Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling
Appearances
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Hey, Tim, how are you? It's a pleasure to be on with you today. Let's talk some things.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Well, I mean, first of all, before the Russian invasion occurred, I saw the same kind of memes. It was portraying Russian soldiers as these big, strong guys that were bare-chested and running through the cold and diving into lakes and all that other stuff.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Yeah. And it was just ridiculous because that's not how modern militaries train or act. They're a professional force. And it was interesting to me that almost in every case— the people who were posting those memes or talking that way, like you mentioned Ted Cruz a minute ago, have never served. So they don't know what the military is like.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Even Tommy Tuberville, when he was making the hold on all the generals, saying he really knew what a military is like because his dad was a sergeant in World War II. And you just go, okay, yeah, whatever you say there, Tommy, coach. But the thing is, it takes a lot to train a modern military on complex equipment in very difficult operations. The Ukrainians have it right.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
You know, they've got women on the battlefield. They're looking to train, and they're not portraying themselves as, you know, as woke or... They're a diverse organization, and they're doing pretty good against the fourth largest army in the world, I think the Russians are. So, yeah, it just doesn't hold up. There's no research behind any of those statements. It's just...
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
feel for what they think is supposed to be. It's just ridiculous.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Well, first of all, I don't know who the 120 guys are that are signing up. I'd like to see the list. I haven't seen that list.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
No, I don't want to comment on it, but I would almost venture to say that most of them haven't served lately and haven't been in some of the tough fights over the last couple of years. The second thing I'd say in terms of DEI, I happen to teach an MBA course in my spare time.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And if you look at every single research study that's conducted on diversity, equity, and inclusion, it tells you that it does nothing but make organizations better because it generates good ideas and new ideas. So, I mean, I don't want groupthink in any military organization I'm with. You know, I want people contributing.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And the wokeness, you know, I keep going back to that because I find it interesting. No one has defined it for me yet. And if woke means caring for your soldiers, if woke means knowing the values, as I talked about in that article the other day, about integrity and respect and trust in one another and giving everybody the potential to serve when they want to serve, then color me woke.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
I'm good with that. What do you think just generally about...
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Yeah, well, what I do first and what I did before the election or right after the election and right after Mr. Trump was the president-elect was, I posted something that said, what will be interesting is to see who he appoints to the key national security positions of DOD, state, CIA, Homeland Security, and Director of National Intelligence.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Because those five cabinet posts, those five posts are the ones that keep us out of danger. And each one of them has to be pretty savvy in what they do. And especially the defense secretary, because I'd love to be in on the questioning of any nominee to say, what do you think the defense department does? Just outline the list of what the defense department, the secretary of defense does.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Because as a young brigadier general, it was my one and only time on the joint staff, and I had to see the defense secretary every Friday along with one of the combatant commanders to go through contingency plans, what we call war plans. And you got to have a little bit more of a strategic view
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
in terms of just the capability of what our contingencies are, but you also have to do acquisition, personnel management, logistics around the world. I mean, Tim, right now, today, because I checked this morning, we've got 180,000 soldiers deployed outside the United States. There are over a hundred ships sailing at sea, and the US Air Force has conducted 5,000 sorties of different aircraft today.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
You've got to manage all that. And that's just a daily thing. You're talking about an $800 billion budget. I mean, I consider myself a pretty smart guy and pretty savvy in terms of military operations. I would not want to be the Secretary of Defense. It would be too hard for most mere mortals. You know, you're doing acquisition defense spending.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
I mean, I could name the tasks that fall under the secretary of defense and it would boggle most Americans minds. And to say, because a guy spent a couple of years in the military and then became a talk shows that he has. I mean, I don't know what it takes. I don't know what other kind of nominee the president could make. The president elect could make. but it better be a good one.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Cause like I said earlier, we're facing some of the biggest challenges I've ever seen in the international environment.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
There's a thing called the executive presence problem. And put the character piece aside, you know, what you do and who you are. Don't even talk about that. But just from the standpoint of presence, someone with executive presence has gravitas. They know what they're doing. They have intellectual capability and emotional intelligence. They have a calmness about them.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
They listen more than they speak. And they hear with empathy what's going on in the organization. That's kind of what I want in a guy with a whole lot of experience to be a different cabinet secretary for a nation that is facing a lot of global security threats.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
You know, I tell you, Tim, it's interesting. I was at West Point last week. The seniors of the class picked their branches, which means infantry, armor, artillery. And I had the young woman who's the president of the class asked me to give a presentation to a smaller group of people that were part of her class. command staff.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Yeah, it's interesting, again, going back to personal experiences, because I've shared intelligence and been part of intelligence sharing organizations within the military and the government. And again, the first thing you have to generate is an element of trust.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
