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00:00You have any regrets about your decision to actually become secretary of defense. I would tell you that if you're enjoying life and it's shortly after an election and the phone rings don't answer the phone obviously. What do you think are the most important security issues in terms of urgency. It would be North Korea in terms of power. It would be Russia and in terms of political will. That would be China. Have you ever thought of running for office maybe President United States yourself . You're a very bad man. Would you fix your time please. People wouldn't recognize me if my tie was fixed but it just seemed to sweet. All right . I don't consider myself a journalist and nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an interviewer even though I have a day job running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership. What is it that makes somebody tick . Mad Dog plays no games right . Most the people that I've interviewed in this series are people I've known quite some time. In the case of Jim Mattis I'd never met the man before because of his nickname Mad Dog. I thought I'd better be careful when I shake his hand. He might be growling or mad at me or something like that but actually it was the opposite. I recognized quickly that he has a certain reserved a certain manner that would make a person want to follow him as a leader in the military. And also I suspect that had he never gone into the military had he been in business or in politics he would've been successful there as well. Although I only spent this one hour with him an interview. I really think that he's a person who has great potential again be a leader in our country. And I don't think we've heard the last of Jim Mattis . You are Minding Your Own Business after having spent 40 plus years in the Marines. You're out in your native state Washington and you get a call from Vice President elect Pence to come and meet Donald Trump who you had never met before . What did you think that meeting was about. And you have any regrets about going to the meeting or your decision to actually become secretary defense. I don't live a life with regrets . I would tell you that if you're enjoying life and it's shortly after an election and the phone rings don't answer the phone obviously. But on a more serious note I was brought up by the greatest generation . And I was brought up to believe that government service is an honor. It's a privilege but it's a duty. And whether the president United States asks you and there a Republican or a Democrat doesn't matter. As long as you're prepared to do it as long you know you can do it. And the response is affirmative OK . So you took the job but you resigned after a few years over the policy disagreement. Any regrets about having resigned . Well as you'll all understand ladies gentlemen these are the finest young patriots in our country signing that blank check payable to all of us with their lives. The men and women of our military. And I loved being back around and supply the best job I could have imagined. And I only miss being around those people. There just comes a time I don't live a life of regrets . There comes a time. And you know what you've got to do so you don't never look back . No I look forward. I don't like Dallas . I wish I could do that I always look back on the deals I should have done I missed my debate. I wish I had that same ability . But OK so you disagreed with President Trump on Syria. And let me ask you. I now realize you've been very very careful about not criticizing President Trump at all since you've left in any public forum . So I'm not probably going to persuade you to do so here. Not that you want to do so but the reason that you want to be not commenting on your service is secretive. Fans are saying anything negative about President Trump is what. Is it because you're a former cabinet officer former military person or just generally think it's not a good policy to do that. I resigned over policy disagreement. You're right. I put that disagreement in a page and a half letter. The letter has been released. That's all the more I need to say about it. The French call it A. Why. To reserve a duty of reserve. A duty of quiet. You don't need to have a former secretary of defense talking about the current policies in a way that's injurious to the country. And I would point out that Secretary Ash Carter my predecessor under the Obama administration said the same thing when he would respond to a congressional question that he considered political even while he was there. So it's not unique to me is my point if not some protective effort around President Trump. You feel you know it's eight years down the road you might feel about better about comedy. That's a good question David. But like most of us in this room I'm from the West as well. And there's something we call you right for the brand. And I can always come out and say on this policy or this strategy here's where I come down. That's not mean and a personal or political attack. And I don't feel that I need to be silent about those things after that president leaves office . But while the president's there the last thing we want to do is to have the former secretary of defense coming out saying I disagree with a certain policy. Guess what. The president is still the commander in chief. As elected by the American people and the troops have to obey him. The last thing you want to do is have the troops say and while the former secretary of defense doesn't agree with that policy. That's why I don't talk about it while they're in office. This president Trump call you for advice anymore. Not so much. Know the phone hasn't rang on that one. All right . Now you have recently come out with a book called Sign Chaos with Bing West. And it's a terrific book. I highly recommend it. So explain what call sign chaos means for those who haven't read the book. What