Trump’s Plan for the Western Hemisphere: Why Washington is Focused on the Caribbean

In this episode of the “At the Boundary” podcast, GNSI’s Jim Cardoso and retired Lieutenant General Michael Plehn break down the newly released 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS) from the Trump administration, and why it places unprecedented focus on the Western Hemisphere.

They explore why this NSS dedicates four full pages to the region, far more than any previous version, and what that means for U.S. national security.

The conversation examines: The expanding role of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) in humanitarian assistance, disaster response, and security cooperation, China’s growing influence in Latin America and the Caribbean through the Belt and Road Initiative, and why the U.S. military must be better educated, technologically adaptive, and ready for rapidly evolving threats.

This episode provides a clear, accessible breakdown of a major shift in U.S. strategy — and what it means for policymakers, practitioners, and the future of Western Hemisphere security.

Links from the Episode: 

• Northeastern University Global Leadership Summit 2025: GLS 2025 - An Aerial View of U.S. and Latin American Relations on Vimeo 

Other noteworthy links:

• GNSI Tampa Summit 6: Cracks in the Lamp: Freeing the Nuclear Genie

• 2026 International Security Experience

• Sign up for the GNSI Newsletter

At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.

A "boundary" is a place, either literal or figurative, where two forces exist in close proximity to each other. Sometimes that boundary is in a state of harmony. More often than not, that boundary has a bit of chaos baked in. The Global and National Security Institute will live on the boundary of security policy and technology and that's where this podcast will focus.

The mission of GNSI is to provide actionable solutions to 21st-century security challenges for decision-makers at the local, state, national and global levels. We hope you enjoy At the Boundary.

Look for our other publications and products on our website publications page.

Transcript

At the Boundary (EP 112 Lieutenant General (Ret) Michael Plehn)

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SUMMARY KEYWORDS

US National Security Strategy, Western Hemisphere, SOUTHCOM, China influence, Belt and Road Initiative, US foreign direct investment, professional military education, leadership development, strategic planning, national security, military training, uncertainty, technology, personal growth, global leadership.

SPEAKERS

Jim Cardoso, Lt. General Plehn

Jim Cardoso  00:12

Jim, hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of at the boundary, the podcast from the global and national security Institute at the University of South Florida. I'm Jim Cardoso, Senior Director for GNSI, and your host for at the boundary. Today on the podcast, we wrap up this season of ATB with a special guest, retired Air Force Lieutenant General Mike plane. He's recently joined the GNSI team is one of our non resident distinguished fellows, and we're excited to have him on the podcast. He's the former president of the National Defense University, as well as the former deputy commander for us Southern Command, or SOUTHCOM. Today, we're going to talk with him about the US National Security Strategy released two weeks ago by the Trump administration, there are obvious consequences for the Western Hemisphere and the SOUTHCOM era of responsibility, and also implied best practices for professional and personal leadership development of our armed forces. So let's get started. Lieutenant General, played Welcome to at the boundary. Glad to have you here on the podcast. Thank you, Jim. It's great to be with you as reference in the intro, the Trump administration just released a new national security strategy. It's been top of news recently too. Puts more emphasis on the Western Hemisphere than more than any other NSS that I recall

Lt. General Plehn  01:40

as a former deputy commander of SOUTHCOM, what really stuck out to you and also for our listeners, some may not be intimately aware of the Pentagon's COCOM structure, so maybe a little bit of a you know, what is South comms? What's their area of responsibility? Because then that ties together. Why this NSS emphasis on the Western Hemisphere is so important to SOUTHCOM? Yeah, thanks, Jim. It's a really thoughtful question. So the United States military has six different regional combatant commands to help guide us military activity in various regions of the world. So us Southern Command is the regional combatant command that is responsible for overseeing all US military activity across much of the Caribbean and Latin America. So with that mandate, they work security cooperation, they work humanitarian assistance and disaster response and other missions that they're assigned by the Pentagon. So what I have found in my two assignments, almost five years total, at US Southern Command, between 2015 and 2021, was previous national security strategies. While they mentioned the Western Hemisphere, they did not put as near a clear focus on the national security implications of not having a strong US presence in our own hemisphere. So the current national security strategy, which was just released a few days ago, spends four pages discussing the Western Hemisphere. Previous national security strategies have spent maybe a page or maybe a page, yeah, exactly. So I think this is a very both welcome and proper focus on the hemisphere in which we live, right? This is our neighborhood. It's important for us to be engaged with our neighbors, and it's important for us to be aware of what other countries from outside the region are doing in that hemisphere. And I'd be in our hemisphere, and I'd be happy to expound on that as well.

