Decisive Point Podcast

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 EnterpriseStephanie 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 SamuelsonSure. 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.HostMr. 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 BuslerAbout 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?SamuelsonSure. 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.BuslerAnd 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?SamuelsonYou 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.BuslerIn 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.BuslerRyan, 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.SamuelsonWe 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.BuslerYou 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?SamuelsonYou 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.BuslerOne 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.SamuelsonStephanie, 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.HostIt 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.

Antulio J. Echevarria II, a strategy professor at the U.S. Army War College, and Frank G. Hoffman, a retired Marine and long‑time Pentagon strategist, discuss the 2026 National Defense Strategy. They debate the two‑war framework versus mission‑based planning. They probe force sizing, industrial base integration, contested homelands, and where to accept risk while raising costs for adversaries.

This podcast argues that Ukraine offers a cautionary tale regarding the two main modern models of force generation. Neither the professional high-tech war model, favored by Western militaries, nor the whole-of-society war approach, said to have saved Ukraine in 2014 and 2022, proved successful formulas for Ukraine. Considering that Ukraine is fighting for survival, with Russian forces inside the country, the failure of both models in action has serious implications for NATO member states as they deliberate their choices regarding future force generation.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 in the studio with Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria today.Joining us remotely are Dr. Ilmari Käihkö and Jan Willem Honig.Käihkö and Honig are the authors of “Ukraine's Not-So-Whole-of-Society at War: Force Generation in Modern Developed Societies,” which was published in the Spring 2025 issue of Parameters.Käihkö is an associate professor of war studies, guest researcher at the Swedish Defense University, and a guest researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He’s also a veteran of the Finnish Defence Forces.Honig is professor of international security studies, emeritus, at the Netherlands Defence Academy and a visiting professor in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London.Echevarria is currently a professor of strategy at the US Army War College. He has held the General Douglas MacArthur Chair of Research and the Elihu Root Chair of Military Studies and is the author of six books on military strategy.Welcome to Decisive Point.Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria IIFor the benefit of our listeners, would you two please summarize your article for us? It’s been a while, just to refocus everyone.Jan Willem HonigWhat we tried to explain was that, where as we all expected and thought that initially Ukraine, as a society, mobilized and resisted the Russian attack in 2022, it very quickly turned out that it was a very partial mobilization of Ukrainian society [and] that very limited parts of the population, largely volunteers with a regular element, managed to stop and resist and turn back some of the invasion.And that was something that seemed to be very important because not only was it the case that Ukraine struggled to mobilize all of society in a case of a war that should be the most clear-cut that you could imagine [as] it is a war of aggression. You would expect the population to rise up against this invading force.[It] didn’t quite happen, but it provides us with warnings and potentially lessons [about] whether we can mobilize as a population when we need to. But also, it reflects on Russia, where people don’t tend to realize maybe [the] extent to which the Russians also struggle to mobilize their population [and] that the numbers of forces on the Russian side that fight on the frontline is also very limited.And the result of that is a very particular type of war, not the high-technology professional type of war that we tended to project on what the Russians would do but also how we have prepared—and are still preparing—to fight warfare. It turned out that in the case of Ukraine, neither side could fight this high-intensity, militarily decisive, high-technology, professional type of war. That holds a second major sort of warning lesson for the West, in our view, that not only can’t we rely, in all likelihood, on all of society to mobilize and fight, but we probably can’t also rely on our professional high-technology forces to successfully fight war.EchevarriaIlmari, did you want to add to that?Ilmari KäihköYeah, I think this was a very good summary of the article. And also, theoretically, what we did was go back to a column on Clausewitz and one of his trinities of the army, the government, and the people and to look at the relationships between these three. And more generally, one can, of course, say that there are always tensions and suspicion between these three elements.They are more general than only [the] Ukrainian phenomenon, and this is one reason why we should be mindful about Ukrainian examples and lessons from this war. I don’t think we have looked at the sociological aspects of this war closely enough. There are many things that we don’t yet understand. And when it comes to the Ukrainian society’s role in the war, in 2014, when the war in Donbas started, when Russia invaded Crimea and then got involved in Eastern Ukraine, there was this limited societal participation in the war in the form of so-called volunteer battalions.The assumption of even the volunteers, who re-mobilized in 2022, was that now, when this war is existential, then surely everyone will get involved in it, all the Ukrainian people. But nevertheless, it has been a limited war in this sense. And, there is something here that I think we should pay more attention to.EchevarriaI wonder if I could draw either or both of you out a little bit more and talk about some of the factors that caused the whole-of-society concept to fail or to be only partially implemented. Some factors, like [the] political implementation of it, came very late in the game, according to some of the interviews that we were able to do earlier. Zelensky did not want to put that policy completely into effect because he was afraid it might antagonize the Russians and maybe provoke an attack. So, that was one thing.And the other thing might be the fact that Russian and Ukrainian populations along the border, leaving aside the Donbas, for instance, have shared commerce, shared interactions, and shared relationships [and have] relatives on either side of the border. The line between the two states might be clear on a map, but socially and culturally, [things are] much more intermixed.And so, it is difficult sometimes, perhaps, to get the whole society involved when you’re living next door to someone and [they don’t] really appear to be a threat to you.The third thing I was going to ask about [is] the issues of corruption throughout Ukrainian government, all the way down and in the military and so on. [I am] not saying Russia, has not also had that problem. It certainly does. But getting any kind of policy implemented when you face a bureaucracy, leaders, and so on who are supposed to implement these policies but are taking money from the other side or somewhere else other than from their own government and so forth [is difficult].HonigI would say three things. [The] first one is something optimistic about this conflict that you can conclude, I think. We’ve always wondered how big the proclivity for war of populations of people was. What I think the war in Ukraine illustrates is that certainly, in developed societies, the populations on the whole—and massively, more massively than ever before, it seems—don’t like war [and] don’t want to get involved.That is true for Ukraine, even in an existential conflict. It’s true in Russia as well, despite the fact that it isn’t a democracy but an autocratic regime. And it’s also likely to be true, or it is true, because Western armed forces can’t really recruit very well. It’s also true in the rest of Europe. So, in a way, this is a very positive thing that people don’t like war [and] don’t want to get involved. Now, [the] problem with that is that it opens the door to people who do manage to mobilize significant forces and do dastardly things, but still, it’s a positive thing. I would want to emphasize that.And the other two points are that what you, Tony, bring out is the gulf between government and population, where on the one hand, it