Line of effort 2: Deterring China without confrontation

MAJ Brennan Deveraux, COL Michael Long, and LTC Loris Lepri

In this episode of SSI Live, Major Brennan Deveraux interviews Army Strategists Colonel Michael Long and Lieutenant Colonel Loris Lepri to get their take on the recently released National Defense Strategy. The conversation explores the importance of the strategic document and is structured around its four lines of effort.

John Deni

Hello and welcome to SSI Live. You’ve long known the Strategic Studies Institute, or SSI, at the US Army War College, as the go-to location for issues related to national security and military strategy, with an emphasis on geostrategic analysis. SSI conducts strategic research and analysis to support the US Army War College curricula; assist and inform Army, DoD, and US government leadership; and serve as a bridge to the wider strategic community. Now, we are bringing you access to SSI analyses, scholars, and guests, through this, the SSI Live podcast series. Thanks for joining us.     

Brennan Deveraux   

Welcome back to SSI live. I’m still your host, Major Brennan Devereaux. I’m joined today by Colonel Mike Long and Lieutenant Colonel Loris Lepri. Colonel Long is an army strategist. He is the director of the China Landpower Study Center (CLSC) and will soon take over as the director of the Strategic Research and Analysis Department (SRAD) over at SSI becoming officially my boss instead of just a mentor.

Lieutenant Colonel Lepri is also an army strategist. He’s the director of the US Army War College Distance program resident courses. All of us have backgrounds in the Western Hemisphere working at Army North. And figured it’d be a good time to bring the crew together to talk about some of the stuff that recently populated in the National Defense Strategy.

And that’s going to be the focus of the conversation today. We’re going to be discussing that document, its impact, its implications, kind of what it means. So, Colonel Long, I’m going to start with you. On top of just being a strategist for, you know, a long time, being in these positions, having to adjust to, strategy as it comes out.

You also spent some time where I first met you at Fort Leavenworth teaching young majors about strategy, particularly talking about these documents, kind of how they nest. And recently, you also did a podcast on the CLSC Dialogues on the National Security Strategy. Kind of the overarching document. Can you talk a little bit about the NDS, what it is, what it means for kind of the community?

Michael Long

Yeah, absolutely. First, Brennan, thank you so much for having me here today. And, Loris, I appreciate you being here as well. It’s great to be able to sit down and talk to three other, to three total Army strategists and, kind of go over sort of our key seminal documents. So I appreciate that. So, let’s talk about this document, the National Defense Strategy, the one just posted, in January of this year.

So what is this document? If we kind of look at it holistically, the first thing I’ll say is the unclassified version that we’re looking at is really, like I said, an unclassified summary. The real document is a classified version that’s much longer, much more comprehensive. So there will be elements that are not necessarily included here that are going to be part of that classified document.

So, this document is nested to the NSS and I would argue that this specific National Defense Strategy that we’re going to talk about is the most nested to any NSS of any of the National Defense Strategies that we’ve seen so far. And there’s really three big, national level strategic documents that we like to talk about. Right?

So, we just talked about the National Security Strategy, just did a podcast on that on CLSC Dialogues. Please go listen if you’re interested. We’re talking right now about the National Defense Strategy, which we’ve said is necessary to it. And the next one is the National Military Strategy. But the National Military Strategy is not the only aspect of what comes from the National Defense Strategy.

So, National Defense Strategy Post, is prepared by the Secretary of Defense or Secretary of War, as he calls himself here, the, National Military Strategy is by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But there’s other, other aspects that flow from this. So, several other strategic documents. So that includes our service strategies come from this, as well as our combat command strategies and plans come from this as well.

Deveraux       

So this document just published, that’s going to start a lot of necessary movement for those big thinkers somewhere. The services and the combat commands, the think tanks who are looking at defense policy, it’s really starting a lot of kind of processes.

Long  

Yeah. Exactly. Right. And what’s unique about the National Defense Strategy is that it’s got a significant and, and, statutorily, implementation plan. And that’s really how does this document, how does this turn into action. Right. So this is what we as strategists see is the transition of strategic guidance into operational and tactical results. And so, when we look at this this is really institutional strategy mostly.

And that’s because it’s developed along budgeting this thing called global force management. Where do we put all of the military allocations? Like the stuff the tanks, the planes, the units. Where did this go around the world? What are they focused against? And this thing called defense planning guidance as well, which comes out of another, document that comes from this.

Deveraux       

Okay. So that’s the NDS as a whole. What about this specific NDS?

Long  

Yeah, that’s a that’s a really good question. And I this is what I really wanted to get into today. Like the NSS, the National Defense Strategy sees the world from a multi-polar perspective. And this is what Secretary [Marco] Rubio has talked about quite a bit. And so what we look at is, since the end of the Soviet Union, the fall of Soviet Union, the United States has really looked at the world from a unipolar perspective as the United States being the largest part of that.

