David Petraeus on What Taiwan Can Learn from Ukraine’s Battlefield Experience

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Major conflicts and shifting geopolitical alignments are reshaping the global security landscape. In light of this, many of Taiwan’s partners are pressuring Taipei to rethink its defense posture, resilience mechanisms, and strategic deterrence. The war in Ukraine has offered invaluable lessons in asymmetric defense, civil-military coordination, and the integration of technology and innovation on the battlefield. Facing an existential threat from China, Taiwan urgently needs to incorporate these lessons into its security strategy.

General David H. Petraeus (US Army, ret.), coauthor of Conflict: The Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, will join Hudson’s Jason Hsu for a conversation about what the war in Ukraine has revealed about the future of warfare—and what these lessons mean for Taiwanese security.

Event Transcript

This transcription is automatically generated and edited lightly for accuracy. Please excuse any errors.

Ken Weinstein:

Good afternoon and welcome to Hudson Institute for today’s discussion: what Taiwan can learn from Ukraine’s battlefield experience. I’m Ken Weinstein, I am Japan Chair and former president and CEO here at Hudson Institute.

Now, it was said frequently in the early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that there was no closer observer than the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, who was looking at the implications of a potential takeover of Taiwan. And although we don’t have Xi Jinping with us today to offer his observations on the lessons of Ukraine for Taiwan, we do have one of America’s most distinguished military leaders and strategic thinkers, General David Petraeus, with us today to offer his.

Over a remarkable 37-year military career, General Petraeus commanded at the highest levels during some of our nation’s most challenging conflicts. Of course, he led the historic surge in 2007 in Iraq, commanding US and coalition forces during a pivotal moment in that war. And as the first commander of the multinational security transition command in Iraq in 2004, he pioneered efforts to train Iraqi security forces and build the country’s security institutions from the ground up. His leadership has extended across multiple theaters and commands. He served as commander of US Central Command in 2008. And later led the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan in 2010.

He will not remember this, but we were going to honor him as Hudson Institute’s James Doolittle nominee on the very same day that he was nominated for this post, which caused great chaos for us at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. But we were delighted by his accepting the award in absentia and by his role at ISEF.

And remarkably five of his six consecutive commands as a general officer were in active combat zones. Now following his military service he has brought his strategic expertise to the Central Intelligence Agency. And today he continues to shape the next generation of strategic thinkers through multiple academic appointments and is executive director of the KKR Global Institute.

General Petraeus will be interviewed today by my friend and colleague, Hudson Institute Senior Fellow, Jason Hsu. Jason is of course well known in his native Taiwan where he served as a legislator at large in Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, the legislature in Taiwan, the national parliament, where he is a member of the Kuomintang, the KMT party. There he focused on defense, technology, trade and foreign policy. He had a distinguished career as an entrepreneur in Taiwan’s tech sector before entering politics. And has held fellowships at Harvard’s Kennedy School, at the Tsai China Center at Yale Law School, as well as Stanford’s Center for Democracy Development prior to joining Hudson.

Now please join me in welcoming this distinguished scholar, soldier whose insights into modern warfare are unmatched, General David Petraeus and my Hudson Institute colleague, Jason Hsu. Thank you very much.

David Petraeus:

Thank you very much for the very kind introduction, Ken. It’s great to be back at this great place. Thanks for reminding me of the James Doolittle Award that someone accepted on my behalf. It was the easiest acceptance speech I ever had. And wonderful to be back at this great institution.

By the way, there are three seats up here and a couple of others for folks who are standing in the back there. Don’t hesitate to jump on the reserve seats that are no longer occupied please.

Let me note up front if I could, Jason, before we start this, that I have been one of the more avid observers of the war in Ukraine. I’ve been a supporter of Ukraine, sufficiently substantial that I was sanctioned by Vladimir Putin in the fall of 2022. I’m very proud of that. Especially because he beat me out for Time person of the year. I was runner up to him in 2007. And it only seems fitting that we should now help the country that has been brutally, and without provocation, invaded by Russian forces, led by an individual animated by this twisted version of history that denies Ukraine its right to exist. And is animated by, again, revanchist and revisionist impulses of the man in the Kremlin.

I’ve been to Ukraine six times since the 2022 invasion. I’ve been going there regularly all along. First visit actually was when it was still part of the USSR. It was quite a historic visit. I was the aide to the first chief of staff of the Army to visit the USSR since George C. Marshall went to Yalta in 1945, and obviously many, many decades later. And then watched Ukraine as it began to flourish as an independent country over the years.

I do a nightly update on Ukraine on LinkedIn. I basically take ... the credit goes to the Institute for the Study of War, I’m privileged to be on their board and also to have the Petraeus Center for Emerging Leaders there. They do the work, I distill it a bit, occasionally add some additional comments based on my own firsthand observations.

But I think that that war is truly transformative in what is going on. And it truly should inform all militaries everywhere that could end up in the kind of combat that is being waged there. That’s not the same as everywhere else. That may or may not have great relevance if there’s another comprehensive civil military counterinsurgency campaign somewhere. Although there still will be elements of that that will be very much relevant to that.

And so the idea here of course is what should Taiwan be learning from this? And the answer actually up front that I will give is that I actually think they’re learning a great deal from it. But so is, as was noted in the introduction, the very avid observer in Beijing. In fact, the Chinese have increasingly been providing vast quantities of components that are enabling the military-industrial complex of Russia to revive and to begin to produce the kinds of weapons systems and so forth that are relevant in this war. And those of course take very, very substantial amounts of various types of electronics and all the rest of that that have been provided to them. And they are very much going to school on what is going on in Russia. And have actually said that they cannot allow Russia to fail, that is actually a quote on the record.

So with all of that out there up front, Jason, why don’t you have at it? And again, thanks for suggesting this. And I’m happy to note that I think he’s going to be going to Kiev with me the next time I go, which is in September, for the Yalta European strategy or Yalta economic strategy session that is held every year, but hasn’t been in Yalta obviously since 2014.

Jason Hsu:

Well, first of all, general, let me express my personal gratitude and appreciation for you to come to Hudson to share your insights. And as someone who’s from Taiwan, this is especially dear to my heart as we face a enemy that is much larger and more sophisticated. So my question to you first is, when you look at Ukraine’s ability to repel and withstand a military force that’s much larger than them, and when it comes to Taiwan and obviously facing the PLA, also much more sophisticated, what are two or three lessons that Taiwan should learn that’s most critical and most important as far as the battlefield experience go?

