In this first of a two-part interview, Colonel Larry Wilkerson joins Thomas and Aaryan to discuss a variety of topics related to national security--why the Pentagon considers climate change to be the biggest threat to America, how the balance of geopolitical power involves the energy sector, and the role Virginia will have in these issues going forward.

Episode Transcript

Thomas Bowman  

Welcome to Pod Virginia, where we discussed Virginia politics and why it matters. I'm Tom Bowman.

Aaryan Balu  

And I'm Aaryan Balu filling in for Michael Pope today. Today we have an extraordinary guest joining us. That's Colonel Larry Wilkerson. Colonel Wilkerson has had an extensive career; he served as the Chief of Staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell and is now a distinguished professor at the College of William and Mary.

Thomas Bowman  

with increased partisan tensions at home and the advanced persistent threats posed by certain hostile foreign powers like Russia and China. How should state policymakers, climate activists, and energy companies consider the broader context of national security and geopolitics when making their policies?

Aaryan Balu  

So the last time Colonel Wilkerson was on Pod Virginia was in October 2020. He warned us about the events that would eventually occur on January 6th, back in 2021. Today, we're excited to have him back to discuss why climate change is the Pentagon's biggest threat. We'll also touch on some threats via the energy sector, the Ford EV battery plant, and some concerns about Chinese businesses operating in the US. 

Thomas Bowman  

Colonel Larry Wilkerson, it is an honor to have you back on pod Virginia.

Col. Larry Wilkerson  

Good to be with you.

Thomas Bowman  

I will. Let's dive right in. We'll begin by broadly discussing enemy threat vectors via the energy sector. So Colonel Wilkerson, can you share your thoughts on what the industry and activists need to keep in mind.

Col. Larry Wilkerson  

One of the things that trouble's me, especially after a webinar I had yesterday with several experts who deal in this particular area, is the lock on the supply chain that the Chinese have for water called critical metals and critical other ingredients for all manner of things like batteries, cell phones, all the technologies that we are very interested in developing further and using to make our lives easier to make business more efficient, and effective. Deng Xiaoping made a statement way back in the early 80s. He said I'm going to corner the market on rare earth metals. And we'll see what that does to the global structure. A few years later, China had 95% of rare earth metals. Australia has lots of them but has closed down its mining. America has lots of them but has closed down most of our mining. That spurred us into some action because that was not too good to have one country have 95% of such a critical ingredient of the world's commerce. Now, it's different, but it's the same phenomenon. China is controlling, not necessarily the mines, the countries where the mines are located, or even the material itself in a true sense; they're locking in the supply chain. And we saw that vividly during the COVID pandemic; they pretty much own the supply chain much the way I'm sad to say, we own and use sometimes in a pernicious way, the Swift banking system and the banking system in general, we use that as a, as a part of our national power to punish other countries and to reward ourselves. China is now able to do that with this supply chain. And that's causing us now, President Biden, and others to look at hard rock mining in this country again and to open up federal lands to that mining, which is going to be environmentally a disaster, and may even contribute to the speed with which we're moving toward catastrophe concerning the climate. So this is not a good situation. We need to deal with one another on a more up-and-up upfront basis and not try to do these sorts of things so viciously to the rest of the world, cooperate a little bit more, have a little bit more comedy, and contribute more to each other's economic success. Rather than having a competition that's so bitter and ruthless that there are losers all over the globe rather than winners. I'd rather win a little less than have others win to take everything. And unfortunately, sometimes that seems like what Xi Jinping China wants to do.

Thomas Bowman  

Quick follow-up here; so we can zoom out and take a further step back and analyze this at a higher level. Many people would even dispute that Russia and China are indeed a threat in a military and security sense to the United States. And that includes partisans on both sides of the extremities of American politics. Colonel Wilkerson, how would you characterize the nature of the threat they pose to civilians, especially the sophisticated nature of the disinformation and misinformation campaigns?

