Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 6-6 – Bruce Busler and Ryan Samuelson – Deploying and Supplying the Joint Force from a Contested Homeland

In this podcast, Bruce Busler and Ryan Samuelson argue that the United States must prepare for “the fight to get to the fight,” focusing on deploying and maintaining military forces from a contested homeland amid near-peer threats.

Keywords: USTRANSCOM, Transportation Command, contested homeland, conflict, Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise

Stephanie 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 Mr. Bruce Busler and Mr. Ryan Samuelson today.

Busler is the former director of the Joint Distribution Process Analysis Center, or JDPAC, and the US Army’s Transportation Engineering Agency, or TEA. He’s the author of “Deploying and Supplying the Joint Force from a Contested Homeland,” which was published in the Spring 2025 issue of Parameters.

Samuelson is the current director of JDPAC and TEA, USTRANSCOM (US Transportation Command), at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois.

Let’s start at the beginning. What do JDPAC and TEA do?

Ryan Samuelson

Sure. Well, Stephanie and Mr. Busler, thank you very much.

You know, JDPAC is . . . it’s the analysis center for the combatant command. It’s the analysis center that allows us to fulfill our Unified Command Plan responsibilities. And so, we bring engineering and analytical work together both with JDPAC and the Transportation Engineering Agency, which TEA is focused on improving the employability and sustainment of the Joint Force by providing the Department [of War] expert engineering analysis, policy guidance, and additional analysis.

And so, when you take an engineering center from the combatant command and the analysis center and combine that with the Transportation Engineering Agency, what you have is a fusion of the ability to look at engineering solutions and then also to look at how we are moving from predictive to prescriptive analytics to ensure that the Joint Force can deploy and sustain itself.

Host

Mr. Busler, I’m really interested in how you came to write this article, but also why it matters for the Parameters [and] Decisive Point audience.

Bruce Busler

About two years ago, I had the chance to speak at a conference that was hosted by the [US] Army War College that involved many of the service and Joint players that were addressing homeland defense topics and the ability to project power from the homeland. And, as an outgrowth of that conference, I was asked to write a journal article, which I was happy to do, because I really wanted to help people understand what is it that TRANSCOM and JDPAC and TEA were doing on behalf of the Joint Force to be able to operate from a contested homeland.

And, that was really becoming a point of awareness of the fact that we’re [no longer] going to operate with impunity. It’s just an administrative activity to get the Joint Force to the airfields and seaports and get them into the fight. And so, what I wanted to do was kind of capture my thoughts and then help people see the great work that was being done at TRANSCOM on behalf of the broader community to ensure we could prosecute this mission.

In the article, I kind of distill my thoughts into three key areas. First of all, how we understand and minimize the impact of high-consequence events, versus all the potential points of disruption, so that we can continue to operate when we are going to be disrupted—and it’s not if, but when, we’re going to be disrupted—and then, also, how that works with all of the providers we have.

So, the first point was minimizing the impact of high-probability / high-consequence events. The second one was maximize how this thing called the Joint Deployment Distribution Enterprise can continue to operate with all of our providers. And, we have to maintain not only the primary capabilities but have resilient approaches for how we can use alternate ways of conducting our mission in finding other paths [that] allow us to continue to move the force forward.

And lastly, I wanted to talk about optimizing those relationships we have to have with our commercial providers and with our federal, state, and local partners to be able to do this mission. We’re heavily reliant upon commercial providers and our interagency partners to do this kind of mission. So, how do we optimize and build relationships today that will sustain us when it really counts?

And so, those were the key themes I wanted to build in the article and help draw people’s attention to what we’re doing today and then point out some thoughts that maybe [help people understand that], you know, it’s not a panacea. What are we doing to maybe address some areas that are continuing to be a risk to us?

So, that’s kind of what I wanted to do to help people quickly see the essence of what that look[s] like. And so, one of the things I mentioned before, which maybe Ryan can help expound upon, is [introduce] this idea of what is a Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise?

And, Ryan, maybe I’m going to give it back to you, but can you talk a little bit about how, you know, our commercial partners and our federal, state, and local, interagency partners are so critical for TRANSCOM to conduct this mission with their component commands to do this hard work we just described?

Samuelson

Sure. Thank you, Mr. Busler.