Deveraux       

What they call the end of history. But only for a short period. Right?

Long  

That’s exactly right. Yeah. Francis Fukuyama would be very proud of you on that. And so when we look at this document, what we see is this is a multipolar perspective, right? There is rising hegemons across the world. And this document responds to that hegemonial rise. Right. So we have a lot of experience in, a bipolar world between the United States and the Soviet Union.

But this is a multipolar where we’re looking at really three main actors. But there’s some other rising actors in there as well. So this specific document is developed by the undersecretary for policy. So that’s, Elbridge Colby. So if, he’s pretty famous for writing, writing a book specifically on this, right, The Strategy of Denial, and looking at, the world from a very realist perspective.

And his perspective in this is you can see throughout the document. So if you’re a realist and you see yourself having a relative loss of hegemonic power, you’re going to make some specific actions. A lot of those decisions are made throughout this document. We’re going to talk about those here in a bit. I would contrast that significantly with the first Trump administration’s strategies nesting strategy document.

So that was really developed by H.R. McMaster. He’s got a kind of famous book called Battlegrounds, which he really looks at from a different perspective. Right. So his book is, counters your statement from Fukuyama about the end of history saying, hey, we really didn’t pay enough attention to these rising powers. And he he’s much less realist. He sees the power, the value of hard power, but that’s really not his focus. This document says it’s flexible, practical realism. But I think from a political science perspective, it’s pretty heavy realist. And again, that’s about that relative decline in power to a rising hegemonic.

Deveraux       

And you talk about the powers. I think instinctively we just go China, maybe Russia, depending on how you view Russia’s actions in Ukraine and where they’re heading the future. But there’s more than that. As we talk about, you know, what’s kind of out there and the document does start with looking at that security environment. We don’t know where we’re going if we don’t outline kind of what we’re looking at.

Can you talk a little bit about how they structure, just briefly, the security environment, the threat, what we’re facing out there.

Long  

Yeah, that’s one of my favorite parts of the document is the is the current state, as we would call it, if we were writing a strategy. And so it hits a couple pieces. Most of those are going to be very familiar to us. The first one is gets hit from a unique perspective. I’m not going to get too much into that, that’s Loris’ area there. So that pivot to America that we see, that’s a new look at homeland defense from, a perspective, that sees it as much more vulnerable than we have in the past. And these are mostly technological upgrades.

The second part of that is what we’ve seen in the past, and that’s China, as a threat. And that’s, the most powerful country relative to US since the 19th century. And it’s kind of took me some time to kind of think about what that means. 19th century is a long time ago, and what that rising hegemon means to us and how we’re responding to that. And I’ll get into that a little bit when we talk about that line of effort focused on the Indo-Pacific.

The next is Russia, which I won’t say that this document dismisses, but it’s it sees it as a very manageable threat. It describes it as a persistent threat, mostly to NATO, specifically on its eastern front. So kind of see that in Ukraine and then in the Balkans as well. Iran is also labeled as one of these threats, and that’s mostly from a nuclear perspective.

And finally, this, strategy, unlike the National Security Strategy, really has a big aspect on Korea, North Korea that the DPRK and what it’s looking at is, you know, the DPRK now has the ability to target the homeland with long range missiles. It has these capabilities. And then we know that it’s a nuclear power as well.

Deveraux       

And I know from our last conversation, that we did when I introduced you as the, CLSC Director, the North Korea problem set, very much something you’re familiar with coming out of Eighth Army.

Long  

Yeah, absolutely.

Deveraux       

So that one near and dear to your heart when it got the shout out?

Long  

Absolutely. Yes. I definitely appreciate that. I think I think Korea’s really important for a lot of reasons. You know, we talk about the value of being on or within the first island chain. I mean, Korea is on the peninsula. It’s the only location we fought the PRC before in the past. It, it’s incredibly important we see the USFK commander that the US forces Korea commander, General [Xavier] Brunson, talking about it quite a bit, and he kind of describes it as an aircraft carrier out there that’s, got quite a bit of capabilities to help both deter North Korea as well as China.

Deveraux       

Okay. Lieutenant Colonel Lepri, I feel like I’ve been ignoring you. I apologize, but…

Loris Lepri    

Mike is very interesting, so.

Deveraux       

And we’ve all worked together, so, we know who can dominate a conversation when they need to. But no, that was really interesting. I appreciate it. The framework to really start the conversation. And one of the things that the document does and it does well is it provides prioritization, right? It says where we’re going and how we’re going to get there.

We talked about the initiation of movement that that creates, the action that creates. But if we could actually talk some of those specific efforts and we’ll just use that to kind of walk the dog on the four lines of effort, it outlined and, which Lieutenant Colonel Lepri I’ll kick it over to you first. Line of effort one, defend the US homeland. I joked, all three of us have served at Army North.