ties into Ilmari’s earlier point about the trinity of Clausewitz with government, people, [and] armed forces, is that government—or the government in Ukraine—did not really trust its population to be loyal and to get mobilized.And, that is a fairly, as we tried to explain very briefly in the article, a historically common phenomenon. Regimes tend to be, on the whole, always unsure. Look, before the First World War. Regimes, whether they’re democratic, totalitarian, [or] autocratic, don’t know to what extent they can trust their peoples to come to their aid in a war. But on the other hand, what you also see in Ukraine is that the population as a whole not only didn’t like to go to war, didn’t want to really to fight, it also very much distrusted the regime. It distrusted the state. And that reinforced [the low] degree of mobilization and made it very difficult for the state to create massive armed forces. If you then look at Western Europe, the regimes, their trust of populations, it’s a bit of an open question. Do people overwhelmingly trust their states? I hope it is higher than Ukraine. We’ve got less corruption. But again, I think that certainly the absurdly incertitude of the governments as to their reliability to the population is just as strong in the West as it is in Ukraine.EchevarriaIlmari, anything to add?KäihköYeah, there’s an interesting puzzle here because the 2014, the Donbas war, we got this notion that it was the society that saved Ukraine through these volunteer battalions. But we don’t see the society being harnessed militarily before 2022. If now the society was so successful in 2014, why wasn’t this done during the eight years after, before the large-scale invasion?And there are, of course, several reasons for this. One is, obviously, that the military in 2014 was very hollow, and this kind of massive reform would be very difficult. There was also not that much money reserved for this kind of project. So, Ukraine lost half of its GDP (gross domestic product) in 2014. So, even by doubling the defense expenditure they actually did not have more money in real terms to do this.There was also the lull in terms of the war in Donbas that kept distracting from major reforms. But perhaps most importantly, there were these, both foreign and domestic, military preferences for this kind of professional force. But the problem was that this kind of force, it was much too expensive for Ukraine but also, it wasn’t supported by the population. They didn’t really want to be part of it, or at least when it comes to the alternative—the universal conscription.So, there [were these] foreign and domestic military preferences that the government thought they [could] make the military more politically reliable through it. And then foreigners—the RAND Corporation—was invited to the country in 2015. They all recommended this kind of professionalization of the force. But as noted, Ukraine couldn’t afford it. The alternative then, was this kind of universal conscription. But this wasn’t supported by the population. In order to understand why, one can go back to the Soviet legacy of the conscription where people, even from military families, didn’t want to go to the military. When I did interviews of volunteer battalion fighters, some of them told me that their parents, [who] belonged to the military, bribed doctors to make sure that their sons were exempted from the service.Well, funnily enough, in 2014, they’d then have to bribe new doctors to make them eligible for military service when they wanted to go to serve because the conscription was selective and you could bribe your way out of it. Because the conscripts were really poorly, poorly treated [and] they didn’t get proper training, they just didn’t see it worthwhile. Then what happened after 2022 was that there was this interesting phenomenon that if you look at the most trusted institution in Ukraine, it is the armed forces. So, in some polls it gets 95 percent support of the population. The only problem here is this kind of cognitive dissonance that this doesn’t mean that these people who in polls say that they trust the military that they actually want to serve in it, and this is a bit of a problem for a country involved in a major war.But all this then ensured that, first of all, the Ukrainian military would be limited before 2022. Also, that it would face troubles growing after the Russian invasion. When it grew, it would be, first of all, just kind of more ideological volunteers that would rush into it, including literally all of my volunteer battalion informants that I had worked with. And it also meant that the society would still influence who the government could and would start to forcefully mobilize into the war when that became necessary. And this is why the average age of soldiers is at least 43 years, according to several sources. It could now be a lot older as well. And all these things have influenced Ukraine’s possibilities when it comes to force generation in this war.EchevarriaOn that note, to what extent do you think had the Russian attack come later, after a national identity had been able to formulate and become stronger, would timing of the offensive had affected your results had it come later, for instance, had they waited for some of these things that you’ve been discussing to perhaps grow stronger [like] more willingness to serve in the military in some ways or, certainly, a more stronger identification with the state itself—the government, head of state? Would that have made a difference?HonigI would say that if they’d had more time to build up their armed forces, it might have made a difference. But things like forging a national identity and really creating a population that is reliable is one of those big projects that nobody really, I don’t think, understands very well how that works and to what extent it really produces a society that stands shoulder to shoulder.And a point I earlier mentioned about regimes independent of regime types, in the end, always tending to distrust or not fully trust the population is quite common. So, the question of where the population stands, where the people stand, is one that has really been a sort of red thread in military history, where people have been consistently quite surprised, and we don’t have to think back very long, [for example the] 2003 invasion of Iraq. We didn’t quite understand where the Iraqi people stood, but in the end, it turned out it wasn’t quite with us. [If] you go back through conflict to conflict, you find consistently that you don’t quite know where the population is going to move, but you don’t also understand how you can convince the population to be really with you or to minimize the degree to which an enemy population is against you.So, I don’t know whether giving Ukraine more time to forge a national identity would really have worked.KäihköIt’s good to remember that what happened in 2014 was that Ukraine lost some of its most pro-Russian parts, and this is something that made a very divided, politically divided, country less divided. But many of these divisions still existed in Ukraine.Another thing to think about is that many of these ideological volunteers from the Donbas war didn’t actually serve in the military because the kind of military they saw wasn’t the kind of military they would like to belong to themselves. And this has been an issue even after 2022. So, even if almost all of these volunteer battalions were pretty quickly integrated into the armed forces, many of the most ideologically minded volunteers just left the military.And, hence, this kind of suspicion between these volunteers and the military remained. And these were, of course, then, the people that were the first to take to arms after the Russian invasion in February 2022.EchevarriaOn the question of military professionalization, I wonder if you could speak a little bit about the divided culture that the Ukrainian armed forces found themselves confronting at the beginning of the war. They had legacy Soviet ways of doing things, and NATO began to take over more and more of the training for Ukrainian recruits. NATO tried to impose its own particular way of training and fighting and so on, some of which were absorbed by some of the younger soldiers in Ukrainian armed forces. And it wasn’t [an] entirely even split between ranks, for instance, or even ages. But with training the Ukrainians according to what NATO knew, as far as trying to develop junior leadership and initiative and trusting subordinates and those sorts of things, can you speak to anything you might have found in your research on professionalization and whether or not these factors had anything to do with the larger public trust in its military but still that reticence to actually want to serve and put yourself on the frontline [and] in danger and so on?HonigOne should not, we think, exaggerate the difference between the Soviet model of doing military operations and the Western model of operations. It is quite dangerous to sort of ascribe to them a particular mindset