TEDGlobal 2012
James Stavridis: A Navy Admiral's thoughts on global security
Filmed:
Readability: 4.8
757,597 views
Imagine global security driven by collaboration -- among agencies, government, the private sector and the public. That's not just the distant hope of open-source fans, it's the vision of James Stavridis, a US Navy Admiral. Stavridis shares vivid moments from recent military history to explain why security of the future should be built with bridges rather than walls.
James Stavridis - Navy Admiral
What will 21st-century security look like? Navy Admiral James Stavridis suggests that dialogue and openness will be the game-changers. Full bio
What will 21st-century security look like? Navy Admiral James Stavridis suggests that dialogue and openness will be the game-changers. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:16
I'm gonna talk a little bit about open-source security,
0
492
4850
00:21
because we've got to get better at security
1
5342
2024
00:23
in this 21st century.
2
7366
2020
00:25
Let me start by saying, let's look back to the 20th century,
3
9386
4687
00:29
and kind of get a sense of how that style of security
4
14073
3669
00:33
worked for us.
5
17742
1478
00:35
This is Verdun, a battlefield in France
6
19220
3292
00:38
just north of the NATO headquarters in Belgium.
7
22512
3317
00:41
At Verdun, in 1916, over a 300-day period,
8
25829
6616
00:48
700,000 people were killed,
9
32445
3128
00:51
so about 2,000 a day.
10
35573
2059
00:53
If you roll it forward -- 20th-century security --
11
37632
4328
00:57
into the Second World War,
12
41960
2903
01:00
you see the Battle of Stalingrad,
13
44863
2482
01:03
300 days, 2 million people killed.
14
47345
3568
01:06
We go into the Cold War, and we continue
15
50913
2786
01:09
to try and build walls.
16
53699
2779
01:12
We go from the trench warfare of the First World War
17
56478
4052
01:16
to the Maginot Line of the Second World War,
18
60530
3579
01:20
and then we go into the Cold War,
19
64109
2429
01:22
the Iron Curtain, the Berlin Wall.
20
66538
2938
01:25
Walls don't work.
21
69476
2227
01:27
My thesis for us today is, instead of building walls
22
71703
4332
01:31
to create security, we need to build bridges.
23
76035
3656
01:35
This is a famous bridge in Europe.
24
79691
2424
01:38
It's in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
25
82115
2122
01:40
It's the bridge over the Drina River,
26
84237
2239
01:42
the subject of a novel by Ivo Andrić,
27
86476
2826
01:45
and it talks about how,
28
89302
1758
01:46
in that very troubled part of Europe and the Balkans,
29
91060
3866
01:50
over time there's been enormous building of walls.
30
94926
4143
01:54
More recently, in the last decade, we begin to see
31
99069
3091
01:58
these communities start, hesitatingly,
32
102160
3690
02:01
to come together.
33
105850
1553
02:03
I would argue, again, open-source security
34
107403
4173
02:07
is about connecting the international,
35
111576
2836
02:10
the interagency, the private-public,
36
114412
3747
02:14
and lashing it together with strategic communication,
37
118159
3765
02:17
largely in social networks.
38
121924
2468
02:20
So let me talk a little bit about why we need to do that,
39
124392
4365
02:24
because our global commons is under attack
40
128757
3747
02:28
in a variety of ways,
41
132504
1983
02:30
and none of the sources of threat to the global commons
42
134487
3766
02:34
will be solved by building walls.
43
138253
2829
02:36
Now, I'm a sailor, obviously.
44
141082
2306
02:39
This is a ship, a liner, clipping through the Indian Ocean.
45
143388
4609
02:43
What's wrong with this picture?
46
147997
2621
02:46
It's got concertina wire along the sides of it.
47
150618
3511
02:50
That's to prevent pirates from attacking it.
48
154129
2756
02:52
Piracy is a very active threat today
49
156885
3107
02:55
around the world. This is in the Indian Ocean.
50
159992
3329
02:59
Piracy is also very active in the Strait of Malacca.
51
163321
3791
03:03
It's active in the Gulf of Guinea.
52
167112
2076
03:05
We see it in the Caribbean.