Jim Cardoso  03:57

Yeah, please do because, I mean, you know, the sick dude, the NSS doesn't ignore for example, I think a lot of people expect it to be a lot about China. The NSS doesn't ignore China. But I think that what it does, maybe it doesn't specify, but at least allude to is some of the impacts that China is making in our hemisphere, in South America, in Central America. Perhaps you could talk a little bit

Lt. General Plehn  04:21

about that. No, that's absolutely right. And this current 2025 national security strategy is notable in a few other ways as well. In the first Trump administration, their national security strategy from 2017 was 55 pages long. One page on the Western Hemisphere talked about China more than 30 times. Talked about Russia. 25 times. This current iteration, 2025 national security strategy, 29 pages long, a lot shorter. Yeah. Again, four pages on the western hemisphere, four times as much as a percentage. Yeah. I mean, it's a much higher percentage, yeah. But then it also. Talks far less about China and Russia. Specifically, when you look at how many times it's mentioned, it alludes to their activities, particularly by saying what other countries may be doing in the region. So to expound a little bit more on particularly what China, the People's Republic of China, is doing in the region, you probably have heard of the Belt and Road Initiative, and it is the People's Republic of China's initiative to build infrastructure projects and, truthfully, court influence among the political sectors of other countries. Prior to 2017 not a single country in Latin America or the Caribbean was a signatory to the Belt and Road Initiative. Panama was the first in 2017 and by the time I left us Southern Command in 2021 19 of 31 countries were signatories to the Belt and Road Initiative. Now what are those deals looking like? Right? So China does not have a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. They'll show up and say, Hey, Jim, what do you and your country need? Okay, you need this road or this bridge or this dam? Well, here's a bag of money. I don't need any receipts, by the way. And you know, just make sure that gets done so that lack of transparency into those kinds of deals, both by the international community, but as well as the people of the country itself, can actually, I Say, erode legitimacy the rule of law and good governance and oh, by the way, why is China doing that in this particular region? So I think some helpful things that the United States has done, and are mentioned in the national security strategy, is focus on US foreign direct investment in the region, through the Development Finance Corporation, through other both private and public organizations, that can help expand the network of our partners in the region and enlist their help in making sure that it's a stable, secure Western Hemisphere, not only for the United States, but for our allies and partners.

Jim Cardoso  07:18

So at the time we're publishing this podcast. Just a few days ago, SOUTHCOM had a new commander come in, interim commander, Lieutenant General Air Force, Lieutenant General Evan Pettis taking over as the former. You know, obviously a lot of experience, leadership experience in the SOUTHCOM. AOR if Lieutenant Lieutenant General Pettis asked you for your thoughts on good ways ahead with this new national security strategy and its increased emphasis on the western hemisphere. What would you tell them?

Lt. General Plehn  07:51

I would offer that the national security strategy of 2025 is an excellent starting point for ensuring the entire command is focused on the US priorities in and for the region, in a way, again, as we said, that we haven't seen in years, if not decades, when I was the military Deputy Commander at US Southern Command from 2018 to 2021 I had a copy of the national security strategy on the bookshelf behind me, highlighted with all of the relevant points for the Western Hemisphere, and we would use those in our discussions with the Pentagon, With the State Department, with the National Security Council to help, if not amplify, then at least support the activities that we thought were necessary to protect and defend us national interests in the region.

Jim Cardoso  08:54

So now, though, I mean, as you said yourself, you know, as we talked about, the previous NSS was 50 some odd pages of which maybe, maybe a page was Western Hemisphere SOUTHCOM AOR, basically now four pages of a 20 some odd page document. I mean, so southcoms has a lot more to highlight. Shall we say, you know, so, how does that change anything in terms of how they approach what they do, or I just wonder, if you know, how is SOUTHCOM maybe approaching this with this newfound, kind of unprecedented level of priority on what they do.

Lt. General Plehn  09:36

So I would leave that to SOUTHCOM to answer how they're approaching that. But what I would say, in a kind of holistic sense, is the focus that the National Security Strategy places on the Western Hemisphere is useful, not only for the Department of War, but for every other federal executive branch agency and. Because it clearly shows what the administration is focused on. And for many years, us, Southern Command has really had to fight for resources, and it's been a fairly resource constrained environment, and this new national security strategy highlights the fact that we need to apply as a US government whole more resources to the region to ensure that we're safeguarding those interests that we have in the region.

