(upbeat music) - [Announcer] This is a production of PBS Charlotte.

(chiming music) - Tonight on "Unspun," war isn't just fought on the battlefield anymore, it's fought through economic pressure, global supply chains, cyber threats, blockades, and the political decisions made thousands of miles from the front lines.

As conflicts continue to grow around the world, Americans are asking bigger questions about the military readiness and our global strategy.

In today's America, welcome to the spin game.

Believe me, I know.

I'm Pat McCrory.

When I was governor and mayor, I played the spin game, I was played by the spin game.

But aren't we all done being spun?

Let's take the spin out of the world we're in here on "Unspun."

(upbeat music) Good evening, I'm Pat McCrory.

Tonight, we're joined by someone who has seen the reality of war from the highest levels of military and intelligence leadership.

Dennis Blair is a retired four-star admiral, former commander of the US Pacific Command, and served as director of national intelligence under President Barack Obama.

So are we building a military for the threats of the future or still fighting the last conflict?

And can Washington provide real oversight without turning national security into just another political fight?

Let's find out.

Welcome, Admiral Dennis Blair.

- Good to be with you, Governor Pat.

- Dennis, you've been an old friend of mine for a long time.

We're glad you live in North Carolina now as a retired admiral.

I wanna get your impression... First of all, I wanna let the audience know a little bit more about your background.

How did you get in the military and the Navy, and your promotion up to all, helping the president of the United States?

What a career!

- Well, let me... It was kind of the family business.

I'm a sixth generation Navy officer, so it was a pretty obvious path.

When I was in high school, I sorta kicked against going into the family business, but decided it was a good thing to do, and a 34-year career later, I was happy I did.

I was mostly on surface ships in the Pacific, and back on short jobs, I served in Washington in budget and policy positions.

It was sort of a surprise to me to be asked by the president to be a director of national intelligence.

I was not an intelligence officer, but I was happy to try to serve my country one more time by trying to give the president and the troops in the field the best possible intelligence, so I came back- - Yeah, this is, - into the government - this is President- - This was President Barack Obama, right?

- That was, that was.

You know, I had a... I don't have a political affiliation.

I don't think military officers ought to be closely involved in partisan politics.

I've always voted for who I thought was the best, would be the best commander-in-chief, but I was happy to serve in what used to be a sort of a bipartisan area (chuckles) of our government, which is the military and national security issues.

Unfortunately, it's become quite politicized, I think, in a way that hurts us.

- Well, speaking of intelligence, there's some recent news on, we just have had a major resignation in intelligence, and now we have a new nominee, and getting a lot of criticism about not having the qualifications to be in charge of intelligence for the United States government, reporting to President Trump.

What's your opinion on the state of intelligence at this point in time?

- Well, I think that at the working level, good, dedicated people are doing their job.

They're providing tactical intelligence to the troops, they're keeping an eye on our enemies, but this sort of musical chairs at the highest level hurts an organization.

I mean, you've been a business person, Pat, you know that you need a certain amount of continuity at the top, and you need a certain amount of knowledge at the top, and when presidents have been playing this musical chairs with people who have no experience in the business, in there for a short time, then it hurts, and you can't make overall steady progress.

The basic job gets done, but we're missing real opportunities and we're opening vulnerabilities to our enemies.

- Speaking of intelligence, how do you see the coordination of intelligence, let's first start with the Middle East, between the United States and Israel who are both fighting, somewhat, Iran?

How does that coordination occur between two different countries when they're fighting kind of as allies, but at times, they have disagreements?

- Yeah, it falls in a complicated area.

The intelligence coordination with our closest intelligence partners who are called the Five Eyes, that's the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, it's been based on the heritage coming out of World War II, when we really integrated our intelligence operations, and we've kept good, close ability to cooperate with them.

It's very tactical.

There are facilities in which there are Americans and foreigners who are sitting right in the same intelligence center, looking at the same data, putting together reports and sending them to both their countries.

