kuwait is a major, major crime punishable by life in prison or death. And we have a whole chunk. of American former military people in prison in Kuwait for life and some of them on death sentence because of some drugs. And for the Kuwaitis, we're thinking about it, well, you know, it's just like pot, let them go. But for the Kuwaitis, it's not like you're being disrespectful of our laws. So we need to make an example out of it. But there was a time when we had 15 of those during the pandemic. And there's a lot of articles written and some of them have come home. It's been worked diligently, but we have an American. There was no drugs on him. He actually, we believe, never did anything wrong there, but he was by association wrapped in with a group of them. A guy named Tony Holden, he needs to come home. He has a family here at home. He actually didn't do the crime.

 

00:06:50    JACK GAINES

Well, in some countries, your association and behavior being next to the criminal act is just as important. If you're offensive or you're rude or if you're aggressive towards the police or... not cooperative in the judicial system, they'll be like, you know what? You need to have a day in jail.

 

00:07:06    MICHEY BERGMAN

Well, you're lucky if it's a day because then you rack up charges very quickly.

 

00:07:11    JACK GAINES

Right. It's difficult. And that gets into a very key point that you bring up, and that is what you call fringe diplomacy or diplomatic advocacy or citizen advocacy. Yeah. And what I call cocktail diplomacy because working around D .C., having drinks with people on the hill or from the house. Oh, you're giving us a bad rap.

 

00:07:34    MICHEY BERGMAN

you're giving us a bad rap. Cocktail diplomacy. That's what I call myself, a cocktail diplomat. What do you mean?

 

00:07:40    JACK GAINES

cocktail diplomat.

 

00:07:40    MICHEY BERGMAN

What do you mean? No, I know. It's great. But then you think about it when you go to North Korea or you go to Russia, there's no cocktails in it. Yeah. Even if somebody gives you a cocktail, you don't drink it.

 

00:07:50    JACK GAINES

That's true. All right. That might be true. But when I was working with some issues in Myanmar, I don't want to get into any country. Because I know your relationships with these countries is critical, and I don't want to smirch them or have them taint their relationship with you through these comments. I appreciate that. I was trying to help with peace negotiations and a resolution to the conflict between the rebels and the military government. And that's where I came up with the idea of cocktail diplomacy.

 

00:08:02    MICHEY BERGMAN

I don't

 

00:08:08    MICHEY BERGMAN

I appreciate that.

 

00:08:18    JACK GAINES

where I came up with the idea of cocktail diplomacy. And then when Ukraine cleared up, I was using it in civil affairs to assess. what the post -conflict reconstruction will look like.

 

00:08:30    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, these are so critical. And I don't think people realize how critical they are. Because at the end of the day, the government and the formal relationships are important. Obviously, they say national interest, the policy and all of that. But at the end of the day, we're looking at the scale of communities that are not only one community. I mean, Ukraine is not one country. There's different communities, different regions, different sections of Ukraine. They will need different things. They will have different visions for themselves. those communities, what it is that they want. And the governments are typically not nuanced enough to be able to do that. And one of the biggest traps that we always have, the people in the world, they can very quickly be angry with U .S. policy. But they like the way the U .S. does business. And so our ability and the part of fringe diplomacy that I don't write about in the book, but it is a huge part of fringe, is the engagement level. is when we go to these countries, to these places, whether they're in conflict or post -conflict, or they might be in a pre -conflict thing and we identify and we want to mitigate that. And we go not to the president of the country or to the prime minister of the country. We actually go to the local community, whether it's local government or whether it's the local community organizations. And we say, what is your vision and your priorities for your own community? And then we try to curate groups that can respond to that. Not by, oh, yeah, here we are, Americans. We tell you how to do things. We don't do that. We never do that. No, but as a way of saying, hey, these are people in this field. You're just peer -to -peer sharing stories, creating relationships, knowing that when you build those relationships, good things will come out of it. And we've done this kind of work in Cuba. We've done this kind of work in Lebanon. We've done this kind of work in Myanmar for years. I know we don't want to go into all the details, but one of the reasons why we were able to help get Danny Fenster out of jail in Myanmar and I'm all out of Myanmar and a couple others was because of the years that we have done this type of work in Myanmar of bringing investment delegations and social entrepreneurs and trainers and things. And I was there 11 times. before Danny Fenster was even taken. And this is the part of the engagement and relationships because when you have a crisis, it's really hard to go cold into somebody you never know and build trust. That trust and that familiarity gets built before or at the time when they really need you, which is one of the things, I digress a little bit here, but one of the things that is really painful to me now is the Cuban people. are going now through one of the hardest periods in their history. They had the special period back when the Soviet Union fell. This is harsher for them than that. And as their neighbors, we should find a way to be there for them right now. But because of policy or lack of bandwidth in policy in the U .S., we're ignoring this. On the positive side, it's a historic opportunity. for us to be a good neighbor, regardless to whether we agree with the structure of government and the people in government, that's irrelevant to that. It's people to people. As people to people, we can be really, really good friends to the Cubans right now. That will buy us so much goodwill, and then we can solve all of our political problems later. And the negative side of it is that they're going to survive this because they're Cubans. They figure out how to survive really bad periods, and we were the ones that were not there for them.

 

00:12:03    JACK GAINES

And that's what it's all about, right? What you talk about here with fringe diplomacy and tactical empathy are the building blocks. And we've had people on here that study and talk about that a lot, building the first layer of a relationship, which is that contractual relationship where you learn trust through the give and take of services. And then it goes into building that second layer that you've been describing. And that is that personal relationship you have. with those people on ground in those partner nations. And it's through that speed dial contacts and past experiences of trust that allow you access back into these countries so that you can do things. Correct. Yeah, and it's that. And a second point you brought up, that is self -actualization. You talk about realizing that you don't need to hide behind a banner of an organization the government in order to get things done. Yes. I just finished an interview with Scott Mann, who is an ex -Green Beret. He goes on TED. He's got a film called Last Man Out. And he promotes veterans recovery after coming out of their service because he finds that there's a lot of depression and suicide. And his biggest argument, and I think this is something you're talking about, is having a cause, being something you're tied to that's important. that you can throw your mind, your body, your interest into so that you are achieving something that's greater than your own. We're all cause addicts. It's a new term I'm building. I like that. Cause addiction. Yeah. We're going to make that stick. That's in the belly. Yeah. And just like anything that when someone is over vested in an emotional tie that gives them pleasure, without it. they become depressed, they become listless, and they're lost until they find that new thing that refills that space. By your discussion on self -actualization, it gives other people strength to strike out on their own and pursue those causes that they thought formerly were only the purview of the government.

 

00:14:13    MICHEY BERGMAN

Every time I would take these delegations, these fringe missions, let's do Cuba, for example. I would brief with the people. Typically, it's not big groups. It's like between 13 and 20. We don't do too big. We go for about a week. And when we get together, before we depart, I do this little thing with them. I say, guys, here's the thing. You need to understand. You're not going as observers of history. This is not about you going to observe Cuba. This is you as active participants in history. Every single meeting, every single conversation we have over there is a building block. You have to realize that that's the case. And then I do this silly analogy that hopefully will not be canceled on air here. But I say it's like when you're in college and a group of your friends decide to play a game of strip poker. Nobody gets to just say, oh, I'm going to be in the room as an observer. You're either out of the room or you're an active participant. And we need to figure out that that's not a choice we have. That's the reality. So when we travel, when we talk, every single conversation like that is a certain building block. We never know how and if it will play out in the future. But we have to own the fact that we're active participants in these relationships and in the way that our world is developing. And that's what I encourage. And when you realize that that's the case, start realizing how much impact individuals can have without a title, without an affiliation or a government position. I've never served in government. I don't think any government will ever take me. But I've never served in government. And I'm able to do things because of that. And I think it's not unique to me. It's not like, oh, yeah, I figured out something. It's all of us. It's all of us. And on your term, you know, it's true. It resonated with me when you said it because also I lived with a lot of returning hostages and political prisoners. When they're in the situation, it becomes their identity. It's who they are, especially if they're there for years. And when they come back and they're heroes for a while and they do their special on CNN and everybody's applauding them justfully, like they just survived the whole ordeal. And guess what happens after a week?

 

00:16:23    JACK GAINES

They go into depression because it all quiets down.

 

00:16:25    MICHEY BERGMAN

America moves on. Yeah. And suddenly they look at themselves and they say, well, who am I? Who am I? And that's when their brains, our brains, they trick on us. And we get into spirals. And some of them, it's not uncommon for returned hostages or political prisoners to find themselves at risk again very quickly after returning. And it's because they're people who want to get into risk. It's because their brains are playing tricks on them and they're not dealing with it from that perspective. And that has occurred and reoccurred, which is one of the things why at least the U .S. government has a reintegration program. That every time we have a family comes home, we beg the family to use that program to the extent until they throw them out of that program. Because think about it. You come back after five years from Iran. Never had a choice. In five years, couldn't make a choice. A single choice. Never was given a choice. What to eat, what not to do. When to sleep. None of it is a choice. Suddenly, they come back and everything is a choice.

