Why China is studying America’s Forgotten War - with Rep. Mike Gallagher
Throughout modern history, there were major wars that were triggered by fits of inattention or inadvertence. In retrospect, these moments can seem obvious – sometimes even linear. Walter Russuell Mead is observing some of these fits of inattention right now. Walter believes there is some kind of collective denial about these trends. He calls it “geopolitical climate denialism.” That’s what we discuss with him in this episode. He’s also just back from another trip to India, where he’s been spending a lot of time. His insights on the growing importance of India to America and the changing relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are also topics we discuss. Walter is at the Hudson Institute, he is the Global View Columnist at The Wall Street Journal and a professor at Bard College. He was previously the Henry Kissinger fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is the author of “The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People”.
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] China is studying the Korean war as part of a broader preparation for a potential war with America over Taiwan. And this is the message that Xi Jinping is sending to his people is that you have to be prepared for confrontation, uh, with the West. And there's no doubt that if given the opportunity, Xi Jinping would take Taiwan, even if it costs him dearly militarily, a
lot of news to discuss these days with a U S official, who's an expert on China and has. Major influence over U. S. China policy. We could discuss the Biden administration's recently signed executive order that will bar some new U. S. investments in China in sensitive technologies, like computer chips, and would also require notification to the government in other tech sectors.
Then there was President Biden just recently [00:01:00] hosting the leaders of Japan and South Korea at Camp David, where they agreed to expand security and economic ties. All of this clearly aimed at China as well, and North Korea. Those are the kinds of developments we typically discuss with today's guest, or return guest, Congressman Mike Gallagher, who's the chairman of a newly created select committee on China in Congress.
By the way, I don't encourage people to watch congressional hearings generally, but if any of our listeners want to actually really get informed by the work in Congress, watch Congressman Gallagher's China Special Select Committee on China hearings. They are actually quite interesting and informative, but what I wanted to do in today's conversation with congressman Gallagher is take a longer view of Cold War two the Cold War we are in with China by looking at a historical comparison in Cold War one Fortunately congressman Gallagher just wrapped up teaching a history class On one such historical [00:02:00] comp, the Korean War.
He co taught this class with military expert, former top policy advisor to Senator Tom Cotton and Mike's fellow Marine, Aaron McClain. It's always interesting for me to observe how members of Congress get informed, how do they develop their intellectual capital, how they spend down their intellectual capital.
And here's a congressman who's very busy with his responsibilities on Capitol Hill and his responsibilities back in his district in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and yet is still totally committed to his intellectual and academic development, both learning and teaching. That in and of itself is something I wanted to talk to him about.
How he, how he fit that in to his uh, demanding schedule and why it was so important to him. As many of you know, Mike Gallagher served for seven years on active duty in the United States Marine Corps, including two deployments in Iraq. He was a national security aide on Capitol Hill. He's also a warrior scholar of sorts, having earned a [00:03:00] bachelor's degree from Princeton, a master's degree in security studies from Georgetown, a second Master's in strategic intelligence from National Intelligence University and a PhD in international relations from Georgetown.
He's a real underachiever. Congressman Gallagher has also served on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee. And finally, at the end of our conversation on what lessons from the Korean War can inform potential future conflict with China, we do have a short conversation about Mike's work on UFOs.
Yes. Mike Gallagher thinks we need to talk about ETs. And there's actually been some real congressional work done on this. I know you may be skeptical, but hear him out. It's actually pretty interesting. Mike Gallagher on what we can learn from a key period in Cold War I. For what lies ahead in our Cold War with China, Cold War II.
This is Call Me Back.[00:04:00]
Pleased to welcome back to this podcast fan favorite Congressman Mike Gallagher from Green Bay, from the great state of Wisconsin, chairman of a very important newly created committee on China, uh, and co educator with my friend Aaron McLean on a course about the Korean War and the lessons for China, which we're gonna talk about.
Mike, Thanks for being here. It's great to be back. How many times have I been on this podcast? So I took I took a look as you mentioned that to me the other day and I counted three So this is four which is not nothing But you don't get like any kind of jacket or baseball cap or anything or any any kind of call me back swag until you hit number Five has anyone hit five?
Oh, yeah Oh, yeah. Who? Who's? Neil Ferguson, Mike Murphy, Muhammad Al Aryan. Damn you, Ferguson. He's always Muhammad Al Aryan. What are his numbers though? I don't know. I don't know. We don't disclose that data. But, um, no, no, no. [00:05:00] The accent. I can't compete with the accent. Yeah, but you've got Wisconsin, man. You've got, you've got, you've got, you've got the Midwest, which reminds me, by the way, one of the reasons we have you on is not really to talk about geopolitics, although that's very important.
The reason, the real reason we have you on is Is, um, I've been meaning to ask you, this is something that I've been really struck by, is my impression always was that Aaron Rodgers was not a great leader when he was at the Green Bay Packers, that he was, there was some locker room chemistry issues, not great morale, um, that was just kind of always my sense of things, and what's been extraordinary about his arrival in New York is, is what a strong leader he has been for the New York Jets, and how much all these young players are responding to him, and he's almost like a coach, a mentor, so, um, yeah.
Has he always been a great leader or did he just kind of save that for the Jets? Well, let's stipulate that whatever the deal was between the NFL and the Jets and Aaron Rodgers to [00:06:00] do Hard knocks with the justice here had to have a provision that said this half like this has to be deliberately designed To make Aaron Rodgers look as good as possible and it does that like watched it Oh, yeah, I watched the first episode and I was desperate second episode is better than the first.