53
169188
1757
03:06
It's a $10-billion-a-year discontinuity
54
170945
2787
03:09
in the global transport system.
55
173732
3566
03:13
Last year, at this time, there were 20 vessels,
56
177298
3455
03:16
500 mariners held hostage.
57
180753
2587
03:19
This is an attack on the global commons.
58
183340
3623
03:22
We need to think about how to address it.
59
186963
2786
03:25
Let's shift to a different kind of sea,
60
189749
2450
03:28
the cyber sea.
61
192199
2378
03:30
Here are photographs of two young men.
62
194577
3237
03:33
At the moment, they're incarcerated.
63
197814
2397
03:36
They conducted a credit card fraud that netted them
64
200211
5479
03:41
over 10 billion dollars.
65
205690
3320
03:44
This is part of cybercrime which is a $2-trillion-a-year
66
209010
5026
03:49
discontinuity in the global economy.
67
214036
3026
03:52
Two trillion a year.
68
217062
1346
03:54
That's just under the GDP of Great Britain.
69
218408
3462
03:57
So this cyber sea, which we know endlessly
70
221870
2927
04:00
is the fundamental piece of radical openness,
71
224797
3996
04:04
is very much under threat as well.
72
228793
4530
04:09
Another thing I worry about in the global commons
73
233323
3023
04:12
is the threat posed by trafficking,
74
236346
2760
04:15
by the movement of narcotics, opium,
75
239106
4534
04:19
here coming out of Afghanistan through Europe
76
243640
3364
04:22
over to the United States.
77
247004
1410
04:24
We worry about cocaine
78
248414
2157
04:26
coming from the Andean Ridge north.
79
250571
2385
04:28
We worry about the movement of illegal weapons
80
252956
3218
04:32
and trafficking. Above all, perhaps,
81
256174
2419
04:34
we worry about human trafficking, and the awful cost of it.
82
258593
3971
04:38
Trafficking moves largely at sea
83
262564
2655
04:41
but in other parts of the global commons.
84
265219
2487
04:43
This is a photograph, and I wish I could tell you
85
267706
4613
04:48
that this is a very high-tech piece of US Navy gear
86
272319
4872
04:53
that we're using to stop the trafficking.
87
277191
2689
04:55
The bad news is,
88
279880
1800
04:57
this is a semi-submersible run by drug cartels.
89
281680
5625
05:03
It was built in the jungles of South America.
90
287305
4173
05:07
We caught it with that low-tech raft — (Laughter) —
91
291478
4862
05:12
and it was carrying six tons of cocaine.
92
296340
3882
05:16
Crew of four. Sophisticated communications sweep.
93
300222
4471
05:20
This kind of trafficking, in narcotics, in humans, in weapons,
94
304693
5062
05:25
God forbid, in weapons of mass destruction,
95
309755
2905
05:28
is part of the threat to the global commons.
96
312660
2889
05:31
And let's pull it together in Afghanistan today.
97
315549
4154
05:35
This is a field of poppies in Afghanistan.
98
319703
2746
05:38
Eighty to 90 percent of the world's poppy,
99
322449
3308
05:41
opium and heroin, comes out of Afghanistan.
100
325757
3319
05:44
We also see there, of course, terrorism.
101
329076
2779
05:47
This is where al Qaeda is staged from.
102
331855
2302
05:50
We also see a very strong insurgency embedded there.
103
334157
4606
05:54
So this terrorism concern is also part
104
338763
3780
05:58
of the global commons, and what we must address.
105
342543
4073
06:02
So here we are, 21st century.
106
346616
3313
06:05
We know our 20th-century tools are not going to work.
107
349929
3719
06:09
What should we do?
108
353648
2565
06:12
I would argue that we will not deliver security
109
356213
4765
06:16
solely from the barrel of a gun.
110
360978
2453
06:19
We will not deliver security solely from the barrel of a gun.
111
363431
4163
06:23
We will need the application of military force.
112
367594
2903
06:26
When we do it, we must do it well, and competently.
113
370497
3094
06:29
But my thesis is, open-source security is about international,
114
373591
6165
06:35
interagency, private-public connection pulled together
115
379756
4535
06:40
by this idea of strategic communication on the Internet.