is chaos mean there. So I was a colonel out in the Mojave Desert and I had an operations officer from Brooklyn with a rather droll sense of humor. And one day I was down with another one of my brilliant ideas talking to my operations officer of this regiment of about 7000 sailors and marines out in the Mojave Desert. And as I was walking ISE size whiteboard chaos written I said What's that about . He said Oh don't worry about that. You don't need to know about that. And so oh yes I do . So I I used some of my powers of persuasion. I waterboarded him and I found out my irreverence. Subordinates had decided that my call sign should be chaos. Colonel has another outstanding suggestion. It was rather tongue in cheek . OK. They didn't see the brilliance of all my ideas that I identified so I adopted that of my call sign. Anytime you hear about this mad dog thing my troops all laughed at it. No one might call. Sign was chaos. That was never my favorite favorite nickname that the press has trained me on a slow news day. Well let's talk about that in this book. Oh I'd rather not actually. You actually never used the expression mad dog nominees. Describe how you got that. You obviously don't like it. So you know I would think being mad dog shows you're tough and so forth. Why don't you like that and you don't ever use that name is that right. Well first the Marines teach you to be tough in other ways than self aggrandizing stuff like that. But I think too if you you know one thing I've had to do and and you'll all understand this is sign a lot of next to kin letters. The last thing they need is to think there's someone with some you know self self-image of mad dog up there with their son and live basically in his hands. So I shy away from those words really signed more than 800 of those letters I have. So that must be the most difficult thing to do is to write the next of kin that their their son or daughter has been killed. It's difficult for me is nowhere near what the families go through. So you have been very involved in meeting with Gold Star families since you've retired. And that must be a very emotional experience to do that. I think it's necessary that we pay our respects and we never forget the sacrifices of those families. When you think this great big experiment that we have that you and I. Call America it's going to need to be defended and we're going to continue to need this sort of commitment this devotion to our country. Your first time in the real combat is when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. When you got into Kuwait relatively quickly were you surprised at how relatively speaking it was easy to get there. It was a lot of training and a lot of fire support. And it was I'm very proud of that that campaign because it's the last time I brought everyone home alive . So when you started your life you started in the northwest Washington state and you were a great athlete or a great student or which would you say none of the above either but you were a little bit wild and you would do things that today I would think parents wouldn't let kids do. So when you were 13 years old . Your parents would let you hitchhike around the West. Is that right. Well I maintained a degree of silence about some of my activities around my parents. But I did start hitchhiking. I think I was a more trusting nation in those days . And my parents were rather adventurous. They weren't they weren't irresponsible. And had they known some of this they I would have put the kibosh on it. So how did you actually come to the Marines. Did you say I'm going to be drafted. I'd rather be in the Marines than the Army. Or did you like my father. My father when the Marines he said I like the uniform . It's a great uniform. I'm going to go into the Marines. What was it that appealed to you. Well one thing would I probably would have been drafted. It was during that that that era there . It was almost it was a little bit unexamined. It was more or less just assumed if you went in the military. A lot of the guys in my neighborhood my older brother right then was in Vietnam as a Marine just kind of a natural thing. It wasn't very reflective or examined decision. OK so you go into the Marines now. What was your first assignment after you left officer training. I was the best assignment I had in the military was second lieutenant in the infantry. About 40 sailors and marines. And there's nobody between you and your troop. You live in the right amongst them. You know them as well as you know your brothers. You can spot them 200 yards away by their walk. You know they are just just a great tight knit crew. So your first time in real combat is when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and President Bush 41 decides that the United States is going to have a response. Now the 28 countries have no choice but to drive Saddam from Kuwait by force. We will not fail. What was your involvement and what did you do in that war. I commanded an infantry battalion. I was in the 1st Marine Division. And those of you remember the war. You remember the big minefields and the trenches of oil and all that sort of stuff barbed wire. And my battalion job was to open two of the routes through those those for the Marines to follow. And did you think at the time there were predictions there would be tens of thousands American troops killed. Did you when you got into Kuwait relatively quickly were you surprised at how relatively speaking it was easy to get there. It was a lot of training and a lot of fire support. And it was I'm very proud of that that campaign because the last time I brought everyone home alive . Yeah. I was. So. So now you're an officer when I was a. When an officer can get special treatment when you're in that kind of combat you sleep in the same places as the as the troops are . You get a better place to sleep better food. How do you treat your troops night in the in the infantry. You always eat