that things are going to be kept secret, that when an intelligence service tells you something that's important and that they feel is critically related to something that might happen or that could cause problems, they're going to know you're going to keep it to yourself and you're not going to give them up, first of all. But secondly, they need to know you understand it.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And truthfully, I've talked to a bunch of former comrades who used to be senior ranking people in other governments. They're scared about the transfer of intelligence to our country in the future too, because they don't, they've seen what's happened in the past and they don't know what's going to happen in the future.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
So to counter that, many of them are telling me there's going to be changes in our intelligence system in terms of what we're going to share. And when that happens, the world becomes more dangerous.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
We beat Army this weekend, so I can't talk about that. Okay. Yeah. I know. We had a good Nuggets win last night. You know, I think there is the potential for a real fast learning curve to take place because there could be a lot of disasters in our future. We've seen that in the past. I mean, our country's been through tough times before, not just recently, but in our history.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And every time there's a correction to get back to some norms, the folks like you were naming a few of them, I don't know who you should name to be the cabinet secretaries.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And the first question they asked me is, what kind of threats are we going to face as new lieutenants going out into the field? So first of all, their head's on the right place. And secondly, I had to tell them is I had no frigging clue. You know, one of the things, you know, as a military guy is You know, when I entered West Point in 1971, the Vietnam War was going on.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
But I know what the qualifications are and how you've got to have that, first of all, character, then that executive presence, and then at least a modicum of intelligence to understand where you fit in in the state of affairs of a country as powerful as ours. And if it's just going in to turn tables upside down and throw things against the wall, that's not a good approach for government.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
There is certainly some potential for changing things. for making things better, but it doesn't begin with just a complete destruction of our norms and our institutions. That's what concerns me the most.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Now, that's a great question. Maybe that is the positive, because truthfully, Jim, whenever I need a shot in the arm, I go up there. All right. I go out and be with young people because my perception is they are not wrapped up in culture war. First of all, they're just they're just looking to graduate. They're trying to get the hell out of there and go on to their first assignment as lieutenants.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
But secondly, they raise their hand to serve the country. They want to be soldiers, as all soldiers do. So this gets back to your wokeness and your DEI. You go to most units, they're not talking about this kind of stuff. They're talking about, you know, their next training event or their next deployment or how do I take care of the kids?
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
You know, they're looking at serving in uniform and being proud of it. And that's what I really like about the military is it was a family event. Adhering to similar values and doing the things for others that you signed up to do while supporting and defending the Constitution.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And that's why I wrote that other article about values in terms of getting back to what do we believe as a nation as opposed to all this divisiveness.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
By the time I left there, Europe was red hot. During my time, we never fought a war in Europe except the Cold War. But during my time in Europe, we went to Panama, Iraq in 1990, and then had a terrorist hit the buildings. So, you know, it changes and there's all kinds of black swans out there. That's my preview. Now what I'll tell you is what I'm concerned about.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Yeah, when you're part of any values-based organization, you're going to use those values to make decisions about things, about who you are and what you do. You're going to portray those seven values that you just named if you're a soldier, and you're going to make your decisions based on your loyalty, your duty, and your respect for others, as an example.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
You're going to serve because of selflessness. You're going to serve with honor and integrity. And when it comes down to it, you're going to stand up and use personal courage to say the right things or do the right things, whether it's in peacetime or combat. And it struck me that those seven values kind of drove my decision making.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Whenever I had a thought where, what should I do in this situation? I would go back to those values and say, what do our values say we should do? And it got me thinking about our national values. You can go back through our documents and our speeches and find things that our founding documents and speeches by great Americans said when they reflected on who we were or who we are.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And if you're a values-based organization, and I truly believe that the United States is values-based, it was created out of a sense of values and ideas. You know, one of the things I'd like to talk about is, you know, soldiers or anybody in government, by the way, who raises their hand to protect and defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
It's the only oath in the world that's given to a piece of paper. And that piece of paper reflects ideas and values and who we want to be and who we aspire to be. Other countries go motherland or fatherland or El Presidente. We do ideas and values. So that's kind of what I wanted to portray in that paper.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
is still an expanded war in the Middle East, even though it seems like Hamas is defeated or Hamas is destroyed, Hezbollah is partly defeated, Syria is... appears to get better right now, but you still have the Kurds wanting for their autonomous region that includes the areas within Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. So that's still a very dangerous area.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Well, that's where we get back to the good news story that you were asking about before. Because, yeah, I am concerned about that, that too many people are falling into that trap. But I believe that because we are a nation of values and ideas, that those drive policies and policies drive strategies, or at least they should.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And if you don't have the ideas and the values of our great nation, our policies and our strategies are going to be a mishmash of a bunch of different things. And that's truthfully what's trying to happen.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
When people become windsocks on Capitol Hill, when you see different nominees going in and having said something for a very long time or the last couple of years, and then suddenly when they get in front of the committees and the senators, they say completely the opposite. That tells me they're not basing their answers or who they are on values. I think we're going to get back to that.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
