As he took the Symphony Hall stage to discuss global threats, terrorism, the rocky White House transition, immigration and his military career, Martin Dempsey joked that perhaps he should take the evening in a different direction.
“This is a beautiful setting,” Dempsey mused as he gestured around the grand and historic concert hall. “I almost feel like we should forgo the serious conversation and just sing some Irish songs.”
He covered all of the serious subjects, and still managed to crack jokes, field audience questions and serenade the crowd with an Irish song as people clapped along. The retired U.S. Army general garnered a standing ovation from the audience at his lecture at the Lesley University Boston Speakers Series on Wednesday night.
Dempsey is a West Point graduate who served as the 18th Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Obama from 2011 until his retirement in 2015. He also has a master’s degree in literature and wrote his thesis on the Irish literary revival.
“I hope you leave here optimistic,” he said at the outset of his talk, throughout which he wove in lessons on humility and the importance of open-mindedness.
Dempsey recalled that in 2015, TIME magazine named him one the “100 Most Influential People.” The day it hit newsstands, he dashed out and grabbed a stack of copies, without glancing down. When he looked at them, he saw that entertainer Kanye West was on the cover, and Dempsey’s picture inside was “right next to Kim Jong-un,” the leader of North Korea.
“I’ve learned a lesson over time: Never be too impressed with yourself,” he quipped.
Information overload leads to vulnerable truths
As recently as 10 years ago, he noted, we had unprecedented access to information. But today, we are inundated with information: connected to everybody, all the time, everywhere, and consuming information on the move. Dempsey called this living in a world of “digital echoes.”
He spoke about the power of memes – brief pieces of content spread rapidly by Internet users – concluding that “we’ve probably underestimated and misunderstood the impact of that.”
The spread of competing versions of information via digital echoes “rapidly accumulates disciples,” as people post and re-post an item until it becomes accepted as a fact. This causes Dempsey great concern.
Quoting the second U.S. President John Adams, who said “facts are stubborn things,” Dempsey marveled at how the digital age has regrettably altered Adams’ assertion.
“As it turns out, facts are vulnerable,” said Dempsey, “and a lack of accepted facts causes suspicions, anger and mistrust.”
He added, “A common set of facts is what holds our nation and our military together.”
The key to leadership
Given competing versions of facts and the suspicion they engender, Dempsey believes that leaders, now more than ever before, must create a “genuine sense of belonging and inclusion.”
“We are competing with these digital echoes for the trust and confidence of the people we lead,” he said.
Dempsey drew on his early career in the military, in the mid 1970s, when the country was coming out of the Vietnam War, and he was serving in a draft Army plagued by racial tensions and problems with drugs and morale. It was then that he first learned “to never give up on anyone you’re in charge of.”
“If we can make people feel like they belong, then they’re going to work together,” said Dempsey. “The only way to do it is to actually go old-school and make them feel like they belong.”
Dempsey said leaders must listen. “When was the last time someone changed your mind?” he posed. “If you can’t remember, then we’ve got a problem.”
Whether one is leading a nation, an army, an organization or even a household, this advice holds true, he said.
“Listening and learning are key,” he said. He also encouraged would-be leaders to “lead with a warrior’s heart, an immigrant’s spirit and a servant’s will.”
Global partnerships are key to security and survival
Dempsey also spoke about the United States’ role as world leader, and said that partnerships are the bedrock of U.S. security.
“We have 53 allies and partners – it’s been our path since the end of World War II,” said Dempsey. “That should not change. To change it would be undermining and overwhelming something that has worked for a very long time.” Plus, he added, “the idea that we can go it alone is financially unaffordable.”
He said the U.S. must keep a close watch on Russia’s military strategy that Vladimir Putin, in the face of domestic economic difficulties, is seeking to destabilize and disrupt neighboring countries and to weaken NATO’s power in Europe. The U.S. must also maintain strong relationships with America’s Pacific allies with respect to China. The U.S. and other parties of the Iran nuclear deal must cooperatively continue to monitor compliance. But Dempsey said the “greatest risk of conflict of our time” is North Korea.
He also spoke about ISIS and other radical Islamist groups, tying the problem in part back to his point about the importance of strong leadership and the danger of what fills the vacuum in its absence.
“These start as groups, and then become movements,” said Dempsey. “They are people who don’t feel like they belong to anything, and then they radicalize. The worst thing to do is to make them feel like they belong even less; they radicalize more.”
Immigration, Trump and national security
Reflecting upon Donald Trump’s transition to the U.S. presidency, Dempsey said that the new administration must jell and build relationships, which is essential to being “prepared for crisis.”
“The President needs to find a way to put some discipline in the process,” said Dempsey. “He’s got to decide who is in and who is out.”
Asked during the audience Q&A about Trump’s move to give political adviser Stephen Bannon a seat on the National Security Council – a convening with the President typically reserved for the Secretaries of State and Defense and top military and intelligence advisers – Dempsey said “his presence will have a chilling effect,” and argued it would be inappropriate for the “political filter” to be applied at such meetings.
“Steve Bannon shouldn’t be there. Period.”
A grandson of four Irish immigrants, Dempsey said the United States must continue to welcome foreigners, and that it’s up to us – citizens, “not government” – to help immigrants truly belong.
“If faced with being more diverse or safer, I’d actually say more diverse,” he said. “To suggest that we become xenophobic and close our borders and not accept certain people, that’s just not who we are.”
Dempsey, who is a professor at Duke University, said he often shares a William Butler Yeats quote with his students: “Talent perceives differences; genius, unity.”
“We’ve got plenty of talent; we need more genius,” said Dempsey. “We need young men and women whose instinct is to find common ground, not to continually point out the differences.”
Going out with a song
As he concluded his talk and wrapped up the Q&A session, Dempsey bade farewell by serenading the rapt audience.
Feigning protest over moderator Jared Bowen’s request that he sing a song, Dempsey said, “Normally I’d be a little shy about it, but because I’m in Boston and it’s nearing St. Patrick’s Day,” he said with a smile, then launched into a song about Irish pubs:
“Well, you're walkin' through a city street, you could be in Peru
And you hear a distant calling and you know it's meant for you
Then you drop what you were doing and you join the merry mob
And before you know just where you are, you're in an Irish pub
“They've got one in Honolulu, they've got one in Moscow too
They got four of them in Sydney and a couple in Kathmandu
So whether you sing or pull a pint you'll always have a job
'Cause wherever you go around the world you'll find an Irish pub.”