Jim Cardoso  10:29

That's an excellent point. The the implied resourcing answer that, again, as we've seen, or have you seen, over your career, and even over my career, that SOUTHCOM has often been, let's say, not the priority with the other COCOMs. And now that's changing a bit, so it'll be, it's gonna be really interesting to see how that is going forward over the next, the near term and even the next few years as well, the Trump administration as that NSS continues to really take hold, and the different COCOMs and leaders throughout the Department of War really you know, move forward on what it what it tells him to do.

Lt. General Plehn  11:04

Well, I think it's long overdue, but it doesn't require a massive reshuffling of force structure or force posture. It does require some increase, right? I mean, that's that's a given, but the new national security strategy also advises us on other regions of the world and other types of missions that the US may or may not get involved with. And for a very long time, the United States has been concerned with the security situation in East Asia, in the western Pacific area, in particular South China Sea. This new national security strategy still underscores that point. But I think what will be helpful for the United States is for many years, I would say we've been we, the US have been playing chess over in the western Pacific, right? So we move our chess pieces, our ships, our fighter squadrons, our personnel in various locations at various times. And really the point there is to deter any actions by the People's Republic of China that might destabilize the region. Well, the problem with deterrence is you never know how much is enough. You just know how much wasn't. So you could keep throwing more and more resources at that, and you may or may not be deterring aggressive action by whomever it is you're trying to deter. I don't think China's playing the same game, right? I don't think they're playing chess against us. I think they're playing Go. And in the game of Go, you move your pieces around the board in a fashion where you surround and cut off your adversary's pieces or their partners or allies, and when you do, then you keep them for yourself. So what part of that doesn't sound like the Belt and Road Initiative, exactly.

Jim Cardoso  13:07

Yeah. And that's then, that's what we see happening in the Western Hemisphere right now, that game of Go happening. So that's a great analogy. Let's turn to your final assignment in the Air Force. You were the the president of National Defense University. So let's turn a little bit to professional military education. Sure. Um, sure, successfully executing the new NSS or any strategy for that matter, it's going to require a well educated military force, and not just your senior leaders, but your mid grade officers, your enlisted corps as well. How do you see military education evolving in this changing world, what do the priorities need to be?

Lt. General Plehn  13:44

So let me start out first by saying a well educated military force is not a luxury. It's a necessity. A somewhat famous 19th century diplomat orator named Edward Everett, former US Secretary of State, former governor of Massachusetts, former president of Harvard University, once said that education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing Army. Now, in the abstract, I agree with that. In practical terms, I would offer that a well educated

Jim Cardoso  14:26

military army comes in handy too. Yes, exactly, right, especially when the bullets

Lt. General Plehn  14:30

start flying, yeah. So making sure that our leaders, both enlisted and officer, both at junior and senior levels, are well educated in the profession of arms is a necessity, and in fact, it's a national security imperative, I would offer. And I think we have a solid focus right now, and much of it is described in. In the 2020, version of the Joint Chiefs of Staff vision and guidance for talent management and professional military education, and it describes a four element framework for developing that talent. And I would be more than happy to expound on that a little bit as well.

Jim Cardoso  15:19

And we and we will do that. You know one thing, I was looking at a video of another speaking engagement you had, and you talked about the concept of you educate to uncertainty, to enable the force to deal with uncertainty. And I've heard that before. Could you expand on that a little bit, please?

Lt. General Plehn  15:36

Well, the reason you've heard it before is because, much like me, you grew up in the Special Operations Command and

Jim Cardoso  15:44

shack where our lives were uncertainty, basically we dealt with all the time.

Lt. General Plehn  15:48

And this phrase is famously attributed to retired Army General Pete Schumacher, who was the former Chief of Staff of the Army, but before that, he was the commander of US Special Operations Command and General Schumacher said, we train for certainty, but we educate for uncertainty. So if I need to train people on how to move, shoot, communicate, fly an airplane, drive a tank, drive a ship, I'm going to send you through training, and I'm going to put a lot of you know, little things in there that are going to test all of your skills. You were a pilot, so you know what simulators can do, dial a disaster, right? So that's to make sure you're certain on how to use your equipment. But when we need you to take all of those various forces and capabilities and bring them together in a coherent plan to accomplish specified objectives or end states, we're going to educate you for that, because there's a lot of history out there, and they're making more every day, and we can learn from those case studies. Doesn't mean you you apply the same exact approach every time, but it helps you think through both what you're planning on doing as well as obstacles you may encounter along the way, and how you might develop branch or sequel plans from there. So educating for uncertainty is really, I think, the goal, especially for senior level professional military education.