Col. Larry Wilkerson  

There is an element in my particular party, the Republican Party; I'm still a Republican. I still have people like Asa Hutchinson, whom I look up to. Not many, though. But there's a part of my political party that really wants China to be a new Cold War enemy, even to the point of, as Lindsey Graham, my Senator of South Carolina, has been suggesting, defending Taiwan from an actual invasion, which is preposterous we couldn't do it in the first place. We don't have the forces to do it. We have an air-naval war, which would be deadly and probably turned nuclear. So there is an element in the Republican Party in particular, and I'm afraid to say wink and Blinken and nod, which I call Biden, Blinken, Sullivan, and Victoria Nuland now because that's an apt phrase for them winking Blinken and nod and nudge. After all, they're that stupid in many respects in baiting China the way they are and forcing Moscow and China into a tacit Alliance. That's not very smart, either. But there is no concern, and should be no concern on the part of Virginians, or Americans in general, that China is going to invade this country or that Russia is going to invade this country. Will they do things economically, strategically, and geopolitically impinge on our interests? Of course, great powers have done that since time immemorial. And near great powers have done that. And unfortunately, we're exacerbating their tendency to do these sorts of things with things like sanctions. Most Americans have no clue that their country has 32 to 40 nations under direct sanctions every day of the week. That's about two and a half to three billion people. Those people do not like us means, for example, that people who want to get like the EU, humanitarian assistance to the earthquake victims in Turkey and Syria, and in that region in general, almost have to bend and break their bodies to get it done, because of the sanctions we have, and how afraid even humanitarian delivery assets are of those sanctions, particularly the banking sanctions. So we are the creator of much hatred towards us in the world. And it's growing, it's growing in the Global South, in particular, because of the global South depreciation that was mostly responsible for climate change. And yet, they're paying the piper for that climate change already, with temperatures over 125 degrees, with drought, with lack of water in general, with the war in Ukraine, which has really motivated a lot of the grain that's been going to North Africa to Lebanon, Lebanon, for example, was getting about 55% of its grain from Ukraine and Russia. So we're causing some of the problems in the world that are causing people in this country to think wrongly that other people are threats to us, particularly Russia and China. Economically, I'll buy that for a moment or two. But if, as President George W. Bush in 2001 said to my boss, go and bow, my God, if we can't compete in the very area, we are the greatest the market capitalism, then we should just retreat. He was right. And that's where the real competition is. The real competition is in markets and the economy. China understands that, and that's where China wants to go to war. They want to beat us in the marketplace. They want to have the greatest economy in the world, and in some respects, they're moving right along that path. So this hyping of the threat regarding troops on the beaches or invasion or something that would be palpable to the American people, the Virginia Coast invaded by the Chinese, is incredible. The business of Taiwan in the South China Sea is not so incredible, and we would be the ones who would be introducing ourselves into that conflict. We have had an agreement with Taiwan ever since the rapprochement with China, if you will, affected by Richard Nixon and Kissinger; we have had an agreement that they will say they will not ever force reunion with Taiwan by force by military force. And we've had an agreement that we recognize there's only one China. That agreement has been strategically ambiguous enough that it's held the peace. Now, we're suddenly screaming for clarity. We're letting the President of Taiwan visit us. We're letting her talk about an actual independence referendum, which Beijing has repeatedly said is a red line. And we're essentially saying, as Lindsey Graham has, we could defend Taiwan, this incredible. Our Army right now is smaller than the Army of Bangladesh. And it cannot recruit sufficient members of this country's 18 to 24-year-old class. To maintain its numbers. The Army fell 15,000 short last year, and they're going to fall further short this year; the propensity of young Americans in the 18 to the 24-year age group to serve is the lowest it's ever been since we started polling some 30 years ago, it's 9%. You don't need to be so aggressive when you can't even feel an army capable of, for example, defending Taiwan. So many of these problems are self-generated by Washington, by Congress in particular, and by others in the country who simply don't know what they're talking about or do know what they're talking about and do it because it's profitable for them to talk that way.