116
384291
6289
06:46
Let me give you a couple of examples of how this works in a positive way.
117
390580
3561
06:50
This is Afghanistan. These are Afghan soldiers.
118
394141
4471
06:54
They are all holding books.
119
398612
2318
06:56
You should say, "That's odd. I thought I read that
120
400930
4804
07:01
this demographic, young men and women
121
405734
3496
07:05
in their 20s and 30s, is largely illiterate in Afghanistan."
122
409230
4969
07:10
You would be correct.
123
414199
1741
07:11
Eighty-five percent cannot read
124
415940
2197
07:14
when they enter the security forces of Afghanistan.
125
418137
3060
07:17
Why? Because the Taliban withheld education
126
421197
3147
07:20
during the period of time in which these men and women
127
424344
3284
07:23
would have learned to read.
128
427628
1391
07:24
So the question is, so,
129
429019
1743
07:26
why are they all standing there holding books?
130
430762
3341
07:30
The answer is, we are teaching them to read
131
434103
3693
07:33
in literacy courses by NATO
132
437796
3368
07:37
in partnership with private sector entities,
133
441164
3495
07:40
in partnership with development agencies.
134
444659
3387
07:43
We've taught well over 200,000 Afghan Security Forces
135
448046
4461
07:48
to read and write at a basic level.
136
452507
2548
07:50
When you can read and write in Afghanistan,
137
455055
2783
07:53
you will typically put a pen in your pocket.
138
457838
3139
07:56
At the ceremonies, when these young men and women
139
460977
2588
07:59
graduate, they take that pen with great pride,
140
463565
3544
08:03
and put it in their pocket.
141
467109
2100
08:05
This is bringing together international
142
469209
2942
08:08
— there are 50 nations involved in this mission —
143
472151
2846
08:10
interagency — these development agencies —
144
474997
2846
08:13
and private-public, to take on this kind of security.
145
477843
4090
08:17
Now, we are also teaching them combat skills, of course,
146
481933
3634
08:21
but I would argue, open-source security
147
485567
2768
08:24
means connecting in ways that create
148
488335
2684
08:26
longer lasting security effect.
149
491019
2852
08:29
Here's another example.
150
493871
2300
08:32
This is a US Navy warship.
151
496171
3439
08:35
It's called the Comfort.
152
499610
1919
08:37
There's a sister ship called the Mercy.
153
501529
2737
08:40
They are hospital ships.
154
504266
2135
08:42
This one, the Comfort, operates throughout
155
506401
2082
08:44
the Caribbean and the coast of South America
156
508483
3611
08:47
conducting patient treatments.
157
512094
1988
08:49
On a typical cruise, they'll do 400,000 patient treatments.
158
514082
4741
08:54
It is crewed not strictly by military
159
518823
3791
08:58
but by a combination of humanitarian organizations:
160
522614
3904
09:02
Operation Hope, Project Smile.
161
526518
3268
09:05
Other organizations send volunteers.
162
529786
3586
09:09
Interagency physicians come out.
163
533372
2255
09:11
They're all part of this.
164
535627
2129
09:13
To give you one example of the impact this can have,
165
537756
2905
09:16
this little boy, eight years old,
166
540661
3229
09:19
walked with his mother two days
167
543890
3219
09:23
to come to the eye clinic put on by the Comfort.
168
547109
3092
09:26
When he was fitted, over his extremely myopic eyes,
169
550201
5368
09:31
he suddenly looked up and said,
170
555569
3146
09:34
"Mama, veo el mundo."
171
558715
3238
09:37
"Mom, I see the world."
172
561953
2888
09:40
Multiply this by 400,000 patient treatments,
173
564841
3458
09:44
this private-public collaboration with security forces,
174
568299
4669
09:48
and you begin to see the power
175
572968
2069
09:50
of creating security in a very different way.
176
575037
3796
09:54
Here you see baseball players.
177
578833
4297
09:59
Can you pick out the two US Army soldiers
178
583130
3820
10:02
in this photograph?