And I remember when I showed up, you were the guy running the plans for Army North. So I know you have a unique background. Do you want to talk a little bit about, you know, kind of what’s in line of effort one and what it means for the force? 

Lepri  

Yeah. Well, thanks. Colonel Long and Brennan for having me on the podcast. The first line of effort, obviously very near and dear to my heart. I’ve been working in the homeland defense space for the past six years or so, and I’ve gotten pretty enmeshed in some of the different efforts going on. It is good that the homeland is the number one line of effort.

However, I would say that in and of itself is not particularly new. We see it as a number one line of effort in the 2022 NDS under the [Joseph] Biden administration. Same thing back in 2018 when it was [James] Mattis NDS and all the way back to the 2014 QDR, the Quadrennial Defense Review. And, even before that, we’ve had the homeland be the number one effort.

But the ways in which we went around, went about homeland defense has changed over time, and I think that this particular document represents a significant shift in the way we look at how we defend ourselves in the homeland. But before we get into that, I just wanted to say that the homeland defense line of effort is one of the longer lines of effort.

It has seven, unique sub efforts or sub objectives that is listed in there, more than any of the others. And it seems a little bit more specified in terms of the tasks that we are talking about, compared to some of the more general topics like the defense industrial base.

Deveraux       

Yeah. And it’s you can see that in the threat as well. The Western Hemisphere is very much a focus. And I think that hit to what Colonel Long was talking about before kind of this shift to the Americas. Playing off of the shift to the Pacific that has been, long kind of occurring as we struggle to get out of the Middle East.

But, yeah, 100% the western hemisphere, the homeland, very specified a lot of the content of that the document.

Lepri  

Yeah. And I like to talk about that for a second. Because here’s where I see the biggest shift. So you see the second and third objectives, which are, you know, counter narco terrorism in the hemisphere and secure feature in the Western Hemisphere is a large umbrella, with a lot of different subtasks underneath homeland defense. Now, however, once again, very focused on the hemisphere.

And in the past, what we’ve seen, you know, from the 2018 NDS, we had the global operating model come out, which was published almost in tandem with the multi-domain operations concept. And we were really looking at there was, the away game of you, as you’ve referred to it before, you know, fighting our adversaries forward and then defending any, anything that gets through the forward theater in the approaches to the homeland and then finally defeating adversary capabilities within the homeland, if they get through. Here we’re looking at much more of an inside out approach.

We’re going to secure our hemisphere, first, and then we’re going to look outward to see where the major threats are and where our priority efforts as a country need to be.

Deveraux       

And I find it interesting that they use fairly tactical terms with this. Right. We’re going to secure terrain, even critical terrain, which I think more I’m doing a battalion operation order than, you know, the broad picture, but it really does put the lens of focus that this is, it’s not an abstract idea that, you know, we have a homeland, and I know the phrase we’ve joked about the phrase.

I have said it was incredibly overused. But “the homeland is no longer a sanctuary,” is the, you know, the mantra, when you’re working in the Western Hemisphere. And I think that the strategic documents have really caught up to that.   

Lepri  

Yeah, I would agree. I would say that the 2022 NDS yes, did specifically call out some threats that weren’t necessarily called out in this NDS, looking at, are the threat to mobilization of military forces going forward theaters and also the threats to the defense industrial base. However, I would assume that in the classified version that will be a little bit more built out and will look at specifically how to protect some of the either non-kinetic or, non, or maybe I should say more gray zone, attacks in the homeland.

Deveraux       

Yeah. And I know that the contested deployment aspect of prioritizing the homeland has become a major topic for the military thinkers. So, I know the War College has done projects on it, both with faculty and as a larger student integrated research project. And for those who do follow the occasional article you could find on the homeland, you know, buried in some other journal, that’s not its focus.

That’s a major theme, right? You know, can we get out, you know, without having, the enemy interdict us? So there’s an aspect of and I’ve put it in an article, an aspect of, we should assume that we’re going to take some sort of degradation. And that doesn’t have to mean like, ship has been sunk. It could be something as easy as things are delayed 2 to 3 days, which when we talk about crossing the world, that could be a major issue as those effects start cascading.

Lepri  

Yeah. No. Absolutely. And when you look at it, this from our enemy’s perspective, it makes complete and total sense. We still have the most powerful and most capable military in the world. Once you get the full might of American power anywhere, it has absolutely devastating effects on our adversaries. But we are at the Army War College. I need to quote a dead strategist.

So I’m going to go with Sun Tzu this time. “The second highest form of generalship is to prevent the juncture of the adversary’s forces.” So if our adversaries can create enough problems within the homeland to prevent us from getting the men, equipment, material, capabilities overseas, then we might not be able to have the strategic effect and achieve those military objectives.