Well, I was desperate to watch it while I was in transit earlier this week, but my wife could not remember our HBO Max password. So I'm like, and now I like have to, because she doesn't want to watch it with me, I have to find like an hour that I can do this here at home. Okay, so, but seriously, so you're, you're like kind of blown away by how, how good he comes out?
Well, no, I mean, I'm a, I'm a Rogers apologist just because he's, I mean, he's First ballot hall of famer. And I feel like if you have a quarterback that good for that long, you just have to be grateful. And I think if you listen to, as I have like the interviews he used to do every week with ESPN Milwaukee on like Aaron Rodgers Tuesdays or Tuesdays with Aaron, and then like all the interviews he did, he did and continues to with Pat McAfee.
Yeah. Like this is the [00:07:00] side of him that, that like comes out. Like, I don't know if that's the side of him that was present in the Packer. Like locker room for the last three years. Cause it does seem like the organizational leadership in him had a huge falling out, at least starting with when we drafted Jordan love.
But like, this is the fun, funny, smart guy that like comes through in the podcast, which I've always liked about him. Um, so, so when you watch him, so not only when you watch him on hard knocks, but, uh, when you, when you watch that first press conference, he gave when he showed up at the jets facility after he had signed the deal, it was.
a masterclass that press conference. It was like, first of all, he knew So many of the reporters by name, he'd known things that he, they had written about, he referenced them, he completely charmed them. He knew who like the big iconic, like firemen, firemen, Ed, who's like this famous New York Jets fan who's at every game whose seat is right by our seats.
We see him at every game. He like cited firemen, Ed. I mean, he, this is a guy, it was [00:08:00] impressive. And like, I just, everyone told me he's, he's unpleasant. He's, he's, um, you know, he, he's not interested in like kind of culture. He's not interested in dealing with, but dealing with the press. But this was, this was a guy who like was tapped into how to appeal to the fans, how to appeal to the press.
It was, um, so I, it was just like, given the guy's reputation, all the noise coming out of green Bay, I've been, and then you watch hard knocks and I, and I, I should disclose I've been to. Two practices. I've been to two training camps in the last few weeks. Um, uh, and watched him, he, you watch him with these young players on the field, like mentoring them and teaching the moves and going over.
And some of these players are like really no names, people, players who are going to get cut. They're not even gonna make the final roster. And he must know that. And he's still spending time with them and dropping his pearls of wisdom. And it just seems like it's a guy who's like, who's really committed to his external image in New York, to his internal image at the, at the team.
And yeah. Like I said, sign of him I've never seen. So we are like thrilled to have him. Well, it's [00:09:00] I'm happy for the jets fan base. I will say I've, I've now done two TV interviews today where the jets came up and this has never happened before on Squawk box and on CNN. Uh, Joe Kernan asked you, was it current and current and big jets fan.
He's huge. Well, you saw the, I saw the Bart star jersey behind me and then he made a crack about the Jets. I will say the Jets fan base is unreasonably cocky right now based on a couple episodes of Hard Knocks, but I'm happy for you guys. It's good. I've just, and I always go back to the moment we've talked about before, which is when you're at Lambeau and you asked me, what do you guys do with the stadium in January?
And I said, we play playoff games. Jets fans wouldn't. Wouldn't know about that. You would think it's like, it's such a bad use of a stadium to have a big open stadium in a window place because it just gets no use, but I'm happy for you guys. I'm happy. Hey, let's get, let's get, you got, you got a lot of really interesting young players.
It is cool to see them. Like these guys are coming up to him saying, I used to watch you when I was growing up, they're all kids. We have a very young [00:10:00] team. Sorry to our listeners. We will, for those of you who aren't Jets fans or football fans, we will get off this in a second, but I will say we have a very young team.
You know, Garrett Wilson, you know, Williams, uh, you know, just go through it. You know, sauce gardener, all these guys are like really, really young. And, um, so they're all like in the early twenties, they're all guys who've been drafted in like the last two or three years at Zach Wilson. And so they grew up watching him.
I mean, they watched him on, not just through college. They watched Aaron Rogers all through high school and suddenly they're on a team with him. Well, I, I mean, I still don't think the jets are going to win anything, but again, I'm happy for you guys. I was like, Oh, the, uh, The motivational speech that Sala gives at the beginning of it is so great.
I'm not sure that was true. The whole crow and the Eagle thing, but I will say I just went to Australia and I gave a speech where I did an extended joke that I'm not sure anyone thought was funny about Orca whales and great white sharks. So in general, I'm in favor of animal metaphors to make a, a broader point about [00:11:00] an organization or geopolitics.
I will, I will finally say that whether he. You know, if the whole Jeopardy hosting thing doesn't work out, he does. You watch hard knocks and you watch him at these practices and you think this guy's post NFL playing career could be as a coach. Um, but, uh, he, he does probably a commentator, a highly paid commentator.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Makes more sense. Although he's he's canceled, right? He's he's, uh, you're not allowed to be because of the vaccine. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're all kind of. I don't know. Well, it feels like the people that control the, uh, the media, if he gets, it takes the jets to a super bowl. You watch, this is a very, uh, emotionally abused fan base and, um, and, and emotionally abused sports media.
So, uh, so I, I think they will, the, the, the, the path to redemption for, for Aaron Rodgers and their eyes will be, uh, will be enormous. Okay. Let's, let's get into this. Um, so I want to. Sort of, um, set the table here. So you and Aaron [00:12:00] McLean co authored a piece for foreign affairs called why America forgets and China remembers the Korean war.