 

00:17:31    JACK GAINES

That's overwhelming.

 

00:17:32    MICHEY BERGMAN

And as an example, you say, hey, Don't ask them what they want to eat for dinner. You ask them, do you want chicken or do you want pasta? You give them two options because they can't cope with overwhelming opportunities. You need to kind of ease them into it. And this is just a silly example, but it's real. And so when people come back because of that, it's kind of like I took it a little bit away from your term, but it is almost like you need to go.

 

00:17:59    JACK GAINES

Deprogramming.

 

00:18:00    MICHEY BERGMAN

Deprogramming. of taking away that addiction that you just had as a part of your personality because that was your experience for so long. It's overwhelming and deconstruct it so you can build yourself back again as a free person.

 

00:18:14    JACK GAINES

Does that program include counseling for like post -traumatic stress?

 

00:18:18    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yes. It's actually, it's a DOD program originally, I believe. It's called PAISA and it happens mainly in Texas, but sometimes they do it in other places. I think it was designed for turned POWs. So it's with therapy and it's with a lot of debriefings, that integration. Of course, in recent years, we don't have many POWs. We do have hostages. We do have political prisoners. So the government adapted it. And so now DOD is sharing it with the Department of State. And so when people come back, they go through that program. You can opt out of it if you're a prisoner. Nobody can force you into it. And some of them are so eager to just spend time with their families and be free of all of this. And we constantly encourage them and we tell their families, please, please, please, to the extent possible, tell them just one more week. Take your time. We're here. We'll see you like we can talk. We're just outside the base. You need this.

 

00:19:11    JACK GAINES

Absolutely. I'm sure that the emotions and the trauma would cause all kinds of harm if they are not given time to recover and get their senses back. Absolutely. Yeah. And the last thing I wanted to bring up. is that your book expertly describes that fine line between public diplomacy and or French diplomacy, excuse me. I'm going to stick to the brand. And also not crossing the Logan Act. And I think a lot of people who have a desire for doing international relations or building a cause like this, they worry about the Logan Act because people hear, oh, this person. was working and the United States slapped him down for doing something that was crossing the Logan Act. What you describe, Spley, is that don't negotiate on behalf of the U .S. government and then form a contract. You negotiate and then you create an opportunity. You deliver to the United States and then they choose whether to order or not.

 

00:20:15    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, and that is correct. And of course, also, it's a non -for -profit. Families never pay us. We don't take donations from families or hostages, and certainly not from foreign governments.

 

00:20:25    JACK GAINES

Which builds constraints if you had done that. Yeah.

 

00:20:28    MICHEY BERGMAN

And we don't provide any material assistance to anybody. These are conversations in a way to do it. And there are times that we can bring people home like we did with Taylor Dudley from Russia, like we did with Danny Fenster from Myanmar. But most of the time, we do exactly what you said. Because we are not the government, because we don't have an authority or a mandate from the government, they can talk to us about policy. There's nothing we can do about it.

 

00:20:51    JACK GAINES

Right. But you probably relay those back with your discussions of the negotiation.

 

00:20:55    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah. But in the course of the conversation, they can't say, oh, we want this or that. It's irrelevant to raise it with us. Give that example. Let's say the Americans and the Russians decide, OK, let's meet together. Little group. We're going to only talk about our prisoners, Evan Gershowitz and Paul Willen and the Russians that are here. We'll just talk about that. And that group decides to meet together at the hotel. And they sit there before they even say one word to each other. The weight of the war in Ukraine, the weight of nuclear stability, the weight of world order and the fights that we have all around weighs on this. It makes it almost impossible for people with the authority of our policy from government to actually keep the issue of the prisoners insulated.

 

00:21:43    JACK GAINES

Because they have to protect all of those positions that the United States has set or Russia has set.

 

00:21:46    MICHEY BERGMAN

States has set or Russia has set. And their conversations basically devolve very quickly. But with us, because I'm not a formal diplomat, I can sit and a foreign diplomat official or unofficial can tell me all the shit that they think the U .S. is responsible for. If I were a diplomat, I would have to protest, stand up and walk away or say something. I don't. For me, it's actually a value because I hear the authentic narrative, venting, story that they tell themselves about how they see the world and how they see their role in it. It helps me. And I understand it. I don't justify it, but I understand it. And it goes over my head in terms of emotionally speaking. Then I can say, okay, well, that is very interesting. Thank you. You know, there's nothing I can do about that.

 

00:22:36    JACK GAINES

That's the tactical empathy.

 

00:22:37    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, but we can talk about the humanitarian. It's an issue that we can do. And then we were able to actually bounce back and forth ideas with them. They know, you know, I don't represent the US government here. I'm here. They have the families. But I can say, well, this, what you're suggesting here, I can take it to the White House. I'm not going to win. There's just no way they're going to do it. Let's talk about something else, something that for me, I can conceive a bit as feasible. It's never pretty, but it's feasible enough that I can go and try and convince the government to do it. It's not an easy task to convince the government to do any of these because, again, they have a complex set of interests. Again, it's not because they're bad. It's not because they don't want people back. They do. But it's really complicated. But I'm able to refine and define what a pathway to bring somebody home is. Then it will be our government's decision to whether to do it or not.

 

00:23:31    JACK GAINES

Great. Okay. Thank you.

 

00:23:33    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah. And don't forget to tell them to buy the book.

 

00:23:37    JACK GAINES

I'll tell them to buy the book. All right. Thank you, Mickey. You have a great day. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you.

 

Close

Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. I'll have the email and CA Association website in the show notes. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field. working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U .S. relations. Thank you all for what you're doing. This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes, 1CA Podcast.

 

187: Part I, Mickey Bergman on Diplomacy in the Shadows

Please welcome Mickey Bergman, lead author of the book "In The Shadows," where he discusses his experiences negotiating the release of hostages and people unlawfully imprisoned in some of the most restrictive places on Earth. 

In the book, Mickey takes the reader through his time working with Governor Bill Richardson and, after his death, transforms his legacy into the non-profit Global Reach, where he now brings in a community of people to continue the work. 

This is the first of a two-part episode. The second part will come out next week. 

Global Reach Website: https://www.reach.global/

Link to the book: https://www.amazon.com/Shadows-High-Stakes-Negotiations-Americans-Captured

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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail.com 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

---

Today's music is a tribute to James Chance, who passed away this week. The solo is from his album White Cannable. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/vUfcWDHMEQY?si=gPGLKe6_05aFSE24

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Transcript

00:00:01    Introduction

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes. Please welcome Mickey Bergman, lead author of the book In the Shadows, where he discusses his experiences negotiating the release of hostages and people unlawfully imprisoned in some of the most restrictive places on earth.

 

00:00:49    JACK GAINES

In the book, Mickey takes the reader through his time working with Governor Bill Richardson, and then after his death, transforming his legacy, into a nonprofit called Global Reach. This is the first of a two -part episode. The second part will air next week. Enjoy. I really appreciate you guys reaching out. I did finish the book. It was great. And in my perception of it, it kind of encapsulates the work and legacy of Governor Richardson and then that transformation that you had to do with his death into Global Reach. So it was kind of both a historical document. and continuing the work through the aggregate of other specialists in the field, and then continuing on with the mission. Is that similar? Am I right on your goals?

 

00:01:36    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, no, you're right. It's interesting because, look, I wrote the book. Obviously, the governor was alive, and he hasn't even read it because I was waiting until the manuscript was final in order to share it with him because the governor referred to him as Gov. He was like my six -year -old father. You know, father figure, but also juvenile as a six -year -old. And I knew for the first time in his life, somebody else was telling the stories and the role that he played and not him. And that's a great thing to have. And I think it comes out really, really well in the book, but I knew that he's going to nitpick and find something and give me hell for it. So I was really, really dreading. point. And so I wanted to give it to him when it's done, when I can't do anything about it. It's already published, boss. What can you say? But then he died. And I'm sad that he didn't get to read it. But after he died, I figured that I can't publish a book and not address his death. So basically, I wrote it in one day. I wrote this section to him and telling the story of how I found out and then touching on the first mission that we did after his death. And that's where Global Reach kind of came in. So it was not intentional in the design of the book, but out of circumstances, it was important to convey that this continues. And not only that, the mission to Venezuela, where the book ends with us going, the book does not cover the actual mission and the fact that 13 Americans came home in December, partially because of that mission. So I like that dynamic. At some point, you have to cut.

 

00:03:13    JACK GAINES

You have to because you're constantly on another mission. Correct.