David Petraeus:

Well, number one lesson is don’t let deterrence fail. That seems a bit obvious. But the truth is, in Ukraine it did fail. And it failed for a number of reasons, some of which were Ukraine’s lack of sufficient preparation, very visible preparation. Some of it was lack of Ukraine’s eventual supporters to provide very visibly very large quantities of what we eventually provided, sophisticated anti-tank guided missiles that hit from the top, the sophisticated shoulder-launched anti-aircraft. These were all easily provided. Now over time, much more substantial weapon systems were provided.

But also frankly I think that there were signals sent by actions that were taken that influenced President Putin that he probably would get away with it. Especially if of course he could have succeeded on the timeline that he originally envisioned, which was to seize Kiev in a week, replace President Zelenskyy with a pro-Russian figure and then go home to a victory parade. That obviously did not prove out. But he did have an inadequate, wrong assessment of Ukraine and how it would actually do. But again, that was founded on his observation that ... they didn’t even actually set their defense for fear that they would actually create havoc and fear in the people.

In fact, my recollection is there was a request that we not be overly active. And by the way, the same request was made from Afghanistan. And it resulted in a very late activation of our noncombatant evacuation operation execution. So, think about what was done by the EU and the United States in the wake of the 2014 seizure of Crimea and the southeast Ukraine part known as the Donbas, Donetsk and Luhansk. That was not sufficient. We tried to coddle Putin in many respects, thinking we could get him to agree to a settlement in that case. And of course he didn’t interpret that as meaning that we would do what we did do.

By the way, I’m nonpolitical, I don’t even register to vote, I’m not a member of either party. I can talk to members of either party in this city, which is rare, without being castigated for one reason or another. It’s actually quite helpful in that regard.

I think the Biden administration did a very impressive job in the wake of the 2022 invasion in rallying the world to support. Even though they then took egregious amounts of time on individual decisions about critical weapons systems that Ukraine needed much more rapidly than we provided to them. But the initial response was very, very substantial. That surprised Putin I’m certain because he had seen us earlier, I think that the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan, taken by Trump 1.0, then implemented by Biden, and then the way it was carried out. We didn’t actually have to leave Afghanistan. We hadn’t lost a soldier in 18 months. And the cost, 25 billion a year out of 850 was very sustainable.

Vietnam, that was unsustainable. Afghanistan was sustainable. And I think the decision to pull out when he knew we could have kept it going. And the 8,500 NATO troops all wanted to stay and so forth. And then the way it was conducted and the ultimate outcome, I think led him to believe that, again, there would not be huge consequences.

So first and foremost, think about, again, how to strengthen deterrence. But how to do it in a way that is not needlessly provocative. Again, this is an exceedingly sensitive subject, both the US relationship with China and obviously the Taiwan relationship with China. And again, there’s no need to be needlessly provocative. But there is a need to take steps, again, some of which should be informed by the lessons from Ukraine to shore up deterrence.

Now, let me cast this first though in the overall regional dynamic if you will, or global dynamic between the US and China. And if you want to characterize what we should be doing in China, and again, to be fair to the Biden administration. First, I think President Trump rightly changed the conversation on China. Second, the Biden administration fleshed it out and made it into what it should be. Which is a comprehensive, all of the tools that you have, integrated, all working together, whole of governments, all of our allies and partners together as well, response to China, relationship with China, again, to ensure that deterrence is rock solid.

Now, what is deterrence? It rests on a potential adversary’s assessment of your capabilities in the one hand. And clearly we and Taiwan need to make some substantial changes to our capabilities, improvements to them, and also transformation. I’ll talk about that in a moment. And then it’s the willingness to use them.

And by the way, in that book, Conflict, in fact I was on this stage about two and a half years ago when Conflict came out, my book with Andrew Roberts, Conflict: the Evolution of Warfare from 1945 to Ukraine, now to Gaza in the second edition. We note repeatedly that what you do in one part of the world influence perceptions in others. So it influences deterrence.

If you have a Syria red line on chemical weapons use that turns out to have been crossed, but you do nothing about it. I was actually in Prime Minister Lee’s office in Singapore at that time, he said, “You know, General, that has repercussions out in the South China Sea.” And he’s right.

So you have to really constantly be asking, what happens if we do this in this location and how does that influence perceptions in another location?

I personally think that if we were not to do all that we could do for Ukraine, and we do need to do more by the way, along with our NATO allies who are very much now committed to this, if we were not to support Ukraine in its hour of need or to support Israel in its hour of need or our Gulf state allies and partners, if you did not do that, you would undermine deterrence in, again, the Indo-Pacific region.

Let me talk about how we are trying to transform our forces, because that also informs, again, what Taiwan, what all countries should learn from what’s going on in Ukraine. We have a concept called Hellscape. This is publicly out there. It was in an interview by the Indo-Pacific Command commander not long after he took over with the Washington Post. And it describes what the INDOPACOM commander’s concept for, again, the Taiwan Strait would be if it came to it. And that is to turn that 110 mile expanse of water into a hellscape.

Jason Hsu:

Taiwan Strait.

David Petraeus:

Taiwan Strait. And to do so with unbelievable numbers of unmanned systems under the water, on the surface of the water, in the air, on the ground, in outer space and cyberspace and the cognitive space, everything, if you get the meaning of this.

But by the way, what Ukraine is showing us is that the future of war is not only unmanned systems, it’s actually going to be, not remotely piloted unmanned systems after a time, it’s going to be algorithmically piloted unmanned systems. Now, Ukraine still largely is using unmanned systems that are remotely piloted.

By the way, the numbers that they use on a daily basis are just almost breathtaking. I was last there about two and a half, three months ago. I asked General Syrskyi, who is the overall commander of Ukrainian forces, how many drones just roughly did you use yesterday? Now, keep in mind, he’s not just talking about aerial drones that we think of, and in particular the suicide drones because they’re the ones that are the highest number, it’s also maritime drones, it is ground drones, it’s remotely driven vehicles. It’s so lethal on either side. The front lines are so lethal.

By the way, tanks can’t survive anymore. Infantry fighting vehicles cannot survive. No system can survive. If it’s seen by an observation drone, then the suicide drones will take it out. So they don’t even use drivers going back and forth much of the time, they actually use remotely driven vehicles. And they bring forward logistics, ammunition, food, water, plasma, etc. And they often will take back casualties.

