Decisive Point Podcast

Academic military historians, government institutions, and defense practitioners have unique purposes for advancing the study of war that influence the way they consume and produce history. Although there is substantial scholarship covering how the discipline of military history has changed since the late nineteenth century, the literature surrounding why it changes and how it is used is less plentiful. Using primary and secondary sources to contextualize debates between historians, this study traces major developments in military historiography, considers the US Army’s relationship with its history, and explores potential connections between a history’s purpose and its use for military professionals.E-mail [email protected] to give feedback on this podcast or the genesis article.Keywords: Whig history, New History, American Historical Association, US military history, Society for Military HistoryStephanie Crider (Host)You are listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.I’m talking with US Army Major Michael P. Ferguson and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Professor Richard Kohn about military history.Ferguson is a PhD student and advanced civil schooling participant in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He’s coauthor of The Military Legacy of Alexander the Great: Lessons for the Information Age, published in 2024. He’s also the author of “The American Way of Studying War: What Is It Good For?” and that’s what we’re here to talk about today.Kohn has focused on military history generally, emphasizing national security and military policy strategy and the American experience with war making and the connections between war, the military, and American society. In recent years, his concentration has been on current civil-military relations, particularly civilian control of the military.Thank you for joining me remotely from North Carolina today.Major Michael P. FergusonThanks for having us.Richard KohnSpecial pleasure.HostWe’re here to talk about why military history remains relevant, and we’re going to talk about its values for individuals, institutions, and society.Why has military history been so controversial?FergusonIt’s probably something that’s not as well known outside the halls of history departments on universities. Military history in general has a pretty turbulent background, and the way I open up the article, which I thought was kind of a fitting alpha, or beginning, to the story of military history is looking at the turn of the century in 1900 and Edward Eggleston, who was the president of the American Historical Association at the time. And, in 190Z, he drafted a speech to be given at the annual conference. Unfortunately, he was never able to deliver it because he fell ill and passed away the following year in 1902. But, his speech touches on this concept of new history and a lot of [lines ] from the speech really reflect this movement of new history—of looking at the smaller things and moving away from classical history, which was essentially “Ivory Tower” history looking at big policies and wars and politics. But, it also reflects this turn-of-century way of thinking at the time, where we’re on the back end of the Enlightenment. Mankind had supposedly liberated themselves from the shackles of predestination. And, you had Darwin’s theories taking traction, and it came out in 1859 on the origin of species. And then, you also had this massive progress in terms of art and science and industry, where it seemed like the sky was the limit at the time.And, one of the outgrowths of this period in the history that Eggleston touches on in his speech is this belief that militarism, in general, and war, specifically, could be something that humankind would essentially evolve out of. It was this anachronistic relic of a past form of human life; this barbaric form that they could educate civilization away from it.That leads into a lot of the themes of why do military historians do history? What’s the purpose of history? And, I want to read one line real quick from his speech because like in any written work, a lot of it ends up on the chopping room floor. But, this is according to Edward Eggleston. This was his purpose, the object of history:Man is such a savage that until the lifetime of the present generation, he has insisted on settling everything by the gauge of battle. But the brute age and age of heroism in the contest with the brute must pass. We cannot always cover our pages with gore. It is the object of history to cultivate this out of man, to teach him the wisdom of diplomacy, the wisdom of avoidance. In short, the fine wisdom of arbitration that last fruit of the human experience,End Quote.The object of history to Eggleston and many other of his contemporaries was, essentially, to weed these remnants of militarism out of human beings.KohnI would say that the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was a time when war was being praised as the highest form of human behavior. Heroism changes history. It makes contributions to society. And, it wasn’t really until after World War I, with the horrible killing and no real decision for most of the war that there was a change, I think, in public opinion and among scholars—that war was to be avoided, that it was a mistake. And, it’s controversial because often there are many mistakes made in war. British generals came in for huge criticisms for just wasting human lives by the hundreds of thousands. There was really a turn, I think, in Western society after World War I, that experience that made and still makes war a controversial human endeavor, even though it might illustrate some positive human characteristics.Mike, why don’t you talk about new history because you’ve [covered the] subject so much in your very, I hope, influential article in Army circles.FergusonAbsolutely. New history is kind of a misnomer because it’s not really new at all, but it’s still referred to as “new history.” And, as I mentioned, in Eggleston’s draft of his speech that he was going to give in 1901, he started using this term “new history.” And, he cited, going back to the sixteenth century, a couple examples of other historians who had looked at what he called “the little things in life.” So, social interaction, the everyday life of Americans—from what their bedrooms look like on to the ornate details in their kitchen and their everyday patterns of life. And, part of that concept of new history was that focusing on these things would help create a better citizen. And, that was another thing he mentioned in his speech was that the purpose, the object, of history, was to create good citizens (good men and women) who could contribute to society. And, obviously, the conduct of war and study of war didn’t really fall within that bailiwick of good, kind, productive citizens, especially at a time when a lot of intellectuals were of the mind that they could use reason and logic to essentially extinguish war from the human existence.KohnI think, [at] this time, military history was equated with war history and with battle. And so, it was being studied, really, once wars began. Perhaps [there was] some study on the causes of war amongst states. And, it was almost considered to be war among states. And that, of course, just touches the most prominent part of military history.It’s as though you can understand elections—we just had one in this country—by only studying the elections. What are the results? Why did someone do this? Why did someone do that? I mean, you can’t understand an election unless you know who’s running, what the issues are, what the background is, what the strategies were, what’s the electorate, what’s at stake. “War is an extension of politics” said the great nineteenth-century student of Carl von Clausewitz. If you don’t understand what’s at stake in a war, if you don’t understand why the sides are fighting each other, how they’re using military institutions, and so on, you really won’t understand war.So, [I think] there was a sense of the need that developed over time in the twentieth century, and what became known as the new military history after World War II, is that if you don’t study it, as Sir Michael Howard said, in length, breadth, and depth, you really won’t understand it. It’s just military institutions clashing and trying to eradicate each other, or at least wound some so that the one side can win and the other side would lose, or there’d be a compromise. Win what? I mean, if you don’t understand, Clausewitz said, the kind of war you are in then you are really lost as military officers and as political leaders, which, in most Western societies now, are the ones that determine the making of war and peace.FergusonAnd, I would add to that as the concept of new military history grew in the mid-twentieth century, particularly after 1973 and the institution of the all-volunteer force, a lot of educational institutions and scholars started looking at the question of why serve? Why serve, not only in a peace time when there’s no war being fought? Why serve in an all-volunteer military when there’s no forcing function to get you to put on the uniform?That led to military historians wrestling with a lot of new concepts that really forced them to ask some new questions. And, what it did was broaden the aperture into other disciplines, whether or not internal to the field of history or external to history and political science and communications and other fields, where they started looking more at subjects that were adjacent to military history, not necessarily war or the battlefield or the conduct of war, as Dick was commenting on, kind of, the run up to war or what basically led to the declaration of war, to a conflict in some of those underlying conditions that supported either prolonging the war or bringing it, ultimately, to a close.HostThis leads right into my next question. Why should we record military history?KohnOne of the great American philosophers, George Santayana, once said, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to relive it.” One [of the] other aphorisms which always struck me [is] an exchange between an Israeli general and a military historian. The general accosted the historian and said, “You know, why do you waste your time studying the past? It’s just not relevant in this new high-tech, fast warfare we’re engaged in or would engage in.” And, the historian looked at general and said, “What makes you think you’re so smart that you can win in the next war on the basis of your own experience alone?”I mean, it is human experience in a critically important subject to every society, every state, to millions of individuals because wars often decide things. And, they make history as well as destroy things and lives. It’s always been understood as an important human endeavor, even if it’s to be avoided.FergusonI think that ties into how we define history. How we define it correlates with its value, and Alan Evans said that, basically, history is the best possible version of the truth. One of the most common misunderstandings of what history is is its clarity. History is one of the muckiest, murkiest disciplines we have, and that’s what historians are charged to do is historical inquiry. If you were to throw a bunch of historians into a room and tell them to come to a unanimous consensus on why the Allies won World War II or when the Cold War started and why, if they all emerged out of the room unscathed, I can guarantee you they wouldn’t reach a consensus.These things—that’s 100 years later, almost, and how many conferences and books and papers have been written about these issues? And, we’re still finding new ways of interpreting whether it’s new evidence or new ways of looking at the evidence. That provides a value. And, the reason why it’s so necessary is because practitioners have to use history in order to formulate doctrine, plans, and strategy. It’s all they have in order to anticipate future requirements. And, they have to go with what is, in their estimation, the best version of history. [In] the study of history, the careful, rigorous study of history, using primary source documents is so important because we’re constantly realizing that we really didn’t have quite as good of a grasp on an event or the causality, especially behind an event or events, as we thought we did. And, those assumptions are what feed into plans, strategy, and tactics in the practitioner world.KohnOne of the common misunderstandings, I think, of war and of military history is, and I think this is true, particularly in the Armed Services, is the feeling that history is like a fact. It’s there, we know it all, and all we have to do is to ask it the right questions and plumb it. And, I was walking in the hall of the Pentagon one day and one