We are no longer living in a world where crises happen one at a time.

In this episode of The Civic Brief, Dr. Isaiah “Ike” Wilson III is joined by Ambassadors Michael Ranneberger, Adam Blackwell, and Lawrence E. Butler to unpack the rise of “compound insecurity”—where global conflict, domestic instability, and institutional erosion collide.

Together, they explore why traditional strategy is failing, how U.S. diplomacy and soft power are weakening, and what happens when foreign policy becomes transactional instead of strategic.

From alliance breakdowns to emerging global hotspots, this conversation reveals why security today is no longer just about power—but resilience, legitimacy, and systems thinking.

If everything is connected, strategy must be too.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

✅ What “compound insecurity” really means and why modern crises behave like interconnected systems rather than isolated events

✅ Why traditional national security strategies are failing in a world of overlapping geopolitical, economic, and civic pressures

✅ How the erosion of U.S. soft power is weakening long-term influence and strategic advantage

✅ How the erosion of U.S. soft power is weakening long-term influence and strategic advantage

✅ Why domestic cohesion directly impacts global credibility and alliance stability

✅ How to think beyond borders and silos to build resilient, adaptive strategy in a complex world

Join the Travelers Community and explore resources at Wilson WiSE Consulting, as well as at Dr. Wilson’s companion Substack Newsletter, “Compound Security, Unlocked,” where you can share insights, ask questions, and help shape the future—one brief at a time.

1. Wilson WiSE Consulting Website: https://wilsonwise.com/
2. Substack: https://compoundsecurityunlocked.substack.com/

Key Timestamps:

00:00:00 Opening framing: entering the “compound insecurity” moment

00:01:27 Defining converging crises across systems

00:03:33 Guest introductions and global experience context

00:09:16 “A world in turmoil” and the digital information overload

00:12:00 Institutional erosion and loss of government capacity

00:29:10 Transactional diplomacy vs. soft power

00:30:35 Process failure and policy fragmentation

00:40:00 National security strategy: ends, ways, and means

00:48:23 International law and post-conflict responsibility

00:54:51 The need for a coherent national narrative

00:57:00 Immigration policy and systemic contradictions

01:04:16 Transnational crime and global interdependence

01:14:33 Regime stability and long-term conflict dynamics

01:17:39 Domestic politics and foreign policy linkage

01:18:00 Closing reflections on civic and global strategy

Key Takeaways:

💎We are living in a system of converging crises—not isolated ones. Modern threats no longer operate independently. Domestic instability, global conflict, economic disruption, and institutional erosion are interacting simultaneously, creating compounding effects that overwhelm traditional policy frameworks.

💎Soft power is not optional—it is strategic infrastructure. The U.S. has historically relied on legitimacy, values, and influence to complement military strength. As that soft power erodes, so does America’s ability to lead, persuade, and sustain long-term alliances.

💎Transactional strategy creates short-term gains but long-term instability. Foreign policy driven by immediate deals rather than enduring principles undermines trust, weakens alliances, and creates unpredictable outcomes in an already volatile global system.

💎 Domestic cohesion is a national security asset. Internal political fragmentation and institutional distrust do not stay contained—they directly impact how allies and adversaries perceive U.S. credibility and reliability on the world stage.

💎Strategy must evolve from dominance to resilience. In a world of compound insecurity, success is no longer measured by control or coercion, but by the ability to absorb shocks, adapt across systems, and sustain legitimacy over time.

Resources & Mentions:

1. Apple Podcast- The Civic Brief
2. Spotify - The Civic Brief
3. YouTube- The Civic Brief
4. Wilson WiSE Consulting Website: https://wilsonwise.com/
5. Connect with Dr. Wilson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-ike-wilson/
6. Think Beyond War: https://thinkbeyondwar.com/
7. Subscribe to the Substack Community to join the discussion, share your insights, and help defend the guardrails of democracy: https://compoundsecurityunlocked.substack.com/

Related Readings:

1. The Dismantling of Diplomacy: Trump’s State Department Reorg and the End of the 'Pax Americana'.
2. The Strongman State on the March: Dark Futures, and America's Paradox of Strength and Fragility.
3. The Hollowing Out: A 'Speculative Future' of America's Great Retraction: How a Self-Inflicted Crisis of Government Cuts, Trade Wars, and Shutdowns Unravels the Nation.
4. Rebuilding American Diplomacy for a Compound World: Toward a Strategic, Integrated, and Tech-Enabled Department of State.
5. The "Real" Deep State: How Trump, Musk, and DOGE Are Constructing the Very Leviathan They Claim to Fear.

About the Guests:

Adam Blackwell is Vice President of International Programs at Development Services Group, leading global efforts to support U.S. counterterrorism monitoring. A seasoned international security expert, he has served as Ambassador to the Dominican Republic and held senior roles at the Organization of American States. He is active with the World Economic Forum and currently serves as President of the Rotary Club of Clearwater.

Ambassador Butler spent 40 years in the U.S. Foreign Service, NATO, the EU, and UN, focusing on trade policy and crisis management. He served as Ambassador to North Macedonia, acting Ambassador in Belgrade, and advised military commands as POLAD. Involved in peace agreements in Bosnia, Northern Ireland, and Macedonia, he speaks multiple languages and lives in Maine.