last . You never live better than the troops. Matter of fact even when I was a two star general we established what's called the level of comfort for 23000 man division and whatever. An infantry lance corporal which is a very young troop has if he has nothing but a but a blanket delay. And then nobody had anything but a blanket except the wounded and the sick and knows we do everything we can for. But everybody lives like a lance corporal. So that food that you eat M.R. E food is that really in any good or not so great when you're in combat. Now let's just say it's not quite as good as the meal we had today. All right. So eventually you get back into combat again because 9/11 occurs. So your next assignment is to go into Afghanistan and to try to capture I assume Osama bin Laden. Is that right . More or less so in the end. You go over there you have all the troops. And why did you not capture Osama bin Laden. We I had an admiral who had read a lot of history and he said no one's held Kabul. And 500 years are going to fall back on Kandahar their spiritual home and dig in. Can you get the Marines from the Mediterranean fleet in the Pacific fleet together. This three star admiral asked me. I was a one star Marine and move against Kandahar. I said yeah I can do that. And so we got the troops in. And then the intelligence agency said Osama bin Laden if in one of two valleys they were very sure of this . They had him pinpointed. So I had real quick computer study done. And I knew which mountains on the Pakistan border if you put troops on on them could see each other and block the two valleys. And then I was going to move my troops up to two valleys but I'd changed from Navy command and control to Army command and control and I'd not spent. The time getting to know my boss 900 miles away and we missed the opportunity and the person who made the mistake was me for not. I just assumed because we were there to go out to this guy that everybody was tuned to the intel. You shouldn't make assumptions like that when you're when an organization is shifting and adapting. They told you to pull back as well. They didn't tell me to go. We didn't pull back. And we didn't. We didn't go. So ultimate you leave Afghanistan and you come back to the United States again. Right. But then you are asked to go into another war in Iraq. Right. So you get in there and then ultimately the fights between the Sunnis and the Shiites turn out to be much more than anybody anticipated. As you look back on the political problems that arose in Iraq subsequent to Saddam Hussein having been captured what do you think was the mistake that was made or what could have been done better in hindsight . Yeah you know it's interesting to get the question look back in hindsight but let me tell you what it looked like and foresight where we're in basically the summer very hot summer of 2000 . What would it be. Three. And Iraq has fallen. And it's one of my briefs. One day a young officer is briefing said by the way the enemy is picking this up that somehow we're going to disband the Iraqi army . We don't we're just bringing the army the Iraqis back into their barracks. We are starting to pay them. We are trying to talk with them that we're not here to occupier humiliate you. You work for a jerk. He's gone. You're gonna be the new Iraqi army . And I dismissed it as idle gossip and just said forget that . Let's get on with the brief. Next day I walk in and everybody's quiet in this great big cavernous palace. We'd taken over an LT down marriage as a piece of paper for me in three sentences said the Iraqi army is hereby disbanded. First Lieutenant fresh out of his undergraduate days. General we just started an insurgency. That's what it looked like. And foresight didn't take hindsight to see the problem. But ultimately when the insurgency occurred you were trying to at one point capture Fallujah among other things. But you found there just wasn't enough political support to go and do the tough things that you thought the military needed to do. Is that right. Well we were we were we had a troop cap put on us so we didn't have enough troops. For example I was responsible for an area about the size of North Carolina and I had about fifteen sixteen thousand troops to try to control it and just do the math on the geography. You can see the problem . Then we had a fourth contractors who were misguided. They drove into Fallujah without checking into the Marines with the Marines who were in the area. And these guys unfortunately drove into town right into the heart of town. They were murdered by some of the tribes there by the terrorists and their bodies were desecrating. I mean it was it was not pretty. And we were ordered to go in. I said I've got a better idea. We were told no. After a couple of days you will assault the city. So we had to move the innocent people out and then go in after the terrorists. And I didn't have many troops I could throw into the attack. And I said OK we're going to do it but don't stop me now that we're going to do it . Unfortunately they stopped us while we were deep in the city and house down fighting. So it's a very difficult time for the Marines. Would you go back into government again. Are you done with government service. I mean I grew up in a country that when the country calls you do it . ISE being former secretary of defense in more than 40 years in the Marine Corps today. What do you think are the one or two most important national security issues this country faces . Leaving aside whoever is president what do you think is the most important security issues and challenges. When I came into office I was working alongside a son of Texas Secretary Rex Tillerson and together we determined that we needed to rework the strategy. In my case it was the national defense strategy . And that strategy basically said we're going to have to continue to deal with the terrorist threat. It's an ambient threat . It's just going