of my boss’s bosses, a four-star general said, “Your job is to give us the lessons of the past.” I said to him, “General, if there were lessons in the past—like you’re thinking—your forever, absolute kinds of things—they’d be so classified, I couldn’t share them with you.”And, he looked at me like, wait a second, I know you, you’re not a wise guy. Why did you say that? I said that because it doesn’t have lessons, per se, that will be applied to any present problem. It’s only accumulated human experience around a certain phenomenon [or] incident, a question.You, as a decisionmaker, a senior officer, or even a junior officer or even enlisted people and noncommissioned officers, have to try to understand the past so that you can be wiser and more informed about how to deal with your present problems. When I worked as the chief of Air Force history for the USAF, the first question I would ask someone who wanted something from me or from our program was, “Why do you want this? What’s the problem you’re facing?” So that we could isolate the history that might be valuable for this decisionmaker, and that’s really it. The lessons of the past is a concept that can be highly misleading.HostAre there any specific insights that military history offers compared to other kinds of history?KohnIt’s just the selection of, I think, the subject matter. It can be plumbed, if you will, by various people for various reasons. I’ve long thought that you can ransack the past, and to prove anything you want, because there’s so much there. Depending on what your problem is, it’s really the question of what are you asking about what that will determine its value if there is some historical experience that can be useful to a person trying to gain an understanding or to make a decision about something.FergusonThe values that military history specifically provides in comparison to, maybe, some of the other disciplines, is that it provides a window into phenomena that most will never experience. And, the only way you’re going to get any kind of window into how human beings act in those moments and why they potentially react the way they do, act the way they do—why do they charge forward instead of turning around? Why do they follow orders instead of disobeying them? These are the kind of things that you need military history to convey because history on the margins of that isn’t going to explain that to you. One of the services that John Keegan provided when he wrote The Face of Battle was to try and get in the boots of the soldier on the ground and understand not just, okay, they were doing a maneuver here. You know, now it’s a flanking here. This unit was here. That unit was here. X amount of troops died here. X amount of troops died there. Really trying to get into the mind of [the] individual soldier and understand the mind state of war, which is something that is an outgrowth of new history because you’re looking much more at that micro level of why individual human beings are acting the way they do as opposed to this broad 30,000-foot view of the battlefield like a Napoleonic war and view of history, essentially. And, you need military history to do that.Unfortunately, that is one of the casualties of the move away from the drum and trumpet histories—which are focusing on the battlefield and on tactics—to focus more on the social and cultural [aspects] and the political origins of war, is you’re going to end up getting perhaps fewer people looking at the battlefield under the assumption that maybe everything has been learned about that battlefield that we need to learn. And, as we’ve already touched on a little bit, those [kinds] of assumptions are constantly being revisited and questioned and, in some cases, overturned.KohnI think also it's valuable for senior leaders at the various levels to get inside the minds of decisionmakers in the past to try to understand why they made the decisions they made, what they studied, what they thought, and what affected their decision making. A lot of military history is often critical in hindsight of the decisions of senior officers—or even mid-level officers—in operational situations. Because, as we know, there’s often not a lot of time to make investigations when you’re in battle, but you have to be prepared. The military as a profession is one of the few in which people who are trained early in their lives, in their graduate-level studies, to practice a profession, and then once they get the degree, once they take jobs, they practice their profession. Surgeons, lawyers, clergy, teachers [get to], but soldiers of the various Armed Services are always facing new situations as they rise in rank. As a result, they are constantly, in a sense, having to learn their profession again at a different level, with different responsibilities, different problems. Of course, the environment changes also. So, history can really be critically important for preparing officers for higher responsibility.HostLooking through the lens of the Iraq war and maybe reflecting on Ukraine, what are your thoughts on whether the military is prone to misusing history to conform biases?FergusonThat kind of touches a bit on the Whig history aspect of the essay in Parameters. And, just for a quick wave-top overview, Whig history essentially refers to the Whig authors back in England, who wrote from a certain angle to try and, essentially, promote the British Crown’s values within their history. A lot of people refer to military history as the last stand of Whig history because it’s writing, you know, representing government entities and government agencies.I think some of the challenges that the DoD encounters, whether it’s writing its own history or uniformed historians like myself trying to be objective and open to being as critical as possible, not only of your own service, but of the decisions made by your country as well, recognizing wholeheartedly that we still maintain a loyalty to our nation and to our service. When writing history, you have to be willing to be very critical of those things, as well, which has not, obviously, been very popular over time, and that’s one of the things I kind of touch on.Dick can probably touch on this after I do because there’s a lot of civ-mil dynamics as far as interservice rivalry and loyalty at the service level that would prevent you from either creating or, basically, consuming a history objectively about some things you feel very passionate about. Whether it’s conflict you actually participated in, or a system or a weapons system or a platform that you have experience with, you see a lot of this going on right now, and I don’t want to go too far into the presentist weeds here talking about Ukraine and Iraq, of course. But, I mean, Ukraine’s essentially turned into a petri dish of confirmation bias. And, the people with experience with armor are coming away from Ukraine saying, “These are the lessons of Ukraine, right? We got to double down on armor.” People with experience with drones and unmanned aircraft are coming away, saying, “It’s drones and unmanned aircraft. We got to double down.”You see a lot of that, and it’s to be expected, but I think that’s one of the challenges with the way the DoD approaches history is all the services are going to fight for their own interests. They’re gonna do that. That’s natural. I think it’s a matter of coming to what we talked about: What’s the closest version of the truth as far as historical patterns? Are there historical patterns that we can lean on to make decisions that will please all of the services going forward? And, that carries over into some of the ways that we write history. And, I touch on one example of that in the article.KohnI think one of the greatest mistakes that the Armed Services makes, and has historically, about the use of history is that it’s an instrument [to] which they fight their battles in the Pentagon over budgets, over roles, over missions, and the rest. Or, it’s just an academic exercise to teach people to use their minds critically. So, it’s a sign to the professional military institutions, war colleges, and staff colleges. Or, it’s used [instrumentally] as a type of public relations to serve an institution. And, that’s just wrong. I mean, I had to fight off people who would say, “Well, you’re just academic. You ought to be . . .” or, “Why aren’t you stationed at the War College? Why don’t you do that kind of thing?” and, “Why aren’t you in the public relations business in the Pentagon because that’s what you’re most useful for?” And, I had to fight that off.And, you have to [prove], as historians both in professional military education and in staff work, as to what you’re useful for. And, that’s why I would have to ask people, “Why are you asking me that question? What are you going to use this for?” and have an interactive relationship with the client. Our clients were uniformed military first and foremost and then other services and the public.Interestingly enough, the Army and the Air Force use historians and history instrumentally to help them make strategy, do plans, do doctrine, and do it in a sophisticated and professionally valid way, and not misleading themselves. And, I would say to you, when asked why do we do this, 1) we don’t want to reinvent the wheel if we already know how to use this. And second of all, we don’t want to lie to ourselves on the basis of what we would like to know or what we would like to think happened and why. We need to get at, as Mike put it, the truth, the best we can—and the past, and then to use it wisely and carefully for the present and the future.FergusonI think, too, another one of the risks of the abuse of history, which is a topic that’s been touched on by other historians in the past, is the military it takes them years to write doctrine. And, the military is also obviously downstream from its elected leaders in politics and strategy. The realities of the operational environment of the world are going to influence the priorities of the military, either in drafting doctrine or what it’s looking at in history as far as lessons it wants to use as instructive in crafting their doctrine, plans, and strategy.One of the challenges with that is not only how long it takes to craft doctrine, and things might change, or our perception of history might change in that period, but, also, the political environment’s very mercurial. We saw in 2017 and 2018 with the new National Security Strategy, and the new National Defense Strategy. We completely turned almost 20 years of focus on counterinsurgency and counterterrorism on its head to refocus on interstate competition with a pacing challenge there.And so, that’s what reorients a lot of the priorities and, obviously, the funds within the DoD, as far as what it’s looking at and how it’s using history. I think if you were to go to a lot of people in the United States right now and ask them what the number one lesson learned from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were, they might just tell you, “don’t do it” because we don’t really want to talk about it anymore. We’ve moved on. And, that’s one of the unfortunate realities that you do have to get on board with that and have to try and keep up with that political aspect of where the focus is strategically.Kohn[The] 2017, 2018 redo of the national strategy and of doctrine was headed in the Army by a lieutenant general named H. R. McMaster, a very sophisticated historian who’s written now three books and who had the breadth and depth of understanding to be able to assess what was going on then and what needed to be done for Department of Defense and Army strategy. It’s also Interesting, and I think we ought to bring this out, that when the Army’s modern military history program was set up at the end of World War II and into the ’40s and ’50s by Dwight Eisenhower, he wanted to make certain that it was kept out of the hands of the participants in the war who might have an ax to grind as to what they did and how they did it and why they did it and to put it in the hands of scholars working for the Army, trying to make history useful. The only way it can be useful, though, is to find out what happened—accurately and without fear or favor, as we used to say—even though it might reflect badly on some senior leaders who made decisions. There are many stories about that. But the point is, that Eisenhower knew, and the Army has, I think, for the most part, kept faith with the idea that it would be, first and foremost, accurate and not warped, for a certain outside purpose.HostI do have one more question: What takeaways can you leave us with today about military history?FergusonI’ll just comment, maybe, on some of the things I’ve learned in my time here at UNC under two phenomenal advisers. Read the classics. Far more people discuss the