 You know, Stephanie, one of the things I wanted to cover about the article, too, before I get into what really the Joint Deployment and Distribution [Enterprise] is, [that] it had key critical themes. And so, why am I here today? I’ll tell you why I’m here today. It’s because this article still is immensely relevant today, and it is driving an awful lot of what US Transportation Command is doing.

It was a paradigm shift, right? It’s [the transition] from uncontested to contested nature of our deployment and distribution activities. It’s about engineering. The article was about engineered resiliency—how we’re doing strategic analysis and the programs we do that [with] to engineer resiliency into our ability. It’s about commercial partnerships. It’s about network redundancy and resiliency, which is in itself protection of the ability to project the forces. It’s about Reserve components and their criticality to it. And ultimately, [it’s] about mission assurance through distributed ops. And so, we find it very relevant today. And in fact, the entire JDDE (Joint Deployment Distribution Enterprise) has likely read the article because it drives an awful lot of what we talk about.

So, what is the JDDE? You know, really, it’s a global network of interdependent systems of systems. It’s a blend of military, commercial, and government partnerships. If you think on the military side, it involves combatant commands, Defense Logistics Agency, Defense Health Agency, [and] the Joint Forces. On the commercial side, our transportation providers are hugely critical. They are a key backbone of this ability to deploy globally. And then [it includes] our government partners from state and local partnerships with the Department of Transportation through the Maritime Administration, [and] our Highway and Rail departments, as well.

The JDDE also can include multinational partners if we are partnered with them on moving something for the Joint Force. It includes our allies and partners. And so, the way I look at it, the JDDE really is—it’s the equipment, it’s the people, the procedures, the information, the organizations, the training, [and] the facilities. All of that is required for the mobility enterprise to generate and sustain the mass at velocity across tactical and strategic distances. And that’s the key [to] this partnership.

Busler

And so, one of the things, you know, that I was going to kind of follow up on is [that] once you understand those entities that have to work together . . . one of the very first things I did in the article was talk about what are the potential ways they’re going to be disrupted? You know, one of the things that TRANSCOM focused on—you know, probably 15 years ago, and has grown over time—is the ability to look at the impact of cyber operations that will impact our ability to operate.

And that’s a relatively new area for us, but that isn’t the only way that we could potentially be disrupted. You know, I mentioned, you know, early on, that back even in World War II, we had attacks on the homeland. They just weren’t of high impact. You know, the Japanese floated balloons over the Northwest. They actually shelled—with a submarine. The Germans actually had espionage and other activities on the East Coast. But the thing was, they were relatively minor in their impact and really had no deep consequence to how we could operate.

That’s not the same today. We’re seeing that, especially in the cyber domain, which is probably the area that will be the most likely and have the, probably, most pervasive impact [on our] ability to operate.

But I think you’re seeing, out of the examples that we’re looking at in Ukraine, for example, the ability to look at drones [and] other things will happen. And so, then it becomes how do you think about operating when those conditions now are going to be imposed upon us? So, that became, you know, kind of a concern. And one of the other areas that I think people are aware of, is that, you know, within the cyber domain, it’s not just the technical means of disrupting us, there will be information operations that will try to disrupt our commercial providers from supporting us, from having, you know, the American people, you know, look at disruptions to their life, potentially, when it comes to the priority of service that we may have to restrict to be able to operate. And so, how do we address the myriad of things that will be happening as we elevate our activities to be able to go into a power-projection condition that would be of high scale and of high consequence to our nation?

And so, that’s really what I wanted to be able to kind of say—those things are going to happen. They will become disruptive, and how do we operate through those, and despite those kind of activities continuing to operate? So, you heard Ryan talk about, you know, mission assurance in terms of the cyber domain [and] resiliency, in terms of the physical networks and nodes we operate through. And, that’s one of the key things that the analysis center, with the engineering agency called TEA, has really been focused on for many, many years is looking at how we can employ those paths and understand to what degree we can continue to look at, you know, alternate paths [and] alternate nodes, and continue to provide the command and, really, the Joint Force, the ability to operate when those things happen.

So, that’s really the key thing I was trying to do in terms of thinking about, you know, how we must grapple with the complexity and the reality of what will be imposed upon us when these times come. So, from that I really wanted to maybe pivot back to Ryan and say, as you continue the work you’re doing today, has there been anything that’s been additional, that you think that we should be aware of, that we would want to provide in the context of this projecting power from the homeland?