So that’s something that we really have to look at closely in the homeland. And for those of, anybody that’s going to be around Carlisle, in the next two weeks, we’re going to have the Homeland Defense Symposium and really dive into some of those issues, which I’m pretty excited about.

Deveraux       

That’s a great shameless plug. And I hope that I can get this podcast published fast enough, so that people can check out the symposium, which the dates are…

Lepri  

Yeah, they’re going to be the 17th through 19th of February. Okay.

Deveraux       

Because two weeks from today might not be two weeks from launch. And that’s okay. I’m, I’m going to do my due diligence. If I don’t, you should totally still check out the, the findings. And, you know, the conference proceedings book ends up coming out. It’s going to be a good event. It’s run every year here.

And Bert Tussing, who is, you know, like the person for it.

Lepri  

The homeland defense man.

Deveraux       

You know, runs it every year. And we got to take advantage of him while he is still willing to work. So when we talk about the contested deployment, the contested mobilization, that’s become a common theme, a common trend. We talk about gray zone. You already brought it up. Cyber. The whole multi-domain aspect, even just information operations confusing the ability to move forces around that is kind of become a norm of the conversation in the community.

But I think we’ve talked on the side. There’s something else that’s kind of elevated as we talk about the homeland now, kind of bringing back the aspect of a large conventional threat.

Lepri  

Yes, absolutely. When we look at our adversaries over the past decade or so, I mean, the hypersonic missiles, the hypersonic glide vehicles that can deliver devastating effects to the homeland, of course, are a big issue. I think the big change from the Soviet era, it was the fact that, you know, back in the day, we only had one threat to look at if there was a large missile coming toward the United States, we pretty much knew who was from, nowadays we have a lot more adversaries as Colonel Long was talking about looking at North Korea in particular, but also, you know, China, Russia, a lot of people that can potentially, try to impact the homeland. And the Trump administration has really focused on the Golden Dome concept. He signed the President, signed the executive order that introduced that particular, effort very shortly after he became President, within about two weeks of his inauguration.

And that golden dome has already received a significant amount of funding, about $22 billion, which is, you know, the President put it as a down payment for, what that system could be and which may or may not come about, in the near future just because of some of the challenges just through development.

Deveraux       

Yeah. And I think the, the biggest challenge with that, other than, you know, the science and money, that go along with it is really understanding what we’re trying to accomplish with it. So it is a concept, a concept of improving our defensive position. It is not a, as you can envision just by the name, an actual, you know, dome of protection right there.

Everything is defeatable, everything, you know, has vulnerabilities. But if we go in with the concept and the agreement, because I know we’ve disagreed and I’ve disagreed with a lot of the homeland, academics or enthusiasts, of, you know, the threat is now or the threats been around for a long time that missiles haven’t been flying.

But I don’t think anyone could disagree with just having a better defensive position.

Lepri  

Yeah. I mean, really, what the what this is described as is a system of systems. You know, I think it is definitely looking at trying to reduce the vulnerabilities in the case of a large scale conflict, arguably, you know, when the missiles start flying between big countries, a lot of the stuff goes out the window because we might not be too far away from nuclear devastation.

However, just because we may not see a large-scale missile exchange doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be ready for it. You know, my house has been never been broken into, but I still lock the door every night.

Deveraux       

You should be an insurance salesman. There’s an asset to that, and we can. I know that we disagree on some aspects of it. Some protection is worthwhile. And there is an aspect of. We’ll also come get you. Right. So, you’re not making America completely disappear. I feel bad for anyone. As you know, they learn to, 20-some-odd years ago who attacks America? We come with retribution.

And I think that takes us to line of effort two. And I know, Colonel Long itching to get back in the conversation. We have to protect the homeland. We have to be able to protect forces, because there still is this, you know, really big potential threat out there. Line of effort two, deter China in the Indo-Pacific through strength, not confrontation.

Long  

I think getting back to the Golden Dome before I go to that, I think, it shouldn’t surprise any of our listeners that a rocket artillery, artillery man like yourself, believes in the value of, rockets, versus the defeat mechanisms for them. But I think I think there really is a lot of value. You know, maybe you don’t turn it into an actual golden dome, but there’s, you know, the document talks about the value of electronic warfare.

And we’ve seen in modern warfare now the value of, of electronic warfare, in defeating some of these weapon systems, in addition to that, I think the sensing capability is incredibly important. And so there’s, especially with new technology like drones right now, there’s a lot of gaps and seams across the homeland where some of this drone technology could move in uncensored, or at least not since for a long time.

And I think even if we only can accomplish portions of what the goal of the Golden Dome is, there’s probably some value to that. What do you think that Loris? 