that makes them operate in a way, and that has proven to be not so effective because this war has turned into a sort of quite simple, brutal conflict.What you see is that there is indeed [a] certain model of professional warfare, which the Ukrainian armed forces found difficult to pull off because the manpower wasn’t really available and trained in the same way as they would have liked. And, they were lucky that they found that there was a reservoir of volunteers who found a way of dealing with the immediate tactical problems they found on the battlefield, which translated into a major strategic success of stopping the Russian attack.What you see, I think, with the training that we’ve offered to the Ukrainians, my reading of it is that it isn’t as popular and successful with what you could call the rank and file or the volunteer element of the Ukrainian armed forces. They have found themselves in a conflict in which they, on the whole, [are] well-educated [and] have been able to adapt [and] improvise to what the battlefields seem to require of them.And, well, a number of things which our military tried to teach them fitted in with that, but other elements were new. The drone thing was not something that our armed forces offered as part of the training package, and many of our armed forces were quite unwilling to accept that as part of the training package. There was quite a bit of resentment and surprise on the part of the Ukrainian recruits that were being trained that the Western trainers didn’t really want to engage with what they saw as the realities of war and were offering a package that fitted a particular type of war that they were not fighting and that was not fit for [their] purpose.I think that the challenge is that, just like the Soviet Russian armed forces may have had a particular concept of warfare, concept of modern warfare, which neither the Ukrainian regular military nor the Russian military were able to pull off, we also have a particular idea of what war should look like, and we find it very difficult to be flexible about that. And we may want to talk about that a little bit later, but we have created what I would call a one-trick pony, [meaning] that if the war doesn’t fit our preconceived notions of what modern warfare should be like, then we may not be very good at adapting to the situation on the ground and have our armed forces fight in a different way, as could be evidenced by [the fact that] we haven’t won a war for a long time, with our Western armed forces, which should be something of a warning about how flexible are we?And to assume that we know better than the Ukrainians, or we know better than the Soviet Russian armed forces, is a little bit presumptuous. We have to be careful.KäihköYeah, the training aspect is very interesting because what we say in the article is that this is a pretty primitive war in some aspects. And what has contributed or led to this primitivization is that both in Ukraine and Russia, the training establishments were, decimated early in the war.So, basically what happened was that it was very difficult to continue training new forces, to generate new forces, when you didn’t have trainers anymore. And, this is one reason why the Ukrainians have been so dependent on external support, external training support, which then hasn’t necessarily always been what Ukrainians have wished for. We have also heard about these reports that the Ukrainians and Russians have had difficulties in coordinating operations by units bigger than companies [and] that this is, even in this sense, a primitive, primitive kind of fighting.This set very early on what was lauded, on the Ukrainian side, especially, and contrasted with this kind of Soviet Russian rigidity [that] was the initiative and these kind of notions of missile command on the Ukrainian side. But this is, of course, because you did have small units of volunteers who were not very well attuned to military expectations, fighting on their own terrain against these lumbering Russian forces.We lauded all this, but then the question is that where are all these now and this kind of very positional and attritional fighting that we have seen? These qualities that we thought were brilliant in spring of 2022 may not be that much appreciated, even by the Ukrainian high command at this time. And in places like the coast, where they can actually become liabilities.And this is, of course, connected now to these volunteer notions of special treatment and negotiation.EchevarriaBy way of closing, can I ask you two to offer the key insight you would like our NATO leaders to take away from your research, your article?HonigThe first thing is to remain critical of our own conception of warfare [and] to think carefully about the possible shortcomings of a professional, high-technology type of armed force where you have invested so much money in very few weapons that you can’t really sustain a conflict. But at the same time, you need to be aware of the possible risk that you cannot fall back or cannot fall back in time [and expect] society to come out in support and save the day.We’re faced with a very big challenge of how, on the one hand, you prepare your armed forces in a way that sort of withstands the first possible onslaught but offers you the possibility, the need, of sustaining the conflict later on. That doesn’t mean, necessarily, that you can mobilize all of society, but you need to be looking towards models of at least preparing for that bomb part, [which] would be that you invest significant amounts of money and effort into simple weaponry, that the war in Ukraine is basically fought by handheld arms, simple artillery, as well as supported by drones.It doesn’t get that much more complicated. We don’t talk those weapons in serious numbers at all. Those are a first. They should be a major priority and then try and get the population used to the idea that they might, at some point have to do some military service. Don’t rely, however, too much on volunteerism because volunteers only represent part of society, and those are not necessarily from the part of society that you want to sort of dominate the political discourse, not only during the war but after the war.The volunteers in Ukraine tend to be from more conservative sides of the political spectrum. So, you do want to have some kind of model that spreads the burden of defenses [as] equally as possible over society, that the whole of society, in a way, is seen to have some kind of stake in it.The problem with it is that you can’t really do too much in peacetime, so you’ve got to leave it to a moment when the conflict is beginning to intensify [so] that it becomes easier to get people interested in it. It’s a very difficult tightrope to walk. At the same time, we should remember that the Russians—Putin—doesn’t have overwhelming support of his population. He’s stuck in Ukraine. He can’t really do too much elsewhere. So, his options are, in a way, more limited than our options, [we might believe] that we’ve got time to build up a defensive capability in an era when we still don’t round up much risk, despite all the talk from Brussels.KäihköWhat we are facing most immediately is deterrence and deterrence against an opponent that is obviously willing to pay high costs. Now, I [am] speaking about Russia, which has maybe lost the value crispix—just over a million—well, about 1.1 million casualties, [which] might be 250,000 deaths in this war. How can we build an effective deterrence against this kind of opponent? Well, our militaries often highlight these kind of different technological solutions—that we have a high technology where you can operate a war—this kind of war that is happening in Ukraine.We don’t need to go into this war of attrition if we compete with Russians with technology. I would be skeptical, or at least critical, about these kind of notions because their opponent also has a say in these things. This didn’t work in Ukraine. I’m not sure that they would work in our case either. And if they don’t work and this is what we, of course, need to then prepare for, is that then we need to have a greater societal involvement.And this is what we need to think about. Well, if we can have this as a societal involvement, we can have this, perhaps not that well trained, but [we can] create reserves. This is a great deterrence against Russia, but this also requires quite a bit from our military establishments when it comes to their command style and training methods, for instance.And also, if you try to have a whole-of-society approach, the militaries also need to be more attuned to what the society feels and thinks. And this is something that often gets lost in the discussion.EchevarriaThank you very much, gentlemen, this has been great. Over to you, Stephanie.HostI echo Dr. Echevarria. Thank you very much for making time for this today.Listeners, I encourage you to read the genesis article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 55, issue 1. For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.

