The spiritual path is all fine and good when things are going well, but how do we hold to our faith when dealing with uncomfortable truths? In this episode of Disrupt Reality, host Tonya Dawn Recla talks with Retired Brigadier General, Robert Spalding, about how to navigate conversations about very hot topics. Robert is a former China strategist for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Joint Staff at the Pentagon and author of Stealth Wars. Listen to this episode now to hear their guidance for addressing serious matters that impact billions without villainizing others or sensationalizing fear. This is a must-listen for leaders and influencers guiding difficult conversations.
Hello everyone. This is Tonya Dawn Recla, your Super Power Experts. And I am, I’m not going to lie. I’m a little nervous about today’s conversation. We all have the spaces that we came from, the more traditional environments and stuff, as we bridge into finding ourselves doing work that we never dreamt we’d be doing in the world. A lot of it in pure faith. And in this conversation is nothing short of that. Our guest today is… I’m kind of a little fangirl right now about this. And it’s in a weird way that some of you may not be able to relate to, but he is a retired brigadier general for the air force and in the worlds that I come from, I’m almost going to get teary. That level of commitment to our country and dedication and as the individual, but also as the family and as everyone that’s involved is something that I think we really take lightly.
And so from us to you, Robert, thank you so much for your service, and we’re just honored to have a conversation with you. And your continued service in a really uncomfortable space for a lot of people. And that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. We’re going to be talking about uncomfortable truths in uncertain times. And Robert wrote a book called Stealth War and his passion. You can just feel it, this drive to make sure that we are not walking through our lives unaware. Especially when we can draw some pretty clear conclusions about what those consequences might be if we do that. And so I am really excited about this conversation about uncomfortable truths. It brings up stuff from my past that I tried to lay to rest and try to lay to rest, but there are certain experiences that you have and things that you see, especially when it involves depravity of humanity, that it’s hard to forget. And so that rawness is present here and Robert I just really respect you and I appreciate you coming on the show to share your wisdom today about uncomfortable truths. Thank you.
Thank you. I’m really looking forward to the conversation.
Beautiful. So I’m not even sure I actually said, so Robert Spalding wrote a book called Stealth War. I’m like trying to check all the boxes while I’m focused on this deep dialogue. And so we are going to jump in here, but before we do and ask Robert, what his superpowers are, I want to lay the framework here. And so Robert’s been extremely busy and very vocal, especially during this pandemic, because his specialty is looking at what are the threats to our country from other places, specifically China. And we open this dialogue, knowing that this is not easy to talk about.
And I know for a lot of you there’s a deep, I’m almost paranoia, but at least a healthy respect, for government and for those institutions. And I think in this conversation, we’re going to ask you to extend that healthy respect of that power, and those manipulations, if you will. Or at least the perpetuation of certain ideologies, at the very least, we can say to extend beyond just our own government and things that do have an impact on our ability to do the work that we do and touch the lives that we touch, in the way that we’ve become accustomed. And if that’s being threatened, I think it’s worth taking a look at. So that’s how we’re opening this conversation today. Robert, we’ll start with, what are your superpowers?
Well so I guess you would say that I question everything because I’m perpetually curious about uncomfortable truths, and that leads to a lot of linking of things to bring, I think, clarity to a system that’s very complex. I think I have the ability to see connections that a lot of people can’t see sometimes. Just because of my questioning in nature and the way I look at the world. And I think the other thing, and it kind of jives with what you’re talking about just now, is my sense to not really trust authority. I have a great distrust of authority. And that goes together with my questioning nature. So actually being a military officer, that can be very difficult for people that… Where they expect you just to do what you’re told and I always had that understand why I was doing something.
In fact, I remember as a young captain, I walked into the director of operations officer who is a Lieutenant Colonel, and I had a question for him and I asked him… I don’t remember what the issue was, but because he says, “Just, please, please don’t ask why.” So, I think some people, I think it’s a gift. Other people would say it’s a curse. These three things of questioning, of really being able to on the basis of questioning, assemble complex patterns into a very simplistic view. And then to explain that, and then to question authority, I think all those kind of combine to build my superpower.
I think those qualify. It’s so funny, people ask us all the time if we think that the military experience that we had really has informed our ability to build scalable, customizable kind of processes and structures. And it’s interesting because I went into the military, I was 27 with a master’s degree in critical theory, and I enlisted right after 9-11. And so at some level, it’s like, it’s like, I’m not sure that’s the causality. In fact, it may be the opposite. That those of us who kind of see things in patterns and systems and stuff can tolerate that sort of structure, even when we demonstrate the ability to think critically. And it’s funny that you would bring it up in that way. Because when my husband and I met teaching at the Counterintel Special Agent School, and they had come to me and asked me to write a course on critical thinking. And immediately I was like, “No, not going to do it.”
And they’re like, “Well, why not?” And at this time I was a civilian actually contracted that time. And I said, “Because it’s completely antithetical to the rank structure. You don’t really want me to do this. And I don’t really want to be responsible for the fallout when that happens.” And so we had a number of philosophical conversations before I finally agreed to write up this course, but a lot of it was some of the stuff that you covered in your book, which is super fascinating. Those skill sets to be able to think critically. And I think that people forget that the government and all governments are made up of individuals. And all individuals have varying degrees of the ability to do that or to exercise that perhaps, even when things get uncomfortable. And so it is, of course, a superpower. And you’ve chosen to wield yours in some really remarkable ways. What did it take for you to really sit with and produce this book and become the poster child for raising that awareness?
