After the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Ohio Gov. John Kasich linked private sector technology experts including Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page with the Pentagon so they could advise the Defense Department on cybersecurity issues.
The Republican presidential candidate discussed the initiative during a Monday national security forum in South Carolina, sponsored by a nonprofit group calledAmericans for Peace Prosperity and Security.
Kasich told his Myrtle Beach audience that former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld invited him to a meeting with former defense secretaries after the September 11 attacks. At the time, the former House Armed Services Committee member worked for the Lehman Brothers investment bank.
“I have no idea why I was invited – I wasn’t even in government anymore,” Kasich said.
At the meeting, Kasich said he suggested tapping the best Silicon Valley minds to help the Pentagon address technology and money laundering threats when he heard “there were people in caves that have technological advantages that we don’t have.” He said Rumsfeld asked him to put together such a group and lead it.
Kasich described bringing “some of the smartest thinkers in technology,” including Brin and Page, to Washington to advise the Pentagon for a three-year-long effort that collapsed after “the government started putting in lots of red tape, and most of these people scattered.”
He said the government needs to provide a “safe place” where private sector people can contribute expertise to such efforts.
“They want to be patriots,” said Kasich. “Sometimes they need a Sacagawea to guide them through the system.”
Kasich used the forum to publicly set forth his ideas on defense and national security issues for the first time since he announced his presidential candidacy last month.
He described himself as a “cheap hawk,” who worked on the House Armed Services Committee to end wasteful Pentagon procurement practices that led to “hammers and screwdrivers that cost thousands of dollars.” He said problems continue today in a system where “we have almost 900,000 people involved in the procurement process.”
He called for assembling a coalition of allies to send troops to fight ISIS and other terrorist organizations, but also said it’s necessary to give young people a “higher purpose” of helping others so they don’t go astray as they search for meaning in their lives and attempt to join terrorist groups.
“The battle is not just on the battlefield, which we can win,” Kasich said. “The battlefield also exists in the battle of ideas.”
Kasich rebuked the Obama administration for not sending a representative to ceremonies that mourned the death of those killed in this year’s terrorist attacks in Paris, and for not meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu when the Israeli prime minister was in Washington earlier this year.
“Relationships matter,” said Kasich, who argued that Congress has stopped functioning because “nobody has relationships with anyone else.”
Kasich said he opposes the pending nuclear treaty with Iran and supports the Trans- Pacific Partnership trade deal.
“Trade deals can be helpful if we enforce them and are not snookered by them,” he said.
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