 

00:03:16    MICHEY BERGMAN

Because they just continue to go.

 

00:03:18    JACK GAINES

Yeah. Reading that last portion, that was my perception is you were focused absolutely on a good ceremony and burial for the governor. But this Venezuela issue was on the back of your neck the whole time. And so to me, reading it, it felt like you were like, all right, the best way to appreciate this is after the ceremony. Get back to work and finish his mission, his goals, and then find a path forward from there.

 

00:03:43    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, and not only that, we had the trip to Venezuela was planned before he died. And we had a whole process. We knew exactly where the deal was stuck. We had an idea for it. We wanted also to make sure that the two Green Berets that were there in Venezuela, Luke Denman and Aaron Berry, are included in it because they were never designated. by the U .S. government as wrongfully detained, we were very worried that they would not be included. So we needed to get that commitment directly from the Venezuelan leadership to lock them into the deal. And we had that all set up to the extent that the day before the governor died, I actually shared with the families that were going. And then when I got the news the next day, and I was like, the first thing, of course, is the personal grief that you have. The second thing is, oh, shoot, he was my access over there. He had a relationship with Maduro. He had a relationship with Jorge Rodriguez. You know, I was like, oh my God. And it took about 24 hours to figure out, oh, he would love me to use his death for one last mission of rescue. In the WhatsApp group of the team and of the mission, we call that group the governor's last rescue.

 

00:04:56    JACK GAINES

Right. Wow. And that brings up an interesting point.

 

00:04:59    JACK GAINES

brings up an interesting point. And that is what in the tech community, they call the founder's curse. And that is the founder starts a movement or an organization and they are so entrenched in the details in the process that it's hard for them to separate the program from themselves. And often if that transformation doesn't happen, the legacy dies with the person. Almost sounds like he brought you in because he was considering his legacy and brought you into the fold and in the details to the point where he didn't predict his death. But he knew that by bringing some people like you and others in to understand the details and the nug work within the negotiations, he was sort of a life preserver to the mission versus passing away and the whole thing just goes flat.

 

00:05:45    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, well, it's funny because, look, in his mind, he was immoral. Yeah. Of course, like typically they are. And he had a huge personality and a huge presence. And I worked with him for 17 years. You know, he gave me compliments and then he would balance them with punches. That's typically his management style, which was a lot of fun, right? But towards, in the last couple of years, he had these little sessions with me that were just so uncharacteristic to him. We just like to say, Mickey, you're better than everybody else just because you don't have a government title. Don't you realize that you get it better than the high officials? So he was very encouraging from that perspective, but he never spoke to me about what happens after. That is a conversation that we had without him, with his board, not because we expected him to die. Obviously, he died too soon. There was no underlying disease there or something that was expected. It was a surprise, but his mortality was not a surprise. And so we had that conversation. And then with the board immediately after, with the board of directors of the organization, because you're right, it's not the first government organization that I worked with. I've seen the founders curse. I've seen what happened immediately after the founders death, not even stepping away and retiring, just death. There is so much emotions and nostalgia because the board is made of his friends. Right.

 

00:07:10    JACK GAINES

Or chaos because no one knows all of the different things that are going on in the process and they have to rediscover it. Yeah.

 

00:07:16    MICHEY BERGMAN

But emotionally, we were all, including myself, like, oh, my God, we have to create a legacy. We have to continue with this. And everybody's like, no, we'll step in. We'll make sure it happens. And I remember the day after his funeral, breakfast with the board. Just informal. It wasn't a board meeting. It was just breakfast. Just to debrief. And I told him, look, the governor and I actually had a conversation after Kofi Annan passed away. The Kofi Annan Foundation kept the name, and they wanted to keep this because they were. blown in with that kind of emotional response to it. But we talked about how it just feels like all they're doing right now is fundraising full time just to keep the lights on. But there's no substance left. And it's a miserable way for an organization to die out. And so I raised it with the board. I said, look, we can try. We can see if there's sustainability in it just for a couple of months to see where things settle. But I know that despite our very raw emotions right now, life continues. And life happens. And I do not want to spend all of our time just keeping the lights on because that's not what he would love. He wanted to find a way to keep the work going. So if we can't keep it as Richardson's center and there is a law of diminishing returns on the name, let me work and put a proposal in front of the board of what it looks like to do the different pieces of this legacy. One, of course, hostages and prisoners, which is a huge chunk. And that came out to be global reach. Another one was around the program we did with the Rohingyas and humanitarian work that we did. And that we basically have moved it, found a different home for it. It's going to continue at the Stimson Center instead of the Richardson Center with the funder that funded it is moving there with our guy, Steve Ross, who's the director of that program. So he's moving over there as well. And third, I wanted more of a name legacy piece. And that's when we established and announced the... The Bill Richardson Heart of a Patriot Award, which we hope will be known as the Billy. We're trying to make that stick. And that's going to be awarded every year at the Foley Foundation Gala. And the award is going to be given to former political and policy principals that, after leaving government, use their credentials and their gravitas to help bring Americans home.

 

00:09:35    JACK GAINES

Let's just make it stick. Let's just start calling it the Billy Awards. I like the Billy.

 

00:09:37    MICHEY BERGMAN

like the Billy. The Billies. The Oscars, we have the Billies.

 

00:09:43    JACK GAINES

Well, I apologize if I cut you off on your string, but that makes total sense. So how do you guys stay afloat? If it's something sensitive, I won't add it to the show. Oh, no,

 

00:09:52    MICHEY BERGMAN

no, no, absolutely. No, as you can tell, we're an open book. We love that. So we were lucky enough that during the pandemic, because there was just no commercial flights, but we still had hostages and we still needed to go there and get people out. And the governor has met an American businessman named Steve Menzies. He's an insurance guy out of Omaha. He runs a reinsurance company called Applied Underwriters. And he's done very well for himself financially. But he's one of those, you don't see him flying rockets to space. He's a quiet guy. He does his thing. And he and the governor got to this. He said, hey, you can use my jet for some of these missions, especially in places that you can't go commercially. Right. But I'm coming with you.

 

00:10:37    JACK GAINES

Of course, he wants the experience. He wants to feel a part of the cause. Yeah,

 

00:10:41    MICHEY BERGMAN

he came with us in the middle of the pandemic on a mission to Venezuela. Later on, he did a few other missions with us to Russia, including the return and recovery of the Taylor Dudley. That was a month after Brittany Griner came home and we went to Russia and got the former Navy guy, Taylor Dudley, out. That's the one where you're driving through Poland.

 

00:10:59    JACK GAINES

the one where you're driving through Poland. That is correct. And that was Steve's plane.

 

00:11:01    MICHEY BERGMAN

is correct. And that was Steve's plane. But it's not only his plane. At that point, he already started integrating his logistics skills into this and helping us really set this up. And so when the governor passed away, Steve and I sat together and he said, Mickey, we have to continue this, not only for the name of his legacy, but for the work that it is. And he says, but. I'm no Governor Richardson. I know that what he did with you was unique. So you tell me, Nicky, if you didn't have budget constraints, how would you build that and structure this in a post -Richardson world to be not only as good as what you did, but better? And so he gave me basically a blank check to put a structure together. And we looked at, A, the piece of what we did with the governor, which was this intergovernmental mediation and negotiations. And on that, I said, well, I'm going to run that part, but I'm not going to replace Governor Richardson with a single person because there isn't such one person.

 

00:11:58    JACK GAINES

Right. You did an aggregate.

 

00:12:00    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah. I wanted a bunch of people that we have worked with over the years, former diplomats, former politicians, Republicans, Democrats, business people. It doesn't matter the people who are actively in this and have the relationships. And just to have them to agree they're not going to get into the organization, they're not going to manage it or run it, but they agree that we can call on them if we need them to be a principal in a case. And that's something that to me, over the years of working with the governor, there were every now and then there would be an occasion in a location in which these relationships were not good. Sure. And there would be somebody else. So whether it's in terms of timing, like actually right now, it would be better to have a Republican do that, something like that, step into it. And I would suggest it to him. And he would say, no, it was the Richardson Center. Every now and then he would let me do that. But that was a little bit of a constraint. And I wanted to make sure that I don't set up an organization with similar constraints. And we're assembling that board. We have about six people on that board already on that advisory board. And they're fantastic. And it's like different elves and different walks of life and different political affiliation. And they're all like, we staff it. We put together the theory of return. We build up the thing. And then we call on them to actually be the face of it and bring their gravitas. And they're working on wood here. It's working up to now pretty well. So that's one Steve told me, actually. He said, but beyond what you did with Richardson, are there other capabilities? in our field that still don't exist outside of government. Because he says, I have the resources and I have the ability to do that. And that's when we realized, wait a minute, there's capabilities around investigative capabilities. There are research capabilities. It's not writing research papers.