That's the title of the piece that you guys just published. Uh, I think on the 70 year anniversary of the end of the, uh, right around the 70 year anniversary of the end of the Korean war. And, um, the subtitle is the CCP, the, the Chinese Communist Party's Dangerous Historical Distortions and the Struggle Over Taiwan.
So you guys wrote a piece timing this anniversary, looking back to the Korean War, what many call the forgotten war, this war that occurred, the war, first kind of real hot war in the cold war, in the context of the cold war, um, between World War II and the Vietnam War. It gets much less attention than the cold war, than the Vietnam War and World War II.
And this piece you wrote. pivots off a class you taught. So you and Aaron taught a class that was sponsored by and organized by the hair, the Hurtog Foundation. So most members of Congress, and this is an interesting in and of itself, most members of Congress [00:13:00] do many things in their spare time. Um, you know, during recesses or whatnot, but you chose to spend some of your spare time teaching a class about the Korean War.
What was this class? Why did you want to teach it like just that sort of That's, that's unusual. Well, I've always been obsessed with the early cold war. Uh, that's what I did my, my graduate work, uh, on, I mean, I was in a political science PhD program, but I was basically kind of a wannabe cold war historian.
Always found this period fascinating. In particular, I've found sort of the early Eisenhower administration fascinating. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think it has something to do with the fact that, you know, we had just come out of world war two victorious and we were struggling with how to modernize.
Our national security bureaucracy to deal with the rising threat of the Soviet Union. Um, and a lot of the, the, the agencies and organizations that we still depend on today to keep the country safe or indeed created in this unique period between roughly, let's say [00:14:00] 1946, when Churchill goes to Fulton, Missouri to give the iron curtain speech to 1961, the end of the Eisenhower administration.
I've always also just admired. Eisenhower and a lot of figures of the period as leaders, George Marshall, obviously. Um, so that was my interest. I became particularly interested in the Korean war in which I'm not an expert about two years ago or at some point during the pandemic, because I started to realize that in, in China, there was this emerging cult of the Korean war.
Um, at the time there were all these. Wolf warrior diplomats attacking America online. And then I asked myself, why are they called wolf warrior diplomats that relates to this movie wolf warrior one wolf warrior two, which is like the Chinese version of Rambo. It's like super jingoistic and anti American action movie.
I watched these during the pandemic right here in this basement. Um, these, one of them will 42 was the highest grossing Chinese movie of all time until a movie came along. called the Battle at Lake Changan, which supplanted it as the highest grossing [00:15:00] Chinese movie of all time, which was a retelling of the Battle of Chosin Reservoir from the Chinese perspective.
And as a Marine, the Battle of Chosin Reservoir is one of the iconic sort of moments in Marine Corps history. Um, you know, there's an argument made that the Marines saved the entire war effort through their fighting retreat from Chosin Reservoir. So all of those things conspired to make me. Incredibly interested, if not obsessed with the Korean war, I became obsessed with this one book in particular that had been on the commandant's reading list for a long time called this kind of war.
And when Roger Hurtog approached me with the idea of, of teaching a course, I wanted to, but I was really hesitant, um, just cause I didn't think I'd have the time. And so I tried to resist him for as long as possible, but he wore down my defenses. By the way, isn't there like something about like, in order to be a rabbi, you have to like deny it three times or what's that?
That's really funny. In order to convert to Judaism, that's it. You have to, um, so like my wife converted to Judaism. In order, when you, when you want to convert to Judaism, [00:16:00] you have to request You request, and you are typically rejected by the rabbi, and you have to request multiple times, three times, before, um, the rabbi is supposed to, um, kind of take your request seriously, so you have to show commitment, and, you know, so, that's, that's, I like that, that's your analogy.
Well, how many times did you have to request? Permission to marry your wife before you wore down her defenses. Was it more, we're going to save that for the, for your episode five, episode five, that's going to be on episode five, the teaser for our listeners. Long story short, I went down this rabbit hole of studying the Korean war, and then I had an opportunity to sort of teach a seminar via the Hertog foundation.
And in order to. Mitigate the fact that I just didn't think I'd have time and sharing this committee on China, but I really wanted to do it if for no other reason than it would force me to kind of learn the material better and organize my own thoughts. I reached out to Aaron to co teach it with me, [00:17:00] who I serve within the Marine Corps and who has extensive teaching experience.
He taught at the Naval Academy and is obviously very interested in military history, has a fantastic podcast on military history. And so it was really, it was, it was, um. A great partnership. And Aaron was, I mean, just even watching Aaron teach was, was awesome. I mean, it's remarkable. He was, he's fantastically talented.
And so it was a real rewarding experience for me. The final thing I'd say, I know I'm going on here is this is fast. The students were awesome. I mean, I, I never, I use my GI bill to get my PhD at the time. I thought I wanted, At least part time and an adjunct status to pursue a kind of a parallel academic career.
I never had the opportunity. I was working full time while I was finishing my PhD. So I never got to do, I never got to be a TA. So it's been a real gap in my resume and just an experience I wanted to have. And so the, the bill, I had no conception of like what students would be like now. Granted, this was not a representative sample because these were all very talented students from across the country, many of whom have military experience, but they were [00:18:00] amazing.
Um, and a lot of them, they had not only all read the primary material, but it brought in a lot of their own outside research. And so it was incredibly rewarding experience. And I can't say enough about the her talk foundation for just giving us and the students that experience. So let's, let's talk about that.