Thomas Bowman  

Let's discuss why climate change happens to be the Pentagon's biggest threat and has been identified as such for years. As far as intangible threats go. So for several years, the Pentagon has identified climate change as one of America's biggest threats. And Colonel Wilkerson explained why and how that might apply to Virginia specifically, especially in the context of all our federal assets and the coastline we've got?

Col. Larry Wilkerson  

That's an interesting question excellent question. I just listened to a rather long webinar three hours, led by the Vice Chief of Naval Operations for logistics and installations, who happens to be the Chief of Naval Operations main man, if you will, on climate change. And I think what he said was at the top of the list for the Pentagon. He said, in essence, we are interested in the climate as of the climate. Of course, we are because we're citizens and feel responsible. But let me tell you why we're interested in the military; we were interested because we want to enhance, increase, and make more efficient, more effective our operational art. That's what we want to do. And what he meant by that, in the language of the military, was that he wants to make his Navy and other services feel the same way about their assets, the most effective military force and, therefore, the best guarantee of our security in the world. And the two things go together. So when he tells me about ships that are going to generate hydrogen and underway replenish carriers that aren't going to have any kind of fuel other than this hydrogen when they need it, and where they need it and the efficiency of that, the cost savings of that, and most importantly, the contribution of that carriers mission, then I understand why the military feels this way they're taking they're taking the opportunity of this crisis, to make their operational art more efficient and more effective. And that simply means making their warfighting ability more deadly and lethal. At the same time, the spin-offs that they're going to create, I think, just as they have done throughout the 20th Century, they do some of the most sophisticated research in all of America is going to help civilians when they spin off a battery that will keep a surface combatant going for a year, that battery is going to have a hell of an application within the trucking industry within the busing industry, you name it. They are now working on batteries. And Tesla's doing this too. I just read this in the New York Times this morning. Tesla is working on the same thing. They're working on batteries that will, in an emergency where you have a blackout or something, they will run a factory or will run a home, or they will run a group of homes. That's how powerful and effective these batteries are going to be. When the Army talks about its logistics tail, for example, it describes Afghanistan as, let's say you got a combat unit around Condor we'll all the way from Kabul to Condor alone that highway you have got strung out trucks burning diesel burning gas, and taking up troops times. They want to do that with robotics. They want to do that with battery power. They want to do that without fuel being consumed whatsoever. Far fewer soldiers are being dedicated to that supply than the combat mission. And they're going to do that. They're working on it right now. They've got a lot of headway going. Those drive the services, which will have immense applications in the civilian community. For example, I always used the internet, Al Gore didn't invent the internet DoD did it to communicate with his submarines underwater, and it spread. And now the internet is in all our lives. That's the way research in the military works. Let me tell you how sophisticated these admirals' comments are about research and development. He had a group in Vietnam, and that group found out that the graduates of Vietnam and universities who were after doctorates were presenting their doctorate theses at an examining board. And some of these doctorates were in engineering, mathematics, and very sophisticated technology fields. He asked the government of Vietnam if his people could sit in his people from the Office of Naval Research could sit in on some of these doctoral briefings and defenses. They said, of course. So he's got his people sitting in these bright students in Vietnam's doctoral defenses and briefings to learn what they're learning and