 

00:13:45    JACK GAINES

Backgrounders on people you're going to be dealing with, culture, the relationships. Relationship,

 

00:13:49    MICHEY BERGMAN

Relationship, yeah. Relationship mapping,

 

00:13:50    JACK GAINES

yeah. Relationship mapping, absolutely. If we have a hostage,

 

00:13:52    MICHEY BERGMAN

we have a hostage, and I'll give you one example in which both of these came into play. There's a Princeton PhD student, Elizabeth Surkov, and she was kidnapped in Iraq in March of last year, so almost a year and a half ago. And at first, nobody knew where the hell she was. We knew that she was kidnapped, but we didn't know by who in Iraq. You never know which militia, which group. Yes, government, not government, Shia, Sunni, you never know. And everybody was trying to figure out how to do it. And Steve walked into this. And this is before Global Reach was actually established. Steve walks into it and said, wait a minute, I can buy the cell data of the exact area where she knows, the coffee place where we know she was kidnapped. And we knew that she had the emergency back surgery eight days before. So we knew the medicine that her captors will have to pick up in order to keep her healthy. Otherwise, she's not worth anything to them. And so he bought that data too. And then he shared that data with the FBI. Our own people analyze it. And we traced phones that were in the coffee place on the day that she was kidnapped and then phones that picked up that medicine. Right.

 

00:15:03    JACK GAINES

And so you could correlate between the different digital signals and triangulate the location. Absolutely. Exactly. And found her. I've never experienced that in my life.

 

00:15:07    MICHEY BERGMAN

triangulate the

 

00:15:10    MICHEY BERGMAN

experienced that in my life. Of course not. Never. Nobody. And we're able to find her. Not the exact house, but the village where she's being held. And again, our government has the capability to do it.

 

00:15:22    JACK GAINES

But the risk of going in with ground forces or CIA to actually work human and negotiate with people to find her location is way too risky for a government organization.

 

00:15:34    MICHEY BERGMAN

It's costly. There's a lot of red tape and we're able to move it like that. And so that's the investigative part that we never had before. Richardson, I would never have had that just because of resources. He would have loved it, but we didn't have the resources for this. And so that's something that added. And then in terms of once we realized where she's at, we started researching, we realized which militia has its headquarters over there. So at that point, we had a pretty good confidence of who has her. And once you know who has her, you're able to do different things in order to solicit a proof of life from them. And in November, you know, it took eight months of nobody hearing from her. In November, we got a video with a proof of life from her. And that allows us, I can't go into the details of what happened since because it's an ongoing case. She's still there and we're working really hard on it. But the point is that these are capabilities that we never had before outside of government. And we're not in competition with government. We actually collaborate because we're able to accelerate things. And trust me, there are people at the FBI extremely happy that somebody else is buying this stuff and giving it to them because then it's like we're giving them a bunch of toys. as well to look at. And there's results. And we all have the same exact intention is getting people back home. Sure. So that's kind of the birth of global reach. And so for the first time, it's not just the governor and me and the advisor. I actually have a team of executives. Right. I have Rob Saleh, who is the director of the hostage recovery infusion set at the FBI. I think I kind of dragged him out of retirement just to help us set it up. Would you take pictures with his kids at the ice cream store saying,

 

00:17:07    JACK GAINES

you take pictures with his kids at the ice cream store saying, hey, come on down and get a scoop and we'll talk about it.

 

00:17:12    MICHEY BERGMAN

He's a great guy and he's a good friend. And we worked together while he was in service. And so we were able to convince him to come in at least to help us set it up. I don't think he'll say he's set up for retirement. He's done. But he helps us set it up. And then until we find a permanent person to run it. So there is that kind of caliber. that we didn't have before. And one of the first decisions we made when we established Global Reach and Steve Menzies is the co -founder of it and the chairman and the CEO was to look at the other organizations in our field, namely the Foley Foundation and Hostage US. Each of them are unique and effective organizations, but they do things that we don't do. Advocates in government. They give a government report card every year. They change policies. They work with families in the general advocacy. Hostage US, they help families physically and with taxes, with social work, with therapists, a bunch of volunteers going and helping because these families need it while their loved ones in captivity and when they come back. And that's Hostage US. We don't do that. They do that and they're damn good at it. And so we looked at who is their biggest donor and each of these organizations and we matched that because we had the resources. So we became funders of them. And that's how you... create within an environment of non -for -profits the competition over resources, which prohibits you from collaborating even if you really need to, we completely dismantle that. So we're working extremely closely. The three large non -for -profit entities in this field are working extremely closely in supporting each other. So when I have a case, I immediately bring in Foley Foundation for the functions that they can serve for the families, and I immediately bring Hostage US for the part that they serve that we can't do.

 

00:18:54    JACK GAINES

And actually it saves from building those specific functions within global reach because then you're just competing with the same skills and people to do the job. So it makes sense that you would have built a network of networks that is an umbrella of all of the hostage support services that are out there.

 

00:19:11    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, and they're very good at it. All we do is provide them additional funding so they can be even better. And Nizar sits with the CSIS Commission. on wrongful detention and hostages. And again, it's another government commission. John Alterman is running it with Jason Rezaian, who's a former prisoner, and Robert O 'Brien, Donald Trump's former national security advisor. And it's a bunch of us. Nizar sits on that commission with me and with a lot of other leaders in this field. But that commission is looking at ways to recommend to the next administration, whoever that is. Get a report on how to do deterrence policies. What are the parameters of how to look at these kind of negotiations? And what are the best practices on this? And what are the things that can do better? Because we do know this is a national security crisis. Have you heard of hostage aid? Hostage aid worldwide. Yes, of course. Zalzaka is the head of it. And that organization is made of former hostages and volunteers. And their niche of what they're trying to get beyond the advocacy that they're doing, mainly online, they're trying to build data. Right.

 

00:20:16    JACK GAINES

And the thing is, by doing that, I think that the State Department's notices on travel advisories would be more effective. Because if they could put in there that there is a steady increase or there's a predicted increase of hostage taking in a country, American citizens will read that and say, well, now I know I've got to either stay in the hotel or not go.

 

00:20:37    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, it's true. I have to tell you, Americans, they don't... Look, I'll give you an example. But Turks and Caicos wanted to crack down on the fact that Americans were traveling into the island for some reason with ammunition, not with guns, not with arms, but with ammunition. Some of it was just careless, but it became a big issue politically in Turks and Caicos. And so all policy is domestic. And there was kind of a fight of who's going to be stronger on crime, on American crime of bringing ammunition into the island. So they put a law in that. A required sentence for anybody who's bringing ammunition into the island is 12 years. Right. And then they had to implement it. And before we knew it, there was a whole bunch of Americans who were detained and on trial on their shore way to have 12 years of imprisonment.

 

00:01:13    MICHEY BERGMAN

Turks and Caicos wanted to crack down on the fact that Americans were traveling into the island for some reason with ammunition. Not with guns, not with arms, but with ammunition. Some of it was just careless, but it became a big issue politically in Turks and Caicos. And so all policy is domestic. And there was kind of a fight that who's going to be stronger on crime, on American crime of bringing ammunition into the island. So they put a law in that a required sentence for anybody who's bringing ammunition into the island is 12 years. Right. And then they had to implement it. And before we knew it, there was a whole bunch of Americans who were detained. and on trial on their sure way to have 12 years of imprisonment. Now, it's not political imprisonment. It's not wrongful detention. These Americans violated. It's law enforcement, so it's not something that Global Reach does. But one of those incidents that did go to us was a young couple who went there on vacation, two kids back at home.

 

00:02:19    JACK GAINES

And a P9 submachine gun.

 

00:02:21    MICHEY BERGMAN

They flew from Oklahoma. On the way in, nobody noticed anything. On the way out... In the carry -on bag, they saw two of hunting rounds. And the husband said, oh, shit, I completely forgot he was there. It's for my hunting thing. So sorry. No, I don't use it. Yeah,

 

00:02:38    JACK GAINES

surrendered it at probably Visa or inspections.

 

00:02:40    MICHEY BERGMAN

inspections. But no, they took both of them into custody. Now, their kids are at home. Young kids. That got to my attention. I said, wait a minute. Look, I get it. He made a mistake. That's fine. That's a legal thing. They'll figure it out. They'll have lawyers. But why the hell did you detain the wife? It's not hers. It wasn't her bag. You have no right to do that. She needs to go back to her kids.

 

00:03:02    JACK GAINES

And he stated that it was his rounds. Correct. Yeah, he said. So she's indemnified. Yeah.

 

00:03:07    MICHEY BERGMAN

But it took time. And I actually have a good colleague of mine, John Franks, who also steps into this. And he works on this. He's a fantastic tactician, a very creative young guy.

 

00:03:16    JACK GAINES

Now it's not John Franks, the Star Trek guy. No.