By the way, again, it’s so lethal. There are actually main supply routes, these are the main roads from rear to front, that now have mesh over top of them the entire way, trying to prevent drones from being able to hit these. But of course, there are already videos online of them getting underneath the mesh and taking out these vehicles.

This is the scenario you see in Ukraine, again, nearly 7,000 in a given day were used that day. That was probably a bit high, but again, when you’re producing 3.5 million unmanned systems of all types a year, you can do the math and see what that enables you to do. More insights on Ukraine. How does a country that has no Navy as we know it, no surface combatant ships, sink one-third of the Russian Black Sea fleet, and push them all the way out of the Western Black Sea? Unmanned systems. First, intelligence that vectors the unmanned aerial systems that find the ships, and then unmanned maritime systems sink them. There are now actually unmanned maritime systems that actually launch air defense weapons off of them, and recently took down two SU-30 frontline fighters of Russia over the Crimean Peninsula where they thought the airspace was safe.

We all know of Operation Spiderweb where about a million dollars of cheap little unmanned systems squirreled away in the ceiling of these tractor-trailers were driven into Russia, positioned near strategic airfields. And at a certain point in time they all emerged and they hit, again, $1 million worth of drones, damaged or destroyed, $7 billion worth of strategic aircraft, some of which they’re no longer made, so they cannot literally be replaced. This is what’s going on in Ukraine. So what should be learned from that? Well, for the U.S., it is that we have to transform a fair number of our forces from what might be described simplistically to be sure, but you’ll get the idea, as a small number of very large, incredibly exquisitely capable, heavily manned, extraordinarily expensive, and increasingly vulnerable platforms. And not just on the surface of the sea, but in the air, on the ground, et cetera.

From that to, again, it’s an unbelievable number of unmanned systems, which over time will not be remotely piloted, they will be algorithmically piloted. So the human in the loop will become the human on the loop who instructs an AI system to write an algorithm that directs the machine to carry out the following tasks. And when certain conditions are met to take whatever action it is supposed to take, kinetic, non-kinetic, what have you. That’s the environment in which you are. So how do you increase deterrence? First and foremost, it is to recognize what we should learn from Ukraine. How Taiwan should change its force structure, just as we are changing hours. There’s sometimes the accusation that you need to go from shiny objects to, again, small numbers of shiny objects, so incredible numbers of unmanned systems. Obviously, there is a heightened need for counter-air missile and drone defenses. We’re seeing that play out on a daily basis, those who are in Ukraine regularly. And so once again, that awareness I think very much animates it.

So the asymmetric warfare, hardening critical infrastructure, train the reserve force, longer training for the active force, more robust training for the reserve. And to be fair, again, I think that that HK25 exercise recognize this, and it shows an awareness of all of this. The question is, are the resources going to be there? Can this actually be carried out? Will society support the additional steps that are required? Again, and sorry for giving all that context, but I think it’s really important to put it in the context of the U.S-China relationship, because again, what we want is to deter. This is a relationship that our past national security adviser described as severe competition. We need to make sure it never transforms into actual confrontation. And obviously Taiwan in this very sensitive relationship, not being needlessly provocative, but ensuring that deterrence is rock solid.

Jason Hsu:

Just for the audience knowledge, general mentioned HK25 exercise. It’s Han Kuang 2025 military exercises, Taiwan’s nationwide military exercise. And for the first time we’ve incorporated the whole of society’s resilience as well as AI-enabled simulations for the exercise.

David Petraeus:

And it was longer than in the past—

Jason Hsu:

Exactly.

David Petraeus:

—it has new scenarios that it focused on. It had all kinds of, I think that recognized the reality and the importance of being prepared so that you can deter. In that book, Conflict, Andrew Roberts and I repeatedly stress that money spent on deterrence is generally very well-spent because if you skimp on deterrence, you’re going to spend a lot more on defense.

Jason Hsu:

And I would like to talk a little bit about the budget later. But I want to focus on deterrence, and as well as some of the unique scenarios that Taiwan could face. Now, you’ve often spoken about the importance of shaping the battlefield before the first shot is fired. And for Taiwan, I think if you compare Taiwan with Ukraine, it’s a different scenario where Ukraine is land-connected with Russia adversary. But Taiwan, as you have noted, is separated by a Taiwan Strait. And the likely scenario of blockade or even salami slicing way of invading Taiwan pose a continuous threat, and also wear down our military force. So my question to you general is, how can Taiwan preposition resources, stockpile critical supplies and ensure continuity of defense if resupply becomes impossible? And also mentioning that currently our energy supply is 90 percent reliant on import of LNG. So that itself also becomes a vulnerability too.

David Petraeus:

Well, I mean, if you just recognize... You actually asked how can you stockpile more of that, so what you need to do. How can you increase resilience? How can you... And there’s been a lot of focus on this. Again, Indo-Pacific command has done lots of scenario builds and exercises around the various contingencies that you mentioned. And again, there are ways of dealing with whatever, it’s a blockade, the salami slice, some other kind of closure. And they have worked out what can be done. There’s always a question about, does the potential adversary understand sufficiently what can be done in response to certain actions because that helps deterrence?

Look, the reason the INDOPACOM commander went public with hellscape, which was prior to that Washington Post the interview, very highly classified. It’s because in some discussions with various people, he recognized that if they don’t know about it doesn’t help deterrence. And so you actually have to sometimes, if you will, expose some of what you are preparing to do so that there’s an awareness of it. And as they get up in the morning and look wistfully out there and say, “Gosh, we’ve done all the other bucket list items, Hong Kong, again, the Uyghurs, Tibet, you name it, but not today. And that’s what has to happen, is string that along. And then ideally, of course, what you’d like to see is that there’s a relationship between the U.S. and China that has a floor, and guardrails, and communications, and a bit more understanding while recognizing that there are some fundamental differences in various aspirations.

And again, being sensitive to the decades of the U.S. policy, of strategic ambiguity and so forth. Although I’ll note that President Biden four times, again, not one, not two, not three, but four said that he would come to the rescue of Taiwan in an emergency. Of course, yes Jake Sullivan then rushed out to the podium and said, “There’s no change to our policy of strategic ambiguity and our commitment to the three this, and all the rest of that.”

Jason Hsu:

Yeah. Assurances.