Lepri  

Absolutely. You know, I think we do need to think outside the box a little bit in terms of the concept, but strengthening our, you know, defenses in the aerial domain is certainly worthwhile, especially given the rapid technological shifts that we’re seeing almost daily.    

Long  

So, you know, when I was in Korea, we saw the launch of the Korean weapon system that looked like it was flying towards Hawaii and the, the large-scale concern that happened we had we alerted, a lot of the population centers of Hawaii. And I think improving that technology could help that quite a bit.

Deveraux       

And I think that’s important, though, going back to, if we frame the dome. So, I had a great conversation with Evan Ellis, the other day when we talk about the perception of air defense versus the reality of air defense, right? The media, perception or the movie perception. Right. So that investing in the Golden Dome, the Golden Dome is the bumper sticker for increasing the defense.

But if we look at it conceptually, it doesn’t have to just be giant missiles and lasers and stuff, shooting down things that are coming our way. Just exactly as you’re talking about, improving sensing capabilities is a huge aspect of improving our defensive position. And I think that if we approach it and better package it, you know, information wise to the people who aren’t necessarily as technical or into the expertise, of military operations to see it as a broader concept, than it carries a lot more weight because who disagrees?

We should have better sensing, you know, know, it just makes it, a lot more digestible for the conversation. But I know the document spends the majority of the time in the Western Hemisphere. We kind of did as well. We do have to shift to, you know, the threat that’s still out there and maybe a different approach, to how we deal with them.

Long  

Absolutely. So compared to what we’ve seen in the, in past strategic documents, this is much less antagonistic, towards China. It’s, I would describe it as very evenhanded. And it’s, I think, for those of us who, look at deterring conflict, one of the biggest concerns we have is, you know, a raised temperature in inside of the South China Sea, the first island chain, and the potential that has to overreaction, miscalculation and accidentally stepping into a war. So, this document tries to I think, step back from that a little bit and lower the temperature, which I think is kind of valuable. It does kind of it has a, a logic to it specifically for this. And it talks about the favorable balance of power in the Pacific.

Now, the three of us are all combat veterans when we think of favorable balance of power, what that means for us is we’re 10 to 1, 20 to 1 advantage. That’s not what this is talking about, right? It’s talking about a balance of power. And I think that, what that does is it, it avoids, that avoids the security dilemma where what we’ve seen in the past is, you know, I think it was in, during the [William] Clinton administration, there was, that we had a, Taiwan Strait crisis in which, the Clinton administration’s response was to sail a giant carrier group through that.

And it really concerned the Chinese. They didn’t have any capability of the sort. And that really was one of the beginning aspects of pushing their naval growth. And we seen the security dilemmas both sides of us have raised, sort of the, the capabilities inside of the South China Sea.

Deveraux       

I think you bring up interesting point. And we hit on this in a handful podcast. The idea of the strategic competition is a much longer game than a war. We joke about the infinite game, and classes that we want to just keep this going where we’re fighting for advantage. There might be a big win and doing a massive demonstration of force like you talked about.

So I think, what are the complications that come from that? What are the secondary tertiary effects 20 years later? So those moves we’re making now are deliberate. And I think that people are seeing that, that, China is going to respond whether they respond tomorrow or in 20 years. I know China’s in it for the long game.

If if anything, they have a much longer strategy when they start putting out their NSS or NDS equivalents. Right?

Long  

Absolutely agree. Staying on the theme of being sort of non-confrontational and not pushing it, you know, Taiwan’s not mentioned one time in this entire document. And I think that’s the thing is, there’s messaging that the National Defense Strategy has a messaging aspect, right? A lot of it is to, the Department of Defense or Department of War, you know, and the last line in the forward from, the Secretary of War says “all Department of War components will adhere to guidance and direction enclosed.”

And so that’s clear to us. We understand that we’re supposed to move forward on this. And I think that that’s obvious. But there’s also a messaging piece both to our allies as well as our adversaries like China. And we’re trying to I think this is that is the Taiwan piece is a way of sort of lowering the temperature on something that they’re very concerned with.

A couple of other aspects that it talks about is the first island chain. It kind of talks about the value of the first island chain with and omitting Taiwan. But we know that it sits right there within the chain. And the value of a strong military is what sort of prevents war in there. And this is really that peace through strength concept that it used.

The last aspect is that free and open Indo-Pacific, that’s, a term that we’ve been using since, the, the, Obama administration’s pivot, to the Pacific. And this document talks a lot about trade and, you know, kind of reminds him of the Dune quote, “the trade must flow.” And so I think that’s a real big aspect of the value of security in that area.