 

00:03:19    MICHEY BERGMAN

And John Frank, yeah, I worked with him on political. I worked with him on Trevor Reed. I worked with him on Taylor Dudley. I worked with him on cases in Mexico. So he took that on because it was on the global reach. We actually brought us in to try and help him a little bit. And the first thing that we did when we researched it, when we do our due diligence, we looked at the State Department warning. You put State Department Turks and Caicos in it. You see red flags. All Americans, please notice. It's mandatory 12 years imprisonment for taking ammunition. Right. Please don't do it. Nobody's looking at that. Now, John Franks, I have to give him credit. He seems to be on the route to fixing the law and making exemptions on the law in terms of chaos. Again, he's a dog with a bone on this one. He's fantastic. It's not political detainment, but it is something that needed to be fixed. But it's a long story. Right.

 

00:04:10    JACK GAINES

There needs to be some form of amnesty as your entry to the nation.

 

00:04:13    MICHEY BERGMAN

It's a long way of answering a very short question you asked me that those. warnings from the State Department, unless we're able to work with the airlines, that when you book a flight, you get a notice and saying, yeah, we don't want to scare you from this, but here's information that you should know. Here are some of the things you need to be aware. Hey, you should register with the embassy just so there's a tracking. You should sign a Privacy Act waiver in case something happens. All these places that are high risk, that needs to happen. But that's putting the burden on the travelers. Part of what we do with CSIS Commission is actually looking at how do we put the burden on the governments that are in those places. And that's not more complicated, but doable.

 

00:04:57    JACK GAINES

It's kind of like when you fly into Sri Lanka and there's that big sign as you go up to visa passports that says, if you're carrying drugs, punishment's death.

 

00:05:05    JACK GAINES

Yeah. And I'm sure that's a fantastic deterrent.

 

00:05:09    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah. You know, it's another problem that we're facing. When I'm telling these stories, it's not to ridicule the people who do it and, oh, they're careless and stuff like that. People are people and they make mistakes. It's just that sometimes there's no recourse in these mistakes. But there's a lot of former American military people. So these are servicemen, people who serve our country. And they serve in the Middle East and in places like Kuwait is one of the examples.

 

00:05:31    JACK GAINES

Right. So they're used to traveling internationally armed. Correct. But they're also used to having the protections of the U .S.

 

00:05:34    MICHEY BERGMAN

they're also used to having the protections of the U .S. uniform. and then leave their service. And some of them go back into contracting, private security, stuff like that. And they forget that the same protections don't apply anymore. And so sometimes in places, look, Kuwait is very clear in its laws. Bringing drugs into Kuwait or having drugs in Kuwait is a major, major crime punishable by life in prison or death. And we have a whole chunk. of American former military people in prison in Kuwait for life and some of them on death sentence because of some drugs. And for the Kuwaitis, we're thinking about it, well, you know, it's just like pot, let them go. But for the Kuwaitis, it's not like you're being disrespectful of our laws. So we need to make an example out of it. But there was a time when we had 15 of those during the pandemic. And there's a lot of articles written and some of them have come home. It's been worked diligently, but we have an American. There was no drugs on him. He actually, we believe, never did anything wrong there, but he was by association wrapped in with a group of them. A guy named Tony Holden, he needs to come home. He has a family here at home. He actually didn't do the crime.

 

00:06:50    JACK GAINES

Well, in some countries, your association and behavior being next to the criminal act is just as important. If you're offensive or you're rude or if you're aggressive towards the police or... not cooperative in the judicial system, they'll be like, you know what? You need to have a day in jail.

 

00:07:06    MICHEY BERGMAN

Well, you're lucky if it's a day because then you rack up charges very quickly.

 

00:07:11    JACK GAINES

Right. It's difficult. And that gets into a very key point that you bring up, and that is what you call fringe diplomacy or diplomatic advocacy or citizen advocacy. Yeah. And what I call cocktail diplomacy because working around D .C., having drinks with people on the hill or from the house. Oh, you're giving us a bad rap.

 

00:07:34    MICHEY BERGMAN

you're giving us a bad rap. Cocktail diplomacy. That's what I call myself, a cocktail diplomat. What do you mean?

 

00:07:40    JACK GAINES

cocktail diplomat.

 

00:07:40    MICHEY BERGMAN

What do you mean? No, I know. It's great. But then you think about it when you go to North Korea or you go to Russia, there's no cocktails in it. Yeah. Even if somebody gives you a cocktail, you don't drink it.

 

00:07:50    JACK GAINES

That's true. All right. That might be true. But when I was working with some issues in Myanmar, I don't want to get into any country. Because I know your relationships with these countries is critical, and I don't want to smirch them or have them taint their relationship with you through these comments. I appreciate that. I was trying to help with peace negotiations and a resolution to the conflict between the rebels and the military government. And that's where I came up with the idea of cocktail diplomacy.

 

00:08:02    MICHEY BERGMAN

I don't

 

00:08:08    MICHEY BERGMAN

I appreciate that.

 

00:08:18    JACK GAINES

where I came up with the idea of cocktail diplomacy. And then when Ukraine cleared up, I was using it in civil affairs to assess. what the post -conflict reconstruction will look like.

 

00:08:30    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, these are so critical. And I don't think people realize how critical they are. Because at the end of the day, the government and the formal relationships are important. Obviously, they say national interest, the policy and all of that. But at the end of the day, we're looking at the scale of communities that are not only one community. I mean, Ukraine is not one country. There's different communities, different regions, different sections of Ukraine. They will need different things. They will have different visions for themselves. those communities, what it is that they want. And the governments are typically not nuanced enough to be able to do that. And one of the biggest traps that we always have, the people in the world, they can very quickly be angry with U .S. policy. But they like the way the U .S. does business. And so our ability and the part of fringe diplomacy that I don't write about in the book, but it is a huge part of fringe, is the engagement level. is when we go to these countries, to these places, whether they're in conflict or post -conflict, or they might be in a pre -conflict thing and we identify and we want to mitigate that. And we go not to the president of the country or to the prime minister of the country. We actually go to the local community, whether it's local government or whether it's the local community organizations. And we say, what is your vision and your priorities for your own community? And then we try to curate groups that can respond to that. Not by, oh, yeah, here we are, Americans. We tell you how to do things. We don't do that. We never do that. No, but as a way of saying, hey, these are people in this field. You're just peer -to -peer sharing stories, creating relationships, knowing that when you build those relationships, good things will come out of it. And we've done this kind of work in Cuba. We've done this kind of work in Lebanon. We've done this kind of work in Myanmar for years. I know we don't want to go into all the details, but one of the reasons why we were able to help get Danny Fenster out of jail in Myanmar and I'm all out of Myanmar and a couple others was because of the years that we have done this type of work in Myanmar of bringing investment delegations and social entrepreneurs and trainers and things. And I was there 11 times. before Danny Fenster was even taken. And this is the part of the engagement and relationships because when you have a crisis, it's really hard to go cold into somebody you never know and build trust. That trust and that familiarity gets built before or at the time when they really need you, which is one of the things, I digress a little bit here, but one of the things that is really painful to me now is the Cuban people. are going now through one of the hardest periods in their history. They had the special period back when the Soviet Union fell. This is harsher for them than that. And as their neighbors, we should find a way to be there for them right now. But because of policy or lack of bandwidth in policy in the U .S., we're ignoring this. On the positive side, it's a historic opportunity. for us to be a good neighbor, regardless to whether we agree with the structure of government and the people in government, that's irrelevant to that. It's people to people. As people to people, we can be really, really good friends to the Cubans right now. That will buy us so much goodwill, and then we can solve all of our political problems later. And the negative side of it is that they're going to survive this because they're Cubans. They figure out how to survive really bad periods, and we were the ones that were not there for them.

 

00:12:03    JACK GAINES

And that's what it's all about, right? What you talk about here with fringe diplomacy and tactical empathy are the building blocks. And we've had people on here that study and talk about that a lot, building the first layer of a relationship, which is that contractual relationship where you learn trust through the give and take of services. And then it goes into building that second layer that you've been describing. And that is that personal relationship you have. with those people on ground in those partner nations. And it's through that speed dial contacts and past experiences of trust that allow you access back into these countries so that you can do things. Correct. Yeah, and it's that. And a second point you brought up, that is self -actualization. You talk about realizing that you don't need to hide behind a banner of an organization the government in order to get things done. Yes. I just finished an interview with Scott Mann, who is an ex -Green Beret. He goes on TED. He's got a film called Last Man Out. And he promotes veterans recovery after coming out of their service because he finds that there's a lot of depression and suicide. And his biggest argument, and I think this is something you're talking about, is having a cause, being something you're tied to that's important. that you can throw your mind, your body, your interest into so that you are achieving something that's greater than your own. We're all cause addicts. It's a new term I'm building. I like that. Cause addiction. Yeah. We're going to make that stick. That's in the belly. Yeah. And just like anything that when someone is over vested in an emotional tie that gives them pleasure, without it. they become depressed, they become listless, and they're lost until they find that new thing that refills that space. By your discussion on self -actualization, it gives other people strength to strike out on their own and pursue those causes that they thought formerly were only the purview of the government.