I truly believe that. I can't not believe that, Jim, because that's what, you know, I spent 40 years defending and I'm not ready to give it up.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
We're seeing some of them like integrity and personal courage, standing up to people, respect for all others. That's true. I mean, not just people we like, but not just the 48% that voted for us, but the entire country you got to have respect for. Integrity in terms of what you say and what you do. And does the audio match the video? All of those things have application.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And I'm concerned if we lose them, that we could lose our country.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Yeah, I just had that question from the thing I was just on with a bunch of national security professionals, and that's why I'm wearing a tie today. And the same question came up about what will it mean to the alliance if the U.S. pulls out? And first of all, it's more than just a military alliance. I mean, the partnership and the trust and the alliance is just magical.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Yeah, there's a lot of problems with NATO. It's sometimes hard to get decisions when you're in Brussels. But boy, it's stuck around for 80 years doing some really good things in some really tough situations. Could the Europeans survive without the United States? Yeah, they could. but it wouldn't be the same alliance. I think they depend on us as much as we depend on them.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And plus, if we pull out of NATO, which some have suggested, I would think we'd lose the intelligence sharing. We're going to lose the trust and the connection to the continent. We're going to use an economic factor and a diplomatic factor that's part of national power.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
So if you look at the four elements of national power, diplomacy, military, information, and economy, all of those will be decreased for us if we pull out of the alliance. And I don't think it's a very smart move.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Of course, Ukraine, what's going to happen next? I don't know. And it scares the hell out of me because we cannot allow Putin to get away with this invasion of a territory and a sovereignty that he's been doing for the last almost three years now. He has to be stopped.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
I think they're degraded now, but hopefully, you know, for their sake, they would learn some lessons. And that's why I don't think we should, we, the United States or NATO should give them a break. We should not allow them to go to a peace talks because they're just going to pull back, take their chunk of land and then determine how they're going to move forward.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And three, four or five years from now, they're going to invade somebody else that's less well-equipped than Ukraine. All right. So you're a St.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Well, back in the day, SLU and CBC were like major rivals.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
That is huge. I did not know that about you. I wish I had known that earlier. I would have given you a hard time a whole hour earlier.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And I'm afraid that some in our government will tend to placate him, which will only cause more frozen conflicts, which he's created five of the continent of Europe. The partnership between Putin and Kim is just horrible.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Hey, thanks, Tim. Appreciate it. It's been a pleasure. Really appreciate it.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And I think Kim's getting the worst of it now because reports this morning saying that, you know, he's sending waves of North Korean soldiers against Ukraine and they're being destroyed. So he may be getting missile parts for his intercontinental ballistic missiles in North Korea, but... It's not going to help them in terms of doing anything for that country.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And then, of course, even though China's economy is in the toilet and going down faster, they're still a major threat because they've got the biggest military in the world and they have great ambitions. Is that all? No.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Domestic terrorism, international terrorism, climate change activities, and anybody that's scoffs at that, I'll tell you the Department of Defense has been looking at climate change for the last 30 years, and they know what the implications of that are. I could go on and on. It's a bad world out there. It's the worst that I've seen in my 40 years as a professional.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Yeah, that's a huge possibility. But what I've learned in the Middle East and the amount of time I've spent there, whenever you think everything's about to go right, suddenly there's another car bomb somewhere and it causes more things to happen.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
So yeah, I would agree with you that Iran's capability, they have been embarrassed and their capability was always poor and they've lost all their proxies. So it could be good. But again, there's always a fight somewhere in the Middle East.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Yeah, boy, that's a great question. And there's been a couple of folks that see it from the stand. If you've never been to Israel, you don't understand it. I was in Israel in 2012 with my counterpart there near the place where the concert occurred, where the Gazan division was. And we were just standing around talking on the outside and suddenly a couple of rockets started coming in.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
This was in 2012. And he said, this is a typical experience. When you have the kind of terrorist threats they do, And when you have the terrorists doing things that Hamas and Hezbollah have done, specifically create the victim's doctrine, as they call it, in 2014, where everything that Israel does, we will call it the worst thing possible and take film of it and get it out on the world stage.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And at the same time, they're building literally hundreds of miles of tunnels underneath Palestinian citizens and wanting those citizens to be killed to put more blame on Israel. Yeah, you can understand both sides of the story. Israel has executed the war, in my view, very well.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
There's been a lot of horrendous casualties and killings, but they had no other choice because they had a major terrorist organization three miles from their citizens. Uh, they had to do so. We would, we would do the same, I think. And Katie bar the door. If someone, you know, as far away as New Jersey started attacking Manhattan Island, we would go in and bomb New Jersey to smithereens.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
So from a military perspective, they probably the X, they executed the war the best way they could. It's the political perspective that why did it get to this point? What caused them to come to the conclusion of no intelligence, lack of interaction with the Palestinian people, doing the kinds of things they were doing on the West Bank and in Gaza to really subjugate those Palestinians?