The war, that's, that's fascinating. I'm a big, I'm a big fan of all the PIRTOG and TICFA programs. Um, so, uh, I, but when, when I saw that you were teaching it, I thought that was a real testament to the program and a testament to you for, for, um, doing it for all the, for all the reasons you say. I want, one, one topic I understand that you guys, you and Aaron got into in the class is how close the U.
S. military came to failure in 1950. And, um, can you talk a little bit about that? Cause it sounds to me like that has implications in your, for your thinking about running the same risk in the Pacific today. Well, I think you got to put it in the overall context of where the country was at the time, particularly in, in 1949 and then early 1950, leading into June, 1950.
[00:19:00] Um, there was still this, this bring the boys home sentiment after everything that we had expended in blood and treasure in World War II. And even as we had a series of. kind of subsidiary geopolitical shocks, whether it was the Soviet test of a nuclear weapon in 1949, which truly shocked us and some generals at the time compared to a new type of Pearl Harbor, whether it was a series of domestic spying cases that we had.
Um, uh, in America, or whether it was the communist winning the civil war in China and the formation of the People's Republic in China in 1949, we still had this downward pressure on defense spending, um, and this desire to demobilize. And as a consequence of that, we are forced posture. on the Korean peninsula in particular was, was pathetic.
Um, we had basically kind of outsourced management of the peninsula to, to the UN. Um, and then of course there comes [00:20:00] this famous moment when Dean Atchison gives a speech, uh, at the national press club, um, infamously saying that, um, uh, Korea is outside the defense perimeter. of the United States. So all of those things I think inspired to lead to the initial North Korean invasion of the South with Soviet approval, uh, in large part because they felt they had an opportunity to take over the entire peninsula, both because we didn't have the actual forces on the ground to resist, but also because they didn't think Americans had the willpower, uh, or, or just even had an interest in, in.
Um, dying for, uh, the defense of the Korean peninsula. And then there's a few, a series of things that happen after the initial invasion, which catches us off guard. Um, you know, we get, we get pushed all the way to what's called the Pusan perimeter. So there's this residual force of American troops surrounded effectively by, you know, in the rear water, but, um, on at least three ish sides of them by North Korean forces and all of the attempts to slow that advance.
Uh, fail. Uh, quite famously, there's this incident with, with something [00:21:00] called Task Force Smith, which is a small element that MacArthur deploys from Japan as what he calls, you know, an arrogant display of U. S. Strength. And he thinks that this small element is gonna, you know, cause the North Koreans to collapse or at least slow them down, not collapse, but to slow them down.
And it very much doesn't do that. There's this big, uh, Like column of North Korean tanks that are slowly going down a road and any half competent and well armed military unit could have absolutely decimated the North Korean tanks. And even though task force Smith has access to the entire arsenal of anti tank weapons in the Indo Pacific at that time, which is a grand total of six, uh, they're unable to stop the tanks.
And that's just a microcosm of the broader struggles that, uh, the U S military and our, our. South Korean allies at the time or partners, um, were having in response to the invasion. And that's the final point I'll make. There was a highly inaccurate and overblown assessment of the Koreans ability to [00:22:00] fight and defend themselves.
And at least a few press accounts, they were, you know, uh, they were touted as, you know, one of the top five, if not top three armies in the world. And that wasn't true. And that gets to a broader issue that bedevils us throughout the war, which is just. a lack of good intelligence. Um, you know, this is the, the Korean war is, um, uh, a product of, and, uh, and, and features two of the biggest intelligence failures.
Uh, I would argue in the entire cold war, the initial invasion, and then the failure to anticipate, um, the entry worse, worse than, than, than the Cuban missile crisis is worse than, I mean, And that, that's a pretty big statement in the context of the whole thing. Yeah, I mean, you could argue, uh, well, you know, as an Intel guy, I have to point out that, um, you know, there are no intelligence successes, only intelligence failures.
So you can argue we, we detected that the Soviets eventually put missiles and we found a way to defuse. Right. Defuse the crisis. Yeah. A little bit late. Um, but, uh, but let me. So [00:23:00] the intelligence failures were what? Yeah. The intelligence failures were what? the failure to anticipate the original North Korean invasion of South Korea.
Um, and remember we had sort of arbitrarily carved up the peninsula along the 38th parallel. There was this group of army and Navy, uh, planners, um, uh, you know, towards the end and in the aftermath of World War II that did it. Um, uh, and we failed to anticipate that the North Koreans would invade the South and then.
You fast forward to, uh, the end of the first year of the war, the end of 1950, um, November, December timeframe. Uh, there's a failure to anticipate that the, um, communists in China would get involved, uh, uh, on the side of the North Koreans. Now what's interesting about that was a lot of things that are interesting about that.
Um, One, uh, so we get, we get pushed back in the initial stages of the war to the Pusan perimeter. And then there's this, this huge, massive military gamble that MacArthur, [00:24:00] Douglas MacArthur, Wisconsin's own Douglas MacArthur, he got his commission to West Point from Milwaukee. Um, and his, his dad, uh, won the medal of honor fighting for a Wisconsin, uh, unit in, in the civil war.
First father son duo to win the medal of the way. Alright. Fun fact. Lots of fun facts coming out of Wisconsin. Clearly. Good quarterbacks and fun facts. Um. We're the beneficiaries of them all here in New York. Yeah. Exactly. Uh, so MacArthur decides he wants to do this, uh, amphibious landing, uh, at Inchon. Um, uh, above, uh, in order to, in order to sort of, uh, get, get behind the North Korean forces, catch them by surprise and ultimately retake Seoul, uh, which is of course, uh, capital, um, that the North Koreans had taken in the early parts of the invasion.