Ambassador Ranneberger is managing partner at Gainful Solutions and a retired Career Minister of the U.S. Foreign Service. He served as Ambassador to Mali, Kenya, and Somalia, led African policy at the State Department, helped negotiate the Sudan Peace Agreement, and played a key role in resolving Kenya’s 2007 election crisis.

Tags:

Civic Engagement Podcast, National Security and Public Policy, Leadership and Strategy Podcast, Dr. Ike Wilson Podcast, The Civic Brief, compound insecurity, grand strategy failure, modern geopolitics, U.S. foreign policy 2026, soft power vs hard power, transactional diplomacy risks, global security trends, national security strategy analysis, alliance instability, geopolitical fragmentation, transnational crime networks, global systems thinking, diplomacy and development capacity, international relations podcast, future of global order

[00:00:11] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: I would say that nobody would argue that you need to review government spending and you need to review the machinery of government.

[00:00:24] Ambassador Lawrence E Butler: In the 40 years I worked, you know, in and outta the State department with U-S-A-I-D and other foreign affairs agencies, I saw institutional capture both by those of us who, you know, lived and breathe.

[00:00:42] Narrator: Welcome to the civic brief with Dr. Isaiah Ike Wilson III, where complex issues meet everyday lives. Now let's begin

[00:01:27] Our theme this month compound insecurity when domestic fractures, alliance strain, and regional war converge demanding a Thinking beyond boundaries. When we selected this, um, meta theme, we did it well prior to today, and how all of these dynamics are unfortunately playing out in real power and forced terms.

[00:02:17] And probably most importantly, to act first. Let's look around the strategic landscape right now at the 30,000 foot altitude level. Now at home here specifically and on all the domestic home fronts, but specifically the United States. The USA is experiencing a steady erosion of diplomatic and development capacity and capabilities.

[00:03:01] With Iran, we're seeing conflicts that increasingly behave less like isolated wars and more like contagions spreading through a connected geopolitical system. It's ecology, folks. In other words, this is not just a moment of crisis, it's a moment when multiple systems are colliding at once. Now, to help us think through this landscape, this compound insecurity landscape, we're joined today by, by three season diplomats whose careers have unfolded across many of the regions.

[00:03:55] His career placed him at the center of major diplomatic efforts, including [00:04:00] negotiations supporting Namibia's independence, the 2005 Sudan Peace Agreement and mediation during Kenya's 2007, 2008 post-election crisis alongside African Union Envoy Konan. Following his ambassadorial services, he served as senior foreign policy advisor to United States Central Command Commanders Ambassador Adam Blackwell.

[00:04:45] His work on multidimensional security within the OAS offers a unique vantage point on how regional systems absorb or frankly fail to absorb compound pressures. An ambassador Larry Butler, a career US [00:05:00] diplomat, whose four decades of service bridge diplomacy and defense has operated at the center of some of the most consequential alliance environments of the post Cold War era.

[00:05:33] Taken together, our guests bring perspectives shaped across continents, institutions, and decades of diplomatic practice. So today I want to explore a simple but increasingly urgent big question a, a big ideas generating question with, with these three gentlemen. Here's that question. What happens when the stresses inside a nation or nations, the fractures inside [00:06:00] alliances in the spread of regional wars, the contagion of those regional wars begin to interact all at once, all at the same time?

[00:06:30] I've stolen the show, I've stolen the stage. Now I'm gonna hand the mic to you, give you anywhere from 30, uh, seconds to a minute add to the frame challenge the framework that I've put on the table, the framing, um, of that I let you all know I love the fight. I love a good contest. So the more con, con contention we can get, the better, the more I'll enjoy it and I think our viewers will get a lot out of it as well.

[00:07:20] Indo-Pacific, the nine line, uh, uh, arena of the, um, south China Sea. Taiwan, Taiwan. Taiwan. Let's not forget about Gaza. Um, we certainly will be focusing a lot on Iran, um, both as a country, both as a country at war, under war fair, but also Mike, as we called it, syncom, if you remember, in our theater strategy, Iran being the quote unquote, uh, enduring main effort, certainly showing itself as that.

[00:08:19] And, and I'll, I'll, that's about as kind as I can put it. Let me turn it over. Um, Mike, maybe we'll start with you and, uh. Also take advantage of the opportunity to correct me anything I got wrong in your all's illustrious, um, bios, uh, can't tell you how great it is to be with all of you in the same, in the same sitting.

[00:08:44] Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: Yeah. Uh, Ike, listen, uh, it's a pleasure to be with you today, and I think what you're doing is so important. Um, I, I, I think you framed it very, very well.

[00:09:16] So I, I tend to refer to. The world today as what I call a world in turmoil. I, I don't know how, how else to put it.

[00:09:25] Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: And I think the overlay of everything, the challenge to our democracy, other democracies, uh, coincides to a large degree with the advent of the digital information age.

[00:09:38] Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: Uh, you talked about institutions being overwhelmed.

[00:09:59] [00:10:00] And I agree with you that we've hollowed out. A great deal of our national instrument. Um, you know, I'm, I'm old fashioned, but I tend to, you know, look at that equation, you know, hard power plus soft power used well times leadership equals uh, smart power. Yes. That's how I look at it. And, uh, you know, when you hollow out the, largely the soft power dimension of things, well that leaves you sort of fighting with one hand in a way.