David Petraeus:

So again, we do have to recognize this is a very, very sensitive issue. Taiwan’s leadership always has to be very sensitive to that sensitivity, I think as well. Occasionally there are reminders on that, I understand. But the key here, you said, what do you do to stockpile? You stockpile? Again, what do you do? If you are 90 percent, what can you do to change your energy mix? How can you create greater resilience? By the way, how do you create greater hardening? How do you create more underground facilities? Again, more whole-of-society-

Jason Hsu:

And if you look at Ukraine’s situation, the war has been going on more than two years. But for Taiwan, it’s a matter of two weeks, if we can get through that critical two weeks. And when it becomes a war of attrition, and it becomes very challenging for Taiwan. So the issue is what should we prepare for-

David Petraeus:

Well, that’s one of your allies and—

Jason Hsu:

the 40 days, 14 days?

David Petraeus:

Sure. I mean, again, that’s when, again, other countries come to bear. This is why, again, I stress that it’s a comprehensive integrated whole of governments with an S on the end, our allies in the region. It’s great to see—

Jason Hsu:

Integrated deterrence.

David Petraeus:

—the Philippines integrated. And again, that looming possibility of the hellscape, depending on how the scenario unfolds and what the decisions are obviously in Washington on that. But you identified really, in the question what’s needed, actually to answer to that question. So first and foremost, there’s a keen awareness of that in the leadership of Taiwan. And this is frankly where it comes down to, can the parliament come together? You’re spending 2.5 percent of GDP on defense now, that’s pretty impressive compared to NATO countries—

Jason Hsu:

We’re increasing it to 3 percent.

David Petraeus:

—and you want to get it to three or 3.5. By the way now NATO, of course, has agreed to 3.5 percent  over a period of time. There’s a bit more urgency I think, in this particular case. But the question is, can the Parliament come together, support the prime minister’s desires to do this? And right now, I think that is still being up front and I’m a soldier, not a diplomat. That still is a bit of an open question, and that does need to be resolved. And by the way, it influences deterrence, needless to say.

Jason Hsu:

Despite the recall result last weekend, it is to my understanding that, both parties, both ruling DPP and opposition, KMT and TPP, will support unilaterally for the defense budget increase. Although there might be some fine differences of how the two parties approaches what items to be included. And you’ve noted in your remarks earlier that it’s important to elevate the asymmetrical capabilities. What advice you could give to Taiwan’s military forces at this point in time when we are so focused on getting budget through the Parliament, and then making sure that we have the right capabilities. And I think your message will be extremely critical as the Parliament resume, and then to discuss this budget issues in the coming weeks.

David Petraeus:

So first and foremost, again, I think Taiwan actually does get it about what the big overarching lessons from Ukraine should be. The question is there anyone in the Taiwanese military who has actually gone to Ukraine, spent months on the ground learning with the Pegasus or the Nemesis Battalion now regiment, which every time I visit, I always spend time with. And the innovation that they’re carrying out is incredible. The partnership... By the way, they have a website, it’s all open. They recruit on the walls in Kyiv, and they have their greatest hits videos and all the rest of this stuff. So I’ve watched over time from the very first visit when they had a simple little drone, by the way, they’re really quite simple and they’re very, very low cost compared with our systems. And it had one or two antennas that eventually got up to four antennas because all this is, how do you work through the jamming? How do you maintain a star link? How do you maintain command and control? How do you maintain GPS if you’re using that for guy? All of this.

Now, the ultimate solution for how you work through jamming, is you actually have little fiber optic cable that spools out behind the drones. Again, think of the innovation here. By the way, also think of the amount of little filament, fishing line if you will, that’s all over the fields of these front lines where this stuff is spooling out during the 15 or 30 minutes time of flight of a suicide drone. But I think you have to get on the ground. There is an incredible intelligence system that they have built. It’s one U.S. unbelievable entrepreneur from Silicon Valley who had built three or so companies, his next generations are all taken care of. Right after the invasion of 2022, he went to Ukraine, said, “I want to help.” He went all around the battlefield. He decided, you know what you need is a common picture, we’re all constantly trying to find a common picture. Joel Rayburn, Colonel retired, and then also deputy assistant secretary and everything else. This is the holy Grail. I don’t know how much we have spent on JADC3 ISR, whatever the acronym is for this, and we still don’t have it.

They actually have it. They spent 3 million of nonprofit money, and yes, they had some unbelievable IT talent from the Ukrainians that have built this. And it is unbelievably granular, and they have hundreds of thousands of individuals who access it through the central database or the central portal, if you will, for the Ministry of Defense. By the way, one of the recent innovations is, they actually have an Amazon-like entity, also accessible through the Ministry of Defense. And on that, you can buy, it’s about 16 items per page, and it’s about 110 pages, the last I checked. You can buy components, drones, all kinds of systems and so forth, optics. By the way, they deliver it to your unit within a few days. So the innovation there is unbelievable. So I think Taiwan gets the big ideas here, it gets the big picture. Again, the questions that you’re asking are of the same ones that they’re asking. But can you actually then turn big picture into-

Jason Hsu:

Applications.

David Petraeus:

... reality, applications? Exactly. Weapons systems, and again, at scale. Again, 3.5 million drones per year being produced by a country that probably had very, very few drones, if any, at the actual onset of the fighting. Remember, how they held off the Russians was really just extraordinary individual initiative, valor, independent action, just picking off... and they all ended up on single-lane roads and so forth and held them off. Now though, it’s a totally different fight. Again, tanks and armored vehicles just have no place on this battlefield.

Jason Hsu:

I want to talk a little bit about connectivity as well as the issue with the Starlinks. I know initially when the world break out, Starlink play a big role, and-

David Petraeus:

And it’s still playing a big role. It was shut down for a period of-

Jason Hsu:

Period of time, and they come back up.

David Petraeus:

... very small period of time.

Jason Hsu:

And for Taiwan-

David Petraeus:

And it’s non-political now.

Jason Hsu:

For Taiwan, we’ve tried to interact with Starlink, but there was an issue about data ownership and who owns data, and that the deal fell through. And we try other partners such as OneWeb, Kyber, but that hasn’t been going really well. And also Taiwan now faces undersea cable cutoffs, and these are the set of cables that our telecoms or even companies such as TSMC, rely to transmit their data. And this cable, once they’re cut, it’s difficult to replace and repair. So in terms of maintaining connectivity and communication, what can we learn from Ukraine? Knowing that Starlink at the moment could also be an issue because of its vested interest in China. And so how should we think about maintaining, at least, outside communication, stay underlying when island is facing a blockade or some sort of a communication cutoff?