MacArthur, in fact, conceives of this huge gamble in the earliest parts of the war, um, but has to delay it because The Americans are getting their butts kicked, [00:25:00] essentially, but he has this idea had started to take shape early on and everybody was against it, except for MacArthur, um, primarily because, uh, amphibious landings in general are hard, but that it's particular port at Inchon, uh, the conditions were not good at one point.
I think the top Navy official on MacArthur staff says to him when they're briefing, the operation says, the best thing I could say about it is that it's not impossible. Um, you know, you have to scale the seawalls. The tides are not friendly. If you're able to, to get past the resistance and, and over the sea walls, you're not landing on a beach, um, then you have to trudge through all this mud.
It just, it's a huge gamble. MacArthur goes forward. Uh, he overrules, you know, uh, the, the joint chiefs at the time are at best, uh, ambivalent, um, but, uh, are more. are, are more accurately, incredibly worried about the operation, but they're, they're not willing to stand up to Douglas MacArthur. Uh, he goes forward and the gamble pays off.
Uh, it's one of the most brilliant military maneuvers [00:26:00] in history. Uh, it revives the war effort. We retake soul. Um, and there's just this rapid push to soul. Cause he wants to get there. Um, uh, basically a year to the day after the initial. Um, and then he sort of hubris gets the best of him and he pushes north, uh, of the 38th parallel and wants to push up all the way to the Yalu river.
And that brings us to chosen reservoir. And the Chinese decide to get involved at the time. And I'll, I'll shut up after this. I apologize. No, no, this is fascinating. It's this really curious incident that is almost without parallel that I can think of, um, but my knowledge of presidential history doesn't really go back beyond 1945.
So this could be really inaccurate. Um, MacArthur and Truman had this meeting, um, I think after Inchon, you have to double check with McLean because McLean actually remembers this stuff. I had it in my head for a week and a half. And then I forgot the details guy in this operation. Yeah. I'm [00:27:00] just, I just show up.
Yeah. I wear the congressional pin. Right. You're the performance. You're the performer. You know, you're the talent. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I gotta be bothered. You got a trailer, you got the makeup artist, you got, yeah, okay. Uh, so, rather than MacArthur, who's the commander of what's called, uh, FECOM, Far East Command, and remember, MacArthur is sitting in Japan at this time, and indeed, Spends most of the war in Japan.
He doesn't spend a night in Korea throughout the war. He's like the Emperor of Japan, effectively. He's rewriting the Japanese Constitution. He's helping rebuild the country. MacArthur, instead of going to DC to meet with the President of the United States, Harry S. Truman, Truman flies all the way to Wake Island.
To meet with MacArthur, such was MacArthur's like power at this time, and this becomes a huge political problem for Harry Truman because MacArthur gets increasingly, let's say disobedient, um, and ultimately Truman has to fire him. But at the time, there's this meeting of Truman and MacArthur on Wake Island [00:28:00] and, uh, MacArthur.
tells Truman effectively, um, there's no way that the Chinese are going to invade and get involved. And if they do, I will absolutely crush them. I will annihilate them. And because MacArthur just thought American air power Was such that he would be able to detect the Chinese coming across, uh, from Manchuria across the Isle of River.
And then he would be able to just completely destroy them. And American air power did give us a massive advantage throughout the war, but the Chinese are able to use rudimentary tactics, like moving only at night in order to blunt that advantage. And during the day, they're very disciplined in terms of, um, the steps they take to conceal and cover.
Um, uh, both their movement is or just, you know, wherever they happen to stop at the time. So the point is, we just failed to anticipate that the Chinese are going to get involved the entire intelligence community, such as it existed at the time. And it's about, uh, three or four years old at the time is really just, you know, parroting whatever [00:29:00] is coming out of MacArthur's headquarters and MacArthur's Intel is bad.
Um, and the Chinese get involved in a massive, massive way, multiple, multiple divisions. And ultimately the American troops find themselves surrounded around this massive manmade reservoir, um, referred to as chosen reservoir. Um, incidentally, um, there is, uh, a, an army element. Task force faith on one side of the reservoir that gets absolutely wiped out.
Um, just completely, uh, wiped out and, and, and Ned Almond, who's MacArthur's top Lieutenant and in charge of one of the two major units, uh, on the ground at the time, um, flies to the task force faith position with three silver stars, which is like a major military decoration. And he gives one to, uh, Colonel Don faith who's in charge.
And he says, uh, Tell me who I should give these other two silver stars to. And so faith literally just [00:30:00] like hands one to like these two random guys that are walking by one of them happens to be working in the mess. So he's like a waiter or a cook in the mess. Uh, and like a silver stars is a big deal. Uh, at the time and certainly even more so now and faith then takes the silver star.
He just got pinned on by one of his commanding generals and throws it into the snow. Uh, it just sort of goes to show you the problems we had in terms of overall command relationships, esprit de corps. And then the Chosen Reservoir, um, uh, is a site where the Marines and fight their way out all the way down to the port of hung him and are able to save the war effort.
And then we kind of evolve into this multi year stalemate as we're trying to negotiate into an end of the conflict that involves brutal, brutal and deadly fighting still across the peninsula. But in the lead up to the war, you, you mentioned great Wisconsinites from Douglas MacArthur to Aaron Rodgers, but there was another one, this Republican Senator John, John J Blaine, uh, who apparently you cited as the lone [00:31:00] vote against some kind of pact or, or, or in 1928, the outlawing war, what was it is now we're talking about it.