 

00:14:13    MICHEY BERGMAN

Every time I would take these delegations, these fringe missions, let's do Cuba, for example. I would brief with the people. Typically, it's not big groups. It's like between 13 and 20. We don't do too big. We go for about a week. And when we get together, before we depart, I do this little thing with them. I say, guys, here's the thing. You need to understand. You're not going as observers of history. This is not about you going to observe Cuba. This is you as active participants in history. Every single meeting, every single conversation we have over there is a building block. You have to realize that that's the case. And then I do this silly analogy that hopefully will not be canceled on air here. But I say it's like when you're in college and a group of your friends decide to play a game of strip poker. Nobody gets to just say, oh, I'm going to be in the room as an observer. You're either out of the room or you're an active participant. And we need to figure out that that's not a choice we have. That's the reality. So when we travel, when we talk, every single conversation like that is a certain building block. We never know how and if it will play out in the future. But we have to own the fact that we're active participants in these relationships and in the way that our world is developing. And that's what I encourage. And when you realize that that's the case, start realizing how much impact individuals can have without a title, without an affiliation or a government position. I've never served in government. I don't think any government will ever take me. But I've never served in government. And I'm able to do things because of that. And I think it's not unique to me. It's not like, oh, yeah, I figured out something. It's all of us. It's all of us. And on your term, you know, it's true. It resonated with me when you said it because also I lived with a lot of returning hostages and political prisoners. When they're in the situation, it becomes their identity. It's who they are, especially if they're there for years. And when they come back and they're heroes for a while and they do their special on CNN and everybody's applauding them justfully, like they just survived the whole ordeal. And guess what happens after a week?

 

00:16:23    JACK GAINES

They go into depression because it all quiets down.

 

00:16:25    MICHEY BERGMAN

America moves on. Yeah. And suddenly they look at themselves and they say, well, who am I? Who am I? And that's when their brains, our brains, they trick on us. And we get into spirals. And some of them, it's not uncommon for returned hostages or political prisoners to find themselves at risk again very quickly after returning. And it's because they're people who want to get into risk. It's because their brains are playing tricks on them and they're not dealing with it from that perspective. And that has occurred and reoccurred, which is one of the things why at least the U .S. government has a reintegration program. That every time we have a family comes home, we beg the family to use that program to the extent until they throw them out of that program. Because think about it. You come back after five years from Iran. Never had a choice. In five years, couldn't make a choice. A single choice. Never was given a choice. What to eat, what not to do. When to sleep. None of it is a choice. Suddenly, they come back and everything is a choice.

 

00:17:31    JACK GAINES

That's overwhelming.

 

00:17:32    MICHEY BERGMAN

And as an example, you say, hey, Don't ask them what they want to eat for dinner. You ask them, do you want chicken or do you want pasta? You give them two options because they can't cope with overwhelming opportunities. You need to kind of ease them into it. And this is just a silly example, but it's real. And so when people come back because of that, it's kind of like I took it a little bit away from your term, but it is almost like you need to go.

 

00:17:59    JACK GAINES

Deprogramming.

 

00:18:00    MICHEY BERGMAN

Deprogramming. of taking away that addiction that you just had as a part of your personality because that was your experience for so long. It's overwhelming and deconstruct it so you can build yourself back again as a free person.

 

00:18:14    JACK GAINES

Does that program include counseling for like post -traumatic stress?

 

00:18:18    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yes. It's actually, it's a DOD program originally, I believe. It's called PAISA and it happens mainly in Texas, but sometimes they do it in other places. I think it was designed for turned POWs. So it's with therapy and it's with a lot of debriefings, that integration. Of course, in recent years, we don't have many POWs. We do have hostages. We do have political prisoners. So the government adapted it. And so now DOD is sharing it with the Department of State. And so when people come back, they go through that program. You can opt out of it if you're a prisoner. Nobody can force you into it. And some of them are so eager to just spend time with their families and be free of all of this. And we constantly encourage them and we tell their families, please, please, please, to the extent possible, tell them just one more week. Take your time. We're here. We'll see you like we can talk. We're just outside the base. You need this.

 

00:19:11    JACK GAINES

Absolutely. I'm sure that the emotions and the trauma would cause all kinds of harm if they are not given time to recover and get their senses back. Absolutely. Yeah. And the last thing I wanted to bring up. is that your book expertly describes that fine line between public diplomacy and or French diplomacy, excuse me. I'm going to stick to the brand. And also not crossing the Logan Act. And I think a lot of people who have a desire for doing international relations or building a cause like this, they worry about the Logan Act because people hear, oh, this person. was working and the United States slapped him down for doing something that was crossing the Logan Act. What you describe, Spley, is that don't negotiate on behalf of the U .S. government and then form a contract. You negotiate and then you create an opportunity. You deliver to the United States and then they choose whether to order or not.

 

00:20:15    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, and that is correct. And of course, also, it's a non -for -profit. Families never pay us. We don't take donations from families or hostages, and certainly not from foreign governments.

 

00:20:25    JACK GAINES

Which builds constraints if you had done that. Yeah.

 

00:20:28    MICHEY BERGMAN

And we don't provide any material assistance to anybody. These are conversations in a way to do it. And there are times that we can bring people home like we did with Taylor Dudley from Russia, like we did with Danny Fenster from Myanmar. But most of the time, we do exactly what you said. Because we are not the government, because we don't have an authority or a mandate from the government, they can talk to us about policy. There's nothing we can do about it.

 

00:20:51    JACK GAINES

Right. But you probably relay those back with your discussions of the negotiation.

 

00:20:55    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah. But in the course of the conversation, they can't say, oh, we want this or that. It's irrelevant to raise it with us. Give that example. Let's say the Americans and the Russians decide, OK, let's meet together. Little group. We're going to only talk about our prisoners, Evan Gershowitz and Paul Willen and the Russians that are here. We'll just talk about that. And that group decides to meet together at the hotel. And they sit there before they even say one word to each other. The weight of the war in Ukraine, the weight of nuclear stability, the weight of world order and the fights that we have all around weighs on this. It makes it almost impossible for people with the authority of our policy from government to actually keep the issue of the prisoners insulated.

 

00:21:43    JACK GAINES

Because they have to protect all of those positions that the United States has set or Russia has set.

 

00:21:46    MICHEY BERGMAN

States has set or Russia has set. And their conversations basically devolve very quickly. But with us, because I'm not a formal diplomat, I can sit and a foreign diplomat official or unofficial can tell me all the shit that they think the U .S. is responsible for. If I were a diplomat, I would have to protest, stand up and walk away or say something. I don't. For me, it's actually a value because I hear the authentic narrative, venting, story that they tell themselves about how they see the world and how they see their role in it. It helps me. And I understand it. I don't justify it, but I understand it. And it goes over my head in terms of emotionally speaking. Then I can say, okay, well, that is very interesting. Thank you. You know, there's nothing I can do about that.

 

00:22:36    JACK GAINES

That's the tactical empathy.

 

00:22:37    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, but we can talk about the humanitarian. It's an issue that we can do. And then we were able to actually bounce back and forth ideas with them. They know, you know, I don't represent the US government here. I'm here. They have the families. But I can say, well, this, what you're suggesting here, I can take it to the White House. I'm not going to win. There's just no way they're going to do it. Let's talk about something else, something that for me, I can conceive a bit as feasible. It's never pretty, but it's feasible enough that I can go and try and convince the government to do it. It's not an easy task to convince the government to do any of these because, again, they have a complex set of interests. Again, it's not because they're bad. It's not because they don't want people back. They do. But it's really complicated. But I'm able to refine and define what a pathway to bring somebody home is. Then it will be our government's decision to whether to do it or not.

 

00:23:31    JACK GAINES

Great. Okay. Thank you.

 

00:23:33    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah. And don't forget to tell them to buy the book.

 

00:23:37    JACK GAINES

I'll tell them to buy the book. All right. Thank you, Mickey. You have a great day. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you.

 

Close

Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. I'll have the email and CA Association website in the show notes. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field. working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U .S. relations. Thank you all for what you're doing. This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes, 1CA Podcast.

 

186: Major Gustavo Ferreira testifies at the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission.

Today, we welcome back Major Gustavo Ferreira, a Civil Affairs agriculturalist.
 
Gus originally came on episode 123 to discuss agriculture's impacts on foreign policy. 

Gus has published two articles, 
"Does China Have Enough Food to Go to War?" and 
"Taiwan's Food Resiliency—or Not—in a Conflict with China."