[00:10:31] Dr. Ike Wilson: that's perfect. Perfect. And you got us right into Arena one, uh, Mike and what's happened over a particular, over the last 14 months here in the United States, uh, under the new administration, we, you know, everything being dozed, if you will.

[00:11:03] But really how that has a direct, I think we oftentimes don't think about, and as citizens, we're not talked to enough about that intersectionality. Big word for a simple idea how much of who we are and what we are able to do instrumentally, but also most importantly in my book, ethically and morally and purpose, as well as purposefully for our own vi na, you know, vital national interests.

[00:11:46] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: Sure. Um. I would say that nobody would argue Ike, uh, great to be with you guys.

[00:12:12] We had a thing called program review where we looked at, you know, we tried to get the correct assumptions. Uh, we tried to make sure we had the right people in the room, and we, uh, implemented the right processes, and by and large, the results were pretty good. Uh, bill Clinton adopted something that was relatively, uh, similar and was able to, uh, take a fair chunk, um, out of the federal, um, federal spend.

[00:12:36] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: Now they're, we've been dozed after seven and a half years working for the Department of State contract. Um, I have seen. Uh, the number of people who took the fork in the road, the number of people who were then RIFed, the number of people who just, you know, threw their hands up in the air and, uh, gave up and, and discussed.

[00:13:16] Nobody's tracking that data, right? Nobody's, nobody's bringing that, uh, those stories into, um, into the policy. Think. Uh, so I think we've, we've, you know, we've really lost capacity. And I guess the only other thing I would end with is I really don't think there was any intent on a process. Um, I think it, all of this was grandstanding, the kind of childish way they took away U-S-E-I-D sign, uh, on a Sunday night, you know, uh, I mean that, that's just performance to, I guess, tele base that they're, you know, they're, they're taking the sledgehammer to these agencies.

[00:14:16] Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: Yeah.

[00:14:29] Dr. Ike Wilson: This is perfect. We're really getting through arena one, talking about the domestic factors, you know, thank you gentlemen for, for doing that.

[00:14:55] They went in and with, you know, not, not to put it too pejoratively, but you know, [00:15:00] vacuum cleaned, you know, use ai, big machines, big a, uh, artificial intelligence, uh, large learning models, vacuum up all of our public and private information across all agencies to include public, to include individual, um, citizens information.

[00:15:58] All the deep state, [00:16:00] um, uh, cultish ideas. Now, as, as I think one of you already said, Adam, I think you said it actually at the core of the madness is some rational sensibility. None of us are going to argue that, you know, there are inefficiencies in government that need to be dealt with. Right, but it's a manner of which of, it's where you go from that kernel of, um, of coherency and then how you go about it.

[00:16:57] Right. And there are a lot of factors that play into that to [00:17:00] include a congress that, you know, my old professor at Cornell, uh, wrote the book on calling it, you know, a commitment, a commitment of side on the part of our legislative branch, first branch. It's supposed to be first branch, but it's gotta be a branch that's engaged.

[00:17:35] If there's left unused power left on the table, ungoverned power, that executive's gonna pick up that power. And that's how we get to a conditioned state that we're living with today with a, with a hyper, some have called it so political scientists, academics in pundits and citizens in between, if called it a, a rise of an imperial presidency.

[00:18:15] Everything else, um, I think it's, it's improvisation, right? But there is a, there is a baseline to the jazz. To the jazz to that. So one more, one more acronym real quick. And then Larry, I'm gonna turn it over to you. We also have talked about rift reduction in force.

[00:18:29] Dr. Ike Wilson: Sorry, is what RIF means. So just for our travelers community, our, our, our, the leap, the layman laypersons out there, um, that's what those two acronyms mean.

[00:18:39] Ambassador Lawrence E Butler: Yeah, let's go with riffraff. Um, so, you know, for, for, for al alternative point of view, and kind of start with, uh, if you look over my shoulder is good, is I started life as a Cold War baby, uh, with a, with a, uh, army captain, uh, uh, serving in, uh, the folded gap in Germany in, you know, the, in the 1950s, uh, which included Colin Powell, the Elvis in his unit.

[00:19:17] And it was the concept of Weeb and a colonel shows up in the Pentagon, uh, for his two year tour, and he's got a bunch of Department of the Army civilians sitting there who've been there for 20 or 30 years, and he comes in and says, I'm gonna clean house here. We're gonna, we're gonna do things differently.

[00:19:49] And that's the east, that's the west coast, uh, you know, the, the cyber tech world. Yeah. Uh, Mike, to your point of, you know, we're into, into that world, uh, because, uh, we don't want, we don't want the civil [00:20:00] service waiting us out. So I think we could all agree. There was a, in my, uh, uh, I, I'm gonna use your line of forget the slim fast.

[00:20:28] You know, that was our world. Uh, even if we did move every couple years, our civil servants did not. Uh, but I also saw the NGOs. The corporations that got fat and greedy off of US. Taxpayer money being funneled either. This is the State Department and I'm thinking of DR, and those are population refugees.

[00:21:03] I, I know you wanted to do that at the end. Ike. Um. But I just watched, you know, quite frankly, contractors coming in and NGOs and, and Mike, you probably saw that in Africa, who were basically running our programs. I mean, we, you know, you wrote the checks and, you know, and they ran off and did whatever they did with them.