So this almost has, Well, John Blaine, I don't even think is alive at the time of the Korean war. He would have been very old. I forget exactly when he died, but John chose to invoke him. John Blaine is a forgotten Wisconsin hero, uh, for a couple of reasons. Well, he was a governor and then a Senator. Uh, he authored the, uh, amendment to the constitution that got rid of prohibition.
So the next time you have a drink, uh, you can thank John Blaine for. For his hard work. Uh, so hoist one to John Blaine and then he is the sole senator in, uh, when would the vote have happened? 1929, I guess the pact was negotiated in 1928. What was the pact? Uh, the Kellogg brand pack, which was this sort of, uh, utopian effort to outlaw war after world war one.[00:32:00]
Um, And John Blaine votes against it for a variety of reason, part of them is that he doesn't like the Brits particularly, um, and he thinks they're sort of imperialist and colonialist, um, but like part of him is just skeptical that like any legislative body could outlaw uh, uh, War because the international system is anarchic and has always, always will.
And so it's actually relevant to the present day because particularly on the American left, there's this persistent utopian belief that, that like the UN or some sort of multilateral organization can transcend the basic anarchy of the international system or that bad guys like Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping or the Ayatollahs in Iran care.
About commitments that are made in these international for when my view is that they care far more about about hard power and have disdain for for, um, uh, for some of these organizations and don't operate under the same set of values that we in the West do. And it is our tendency to mirror [00:33:00] image and graft our own values.
Onto those regimes and Aaron has actually written, um, uh, about this repeatedly and eloquently that gets us into trouble because we underestimate what they're willing to do. Case in point, Ukraine, February 24th of Vladimir Putin. Okay, so, so The Korean War, 36, 000 U. S. servicemen killed. Something like 7, 000 remains, um, still unknown.
Hundreds of thousands of South Koreans killed in action. Why is this the Forgotten War? Those numbers are staggering. I mean, they're not Vietnam level numbers, but they're not far off. Huge numbers. Um, I thought about this a lot. I mean, the honest answer is, is, is, I don't know. And part of what Aaron and I are trying to do in teaching the course and writing about it is to ensure that the Korean war isn't forgotten.
Um, that, and we believe that there are enduring lessons for the present day, foremost among them is just the importance of military [00:34:00] readiness and military strength. Um, as we just talked about, um, I think perhaps it's because, uh, well, at the most basic level, it came so quickly on the heels of World War II, uh, and it, and World War II tends to overshadow it.
Um, I think there's also this idea that Americans don't like the idea that so many people died for what is essentially a tie. Right. There was no definitive. I mean, we're still locked in an armistice agreement. The conflict was frozen. There's a third and related point. I think that this is not troops on the 38th parallel.
I mean, yeah, yeah, right. So it's sort of like, that's all we got. We just sort of, it just like froze the, the, I'll make two more points. Um, uh, One of which is that, and this is really the one of the main themes of the book that Aaron and I taught, and I highly recommend this book called This Kind of War by T.
R. Ferenbach, which is that at the time our country was not comfortable with a, a, a limited war [00:35:00] For a decisively sort of political objective. Um, the argument he makes is that Americans are far more comfortable getting involved in grand crusades in general. We don't like to, to sort of go abroad, uh, and get involved in wars.
But when someone attacks us, we mobilize, but it has to be for this massive crusade where we feel like it's us against, against evil. We're less comfortable in the gray zone for. in limited warfare. And to conduct that type of warfare, you need what Ferenbach describes as legions. You need sort of hardcore, highly trained, highly armed troops that have no illusions about the business that their country is asking them to conduct about the fighting and dying that is necessary to maintain national interest, even if it's not for some sort of grand, uh, crusade.
Um, beyond that, uh, there could be the issue that we never called it a war. Uh, Truman sort of famously calls it a police action. He leverages UN authority and he leverages a, a poorly [00:36:00] timed Soviet absence from, from the UN to get a vote, uh, basically authorizing a police action on the, on the Korean peninsula.
And so that's set off a. A debate we're still having today about the nature of war powers under the American constitution. What can the president do? What can he do? Uh, does UN authority give the president carte blanche to send Americans into harm harm's way to die? And so all those things, I think, inspire to make it.
Uh, the forgotten war, but I think it's a tragedy, um, not only because it offers lessons for the present day, not only because our foremost adversary, the Chinese communist party is not forgetting it, they are studying it intensely, but also for another reason, just because of the stories of bravery and heroism on the part of American and Republic of Korea forces that we just have a duty to honor those.
So I can typically not draw a direct line between a Hertog Foundation sponsored course and articles attacking the instructors in the, in the Chinese daily press, in the China Daily, but in this [00:37:00] particular case, we have that. You and Aaron wrote a co author to pieces I quoted at the beginning. In your foreign affairs piece, and then China Daily comes out with a piece attacking this course and attacking you personally.
What, what was their response, and why do you think they did it? Well, um, you know, part of our argument is, in the piece, is that China is studying the Korean War as part of a broader preparation for a potential war. with America over Taiwan. Um, I think if you watch this movie, I referenced the battle at Lake Changan.
Uh, that becomes clear. Incidentally, the movie starts not with North Korea invading the South, but with Douglas MacArthur invading China effectively. So the story they want to tell is that America started the war and they conveniently omit a lot of the, a lot of the details, uh, and that China. Though a technologically inferior, uh, military at the [00:38:00] time was able to beat a technologically superior foe in America through, uh, its bravery and its will to fight.