to be out there. But the primary threat to the country to go to your question David are clearly authoritarian regimes that are acting badly. And in terms of urgency it would be North Korea in terms of power it would be Russia. And in terms of political will it would be China. We're going to have to address those. She wrote a strategy accordingly. When do you think the United States will be able to if it all get out of Afghanistan with our military. The point I would make is you can win a war over. You can even declare a war over. You can even order your troops home. And then there's something the military says the enemy gets a vote. So the idea that you can just declare the war over and say it's not going to be a bother to me anymore. Number one those problems don't stay over there . And you're going to have to deal with world if it is not the way you want it to be. Would you say the same with respect to Iraq. Do you think Iraq is in a situation a situation where we don't have to worry about what's going on there or in Syria. We have to be engaged everywhere in the world. I think we need to intervene militarily with large forces less. But it doesn't mean you can disengage. The Greatest Generation came home from World War Two and said it's a crummy world. And whether you like it or not we're part of it. So the bottom line is we're going to have to get together with our allies and stick together with our allies because we need every one of them right now and make certain we address these issues. It doesn't mean we have to do it all ourselves but we're going to have to stick together . Have you ever thought of running for office maybe President United States yourself. You're a very bad man because you don't want to do it. Or why. Why wouldn't you be a perfect person to be a candidate someday. There are a lot of great Americans. I have great confidence in the American people . I've never lost that confidence. We will find our way through rough patches and we'll have great leaders. Right. So suppose somebody is elected president whoever is the next president President Trump or whoever might be the next president. And that person calls you and says you know duty calls again. Can you come back and serve your country one more time. Would you go back into government again or you've you're done with government service. Well you can never say you're done because when the country calls I mean I grew up in a country that when the country calls you do it. But I would tell you that I think it's also time for a lot younger people with fresh ideas good listeners. They've got a they've got a steady history. They've gotta listen to those who've been there before. But it's time for young people. They're younger compared to people running for president that you're still very young . And I'm still at the top of my game. David. All right. So for somebody that is looking to you to say what are the attributes you think are the most important for me to be a leader what would you say those attributes are. To be ever an effective leader . I followed George Washington's his example of listen to others listen really well learn from him and then you help them. And then you then you lead. You don't you don't just start off yelling at people or tell them what to do. And I think trust you've got to be able to build trust if you can build trust and your delegate decision authority down below. And at that point you start winning because everybody feels like they own it. They're making decisions. You've made clear what you want but you've got to be able to build trust . Trust is the coin of the realm. That would be the key thing . Can you build trust. So you obviously have given your life to the country in this sense and you committed enormous amount of your time. Most of your life to this. Any regrets about not getting married having children. None of that. You did. If you had been married do you think you could have done what you've done. Well I always had the idea. Get now the Marine Corps next year and I'm going to get you know get me a dog and to get married and live happily ever after. I had my whole life planned for you young people in the audience. I knew I was going to I was going to do my patriotic chore in the Marines for my three years that I'm gonna get out and go back to my hometown teach physics and and history and high school and coach football and go fishing. I had it all figured out. And then along comes life. Right . But I always thought next year I'm getting out of the Marines . So I never made a decision not to get married. It just happened that way. But I'm still looking if you know anybody . Oh I think you'd be a pretty good catch. Pretty good catch for some people or anybody. So if I was I'm 17 18 year old and I wanted to go into the military. Why should I go into the Marines over the Army or the Air Force or the Navy. Why would the Marines be better for me . Yeah I spent too many years fighting alongside soldiers living under air cover by the Air Force being carried on Navy ships. I truly love all the services. Obviously you grow very fond of your own. But I would just tell you that you after the military no matter which one you go in to. Coast Guard included here you come out with a A from that formative experience with a much more sense of gratitude for everything you have in this country .

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The David Rubenstein Show: Former Defense Secretary James Mattis

General James Mattis (Ret.), who served as secretary of defense for President Donald Trump, talks about why he left the post, how to become a great leader, if he would ever go back to working at the White House, and why he doesn't like the nick name "Mad Dog." Mattis appears on the latest episode of "The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations." The interview was recorded on Dec. 5, 2019 in Dallas. (Source: Bloomberg)

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