[00:21:39] Back in the, you know, the good old days of, you know, when I was, you know, ambassador and I had, you know, $200 million U-S-A-I-D budget and we conspired to do all kinds of good things and, and we bought a lot of influence in the countries we're in. Did we do a lot of good? Do we actually create, you know, deal with the corruption, better governance?

[00:22:14] The foreign service does not have a natural domestic constituency anywhere in the United States.

[00:22:21] Ambassador Lawrence E Butler: Mean no one thanks me for my service. You know, you know, if I, when I go on, when I go check in the United Airlines, you know, you know, it's, it's the, it's the serving, it's the, you know, current uniformed soldiers you get on first.

[00:22:54] They're not jobs, you know, at home producing more, more, more, uh, diplomats. So just kind of like, this is the [00:23:00] cold, hard reality, uh, need to confront. And then how do we take advantage of. State department that's trying to rebuild certain capacities that U-S-C-I-D had, and I'm thinking humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, uh, that is being rebuilt inside the State Department.

[00:23:33] Um, we ignored our hemisphere for a long, long time. I started my, you know, my second tour was in Brazil. I didn't have a chance to get back until, you know, kind of post retirement. But, uh, you know, we've always been pi you know, either dealing with Russia or pivoting to Pacific Latin America has been an afterthought, at least in my, in my perspective.

[00:23:54] Dr. Ike Wilson: Yeah. Um, any, any, any questions or contention between, uh. [00:24:00] Mike, you, Adam, and Larry. You know, per, perhaps, you know, Adam and Mike, you know, contending a bit with what Larry, what Larry put on the table. I'll, you know, I'll, I'll take, I'll take the first, the first stab, you know, this idea of never let a, a crisis go, go to waste.

[00:24:45] I don't think any American's going to, um, uh, question that, uh, particularly in the story that you laid out, uh, quite well, Larry, in terms of years, decades of, of, um, institutional ness, right? [00:25:00] In, in advantage taking, um, by, by the, by the snake oil salesmen and, you know, just an opportunity for free money. Um, and inevitable abuse of that that comes, comes about whether that's the core of the institutional problem, a core rot, whether that's a rot at the fringes, that's where the stuff that Mike talked about of use and abuse of an accelerative, um, digital, algorithmic driven social media ecosystem can, uh, allow actors to take gross advantage, uh, and, um, uh, in placing emphasis in, you know, frankly hyperbole.

[00:25:57] So. You know, I, I don't think, you know, [00:26:00] Larry, you made a great, you made great points on the problem of, you know, unwarranted. You know, I, I'll summon General Eisenhower here of unbridled, unwarranted, um, uh, deferments of governmental public power, our power to, um, to private entities in, in, uh, the contractors' dilemma, you know, private, military, uh, organizations, uh, and the like involved in that as well.

[00:26:44] I mean, the, the big seven, the Palantir SpaceX's, the, the, and drills, the um, et cetera, et cetera, five to seven dominate not only global stock markets, but US defense industry. Add, uh, [00:27:00] uh, San Alt Altman's chat, um, chat, GPT and uh, uh, dario's philanthropic, uh, in there in terms of the large learning model systems.

[00:27:32] It's, it's never let a crisis go to waste. And especially if we are in a position of executive fiat where we can actually manipulate crises that are real organically happening on their own, but also manufacture crises to set the stage for more and more capture in more and more of this move down a road of military industrial importer, uh, algorithmic, um, [00:28:00] complexes that are less and less, um.

[00:28:29] Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: No, Larry, I, I, everything you said about contractors and all that, I mean, I could tell you a million stories. You could tell me, you know, I came across it in Kenya, criminal levels of overhead really. But I wanted to touch on something else. You were saying that there's no, there was no plan or process to that.

[00:29:10] Um, but it gets to a more fundamental point. What's been going on? I mean, does soft power have any place in a transactional foreign policy approach?

[00:29:20] Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: And that's what we're in. I mean, you know, in, in the one hand I would say, you look at Trump's foreign policy and you say, well, he's overcome any issue of hypocrisy.

[00:29:46] No,

[00:29:48] Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: The big, the big asymmetrical advantage we have had vis-a-vis China, of course, to some degree hard power, but it's been the soft power component. And I think that's still out there, that soft power [00:30:00] component, whether there's money behind it or not. And I think it will come back at, at, at, at some point, but the Chinese don't ignore soft power.

[00:30:11] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: Yeah.

[00:30:23] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: Mm.

[00:30:28] Maybe we can come back to that some

[00:30:32] Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: the No. Give Adam a chance.

[00:31:00] I mean,

[00:31:01] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: That's ridiculous. So do you need a program of humanitarian assistance? Question number one, yes or no? And if it's yes, who best to deliver it? Is it a company? Is it bureaucrats? Is it a multilateral organization? I mean, those are the questions that we should be having. And then how best to harness the various players here so that we are maximizing our humanitarian assistance or whatever assistance we're trying to do, uh, in a particular country, I was in Honduras trying to help them with a gang truce and a whole load of, uh, misery.

[00:31:58] That's really what I'm getting at. [00:32:00] Instead, they come in and it's, it's whiplash and it's, uh, now we gotta hire everybody back at Voice of America because they fired them the wrong way. And what's that cost? How much did it cost to have all those civil servants sitting at home for eight months, uh, being paid not to work?