classics than actually read them, and even fewer actually study them and discuss them. A lot of them are assigned in professional military education, but there’s just not enough time to really dive into them. So, that’s something that a lot of practitioners will need to do on their own time.When reading the classics, I would say supplement them and try and find experts out there who speak the language and have read the original documents. This is especially true for things like [the works of] Sun Tzu and Machiavelli. Every time someone comes to me, or I read someone quoting about winning without fighting or something of that nature, I tell them to go read John Sullivan’s papers he’s [written] for Strategy Bridge, which are a phenomenal supplement to the readings of Sun Tzu.Also, read history to understand the intersection of culture and human needs, not necessarily for dates and facts. And, I guess that is a nice little cherry on top to our conversation about new history. That’s something I think new history has done really well. It’s helped us to understand some of the causal factors behind war beyond, obviously Thucydides’ Fear, Honor, and Interest, which is still, though, relevant today. I think really reading history for an eye towards why certain social and cultural conditions existed and how those conditions either led to war or prevented war, is a really important way to look at history from a strategic perspective. But, from the tactical and operational perspective, I think, still, reading the classics is a phenomenal way to get that foundational understanding, and then can branch out from there.KohnWell, that’s absolutely right. But [what] I always tell people who ask that question of “What should I be reading?” is try those things. Read the most important things that have been written on the subject but read as far as you can and as much as it holds your interest. Just because you start reading a book doesn’t mean you have to finish it. Just because you start a book doesn’t mean it’s the right book to continue. The point is, you’ve got to develop your mind around the subject you’re studying. You don’t do that by throwing away books. You have a responsibility to yourself to find out which are the most important books and select those which you are most interested in and can come to grips with.And, always remember that you’ve got to be a critical thinker. You’ve got to think for yourself, and you’ve got to integrate what you’re reading and what you’re learning with what you know and what you know is right because there is no perfect answer to that question of what you should read, when you should read it, how you should read it, and how it should develop your own understanding of your profession. But if you’re not reading, if you’re not developing in your profession, you’re throwing away your experience and the potential of your contribution to American national defense, and that’s really, really important. Know your profession.HostWise words to end with. Mike, Dick, thank you so much. I really enjoyed our chat today.FergusonThank you, Stephanie.KohnThank you. I, too. Thanks Stephanie.HostListeners, you can read the genesis article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 54, issue 4. There will also be a link to the article in the show notes (https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol54/iss4/3). For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.

The Indications and Warnings subfield of intelligence has traditionally divided warnings into a dichotomy of “ambiguous” and “unambiguous” that gives policymakers a false sense of security. In this episode, Regan Copple examines why unambiguous warning has become an inadequate planning tool that can lead to dire consequences in the quest for certainty.E-mail [email protected] to give feedback on this podcast or the genesis article.Podcast record date: November 20, 2024Keywords: intelligence, military planning, warning, decision making, strategic planningEpisode TranscriptStephanie Crider (Host)You are listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.I am talking with Regan Copple today, author of “The Fallacy of Unambiguous Warning,” which you can find in the Autumn 2024 issue of Parameters. Copple is a research associate at the Institute for Defense Analyses in Alexandria, Virginia, where her work focuses on strategy development and war gaming. She is also a doctoral student at George Mason University.Welcome to Decisive Point, Regan.Regan CoppleThank you. Thanks for having me.HostWhat are the working definitions of ambiguous warnings and unambiguous warnings in the context of your article?CoppleFor ambiguous warning, the easy way to break it down is the idea of you know something’s coming, but you’re not quite sure what or when. In practice, this would look like seeing some sort of mass mobilization but not knowing where those forces were mobilizing to or where the first attack might occur. Whereas unambiguous warning, you know something’s going to happen. You know what’s going to happen, when is it going to happen, and how is it going to happen. It sounds super simple, but in reality, this is a really high bar to be able to pin down the exact when and how. A good example of unambiguous warning is the ideal conceptualization of tactical warning about two to three days or a week before an attack would happen.HostHow has the traditional distinction between ambiguous and unambiguous warnings contributed to a false sense of security in military planning, and how might this thinking be revised?CoppleThis distinction isn’t so much of what’s creating the false sense of security, it’s the expectation that you’re going to receive unambiguous warning, which both very recent events like Ukraine and the Hamas attack on Israel, and modern history more broadly—like Pearl Harbor, the Korean War and [the Yom Kippur War] show—is that what’s creating the false sense of security is the idea of we will know when this is going to happen. And, we will know exactly what is coming and when, which hasn’t been true.In terms of how can we reverse this thinking, I’d say we need to start thinking about writing. When we write about unambiguous warning in plans and in our day jobs, rather than think about it as a necessary condition, [we should] start treating it as a “nice to have” rather than a “must have” to further confirm our existing assumptions. Because if we’re waiting for the confirmation that we’re right, that confirmation normally comes in the form of being attacked, which, needless to say, is not a preferred outcome.HostYour article discusses the failure of Israeli intelligence during the Yom Kippur War due to their expectation of unambiguous warnings. What lessons can modern military strategists learn from these kinds of historical intelligence failures?CoppleThe biggest reason Egypt succeeded in obfuscating their warnings was because they employed an especially well-thought-out deception plan. I think the biggest lesson from this conflict is that adversaries understand the victim state might be watching, so they have an incentive to obscure what they’re actually doing and misrepresent what they’re doing, which means planners and strategists have to factor in responses to deception or contingency plans and think about what happens if the opponent would try and execute some sort of deception. What might this look like? How might we be able to counter that? Basically, the bottom line is don’t expect the enemy to make it easy for you because they have a vested interest in not doing so.HostHow can military planners better utilize ambiguous warnings in their intelligence collection and analysis process to avoid surprises like Pearl Harbor or the Yom Kippur War?CoppleThe biggest take away from Pearl Harbor wasn’t that we didn’t have most of the information we needed to make a decision. We did. The bigger issue was that the right people didn’t have the right information at the right time, in no small part due to security classification issues. Now in 2024, a lot of this has been fixed by technology because now we don’t need to burn letters flown halfway across the world minutes after they’re read. But, the underlying message that remains for today is that information sharing is hard. We shouldn’t assume that everyone gets every piece of information they need the second they need it—and plan around that—and basically understand that institutional bureaucratic stove pipes can get in the way of information sharing and those things are difficult to break down over time.–HostThe article suggests that the Intelligence Community’s process is not designed to predict specific events but to assess probabilities. How can decision makers ensure they act on high-probability intelligence without over-relying on the elusive certainty of unambiguous warnings?CoppleMuch like how lots of the solution rests with changing the way that planners and strategists think about warning, this requires educating decisionmakers inside—but also, mostly outside—the Department of Defense on what do we mean when we say “warning?” Because the DOD has its own very specific language where things that we may say in our day-to-day jobs may mean something very, very different to a person with no previous defense experience or very little defense experience.We also need to talk about what a given probability means. What does a low-confidence assessment mean? What does a high-confidence assessment mean? What are some of the implications of that? And also, educate that just because we don’t have unambiguous warning, that doesn’t mean something isn’t going to happen. That just means that we don’t have a crystal-clear picture on what we think is going to happen next.Both the beauty and the curse of this problem is primarily that it’s a solution that’s driven by a mindset change. It’s a beauty in that it doesn’t cost us any money or people to make this change, which is nice. But, at the same time, it’s a curse in that entrenched beliefs within the DOD and the national security establishment are incredibly hard to dislodge once those beliefs have been established.HostWe have a few extra minutes if you’re willing to entertain another question or two.I’d love to know what inspired you to write this article.CoppleA few years ago, I was sitting in some planning discussions out in INDOPACOM [Indo-Pacific Command], and some of the planners at the table looked around and they said, “Hey, you know, maybe we should define unambiguous warning in the document so that way everybody in the future knows and it’s clear, that they understand what we meant when we wrote this.” Everybody at the time thought that was a great idea. So, then everyone started to share what to them looked like unambiguous warning. And, what started off as a very civil, casual discussion very quickly turned into a very acrimonious argument, and by the very end, everyone was further apart in understanding what unambiguous warning meant, not closer together. That sort of prompted me to think if there are so many different views on what unambiguous warning is, is it really unambiguous? And, that’s what really sparked my research—and looking at case studies and realizing that there’s a trend here. What I experienced wasn’t just a one-off conversation.HostOnce you started researching it, did you find any surprises or unexpected information?CoppleI think the underlying thread that I found the most was that a lot of the most successful surprise attacks have a very big deception component where it’s not just that the victim state misses something altogether. That’s normally not what happens. There’s normally some sort of active deception and obfuscation going on on the part of the attacking state.HostDo you have any concluding thoughts you’d like to share?CoppleBottom line: warning is hard, and I think we forget that sometimes. We tend to think as long as we check off every box on a list of things we observe, that means we have a certain level of warning, and we know what’s going to happen based off of that list. It doesn’t. We not only have to think about what we’re seeing, but why are we seeing what we’re seeing? What other explanations or adversary motivations could be out there that’s driving the adversary to make those decisions, or those maneuvers, and figure out are we falling into some sort of mental trap? Are they doing what we expect them to do? And, if they’re not, maybe why not? And, think through all of this because once we do, we’re going to get a little bit closer to understanding the true picture of what’s going on.HostThank you for making time to speak with me today. I really enjoyed it.CoppleThank you. Pleasure to be here.HostListeners, you can read the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 54, issue 3.For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.