This podcast argues that Russia’s Arctic land forces have been weakened by the Russia-Ukraine War and NATO’s northern expansion, creating a strategic window for Western militaries to bolster their Arctic capabilities. Unlike existing studies that focus on maritime operations and the Northern Sea Route, it integrates technical assessments of ground-based Arctic platforms with analysis of military-district reforms. Using a mixed methodology that incorporates equipment specifications, Russian government documents, media reports, and NATO strategic-response evaluations, this podcast constructs a comprehensive baseline understanding of Russia’s Arctic land-force potential and readiness. Policy and military practitioners will benefit from actionable insights into Arctic force-design shifts, equipment vulnerabilities, and strategic recommendations to exploit the temporary imbalance between NATO and Russian readiness.Stephanie Crider (Host)Welcome 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 Troy J. Bouffard and Lester W. Grau, coauthors with Charles K. Bartles and Mathieu Boulègue of “Russian Arctic Land Forces and Defense Trends Redefined by NATO and Ukraine,” which was published in the Autumn 2025 issue of Parameters.Bouffard (US Army, retired) has a master’s degree in Arctic policy and a PhD in Arctic defense and security from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he’s an assistant professor of Arctic security. He is the director of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Center for Arctic Security and Resilience and a research fellow with [the] United States Military Academy’s Modern War Institute.Grau, lieutenant colonel (US Army, retired) specializes in Russian military studies and is a senior analyst for the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He has a PhD from the University of Kansas in Russian and Central Asian history. He’s written numerous books and articles on tactical, operational, and geopolitical subjects.I’m happy you’re here. Thank you for joining me, Troy and Les.Lester W. GrauThank you.Troy J. BouffardThank you.HostPlease give our listeners a brief recap of your article.BouffardWell, we wrote this because there were significant baseline circumstances involving Russia’s Arctic interest in the defense side, especially with land forces. When Sweden and Finland joined NATO, it had a profound effect, I think, on the Kremlin, and we saw immediate reactions that were significant strategically. One of those was the fact that Russia, in previous years, had established a new military district for the Arctic.It was the Northern Fleet District. It was a joint Arctic-type military district, which is strategically significant. They did this in 2014, and it remained provisional until 2021, when it became full equal status to the other four military districts. Then in 2024, they dissolved it immediately—right after Sweden and Finland joined NATO.GrauThe indications are, however, they’re not giving up on the Arctic. As a matter of fact, since the article was written, the 200th Motorized Rifle Brigade has disappeared and been replaced by the 71st [Guard] Motorized Rifle Order of Kutuzov Division in Pechenga, [Murmansk Oblast]. A division is larger than a brigade.[Russia is] not as constrained as we would be in developing a new division in that the logistics structure of the brigade and the division are the same. It’s the [ground-combat] folks [being added]. However, what they already had [was] three brigades in a corps when this whole Ukrainian thing started and now, it looks like they’re going to have at least two divisions—the naval infantry division and this division up in the Arctic. So, when Ukraine comes to a halt, the emphasis on the Arctic is going [to] spring back quite [impressively].Furthermore, they develop their kit specifically for the Arctic, and the Arctic conditions are so different than the rest of the world that you really need to purpose-build your equipment for the Arctic, rather than taking a piece that’s in existence and saying, “Well, let’s see how many things we can strap on this without increasing it by three tons.” It’s a very different thing. And, of course, the Navy is the major player in Arctic development / Arctic policy.The Northern Sea Route is [has] certainly proven viable. The Chinese are [sailing] it all the time. The Russians are running oil and LNG (liquified natural gas) on it all the time. And, South Korea is going to have a test run in July on the Northern Sea Route to see if it’s viably convenient because if you’re China or South Korea and you’re trying to get stuff to your European customers, the Northern Sea Route cuts two weeks off of transit time, and you avoid the problems of piracy and getting through the Suez Canal and drone attacks out of Yemen and all the other problems that they’re having in that region.So, the Arctic is important. It’s at least 10 percent of the national annual wealth of Russia and is going to be more so. So, it’s viable, it’s there, and it’s only going to get bigger.BouffardWe had to write the article because there was such a decided shift from the direction Russia was going in the Arctic. They’re kind of flatlined in the Arctic right now because of Ukraine, but we know what they were doing before, where they were at, and we know when they do come back full steam, they’re going to make these, I think, developments that Les talked about.But for now, with Sweden and Finland having joined NATO, Russia had a decided reaction to that by dissolving the military district and putting even more emphasis on the Baltics, which is the epicenter of strategic importance to Russia, for one fact—and I think it’s good for the listeners to just have a reminder—the Baltics are so important to Russia, more than anything else, because of St. Petersburg as a maritime port. This is their most important maritime access point in the entire planet. Out of all of their vast and major coastline, that is the most important place on the planet for them. And, if Russia lost maritime access just from that point around St. Petersburg, the effects are unimaginable. So, this is why it is the epicenter of importance to Russia.So, when Finland and Sweden joined NATO, it had an obvious effect on Russia, and they pulled a lot of the development from the Arctic, in terms of strategic command and emphasis, to the Leningrad and Moscow Military District that was reestablished. And, we have yet to see how that’s all going to work out, but it was clear that something was changing and it wasn’t too difficult to understand how.HostRussia not being as focused on the Arctic—what did that create as far as opportunities go for America?BouffardRussia has shown us that they are serious about their development of the new threat that’s going to consume us for the next many decades, which are hypersonic cruise missiles. They’ve already operationalized this. And these are air, land, and sea launched. They’ve done this in the Arctic not once, but twice—with two different missile systems. So, this is going to replace ballistic missiles that we’ve lived with for decades as the primary threat to North America with, you know, a new threat.We have to redo everything in order to deal with hypersonic cruise missiles because they behave completely different than ballistic missiles. This is what has us really, I think, interested in what we need to do for future threats. The Arctic is part of that in those ways that Russia has demonstrated its development of hypersonic cruise missiles. This is going to grip the world for decades.HostLes, do you want to chime in?GrauWell, I was just thinking, if we are involved in the Arctic, all of the services have to be involved in the Arctic, including the Navy—especially the Navy—and the Navy is stretched right now. China has more ships than the US Navy, and the US Navy has no ice-class vessels. If you’re going to sail in the Arctic waters, you need ice-class vessels.Russia has over 40 icebreakers. We have three—one permanently in the Great Lakes. Two of them are ancient; one of them we just bought—a used one—from Norway. You need to be able to function in that area. The Coast Guard is now buying icebreakers. They’re going to take a while to get out there.China has three icebreakers. One of them in development is an atomic-powered icebreaker. And, they also have what they call research vessels, which are mini-icebreakers that are zipping all over the area. They’re not an Arctic power, although they like to claim that they’re going to be.It’s not just an Army problem. It’s not just an Air Force problem. It’s a Navy problem, as well. And, it’s all three of them working together. There are some major challenges out there, and all of the services are trying to manage their budgets for where they consider their customer base is. And the Navy says, well, most of the [world’s] ships right now are down going through the Suez Canal or around the Horn of Africa.The Northern Sea Route is viable. That’s proven, and it’s going to become increasingly so. And, I think we’re going to have to be involved by [having] all services in there in the region.HostThe Northern Sea Route. As it becomes more viable for international shipping, how do you see the tension between Russia’s claims and the principle of freedom of navigation playing out, especially with interest from non-Arctic nations like China, and, I think, was it Les, you mentioned also South Korea?GrauWe’ve had one freedom of navigation [test] sailing on the Northern Sea Route, and that was what—10 years ago? 14 years ago?