After publishing, Gus was interviewed on this show, which resulted in an interview with the Economist, a session at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 

and now resulting in a congressional testimony with the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission.
 
Gus was joined by two others but for this episode, I will only focus on his testimony and discussion with the commission. I'll include links for the full testimony and papers in the show notes. 

----

One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail.com 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

---

Links: Commission link: https://www.uscc.gov/hearings/chinas-stockpiling-and-mobilization-measures-competition-and-conflict

Does China Have Enough Food to Go to War? https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/PDF-UA-docs/Ferreira-UA.pdf

Taiwan's Food Resiliency—or Not—in a Conflict with China
https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol53/iss2/10/

 

Special Thanks to Joyful Jamboree · CM BGM Room Bossa Nova In The Café ℗ Cloud Media Released on: 2023-05-16 Producer: CM BGM Room Composer: CM BGM Room Music Publisher: CM BGM Room. 

Retrieved from https://youtube.com/watch?v=YCTzOnKNaSQ&si=v2hajnhu77yw3FzU

---

Transcript

00:00:02    Introduction

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. Or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes.

 

00:00:38    House Chair

We'll begin with Dr. Gustavo Ferreira, Senior Agricultural Economist with USDA and a Civil Affairs Ag Officer in the U .S. Army Reserve.

 

00:00:46    Introduction

Today we welcome back Major Gustavo Ferreira, a Civil Affairs Agriculturalist. Gus originally came on Episode 123 to discuss agriculture's impacts on foreign policy. Gus had published two articles, Does China Have Enough Food to Go to War and Taiwan's Food Resiliency or Not in a Conflict with China. After publishing, Gus was interviewed on this show, which resulted in an interview with The Economist and a session at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and is now resulting in a congressional testimony with the U .S. Economic and Security Review Commission. Gus was joined by two others. But for this episode, I will only focus on his testimony and the discussion with the commission. I'll include links in the show notes for the full testimony and papers. Enjoy.

 

00:01:37    House Chair

Dr. Ferreira will assess China's dependence on foreign agriculture. Next, we're happy to welcome back Dave Collins, Baker Botts Fellow in Energy and Environmental Regulatory Affairs at Rice University's Baker Institute. Mr. Collins will assess Beijing's strategic energy reserves. Finally, we'll hear from Dr. Zoe Liu, our Greenberg Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Liu will detail China efforts and sanctions prove it to come. Thanks again to all the witnesses for your testimony. The Commissioners are very much looking forward to your remarks. I'll remind all the witnesses to please limit their remarks to seven minutes. And Dr. Ferreira, we'll begin with you.

 

00:02:16    GUSTAVO FERREIRA

Thank you. Good morning. Commissioners and staff, thank you very much for inviting me to this hearing. Please note that I'm not here today on behalf of the U .S. Department of Agriculture or the Department of Defense, and I'm speaking only for myself. My testimony discussed the intersect between food security and national security in the People's Republic of China, and specifically focused on grains. This issue is of the highest importance for the PRC's government, and therefore, it should warrant our attention here in the United States. For millennia, the ruling class in this country has been extremely sensitive about ensuring food security for its population, gives the precedence of famines and food crises that trigger political instability and regime collapse. While the PRC is the largest food producer in the world and has made remarkable progress in the food security space, the country also faces growing challenges to feed its population of 1 .4 billion people. Furthermore, recent events such as the African swine fever outbreaks or the war in Ukraine revealed fragilities in the PRC food system. One must understand that the term food security translates literally to grain security in the Chinese language. Not surprisingly, the nation established self -sufficient targets at 95 % or higher for rice, corn, and wheat. Despite early successes, self -sufficiency rates for some food products fell below those targets. And in early 2000s, BRC's imports of grains and oilseeds began to soar to unprecedented levels. The country is now the world's largest buy of key agricultural commodities. As an illustrated example, in the year 2000, the PRC combined imports of corn, wheat, rice, and soybeans were just above 10 million metric tons. Fast forward to 2023, and those same imports surged to 140 million metric tons. This 1 ,200 % increase was mostly driven by soybeans. as the PRC now accounts for about 60 % of the world's soybean imports, mostly supplied by the United States and Brazil. Early on, the United States was the PRC's top soybean supplier, but in the past 15 years, Brazil gradually claimed that title. As a response to this growing import dependency, General Secretary Xi Jinping made food security a national priority, and under its leadership, the PRC is now employing a multi -pronged approach to tackle this issue. Some of the main policies that I would like to highlight here include significant increases in public investment in agricultural research and development, the goal of boosting agricultural production and the domestic seed industry. Another one is the diversification of the PRC pool of agricultural suppliers to mitigate geopolitical risk for the United States. Also, a notice of expansion grain stockpiles, but these are a state secret. Therefore, outsiders can only speculate about their location, true size, and quality. Nevertheless, official communications state that the PRC has built nearly 700 metric tons of grain storage capacity. Furthermore, USDA data provide evidence that the PRC has amassed very large commodity stockpiles. As an example, in 2023, the PRC alone accounted for 67 % of the world's corn stocks and nearly 60 % of the world's rice stocks. Another important note here has to do with the question of how long this strategic research will last. in the event of a conflict or major disruptions to trade. Evidence seems to indicate that the PRC has somewhere between one to two years' worth of stocks. However, there are also questions about the conditions of those stockpiles, given the complexities and the difficulties associated with maintaining the quality of so much grain over time. Despite its efforts to improve its food security status, the PRC faces significant challenges in the future, and I would like to highlight a few. First, the loss and shortage of farmland due to rapid urbanization, widespread pollution, and uses of land for other non -agriculture purposes. Second, climate change and its impacts on agriculture production, not only in the PRC, also in Maine's supply in nations. Third, decreased availability of agricultural labor, which constrained ongoing efforts to expand domestic agriculture production. And the last one, water scarcity. The United Nations assessed that the PRC is now facing extreme water shortages due to growing demands for the agricultural sector, rapid urbanization, and pervasive pollution of water sources. Climate change will only worsen water shortage in the PRC. The bottom line is that it is very difficult for outsiders to discern whether the PRC's actions to improve its food security are just a government reaction to this structural challenge or another step in the preparation for conflict. Nevertheless, U .S. observers should attempt to identify and monitor developments in the PRC's food and agriculture space, especially those that deviate from normal market signals that could be part of a large political capitalist. An example of such an indicator would be the noticeable surge in soybean and soybean imports in the context of very low profit margins with Chinese hog farms or decreasing domestic demand for pork meat. Our main policy recommendation focuses on improving our ability to better assess the true food security situation in the PRC. To achieve that, I propose a close collaboration between non -Title 10 and 50 federal agencies that have expertise in agriculture and trade and the intelligence community, which will collect new information and data related to PRC's food security space. Such cooperation could yield important wins, such as identification of early food -related indicators that may signal potential preparation for conflict. Lastly, if the United States is to effectively leverage the PRC dependency of food imports as part of a broader economic statecraft, it will need to work closely with other global agriculture powerhouses such as Brazil, Argentina, Australia, or Ukraine. This will involve strengthening our economic and diplomatic ties with these nations. perhaps even beginning to design compensation mechanisms that will incentivize nations to use agricultural trade to pressure the PRC in the event of a conflict.

 

00:08:21    House Chair

Thank you, Dr. Ferreira. Going in, reverse alphabetical order. Start with Mr. Wessel. One benefit of having a last name starting with a W on this commission. Thank you all for being here. If I could get a fairly quick answer to my first question, because I have some others, but... As we look at the potential lessons from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I think it surprised a lot of people as to the duration or the durability of the conflict. Have you seen an acceleration of stockpiling and other activities resulting from the duration of that, meaning that they think that the ability to sustain sanctions, or that a conflict could be of greater duration that they have to plan for more stockpiles. Thank you for your great question.

 

00:09:09    GUSTAVO FERREIRA

The conflict in Ukraine brought agriculture issues front and center, specifically strategic importance of grains and oil seeds. And he caught China right in the middle of an effort to expand his pool of suppliers. Ukraine was regarded as a key actor in their strategy. So that threw a kink in that plan. But what he did, he did alter the course in terms of stockpiling and increasing food self -revisation in the food space. I think he just accelerated. He really alerted the Chinese authorities about the perils of food supply chains, especially in an environment where some commodities are literally in the hands of two or three producers globally. And it takes one to be knocked out of the system to bring a lot of... external shocks to the markets. So, yeah, so I'll say it just confirmed the course and the need for the certain policies that are in place. Okay.