In this episode, Richard D. Hooker argues that the historical assessment of Dwight D. Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in World War II lacks objectivity and balance. While we will never know if other generals would have outperformed Eisenhower, several leaders were available—all senior to Eisenhower at the outbreak of the war and with superior professional résumés.E-mail [email protected] to give feedback on this podcast or the genesis article.Podcast record date: November 7, 2024Keywords: Dwight D. Eisenhower, World War II, strategy, command, Joint campaignEpisode TranscriptStephanie Crider (Host)You are listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.I'm talking with Richard D. Hooker today, the author of “Eisenhower as Supreme Allied Commander: A Reappraisal,” which you can find in the Autumn 2024 issue of Parameters. Hooker is a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council and senior associate at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. He is the former National Security Council senior director for Europe and Russia and authored The High Ground: Leading in Peace and War, which was published by Casemate in 2023.Welcome to Decisive Point, Richard.Richard D. HookerThank you. It's great to be here.HostHow did Eisenhower’s lack of prior combat command experience affect his performance as Supreme Allied Commander?HookerWell, I think first of all, it is important to give some credit where credit is due. Eisenhower began the war as a lieutenant colonel and rose in some 23 months to four stars. As the Supreme Commander he superintended, really, the largest Joint campaign in probably military history up to that point, which was ultimately successful in a little over 10 months. So, that’s a major achievement.I think what we’re wrestling with here [is] was he the best qualified person, and how did his background help him or hinder him in the performance of those remarkable duties? And, I think it’s fair to say that although he was clearly a highly intelligent and experienced middle-grade officer, the lack of professional experience in command of larger formations—and probably a lack of combat experience, as well—didn’t serve him as well as it otherwise might have done. There were other officers, in my opinion, who were far more experienced and senior who possibly could have done a little bit better job, and we can talk about that as we go forward in this discussion.HostSure, I’m looking forward to hearing about that. Tell me, what were some of the key strategic errors that are attributed to Eisenhower, and how did they affect the course of the war?HookerI think there are a number of those that are discussed in the article in Parameters and most of them have to do, in my opinion, with seizing or not seizing opportunities.So, the first major error that I see in the European campaign in 1944 is a missed opportunity to trap two German field armies at Falaise during the breakout from the Normandy beachhead. At this time, Eisenhower is still in the UK [United Kingdom], and the overall ground commander is [British General Bernard Montgomery, commander of 21st Army Group]. So, I think it's fair to say that Eisenhower did not exert, really, a firm grasp of the operations that were going on at that time. There was a golden opportunity to close the gap at Falaise and trap a large number of German soldiers who, unfortunately, were able to escape and then form the basis for reconstituted units later on, which of course prolonged the war, and were directly responsible for many, many more Allied casualties.The second opportunity, I think, had to do with the failure to open the port of Antwerp, which was essential for the logistical support of the campaign after the breakout from the Normandy beachhead in the bocage. Although the British actually captured Antwerp early in September of 1944, the long estuary leading out to the North Sea, some 54 miles, was not cleared of German troops as Montgomery attempted to press forward. This resulted in an inability to open up Antwerp—really, one of the major ports in all of Europe at the time. And it caused the campaign to stall for logistical reasons at a time when even the German commanders in their post-war memoirs felt that it would have been fairly easy to rupture the entire front and drive deep into Germany. So, I think that was the second major strategic misstep.The third, in my opinion, was Market Garden, which was the audacious attempt to seize the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem, which for a number of reasons was unsuccessful. Eisenhower himself described himself as an ardent supporter. He said he didn’t have to be convinced to approve the operation. But, for a number of reasons, it failed, and the Germans remained in control of that sector and of that bridge, really, all the way through April of 1945. As a number of historians have pointed out, [it was] a real strategic disappointment.Perhaps the fourth major strategic misstep was the terrible, painful, and very costly battle fought in the Hürtgen Forest through the fall and early winter of 1944. [It was] really one of the longest ground battles ever fought by the US Army in Europe [and] resulted in very, very high casualties for very limited gain. I think the official historians have pointed out [that it] was really a battle that didn’t need to be fought and ended up having very, very high costs on American soldiers.Little known to many is an opportunity for Eisenhower’s forces to cross the Rhine in, uh, late November, early December of 1944. So, if you’ll recall, [General Jacob L. Devers] 6th Army Group coming up from southern France following Operation Dragoon actually reaches the Rhine in mid-November of 1944 and makes preparations to cross the river and enter into Germany, which, in all probability, would have disrupted the Ardennes counteroffensive, the Battle of the Bulge, which happened shortly thereafter. He pleaded with Eisenhower for permission to cross the Rhine with his army group, but that permission was denied, and that opportunity was, in my opinion, squandered. And so, a month later, we find ourselves in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge, again with very, very heavy US casualties—and arguably a needless battle that could have been avoided or prevented.That takes us to what I saw as this sixth strategic misstep, which was the Bulge itself. It has to be accounted a major intelligence failure for the Germans to mass almost 30 divisions without the knowledge of the Allies doesn’t speak well to our intelligence apparatus. There’s reason to believe that intelligence officers were always cautious about predicting the chances of German counterattacks because of the wave of euphoria that had sort of swept Eisenhower’s headquarters at that time. At any rate, the Battle of the Bulge does happen. The Ardennes, counteroffensive, again, inflicting very, very heavy casualties on US troops, in particular—really not on Montgomery’s 21st Army Group, which suffers very, very few, almost 20,000 US fatalities in the Battle of the Bulge, which is a very high number.But, the Bulge represented an opportunity as well. It was a very large, very deep penetration, which, if it had been countered aggressively, as Patton argued, by strong attacks on the northern and the southern flanks of the penetration, again, another opportunity to cut off and bag several hundred thousand German soldiers. That’s not what happens. Eisenhower finds himself unable to get Montgomery to attack aggressively from the north, and the Germans are essentially pushed back from west to east. They fall back in something like good order, and the campaign continues for another five or six months.So very briefly, those are the six major missteps that I saw in the campaign that I think can be fairly attributed to Eisenhower’s generalship, as he himself pointed out in his memoirs and in his letters to General [George C.] Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, he assumed the supreme authority for all the decisions that were made in the campaign, and I argue, therefore, bears responsibility for these decisions as well.HostSo, you mentioned earlier about Montgomery and I’m curious about how Eisenhower’s relationship with British commanders like Montgomery might have influenced Allied operations and campaign outcomes.HookerEisenhower, of course, is often lauded as being, sort of, a very accomplished military diplomat, but actually, his relations with Montgomery, in particular, were very strained and problematic. Although only three years older than Eisenhower, Montgomery, of course, was vastly more experienced and senior than Eisenhower at the outbreak of the war. [He was] badly wounded in World War I, commanded at the division and the corps in the Army and, ultimately, Army group level. And, as some stories have pointed out, Eisenhower was painfully aware of his lack of credentials when compared to others like Montgomery.So, through the course of the campaign, he finds it very difficult to impose his will on the field marshal. I’ve cited some of the examples of that at Falaise and the opening of the port of Antwerp and during the Battle of the Bulge. During the war, Montgomery never attended any of the staff conferences that Eisenhower held for the Army and Army group commanders, always sending his chief of staff instead. So, I think this was really problematic for the campaign because in a number of instances there were real opportunities to inflict decisive defeats on the German army that would have hastened the end of the war and saved tens of thousands of lives. And, Eisenhower is just unable to, as I said, impose his will on Montgomery in that way. And so, I do think it was problematic.A different, more senior, more experienced commander, perhaps someone like General Walter Krueger, who spoke fluent French and German and was a corps commander in 1941 when Eisenhower is a newly promoted colonel, would have been able, in my opinion, to contend on a much more equal and more firm footing with strong world commanders like Montgomery.HostCan we build on that a little bit? You hinted earlier about maybe an alternative commander would have had better outcomes with the Allies in Europe. What kind of qualities would this person possess?HookerFirst of all, you would want someone who had standing with the British. Let’s remember that the British had been in the war for a number of years before the Americans really entered the scene in force. So, that would have been one.A commander who had had previous experience at high levels of command would have enjoyed a greater prestige and, I would say, position power with the British. There’s no question about that. An example is Pershing in the First World War, he had been a general officer for many years by the time the war broke out, and he was able to interact with his Allied counterparts on more or less an equal footing. And, we know from the memoirs of senior British officers following the war that they always looked at Eisenhower with this in mind, and I think that was an important factor in many of the problems that he had dealing with Montgomery, but also with others.HostThis has been a very interesting overview of your article, but before we go, do you have any concluding thoughts that you would like to share?HookerYou know, it’s hard to find another example of an officer [that] was so junior at the outbreak of the war, who rose to Supreme Command. Certainly, the British didn’t operate that way. The Germans did not operate that way. They had some very talented officers who were, sort of, regimental commanders at the outbreak of the war. [General Georg Otto Hermann Balck] is one who comes to mind. He begins the wars of lieutenant colonel, and he ends the war as an army group commander, but he never rises above three stars. This was really an unprecedented decision that Marshall took to put a relatively untried officer in such an exalted position, and I think there probably were good reasons for that.Now I don’t want to in any way denigrate Eisenhower’s service. At the end of the day, he’s ultimately responsible for a successful campaign in—up to that point—the largest war in human history. Let’s give him the credit which is due. The real question is, was he the best choice for the job, and could the war have been concluded more quickly with fewer casualties? I think that’s the real question for us to think about here some 80 years on.HostListeners, you can download the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 54, issue 3. For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.Richard, I enjoyed this very much. Thank you for making time to speak with me today.HookerThank you. [It was] a great pleasure.