That's sort of the tightest we have.

Then we have countries that we have, are often on the opposite sides of political issues with, and we do have to have intelligence contact with them for very transactional purposes.

Israel falls somewhere in between.

We have strong intelligence cooperation with Israel when it comes to Israel's defense.

You saw how, a year ago, when Israel was under rocket attack from Iran, United States and Israel operated tightly together, and our intelligence was basically integrated.

When it comes to things like what are we gonna do about, what are they gonna do, what are we gonna do about Lebanon, or sometimes in other Arab countries, our interests somewhat differ, and at that point, we sort of selectively share intelligence, but not everything, so it's a very complicated relationship that has to be handled with delicacy.

And, of course, we had the incident in the past when Israel actually recruited a spy, Jonathan Pollard, who was an, worked for US intelligence, and he was actively spying for Israel.

So it's a complicated relationship, and it basically depends on the mission at hand.

- I'm curious, when you were working for the president, when you ran into those gray areas of what intelligence to share with, for example, allies like Israel, - Right.

- or even Ukraine, in today's world, who makes that final decision?

Does it go all the way up to the president, or the Pentagon, or secretary of state, or is it a group that makes that decision?

- Right, the... If you look at the law, that authority is invested in the director of national intelligence, the DNI.

This is one of the reasons you need a DNI who has, you know, sort of knows what he or she is talking about in terms of national security relations.

That decision is not made in a vacuum, though.

The DNI has a council of the heads of the agencies, the head of the National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Geospatial Intelligence Agency, and you get together in a meeting after the staffs have worked it out and decide, okay, this particular type of intelligence on this subject, we will share with this country, this other type of intelligence, we will not, The president and his staff provide overall guidance, but they don't have the formal role.

It is the DNI that makes those decisions.

- Real quick, I'm just curious, some inside information on intelligence, how much information actually goes to the president on secrets, and how much do you go, well, a need-to-know basis?

Is there a book which tells you at what point in time we tell the president or senate leaders and the small committee of Senate and House leaders?

- Yes, there's a procedure.

It does vary from administration to administration, but the primary vehicle for the president is the president's daily briefing, the PDB.

and that's presented by the, that's presented by the DNI or the DNI's designated representative.

It's put together by a staff of dozens of analysts.

They are physically located in the CIA building, but they include representatives from the other intelligence agencies, and when I was there, I would review the draft briefing the night before, talk to the head of the presidential daily briefing team.

We would decide which items we wanted to run to the president and which we would save for a future meeting.

That briefing would be written and then it would be given to the president accompanied by a senior intelligence analyst who could answer the president's questions, get requests for more information.

So it's a pretty ritualized process that goes on a daily rhythm.

A copy which is very close to that briefing but does not include some of the most sensitive items goes to all of the major - [Pat] Right.

- Congress, it goes to the Secretary of State, Secretary of War.

- Let's, let's... I could spend forever talking about, - Yeah, right, right.

- but I do wanna get into the Iranian situation real quick, from your Navy perspective, the concept of drones.

I remember when I was on Homeland Security, Secretary Chertoff told me, in my last meeting, I said, "What happens when the other side gets drones?"

And he went, "It's gonna happen.

It's a very simple technology."

Tell me from a Navy perspective, how is drones changing war like it is on the Straits and also in Ukraine, and what is the Navy gonna do about it?

Are ships gonna be obsolete after a while?

- No, they're not.

As far as maritime warfare goes, drones are just one more way to deliver a load of explosives against a ship, and they can be intercepted and neutralized by a variety of means which the navy is adopting right now.

The danger is if ships come really close in to shore, you know, I'm talking 10, 20 miles, where they can be detected and these drones launched with a short reaction time, but if ships are far out at sea, they have plenty of time to detect what's coming at them and shoot them down.