Well, it really started with a fundamentally different view than the book portrays. And I lived with my family in Shanghai for two years as an Air Force major. I went to the Defense Language Institute and spent a year there learning Chinese. And then we moved to Shanghai as a family where I attended Tongji University for two years and traveled around the country. And so I really fell in love with China and the Chinese people, and the idea of living there and told my wife that, when we left in 2004, that I wanted to go back after I retired and have a career and start a business there. And so it was… And I was asked later on by the Air Force several years later, I think this is now like 2011 or 2012.
If I had considered going back to China and my response at the time was, well, no, it’s really polluted. And I had some hair loss and brown patches on my skin because of all the pollution. And I thought, well, it’s probably not a good place to take your family to, because of all the pollution. But that turned out to be where the Air Force wanted me to go. And so as I went on this journey it was… So the first part of that journey back to China was to go to be a senior military fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York City. And so we lived on the upper East side of Manhattan and I got to meet a lot of business executives and industry people and financial people and really got introduced to kind of the world of global trade and finance.
And that opened up doors to people that I’d never met before and to perspectives I’d never had. And I began to have more of a glimpse into kind of where China was going than I had before. Which was very superficial, I would say. I understood the people, and the history, and the culture. I didn’t understand the government and the party.
And so that was the start of my education. And then I went from there to the Pentagon to be an advisor on China, to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. And it was at that point, surrounded with my team of China experts, as we were looking at kind of US-China relationship from a perspective of the military balance or the military competition if you will, that I really got into this, this idea of what the US and China economic relationship, what the implications of that were to national security.
And the reason was, is because one of these contacts that I had made in New York City, sent me a briefing in the fall of 2014 that I describe in the book that absolutely blew my mind away. And it basically showed me that everything that I believed about the world, how the globe worked, how the financial system worked, and how the trade worked was completely upside down.
And I needed to reorient myself about uncomfortable truths. And so ever since then, it’s been a passion of mine because what I saw was the looming destruction of our democratic republic. If we didn’t figure this out and really begin to reassert our principles and values. So it’s been a really, you say a passion for mine. It absolutely is. It’s what I believe in because when I joined the military, that sense of service of being called to protect and defend, support, and defend the constitution. I really bought into that. And I still do today. And, and I’ve always been really a strong believer in our democratic republic. So I think it really, I have a calling to really educate and advocate for the things that I saw and have seen since I started this journey.
Yeah. You said so much in the context of what you just shared, the concepts of uncomfortable truths. That was one of the questions I wrote down, how do you raise awareness, and this without villainizing the people? And that’s so crucial that we look at, and you talk about the culture, and the people, and the falling in love with that. And yet, there’s a dirty underbelly, of everywhere. We all have our shadows and our skeletons and everything else. And folks, I think it’s important to… For those of you who don’t have any involvement with the government or anything, you just don’t happen to cross that line and be able to turn around and look at the institution that you pledged your existence to easily.
I’m sure we could have many conversations about that, but I know for me, I tried to leave the government three times. And it was like it just kept sucking me back in. There was no… It wasn’t that it was the disentangling from that sense of duty, it was disentangling from the service. There are some questions you don’t ask. We can both laugh at some, a superior officer saying, “Don’t ask why.” But that’s real.
I had many cases that I worked as an intel agent. There were certain directives given that, that, you kind of sit there and scratch your head. And it’s like, well… And so you, don’t just accidentally slip out of that mindset and have the ability to, to turn around and look at it critically and say, okay, where are the gaps?
If there’s a system that’s broken, how do we fix it? And in the book… We’re going to cut to break here in just a second folks. But before we do, Robert mentioned the Atlantic Charter in his book. And as I was just praying and praying and praying like, God, please show me what this conversation is between us, because it felt so powerful. And yet it just wasn’t clear. I was guided to go back and review the Atlantic Charter. And for those of you who don’t know, Roosevelt and Churchill got together in 1941, and that’s where this got penned. But it was essentially like what are the principles that should be, an acceptable kind of globally that we can walk toward, that we can say, this is valuable for us to pursue or to be in the pursuit of. And the eighth principle, as I was reading, this was just really struck me in terms of its importance.
And it says, “They believe that all the nations of the world for realistic, as well as spiritual reasons, must come to the abandonment of the use of force.” Now don’t get all excited. This is not a time to shout amen, let’s do gun control and everything else. Listen to what this says. “Since no future peace can be maintained if land, sea, or air armaments continue to be employed by nations, which threaten or may threaten aggression outside of their frontiers. They believe pending the establishment of a wider and permanent system of general security that the disarmament of such nations is essential. They will likewise aid and encourage all other practical measures, which will lighten for peace-loving peoples, the crushing burden of armaments.” We have to be willing to extend, then Robert, you talk about this in your book, beyond this idea, that war is only fought on a battlefield with weapons.
There are many, many, many armaments that are at play, and in use that are super subtle. Now, folks, what kind of conversation does uncomfortable truths remind you of? These are subtle things that are happening. They are pervasive, they are enculturated. We’re talking about collectivist cultures versus individualistic cultures, and where that clashes in terms of our ability to understand worldview. And just what people are willing to do in service to the collective. And what we’re not willing to do in service to our collective. So there are many, many, many-dimensional layers here that we can unpack. But I encourage you to stick with this conversation because when we come back from the break, we’re going to unfold this perspective of how do we have these conversations and not turn it into blanket permission to hate or to spew our fear onto people who are involved in the midst of it. And how do we kind of save humanity in that quest of uncomfortable truths? So, Robert, before we do, let’s tell people where they can go to find out more about you.
Yeah, sure. generalspalding.com is my website and I’m on Twitter all the time. Robert_Spalding.
Perfect. And there’ll be links on the episode page. Folks stay with us. You’re listening to Disrupt Reality. We’re talking about uncomfortable truths in uncertain times. We will be right back after the break to talk more about uncomfortable truths.
To listen to the entire show click on the player above or go to the SuperPower Up! podcast on iTunes.
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