[00:32:38] So to me it's the process. It's not, uh,

[00:32:58] Right. And I think some, [00:33:00] and I'll show my cards here. I'm a terrible poker player. I play with all my, I play Texas Holden with all my face cards facing outward, right? Terrible, terrible. Um, so I'm gonna do it again right here. Uh, I, I think part of the costing is then, uh, shows itself in places like our military operations in, in Venezuela, our military operations, ongoing with Israel.

[00:33:54] And the, you know, despite our unmatchable, uh, undefeatable unbeatable, [00:34:00] um, prowess. Exquisite prowess at winning all the battles in these major campaigns, whether it's conflict or war and anything in between. Um, still a failure to have a plan for winning the piece, the relative piece. As long as we can keep, keep it, and as we come to know it.

[00:34:38] We've got one hugely li limb lingering over, um, Gaza and the future of that. And as that comes into contagion, interplay with the one looming most prominent in all of our minds, uh, Iran, you know, what happens the day after our exquisiteness at, um, steel, steel on target? And, you know, I, I'm [00:35:00] all, I'm all for the United States and the Western, you know, community of western liberal democracies, having that prowess, right?

[00:35:35] Ambassador Lawrence E Butler: Well, I'm glad. I'm glad the civilian didn't have to explain to listeners the difference between phase three, active military operations and phase four, you know, stability, operations, and then phase five of giving it all back to the civilians.

[00:35:46] Ambassador Lawrence E Butler: Uh, uh, you know, and then, then we start all over again.

[00:36:30] Precepts and, and, and, and ways of doing things to a country that eventually was gonna be part of the European Union. And I failed in stopping that until, uh, although they eventually decided to hire a Brit, which again, was another mistake because now we're talking about, you know, a similar system that we have, um, of like, why do we, why are we trying to export our values, our systems, our norms to other countries?

[00:37:15] Hmm. Uh, and then how do we get to the long term? 'cause we all want them to be like us or some version of us. Uh, you know, you know, Finland, Canada, you know Germany, you know, Denmark, United States, you know, you know, we're all a little bit different, but, but we're all, you know, we've got more similarities. We have differences.

[00:38:01] But it always came, it always came with something that they didn't see. There was a hook in there. Uh, you know, you, you signed over the rights, you know, to your country when you agreed to, uh, you know, to accept our money to build. I'm thinking Kenya right now to build, you build a, uh, a railroad. You, you know, because, you know, ultra agent, having said that, the Chinese spend money to buy people, you know, they're not interested and they, and they want something in return.

[00:38:42] Dr. Ike Wilson: Yes.

[00:39:05] That's a, you know, that's a different issue. But we have neglected, uh, to our, our peril what goes on south of us. To an extent, a certain extent. I gotta look at you, Adam, you know, since, since the Canadian border's about, you know, two hour drive away from I'm sitting what goes un north of us? Come on. Laugh yet.

[00:39:27] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: of good stuff.

[00:39:44] Dr. Ike Wilson: Uh, you've done it, you've transitioned us right?

[00:40:06] We also have derivative of that, a national defense strategy of 2026, right? And these, and the interplays of these, I'll, you'll, you'll have a chart. You have a chart that, that you can look at, uh, in front of you, uh, as we talk through this. But any strategy is the, the logical relating and relationship between ends, ways and means.

[00:40:49] Frankly, how you can rationalize the use and utility of those instrumental material means based on the political outcome. That [00:41:00] in my not so humble opinion, should also represent who you are as an entity, as a, in this case, as a country or a community of, you know, small l, small D, small r liberal democratic republics, democracies, right?

[00:42:16] That's a greater Western hemisphere, and that's where the conversations about Greenland geographically and geo strategically come into play. Panama Canal, um, is always in that, um, narrative gameplay as well. But just real quick, you know, what are the specific ends as stated in the national security strategy of 2000, uh, 20, uh, 25.

[00:43:10] Who we've been and how we've been based on what we do, how and why, and what we choose no longer to do. Quite a strategic rebalance, to put it kindly and diplomatically from what it's been, um, over the last 22 national security strategies has taken us back to at least the 1960s, um, even the latter 1950s.

[00:43:59] Peace through str. [00:44:00] To me, strength is not just that lethal use of force and being exquisite at is a necessary but insufficient part of the power equation. To me, peace through strength is peace through a resilient system of which we are the guaranteeing and governing authority since 1945, of which we're making a choice to lead in a different way.

[00:44:49] To our northern partners in Canada. Uh, 51st State, you know, to the Dutch in the Greenlanders themselves, the Greenland. [00:45:00] Constant returns to Panama Canal and, you know, best deal making that they got, bought it for $1. You know, that really aggravates our, our real estate, uh, expert as, uh, president of the United States.

[00:45:30] Fairness and Flexible Realism in dealing with all nations pri primacy of the nation state over transnational bodies. We do see that, uh, in, in behavior maintaining, uh, regional and global balance of power and promotion of competence and pro worker economic policy. Pro some priorities en mass migration, secure the border.

[00:46:18] But a lot of those individuals that, that are left post doge have been redirected towards, uh, in-country, uh, immigration policing in, um, what I would call an international focus. And I don't actually contend with this one in terms of rese securing the, the southern border of the United States. I mean, I think all Americans actually agree with that in terms of controlling the southern border against illegal immigration, um, we don't agree, majority of us don't agree with the manner in which that is Contaged.