So the Navy is developing and putting onto the ships these shorter-range systems, and they also need to be systems that make sense from an economic point of view.

You don't wanna shoot down a $10,000 drone with a million-dollar, - Yeah, that's what's happening.

- A million dollar missile.

- Yeah.

- Right?

And when you saw... You know, we had a dust-up in the, with a drone-equipped force about two years ago on the Red Sea.

The Houthis were supplied by the Iranians with a bunch of drone systems.

They were shooting at shipping going into the Red Sea.

A US Navy, and later, a Royal Navy task force, dealt with them, and there was not a scratch on a Navy ship.

They were shot down.

- Yeah.

- And that was just with the existing systems - that ships had at the time - Well, that's good to know.

- Admiral, in the remaining two minutes, tell us what your prediction is on how this situation in Iran and the Straits is gonna end up, and the politics of it.

We've got about two minutes, so I'd love to hear your opinion.

- Okay (laughs).

- I think the decision the government is dodging right now that we're gonna have to take is we're just gonna have to open the Strait of Hormuz by force.

That means putting together a convoy task force, shooting against the positions along the northern coast of the Strait of Hormuz in Iran where drone attacks, and speedboat attacks, and mines are launched, and physically blow our way through there so that shipping can go out both ways.

Iran is gonna hold onto that unless we take it away from them, that takes that issue off the table, and then we can deal with them on the issues that we originally are in conflict about, which is their nuclear program, their support for militias, and their ballistic missile system.

But as long as they can, you know, turn their, put their thumb on the jugular of the Strait of Hormuz, we're not going to be able to, not going to be able to handle them, so that's what we have to do.

It's something we can do, we've been practicing it for years, but it won't be cost-free, there will be some hits because of the nature of the fight, but we can do it, and I think we have to do it.

- So it's, this is news for me.

You are confident that we can, as America, and maybe with a coalition, can open up, through strength, the Straits, and then go to negotiations regarding nuclear.

You think we have that capability and political courage to do that?

- We certainly have the ability to.

It will not be as clean and pretty as the bombing campaign was, which is done from high altitude but there will be some pictures of smoke coming off of tankers or smoke coming off of US Navy destroyers, - Admiral- - but we will get it done.

- I think you made news and gave me information that the public needs to hear, and it's been an honor to have you on, Admiral.

Thank you very much, Dennis, - Good to see you again, Governor Pat.

(energetic music) - Welcome to the "Unspun Countdown," the top five things that I think a leader must do, especially in a time of crisis.

Now, as a mayor and governor, I had to deal with some major crises, but not a war like many presidents have had to deal with, but the same strategy must occur during any type of crisis, whether it's a riot at a city level or a war at the national or international level.

Let's start at number 5.

The first thing that must be done is the leader has to clearly communicate what the problem is.

If they don't get buy-in from the public, or if the public doesn't understand the problem, you've probably already lost the battle.

Number 4, explain the strategy that you're gonna initiate to solve this problem, again, to clearly get the public to understand what the strategy you're initiating is.

Number 3, tell the public what coalitions are gonna be formed to solve this problem, to solve the crisis.

In other words, don't say you're just doing it by yourself.

Who else are you bringing in?

For example, during a war, are you bringing in NATO, are you bringing in Israel, are you bringing in Ukraine, or Poland, or other countries?

You've got to explain the coalitions that are gonna be working together to solve the problem and the crisis.

Number 2, communicate clearly what are the needs and what are the risks.

For example, if there's need for more money, you gotta tell the public.

If there's gonna be death or destruction, you've gotta explain what those risks are.

Don't surprise your constituents or the public.

And the number 1 thing you have to do at the end is clearly communicate the outcome; did we meet the objectives, and what are some of the lessons learned so you don't repeat the mistakes in the future.

(dramatic rhythmic music) It's time now for "Unspun 1-on-1."

Joining me again is Ben Kinney, publisher of Business North Carolina.