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
That all contributes, and you've got to account for that as well.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
You know, I think Russia is on the weakest footing they've been on since the start of the war began. I mean, truthfully, you know, you've got Putin as a kleptocratic authoritarian mafia boss who has destroyed his military. I mean, it's about three quarters of his military, it's estimated, has been destroyed. His bond market just went flat yesterday. His economy's in the toilet.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
His GDP is on a war footing, and it's paying nothing but hopefully for regurgitation of more forces that are going to get destroyed on the battlefield. And now he's using... North Koreans as his cannon meat, their equivalent term for cannon fodder. So nothing has changed in terms of the way they've conducted operations other than getting more fierce and more diabolical and more criminal.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
So the potential for a Putin collapse and a Russian collapse, which is dangerous in and of itself, I think is much higher today than it was three years ago.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
The problem is if support for Zelensky and the Ukrainians dry up, then we've got potentially another frozen conflict where Russia has been able to grab 20% of a sovereign territory and get away with it and will potentially rebuild and grab more if they're allowed to do so.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Yeah. I agree. You know, Putin is not the kind of guy you negotiate with for two reasons. First of all, he always wins. And secondly, he never lives up to his promises. He's a liar. So when you put them in a position of the Minsk Accord or the Normandy conference or anything like that, he has lied every single time.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And even a week before the invasion, he was telling everybody he wasn't going to invade. So how do you trust somebody like that? And say, oh, yeah, we can move forward if we can just get him to the peace table and give him X amount of Ukrainian territory and call it even. That's not what the Ukrainian people deserve.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
He lies and doesn't negotiate in good faith, much like other autocrats around the world.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Yeah, you know, I was able to go to Russia on four different occasions, and the first time was an exchange. I had the Russian chief of the ground forces, a three-star, visit me first.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
This was in, oh gosh, 2011, I think. This wasn't the first time I was in Russia, but it was the first time we had this exchange. And when I went over to see his forces... Everything I saw was a demonstration. Everything that he was telling me was a training event was just a rote exercise that people had practiced multiple times over and over for show.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
When I talked to the generals, they were almost always drunk. When I talked to the lieutenants and captains. They were obviously just obeying orders of the drunk generals. They had no sergeant's corps. They didn't have a very good doctrine. You could tell where most of their senior leaders were corrupt and stealing things from the government. They treated their soldiers like crap.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
I mean, I was in a training barracks one time where I literally saw one of the young officers beating up a soldier with a baton. I mean, just corporal punishment. So there's no trust between the military and the government, and there's no trust between the soldiers and their military leaders.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
Yeah, I guess I can't comment on that because I'm one of the world generals. You know that. But you build trust and you build the capability to fight by treating people well and by building teams and understanding the complexities of modern war. Russia doesn't do that. You know, it was interesting that I tell the story that the general, Streicher was his name, came to visit me in Germany.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And after I showed him whatever he wanted to see and opened up every closet for him, as he was leaving, he said to me, hey, you know, you've got a good military here. How can I make mine more like yours? It was a really telling moment. And I said, General, you can't because you don't have professional values. You don't have an NCO Corps and all your generals are high bound and crooked.
The Bulwark Podcast
Mark Hertling: Putin's Weakness
And until you fix those issues, you can't you can't defeat anybody on the battlefield.