[00:47:18] As has been cast by the administration. I'm being kind here 'cause I'm using their own words. I'm being fair. That's less available for these, uh, expeditionary type of operations. So what is that gonna look like? How's that gonna play out in, in places like Venezuela the day after next, not the decapitation of Maduro.

[00:47:58] Right. We violated [00:48:00] that, that that sovereignty claim in our national security strategy by doing a major combat operation. I know we're calling it in support of a law enforcement effort, but I can't find the legal precedent, both in terms of US domestic law, nor can I find it in international law, either to include international humanitarian law that give, gave us the legal writ to actually do the snatch and grab.

[00:48:39] How does that come into interplay? Now, we should have a cons, a constitutional conversation internationally on whether the majority of the international Committee of States still believe in that. If we don't, let's take it off the legal books. But while it's still on the books, we're in violation of it.

[00:49:20] Um, different verse all too tragically, same as the first folks. That's, that's kind of the frame to bring us to the end of the, of the middle. And maybe, you know, towards, um, kind of rounding out our conversation, we will we'll round out our conversation on how this is all interplaying in terms of. Tell us how this ends and what an ending looks like in terms of costing the ability to have resources available to start things, to open up these conflicts or wars, but, um, maybe not enough of the material and the operational stuff to bring them to an instrumental legal and maybe most importantly, [00:50:00] ethical and moral conclusion that does not found the United States or the community of liberal democratic Republican demo democratic states losing its soul in the process of being able to do, you know, to do what we will because we're strong against those that are not strong.

[00:50:41] Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: Can I, can I jump in there for a second? Dike?

[00:50:46] Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: when you said, what should we be about or what are our interests, or how do we frame our national, uh, goals overseas? I, I, I think really it's important to look at it in two ways. One, we're looking towards what is our relationship with the [00:51:00] government Yeah.

[00:51:14] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: Mm-hmm.

[00:51:26] Because while we've been open to charges of hypocrisy about democracy, promotion, and rightly so, I mean, the cases are so egregious, I don't have to start enumerating them now. Mm-hmm. But still, there was a sense that we stood for something different. You know, openness, some general sense of freedom and all of that.

[00:52:10] We integrate that in our overall policy approach. And I, I come from a lot of Africa experience. Um, that is certainly a message that the people of Africa want to hear. I mean, all the polling data has shown that, and we haven't talked about polling data. You said how do you measure the impact of what's going on?

[00:52:53] They're gonna be educated, uh, literacy rates are approaching 80%. Uh, so how do we engage with [00:53:00] that future of the world? Um, and, uh, undercutting soft power is undercutting our prospects there. It's not just about economics.

[00:53:24] Which, which is a, which is a huge, which is, which is a huge factor in terms of, um, uh, trans transition transitions of, of regime type of statehood, regime types. Now, now, correct all of that in terms of what I've, I've gotten wrong or,

[00:53:51] A drift towards autocracy. I mean, there are a number of countries that are on paper, democratic, uh, and some which are outright, and there have been elections in a number of the countries [00:54:00] recently. Um, but, um, you know, so, so Africa has potential in, in, in, in, in that way. And because you've got a young population, and this is where the whole digital thing comes in.

[00:54:11] Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: If you're using soft power. To relate to those people. If you are doing things in terms of assistance that relate to those people, that that's gonna, that's gonna create a friendly audience, and that's gonna create people who continue to push for change. We've seen all these Gen Z protests around the world, right?

[00:54:51] We've got to deliver last point. We've got to deliver a coherent message. Transactional is one dimensional. What is the [00:55:00] public diplomacy broader message about, as you said, Ike, what do we stand for? What are we trying to achieve in the world?

[00:55:17] Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: We're, we're of course, we're gonna do some transition. Absolutely. There's be transactional activity.

[00:55:23] Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: Just as we'll be criticized for ineffective democracy promotion, we'll be criticized for transactional activity. Yeah. But again, what's the broader context? And one thing I will say is that with China, and I'll stop, but with China, I, I agree, Larry, there's always a hidden agenda in, in what they do.

[00:55:57] Dr. Ike Wilson: Yeah. Adam.

[00:56:13] Thank you. President Obama deported more people than any president in the history of the United States.

[00:56:19] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: the process was clean. When I was at the OAS, we met with Holman and we said, look, just do this in an orderly manner. If somebody is being sent back to Honduras and it's a mother who came over the border illegally, say it, give her a little, you know, a file.

[00:56:58] Dr. Ike Wilson: Yeah.

[00:57:07] Because as long as there is, uh, uh, demand for, uh, labor, there's gonna be a supply. Um, and you're gonna have folks sending remittances back home, which is great for the local economies and all the rest of it. Yes. But it's not just about stopping the border as I understand it. Mm-hmm. It's about mm-hmm.

[00:57:29] Dr. Ike Wilson: Yeah,

[00:57:44] So, you know, I think that that's something that needs to be looked at far more, more seriously. Well, and I'd say the other thing is, since the letter raised it, look at Canada, I mean, Carney has not turned all of this into a crisis. He's simply gone and [00:58:00] said, we have rupture. We need new friends. We need new trading alliances.

[00:58:24] We, you know, we've now been confronted with this, and I think Carney, uh, has by and large managed it, um, managed it, uh, really well. And I guess my last point is we just had Davos, uh, Carney. Thank you. Davos. But

[00:58:41] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: uh, commerce Secretary was there and spent his three meetings insulting people to the point where Christine Laga, who was the head of the i, the former head of the IMF, and, but currently the head of the European Central Bank got up and walked out.