Ben, it's great to have you back on "Unspun."

- It's great to be back, Governor, thanks for having me, really appreciate it.

Wanted to talk, one thing that's been on my mind a lot lately, and this is, I'm kinda switching things a little bit to the business perspective and really getting a little bit hyper-local, but because of your experience, one, as governor, but also as the former mayor of Charlotte, here in Charlotte, the I-77 toll lane and toll road, it's a debacle now, because the Charlotte City Council voted it down, and the last time I was here, that was the main focus of the show.

Can I get your opinion on where we are now with this, and- - Oh!

- Well, let's give it a little history.

Since I implemented the toll lane, very controversially, it started under Governor Perdue, actually, with the toll lane, and supported by Mayors Pat McCrory, Anthony Fox, Jennifer Roberts, the list goes, Vi Lyles, and the surrounding mayors in the region all supported it initially, and that's why I supported it, because the regional coalition supported it along with the business committee at the time.

- Right.

- So I implemented it, and it became a political quagmire.

Some people say I lost my reelection because of the toll lane going toward North Meck.

So from there on out, toll lanes, though, never left the plans under Governor Cooper or under Mayor Vi Lyles, but they just didn't talk about it because of, probably, with all, not saying this narcissistically, the McCrory impact.

(Ben chuckles) We want it to still go on, but we don't wanna be seen as the leaders of it, and Roy Cooper definitely didn't bring it up, but his DOT did, they kept working on the plan, so all of a sudden, 11 years later, or 10 years later, everyone acts like gambling in Casablanca, where'd this toll lane idea - (chuckles) Shocked!

come from?

- I'm shocked.

- I'm shocked!

- Right (laughs).

- And Vi Lyles and all those district council members go, "Why weren't we communicated with?"

Well, everyone knew this was coming for a decade, - Right.

- and they didn't talk about it.

So I'm shocked at the shock (both laugh) by all the political officials and the media.

- Well, I agree.

There's a factor there that's interesting to me, though.

You know, Charlotte is always known, and when you were mayor, it was always really known as a very pro-business and listen to business.

- [Pat] Yeah.

- Business had the ear of the folks that ran this area.

It seems like... And they were very much pro toll lanes and they were very much pro project, and such, didn't seem like they had as much an impact as they normally would do.

Now, as someone that was right there in the middle of it back in the day, what happened?

- The business community, in the last decade, has buried their head in the sand on the controversial issues.

They don't wanna get involved in politics anymore, probably ever since the original tolling, and they kind of buried their head in the sand even during my election because they saw that Governor Cooper, or future Governor Cooper and Governor McCrory were fighting over it, and he was using it as political fodder, so they left, they didn't wanna get involved in politics.

And even HB2 may have had an impact on that.

After HB2, then opinion changed.

They said, you know, "We're gonna stay in our lane and just not get involved."

And that's happening in not only these types of issues, but other issues, now, with business community.

They get involved when it directly impacts their business, but indirectly, corporations don't wanna take the risk like they were doing 20 years ago on a lot of local Charlotte issues and state issues.

- It's something that we're talking about a lot in Business North Carolina, and really around the country, but especially the state, are data centers.

- Yeah.

- So this is a really interesting dichotomy in terms of are they good for an economic, you know, an economic developers that wants to bring in a data center.

You can almost double your tax base in certain cases in certain rural areas.

But now we also have folks where, and Charlotte's another place, where it's like moratoriums going on, where they don't want a data center coming in, are worried about their power bills going up, worried about the quality of water, and things as that.

Where do what are you seeing?

- Well, first of all, the money coming in regarding data centers and the political system is gonna be as good, as big as crypto and gambling has been in the last five years, which no one talks about either, - Right.

- the money in politics and the new money.

The new money is data centers coming into the legislature.

It's gonna come into the city council and county commissions in rural areas and urban areas.

Someone's gotta follow the money.