Jim Cardoso  17:33

Do you think that? You know, some would say, and you hear this sometimes, oh, we're in unprecedented times. Now, any historian will tell you as soon as you tell me that, I'm going to show you why. It's not unprecedented times. It's very precedented to a certain extent, though there are, I've talked to some historians recently, some of that we have right here in GNSI, and they said there are some unique aspects about the dynamic nature and the uncertainty in the strategic environment right now. Do you think then that, I mean, that need for education, it's always been very strong. Is it? Is it almost at a point that it's more important than ever to deal with the strategic uncertainty that exists out there and will continue to exist in the future?

Lt. General Plehn  18:16

So one of my all time favorite quotes is from President Harry Truman, and he said the only thing new in the world is the history you don't know.

Lt. General Plehn  18:33

So absolutely, we need to examine the current geopolitical environment, the current strategic environment, and make sure that we're clearly focused on our goals, right? And I think that's something that the new national security strategy does in a way that previous ones perhaps have not it is very clear about what the US wants in terms of strategic end states, that clarity is really important in strategic planning. So in our senior professional military education courses, we put those students through their their paces, and in a course that I co taught at National Defense University for three years on national security inter agency leadership, we actually had the students write their own national security strategy for a scenario that was set about 10 years into the future. So those are the types of thought exercises that professional military education brings to you both at the military war colleges, but at civilian institutions as well, right? So for myself, personally, I was a national defense fellow for War College, and I spent a year at a think tank in Washington, DC. And that really helped broaden my thinking on both public policy and then military policy in particular.

Jim Cardoso  20:08

Yeah, that's, I mean, we, when global national security Institute started, one of the things we wanted to be a part of right from the get go, is being part of the national national defense fellows, that fellowship, that network there, and so we work with the Air Force. We actually have a national defense fellow with us right now, former AFSOC guy, former AFSOC remotely piloted aircraft squadron commander. And that was his background, and it's good in that he's doing some research for us. He's linked up with SOCOM. So comes right here in Tampa, and most likely his next assignment will be to go over to SOCOM. They get a partially trained round. So being part of that, and a national defense establishment, education establishment, is very important to us

Lt. General Plehn  20:53

as well, if I can build on that just a little bit. And you mentioned that this individual was part of the remotely piloted aircraft community, and I know both you and I had a chance to dabble in that just a little bit as group commanders out in New Mexico. I think there's a fundamental point about the nature of war and the character of war, and the nature of war is basically unchanging. It is the use of organized violence to achieve political objectives. It's nasty, it's brutal, it's bloody, there's fog, there's friction. Clausewitz describes all of these things, and many other military theorists have as well. That's relatively unchanging. What does change? And seems to be changing incredibly rapidly right now, is the character of warfare, the means that are used, and the ways in which those means are used to achieve, to achieve your military objectives, to then achieve your strategic desired end states. So we've seen the rise of remotely piloted aircraft. We've seen the rise of drones, particularly in Ukraine and Russia. We've seen cyber attacks. We've seen the burgeoning incorporation of artificial intelligence in the civilian sector and the military sector. And right now, these things are all converging at the same time. So what does that mean for military forces and for national security moving into the future? Those are some of the topics that we're able to explore in professional military education institutions and give the students these professional officers and enlisted the time and space to think about that, right? So they're able to step back from their job for anywhere from three months to a year and think these really big thoughts. And then we ask them to put it down on paper, and then let the faculty critique that hack on that. There's nothing more clarifying then being asked to put your thoughts down on paper and then letting somebody to help tear him apart.