—[when] a French naval supply vessel went across from Europe to the Pacific without coordinating previously with the Russians. They did not go back [that way]. They went the long way home and went [by] the Suez route to get home, but that hasn’t been the only challenge I know of [to] freedom of navigation in the Arctic. The Russians have since come up with a structure for passage on the Arctic [Northern Sea Route]—icebreakers, aid stations, aerial support, satellite support, all sorts of things on this—but they’ve also come up with a set of rules which are not freedom of navigation.There’s a great deal of legal question[s] on who really owns what piece of the Arctic. You’ve got to have rules of navigation, et cetera, to come [sail] up there. You don’t want to go wandering through the Arctic waters without a pilot. And, quite frankly, nobody knows what the Arctic bottoms look like better than the Russians because they’ve spent decade upon decade upon decade charting these things, where nobody else has.This is an area that all the nations are going to have to work together. We haven’t seen a freedom of navigation [test voyage] since then. I don’t expect to see one. The Coast Guard took their icebreaker up to the North Pole, but they clearly skirted getting into any part of the Northern Sea Route in doing so. It’s one of those areas in the future that all the nations are going to have to get together on. As the Northern Sea Route becomes a reality, it could be shortened, and if some of the plans that Russia was talking to Norway and Finland about come into fruition, that route could be shortened even quicker with rail offload. You don’t have to go all the way around Norway and down to Rotterdam to offload. This could really become a trade advantage for Europe and European customers, but these are all areas that are going to have to be worked out by governments over the coming years.And I know Troy dabbles in this area more than I do, and good on you, Troy.BouffardThe Northern Sea Route is becoming reality, as Les mentioned, and Southeast Asia, led by China, is investing heavily in this. There’s a lot of evidence. And they stand to gain, you know, as the world’s largest collective economy, from using the Northern Sea Route. And, they’re studying this. And they’re testing it in many ways that are further indications this is the real deal.And, it’s important for everyone to understand, for the Northern Sea Route, what the United States and many other nations are concerned about is freedom of navigation based on Russian laws and regulations that are conflicting with normal international norms and principles out of the UN [United Nations] Conventional Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). So, whereas most nations establish a baseline that officially, sort of, sets a boundary along a coastline, out from there to about 12 nautical miles is what’s known as territorial waters.And generally, nations more or less control the surface waters, water column, seabed, and below, under those circumstances, right? Those boundaries are global. UNCLOS helps to manage this. And beyond that, you’re supposed to allow innocent passage and freedom of navigation. Well, Russia is taking that—because of UNCLOS Article 234, which has special consideration for sea ice—and extended that exact type of total control all the way out to 200 nautical miles (what’s known as the exclusive economic zone.)So naturally, the United States has a huge problem with this. Controlling access to waters, surface waters, all the way out to 200 nautical miles is quite the stretch and not based off of norms. Even though Canada has a similar situation with its archipelago. And considering those internal waters, that’s a very practical situation where they’re following norms. It’s not safe to go through the Northwest Passage. Those waters in that Canadian claim are very realistic. Russia’s just aren’t. You know? And they’re feeling the pressure, too, because, you know, things are changing in the North, and they want to establish this control over surface-water access through the entire Northwest Passage out to 200 nautical miles, as customary law, as soon as possible.And that’s the great contest, I think, in the world is should Russia have that amount of control over access to surface waters like that? We’re a solid no on that. So, we’re hoping, you know, again, our article contributed a little bit to that understanding.HostMaybe this isn’t a fair question to you all. I know you don’t have a crystal ball, but with Russia occupied elsewhere, can we scramble—us, Europe, whoever else—to reshape what things look like in the Arctic? Do you think we can do it fast enough?GrauWe don’t have icebreakers. We don’t have ice-class [hulls]. It’s a little tough to do [anything in the Arctic without] that. And you don’t want to do this—even in the summer. If you’ve got a good icebreaker escort, you can go [sail] safely without an ice-class vessel during the summer months. I think one of the other things is, as we’re learning from Ukraine, drones are shifting what militaries can and cannot do and how they operate.And drones [have] certainly always played a role in the Russian Arctic, but that was a rather constrained role. That role is developing and, I think, is going to become very much involved. Just to give you an example, the Soviet ground forces have a new branch for the military, a branch being something like armor, infantry, artillery. These are land and air drone managers.And, this whole drone technology is going to play a major role in the development of the Arctic and how militaries function in this region. There [are] some real challenges that are coming out of the current conflict, and when this conflict comes to an end, the problems aren’t gonna go away. They’ve just been brought to the forefront, and there they shall remain until addressed properly.BouffardWith their stunningly poor performance in Ukraine, we can expect when they come back, they’re gonna retool everything—doctrine and equipment. Their equipment didn’t work. It’s the first time we’ve seen large-scale combat operations [with] Russian military equipment being used against NATO (a lot of different NATO-related equipment), and it didn’t do well.So, you can expect Russia to retool their entire military and, as Les has taught me, you know, it’s going to take four and five years alone just to rebuild their officer corps because officers run everything in the military. They don’t have an NCO corps. So, we’re taking that time, and then what Russia had accomplished in the Arctic, which surpassed the West. You know, in terms of large-scale combat operations and what we consider military superiority based on multidomain, precision-enabled combined arms warfare, when you’re really good at that versus your competitors, you’re probably gonna win.And we saw a moment there—a little time, briefly—when Russia was superior to the United States, largely because the land forces (why we wrote this article, specifically) as part of combined arms of warfare. Total military, Russian military, had surpassed us, and that gave a larger operational capability of Russia’s Arctic forces than we had. Now, that doesn’t exist right now. Those land forces had since gone and deployed to Ukraine and been absolutely decimated. But what we do know now is that as that happened, there was a moment Russia was superior in many ways. We now have a decent window of opportunity to close that gap, and it’s got everyone’s attention.We [have] got a lot of work to do, and I know the French authorities have reached out to Les to ask, “What should we expect from Russia?”The Arctic is becoming more and more important on a daily basis.GrauI do think one thing is [that] there are two countries who know how to fight and survive [during]drone combat, and you have a lot of spectator / supporting nations who are trying to gain this experience. But, we don’t have the experience and the experienced personnel who have survived drone attack[s] in our armed forces, and this is something that we’re going to have to play catch-up ball on.This is one of the challenges that’s going to be facing us, not only in the Arctic, but throughout the spectrum.HostWell, I knew this was going to happen. We’re running out of time. So, if we missed anything [or] if you have any concluding thoughts, now’s the time. BouffardRussian land forces in the Arctic was the focus of our article. Land forces are often not thought of during a lot of strategic assessments and plans. What Ukraine taught us, besides the fact that drones are here to stay, and we have got to, you know, understand that and build that into our strategies and operations, is that where a lot of people thought maneuver was dead—I’ve literally seen articles, you know, with that title—at the end of the day, what always holds true is in order to win any battle, you have to take and hold land. And that’s land forces, right? So, paying attention to land forces and not forgetting them and all the, you know, incredible importance of power of maritime and air forces is necessary.And Ukraine really taught us that.GrauIf you want to be able to function militarily in the Arctic, you have to be in the Arctic. You have to train in the Arctic. You can’t have your Arctic force, as small as it is, deployed in Borneo and places like this, which it has been. We have done some things, but we need to get there.HostThank you both very much. I’ve been looking forward to this chat, and you did not disappoint.Listeners, you can read the genesis article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 55, issue 3. For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.