David Petraeus:

Well, maybe there’s a lesson here as well, perhaps from Ukraine, because what has happened as Ukraine has become an entire society at war, is everyone is rallying to the... the individual, by the way, founded the Nemesis Battalion now regiment, who’s former minister of the country. I mean, this is...

David Petraeus:

... now in our regiment this former prime minister of the country. I mean, this is how much they’re contributing. He’s got all the tech talent, and this is a country that has enormous tech talent and a lot of the start-ups in Silicon Valley actually trace it to some degree to immigrants from Ukraine, also of course from Russia.

Jason Hsu:

Sure.

David Petraeus:

And so Taiwan has TSMC. It’s got lots of other, really the most state-of-the-art technology.

Jason Hsu:

Companies. Yeah.

David Petraeus:

Why can they not be harnessed to figure out how to maintain connectivity, whether it’s to put your own constellation up or some other solution? Again, we thought there was no other solution to 5G, for example, than some kind of tons of little towers all around the United States or wherever the country was. And now lo and behold, this could be the answer. You look at 6G, O-RAN could be an answer. Again, how can you have the kind of redundant, resilient and sustainable communications turn to the population that is producing 90 percent of the world’s most advanced chips, so important that they can’t be sold to potential adversaries.

Jason Hsu:

There is an official government-to-government relationship between Taiwan and Ukraine. But in your opinion and observation, it seems to me it is very urgent and an imperative for Taiwan and Ukraine to set up some sort of a defense collaboration. It is to share learnings from both sides. And I wonder if you were to advise our government, where should we begin? And you note Taiwan’s vast resources in technology, in supply chain. And even in AI, we are building AI chips, supply chain, all that. But on the surface, the two governments cannot really engage officially due to political complications. But what can we do?

David Petraeus:

I mean, I’d try to figure out how to get people on the ground. I don’t think-

Jason Hsu:

The ground is probably the most-

David Petraeus:

... think it’s actually about setting up some kind of institutions, and your Center for Army lessons learned. They don’t even have a Center for Army lessons learned, I don’t think, or if they do, it’s ad hoc. They’re working harder and harder and harder to institutionalize.

Jason Hsu:

That’s right.

David Petraeus:

But what they do basically is let a thousand flowers bloom. By the way, there could not be a more substantial contrast between innovation in Ukraine and innovation in Russia, which is top down. Now that still can work by the way, if they get the right big idea and they produce it at mass and scale and then force it on down to everyone. But it’s the complete opposite in Ukraine. Again, everybody out there is tinkering with stuff. I forget the number of drone companies. It’s hundreds actually of individual drone country. There’s not the kind of huge military industrial scale that you see in Russia.

And again, Russia’s innovating too, and their jamming in electronic warfare is very, very advanced. Their drones are getting better and better. The Shahed drones that they got from Iran originally were very vulnerable to just actually direct machine guns, and the Ukrainians incredibly capable with that. And of course it’s a much lower cost than having to use some of the more expensive interceptors.

Now they’re flying higher, they’re flying faster. So it’s a back and forth constant offense, defense, innovation and response. And I think the way to do this is just to get fairly substantial number of people on the ground who understand what they’re seeing and can capture these kinds of lessons and then bring them back, export them if you will. The truth is the US is not doing this sufficiently. We’re very, very sensitive to the number of boots on the ground. So military members that are over there largely are at the embassy. They’re largely tracking what is going on with the systems and ammunition, all the supplies and so forth, and money that we’re giving to Ukraine and accounting for that and so forth.

We have a very elaborate lessons learned process and system. In fact, during the surge in Iraq, one of the big activities that I had was to make sure that the Center for Army Lessons Learned, Marine Corps Lessons Learned, and Joint Forces, Lessons Learned, Asymmetric Warfare Group, which was for the special ops, the Counterinsurgency Center I established earlier. All of these were all over the battlefield. And by the way, once a month, there was a whole process by which they all reported up through our two-star chief of staff. And I would sit down with the full colonels that led this for an hour, and their job was to distill lessons that they thought we needed to learn. Actually, they’re misnamed. They’re not actually center for lessons learned. They’re center for lessons identified, and I would’ve changed their names, but for the signage cost.

So again, they identify the lessons and it’s part of your fourth task of a strategic leader. First task is get the big ideas right, get the right strategy. Then it’s to communicate the strategy effectively through the breadth and depth of the organization and to all who have a stake in the outcome. Third task is to oversee the implementation of the big ideas. The fourth task is to determine how the big ideas need to be refined so that you can do it again and again and again. And that lessons piece is part of it.

We had a culture of learning. Every time I sat down with the two-stars, each one of them had to give, two-stars and above, had to give a lesson that he had learned that was applicable to the others, or an initiative that his unit had taken that was applicable to the others. So you’re constantly trying to, again, be a learning organization. And then in fact, one hour every month I would spend with a guy who took my job back in the US who owned the Center for Army lessons Learned doctrine, leader development, organizational constructs, all the rest of this, and oversaw training and so on, to then institutionalize it back in the Army.

That’s how the institutional process would work if you actually had this kind of thing. But we’re not doing that adequately, again in Ukraine for fear that, again, someone would be killed and it will undermine the policy. There’s a lot of other people on that battlefield from other agencies and organizations in the US government, but they’re not out there identifying lessons that should be brought back to the US military. So how do you do that in a more ad hoc way, something that’s somewhat organized, is absolutely get people that are just watching over the shoulders of these organizations and learning how to take the big ideas and operationalize them, and that’s really crucial.

Jason Hsu:

I want to talk a little bit about US, Russia and China and its implication to evolve in the situation. Do you see some sort of a ceasefire deal or as some sort of intermediate result between Russia and Ukraine under President Trump’s leadership? And also for the likely meeting between President Trump and President Xi, what would some potential implications to Taiwan? And should we be concerning about any potential change or potential deals that would take place that would undermine the current situation that we have been try to sustain ourselves for?

David Petraeus:

That’s a lot of big questions in one question there. We often will caution the moderators one question mark per question, but in this case, look, I don’t foresee a ceasefire deal between Russia and Ukraine until the US, European and other Western countries provides so much assistance to Ukraine that they can change the dynamic on the battlefield to where Vladimir Putin is brought to realize that he cannot achieve any additional gains, even incremental, which is what they’re doing on a daily basis right now, at anything like an acceptable cost.