Jim Cardoso  23:05

Well, but it is very clarifying. And actually talking to our our fellow here, Lieutenant Colonel J Patrich, you know, he's obviously still in contact and communication with at sock and, as you said, drones and counter UAS operations are becoming more more and more ubiquitous, but they're changing as well quite a bit. And so even AFSOC right now is looking at how to approach their drone and counter drone strategy, which is which needs to evolve. So he's in a very exciting place that he has that one year to like you said, just, just think about it. But he can also help at Sox set the conditions for what their strategy is going to look like in the future, for how they employ drones, how they employ counter, counter us defenses as well. It's a he's talking to him. He's really enjoying his time here, and that opportunity to do that. And they'll do that for a while, and they'll get the itch to get back in operations and get it, kick him back out the operations, and he'll be good to go. But it is that that time to think it has a it's a it's important for the individual, and in this case, it's important for the system as well. What he's going to generate with that time to think is going to impact soft UAS use in the future, for sure,

Lt. General Plehn  24:20

and he's probably in his third cycle of development that I mentioned earlier with the Joint Chiefs of Staff vision and guidance, which we're going to get to, which we're going to get to. Yeah, great. So I'll leapfrog over that for a second, and then just note that one of my favorite books on technology is actually a quarter of a century old, more than that Dr clay Christensen's book The Innovator's Dilemma. And in that book, he posits the question, and I'll paraphrase, how is it that good organizations continue to invest in their success and then get gobbled up from below by their competitors? Yeah, and his answer to that is sustaining technology versus disrupting technology. So established companies tend to invest in sustaining technologies that improves the functionality of whatever their product is without really changing the way the product does what it does, a disrupting technology, on the other hand, will do the same or similar thing in a fundamentally different fashion that is either better, cheaper or faster. And quite honestly, I don't think you have to look much farther than the roadside bomb threat in Iraq and Afghanistan, to understand how that changes the dynamic on the battlefield where a numerically far smaller force was able to engage and remain on the battlefield with the world's strongest military by developing what I've thought of as an asynchronous form of warfare, where they don't have to be on the battlefield at the same time, but still can have an effect on their adversary. And it's those kinds of things that you pick up in in residence, professional military education, we read that book in the College of Naval Command and Staff when I was a major, and then Clay Christensen came and spoke to us as well. So those are the valuable experiences that come out of this whole PME enterprise, no matter where you go, either for Command and Staff College or war college, what service, what institution? I think it really does come back to that time to think big and deep thoughts and then fit them into your view of how strategy works, how ends, ways and means get linked

Jim Cardoso  26:57

together well. And you know you did say earlier that you see it as a national PME as a national security imperative, yes. And in fact, you're writing an article. You're working with us at GNSI to write an article from the military journal on that exact topic. And the article, you know, you talked about the the joint sheets of staff vision from 2020 you referenced that in the article as well. I mean, but hard is it is to believe it's almost six years since that was released. Like wow. Case will be 2026. In just just a few weeks, we've seen a lot of changes, as we've already talked about, in the strategic environment. So how in this environment? How does the US need to develop joint officers amidst these changes?

Lt. General Plehn  27:38

So I think inside of that now almost six year old document, it describes this four element framework for really the development of your personnel, and it's focused on officers, but I think it's equally applicable to The enlisted force, and that four element framework consists of training, education, and we've already described the differences between those two. Train for certainty, educate for uncertainty. So training, education, experience and self improvement, wash, rinse, repeat. An officer in particular will go through three to four cycles of this throughout their career, a couple more cycles if you reach the senior ranks of Colonel or general or admiral, but each one builds upon the last, because what you need to know to be successful as a junior officer is not as expansive as what you need to know to be successful as a more senior officer. So the opportunity to be trained in what you do and become the best at whatever it is that you do, the education to be able to apply that training in a variety of circumstances, the experience piece is key, because this is where you get to try it out and figure out if the training was good and if the education was right. And guess what? You're going to fail, especially if that experience is as a commander or a leader. And we'll talk about that in a bit. Happy to talk more about that as well. And then the final phase of a cycle is self improvement. What do you do when you're not in a formal training program? What do you do when you're not in a formal education program? How are you investing in your own growth over time? And I usually ask people, what's on your nightstand? What are you reading right now? It can be almost anything, right? Biographies, histories, books on technology, but keep that drive for lifelong learning going.

Jim Cardoso  29:45

That's a great segue to kind of a final kind of set of thoughts I want to explore with is because you're also a passion advocate for that personal leadership development, and in fact, you're writing a book based on that right now, which hopefully maybe come out next year. May we're. Hopefully you're going through the author's the author's dilemma of trying to push this out and get your thoughts on paper, you know, based on your experiences, based on your lessons learned, executing national strategy, it requires that commitment to personal growth, not just our military and you sort of alluded to, but basically any member of the national security establishment. What do you recommend for personal leadership development today based on some of the lessons learned that have resonated with you?