In this episode, Colonel Neil Snyder and Charles “Chuck” Allen discuss declining patriotism in the United States, highlighting generational and veteran–nonveteran gaps revealed in Snyder’s research. They explore how patriotism influences trust in the military, the challenges of building that trust, and the roles of leadership, communication, and shared values in bridging divides. Both emphasize that leaders must make people feel valued, engage authentically across generations, and anchor service and purpose in the Constitution and the American people.Host (Stephanie Crider)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 in the studio with Colonel Neil Snyder, and Charles “Chuck” Allen is joining us remotely.Snyder is the author of “The Consequences of Declining Patriotism in the United States,” which was published in the Autumn 2025 issue of Parameters.Allen culminated a 30-year Army career as [a] director [in] leader development, and retired as the professor of leadership and cultural studies in the Department of Command, Leadership, and Management at the United States Army War College.We are exploring today what shifting attitudes toward patriotism mean for trust, service, and leadership and how leaders can respond constructively.Neil, Chuck, what’s the one insight you hope leaders take away from the podcast today?Colonel Neil SnyderWell, first off, I want to thank you for having me on, and for Chuck Allen for doing this. It’s an honor to be with you, sir.I would just say for me, I’m a social scientist. People fascinate me, and I suspect that for a lot of the listeners, they’re super interested to know what makes other people tick. And, that’s what I’m interested in.Today, we seem to be living in fairly divisive times. And so, I’m interested to know what are the things that are dividing Americans. And so, my research in this article is about Americans’ values. And candidly, what I was hoping to find were sources of unity—the ties that bind us all together. And in many ways, that’s what I did.However, I also found that our values may be dividing us in some fundamental ways, the old from the young and the veterans from nonveterans, over a key issue that is truly important to national identity [and] to our national security. And that’s the value [of] patriotism. And so, if there’s one thing that I would hope listeners would take away, [it] is [that] I hope to inspire some curiosity. I hope that we can have conversations in an open, respectful way about values, to find those things that unite us and to find ways to bridge those things that divide us.HostLove that.Charles “Chuck” AllenI’m glad to be with you, Stephanie and Neil. It’s a great day to talk about this idea of patriotism and also our national values. My primary insight would be the importance of understanding that civil-military relations in the United States includes the connection of our military institution to society and to our nation. The US military, we must remember, exists to protect and serve the American people and its government as a first principle, and that requires trust, a trust which is grounded in the United States Constitution. So, that’s the one takeaway I think we want to focus on—trust in the Constitution and our responsibilities as a protective force for our nation.HostNeil, your article shows patriotism is declining among some groups.What surprised you most about these trends?SnyderYeah. This is a . . . it’s a good question. And like I said, this article is really about curiosity, and the article itself is about values. And so, [we will benefit] if we operationalize or conceptualize values as our beliefs about ideals, but also ideals that can motivate our behavior, how we act. And a key insight is that traditionally, Americans have had two kinds of values that are at tension.We seem to simultaneously value our individuality and our autonomy, the things that make us unique as people but, we also are fiercely American. We are proud of being American, [so much so] that even going back to the early period of our country before the Constitution, you know, there was this observation that Americans were united as a people—even before we were a country.And so, it’s this interesting thing that patriotism, or a common love for the country, is something that should unite us, and that value has traditionally been a key source of motivation for military service. Like Chuck talked about, Americans’ trust in the military as a key aspect of the bond between the people and their military servants, and part of the glue that makes that work is patriotism, a common love for country. And so, I was curious about patriotism. And there had been data out of Pew Research [Center] and some other places that suggests that the share of Americans that feel strongly patriotic seems to be in decline, and that that share seems to be in particular decline among young Americans.It’s this riddle. We’ve always had patriotism as a source of unity. But in fact, it may be a dividing value right now in separating young from old or veterans from nonveterans. And so, in the article, I look specifically at patriotism to see if it correlates [or] if valuing and showing importance for patriotism or love for country, if that correlates with either trusting the military or for young people, for Generation Z—so at the time of the article, [for] 18-to-28-year-old adults—whether patriotism correlates with having considered military service, being open to serving in our military. And my idea was that for Gen Z, low patriotism might be part of an explanation for why there appears to be less service interest among young people, which, for the reasons that Chuck talked about, has some profound implications.Low patriotism could also be, in an interesting way, a source of less trust in the military. And my logic kind of goes like this: If most people see the military as a symbol of our country, as a bastion of the country, a key part of our democracy . . . well, if you’re feeling less love for the country overall, that might result in less trust in this thing that people conflate with the country. And so, Americans’ trust could be, in the military, could be somewhat of a victim of generally less identification with the trust, with the country overall.And so, I wanted to see if that was true. I worried that there would be a veteran’s gap, which is to say that people who feel particularly patriotic may be more likely to join and, also, serving in uniform can cause people to feel more patriotic. And the net result of those two forces, selection and socialization, would result in veterans appearing way more patriotic than their nonveteran fellow citizens. Plus [we must consider] the generational gap between Gen Z and their elders. And so, we fielded this very large national survey to test the ideas, along with some others, and I was really surprised by the degree of unity over values that we saw among the respondents.And so, you asked what surprised me. And we looked at a really large battery of different kinds of values, and for the most part, Americans agree. It doesn’t matter whether you’re young or old, veteran, nonveteran, minority, white, male, female, political left, political right, there’s strong agreement on all kinds of values. But, patriotism was one that really stood out, and there was really this huge gap. And what we see is that far fewer young people and nonveterans value patriotism than older elders and veterans.And that really, really surprised me. I mean, I think the data showed something like 76 percent of Gen Z nonveterans think patriotism [is] important, [which] contrasts with 92 percent of older nonveterans and 96 percent of veterans. So, virtually every veteran feels patriotic, but if you ask a young person or a young nonveteran, you’re going to get a very different answer in the percentages.And, the percentages, you know, in the abstract, don’t mean anything, but when you extrapolate those percentages across 260 million adult Americans, those are huge social divides about a value, a fundamental idea about what is ideal and which should motivate people’s behavior. And so, those gaps were surprising. The