Samuelson

You brought up an important point in the last [part of the discussion] that domains unseen by our trains, our ships, our planes, our trucks—those domains are as critical as the steel conveyances that are the visible backbone of our ability to project our force. And so, I think an important part in this article, and an important part that TRANSCOM, along with JDPAC’s assistance—and I will note that JDPAC just absorbed also the role of the Chief Data and Analytics Artificial Intelligence Officer role for the command as well—that’s the fusion of bringing data and looking beyond just the simple conveyances and capacities and capabilities but actually fusing in data as a new class of supply, as equally important as bulk fuel and Class IX parts.

But, I will tell you, what we are doing with our partners [is] looking at network intrusion- detection technologies, cloud resiliency solutions, vulnerability assessment products, and continuing to refine our optimization and distribution models, just to name a few [things], for the entire Joint logistics enterprise, and that Joint Deployment Distribution Enterprise and a new UCP (unified command plan) mission in the last couple of years for TRANSCOM, as well, the Joint Petroleum Enterprise.

Busler

In the context of, you know, all those things we’ve just talked about, now, you know, I did mention earlier that there were three main, I think, areas of organizing your thoughts here. I kind of want to re-emphasize that because I think it’s important to understand the proposition we put forward. And so, those things, again, were: if we can, as the Joint Force led by TRANSCOM, minimize the impact of high-probability threats (cyber being one of those) and [mitigate] the vulnerability of the enterprise, maximizing our ability to operate with our partners—both commercial and our interagency, both at the federal, state, and local [levels], and even our multinational partners—and find other ways of continuing to operate resilient paths, [a] means of mitigating disruptions when they do occur, and then [optimize] those relationships to where we can count upon them to not be put at risk when we have to go into conflict, then we have a higher probability that we’ll continue to operate and be able to succeed in terms of accomplishing the missions that are given to the Joint power projection apparatus that TRANSCOM has been [the] custodian for for so long.

So, that’s kind of the key thing I wanted to lay out there. And the takeaways really were, do we understand where there is consequence? And we talked about, you know, the potential for disruptions. You can’t worry about all the thousands of points of potential impact. So, what are the ones that are of highest consequence that we should focus on? And one of the things leadership needs to do is provide their priority to the areas that truly have the potential to be of high impact to our ability to operate.

So, that’s one of the key takeaways. Can we understand that? Can we work through those kind of things? And that’s one of the things the analysis, I think, is very good at because you can do modeling and simulation. Ryan mentioned some of the work we’re doing now with high-end analytics to be able to understand and then be able to be prepared to operate through those kinds of disruptions.

The second one is the ability to realize who our partners are and to work with them day in and day out and to have this apparatus. He mentions some of the things we have—and we actually have in place several standing relationships with some of these organizations. We have developed for many years, matter of fact, it goes clear back to President [Dwight D.] Eisenhower, this concept of a strategic highway network and how we work at the federal and local levels to ensure that we can have a highway network that we can use to be able to accomplish the national defense mission. And President Eisenhower saw it very clearly when he was both, you know, the commander in World War II and, later on, the president, for why we needed a national highway system that allowed us to operate.

So, our ability to, you know, do that analysis and work with them is really important. The same thing [is true] with our rail networks, that are privately owned, for how we can operate those—our seaports and our airfields—to operate with those partners to ensure we have alternatives, or that they can mitigate the impacts on those installations when those would be put at risk. So, our ability to look at those network paths and those nodes and understand the alternatives we have was a second key takeaway in terms of how JDPAC is doing that analysis and maintaining those relationships today.

The last one was really this realization that we have many key partners that we have to work with. And many of those, again, we mentioned are commercial partners underneath this concept called the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, the Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement. The work we do with our seaport providers through the relationships we have with them through executive working groups, our contractual relationships we have with our truck carriers, for example, all of those things are things we have in place today that are foundational for our ability to operate in the future. So, building and sustaining those relationships now is really the foundation for how we’re going to continue to operate when the time comes and we are put under duress.

And, you know, General [Jaqueline D.] Van Ovost [who] was one of the prior commanders, even in her congressional testimony, pointed out that the consequence of our commercial providers really is of deep, you know, importance to TRANSCOM, and our partnerships with them is consequential to the Department [of War] for how we think about that going forward. So, that third was optimizing those relationships and sustaining them so we can rely upon them when we go to war. [These items] were the three takeaways that I thought were important in this article.

[I] invite you to maybe add to that. Is there anything else that maybe TRANSCOM is doing today, especially with those partnerships we just talked about, that you think are important for the context of this discussion?