Lt. General Plehn  30:28

Thanks, Jim. And again, this most definitely is a passion of mine, so I appreciate you asking the question.

Jim Cardoso  30:34

I'm putting that on the T for you right there, and I just handed you the driver. Go already.

Lt. General Plehn  30:40

Well, you haven't seen me golf, so I'll try to hit this one down the middle. You know, I think in addition to leadership development, there are, there are five keys to success that you and you alone control, that each of us alone controls. And that's actually the working title for the book The five keys to success that you and you alone control, and it starts with your own attitude, and if you want to be successful, this was actually a quote I remember from one of our calendars at the Air Force Academy, from the cadet days, from the Cadet days all done, right? I mean, they gave us that new calendar every year. I remember that help us manage our time effectively, two decades ago, a few decades ago, and they were full of, you know, inspirational pictures

Jim Cardoso  31:32

when they had paper calendars, right? Yeah.

Lt. General Plehn  31:37

So, you know, amongst all those inspirational photos and quotes, I don't remember any of them, except for one and that quote, and I'm sure I'll mangle it, said, The only thing you need to do to set yourself apart from others is to cease being easy on yourself. Cease being easy on yourself. You're the only one who knows when you're giving it your full effort, and that's what leads you into the second key to success, which is performance, right? How hard you're stepping on the gas pedal. Nobody can drive around at full power all the time. You'll either run out of gas or you'll go so fast you'll miss a turn and you'll crash. But you get to adjust that power setting, and when it's really important, a goal that you really want to succeed at, cease being easy on yourself and stomp on the gas pedal, and then along the way, opportunities are going to arise. I subscribe to the theory that you can make your own luck, and I think that is, luck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity. If you are prepared when an opportunity presents itself and you seize the initiative to go after that opportunity, you just may get lucky. And I would also submit that if you know people who look like they're repeatedly lucky, they're not. They're prepared and they take the initiative to seize opportunities when they present themselves. The next key to success, the fourth one, is education. And the great thing about it is that once you have it, nobody can take it away, right? It's the knowledge in your head, yeah, it's the sheepskin on the wall, but now you're educated for that uncertainty, for whatever the future holds for you. And then the final key to success, and I think this truly is the single common characteristic to all successful people, is perseverance. Failure is only final. If you accept it, failure is only final. If you accept it, you can keep grabbing for that brass wing, tilting at the windmill, as long as you have the energy and enthusiasm to do so. But you know what? Sometimes a failure is final, and the sooner you come to grips with that, the sooner you can get off on another path that takes you where you want to go.

Jim Cardoso  33:54

Well, and you spoke on this topic at the northeastern University's Global Leadership Summit earlier this year. And some of our listeners, you know, you talk about success, and some of our listeners probably listen, are going okay, this guy retired as a three star. He's he's never experienced real failure in his life to get to that level. And at GLS, you, you unabashedly disabuse the audience of that notion with some very, even specific, you know, examples from your own life. You know rook, the important you talk about the importance of recovering and learning from failure as part of that pathway, and a pathway which is not linear. That's right. Can you talk more about that?

Lt. General Plehn  34:35

How much time do we have?

Jim Cardoso  34:38

Can you talk in a limited face as much as you need your microphone, yeah, that's right, you're the editor, so we'll figure it out later.

Lt. General Plehn  34:49

Well, I would tell you that I do think that failure is the breeding ground of success, and I have learned more from my failures. Think than from any particular success. At the National Defense University several years ago, we had a very senior retired defense executive come speak to our students, and she said, You know, when you're young, the path to success, however you define success, looks like a straight line. Here I am, that's where I want to go. Let's move out. Go. Ready go. And in reality, life takes twists and turns along the way, and those are all those inflection points often are failure. So what you do when you fail matters, and I've shared a few experiences from my life with that global leadership summit and others, and it's really kind of the heart of the book I'm writing as well. But a couple of those examples start with me in high school, right? So coming out of high school in Miami, Southridge Senior High School in South Miami. I only applied to two colleges, the University of Miami and the United States Air Force Academy, and I only got into one of them, and it was and it was not the Air Force Academy. So as I'm trying to figure out how to pay for the other half of my tuition for my half scholarship to the University of Miami, the Air Force Academy says, Hey, we also have a preparatory school, and every year we take about 250 students, and most of them who graduate get into the academy. Are you interested? Sure Sign me up. And so I completed the prep school, I got an appointment to the academy the next year, and then made it through the academy. So that failure, initial failure, to get into the Air Force Academy, was not final. It could have been. I could have said, you know, I tried. They said, No, I got a scholarship to, um, I'm going to go study computer programming in the early 1980s wonder how that would have turned out.