179
586950
1957
10:04
They are the two young men on either side
180
588907
2195
10:07
of these young boys. This is part of a series
181
591102
3015
10:10
of baseball clinics, where we have explored collaboration
182
594117
3843
10:13
between Major League Baseball,
183
597960
2108
10:15
the Department of State,
184
600068
1356
10:17
who sets up the diplomatic piece of this,
185
601424
2391
10:19
military baseball players, who are real soldiers
186
603815
4225
10:23
with real skills but participate in this mission,
187
608040
4033
10:27
and they put on clinics
188
612073
1902
10:29
throughout Latin America and the Caribbean,
189
613975
2086
10:31
in Honduras, in Nicaragua,
190
616061
3360
10:35
in all of the Central American and Caribbean nations
191
619421
4702
10:40
where baseball is so popular,
192
624123
1790
10:41
and it creates security.
193
625913
2256
10:44
It shows role models to young men and women
194
628169
2458
10:46
about fitness and about life that I would argue
195
630627
3600
10:50
help create security for us.
196
634227
4165
10:54
Another aspect of this partnership
197
638392
2597
10:56
is in disaster relief.
198
640989
1951
10:58
This is a US Air Force helicopter participating
199
642940
3747
11:02
after the tsunami in 2004 which killed 250,000 people.
200
646687
6954
11:09
In each of these major disasters — the tsunami in 2004,
201
653641
4511
11:14
250,000 dead, the Kashmiri earthquake in Pakistan, 2005,
202
658152
6874
11:20
85,000 dead,
203
665026
2026
11:22
the Haitian earthquake, about 300,000 dead,
204
667052
4669
11:27
more recently the awful earthquake-tsunami combination
205
671721
4891
11:32
which struck Japan and its nuclear industry —
206
676612
3364
11:35
in all of these instances, we see partnerships
207
679976
3087
11:38
between international actors,
208
683063
3322
11:42
interagency, private-public working with security forces
209
686385
3908
11:46
to respond to this kind of natural disaster.
210
690293
3826
11:50
So these are examples of this idea of open-source security.
211
694119
4352
11:54
We tie it together, increasingly, by doing things like this.
212
698471
4671
11:59
Now, you're looking at this thinking, "Ah, Admiral,
213
703142
2911
12:01
these must be sea lanes of communication,
214
706053
3186
12:05
or these might be fiber optic cables."
215
709239
2800
12:07
No. This is a graphic of the world according to Twitter.
216
712039
5192
12:13
Purple are tweets. Green are geolocation.
217
717231
6568
12:19
White is the synthesis.
218
723799
2046
12:21
It's a perfect evocation of that great population survey,
219
725845
4085
12:25
the six largest nations in the world in descending order:
220
729930
3747
12:29
China, India, Facebook, the United States,
221
733677
2678
12:32
Twitter and Indonesia. (Laughter)
222
736355
4322
12:36
Why do we want to get in these nets?
223
740677
1763
12:38
Why do we want to be involved?
224
742440
1810
12:40
We talked earlier about the Arab Spring,
225
744250
1856
12:42
and the power of all this.
226
746106
1401
12:43
I'll give you another example,
227
747507
1343
12:44
and it's how you move this message.
228
748850
2253
12:47
I gave a talk like this in London a while back
229
751103
2333
12:49
about this point. I said, as I say to all of you,
230
753436
3388
12:52
I'm on Facebook. Friend me.
231
756824
2146
12:54
Got a little laugh from the audience.
232
758970
2127
12:56
There was an article which was run by AP, on the wire.
233
761097
5231
13:02
Got picked up in two places in the world:
234
766328
2516
13:04
Finland and Indonesia.
235
768844
2348
13:07
The headline was: NATO Admiral Needs Friends.
236
771192
3890
13:10
(Laughter)
237
775082
1483
13:12
Thank you. (Applause)
238
776565
2544
13:15
Which I do. (Laughter)
239
779109
2554
13:17
And the story was a catalyst,
240
781663
2557
13:20
and the next morning I had hundreds
241
784220
2719
13:22
of Facebook friend requests
242
786939
1635
13:24
from Indonesians and Finns,
243
788574
2517
13:26
mostly saying, "Admiral, we heard you need a friend,
244
791091
2982
13:29
and oh, by the way, what is NATO?" (Laughter)
245
794073
3602
13:33
So ... (Laughter)
246
797675
2052
13:35
Yeah, we laugh, but this is how we move the message,
247
799727
4086
13:39
and moving that message is how we connect
248
803813
2735
13:42
international, interagency, private-public,
249
806548
2451
13:44
and these social nets to help create security.
