Podcasts Education Self-Improvement Conversations with Tyler Stanley McChrystal on the Military, Leadership, and Risk

Stanley McChrystal on the Military, Leadership, and Risk

Published: Oct. 20, 2021, noon

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Stan McChrystal has spent a long career considering questions of risk, leadership, and the role of America\\u2019s military, having risen through the Army\\u2019s ranks ultimately to take command of all US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, a force representing 150,000 troops from 45 countries. Retiring as a four-star general in 2010, he has gone on to lecture at Yale and launched the McChrystal Group, where he taps that experience to help organizations build stronger teams and devise winning strategies. His latest book, which he tells Tyler will be his last, is called Risk: A User\\u2019s Guide.

He joined Tyler to discuss whether we\\u2019ve gotten better or worse at analyzing risk, the dangerous urge among policymakers to oversimplify the past, why being a good military commander is about more than winning battlefield victories, why we\\u2019re underestimating the risk that China will invade Taiwan, how to maintain a long view of history, what set Henry Kissinger apart, the usefulness of war games, how well we understand China and Russia, why there haven\\u2019t been any major attacks on US soil since 9/11, the danger of a \\u201csoldier class\\u201d in America, his take on wokeness and the military, what\\u2019s needed to have women as truly senior commanders in the armed forces, why officers with bad experiences should still be considered for promotion, how to address extremists in the military, why he supports a draft, the most interesting class he took at West Point, how to care for disabled veterans, his advice to enlisted soldiers on writing a will, the most emotionally difficult part and greatest joys of his military career, the prospect of drone assassinations, what he eats for his only meal of the day, why he\\u2019s done writing books, and more.

Read a\\xa0full transcript\\xa0enhanced with helpful links, or watch the\\xa0full video.

Recorded October 6th, 2021

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Thumbnail photo credit: Leading Authorities, Inc.

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