Jim Cardoso  37:02

Who knows? Yeah, very definitely. But that's that line. You thought it went this way. You thought it was going to zig and it zagged. That's right,

Lt. General Plehn  37:12

but I thought I still wanted to be in the Air Force, so that's where I tried to correct my my path back to and indeed, that's what happened. And I have a number of other failures, some small, some epic that litter their way throughout my life and career. And yes, they're defining, but in a way that helped me continue to focus on what it is that I wanted to do in my life and career, which was to support and defend the Constitution as an officer in our United States Air Force, and to lead men and women in achieving those military objectives that then contributed to the end states for our national security. And after 37 and a half years, I retired last December, and I left with a smile on my face as the 17th president of the National Defense University, knowing that I had had the opportunity in those last almost four years to influence and shape The thinking and development of several 1000 officers both us Allied and partner nations as they carry the torch forward to protect and defend our nation and preserve our national security.

Jim Cardoso  38:31

Well, I have a feeling that you are going to continue to influence and shape maybe out of uniform, maybe slightly longer hair. We may sometimes we all, you know, lose some hair and gain some weight as we go forward, but I have a sense that you're going to continue to be a part of that, that discussion, and I know that you're one of our distinguished fellows here at global national security Institute. We love having you here. I love having you on board of the fact that you're right here in Tampa with us. So we'll be able to have more conversations like this, and we'll put a link to the video from GLS in the show notes for this podcast so that people can can learn more about some of your epic failures, get some more people educated about that. But it's really great message for everybody listening there, and I encourage you to to follow that link and kind of get the entire one from from general plane where we end the podcast? Any final thoughts?

Lt. General Plehn  39:22

Well, Jim, thanks very much, and thanks to you and general Mackenzie and the global and national security Institute, both for having me on your podcast, but for the important work that you're doing here in central Florida that resonates not only here in Florida, but up to our nation's capital and across the world as well. It's a pleasure and an honor to be part of the organization.

Jim Cardoso  39:50

Special thanks to our guest today, retired Air Force Lieutenant General Mike plane the former deputy commander of us SOUTHCOM and president of the National Defense University. Recently joined our team here at GNSI as a non resident Distinguished Fellow. We're looking forward to collaborating with him on a variety of initiatives to inform our national decision makers and to prepare the next generation of national security leaders. The University of South Florida is wrapping up the semester this week, getting ready for winter break, which starts next week, our team at GNSI is going to do the same 2025 has been a fantastic and eventful year with some terrific guests and fascinating topics of discussion. Some of these topics include mystery drones over New Jersey and the escalating role of autonomous systems in modern conflict, the rapid advancement of AI golden dome, the rising importance in strategic competition of critical minerals and resources, including deep sea critical minerals, the unholy alliances between Russia, North Korea And Iran, the still relevant turbulent situation in Afghanistan, the Military Recruitment crisis, political polarization and its emotional toll on society, re attaining America's prominence in the global shipbuilding industry and GNSI research initiatives including the Axis of Resistance and the future of warfare, plus many, many more. If you're new to the podcast, I highly recommend you go back and catch up on these discussions. We really enjoyed putting at the boundary on your podcast list in 2025 and we hope you'll spread the word throughout your network. We're looking forward to the many great ideas, interviews and discussions we'll have in 2026 we'll be back on January 12 with our first show of the new year. Keep up with genocide over the holidays by following, liking and subscribing to us on YouTube, LinkedIn and X. Tell your friends and colleagues to do the same as well, and sign up for the monthly newsletter today. In keeping up with this time of year, we provide one stop shopping access for all this goodness on our website, usf.edu/gnsi, that's going to wrap up things for this episode of at the boundary. And for 2025 as we come back in the new year, we'll continue to provide exploration of global and national security issues we found to be insightful, intriguing, maybe controversial, but overall, just worth talking about. We wish you a Merry Christmas, a safe and happy holiday season and a joyous new year. I'm Jim Cardoso, and we'll see you in 2026 at the boundary. You.