Q: You mentioned that the economy – given the global economy is one of the biggest challenges to putting you all out of business. A lot of what we talked about is we talked about the foreign economy. Is there a potential here at home – do you see the potential here at home where we’re going to have some of these homegrown terrorists. If the economy doesn’t get turned around, that we you have any concern here in the United States?
ADM. MICHAEL MULLEN: Well, I don’t think I said, “putting us out of business.” Certainly, we’re all under the financial pressures, but the global economic crisis is generative, and we understand it’s a top priority for all of us to try to move that in the right direction. Certainly, the president’s been very clear about what he’s focused on in terms of job creation.
I’m not overly concerned with – that economic crisis here is going to generate the kind of extremists, per se, that I was talking about. I was very much focused on countries whose unemployment rate is much higher than ours, whose sustained economy has not been what ours has been in the past. And it goes back to what I said earlier about sort of parents around the world would like to raise their kids to a higher standard of living. And young men and women choosing careers that don’t include, you know, blowing themselves up and killing innocent people.
The economics behind that are very important and the beliefs. In the long run, I really think we get at al-Qaida by putting them out of business on this path. And in my view, it’s Muslims who are actually going to throw them out, if you will; that will no longer tolerate the behavior, the extremism, the deaths that they’re generating.
Q: Admiral, Dan – (inaudible) – United States battalion. I wanted to welcome you and welcome you to town here.
ADM. MULLEN: Good to see you.
Q: Good to see you, sir. Twenty years ago, I would have thought that it would be unusual to hear the top man addressing the economy to a bunch of students. Do you find that to be kind of a novelty for these days?
ADM. MULLEN: Well, no, actually, I’ve talked about it a long time. And maybe it’s just my exposure in the Navy around the world, you know, throughout my life that I’ve seen citizens from countries all over the world, you know, seeking to better themselves and better themselves not just for themselves, but for their families.
And then I would relate that to this enormous crisis that we’re in globally and certainly, we are in the middle of it and I think that’s something that – and an awful lot of people are focused on getting this right for the future. And I recognize what the deficits are.
And I’ve said for the last couple of years, I think we, as a Department of Defense, will have to figure out, you know, our role in that. You know, we have a lot of resources, we need a lot of resources. And so what that means in terms of the future ability for our country to support our defense needs is certainly something that we all need to be paying attention to.
So this isn’t – I’m not talking about this because of this crisis. I’ve actually talked about healthy economies for a long time. And in those places where it hasn’t been, you find the seeds and actually, sometimes, not just the seeds, but dramatic growth in those things that are extremist beliefs that, in fact, generate the kind of violence that is out there.
Q: Thank you, sir.
Q: Were you surprised at all at the question from the officer about your remarks yesterday regarding the role of the admirals and the generals to be leading foreign policy? Did that surprise you that they’re concerned about infringing on combatant commanders and what that may lead to?
ADM. MULLEN: Well, I took the question more as, do I see it as infringing? I understand that, but the point about yesterday and then the answer today is we’ve got to have the balance right. And I have great, great commanders out there and they are doing what they’re being asked to do, there’s no question. I just think there needs to be a better balance with respect to that.
And it doesn’t mean to undercut combatant commanders at all. They have enormous requirements. We actually just stood another one up recently in Africa because they are – historically, they’ve been so effective. Africa has become such an important continent that we couldn’t have a command in Europe, which is previously the command EUCOMM, European Command, which had the purview for Africa. It didn’t have the scope to really focus on the engagement piece, the relationship piece, the building partnership piece that’s so important. We see that globally and Africa was a command – was a continent where we just – we were not able to get that done and that’s been the purpose of that. And Gen. Kip Ward has done a great job with that.
But it’s not – interesting enough in his command, one of his deputies – he’s got two personal deputies, one for military operations and another is a State Department deputy, a former ambassador who was there as we stood up this command. And that’s a big signal, I think, about the way we need to look at the future.
MR. : We have time for one more.
Q: One of the ideas that’s been proposed by academia is actually codifying some of these economic teachings, putting it in a field manual geared toward sergeant and captain levels. Is that something you’re receptive to and how would troops engaged in counterinsurgency in Afghanistan benefit from – (inaudible, crosstalk)?
ADM. MULLEN: Well, I think it would be – I am very receptive to that idea and I think it would provide great benefit. We have handed young captains, senior NCOs, millions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the CERP funds to essentially create jobs, to essentially create communities, to build a chamber of commerce, if you will, in ways that – where structure just didn’t exist, so having some training, some education, some focus on that before we go and do that, I think is really important.
And that stabilization piece, which is sort of where we’ve been focused, the brief that I sat in this morning – and I think you were there – but that discussion was building – helping build, not doing it, but helping build – because we’re there on the ground – economies which start to grow, not just stabilize, but can we get to a point where actually, we can support other members of our government from other agencies as well as other countries to build an economy that’s going to grow, which in fact, then, will start to get to a level where these countries can sustain themselves.