proposing regarding high technology and the developments there. And so this is what we need to do. This is the kind of cooperation here's a country helping us do this, and we ravaged them a few years ago. Now we're working together. This is the sort of thing the military is doing. They are really out front and meeting the challenges of the climate crisis. And one of those challenges they are looking at hard is how many migrants they will be in the world. By the turn of the Century, probably half a billion, maybe more. And these are people who are going to be coming out of countries that are in a drought. Maybe the very opposite, they might be flooded, like Pakistan was. Pakistan is still trying to escape from under; a third of the country is underwater. They know they're going to have to double, triple, quadruple, maybe even ten times, one Admiral told me, their budget for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, like the earthquake in Turkey or think that RJ province in Indonesia in December 2005, which Powell had to go out and visit, and 230 million people were killed. Powell said it looked like a nuclear landscape; what do you envision Hiroshima and Nagasaki look like after the bombs are dropped? This is what the military is looking at for the future. Times three or four or five typhoons, earthquakes, tsunami tsunamis, and having to provide the carrier battle groups and other ships surface ships, principally that will bring the relief and the money that pays for that relief. So they're very much on top of this in Virginia. They know all about climate change, Norfolk, and its citizens. One woman in the back of the theater, when I was listening to Governor at that time government, McAuliffe, give a briefing, one woman was on the Norfolk shipyards, where we were having some real challenges to meet the sea rise element of climate change. She was in the back of the theater, and Richmond she raised her hand and was recognized. She said, don't tell me about the Navy. Don't tell me about the Navy. I got water in my backyard right now. Well, that's what's happening on the Virginia coast. And we're doing it all the way from San Diego in California, where we have a partnership with the Navy and the Mayor of San Diego and the government of California, all the way around to Pascagoula to Mayport and Florida Charleston, South Carolina, up to Norfolk. And eventually, we will have to do it to all the coastal properties because we have a real problem. And it's not just sea rise. We have other things happening in Virginia. For example, in North Carolina, we have this sewage water contamination because many people have septic tanks all up and down the East Coast. And now we have saltwater creeping into the septic tanks, rotting them further and letting the sewage out into the groundwater. This is deadly and not very efficient, either. We also have saline water, water heavily saturated with salt coming into forests and vegetation that we've never had to come in before and killing those forests and that vegetation. So these are all problems we will have to confront if we live within 200 miles of an ocean. And something like 60% to 70% of America's population does take Wall Street, for example. They just had their first simulation on what would happen if 16 feet of water suddenly flooded Wall Street, which is a very likely probability between now and the middle part of the Century, they're going to have to do things differently in New York, and along the Hudson River Valley, we're going to have to do things very differently in the Tidewater region. So it's a threat to all coastal properties and the drought that comes along with climate change. Now, the number one threat for the Army, they switched their number one threat from sea rise because they have a lot of installations along the coastline to they switched it to drought. Because they realized that they get their water, almost 95% of their water on a reservation, wherever it may be, whether it's in Nevada, Arizona, California, or Georgia, they get it from the surrounding civilian community. So drought threatens them, they think now even more so than sea rise. So that's the number one threat priority for them. And that's the way it is across the country. It's not just global; we're looking across the seas. It's our own country, that domestic situation with hurricanes, tornadoes, drought, flooding, etc. And fires are becoming a real concern.