size of the gaps were surprising to me.HostWhat happens when the younger generation, less than 50 percent, has patriotism? Is there a tipping point?SnyderIt’s a great question, and we should be thinking about two things. What are the consequences of declining patriotism? Does it mean that fewer young people will serve? While the data seem to bear that out. It could be a threat to the viability of the all-volunteer force if we can’t bring enough young people in [to the military] out of the spirit of volunteerism.The other thing is, and I really would like to hear Chuck Allen’s wisdom on this, is what do we do about it? We have leadership intuitions about how to build trust in small organizations, but I don’t know how we scale that up across the country. I don’t know what kind of policy interventions can lead to higher levels of patriotism and higher levels of trust.That’s a really wicked problem that national security leaders should be dealing with.HostWhat are your thoughts, Chuck?AllenWell, my first thought is that Neil wrote a great paper, which provides a lot of fodder for discussion and, I think, exploration. When I think about military service, why people come into the military, [I think about my personal experience]. Many years ago, I was a garrison commander over in Germany, and every two weeks or so, I would give the intake briefing to new members of the community. And, I would ask the same question, “Why did you join the military? How did you get here?” And [the answers] ranged from wanting to have a job [to] my folks kicked me out of the house. I believe in the United States. So, the wide collective of the factors that were involved, but they wanted to give us a shot. They believed that something existed for them that they didn’t have otherwise.And then, my challenge to them, as members of the military when their first term of service was over, is we know why you came in. Why will you stay? And as we have veterans go back into our society, they’ll communicate with the younger generations, “Here’s what I saw going in. Here’s how I felt coming out.”So, I think this is part of the process. Again, what we can do is make sure our veterans have a good experience within the formations to go back and [say to] the population, to give this a try.SnyderI share Chuck’s intuition on this. So, in a very similar way to what he’s describing as a garrison commander, as a brigade commander, I surveyed my troops every week. I was coming out of a PhD program, and I knew how to do surveys. So, it was easy for me to do this. And I had a very short survey of a couple questions that we did every week, and one of those questions is, do you trust your leaders? And the other question is, and this is a combat arms formation, would you want to go to war with this formation? And I was trying to get a sense of whether the people really identified with the organization and felt okay. And over time, the data led me to believe that what seems to work to generate trust is making sure that people feel valued as individuals.If people feel safe in the organization, in the community, in their state, county, [and] country, and they feel valued as people, they’re going to trust the institutions that shape their perception of individual agency and being and membership. And so, the kinds of questions that Chuck was getting after as a garrison commander, and that he led people to as a faculty member here, are the same kinds of things. That’s my intuition that we need to be able to scale up.And it’s this process of engagement to make sure people feel safe and valued as people, that can breed trust. And so, the scaling problem is the hard part. How do we go from an individual interaction that leads to promotion of individual identity and group identity to something that works at the national level? And that’s the frontier that we must struggle with.AllenSo, what we have now is a link back to this term of leadership. And I think it goes back to how we look at ourselves, how we think about ourselves, and what we decide to do. So, I’ll go back to an old definition of leadership from an Army field manual that says, I think, leadership is a process of providing purpose, direction, and motivation to achieve the mission and improve the organization.I think we can all agree with that. The purpose provides for what we’re trying to achieve. I’m looking at the direction that gives us the where and how we plan to get there, and then the motivation that comes with why that drives us. And, most important for us, is that trust is the enabler and also an outcome of leadership.So, if we talk about again looking at identity and purpose, you have to have those three things tied into the leadership and trust.I contend that leaders have the responsibility to communicate and ensure members see the alignment of their values for the principles or the purpose of the organization. The reality is that societal values may shift in relative importance because our environment is inherently dynamic, but the values remain as part of that collective that Neil has already talked about. It gives us an identity and makes up and defines [the] institution.And through it all, we want the military to be trusted and be trustworthy, based upon three major components. The first one, going back to this idea of ability and competence to accomplish the tasks and missions that are assigned to it; benevolence of motive; looking at the common and shared interests between us, we subordinate our own interests for the larger interests of the institution and the nation. And [there is] this idea of integrity. We’re reliable, we’re transparent, and we’re true to our word. It goes back to Neil’s position as a brigade commander, as an academic. But as a leader, it’s hard to, you know, give people a sense of purpose, direction, and drive to move forward.HostDoes your data suggest culture-building could influence attitudes toward service?SnyderWell, I think so. And not to oversimplify it, but the data suggest that veterans may value certain service-associated values—service, duty, patriotism—significantly more than nonveterans. And so, let’s pause for a second to unpack what that means. If, like, many people think, or may think that values are static, that we form our values early in life and they don’t change too much with the sequence of experiences that we go through during life. Well, the data seems to show that it’s not actually true that the powerful experience of military service among veterans and just selecting into service can shape values and change. And, that change of experience can lead to important consequences like trust in the military and other things. And so, what I’m trying to unpack here is what are the antecedents of Americans’ values? What’s shaping them?Certainly, military service is a causal factor in that I’m identifying with the research. And, you know, this maps to existing social science research on the topic. And, you know, I have a new research paper that was just published on this issue of the role of values in going into military service or not. And it’s an issue that’s been debated for 50 years by civ-mil scholars.Certainly, values can lead to selection into service, but service can also socialize or condition service members into adopting certain values, for the reasons that I’ve been describing. Now, I don’t personally study the kinds of policy interventions or scaled leadership approaches to build culture and values. That’s the domain of expertise of other scholars that I would defer to, but my intuition is that it can work, that important experiences and quality leadership can affect values change. And, while my data can’t speak directly to your question, I do share the intuition that collective experiences contribute to value formation.And to the extent that leaders can engage, to cultivate values, then we might expect scaled efforts to build unity and that it could be work. Now, I don’t want to speculate too much, but just like I have curiosity about what’s making Americans tick and what their values are, I think that leaders ought to try to be comfortable talking about values.And in recent years, we seem to not