Deveraux       

No, I think your point about the audience is important. And we talked about this before when the National Security Strategy hit publish. And I remember talking about this years before I went to previous document publishers, the choice to do an unclassified, unclassified open source. Here is my plan. Changes how you have to have, your communication or doesn’t. And you deal with the secondary effects. Right. But there’s many audiences, to all of these documents, when you see the, the unclassified versions, whether that’s to your point, an adversary, a, an ally, the military, potentially the population. I don’t know how widespread these documents are read. My money says not a ton just because they, you know, general population is not as interested in foreign relations.            

But there’s also, unintended audiences, or maybe intended and kind of hard to reach businesses or, neutrals. I remember reading an article, that was published in India, about what the National Security Strategy was a handful years ago, what the National Security Strategy means for India and it’s democratic sliding. So there’s, there’s intentions, and then there’s potential unintended consequence, but definitely has audiences.

Lepri  

Yeah. So I think there’s a huge messaging component to this because a lot of times what we think is we develop a strategy and we put it out in the streets, and then it provides everybody with the initiative to go forward and do what we want accomplished. A lot of these activities and actions that have already begun in a lot of different ways.

We saw the action in Venezuela. We seen a lot of action on the border. I mean, these things were hot and heavy initiatives from day one of the administration. And, you know, this is first being published and put out there unclassified rather than having a classified version which gets distilled down and pushed out later. So, you know, in my mind this is more about messaging, probably especially since the unclassified came out first, then almost any other NDS that I’m familiar with in the past.

Deveraux       

Yeah, and I think the messaging definitely changes when we go classified. We have a very different conversation. But I think the messaging really fits into, understanding line of effort three, the increased burden sharing with us allies and partners.

Long  

Yeah. So this is an interesting perspective. And we’ve seen the, the administration talk, significantly about the how much burden sharing is required. I think it’s the opinion of much of the administration that there’s been, you know, a really a free rider aspect for a lot of our allies and not really taking the primacy or priority of their own security.

And this document looks to kind of, see that from a different aspect. This looks at a two-theater strategy from a different way from any of our previous NDSs. And I say it looks at one theater being a, a US led theater and one theater being an ally led theater. And so what we have for in an alliance, an ally to take over, they’re going to have to all of our allies will have to increase their, their, burden share.

And how much what their GDP is that they’re putting towards defense especially. And it calls out some countries really, you know, when we’re talking about Japan, Korea, the EU specifically.

Deveraux       

And I think within that and it’s definitely an aspect of the messaging, you talked about a little bit before, there’s kind of a downplaying of Russia, and it’s kind of a positive and negative where they talk about, Russia’s challenges. It puts a graph in there to show the difference in the economies. You know, what Russia actually has financially compared to Europe, while also undercutting that with, “oh, also, don’t forget, Russia has the most nuclear weapons of anyone in the world,” which is a fun reminder. Still a threat, but maybe more manageable then, you know, we often portrayed them.

Long  

Yeah. I think that, everyone would agree that Russia probably has the strongest singular military in Europe. However, you know, their economies are smaller than that of Italy. So it’s there does seem to be a mismatch there when we see Germany with the third largest economy, but such a small military. And why isn’t that growing?

And they are, they have started increasing their burden sharing. That’s true. NATO agreed to do a 5% increase. The document talks about the 5% increase. But what I’ll say is the United States doesn’t have, doesn’t do a 5% of GDP towards the military. Right. And so that’s why we’ve seen the administration ask for the 1.5 trillion, right, a 50% increase in budget.

And I think one of the reasons is, you know, to get after a lot of aspects of the strategies that we’re going to have to look at, you know, from Loris’, perspective in the Western Hemisphere, are we going to keep a carrier strike group there? Are we going to keep are we going to build a specific army force for the southwest border?

What is our what do we want to build and develop, to accomplish our strategy? And what do we think that’s going to cost?  

Deveraux       

I would note, though, that percentages are dangerous, because they don’t necessarily first account for what that spending is on. Right? Because it could be on varying things. Some paid personnel dramatically more than they invest in research and development. There’s that aspect of it. There’s also what is your GDP [gross domestic product]? So, I know that there are critics, when it comes to, US defense spending, we spend an inordinate amount of money and we have a ton of capabilities, which as a uniformed officer, I’m all for.

But, you know, a drastic increase, for the percentage game might mean a lot of increase, to some countries, and less so, to others, I understand it as a balancing tool for the burden sharing, but, it definitely does have different impact on different countries.

Long  

Yeah. And what we’re going to see is more incentivization is what this talks about for, for our allies. Right. So prioritizing, cooperation, engagement exercises, etc., with our allies who are meeting these sort of burden sharing requirements. You brought up Europe and, and Russia a little bit, but it also articulates the Middle East and the Korea problem sets.