In this episode, Colin D. Robinson discusses American and Western liberal ideas (ideological views) and politics in relation to the obstacles faced in rebuilding the Afghan and Iraqi armies. This podcast reviews the differences between Western liberal democracies and partner states, the politics of counterinsurgency, and army accounts.  E-mail [email protected] to give feedback on this podcast or the genesis article. Podcast record date: September 26, 2024 Keywords: liberal peace, Afghan National Army, Iraqi Army, security sector reform, security force assistance Episode transcript Stephanie Crider (Host)You're listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. Joining me virtually today is Colin D. Robinson, author of “Why the Afghan and Iraqi Armies Collapsed: An Allied Perspective,” which you can find in the Autumn 2024 issue of Parameters. Robinson lectures on defense leadership and management at Cranfield Defense and Security at Cranfield University, Shrivenham, United Kingdom. He began his tracking of Operation Enduring Freedom while at the Center for Defense Information in Washington, DC, in 2002. Welcome to Decisive Point, Colin. Colin D. RobinsonThank you so much. HostIn your view, what were the most critical structural weaknesses that led to the collapse of the Afghan and Iraqi armies? How could these have been addressed more effectively by their respective governments or allied forces? RobinsonThe structural weakness was politics. Iraq was split between Sunni, Shia, and Kurd. And, the parties interested in the Afghan army were split between the Tajiks and the Uzbeks and less-than minorities and networks of political party affiliation in the armed forces, which led to different political parties having the loyalty and patronage and financial links to different sets of generals within what was the Afghan National Army. One of the other critical points was the disbandment of the Iraqi army under Coalition Provisional Authority [CPA] Order No. 2, which has historically now been seen as an enormous, enormous mistake. There were plans in place to use the existing remnants of the Iraqi army that still existed by the time Baghdad had fallen, and US Army senior leaders were liaising with their generals. The most recent research I have seen attributes the origins of CPA Order 2, potentially, to Ahmed Chalabi, clearly through Ambassador Paul D. Bremer. The question is, did the United States try to set up a mirror-image state army along the lines of Western armies or try to build forces that took more account of the political realities? In thinking about this, one has to remember that the Kurdish forces, now, in what is the Kurdish zone of Iraq, are still split down the middle between two separate factions. HostSome have attributed the failure of these armies to issues of leadership, issues of corruption.How much responsibility do you think should be placed on these internal factors compared to the external military pressures? RobinsonGeneral Colin Powell, later Secretary of State, had something he called a “Pottery Barn rule.” You break it, you own it. So, at least equal responsibility can be divided between the United States and its allies, including the United Kingdom, and on the other side, Iraqi and Afghan actors because the United States firstly created the whole Iraqi mess in 2002 and 2003 for no real justifiable reason, as we now know, in my view. And secondly, as [State Department representative Carter] Malkasian and [David] Kilcullen and Mills have noted, the United States and its allies did not bring one of the most important actors, the Taliban, to the key Bonn Afghan peace conference of 2002. If the Taliban had been at that conference, the result might have been very, very different. Now, that’s the external military factors or external political factors. In terms of internal factors, leadership and corruption issues had been endemic in Afghanistan and Iraq since they were established. They were very much patrimonial states. They work along the lines of a father ruling his family with, to some degree, an iron hand. They’re low-trust societies. Less than 10 years of very bloody US-led presence in Iraq, or 20 years in Afghanistan, had very little hope of changing that. To sum up again, basically, at least equal responsibility between the interveners, the United States and its allies, and Iraq and [Afghanistan], different feuding political actors.HostTaking into consideration the lessons from the collapse of the Afghan and Iraqi armies, what changes in strategy should be implemented in current—or future—US military interventions to avoid similar outcomes?RobinsonSince about the 1960s, large-scale Western democratic states have tried to do counterinsurgency in several states after they gained independence. After independence in places like South Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, it does not seem to work. There are too many political compromises. The selected local leader, client leader, does not want to do what the United States wants. It does not seem to be successful. Perhaps the most recent clearest example of this is Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan.The thing is, this was not well understood or potentially well understood because during the colonial period, this is something that Richard Holbrook pointed out, it could and sometimes did work. The usual standard example of the British in Malaya, the British in Kenya, to some extent, the suppression and eventual resolution of the [Hukbalahap] insurgency in the Philippines immediately after the Second World War, assisted by the United States. So, what changed in strategy? Firstly, do not try large-scale expeditionary Western counterinsurgency in client states, in partner states. It just doesn’t seem to work. For smaller-scale efforts, the State Department should be much more in the political driver’s seat. They should be building the political roads, supervising the political activities for overseeing things for the competent commands and involving, yes, the Department of Defense and the implementation, more the State Department overseeing, and potentially, even the Agency for International Development, which did wonders in Yugoslavia after the Second World War, supporting Yugoslavs when the US was allied with them. The Bosnia train and equip program is a good working example of how the State Department implemented the program properly. I have to say with some sorrow that the Department of the Army is really not particularly well placed to plan and run assistance programs. [It has] too much focus on technical specifications and not enough on politics, which made and broke the Afghan and Iraqi armies. The temptation to put together a program plan and then push it together, push it through, virtually at all costs, should be resisted firmly. HostSo where do we go from here? How do the failures of these armies reflect the broader challenges of nation building in conflict zones? Is there a way for external forces like the United States to foster sustainable military institutions in these kinds of environments?RobinsonState building, what you could call fixing failed states, unquote, has proven very, very difficult in these very, very deeply split conflict zones. Literally, the book called Fixing Failed States: [A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World] was cowritten by Ashraf Ghani, who became president of Afghanistan and then lost to the Taliban. Analysts are moving beyond this kind of, “liberal peace,” paradigm. There needs to be a little bit more of an ability and a willingness to accept and work with other actors, non-state actors, the political forces that don’t necessarily fit in the state or Western Europe or North America’s view of the state.To try and generate some kind of peace and prosperity, but potentially, case by case, to leave state structures out of it. So, no. External forces like the United States cannot necessarily at all foster sustainable military institutions in countries ripped apart by decades of war and oppression. Afghanistan and Iraq are a good example. Another potentially similar example is the decades of effort by France to support former colonies in Africa, which has just had somewhat of a similar backlash in the three countries in Niger and Burkina Faso [and] Mali, where their efforts have just led to yet another military coup. We have a whole lot more stable countries, [where it is] much easier to help because we have much more to work with, but if we’re wanting to work in places like Somalia, which appear to be strategically critical, be prepared to work with non-state actors or militia.HostUnfortunately, we’re out of time here. I do have time for one more question, though, if you have any concluding thoughts you’d like to share with us.RobinsonI said before, do less interventions. Often, do not go. Focus on more stable countries where there are strong forces to work with. The United States actually doesn’t have to run the entire world. Climate change will create more problems and pressure for deployments. So, aspirations, as far as I can tell, will have to be scaled back over time as climate disasters increase in number and forces are needed more closer to home. HostThank you for making time to speak with me today, Colin. RobinsonThank you so much for listening. HostListeners, you can read the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 54, issue 3. For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.

