Robert Pape

At a minimum, have a backup plan so that when this goes completely south, you actually have a plan here.

And that is what I've done with the Air Force.

So when I've had my debates in the Air Force in the 1990s, when I went toe-to-toe with the leaders of the leadership decapitation school,

With the chief of staff of the Air Force, we had some of these classified debates over Easter with generals having to give up Easter with their families.

And believe me, the idea that generals want to give up Easter with their families to listen to some 32-year-old professor, this is not going down well.

But nonetheless, my real bottom line argument was,

You may be right.

You're going to do a bombing campaign that will do something no one has done in history in over 100 years.

And I can't tell you 100% for sure it will fail.

But what I can tell you is the number one thing you should do is cover your risk.

And what that means is not putting on the side and say, I'll get to that if it fails.

No, you start now with an entire group of people, and their job is Team B.

Their job, and you keep it classified, you keep it off to the side, but you don't wait here.

You do this now as you're giving the go order because you know there's some chance I'm right.

Oh, there is a chance.

Well, I'm just trying to guess.

So how do you cover the risk?

And this is the way you can actually move people in government, Patrick, because...

The truth is they do know things I'm not going to know, and that's going to be true.

The president has the greatest— By the way, did you vote for him?