Samuelson

[I have] no better words than “minimizing disruption / maximizing resiliency” and our ability to get the mission done and then optimizing partnerships, which make all of this happen. The entire basis of the article really is [that] the key threat to mobility is delay, right? Delay through contested effects, delay through congested effects, delay through attrition and those things in our future war fights.

And, as we move from areas of competition [and] potentially into crisis and conflict, delay manifests itself in not getting the Joint Force where it needs to be, and TRANSCOM underwrites the lethality of the Joint Force. It is what determines whether or not the Joint Force is going to be able to get to the point of need for another combatant commander.

So, as we talk about those important optimization partnerships, the things that we also look at now, if you think on the partnerships, are do we have the proper understanding of the authorities and the responsibilities that we need? In the past, where we didn’t worry about a congested or a contested homeland departure, we didn’t think through what are the relationships with our other whole-of-government entities that operate within the continental US?

So, as we think through that, some of the things that TRANSCOM is doing is we’re expanding our exercise and collaboration—both with other government partners, as well as our industry partners and our commercial partners who are going to help us deploy that Joint Force.

I talked about restructuring. We are going back under the restructuring our data and analytics [framework]. We now are working back with other entities, even outside of the department, to ensure that we have the right authoritative data sets to make the decisions as we move forward on deploying that. We are exercising now at greater levels than we ever had before of exercising through disrupted networks, even here with our commercial partners and other members. And so, we’re looking at alternative route identification, port diversification activities, not just overseas, but here within the United States. [We are] looking at how do we handle expedited repair capabilities as well. And those are some of the things that we’re looking [at] as we think about minimizing, maximizing, and optimizing to deploy the Joint Force.

Busler

Ryan, I think you kind of hit on one of the topics we wanted to make sure to get to, [which] is not only the commercial providers but the key role we have with our federal and state partners. One of the areas that we mentioned before is we’re relied upon for getting the priority of service we need, you know, if the time should come or the Department [of War] now is putting demands on our commercial providers.

I mentioned maybe just a couple of areas that were really important to us. One of the areas that we have that we can use as a tool underneath the overall banner of the Defense Production Act is something called the Transportation Priority Allocation System—and we use that. And Ryan mentioned, you know, getting access to seaports. We would use that to get what’s called a “rated order” to allow a commercial provider to give us high-priority service, when the time came, to minimize that disruption.

And that’s done, by the way, through the Department of Transportation to communicate with our commercial entities to allow them to have confidence that we truly are asking for them to do something that’s of high consequence. That’s typically held at the TRANSCOM commander level, to ensure that that’s not done in a cavalier manner. The work we’re doing, for example, on the trucking system, you know, to allow us to say, “Is there a time and place where we look at potential waivers to time and service requirements for truck drivers who would need to operate over extended hours, potentially, to move things to our ports and airfields to allow us to then put them on ships and airplanes to allow us to deploy those things?”

And so, we think of those as kind of administrative and regulatory, but those are still part of the apparatus that has to be addressed to allow us to operate under these high-consequence events. Those are the kind of things we worry about, matter of fact, so much so that people don’t realize that when we’re moving really heavy equipment, which are the kind of things we’re going to be moving in a deployment activity, the ability to give waivers for overweight or oversize vehicles is held at the state level.

And so, how we work across that to have, kind of, a coordinated approach with our primary, our Army component that does that for TRANSCOM to allow that to happen in a very timely and efficient manner, is another thing that TEA does to work through those kind of things to allow that to happen in a very efficient way, should we put those kind of demands on the system.

So, I think we kind of talked about this, but I wanted to see, is there anything else that you saw? As you look at this overall, you know, approach we’ve identified, I think there’s a lot of strengths here, you know. Is there anything else you wanted to highlight or maybe even potential weaknesses that would be something that would be important to acknowledge as we, kind of, maybe bring this to some closing thoughts here.

Samuelson

We have a fairly robust view of what challenges are out there, focusing our efforts on what are those opportunities to address those, right? And, you’ve identified some of the things that we work with [including] state and local, even federal, entities, our commercial partners out there, for example, in trucking and rail. Part of the areas that we are working robustly with them is [to] make sure we understand and they understand what are their networks? What are their resiliency and redundancy plans? What are their points of consequences for their operations that may impact the ability to move in the time frame that we need to move?