In this episode of Decisive Point, authors Michael T. Hackett and John A. Nagl delve into insights from the article “A Long, Hard Year: Russia-Ukraine War Lessons Learned 2023.” They analyze the evolution of warfare tactics between the first and second year of the Russia-Ukraine War, highlighting the shift from rapid maneuvers to trench warfare characterized by saturation and attrition. The discussion emphasizes the significance of adaptability for military strategists in the United States and NATO, particularly in response to Russia’s strategic use of mercenaries like the Wagner Group. Hackett and Nagl explore the implications of a transparent battlefield shaped by modern technologies and the contrasting command structures of Ukraine and Russia, showcasing the effectiveness of decentralized command. Additionally, the critical role of airpower and the future of Ukraine in the context of Western support are key themes, underscoring the vital lessons for contemporary military strategists.E-mail [email protected] to give feedback on this podcast or the genesis article.Podcast record date: September 5, 2024Keywords: culture, human domain, cross-cultural competence, military education You’re listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. I’m in the studio with Dr. John A. Nagl today and joining us virtually is Michael T. Hackett. Nagl and Hackett are the authors of “A Long, Hard Year, Russia-Ukraine War Lessons Learned 2023,” which was published in the Autumn 2024 issue of Parameters. Nagl, the director of the Russia-Ukraine War integrated research project, is a retired Army officer and a professor of war-fighting studies at the US Army War College. Hackett is a foreign service officer at the US Department of State and served as the chief of staff for the integrated research project that studied the second year of the Russia-Ukraine War. He is a distinguished graduate of the US Army War College class of 2024. Welcome to Decisive Point, John and Mike.Dr. John A. NaglThank you, Stephanie. It’s good to be with you.Michael T. HackettGreat to be here.HostLet’s just jump right in and get started here. How has the approach to war and its tactics changed from the first-year study of the war to the second-year study?NaglI’ll take that if I can. I was asked by General [Paul E.] Funk and the Training and Doctrine Command during the first summer of the Russo-Ukrainian War [Russia-Ukraine War] to try to examine that war for lessons learned for the Training and Doctrine Command of the US Army, which General Funk then led, and started the academic year that graduated in 2023 by looking then at the first year of the Russo-Ukrainian War [Russia-Ukraine War] over the course of 2022.And, Mike and I have now authored a study that is a capstone to a broader study of the second year of the war. And, I think I’d characterize the first year of the war as a war of maneuver. It was the year that Russia invaded and then that Ukraine counterattacked, broadly speaking, erasing the majority of Russia’s gains from the first month of the war. And so, the first year studied a war of movement. The second year of the war, the year 2023, covered in the article that Mike and I have published, was much more a static war. It was a war of trenches. It was a war of a failed Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer of 2023. And so, the lessons we learned from the first year of the war were very different than a lot of the lessons—not all, but a lot of the lessons—we learned during the second year of the war. And ironically, we are now in academic year 2025, studying the war as it happens in 2024. And, with the Kursk incursion by Ukraine, we’re again seeing a war of movement. And so, the war keeps changing, the Russians and the Ukrainians keep learning and adapting, and our hope is that the American Army and the US military [will] learn and adapt as well from these changing lessons of a changing war.HostThanks, John. Mike, how has Russia’s approach to utilizing mercenaries impacted its broader military strategy in the conflict? And what lessons can be drawn from this for future conflicts involving state and non-state actors?Michael T. HackettOne of the most significant aspects of the second year of the war was Russia’s increased use of mercenaries—of private military companies, or PMC—particularly the Wagner Group, culminating in the failed mutiny last June by [Wagner founder Yevgeny] Prigozhin and his death two months later. So, our Norwegian international fellow on the team focused exclusively on this topic and looked not only at the history of Wagner, but also the tactics and the degree to which their approach has altered Russian force structure in the long term. In his review, he looked at two components of the Wagner PMC, zeki, which is short for zaklyuchënnyi, or prisoners, and osvovy, which are the foundational elements of that unit. And, the zeki’s are prisoners who were brought in through a service agreement, and the osvovy were trained professional fighters with experience in Syria and Africa. Now, on the battlefield, this meant that Wagner used the zeki as assault units, the so-called “Storm Z” units, which are sheer mass of numbers just to throw at the enemy, while the osvovy, the trained soldiers, were left to consolidate the gains. And, in doing so, despite the heavy casualties among the zeki, Wagner was able to maintain his long-term capabilities, leaving command elements and experienced soldiers protected and able to continue to fight.So, the Russians used this approach to counter an increasingly transparent battlefield—one with drones and space and electronic warfare—made massing and concentrating attacks very difficult. Wagner used these assault tactics with bursts of massive expendable forces followed by a consolidation of gains with trained soldiers to successfully grind down the Ukrainians in that second year in battles like the one in Bakhmut and Avdiivka. And, even with the death of Prigozhin and the folding in of Wagner into regular Russian units, we’re seeing the Russian army adopt this approach into the tactics of its regular armed forces and even using it to alter the military’s force structure. So obviously, in TRADOC, Training and Doctrine and Command, we need to look carefully at ways to approach an adversary that’s willing to take these heavy losses with these assault tactics and one that may not feel encumbered by [the] law of armed conflict. Both are really a significant shift and one that we need to be ready for.HostThe article highlights the impact of persistent surveillance on the battlefield. How has this transparency affected traditional combat doctrines, and what innovations are necessary to counteract these changes?NaglSo, Mike talked a little bit about the transparent battlefield, and this is the idea that there’s an unblinking eye—largely drones, but also satellites and various electromagnetic systems that produce an unblinking eye—that make it essentially impossible to mask the forces that are necessary to conduct breakthrough-level attacks. And, the idea of that chapter was that a lot of the work we did during the second year of the war’s study was [documenting] that this technology changed the character of war. That was one of the reasons we attributed to the failures of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer of ’23 [2023], and that was one of the conclusions we drew. And then, just as we published the article, the Kursk invasion happens and, all of a sudden, Ukraine has found ways to adapt, to conceal movement, to use surprise, to somehow manage to mass the forces that allowed a breakthrough of Russian lines in a place where, admittedly, Russian lines were weak and seize a fairly extraordinary amount of Russian territory in fairly short order. And, we’re still trying to figure out—this is one of the things we’re going to examine in this year’s study—why and how it was that Ukraine was able to succeed. One of the early explanations appears to be that although Russia saw the massing of forces, they couldn’t understand why Ukraine would attack in that direction. There were no immediately apparent strategic goals in the direction of Kursk. They couldn’t imagine Ukraine, which was under enormous pressure defensively further south, would use its forces in an offensive manner.This is one of the questions I’m most interested in. It’s one of the questions that I’m looking forward to digging into this year, but it’s another example, to me, of the way that armies learn and adapt at a very rapid pace on the battlefield. They make mistakes, but under the pressure of combat, and, for Ukraine, under the pressure of national survival. And arguably for Russia, at least for Putin, this is also a war of survival at this point. We saw the Wagner mutiny spooking Putin. Both armies are working hard to gain an advantage over their adversary, and I’m reminded, really, of some of the innovations during World War I that led to, for instance, ultimately, the invention of the tank, the harnessing of the internal combustion engine to machine guns or to cannons and to armor that restored mobility to the battlefield. And, one of the interesting things for me is that the tank has been declared dead a number of times in the Ukraine war [Russia-Ukraine War], and, what the Kursk incursion clearly shows is that its demise has been sadly over-reported to date.HostThe article suggests the need to foster a culture of mission command. How can military organizations effectively cultivate this culture, especially in a high-intensity conflict like Ukraine?HackettTo John’s point, talking about the Kursk incursion, certainly innovation adaptation has been important to the Ukrainian success on that front. Mission command has also been very important. The degree to which the Ukrainians have been able to delegate authority onto subordinate units, [and] frankly, the Russian failure to do so, this is something that we saw very much in the first year of the war, where subordinate Russian forces were unable to respond to changing factors on the ground without direct command from higher echelons. Communication did not only cause a time delay in responding on the ground, but also created a real vulnerability that the Ukrainians effectively exploited to strike at command centers. I suspect that something similar to that probably happened in Kursk as well. In the second year of the war, when we were looking at mission command, we looked at Russia’s enforced conscription, opening its prisons to recruit new soldiers for the front line. And, those new soldiers were given very little training. This, in turn, led to very little agency given to those units, as there was really no opportunity to build the trust needed to allow for high command to feel comfortable to delegate decision-making autonomy. This wasn’t the case on the Ukrainian side, which benefited from extensive training and a [significantly] different culture, allowing subordinate units more autonomy. While we have an entire section, an entire chapter dedicated to mission command, I think this idea of distributed operations is a common thread that was woven into almost every chapter that we looked at in the second year. Whether it’s the decentralization of fire’s direction or creating a culture of innovation and adaptation or even in the information space, our information expert discussed how Ukraine was brilliant in its ability to delegate authority and autonomy to its government officials and military spokespeople to speak directly to the public audience—not only in Ukraine, but to the Western partners as well—in a way that is deeply authentic and convincing. It’s been crucial to building shared resolve, both in the US and with our NATO partners. And, I think we could learn from that. We could look for ways ourselves to build in this advocacy into our military and broader US government messaging.HostGiven the assertion that air superiority is a prerequisite for successful ground offensive, what challenges have emerged in achieving this in the Russia-Ukraine War? And, how might these lessons influence future air-ground integration strategies?NaglWe had two different Air Force officers examine the role of airpower during the second year of the Ukrainian war, and the