And this is the message that Xi Jinping is sending to his people is that you have to be prepared for confrontation. Uh, with the West, I see a lot of his efforts to decouple from us and from the West more broadly as part of this preparation for war, and there's no doubt that if given the opportunity, Xi Jinping would take Taiwan, even if it cost him dearly militarily.
The other thing that comes out in studying the wars is this idea that Certain regimes, particularly communist regimes, or let's say Marxist Leninist regimes are far less sensitive to casualties than we in America are for obvious reasons, because we have elected leaders, um, and those elected leaders hear complaints when young Americans are dying in wars where there aren't as robust feedback loops in totalitarian regimes.
So Uh, I think the Chinese Communist Party, uh, that that argument caught their attention. Um, and they [00:39:00] also wanted to ensure that their lessons from the Korean War, uh, got out there. And it wasn't just McLean and Gallagher saying, these are the lessons of the Korean War. Their lessons are slightly different than ours.
Uh, their lessons are that America should basically shut up, uh, stop criticizing them and shouldn't, uh, uh, shouldn't test China's military Um, and in this piece, they, uh, said I have, um, uh, the, uh, the madness and arrogance, my madness and arrogance are comparable to that. Of Douglas MacArthur, uh, which will probably be my gravestone at this point.
That's a great, but I mean, if you think about it, though, it's really interesting that they, they not only read the whole thing and I know they read the whole thing cause part of what they attacked were things that came later in the piece in less than 24 hours, they were up with an official propaganda.
Response to our piece. Um, which I think, I mean, you have to ask our students, I don't know. I think it was interesting for our students to see in real time that this was playing out, [00:40:00] not only as sort of like, you know, us, like there was actually sort of a small bit of geopolitics playing out, if they had any ideas, this is like a real, like we're in the middle of a real cold war.
Like America was in 1950. Like you watch this. This is like a microcosm of that. Yes, exactly. Um, speaking of the thing I have to agree with though and what they said at one point in the piece They say the only thing that's changed between the Korean War in the present day is that China is far more powerful And I think on some basic level that's true I mean what they're doing in terms of their military buildup is absolutely remarkable and economically and technologically.
I mean you exactly make that point Yeah. Um, particularly their Navy. I mean, it's the biggest Navy in the world. Um, you know, ours is on balance more capable, but if you examine the empirical record over the last 1200 years of naval battles, it's very rare that a numerically inferior force, even one that's technologically superior, defeats a numerically superior one.
And so, um, they've made massive investments, uh, in order to achieve what I think is their near term ambition, taking [00:41:00] over Taiwan, but also their midterm ambition, which has become the dominant power in Asia, if not globally. Okay. Okay. This is not the only topic on which you've generated a lot of attention or these days you mostly generate attention on China, all things China, or in this case Korea.
Uh, as a China. Yeah. you. But I wanted just, it's a lot of people. Five minutes on. I wanna spend five minutes on another area topic you've made attention on, which is that of UFOs. Okay. Now this is going to be a surprise to many of our listeners. So just, just 30 seconds here. The, the, the whole UFO, I'm just gonna give 30 seconds of background, the whole UFO mania that we're.
That we're seeing about seeing right now really began in 2017 when it was revealed that the U. S. Government had a program that was looking into the existence of UFOs, and this created pressure to inform Congress and the public on what's going on. And then last year, the Pentagon released an unclassified report.
On its Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task [00:42:00] Force, Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force. I wrote the name down. It's a great name for a task force. Then following that report, you and one of your congressional colleagues, Ruben Gallego, helped pass, a Democrat from Arizona, helped pass a bill that makes it easier to report UFOs and offering whistleblower protection.
So why did you get involved in this issue and how much should we be paying attention? Like, what, how real is this? Well, uh, so just quickly, these, we started to get all these reports from pilots, like legit pilots, top gun trained pilots, that things were appearing on our ranges and fouling our ranges.
They're called range foulers. Um, and you couldn't dismiss the pilots and it wasn't just based on their personal anecdotal or visual observation. It was based on other forms. of data that their planes were collecting that the ships that their planes fly off were collecting. And as yet, there's still certain incidents that we can't explain.
So for me, initially, as someone who focuses on sea power and conventional hard power, [00:43:00] uh, my interest is ensuring if they're like. Our ranges are safe and that we understand what's happening on our ranges. And that kind of led me to this. And now since then, there's been all these subsequent claims about potential government programs with recovered materials.
Um, Of all the cases that the UAP, uh, it's not, it's called arrow. Now the all domain anomaly resolution office have examined. There's a subset of these cases that can't be explained by natural weather phenomena or adversary aircraft or our own programs. So my only interest is in figuring out what's going on.
Uh, I'm not sure we're there yet. I don't think we have enough evidence to say that this is some sort of extraterrestrial. Phenomenon, but that's also not something that we can completely rule out. And I, what I've said to the Pentagon is this is if you think that's implausible, uh, this is a great opportunity to disconfirm that hypothesis.
Or if you think these people that are coming forward [00:44:00] are lying about a potential black program, uh, then provide the counter evidence. Um, but the secrecy, the secrecy around it, I think according, I mean. Based on what you said, I think, is that it's motivated by this operation to reverse engineer the technology for defense purposes.