Oftentimes, we have resiliency, but is that resiliency fast enough to have the cause and effect that we’re looking for as we deploy the Joint Force? One of the things that we’re doing on making sure we understand those challenges is we are pulling our partners—and [when] I say partners, I’m talking both commercial partners and other government partners—much more into integrated planning efforts. We’re expanding our exercise framework to ensure that they don’t just understand what we’re doing, but they actually observe and participate. We have had industry partners and government partners come to tabletop exercises where we walk through the speed in which we’ll need to make decisions with the authorities that are invested within our individual departments. It’s that robust relationship [we need].

We understand we have challenges. Now, let’s work through the authorities in the ways in which we address those challenges. That really is where we are focused at TRANSCOM right now.

Busler

You know, I’m glad that you emphasized that. You know, one of the things I was going to mention is how we have built these relationships and the tools we have to connect with our providers. And one of the examples was, you may recall, that we had to rely upon our commercial airlines to be able to do the withdrawal from Afghanistan. And, we had to activate [air]craft at stage one for only the second time in history. And helping them understand why we needed that response, why we needed that heavy, large aircraft passenger capability was one of the key things we had to be able to work with them [on]. And having that apparatus in place allowed us to work through that very efficiently and allowed us to communicate some of the challenges, even at the classified level, to do that. And, the same thing could be said for, you know, the ability to look at what was going on in the aftermath of operating in Ukraine and how we work with our commercial providers, who moved a lot of that material.

But you may recall that that kind of caused spillover in terms of impact to shipping in the Red Sea. And a lot of work was done to share, again, in a classified environment with our commercial providers, the kind of things that they would need to know to continue to operate in those areas that were now being contested by others that would be of a potential impact to them.

So, how we did that sharing of information, and doing that in appropriate environments, was one of the key things [that] allowed us to operate. So, you can think of that as a microcosm—the kind of things we would escalate and do on a much larger scale when we had to go into a, you know, a conflict that would be of even greater scale of operations and consequence of activity.

But those are the kind of things, I think, that you can expect TRANSCOM [to] continue to lead on behalf of the Department [of War] to allow us to have the right venues and the right relationships to do that. At the end of the article, I mentioned that we have a lot of strong things we’re doing.

I think the three approaches we’ve identified and the work we’re doing is a great foundation, but it’s not a panacea. It’s not a cure all that will cure and take away all of the potential negative things [that] would come. You know, I mentioned some of the things that I was concerned about when I wrote the article, and one of them is this idea of a black swan event that potentially could, you know, have a debilitating impact on our ability to operate, you know, things we didn’t think about, you know, an impact that is much deeper and much broader than we had understood.

So, this is, again, I think where the analysis center we can continue explore those kind of issues. And one of the things Ryan mentioned early on is the ability to leverage, you know, big data and the analytics work being done today and to use artificial intelligence to be able to expand our understanding of what those things are like and its ability to think through and operate, you know, under those conditions is an area that I see as a bright spot for how we can potentially mitigate this, this liability [we] identified.

[Something] I mentioned, as well, is that we have to work across a whole-of-government to do this work, and [that] many times [there] will be tension, potentially, in terms of the priority that different entities see for how we’re responding as a government—even to the point we mentioned before about providers. One of the key areas that we’re reliant upon is [the ability of] both the Reserve and the Guard partners we have to be able to support our operations, so much so that we have, you know, a high percentage of our Guard/Reserve forces, for example, in our airlifting / air refueling forces, in our aeromedical evacuation forces, and even the soldiers that operate our ports, for example, or operate any port, managing that activity. We are highly reliant upon them to be able to activate and get capacity from the Guard and Reserve.

Well, it could be at the same point in time that we’re getting access from these people, they could be pulled, even [in] their private, you know, commercial jobs, into the areas of activity that have also been elevated. And even as we think about, you know, in the homeland defense consequence management areas, [and] what people are doing to mitigate the consequence for what’s happening in the homeland, there could be tension for how we’re putting demands on these same groups of people to be able to respond.

And then, lastly, I mentioned [that] we need to worry about, you know, new threats that are now emerging. And one of the things we acknowledge is the fact that there will probably be, you know, drones and other activity we’ll have to overcome. So, how do we look at counter-drone response [and] worry about not only the capabilities but how we’re working across that at the federal level, like with the Federal, you know, Aviation Administration and others to look at the right mission authorities? Do we have the means of protecting ourself across the wide range of activities that potentially could put us at risk? We’re going to have to work through those kind of responses, as well.