So, from, from, you know, my old stomping grounds of Korea. What that looks like I think from us is Korea prepared to fight on North Korea as the primacy lead with maybe the US in a supporting role? This is significantly different than what we see right now with, once again, General Brunson from the US Forces Korea Command is really being the overall lead has what would be called a combined forces command should we move to conflict with North Korea. So this is looking at all of these burden sharing from a different perspective. And I think the logic is the US is going to do everything it can to deter war with China but be prepared for it in that event that that turns into one theater of war, we need our allies to be able to lead any of the other theaters. I think that’s kind of way that’s looking.

Deveraux       

Yeah. I think the Middle East presents a really unique challenge within that, where we don’t necessarily have the network the same way. And it seems to be and I’ve joked, officially, in an article, it’s one of those places that no matter how much we want to pull back, it just keeps pulling us back in. It’s a hard one to get away from.

But on the lines of that money on, whether it’s increasing, defense spending or just, you know, taking what we have and using it to your point, you know, better efficiently trying to get after some of these objectives, that line of effort four, supercharge the US industrial base, could really change how we’re looking at what we’re doing with defense spending.

Lepri  

Yeah. So I think that the fourth line of effort, it’s interesting, it’s the shortest, line of effort and the discussion, I think there are three really critical points that are discussed. The first is to make the industrial base more capable. And we’ve seen in Ukraine and in other conflicts around the world that there’s been extremely large ammunition expenditures overseas.

And there was a study from RAND, I think it was a commission on the National Defense Strategy, a couple of years ago that predicted that in a large-scale conflict overseas, our forces would be out of munitions, within the first few weeks. And then we’d be out of exquisite munitions, within the first couple days.

Deveraux       

And I would like to note, as Colonel Long mentioned earlier, proud artillery background, a lot of those rounds, when we start measuring them in the hundreds of thousands, 155 artillery rounds. But please, continue on that defense industrial base.

Lepri  

I’m glad we give a shout out to artillery.

Deveraux       

We give a shout out to the Defense Symposium. We’re going to do a shout out to the king of battle, you know, reasserting itself.

Lepri  

Yeah. So well hopefully, hopefully the defense industrial base can supercharge itself enough to get, those artillery men forward enough rounds. But there is that that aspect of just making it bigger. Right? You know, there’s, I’m from, the Scranton, Pennsylvania area, and you had your munitions factory right downtown, right by the mall. I can’t say it looks super well secured.

I’m sure it is. But, you know, in terms of that’s one of the one of the few plants in the country that makes munitions, right? So the idea of expanding this base is absolutely critical, especially since a lot of western munitions stores have been depleted, supporting the Ukrainian effort. The second aspect, though, of this is internal reform.

So it’s using AI, using technology. It’s getting rid of some of the old procurement procedures, I think within the DoW, we’ve been making a lot of efforts to reform that, because the battlefield is changing. You know, we’re not we’re not looking to buy necessarily the new Abrams tank or the big five like we did back in the day.

We’re looking at how do we get drones cheaply, effectively and quickly to the front line so that our soldiers can use them immediately. So the old style procurement is not necessarily applicable.

Deveraux       

And to your point, it’s not just that they need what’s out there now. It’s that what’s out there now is becoming irrelevant so fast on a rapidly changing battlefield. And you can go and see, the way, the way they’re fighting and how they’re fighting in Ukraine has got to be shifting how we’re thinking about that procurement to your point. And also to your point, you know, the strategy is messaging kind of what we’ve been doing.

The Army, for sure has been out in front saying, we are totally overhauling this system. And I know the War College is running an integrated research project exactly on that. Hey, how does the Army run? To look at, you know, kind of, supercharging this base.

Lepri  

Yeah. I mean, we can’t go through the Pentagon wars process, right? In order to get, a cheap drone to the front line.

Deveraux       

Maybe put a porthole on the drone, you know, just in case.  

Lepri  

Just in case. 

Deveraux       

Great movie.

Lepri  

But I will get to the last aspect. And then it goes right alongside with the burden sharing. And it’s really leveraging partners and allies. And it’s not just to get them to buy the stuff that we’re producing, but also to get them to produce things that we need as well. And when you think about burden sharing, when you think about how we interact with our allies and partners, a lot of times we look at that as training and staff talks.

If you can integrate defense industrial bases, I think that’s a tremendously strong tie that no ally or partner can really step out of easily. So I think it’s a great consideration just in terms of a economy or economics. But it’s also a good strategy to help bind our ties together.

Deveraux       

Yeah. There is an aspect and I know it’s the counterargument to, dependencies. Right. Is you could potentially get yourself, reliant on someone that someone could then become your vulnerability as we look at. So I know that there’s a balance with that. How can we get other people to help supercharge, while at the same time ensure that we can remain independent? If we start talking about critical minerals and stuff like that?     