American pilot, call sign “Boss,” unsurprisingly, I think, said that airpower is the key to victory, as airpower has been the key to victory since airpower was invented roughly a century ago. The non-American airpower advocate made a somewhat different argument. He said that Ukraine’s use of air defense systems, of air denial, was enabling, if not victory, at least Ukrainian survival, and he wondered whether there’s a less expensive way to negate the use of airpower on the battlefield. My own sense, in particular, for the American audience to whom we’re mostly writing, is that the former argument is more correct, that in order to gain ground, in order to seize ground on the battlefield, air superiority remains immensely valuable. Although again, during the Kursk incursion, Ukraine didn’t yet have its F-16s up in the air, but nonetheless managed to seize ground using elements of surprise [and] using artillery systems in some ways to achieve some of the effects of airpower. And so, while the American military certainly hopes that it will always have air superiority, that we’ll be able to use multiple domains interacting together to place the adversary in as uncomfortable and difficult a position as possible, the Ukraine [Russia-Ukraine] War  continues to be a case that has different lessons, depending on where you look and what part of the war you examine. I’m reminded of the blind men feeling the elephant and thinking it’s a fan and a tree trunk and a rope. And the Ukraine [Russia-Ukraine] War is all of those different things all at once. I do think that America should continue to try to achieve air superiority whenever possible, but when it can’t, it should study the lessons of what Ukraine has been able to do in air denial and achieve great things with limited resources, which is a challenge the United States military hasn’t had to struggle with for many years, but it’s a great reminder that ingenuity and national will, national resilience, which was another thing we studied in the second year of the war, have enormous and lasting benefits for an army, for a defense department, and for a nation.HostUnfortunately, we have to wrap it up. I’d love to hear—did we leave anything out? Do you have any concluding thoughts you’d like to share?HackettThe biggest question left unanswered here is what comes next? Not only in year three with Russia’s slow advance into eastern Ukraine and Ukraine’s incursion into the Kursk and Belgorod regions, but what are the prospects for war termination? What is the future for Ukraine post-conflict? And, I think a lot of that really depends upon maintaining resolve in Ukraine, as well as its Western partners. And fixing Ukraine as a partner in transatlantic institutions like the European Union and NATO, and supporting and strengthening Ukraine as a liberal democracy, strengthening its institutions, helping to build a vibrant economy, a robust civil society. And, I think that the team assembling at the [US Army] War College right now to look at year three will have their hands full grappling with those very questions. But overall, I’m very proud of what our team was able to accomplish over the past year. And, I’m so honored and humbled to have been part of the project. It’s really rare for us at the State Department to see how all the pieces of our military support puzzle come together. And, the incredible team that we brought together at the [US] Army War College pulled expertise from across the Joint Force, as John mentioned, from active duty, reserve, National Guard, and crucially included international fellows from Ukraine and from our NATO partners who really are on the front line of this conflict. I really think and hope that the insights that this team of professionals has shared will help not only Ukraine but, really, our own Joint Force and unified command more broadly in the fight of the future. And I’ve really been grateful to have been a part of it.HostWhat a great note to end on. Listeners, you can download the article at https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/. Look for volume 54, issue 3.For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace. John, Mike, it was a pleasure. Thank you for making time for this today. NaglIt was fun, Stephanie. Thank you.HackettThank you so much.

In this episode, Colonel Daniel W. Henk (US Army, retired), PhD, and Dr. Allison Abbe discuss cultural education in the US military. They emphasize the importance of cultural capability across the competition and conflict continuum and address how the Department of Defense can build on service culture centers’ efforts to address the LREC skills military personnel need to work effectively across cultural boundaries, whether during conflict against an adversary or in interoperability with allies and partners.E-mail [email protected] to give feedback on this podcast or the genesis article.Podcast record date: August 27, 2024Keywords: culture, human domain, cross-cultural competence, military educationEpisode transcriptStephanie Crider (host)You are listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.I'm talking remotely with Colonel Daniel W. Henk and Dr. Allison Abbe, authors of “Restoring Priority on Cultural Skill Sets for Modern Military Professionals,” which you can find in the Autumn 2024 issue of Parameters.Henk, US Army retired, holds a PhD in social anthropology. His research interests include peace operations, human and environmental security, and civil-military relations. He was the founding director of the Air Force Culture and Language Center.Abbe is a professor of organizational studies and the Matthew B. Ridgway Chair of Leadership Studies at the US Army War College. Her research focuses on [the] development of leadership and intercultural skills in national security leaders.Welcome to Decisive Point, Dan and Allison.COL Dan Henk (US Army, retired)Thank you.Dr. Allison AbbeThanks for hosting.HostWhy are human relations skills important to US military operations or partnerships in today’s culturally complex environments? And, if you could, briefly cite a couple of specific examples to illustrate your answer.HenkA compelling argument could really be made that in conflict in the early twenty-first century, managing human relations has risen to a level of importance that we’ve never seen before. And for the military professional, doing the nation’s business really now means an ability to understand and to work very well with very diverse communities under the constant scrutiny and instant reporting of the information age and, often, unfortunately, with malign actors waiting and watching for our missteps. Poor command of human relations skills could very easily lead to mission failure at any level of responsibility and across the entire spectrum of military involvements.If you don’t mind, let me just offer a couple of examples.In 2004, not long after our latest intervention in Iraq, a very perceptive young Marine documented American military deficiencies in working across cultural boundaries at the tactical level in Iraq. His article appeared in Small Wars Journal and was titled “Marines Are from Mars, Iraqis Are from Venus.” He made the point, based on his observation, that it is very difficult to work with people when you are clueless about their take on reality, about their norms, about their values, about their expectations, and about their grievances and their insecurities.But, you know, the same thing is true at a higher level, as well. In my role as an attaché and a researcher, I frequently overheard comments by host nation officials describing US military connections. Some were complimentary, to be sure. Many were not. In fact, American military personnel were really often characterized as impatient, insensitive to local dynamics, and much more inclined to operate on transmit than on receive. Now, the fact of the matter is a grounding in the more advanced skills of cross-cultural competence could have been a considerable help—both in avoiding offense and in discerning the true nature of the relationships.We have had senior officials that have displayed really commendable cross-cultural skills at very high levels of responsibility. Particularly noteworthy were [Special Presidential Envoy] Robert Oakley and Director of Operations Marine General Anthony Zinni in Operation Restore Hope in Somalia in ’92 and ’93. These two men were true cross-cultural adepts. They were able to reconcile and work with extraordinarily diverse and difficult actors in one of the world’s most problematic conflict environments. They reached out, they communicated well, they reconciled hostile factions, and they achieved a remarkable cooperation. Sadly, their UN [United Nations] successors had no such motivation or capability, and their American peers generally lacked their cross-cultural proficiency.The point here, again, is that the military profession in the twenty-first century will succeed or fail based on its ability to understand opponents, appeal to the uncommitted, and work effectively with partners and allies. And, cross-cultural competence is key to these capabilities.AbbeLooking forward, the National Defense Strategy does really rely on allies and partners in this strategy. And so, developing those relationships at all levels, from the tactical to strategic, is really important for success, especially in our relationships in the Pacific, where we might not have had the same level of experience, where military personnel serving now all have experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, now, we are looking to the Pacific, where they may not have as much cultural awareness or cultural knowledge. So, we need to rebuild that in personnel for another theater. And, more broadly, just for the strategy and facing all of our potential adversaries and competitors, it would be important to incorporate these cultural skills that we talk about in the article.HostThe Department of Defense has identified language, regional expertise, and culture—the LREC rubric—as a body of related essential skills. Yet, you’ve chosen to focus on culture and, even more specifically, on cross-cultural competence. How do these skill sets relate, and why does your discussion single out culture?HenkWell, there has been, since the early twenty-first century, a new DoD focus on this new paradigm of LREC—language, regional expertise, and culture. Behind this formula is actually the explicit assumption that these are mutually reinforcing skills. We fully agree with that. Absolutely. But, imagine the best of all worlds—a military professional deploys to a contingency environment fluent in the local language, having a detailed knowledge of the region, [and] steeped in cross-cultural expertise. Of course, if these skills could be combined and harnessed in one person, he or she would have an unmatched ability to impact the social environment.But, you know, that combination is an absolutely optimum scenario. It is conceivable but is very far from likely—simply because of the limitations of time and resources and human capacity. It is much more probable that real fluency in foreign languages and pockets of deep regional expertise will continue in our system to reside largely in specialized communities accessed as needed.That being the case, here are a couple of observations.Our need for foreign language speakers is so obvious that it hardly requires comment, and language-enabled service personnel are worth every penny we spend on them. And, we could do more—and should. But, no matter what inducements we use, we will never fully satisfy the language demand, particularly the requirements for sudden, newly needed languages. We all know that military professionals are not all able to learn languages or to learn them well, and very few of us will learn enough different languages to cover all likely contingency environments to which we may be sent.Now, the same holds true for regional knowledge, actually. It is valuable stuff. We should produce more of it. But, when it’s held by one person, it’s simply not going to stretch far enough and deep enough to cover even the predictable, let alone the unforeseen, in the worldwide responsibilities of the general-purpose forces. The fact is we are devoting substantial