And so, those are the kind of things that I think we have to continue to worry about as we look forward. And, Ryan, is there anything else that you saw, you know, that you think is important to acknowledge, [including] the fact that although there are some prudent things we’re doing here, we need to be mindful of other things we should be also, you know, thinking about as we continue to take this to the next level?

Samuelson

You know, Mr. Busler and Stephanie, one of the things that the analysis center at TRANSCOM does is these large mobility/capability requirements studies. And so, we are in the middle. We have just started one, a new one in MCRS 26, which is a look at end-to-end full-spectrum mobility requirements to fulfill the NDS (National Defense Strategy). So, we just had the new National Security Strategy [and], we’re anticipating at any time, the new National Defense Strategy. And we’ve seen the interim. And so, that’s actually work that we are going to explore beyond just trains, planes, and ships is we’re going to look at an entire spectrum of capabilities out there and, also, threats to those capabilities across multidomain. And so, that work is ongoing. And, that will wrap up, next year.

What I can say is that while the character of the conflict has evolved beyond the traditional domains of air, land, and sea—that now include space, cyber, and spectrums even beyond electromagnetism—the nature of the deployment distribution success to an outcome remains unchanged.

And so, we will continue to study on how TRANSCOM impacts the ability of the Joint Force to get its mission accomplished.

Busler

One of the things I was very proud of, that the Mobility Center does, is what Ryan just mentioned. Both the Department [of War] and the Congress expects TRANSCOM to produce these mobility studies, and these are very comprehensive, you know, end-to-end looks at how we have the national capabilities and capacities to prosecute what the National Defense Strategy is now imposing upon us collectively to do.

There’s an article I think that you’re going to provide as a link to this at the very end here. We have done eight of those major mobility studies since the end of the Cold War. The environment has changed, where we used to have large, forward-deployed forces, now, we rely upon, you know, forces we have to deploy from the homeland, which is why this article was so appropriate—because we have to deploy the Joint Force from the homeland, where 85 percent of that is now here. And to be able to provide the means [of] responding is what this Joint Deployment Distribution Enterprise must accomplish on behalf of the nation to do that kind of task.

So, I looked at, you know, how these strategies over the course of the last 30+ years have changed and the impact we have to have from the logistics and mobility footprint to prosecute that. And this article I mentioned was in Joint Forces Quarterly [and] calls for mobility in the context of analysis and strategies, it really looks at the end-to-end ability to do that and how that’s changed over time.

But at the end of the day, our ability as a nation to prosecute this is really what’s foundational. As Ryan mentioned, you know, that hasn’t changed much. A matter of fact, in 1981, even before the end of the Cold War, we were seeing, you know, the emergence of this as being something that was really consequential. I just need close to with this last thought.

And really, that study emphasized that our influence worldwide has become increasingly dependent upon our ability to project forces in support of our national interests. And, a comprehensive ability to look at the mobility footprint is central to our force protection strategy. So, that’s really what I wanted to emphasize here, was [that as] we looked at homeland in this specific article, the strategic mobility in the context [of] the end-to-end operations is really foundational [to] how we think about what provides the means of our national strategy to be fulfilled.

Again, what I’m so proud of is the work that Ryan’s now doing through JDPAC and TEA to support TRANSCOM on behalf of the Joint Force. It’s how we understand can we continue to do that mission and know the risks are being addressed appropriately, and do we have the right capabilities [and] capacity to do that looking forward? Again, I’m looking forward to the work Ryan and his team continue to do, but I’m so grateful to you to continue to put a spotlight on this. You know, again, I’m really proud of the work that Ryan [and] his team is doing, and I could not be happier, now that I’m retired, for the fact that Ryan Samuelson’s the new director of JDPAC and TEA.

And to Ryan, you get the last word.

Samuelson

Stephanie, I can just say it’s an honor to be able to be on a podcast with somebody who has had such critical, strategic thought for our nation, and that’s Mr. Busler—in multiple articles on the work that he did to put JPAC and TRANSCOM on the path that it’s on. So, I just thank you for the opportunity to be here today.

Host

It was my pleasure. I enjoyed your conversation very much—just a great overview of a really, really important topic that too many of us don’t think enough about.

Listeners, you can read the genesis article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 55, issue 1. There will be a link to the article in the show notes as well as a link to the article Mr. Busler referenced. For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues and A Better Peace.