250
808999
3870
13:48
Now, let me hit a somber note.
251
812869
3433
13:52
This is a photograph of a brave British soldier.
252
816302
3758
13:55
He's in the Scots Guards.
253
820060
2206
13:58
He's standing the watch in Helmand,
254
822266
1746
13:59
in southern Afghanistan.
255
824012
2264
14:02
I put him here to remind us,
256
826276
2656
14:04
I would not want anyone to leave the room thinking
257
828932
3327
14:08
that we do not need capable, competent militaries
258
832259
4213
14:12
who can create real military effect.
259
836472
3235
14:15
That is the core of who we are and what we do,
260
839707
3095
14:18
and we do it to protect freedom, freedom of speech,
261
842802
4056
14:22
all the things we treasure in our societies.
262
846858
2965
14:25
But, you know, life is not an on-and-off switch.
263
849823
4259
14:29
You don't have to have a military that is either
264
854082
2389
14:32
in hard combat or is in the barracks.
265
856471
3803
14:36
I would argue life is a rheostat.
266
860274
4783
14:40
You have to dial it in,
267
865057
2529
14:43
and as I think about how we create security
268
867586
3269
14:46
in this 21st century, there will be times
269
870855
2652
14:49
when we will apply hard power in true war and crisis,
270
873507
5129
14:54
but there will be many instances,
271
878636
1921
14:56
as we've talked about today,
272
880557
1758
14:58
where our militaries can be part of creating
273
882315
3192
15:01
21st-century security, international,
274
885507
4054
15:05
interagency, private-public,
275
889561
2408
15:07
connected with competent communication.
276
891969
4556
15:12
I would close by saying that we heard earlier today
277
896525
4487
15:16
about Wikipedia. I use Wikipedia all the time
278
901012
3963
15:20
to look up facts, and as all of you appreciate,
279
904975
3161
15:24
Wikipedia is not created by 12 brilliant people
280
908136
4153
15:28
locked in a room writing articles.
281
912289
2475
15:30
Wikipedia, every day, is tens of thousands of people
282
914764
3713
15:34
inputting information, and every day millions of people
283
918477
4800
15:39
withdrawing that information.
284
923277
1863
15:41
It's a perfect image for the fundamental point
285
925140
3620
15:44
that no one of us is as smart as all of us thinking together.
286
928760
4622
15:49
No one person, no one alliance, no one nation,
287
933382
3660
15:52
no one of us is as smart as all of us thinking together.
288
937042
4781
15:57
The vision statement of Wikipedia is very simple:
289
941823
4682
16:02
a world in which every human being can freely share
290
946505
3114
16:05
in the sum of all knowledge.
291
949619
1633
16:07
My thesis for you is that by combining international,
292
951252
4478
16:11
interagency, private-public, strategic communication,
293
955730
4170
16:15
together, in this 21st century,
294
959900
3465
16:19
we can create the sum of all security.
295
963365
3267
16:22
Thank you. (Applause)
296
966632
2457
16:24
Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. (Applause)
297
969089
4226
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
James Stavridis - Navy AdmiralWhat will 21st-century security look like? Navy Admiral James Stavridis suggests that dialogue and openness will be the game-changers.
Why you should listen
In the world of security, says James Stavridis, "we are generally focused on risk. But I think we should spend a bit of our most precious resource — time — on thinking about and developing opportunities." The first US Navy officer to hold the positions of Commander of the US European Command (USEUCOM) and of NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), Stavridis has been advocating the opportunities perspective for a long time. He sees dialogue and collaboration — between nations, and between public and private sectors — as key to the future of security. As a Navy officer, he thinks deeply about protecting the value of our "global commons." And he's a rare high-ranking military officer who tweets and blogs.
He has led the recent military effort in Lybia, among other NATO engagements. Previously Stavridis commanded US Southern Command in Miami, focused on Latin America and the Caribbean.
James Stavridis | Speaker | TED.com