And keep in mind that in this respect, this is a leader who has accepted one million killed and wounded. That’s the kind of cost he’s been willing to bear. So you’d have to do something very dramatic. You have to stop them cold on the battlefield. I’m not sure how much you could actually regain, given how difficult it is to be on the offense on this particular battlefield right now. And Russia is experiencing that on a daily basis.

By the way of that, more than one million Russians killed and wounded, over 500,000 have not been able to return to the front lines. In other words, they’ve been killed or so seriously wounded they could not. Look, as somebody who wrote letters of condolence to America’s mothers and fathers and others every single night I think that I was in these five combat commands that Ken kindly mentioned, I can’t comprehend the numbers that you’re dealing with. I just don’t know how the commanders don’t really... I think actually that you saw his commander go mad at one point, the leader of the essentially mercenary forces who then had that quixotic campaign, driving to Moscow where he was going to kidnap the Minister of Defense and the chief of the general staff until they changed some decisions affecting his forces Prigozhin.

I saw so many photos of him walking among the rows of the dead that I think he actually did at a certain point in time actually begin to go somewhat crazed. I don’t know how you can explain what he did otherwise, but these casualties are enormous. And so to do what’s necessary to enable Ukraine to stop them cold, perhaps even push them back a bit, that’s the way to set the conditions for where Putin might finally be willing to sit down at a table and consider something that is realistic as opposed to... His conditions right now are essentially the replacement of Zelensky, the demilitarization of Ukraine, and of course no NATO and so forth. That is obviously unacceptable to President Zelensky and really to the Ukrainian people. So that’s what will be necessary there.

You ask about a possible meeting of President Trump and President Xi. My sense is that this is going to be all trade tariffs all the time. I’m doubtful that they get into some of the other important aspects of the relationship. These are sufficiently thorny issues as it is, and it’s the most important economic relationship in the world. I should qualify that a bit because, of course, our number one and two trading partners are Mexico and Canada in that order. But China’s right behind that.

It’s clearly the most important strategic relationship in the world, as I mentioned earlier. But right now it’s all about resolving these tariff issues, which if not resolved, China has the ability to bring us to our knees in certain respects. And by the way, we have a similar ability because without what we provide to Russia or what we provide to China, they cannot feed their people nor feed their livestock. So the idea that we could decouple was always a very misplaced concept. We can de-risk and should de-risk, and we have been doing that, I think really against starting with Trump 1.0, certainly through the Biden administrations.

I mean 100 percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles is a pretty substantial action as were many of the other restrictions on what we could sell to China. Also, the companies in which we can invest, the entities list continued to grow and so forth. But again, you cannot decouple from a trading partner who has the rare earths, the strategic minerals, the magnets. That list goes on and on, pharmaceutical precursors and so forth. You have to work your way through that, and I think that’s going to be a thorny enough issue that that’s probably going to suck up the oxygen in the room for that first meeting, at the very least.

Jason Hsu:

We have about five or 10 minutes. I’d like to reserve for the room to ask general questions. Please raise your hand and identify yourself and then ask questions, short and crisp questions. We start from this gentleman here, and then here and then maybe you next. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, my name is Richard and right now I’m working for the World Bank. My question is for General Petraeus, and we talk about compare Taiwan to Ukraine. And we know Ukraine was next to Poland, which is NATO country, and the Poland built a warehouse to supply the Ukraine with weapons and everything. But Taiwan was a island. How the US is thinking, the situations during the war or blockade? How US keep Taiwan supplied because the weapon support is keeping Ukraine’s morale high. And without that, I don’t know how long the Taiwan going to fight. My second question is for the-

David Petraeus:

You get one question.

Speaker 2:

One more quick question. I’m sorry.

Jason Hsu:

Maybe we take two questions.

David Petraeus:

No, we’ll take one at a time. Look, I think we actually covered some of that during the discussion. The bottom line is that Taiwan has identified areas that need to be dramatically enhanced to improve its resilience, its ability to survive the early whatever it is, periods of time. As I mentioned earlier, there’s lots of work that has gone on at Indo-Pacific command in the Pentagon, in the greater US government on how to respond to various scenarios that are possible that have been sketched out, including a blockade, other actions that can be taken by China.

And again, I think there’s a conceptual readiness for that, but there needs to be a lot more work done, particularly again when it comes to shoring up the resilience of Taiwan, which has some real Achilles heels, as we have mentioned. Again, how does it generate its energy? How does it maintain its communications to the outside world and the rest of this. So I think this is another case where what’s necessary has actually been identified. It’s actually been thought through. And the question is there the wherewithal, particularly again by Taiwan itself to help remedy these, and then what kind of assistance can be provided by others while always, again, I think being very careful in a very sensitive relationship. Never to be needlessly provocative, but certainly to show the kinds of actions that are being taken to come back to what I started with, which is all about deterrence.

Jason Hsu:

This gentleman here, please.

John Raviv:

Thank you. My name is John Raviv. Good to see you again, General. We hosted you back when I was at SAIS, someone named Lieutenant General Petraeus a couple of years ago. Good to see you again.

David Petraeus:

It was a wonderful time actually. Fuad Ajami was there, as I recall.

John Raviv:

Indeed, indeed.

David Petraeus:

I think he had been on this long March patrol with us in Iraq and we presented him, as you may recall, a plaque that had him with his helmet askew and looking quite sweaty.

John Raviv:

He was a skew hat kind of guy. Rest in peace.

David Petraeus:

But a brilliant and intellectual.

John Raviv:

Absolutely. My question, you just segued into it beautifully with deterrence. You mentioned deterrence being key, being a key lesson here. What are some of the non-military places and deterrence, and how is the current efforts to eliminate some agencies and emissions impacting the deterrence?

David Petraeus:

Yeah, so again, let’s start with the US perspective, obviously. And as I mentioned earlier, the idea should be India’s, I think, to have a comprehensive, again, all of the tools in the toolbox and to have those out there quite publicly. If this, then that kinds of thinking through what would be done if this takes place, if that takes place, how would we respond? And to the degree that that’s possible. To actually ensure that that information is out there. Again, this is, as I mentioned earlier twice, why the Indopaycom commander unveiled Hellscape. Because if the potential adversary didn’t know about it, it doesn’t help with deterrence. Of course, now you have to operationalize the capability for Hellscape.