 

00:10:09    House Chair

Do you have any, is there any current reporting that you're aware of that would indicate sufficient capabilities to execute on a Taiwan contingency, or do we not know? For the food security space,

 

00:10:23    GUSTAVO FERREIRA

the Achilles heel, The PRC truly is the dependency on imported oil seeds. The thing is, in terms of how the PRC government is approaching this, first, it had to be acknowledged that we don't know the size of their stockpiles. As I stated before, it's a state secret. But even from conversations with colleagues, even the central government, Albert does not even know the true size of those stockpiles. I mean, they're massive. They're scattered across the provinces. There's issues with data, accuracy of data, reliability of some provisional data. So in terms of how to address this issue, the PRC knows there's no quick solution to it. And actually, the way they address it is eating the elephant one bite at a time. But none of those solutions will ever fix the issue. And I'll give you an example. So South America itself produces enough soybeans to supply the animal needs of China. However, that will put them on a very precarious situation because they will literally depend on the weather and crop conditions. One of the lessons from Russia's invasion of Ukraine,

 

00:11:42    SPEAKER_03

lessons from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I think it surprised a lot of people as to the duration or the durability of the conflict.

 

00:11:53    SPEAKER_03

Either of the first two witnesses seen an acceleration of stockpiling and other activities resulting from the duration of that, meaning that they think that the ability to sustain sanctions or that a conflict could be of greater duration, that they have to plan for more stockpiles. Mr. Ferrer, can you start?

 

00:12:17    GUSTAVO FERREIRA

Sure. In the agriculture space, I think... Remaining a reliable and affordable supplier of food products to the PRC is probably the best tourist that we can design. We are intrinsically connected by this massive trade. And a conflict with the PRC will obviously result in the loss of that market and will have significant structural shocks into our agricultural sector. Now, if we want to be proactive and prepare ourselves and lean forward. We'll have to start designing policies of what to do with those surplus. We already started to diversify our exports to markets away from the PRC. And we've been fairly successful in finding a new buyer for our products. But it's something that we have to be forward -thinking about if that scenario materializes so our farmers and rural communities are now completely off guard.

 

00:13:13    SPEAKER_03

Thank you. Mr. Cockett, let me ask Gustavo. So as I was listening to both of you talk about the end product, I was trying to think about the inputs and the things that we need and require to maintain the industries that you were talking about. So in the agricultural industry, we obviously need seed fertilizer and a variety of other things to maintain that market and produce those goods. Who owns the supply chain? Or how should we think about that with respect to China and then our own strengths and weaknesses?

 

00:13:41    GUSTAVO FERREIRA

Thank you, Commissioner King. Excellent question. When it comes to food and agriculture, really... It's a tale of two markets. So when it comes to inputs, the U .S. has a clear dominance in seeds. This is something that PRC is very aware of. They're well behind the technology level that feed producers have both in the U .S., Brazil, Europe. So that's something they're really investing very heavily in focus to try to close that gap, sometimes through sheer research, but sometimes through illicit methods. such as stealing seeds from other countries. But on the flip side, we do depend, we have depended on key agricultural fertilizers from PRC. And during the Ukraine war, both Russia and China began to curb their exports of those key agricultural inputs to the U .S. and other countries. The way it usually works with agricultural markets or any other market. It will take some time for us to find alternative suppliers. And we did that. We engaged with Canada and other key partners that are now filling up the gap left by those two nations. So yeah, so there's a story that both nations depend from each other for different types of inputs.

 

00:14:56    SPEAKER_03

Mr. Albert.

 

00:14:58    SPEAKER_04

Is it the consensus of this panel that China is effectively preparing for war at this point? I know that a number of you have talked about different signs that... would support that thesis. But on a first principles level, does everyone on this panel agree that China's preparing for war?

 

00:15:15    GUSTAVO FERREIRA

When it comes to food security, China's been doing this for thousands of years. They've been building stockpiles, different emperors, have that policy in place to prevent famine. So no change that. But China has a legitimate interest of becoming food secure, like we are. A very well -served country when it comes to natural endowments and food and food availability. So I think that is a legitimate aspiration by PRC. It's not just food.

 

00:15:43    SPEAKER_04

food. It's energy. It's currency. It's basically every area. The technology supply chain. I mean, it goes well beyond just food, does it not?

 

00:15:51    GUSTAVO FERREIRA

Yeah. It's part of a broader resiliency effort. And I think food is one piece of it. From my angle, from my foxhole, it's hard to distinguish. Is this a preparation for conflict or is this a legitimate effort to become more resilient, more resilient to food shocks and to climate change? So we have to be a little bit careful. At least, again, on the food security space, we've got to be a little bit careful to distinguish those two lanes.

 

00:16:20    SPEAKER_04

Just because we're a little bit over time, I have one last question. So on this topic of China pursuing resilience, is it fair to say that China is effectively pursuing a policy? of decoupling from the United States? And are they farther along that path of decoupling than we are from them?

 

00:16:41    GUSTAVO FERREIRA

I think the two nations are decoupling at the same similar pace. They both are trying to find alternative markets in terms of suppliers. But I think we're going to reach a point, a threshold where that decoupling is going to stop because there's no other ways around. And we still are connected by trade. And just remember... The PRC are very opportunistic food buyers, and sometimes prices will trump even national security. They're known for that. So I think that decoupling is going to hit a wall when it comes to food security. Mr. Friedberg.

 

00:17:15    SPEAKER_03

Okay, thank you. Dr. Liu, could I see if I can summarize what I understood you to say? China may have been interested and may still be interested eventually in having renminbiage used as a reserve currency. They talked about it back around the time of the global financial crisis. They seem to have given up on that idea, at least for the time being, for reasons you suggest. And they've focused on trying to find ways in which their currency can be used to settle international trade. Secondly, the extent to which they're able to do that seems to be quite limited. And Commissioner Miller asked how much of global trade could be eventually conducted in RMB. It seems like they're limited, at least for now. to a kind of a block of countries which are under sanction by the United States and its allies. And so that's a pretty small portion of China's overall trade that might be insulated from the ability of the United States to impose sanctions. Is that correct?

 

00:18:12    GUSTAVO FERREIRA

May I just add a second? When it comes to food security, I believe this is an area where the PRC knows. that they're not fully ready to go. And both government and academic communities are brutally honest about it. This is one area they do a miracle, but they realize their shortcomings. So I think the question that remains open is whether modern China and the middle class will be willing to endure a hyperinflation in the food sector or worst case scenario, food rationing. This has been quite a time since the Great Famine. So this is a whole generation that it's... dyingly slowly that experience those hardships. And we don't know if this generation, how they will react to such scenarios. Thank you.

 

00:18:58    SPEAKER_03

Thank you.

 

00:18:59    GUSTAVO FERREIRA

Thank you. Last but not least,

 

00:19:01    SPEAKER_03

Chair Cleveland.

 

00:19:02    SPEAKER_01

So I want to pull a little bit on this and maybe challenge what Mr. Friedberg was saying. Mr. Forer, you mentioned that you thought that one way that China might consider the potential food scarcity issues.

 

00:19:15    SPEAKER_01

the potential food scarcity issues. Water scarcity and pollution and a number of other issues that are affecting access to food would be to work with Brazil and Argentina to pressure them to cooperate with us. At this very moment, China is renegotiating the giant debt that they hold of Argentina. So I'm curious how these two issues are fused, because it seems to me we are paying attention to global trends. But on a transactional basis, China may be asserting a leverage within our backyard in Argentina. And that debt is not only substantial, the country is teetering as a result. There are also national security implications in terms of facilities that are in Argentina. So pull together for us how Argentina might be a case study of moving beyond what Dr. Friedberg described as. countries that are aligned in sanctions because Argentina is not under any sanction. It just has a lot of debt and poor economic management policies.

 

00:20:25    GUSTAVO FERREIRA

Great question, Chair Cleveland. It's something I've been trying to bring up to policymakers' attention that when it comes to agriculture trade, this is not a bilateral issue. It does involve other key players. And in order for us to be effective in place on our side, we're at least to have a neutral posture where they follow rural law, international diplomacy. It's not a coincidence that as soon as President Lula won the election, the PRC sent immediately a high -level delegation to Brasilia. It's not a coincidence that the PRC just lifted restrictions of GMO corn imports for Argentina. Those are all very much part of a concerted effort to expand those relationships with those countries. Without jumping to the classified space, At this time, PRC controls substantial sections of the agricultural supply chain in Brazil. They've been making very large investments. It's all part of it. And again, there's so much we can do. I mean, this is our market -driven as well. So there's so much we can influence. But definitely, we need to be aware. We need to really strengthen our relationships with our two southern neighbors. Thank you.

 

00:21:37    SPEAKER_03

Thank you. All right. Well, thank you very much for your time today. We are on a one -hour break and we'll reconvene for our third panel at 1 .50.

 

00:21:45    SPEAKER_00

Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. I'll have the email and CA Association website in the show notes. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field, working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U .S. relations. Thank you all for what you're doing. This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes. 1CA Podcast.