resources to both language and regional expertise, but these two skill sets, despite their value, have significant limitations. That’s why, for us, the long pole in the human-relations tent has to be cross-cultural competence. Sure, that competence would be immensely enhanced if supported by language fluency and regional expertise in the right place and time—and again, if these were available. But of the three, cross-cultural competence is the only generalized set of skills that could be used anywhere. It’s the only set that could be instantly available. That’s why cross-cultural competence is an astute investment. If we can produce it, you can be absolutely assured we will use it everywhere all the time.AbbeI just want to emphasize that point about how difficult it is to scale language proficiency very rapidly—even getting personnel to limited proficiency for operations takes [a] substantial amount of time. And so, being able to scale that, as we found in previous conflicts, there’s just so many limitations on it. So, we’re not arguing against language skills per se but arguing for a more scalable skill set in helping personnel understand cultures and how to make sense of other cultures wherever it is that they find themselves in deployments.Henk Well, most Western military establishments, certainly including our own, could offer at least occasional examples of senior leaders with remarkable cross-cultural skills. Anthony Zinni, we’ve already mentioned is a case in point.We have had these examples of people who could do this stuff very, very well, but they did it as an art. Their background [and] maybe their experience all contributed to their personal ability to do this. We want to make this a replicable science that we can spread much more widely than the isolated artists that have practiced it well in the past.HostWhat institutional approaches would you recommend to embed and sustain US military cross-cultural skills?HenkAs an organizational culture, we do, at times, exhibit a notorious fickleness, [a] tendency to chase butterflies, and a tendency to abandon promising initiatives that do not produce instant results. Now, these characteristics have worked against the culture initiatives in the past, but there are some significant differences now, and there is room for optimism here. The military need for culture skills is more evident today than it’s ever been. Any lack of these skills is much more quickly and graphically visible to a worldwide attended public than any time in the past. There’s lots of incentive for acquiring this skill set. Also, while the culture initiatives in the past two decades seem to have stalled, they did make some progress that appears to be, at least, somewhat durable. These initiatives did result in the recruitment of more culture educators than we have ever had in the past. They’re now at least thinly seated in military education.These initiatives also produce more culture content in that education, even if it remains at a very foundational level. So, there is a nucleus of a constituency and a body of culture education that simply did not exist before. But probably much more significantly, the LREC development as a whole, including culture skill, is now embedded in Office of the Secretary of Defense [OSD] and Joint Staff mandates and is visible in OSD oversight infrastructure. If it’s given sufficient priority, resources, and teeth, these mandates could be powerful instruments to push the program along.That said, as we argued in the article, we believe that the development of a cross-culturally competent force requires at least four additional essential initiatives to achieve a lasting status and impact. These, we argue, are a senior advocate in OSD—like the senior language authority but charged specifically with overseeing culture skills development. We think it’s necessary to have a strategic plan for culture development similar to the Language Transformation Roadmap of 2005, which provided, actually, a real strategy—ends, ways, and means. We think it’s important that we renew the emphasis of recruitment of culture subject matter experts, those with terminal degrees, into both military education and into the policy infrastructure. Most importantly of all, we think that a defense culture center similar in shape to the Defense Equal Opportunity Management Institute is necessary to push the science, connect the research to practice, and infuse it into the skills development that’s needed at all levels. It’s our firm conviction that these measures would finally embed cross-cultural competence in the collective American military mind as a critically important set of conceptual tools.AbbeI think that the Marine Corps’ Center for Advanced Operational Culture Learning, which is now no longer in existence, is a good example of an organization that was able to translate the social science into something actionable for Marines to use. So, that might serve as a model for how to reestablish some of these connections. The Department of Defense is funding social science through the Minerva program [Minerva Research Initiative] that may be relevant to this kind of professional development that Dan talks about, but there’s a missing link there to make that more accessible in military professional education or training programs. Some of the recommendations that we’ve made in the article would help bridge that gap between the research and the practitioners so that they can be better prepared to interact in those cultures when they find themselves in exercises or deployments.HostYour article also alludes to a long-term educational process to develop cross-cultural skills within the force. What would that process look like?HenkHow would we acquire a cross-cultural competent military? It would not be quick. It would not be easy. But, culture skills could reach a much broader community of practitioners than the deep-language skills or the regional expertise. Now, building that competence is an educational process, but it’s an educational process that involves conceptual molding over a long period of time. [The] earlier it starts in life, the better.Ideally, for at least military personnel, the start time should at least be pre-accession education, and the molding would continue through the whole professional lifetime. For this kind of education to be effective, it simply has to be empirically based, continuous, persistent, consistent, experiential—let me emphasize that. Experiential—and measurable. We will not get there if we try to base it on boutique seminars, culture hustler contractors, idiosyncratic educators, or unconnected learning episodes. The building blocks have to correlate with each other. They have to relate to the foundation.If we expect the recipients of this learning to take it seriously and not dismiss it as superficial, subjective, and speculative, we are going to be obliged to prove that the skills are real, they are progressive, and they do impart a significant capability. Military cross-culture competence today might be a lot like military aviation in the 1920s. We see its potential, but we know we have a long way to go to realize it.AbbeI would just add that the professional development also has to be sustainable from the institution’s perspective. The Army adopted a culture and foreign language strategy in 2009 with some of these, outlining what some of the professional development would look like at different career stages. But, ultimately, that plan was not really sustainable from a resourcing perspective, and so, I think part of the job of culture scientists and a potential DoD culture center would be to look at what are most efficient ways to develop some of these skills so that it’s sustainable from a resourcing perspective over time.HostListeners, you can download the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 54, issue 3. For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.Thank you so much.AbbeYour time. Thank you, Stephanie. Appreciate you, too.HenkThank you.

In this episode, Dr. C. Anthony Pfaff, interim director of the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College, discusses his work on managing escalation during the Israel-Hamas War. The conversation covers the complexities of Israel’s deterrence strategies, the proposed ceasefire, and the implications of Hamas’ potential power dynamics akin to Hezbollah. Pfaff highlights the delicate balance required in deterring Iranian support for Hamas and the importance of diplomatic efforts in establishing sustainable ceasefire conditions and examines how Israel’s strategies can inform global conflict resolution, offering insights into the intricate dynamics of military and diplomatic engagement in international relations.E-mail [email protected] to give feedback on this podcast or the genesis article.Podcast record date: September 5, 2024Keywords: Israel, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, Israeli Defense Forces, violent extremist organizationsDownload the full transcript: https://media.defense.gov/2024/Nov/06/2003579418/-1/-1/0/DP5-25-PFAFF-TRANSCRIPT.PDF

In this episode, Steven Metz discusses his article, “The Challenges of Next-Gen Insurgency,” which was published in the Autumn 2024 issue of Parameters. We discuss how generational conflict may drive future insurgencies, particularly tensions between youth and older generations fueled by frustration and radical ideologies. Metz emphasizes the importance of narrative control in modern cybersecurity and information warfare, suggesting that this shift will redefine counterinsurgency strategies. He also explores how insurgents increasingly focus on undermining state authority, presenting challenges for state responses. This conversation urges a reevaluation of traditional counterinsurgency methods to better address evolving threats, with Metz’s insights set to be further detailed in his forthcoming book.E-mail [email protected] to give feedback on this podcast or the genesis article.Record date: 22 August 2024Keywords: insurgency, Cold War, people’s war, Mao Zedong, social media, al-QaedaDownload the full transcript: https://media.defense.gov/2024/Nov/05/2003578522/-1/-1/0/DP5-24-Metz-Transcript.PDF

In this episode, Dr. Jeff McManus discusses his article, “Operating Successfully Within the Bureaucracy Domain of Warfare: Part Two.” He addresses seven key fundamentals for navigating bureaucracy, emphasizing the importance of principles, perspective, and prediction in policy making. McManus highlights effective persuasion strategies, the role of privacy in building trust, and how programming and budgeting influence policy formulation, as well as the significance of objectivity and social media’s impact on credibility, providing valuable insights for professionals navigating complex bureaucratic environments.Read part one of the series here: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol54/iss2/11/Listen to the podcast about part one of this series here: https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/SSI-Media/Recent-Publications/Article/3900805/operating-successfully-within-the-bureaucracy-domain-of-warfare-part-one/E-mail [email protected] to give feedback on this podcast or the genesis article.Podcast record date: July 15, 2024Keywords: bureaucracy, fundamentals, policy, politics, strategyDownload the transcript: https://media.defense.gov/2024/Oct/29/2003572891/-1/-1/0/DP5-23-MCMANUS-TRANSCRIPT.PDF

With the 2024 US presidential election fast approaching, Dr. Carrie A. Lee takes on the topic of retired flag officer endorsements and political campaigns and how public servant endorsements influence public trust in the military. Is there a way for active duty and retired military servicemembers to navigate their roles in political discourse without undermining democratic principles? How risky is it for retired military leaders to endorse political candidates considering the perception of military impartiality?  E-mail [email protected] to give feedback on this podcast or the genesis article.  Keywords: political endorsements, retired general officers, non-partisanship, norm-based approach, civil-military trustDownload the transcript: https://media.defense.gov/2024/Oct/23/2003569803/-1/-1/0/DP5-22_LEE-TRANSCRIPT.PDF