"It is Basic Management 101 that if you reward failure you are going to get more failure, and if you want success you should reward success. But if you look at the way this administration has approached national security, they have kind of got that principle backwards"

This quote by Chris Van Hollen is referring to the method the present administration has actually been managing national security. He is saying that it is a basic principle of management that if you desire success, you ought to reward success, and if you reward failure, you will get more failure. However, the existing administration has been doing the opposite, satisfying failure and not satisfying success. This is a backwards approach to handling nationwide security, and it is likely to result in more failure in the future. Van Hollen is suggesting that the existing administration should take a various method and reward success in order to accomplish better results.