[00:58:59] Narrator: Yeah. [00:59:00]

[00:59:11] Dr. Ike Wilson: Mm-hmm. Well, yeah. And that, and when we, and, and that's Davos 2026. And in Munich Security conference that comes after that, you take that.

[00:59:45] But, but said it more diplomatically as you would fig, as you would figure and hope. Um, our secretary of state would, our chief diplomat would, but really same message. And at the core of it, it's really about a narrowing of what constitutes, quote unquote western civilization. And what [01:00:00] JD Vance, vice President JD Vance put forward in Davos 2025, uh, sorry.

[01:00:48] Um, but of the Transatlantic Alliance for in the, in the European Union of getting on board with a civilizational turn [01:01:00] in redefinition of what constitutes the Western Alliance and at Cornerstone to that western civilization. This is a whole nother subject for us to, for me to op to invite you all back, but this as at the floorboards of everything that we're talking about here, and Larry, um, over to you.

[01:01:36] Dr. Ike Wilson: Yeah.

[01:01:39] Dr. Ike Wilson: Mm-hmm.

[01:01:55] And they're gonna look for work. Uh, they're gonna look [01:02:00] to immigrate, or they're gonna, or they're gonna join an extremist organization, or they're gonna turn to organized crime. Or all three. And, and my criticism of kind of almost every administration up until now, and I mean equal opportunity critique of, of the seven presidents, I've, you know, I've had the, uh, the privilege of working for, including the current one, um, uh, is that they have neglected Central America.

[01:02:47] Yeah. And thinking Taiwan, you know, is right for the pickings. Now, I would join

[01:02:58] Ambassador Lawrence E Butler: There is a piece in the New York [01:03:00] Times today about how the Dutch, a Dutch judge has just come out and said.

[01:03:24] And most people didn't know where Iran was. You know, stop, stop laughing. Mike is true. Uh, my first assignment was Finland. I had, I had to look Finland up on the map when they, when State Department told me I wasn't gonna going to Finland. Like, I'm, you know, what the hell? You know? Okay. Whatever. Anyway, um, so, so, you know, the, the, the failure to, and this is where you do need allies, you do need transnational organizations.

[01:04:03] And then there's all these nice Chinese ports down there. It's getting loaded on ships and it's ending up in, you know, the various ports in Holland. And this is like, you know, the Dutch are like raising you, like, we're in trouble because there's money. Money corrupts, absolutely.

[01:04:17] Ambassador Lawrence E Butler: I mean, they were talking about, you know, some port workers in Holland, you think, how do they get bribed $200,000 to, to allow somebody to access a warehouse?

[01:04:41] Because they're coming and we have not, you know, how did, how did an Angolan or a Congolese get to the southern border? That's human. You know, that's, you know, it, it's been, you know, central America has been the place we've been have quite frankly, failed. And, and we've been swimming around there since, you know, since Teddy Roosevelt or [01:05:00] whoever who says he may be a, you know, son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch.

[01:05:06] Dr. Ike Wilson: Well, that's where Adam's point on the E-Verify comes into play. Right. And those kinds of

[01:05:19] To pass the E-Verify, which is something that, you know, the Homeland Security and those folks, they picked up a Congolese who had just, uh, signed up to work as a, a deputy sheriff down here. Mm-hmm. You passed E-Verify, but turns out he has some issues.

[01:05:40] Ike, the compound, multidimensional, uh, piece here. Yes. So 80% of. Drugs consumed in the United States. Come from that up from, uh, Mexico. Yeah. 80% of the firearms used in crime in Mexico come, are sourced from the United States.

[01:05:59] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: The [01:06:00] value of drugs on the street of New York is 80% of the value, uh, 80% higher than the value of those drugs in the streets of Ecuador or

[01:06:09] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: Or wherever. So we, we can't just say, oh, Ecuador's bad. 'cause they got, you know, transnational criminal organizations. A lot of those transnational criminal organizations are feeding our, our demand for these illicit products. Mm-hmm. And that's really the point I was trying to make is, uh, you, you really do need to frame this in a structured way.

[01:06:41] Dr. Ike Wilson: Yeah.

[01:06:51] Dr. Ike Wilson: I've gotta, I've gotta, uh, do the thing that's hardest for me. I've gotta start to transition us to a conclusion.

[01:06:58] Dr. Ike Wilson: Um, what I'd like to do is, you know, I [01:07:00] always like to do a lightning round. I'm gonna, I'm gonna skip the, I'm gonna improv here. I'm gonna go off the, the main jazz line here. We're not gonna cover the lightning round questions I've already laid out.

[01:07:37] I'm gonna add, add, give the added burden to you because I wanna give you the opportunity to talk a little bit about what we've talked about recently, also one-on-one about this perpetual, um, tragic, if not funny, in a non haha kind of way, uh, quest of the United States to pivot away from and out of the Middle East.[01:08:00]

[01:08:19] So maybe, maybe we'll go, you know, let's start with you, Larry. Um, you've got the bigger piece of this, and then

[01:08:36] Um, and I'm gonna quote a, uh, Lydia Paul Green, who wrote in the New York Times two days ago. Uh, she's an op-ed person. Uh, the Gulf is the hypothesis of globalization.