Aaryan Balu  

Taking it back to Virginia. Specifically, how can Virginia policymakers contribute to national global efforts to combat climate change? Our state is coastal, with multiple military branch headquarters, faces, and other government posts. So what exactly can we do here?

Col. Larry Wilkerson  

Virginia is already doing quite a bit; they must do more. And I think many Virginians are awakening to that fact, too. But I'm involved with William and Mary, one of the premier institutions in the world, not just in Virginia or America. And that's the Virginia Institute for Maritime Studies. VIMS at William and Mary out in Gloucester, it's away from the main campus, but one of the things we've just done is connect the main campus more with Gloucester. And what I mean by that is we're bringing their expertise into the main campus curriculum so that we're now teaching public policy and government students in other curricula. We're teaching them about the climate, what they will have to do in the future, and, importantly, what kind of jobs will be available for them to do it. And we're spreading that across Virginia, and ultimately, we'll spread it across the country and the globe. Them doesn't get as much recognition as scripts and Woods Hole places where Felipe Casto, for example, in his famous movies and ships, Calypso and John Denver song made famous, thems is a coastal waters entity, basically, it's done a marvelous job and cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay, for example, oysters are there again, the fish are there again, this VIMS is expertise in coastal waters. Well, we've discovered that coastal waters are one of the place places where we're going to have to do our most intense work; Homeland Security, Federal Emergency Management Agency, NOAA, and NASA, are all involved in this because we've got some real problems in coastal waters take North Carolina and Virginia concerning the Outer Banks and the coastal barrier islands in particular, they're eroding they're going away. Guess what that will mean for the coast when those are gone and no longer the barrier they've been for so long. And those oceans always hit the actual coastline, and the erosion will quadruple, maybe ten times worse. And we'll have an even bigger problem with that. But cooperation between communities like Yorktown and Chesapeake and Norfolk and Virginia Beach is essential. For example, about 14 political communities in the Tidewater region are impacted by sea rise. And DHS (Department of Homeland Security) has to coordinate the actions there because you have to decide whether to relocate the facilities. And how much is that going to cost? You got to decide whether you want to try to build that application. Do you want to build walls? For example, we've had the Dutch tell us what wolves would cost and how effective walls can be. No one knows how to deal with water better than the Dutch. You have to ask these communities. And you have to get some kind of consensus. Well, if you're going to relocate and you're going to adapt, that it's not gonna work because we can't have the conflicting community actions there. And the government is going to do this. So let's coordinate our actions, and that's got to be done. You've got to coordinate, and you've got to make sure you're doing the best for all of those communities. And Norfolk's military community is probably the country's most important shipyard for the Navy. So that's a special responsibility that Virginia has. Then you've got the stores there for anyone who's ever driven that road, between the campus of William and Mary and out along the edge Games and out through Yorktown and on. Notice that on the right as you're going down that old, old colonial road, on the right is the stores for the Navy, where the Tomahawk missiles are, and so forth. Virginia is a very important arsenal for the military. So we've all got to work together. And there's got to be cooperation. And there's got to be a recognition of the crisis. And one of the things we've got to stop doing is doubting the crisis, politically and otherwise doubting the crisis. My God, it's here; it's in your face; if you can't see the results that are already generated all across the globe, you must be blind. So that's one of the things we have to do. We have to get everyone to understand our crisis and pitch in when and where they can. VCU is doing things. Virginia is doing things. In fact, I said the other day to Derek Aday, the Dean of the VIMS School at William and Mary, I said, look, I'm hearing all about from the military, Virginia, UVA, I'm hearing all about Virginia Tech, you would expect Virginia Tech to be in there. It used to be with Virginia Polytechnic. You see Old Dominion in their wheres William and Mary? And that's when they returned to me with everything they were doing. So I know they're doing things now. And I know President Katherine Row has put a lot of action in motion on the campus to get things better coordinated. So but we've all got a pitch in, we've all got a pitch in, and we've got to help, not just in Virginia, but what we learned in Virginia that works, we've got to export it to Texas and California and other places, and we hope they will export what they learned to us. That's the beauty of having the DHS, FEMA, and others who can coordinate nationwide. Different partnerships are developing everywhere. In San Diego, the partnership is more or less sort of headed by the Navy. Why? Because the Navy owns about three-quarters of the coastline in that area. And Charleston is more or less headed by the mayor, the Governor of South Carolina, the citizens and public groups, and DHS and others. So it's a little bit different coalition everywhere you go. But that's the strength of America letting these coalitions flourish and letting them do what is best locally for them. But with the guidance of the guys at the top, who are the experts on sea rise and so forth. I think Virginia is getting it together all across the state, but I'd like to see it move faster and more efficiently.

Aaryan Balu  

All right, well, that's a pretty good place to leave it for this week. Colonel Wilkerson, thanks so much for joining us. We'll have the colonel back next week to discuss topics like the Ford EV plan for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and fun in Virginia politics. In the meantime, thanks so much for listening. Leave a like, subscribe, or comment wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to reach out on social media. We'd love to talk to you about the show, what Colonel Wilkerson said, or any other topics we cover here on Pod Virginia. That's at pod_virginia over on Twitter. All right. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you next week.