Like, there could be a defense, there's a legit defense national security Motivation in the, in keeping it so this program so quiet. Yes, but I don't think that would obviate the defense department or the white house from their, what I would argue is their constitutional, if not their practical need to consult with at least some subset.
of Congress. Um, and it's, it might be possible that I'm just not part of that subset. Uh, but, um, uh, I, I don't know that thus far there's, it's kind of been an antagonistic relationship between us and the executive branch when it comes to getting answers, uh, on these issues. Um, and my, [00:45:00] I guess my other main concern is, is just.
whether or not there's adversary technology out there that we don't understand. Um, you know, Chinese technology or Russian technology. Now, the other hypothesis that we rarely talk about is, is not the extraterrestrial hypothesis. It's the interdimensional hypothesis. That it's us from the future, Dan, it's future humans coming back and surveilling us for whatever reason.
Um, but then you get to the, you get to the Terminator paradox, which any, anything about time travel ultimately becomes circular in logic. So, I, along with Marco Rubio, have done a little bit, we, we passed legislation basically trying to inject some transparency into this, trying to make sense of the overall thing.
Um, and allowing a pathway for whistleblowers that feel like they have information that's a value and don't want to be retaliated against, um, uh, to be able to come to Congress or to arrow, provide that information, [00:46:00] um, and be freed from, um, you know, previous, uh, non disclosure agreements. So we're just trying to figure out what the heck is going on.
Um, there's a lot of interest in this topic as I've discovered. It's unbelievable. I know. I feel like you just kind of popped off on it in another interview. I think you said it was on a sports. You know, program sports radio program and then boom, like this just lit up a ton of, uh, interest. So, um, and, and I think the same, the same surgeon in interest, you will see from the.
Your appearance on the Call Me Back, uh, podcast. You should do a Call Me Back just on aliens. I'm going to. UAPs. I'm going to. Who are you going to bring in? I don't know. I, you know, I, I, I need some guidance from you. Uh, I, uh, but I, this is, this is, this is hot, man. I mean, I'm telling you, I think this is, uh, this is fascinating.
Um, and it's somewhere between kind of sci fi and the, when you lay it out, it's, they're like real issues actually in the context, like practical policy. Yeah. Again. If the aliens came and they asked you and you had to make your [00:47:00] case for why they should spare you, like what would be your main argument? Do you think what, what value do you think?
I thought a lot about this because I realized I'm not as handy as I should be around the house. So like an advanced race, I'm just not sure what practical Value I could add at that point and I need to defend my life. So what's your what's your spare me alien overlord pitch? You know, i'm a magician. Did you know that I literally am I did not know this Yeah, this is how I paid my way through high school and college.
I was a professional magician And, um, so I, I, um, you know, I've, it's, it's entertaining. My magic tricks, my magic pattern, my show, it's entertaining. I provide like, it's like a nice pastime for the aliens when they're doing their work that like, if they, I can be helpful in kind of lightening the mood when they need some downtime.
That's a great answer. Yeah, that is a great answer. What do you have? You're going to teach them about the Korean war. I mean, like, yeah, it's like, thanks. That's it. They're like, we already got McLean signed up for that. You got nothing. Go to the salt mines. I want [00:48:00] to, I want to, just before we let you go, I do want to, uh, something you said at the beginning, just kind of stuck with me that I feel like if I, if I don't, you know, if, if I let it go uncorrected, it will be a huge problem.
Um, the, the jets did not want. They did not want to be selected for hard knocks, nor did Aaron Rogers. They did not want it. They thought there was too much hype. It was setting expectations too high. And, um, it would just set up a narrative that if things don't go well at the beginning of the season, people will be hard knocks.
They got so cocky. And so they were resisting it. And if you actually watch this hard knock season, compare it to previous seasons, the actual amount of access, the, um, The crews have is nothing compared to what they've had access to in the past past in terms of terminations and emotional scenes with the different players.
And so it's, it's pretty locked down. So I know you think this is all one kind of PR machine and Rogers wanted it and the team wanted it, but that is not the case. And I just want to use our, our listeners of that misinformation from a, from, from a kind of disgruntled Packers fan who lost their quarterback.[00:49:00]
My point, my point is really that. I get that they didn't want it. Nobody wants it. I don't think the Packers have ever heard. Uh, is, uh, as a, as like part of the terms of accepting it is that like they had to make everybody look great, particularly Aaron Rodgers. And if the concern was that expectations would go way up.
And you might not meet those expectations. Well, you really screwed yourself on that one. By the way, the best part of episode one was I thought when sauce goes and gets his college degree and then randomly Nick Van Exel is there NBA legend, Nick Van Exel and Sauce Gardner are hanging out at their college graduation.
And they're mic'd. Yeah, exactly. Key point, they're mic'd. So anyways, I don't want to spoil for those who haven't seen episode two. There's an opening scene in episode two, that's both incredibly entertaining. And you do realize it's the jets PR machine that is literally just trying to fill airtime. With this little show at the [00:50:00] beginning without actually having to give the hard knocks crew real access.
It's incredibly entertaining, but it involves a mentalist. I don't want, I don't want to say any more cause I don't want to spoil it. Mike Gallagher, thank you for joining. This was, um, as always incredibly illuminating and entertaining and, um. You know, it just got you one step closer to, to episode five.
What do I get again? Swag swag. Stay tuned, man. You'll get swag. Okay. All right. Very excited. All right. I'll teach another course on some obscure topic or get do an aliens podcast or an aliens course. I'll, I'll talk to Roger Hurt. Talk about that. Thanks, Dan. Thanks.
That's our show for today. We will post in the show notes, the foreign affairs piece written by Gallagher and McLean. That we discussed in this episode, as well as a link to the Hertog Foundation, which offers a whole range of interesting programs that I encourage you to take a look at. Call Me Back is produced by Ilan Benatar.
Until next time, I'm your [00:51:00] host, Dan Senor.