[01:08:46] Ambassador Lawrence E Butler: I mean, the global Comm is, you know, everything that matters, you know, to our, our prosperity, our welfare security, basically transits either the Red Sea or the, uh, the Persian, you know, Arab, you know, Arab, that the Straits, uh, OUS Straits.

[01:08:59] Ambassador Lawrence E Butler: And right now, [01:09:00] nothing is transiting there. Um, but I'm just say, you know, you sir, you wanna know how it ends in, in Gaza, you know, uh, I, I I, my crystal ball, you know, my magic. You, uh, a Paul is, you know, has got no answers to that one. So shake it one more time. A couple of good things would come out of it.

[01:09:41] Um, so, you know, so there's, there's, you know, a silver lining for what's going on in Iran right now. Uh, how does I Iran add, and this is interesting, I'm going, I'm gonna, I'm gonna throw, uh, I'm gonna throw some kudos at this administration for what they did in Venezuela. They did not make Obama's mistake in [01:10:00] Libya and decapitate the regime and break that country up into what it became.

[01:10:26] Yeah. You know, Venezuelan and Cuba are like, Ooh, we're on our own now. And guess what? Iran's on its own, Syria's on its own Libya, you know, all the places that, that Russia used to be. Uh, and Iran, who was a major supplier of Shaheed roads, you know, in the war Ukraine. I mean, that's, that, that's all gone. So people have taken no to.

[01:11:05] The worst possible outcome would be for this country to break up into three or four pieces. Kds in the north, Baucis in the south, and heavens only knows what's in the middle. You know, that would not be good because there's more guns that are gonna flow around. So, yeah. You know, there could be more chaos Libya style.

[01:11:21] Ambassador Lawrence E Butler: Um, I'm pretty confident there's a goal of keeping a regime in place, which is not a problem to Israel and to us. And we'll see how it works out with, you know, of course Israel has, you know, Israel is not under our control. They just blew up apparently refineries, uh, in oil depots right near, near in Iran, which is gonna cause the price of oil to go up.

[01:12:00] U-S-C-I-D was a Cold War instrument. Cold War ends. Why did people join, you know, diplomacy, uh, in 1991? Why they joined diplomacy in 2001 when we had the global war on terrorism? Why did they go join diplomacy in 2011 when that was kind of winding out? And Sure. The answer is we've had a generational shift in aspirations, expectations, and willingness of what they think is important.

[01:12:25] Ambassador Lawrence E Butler: The average foreign service officer today, the ones that are left. Became social missionaries, whatever, woke them up in the morning that they wanted to do. Um, not good, not bad, but, you know, how did that, how did that resonate back at home when there is no constituency for diplomacy? Um, I was gonna say that, that when you add to, you know, projection of force, use soft power like tariffs and other things like that, add that to the arsenal of how we get things done overseas.

[01:13:11] Nice doggy. Until you get your hands on the 82nd Airborne Division.

[01:13:21] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: um,

[01:13:24] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: Yeah, I, I have to come back to Venezuela because, you know. Nobody's gonna lament the arrest of Nicholas Maduro.

[01:13:35] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: Very

[01:13:36] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: But, but you know, seriously, we have left the worst people behind.

[01:14:07] So that infrastructure, if you will, that narco infrastructure is still there. Yeah. And you've got all of these militias that have been armed, um, in all of these communities. I mean, I, I, I, I'm not sure sure what the end game is, uh, in Venezuela and in Iran. You know, maybe Larry's right. Uh, it'll split into three, but it's a big country, a hundred million people, strategic location.

[01:14:50] Dr. Ike Wilson: I'm gonna share with you all also, it's be

[01:14:53] Dr. Ike Wilson: the weird dreams I have, right?

[01:15:18] Showing itself in some, some haunting ways. We were able to pull, we were able to help the Iraqis pull down the statue, but the legs broke off and the legs were remained on the statue. Right. That almost that haunts me now with, with Iran, because though the Supreme leader's been taken out in 47, in counting of his, uh, of his senior, most senior leadership have been taken out.

[01:15:51] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: The, the only thing I can add to this, Ike very, very briefly,

[01:16:00] Ambassador Adam Blackwell: I'm just gonna say.

[01:16:25] Dr. Ike Wilson: knows?

[01:16:35] Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: Yeah, I mean, I could see us drifting into a long-term, sort of destabilization scenario in the Middle East where you've got the Kurds involved. We're supporting internal forces, which is gonna have significant costs for us, not just in terms of gasoline, but in terms of personnel and, and American power.

[01:17:14] And the other side of it is the implications almost in, in some ways, I think more equally important what happens to the US domestically in terms of Iran. I mean, if you end up this thing drifts through the midterms, we have implications for that. Um, or, or don't rule out. Maybe Trump at some point does get to declare some kind of credible victory and what does that do domestically?

[01:17:57] Dr. Ike Wilson: You said it better than I could say it to kind of [01:18:00] round us out.

[01:18:24] Thank you so much Travelers. Uh, you've, you've, you've been blessed with, with, uh, something very rare here. Uh, and I, I hope you take full advantage of it. Thank you as well for joining us on the civic brief. You can also see me in, um, uh, some of the, my Pontifications, uh, on, uh, the Substack Companion to the Civic Brief, uh, compound security unlocked.

[01:18:59] Ambassador Michael Ranneberger: Thank you. [01:19:00] Thank you, thank you. Awesome.