So again, I think that’s how you go about what it is that you’re asking about here. What are the trade actions that can be taken? I’m one, by the way, who believes that we should have the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that that was much more of a security action initiative than it was actually strictly economic or trade. What kind of sanctions could be envisioned? What kind of diplomatic actions could be taken, all of the different tools that you have. And they include even in the cognitive space and the other areas so that you’re actually having an absolute whole of government, but then as I added earlier, add an S on the end of governments to include our allies and partners in the region, noting again, how great it is to see the Philippines very much back in the fold. And coincidentally, President Marcos was just here of course, a week ago, and I had the privilege of meeting him with the representatives of some other investment firms while he was here. So that’s how I think you want to go about that conceptually. And then really drill into it, so that you’ve actually done the preparatory work. And it should, in our case, be not just the executive branch, it should very much involve Congress to make sure. And ideally, you’d have some of these pieces in place ahead of time. Again, not trying to be needlessly provocative, but certainly trying to be prepared for the tools that could be employed and how you will actually do that.

Jason Hsu:

This gentleman here.

Sean Cantrell:

Jason, thank you. So good to see you again.

David Petraeus:

Likewise.

Sean Cantrell:

Sean Cantrell with Maxar Intelligence. Sir, appreciating what you said about needlessly provocative or do not be that, how would Taipei message to Beijing, “We’re watching, we’re watching you closely. And if we see certain lines crossed,” maybe don’t say those, “we’ll react?”

David Petraeus:

This is particularly sensitive, and I might actually really take a pass specifically on this to a degree, given that I did have some fairly sensitive positions in government. But I think in this case, this is really where the U.S. and the other countries in the region arguably might want to take the lead on this kind of activity. I think the position of the leadership in Taiwan is very, very challenging with respect to the mainland. And so again, this is one where I think that those who are... Again, yes, it’s policy of strategic ambiguity, but wanting very much to deter actual conflict, should probably take the lead.

Jason Hsu:

You might have time for two more questions. This gentleman here first, and then we’ll take the last question.

Ilya Ponomarev:

Thank you. I’m Ilya Ponomarev. I’m working with emerging Ukraine defense industry. And first of all, General, Prime Minister Honcharuk wanted to say thank you for the kind words that you suggest about Nemesis Battalion.

David Petraeus:

Oh, fantastic, thank you.

Ilya Ponomarev:

That was very kind of you.

David Petraeus:

Yes.

Ilya Ponomarev:

My question is-

David Petraeus:

He’s an extraordinary leader. Again, to think about being the prime minister of a country, your tour is up and so what do you do? He doesn’t become a consultant or a lobbyist, he actually establishes a drone battalion and continues to lead it to this day. It’s truly admirable. And it’s across the board in Ukraine, you see it everywhere. These individuals that had these extraordinary IT companies and digitization initiatives, they’re all serving in government. Now, it is particularly interesting, because you go into these locations and there aren’t too many people actually wearing true uniforms or they’re mixing and matching, but it’s really about the intellect and the brainpower that they’re bringing to the task, which is really, I think unequaled.

Ilya Ponomarev:

You’re absolute right, he’s an amazing man. But I don’t want to waste your time. Yeah, so the question, we’re just back from Taiwan, and they’re really looking very carefully about what’s going on in Ukraine. And my impression was that the main lesson learned is that U.S. doesn’t have the means to protect the island anymore, taking this new warfare that was demonstrated in Ukraine.

David Petraeus:

I’d be careful to overstate that frankly. There is extraordinary capabilities. Do we need to transform and increase some categories? Without question, as I laid out. But I’d be very, very... I just can’t let that one pass with all due respect.

Ilya Ponomarev:

Sure, sure. I wanted to be provocative so that you can answer this.

David Petraeus:

You are.

Ilya Ponomarev:

But my experience anyway is working here, that we are facing resistance from both sides. The emerging technology companies from the West Coast as well as the largest mammoths that produce arms, they both are against of adopting technologies from Ukraine in the U.S. military. Recently, Secretary Hegseth had announced the initiative on drones and the IU is about to be reformed. But what do you think needs to be done to be able to take transfer from Ukraine into U.S., all these new technologies?

David Petraeus:

Well, it’s just not tech transfer from Ukraine, it’s actually how do we transform our overall forces in the way that I’ve described? And the reality is that the military-industrial-congressional complex, as Senator John McCain used to affectionately term it, there are elements in each of those three of components or institutions that are wedded to existing procurement processes, existing base structures, existing platforms. Let’s not forget the U.S. Air Force, I forget how many years it was forced to buy additional C-130J aircraft when it said, “We have enough.” And there was one individual in a particularly important position on an appropriations committee or something like that, that said, “No, you don’t have enough. You don’t understand.” And they got six more every single year for a number of years. That’s the kind of pressure that is out there, and it’s from certain industry elements as well. And even again, even in the military services themselves or individuals wedded to certain again, of these platforms, that’s what they have known.

Look, when we conducted the surge in Iraq, I went back to Secretary Gates repeatedly. I said, “Mr. secretary, we’ve got to have more drones.” And the conception of itself, the U.S. Air Force at that time was a manned aircraft, particularly a fighter bomber and so on. And it took enormous effort. In fact, it took new leadership to actually carry out the procurement reforms and so forth that were necessary. I’ve said several times that I wish DOGE had actually been targeted first and foremost and exclusively on the military procurement system, which by the way is much more than just procurement. It starts with getting a concept of course, what’s your new doctrine? And so forth. And then what are the material requirements that you have to operationalize that concept? And then a host of other changes that you need to take. But that’s what is challenging us.

And there were numerous cases of this during the surge. By the way, the surge was the one time, because you had a constellation of stars in line that were unique. We were losing a war. The Sunni-Shia civil war was escalating out of control when 53 dead bodies due to violence of civilians in the nation’s capitol, Baghdad, turn up every 24 hours you know something is seriously amiss. The president went all in on us. In fact, when I sat with him, in fact, he said initially, after I was confirmed and we did the photo op in the Oval Office, he said, “Well, General, we’re doubling down in Iraq.” I said, “Mr. President, your military is going all in. We need all the rest of government to go all in.” He said, “I will ensure that that’s the case here in Washington.”