And on the anti-data center, it's coming from the environmental groups that are paid heavily by trial lawyers, who probably have class action suits ahead of them.

They're leading the charge against that, probably some source money, too.

On the more conservative side, data centers, big time developers, they see a lot of money to be made off of data centers.

Somewhere in the middle, by the way, is the utility, Duke Power, and you don't hear them talking about it much, but behind the scenes, they've gotta be making some decisions on which data centers do they wanna work with and which data centers are not efficient for Duke Energy, - Right.

- and do we have the power.

And then the water is gonna be a huge issue competing with future development that needs the water.

And then the Utilities Commission is gonna be a big part of this.

Governor Stein and the legislature appoints the Utility Commission.

There's big-time money in politics.

It's kind of bipartisan, and it's gonna be, - Everybody likes it.

- it's gonna be a food fight.

Grassroots politics, too, is having a major impact on county commission and city council races, you're gonna see.

- It's interesting, because you can see it as a county by county thing.

There's some counties that are really, you know, getting behind it and other places, and then there's other places that are just, "We don't even wanna talk about it."

- Well, at first, it was used as an economic incentive and especially rural areas that were asking for any jobs.

- Yeah.

- And now, all of a sudden, they're going, "Uh-oh, will these jobs work against our water supply and our utility rates?"

and there are no clear answers on that.

And sooner, someone, a mediator's gotta come in and tell the truth on what is the real truth versus the propaganda being told by both sides.

- It's gonna be interesting, because the public wants the data centers, doesn't, a lot of them don't want it, but at the same time, we lead into something like AI.

You can't have something like AI without data centers.

- That's gonna be the million-dollar question, maybe billion-dollar question.

It's great to you on.

- Thanks for having me, really appreciate it.

- I wish I had an answer for you.

- Yeah, we'll find one.

- [Pat] Thank you very much.

- Thank you.

- Appreciate you being on.

(upbeat music) As our country debates the wars in Ukraine, Iran, and other conflicts around the world, it's worth remembering that the true impact of war is often not fully understood until decades later.

Take World War I. When America entered the war in 1917, it was unlike anything the world had ever seen, trench warfare, airplanes, tanks, poison gas, modern technology that suddenly made killing more efficient and destruction more widespread.

And believe it or not, Charlotte played a significant role in that war effort.

More than 60,000 soldiers came through Camp Greene, right here in Charlotte to train before being shipped overseas to France.

Think about that for a moment.

At that time, Charlotte's population was only about 45,000 people.

Virtually overnight, our city became a military hub larger than the city itself.

One of those soldiers was a young pharmacist from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

At least, he was supposed to be a pharmacist.

As the story goes, a sergeant recording occupations couldn't spell pharmacist, so instead, he wrote down farmer, and that farmer was my grandfather, Walter McCrory, and because of that clerical error, my grandfather was assigned to care for horses at Camp Greene, off of Remount Road.

Get it?

Remount.

The army literally remounted and trained horses there before shipping them overseas.

Once he arrived in France, all of his horses were killed during the war with shelling, so the army finally put him where he belonged, and that is, they made him a medic.

When my grandfather returned home to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, after the war, he was a different man.

Like so many veterans of every generation, he carried with him memories of death, destruction, and loss that never completely disappeared.

Charlotte was changed by Camp Greene.

My family was changed by my grandfather's experience.

And that's the lesson history teaches us.

Wars are often debated in terms of strategy, politics, territory, energy, or headlines, but long after the politicians leave office and the news cameras move on, families live with the consequences, communities live with the consequences, nations live with the consequences.

Whatever your views may be on today's conflicts, the decisions being made right now will not just affect the next news cycle, they will shape lives, families, and communities for generations.

History has proven that time and time again, and it will again.

Well, that's the truth as I see it, and I'll see you on the next "Unspun."

(upbeat music) (lively music) - [Announcer] A production of PBS Charlotte.

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