Lepri  

I think it’s interesting for anybody with a political science background in here, though. I mean, this is a very realist document, but into the defense industrial base, we’re looking at a little, liberalism right there, a little bit of interdependence.

Deveraux       

Yeah. Well, even in the world where everyone carries a big stick. Yeah. You know, you start cooperating every now and again. Great document. Really going to start some processes for those who are looking to see what the Defense Department, War Department are doing next really provides the framework to prioritization. Shifting gears a little bit, I think we kind of covered this, it’s 27 pages something. I was like, I think we, I mean, we almost could have read it out. What? We talked about it.

But go a little bit more informal with it. How are you guys staying abreast to kind of these changes we’re talking about? What’s going on, you know, whether that’s, changing battlefield in Ukraine, what the army’s doing or just kind of that international thought, you know, that’s driving politics.

What do you, what are you listening to? What are you reading? You know, how do you stay abreast?  

Long  

Yeah, that’s a great question. Really. What I’ve been thinking about is, you know, that expression. If you want a new idea, go to an old book. And so one of the things I’m looking at is, Makers of Modern Strategy. And I’ve been looking at a lot lately. So for those of us who aren’t for those of the listeners who aren’t familiar Makers of Modern Strategy is a series of about 25 different essays, each between like 20 and 30 pages.

It’s very readable. It’s broken down by function or region and has a pretty good overview for it. So I strongly recommend that for anyone who wants to get like sort of an overview of, functional changes, what’s going on in specific areas, you know, whether it’s cyber, space, arctic or to kind of go back to the classics like, like a Sun Tzu or a Clausewitz or a Jomini.

Lepri  

Well, in today’s modern operational environment, I highly encourage everybody to read science fiction, because that is really becoming, reality every single day. I just got done reading Richard David Hansen’s The End of Everything, which is an interesting look if you think we’re in an existential war with or potentially it could be in an existential war with China, a little bit bleak.

But, I also started reading Alexander the Great, by [Vance] Cummings. And, you know, Alexander the Great is an interesting case study where, and Macedonia, before his father takes over is, kind of not that big of a player, and then all of a sudden it takes over Greece and the next generation, there’s taking over Persia.

And sometimes I like to think about what kind of breakthroughs could occur today. That would make either one of the great powers, like the United States or China, or even a rising power like India, or potentially a power, that we’re not even thinking of on. It’s not even on our radar really changed the way that we think of the world.

So that’s where I’m at.

Deveraux       

I always joke, like a Brazil. When I was at SAMS [School of Advanced Military Studies], they said, “Brazil, the great power of the future, always in the future.” I would love to say I’m. I’m deep into those great philosophical books and historical books and stuff like that. I’m also pretty overwhelmed with, some stuff going on.

So what I’m reading on my free time is something that could entertain a 13- or 14-year-old. Because I have a 13-year-old who’s got into reading and we’re reading the same books, and it’s been great. But when I do want to stay abreast, I’m more looking at kind of what, what’s coming up in my feed, what’s coming up, from people I know or what they recommend.

John Deni, whether he’s publishing it or sharing it, you know, those are things I’m reading. Stuff is coming out of the CLSC. I’ve been so lucky to just be immersed into this group of, you know, Mandarin speakers pulling stuff down off of, you know, it’s like, hey, here’s what China strategy that just published as like, okay, great.

And it’s showing. And then if listeners are interested and, those kind of things, you know, we have them up on our website, but we also have just started a new newsletter, to kind of push that stuff out. And we’re not going to bombard emails. I think we’re aiming for, what, once a quarter?

Long  

That’s right. Four a year.

Deveraux       

Four a year, four a year. Some highlights of what some of the people here at the War College are doing. Great opportunity to kind of see some of these podcasts or that monograph, or, you know, just the Parameters or, kind of what’s going on with the college, if you’re interested in getting onto that distro, you can go or send an email to SRAD.

That’s srad@armywarcollege.edu. Gents, I really appreciate you taking the time. Like I said, I think, this will, if you don’t already know what’s going on with the War Department this is a great place to start. To see kind of what’s happening in the near future, where we’re going and how we’re prioritizing our efforts.  

Long  

Thanks, Brennan. Thanks for having us. 

Lepri  

Thanks for having us. Thank you.

Deveraux       

Listeners from more Army War College podcast, check out Decisive Point, Conversations on Strategy, CLSC Dialogues, and a Better Peace.

Deni

You can now find SSI Live on TunIn radio and on popular podcast directories like Stitcher—and at the iTunes Store. If you have any comments on our podcast, thoughts on what you’d like to see addressed, or a response to something you heard here at SSI Live, please go to our website. That’s SSI.armywarcollege.edu. Find me, John Deni, in the staff directory, and send me an e-mail. I look forward to hearing from you. For the SSI Live podcast series, I’m John Deni. Thanks for listening.