And he started a weekly video teleconference never done in history before. Every Monday morning at 7:30, the entire national security team around the situation room table. Nothing ever happens in the White House before 9 or 10 even usually. The PDB marches in somewhere around then. On a Monday morning, so the way Washington started its work week was the president with the team, and he goes directly to the ambassador and to me, and he says, “How are we doing? What do you need?” That’s pretty powerful. That empowers your head diplomat and your military commander in ways that’s never actually been done before.

There have been a couple of wars, in fact, when I was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, where the president never even talked to the battlefield commander. I think it was the Kosovo Air Campaign for example. And that was not a short endeavor. And then you have Secretary Gates who loved bureaucratic infighting and knew how to do it, and it was just an incredible... Then you have Admiral Mullen added to the mix as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and you could not ask for a dream team to get more drones, to get the V-shaped hull military, the MRAP vehicles, mine resistant armor protected that saved thousands of lives. But we were unable to get, despite me putting that as a requirement on the table when I was in charge of army requirements in one of my many hats as a three-star at Fort Leavenworth.

All of these other, the military kit, the towers with optics, blimps with optics, just about anything we needed, and it really moved quickly. But why did it happen? We were in fear of losing a war. The president was heavily invested in it. You got the right people at the Pentagon to push it. We had Senator McCain on Capitol Hill. Industry fell in line, because Gates was pushing them hard. Leadership was changed and so forth. That’s what it takes. And in peacetime that is really hard to replicate. I actually think that the current administration might be able to do that kind of thing, given the somewhat non-standard approach that they take to various things, and make a decision and ramrod it.

And if the president were... And again you mentioned Secretary Hegseth, putting out this order on how we’re going to get on with drones and all the rest of this. Let’s see that be implemented, noting of course that the money goes directly to army, navy, air force now space force, actually Marines and space force. And so you’ve got to get into that. The services have to take the lead. I know the Chief of Staff of the Army very well. He was a lieutenant of mine, very proud of him. He knows what needs to be done. The question is can he drive it through this again, military, industrial, congressional complex that stymies your every effort even while saying that, “Oh yes, we know we need to do this and we got to get on with that.” But when you see what Ukraine is doing, that’s what a country does when it’s fighting for its very survival, it’s War of Independence.

And plus, they have the talent to do it, and you have again, a presidency that’s willing to drive this process and to occasionally change leaders as well. So that’s what should be the model. And there the partnership between those who manufacture the drone, actually design them, manufacture them, and then employ them is like this. In our system, it’s much more divided. You sue each other over every change order. If it doesn’t work... And again, that’s got to change. And if you get really, really serious about it, you can change it. But it’s hard to get folks really, really serious during a peacetime period.

Jason Hsu:

General, do you have time for one last question?

David Petraeus:

Sure, sure.

Jason Hsu:

Okay. Make it quick, we are over time. Please, this gentleman here, final question, please.

Speaker 3:

So you’ve talked about the thickening of processes during peacetime, but Taiwan’s challenge is existential. So how much time do we have to bring about the change you’re advocating?

David Petraeus:

Well, no one knows, of course. I mean, what you’re trying to do again, is every morning when the sun comes up, look wistfully out there and say, “Okay, not today.” How do you keep that going? And so you’ve got to show, what you need to show is really earnest effort to bring about the transformation that I’ve discussed for U.S. forces, for allies and partners. By the way, it’s much, much more than just hardware. It’s also hardening our own capabilities. The Pacific Deterrence Initiative, which is about $20 billion a year, that’s not a trivial sum, which USPACOM through the services and so forth, they’re putting headquarters underground, dispersing the forces, hardening bases, improving the air and ballistic missile defenses.

All of these actions actually are ongoing. The question is how can you accelerate it? Well, look, if it’s going to be a $1 trillion this year, yes, $150 billion of that’ll be some kind of supplemental, that ought to enable a fair amount of this kind of activity. And I hope that there’s a fair amount that is dedicated to that. But then it becomes more, again, just changing, just ramrodding, the changes that we’re talking about in terms of processes, force transformation and so forth, all driven by concepts.

And then similar imperative obviously for Taiwan itself. And again, can it get from 2.5 to three to 3.5, can it get the kind of unity necessary to carry out some of what will be to some degree unpopular changes, in terms of extension of active service, more rigorous reserve service, more rigorous exercises, all in the right direction. And they’re already moving in these directions. Again, the exercise conducted this year reflected that. Can it continue to move that way and can it then learn about the new realities of warfare? Which again, as was mentioned in the introduction, there’s a very assiduous learner in Beijing and an apparatus that’s there, that is actually, again, tremendous support for Russia, and learning from what Russia is doing. And Russia is innovating as well, but really Ukraine is the one that’s innovating in the almost breathtaking way. How can all of that be learned? We had a variety of ideas about that, I think. And the question is, can they actually be implemented in some fashion?

Jason Hsu:

Yeah. General, for Taiwan, these lessons carry profound significance. We face a far more technologically sophisticated adversary, along with the challenges of the geography and the potential blockade, relentless cyber attacks. The central question for us today, is not only how Taiwan can defend itself if conflict arises, but how it can build a deterrence posture so strong politically, militarily, economically, and technologically that war never begins.

David Petraeus:

Look, that’s what we want.

Jason Hsu:

Exactly.

David Petraeus:

We all want to see peace sustained. This is why, again, the U.S.-China relationship is so absolutely central, really to the future of the world. Look, there are economic impacts of Ukraine and Russia at war, largely have been worked through the system, the economic impacts of war between the West and China, if you will, would be just incalculable. As the Chairman of the KKAR Global Institute, we do risk identification, ensure we can mitigate them. You can’t de-risk the global economy exploding.

And so it’s really important that the U.S.-China relationship gets on a firm footing, has some guardrails, has the kind of communications that were not there by the way, when the Chinese spy balloon floated over the U.S. and the Pentagon picked up the hotline and nobody answered in Beijing. So that’s really incumbent on the U.S. Administration. I think that’s well recognized. I think it was recognized by the previous administration as well. Again, our policies will continue to be the same, they should be the same, while noting the reality that we need to ensure that our contribution to deterrence in the Indo-Pacific is rock solid because of the capabilities we have and the willingness to employ them in certain circumstances without again, being needlessly provocative. And get through the period of heightened concern and so forth, so that we can ensure that peace does prevail.

Jason Hsu:

General, we want to thank you for your precious time and sharing your observation and lessons learned from Ukraine. And please join me a round applause to General David Petraeus.

David Petraeus:

Thank you.