H.R. McMaster
Hey, how’s everybody doing? I hope you’re feeling kind of positive, right, optimistic. Think about those images, right, that stagecraft around the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Which cocktail party and dinner would you rather be at? You know what I’m saying? Not fun, not fun. So thank you, Elena, thank you so much. It’s an honor to be here to celebrate CEPA’s 20th anniversary, two decades. How about a round of applause for the leadership, the founders, and the supporters of this awesome organization, fantastic. And how about the awardees? Howard, thank you. You’re an American, not an americant, which I love, you know. And Brian and all the and all the supporters, and Boris Johnson, the energy, the energy and the clarity of your five points, let’s take that on and do something with it. And Sevgil and Olga, you’re such an inspiration to all of us. You’re fantastic people, and and, and I hope that that, and I know that your message will resonate with us as we do, we continue everything we can do to sustain support for Ukraine and for, and for freedom. So hey, I feel so honored to, to introduce somebody who I really admire tremendously. You know, I mean, I applied for the job as his body double, and he select, he selected somebody else, but, but, um, but, I think that Chris Cavoli is somebody who possesses what Carl von Clausewitz identified as military genius. You know, washed-up generals, we have to quote Clausewitz, it’s compulsory. So, so he said that military genius has three components: intellect, courage, and determination. And across his career, for 40 years, and as the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, I think whenever you have a title that has supreme in it, you know you’ve made it, you know what I mean. You know you’ve made it. He’s demonstrated that intellect. He’s the smartest officer I know, the most insightful officer I know. And then also, what Clausewitz said is, he said courage is of two kinds, physical courage, which he demonstrated every day in command of an amazing unit on a modern-day frontier between barbarism and civilization in Afghanistan. But what Clausewitz said is, hey, what’s really even more important than that is moral courage. And he’s demonstrated that every day, as he advised multiple administrations about what we need to do to help Ukraine prevail and to counter Russia’s onslaught, not only against Ukraine, but against all of Europe, and determination, determination in the, in the face of adversity. So what I’d like you to do is draw your attention to the screen, and we’ll see a short film about Chris Cavoli, an officer, a leader, who I admire tremendously.