O’Malley Slams Clinton over Foreign Policy Record: She’s ‘One Foot Stuck in the Cold War’

STEPHANOPOULOS: “And we are back with former governor Martin O’Malley, running third behind Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in our latest ABC News/Washington Post poll. Governor O’Malley, thank you for joining us this morning. Even though your poll numbers are stalled, you’re striking out pretty hard against Secretary Clinton. Yesterday in South Carolina, you say she’s demonstrated a total inability to understand what happens after dictators fall and what our country needs in its national security strategy. ‘Total inability?’”
O’MALLEY: “Well, yes, George. Can you — I mean, Secretary Clinton voted for the Iraq War — and notwithstanding what she now regards as a big mistake in that vote, one that — where she should have known better — nonetheless she finds it — you find these circumstances — I mean, can you point to one instance in our foreign policy where, as secretary of state, Secretary Clinton had an understanding of what was coming after the toppling of the dictator? She can be very, very gleeful at the fall of Gadhafi, but there was no anticipation of what would happen after Gadhafi. And I also said yesterday that Secretary Clinton has one foot stuck in the Cold War. Look, this is a new era of warfare. This is fourth generation warfare and it requires a new sort of diplomacy, a more far-seeing national security strategy that is not the old war Cold War mentality —“ [Crosstalk]
STEPHANOPOULOS: “-- let’s dig down now. How would yours be different? She’s called for an intelligence surge. She’s called for greater cyber efforts against ISIS. She also, like you, has said she does not want ground troops, American war, American ground troops in the regions. How would you be different?”
O’MALLEY: “And, again, in the speech that she just gave, George, she — it was an everything but the kitchen sink and it was also peppered with all of the same old thinking, old State Department thinking when it comes to this. Look, we need a foreign policy that not only talks about a greater human intelligence but actually delivers it. How long have we been at this war? And yet our human intelligence capacities on the ground in Syria and –“
STEPHANOPOULOS: “She’s calling for exactly the same thing.”
O’MALLEY: “Yes, but when she had the opportunity to do something about it, George, she did not. She is stuck in the old Cold War thinking. And this new era requires new thinking. It requires fresh approaches. This is very different than the conflict of the 1990s. This is asymmetrical warfare on the battle and Syria and Iraq it is one type of war; and beyond that and with these global terrorists, it’s more akin to tracking down drug organizations and –“ [Crosstalk]
STEPHANOPOULOS: “So these -- name three things that you would do in the ISIS strategy that Secretary Clinton would not do.”
O’MALLEY: “It requires this new age requires networked intelligence. And it’s obvious from the fact of the attacks in France that we still have not gotten to the place where we have the sort of networked intelligence that we need to defend ourselves. An immune system, George, is strong not because it outnumbers the bad germs in this world but because it’s better coordinated. That is not the old way of a CIA and siloed bureaucracies, where we get memos and then eight months later we make a decision. This requires much more nimble thinking. It requires a new age of rapid communications and intelligence sharing with neighbors that, in the past, a lot of security agencies thought ran contrary to our national interests. When it comes, also, to fighting Iraq — or fighting ISIL on the battlefields of Iraq and Syria, we need to up the battle tempo and we also need new alliances that are open-ended and ideally work through the U.N. Security Council. And it’s not a matter of big divisions facing off in the desert. This is a matter of Special Forces. This is a matter of working in coalition with many other nations, some — and — and other partners. And it also requires an open-endedness to allow the Russians to come in and help us where — provided we can get that – short-term political solution that directs their firepower.”