be willing to do that. But they’re important. They shape people’s behaviors and, if we’re not engaging in that space, we’re ceding the values debate to other forces.HostYou found a link between valuing patriotism and trust in the military. What does that mean for leader messaging?SnyderOh, complicated question there. My data suggest that value in patriotism correlates with trust in the military. And what I argued, to some degree, is that what we’re seeing is kind of a symbolic or unreflective form of patriotism. People likely associate the military with a nation, so they feel close to the country, and if they do, and they identify with the nation, then, because the military is a national symbol, then they’re going to trust the military.And that that raises really important questions about the durability or the true importance of Americans’ trust in the military. What does it mean for Americans to trust the military? Does it mean that Americans think that the military will do good or live up to Americans’ expectations of our values and our character in uniform? Or, does it mean that the public expects us to do the right thing—so, instrumental application of values? Or does it mean something else?Does it mean that they think that we will be effective on the battlefield or to secure their interests? And the data doesn’t speak well to this. The literature on this is particularly unclear. We tend to conflate being confident in the military with trusting it. And I think, for the reasons that we’re describing, that trust is really tied to values. And, we ought to be thinking about whether the public trusts our values and if that is a durable appreciation for the military or if it’s based on something else.And if so, what should we do about it? I think, to get to your question, I think leaders should be curious about the correlation between patriotism and trust. I think we should ask hard questions. I think we should ask, “Is it good for Americans to trust the military simply because they are patriotic? Is trust elevated by symbolic patriotism that appears to give false support to the military? And what are the consequences of high trust in the military today if that has a shallow basis?” And, in my experience, military leaders at the strategic level, are super, super attentive to public attitudes about the military. We pay attention to the trust numbers. And, if those numbers have a shallow or symbolic basis, then we may be fundamentally misunderstanding what Americans think about their military. And so, we should be curious. If we are misunderstanding our place in society, and if trust is inflated for symbolic reasons, then we may need to relook [at] our [relationship] with the country.HostChuck, what are your thoughts on how leaders can connect authentically with young cohorts?AllenI’m going to back up to a point that Neil had just made about this idea of shallow trust. Peter Feaver has a book out that’s called Thanks for Your Service. He talks about trust from different parts of our society of our military and how that trust, while it may be stated that [it is] relatively high compared to other factors or other institutions in our society, that trust can be very brittle.It may look solid, but if you poke at it, you’ll fall through. And so, it goes back to the idea of trust that society has for us. It has to be based upon a lot of experiences [and] reflection, but also the practice. What do we see consistently? So, I think we’ve talked about the term of culture sometimes. And [regarding] the idea of climate, I think Edgar Schein says, [it is] the basic assumptions and patterns of behavior that are used by organizational members to solve day-to-day problems. And, it’s really so important that we will bring new members that and teach it to them. And as that culture is based upon the assumptions and values that we espouse to be true. And what we’ll find is that the culture of trust that we want to have within the military should also be reflected in the perception of trust by our society.And as we talk about our leaders and organizations, they come in and out of organizations. They’re going into an organization that already has a set of trust values or assumptions [that] are in place. The expectation is there, but we find that the climate exists around the leader that may shift very quickly based upon the group dynamics, individual personalities, and some other environmental factors.So, I think leaders, in this aspect, have to understand the organizational or the institutional culture, but they’re responsible for building that culture and a climate within the organization itself. So, if you’re talking about looking at the nation and how we connect between members that are in the military and then the ones that we want to bring in, I think communication becomes a large piece.I think you’ve asked me before, [and] I’ve also had a conversation before about what are the key elements of communication at that level. There’s four Is that are out there that we teach at the [US Army] War College: inform, influence, involve, and inspire. And again, as a brigade commander, I’m sure Neil had formations and communication sessions from time to time where he’s [the] one trying to inform them [the soldiers] as to what the mission was and why were they going after it. And then what the important components to that might have been.He was seeking to influence individuals through their understanding of the task at hand and then that their contribution mattered to being successful. And he wanted to involve them, that’s the third I, in the process of one clarifying what the vision might have been and clarifying the factors that might affect the performance of the task but also to get their input so that they own the responsibility of making the plan or the unit successful.And the last one is this inspiration, this idea that we’re going to connect to the emotional affective side of the house. Why should I believe in you? Who are you? Who am I to you? And that idea that we’re going to use stories, talk about personal experiences—things that are impactful to you or to us and in the organization—that now communicates those values in a very clear and concise fashion.Now, I think the last part there, too, in terms of inspiration, is that we want to be able to connect our day-to-day activities to something larger than ourselves. It’s more than [the idea that] this is my squad. It’s more than the banner that’s on the guidon or the colors of the battalion. It goes back to that Constitution that says provide for the general welfare, provide for the common defense.If you can make those links between the individual units and the Army and the military, and those links are clearly visible to the society that we serve, then I think we’ll be better off.SnyderI could listen to Chuck on this issue all day long. Your wisdom is appreciated. I like your emphasis on communication and the different dimensions of communication. One of the things that I’m thinking about—about Gen Z, about young people—is that if we’re trying to reach them, and we’re trying to cultivate ties across generations and between young, young members of Gen Z, nonveterans, and the older veteran population across age and veteran status, I think communications and intersubjectivity may be key. My data shows that young people may be less patriotic, but I’m also cautious in my claims in the sense that maybe we’re getting the read totally wrong. I mean, I’ve had many, many interactions with folks from Gen Z that were inspiring where I respect their values and their intellect and their drive.And, it may be that we have the wrong read, that they may communicate or interpret the world with the language and symbology that is just simply different than the way that people like me ask survey questions to gauge their values and attitudes. And maybe, maybe we’re missing the point of Gen Z. If leaders want to be able to bridge the gap and communicate effectively, the way Chuck is describing, then we need to sustain our curiosity about what makes young people tick.And, it may be even more difficult with Gen Alpha. I don’t know if, Stephanie, you or Chuck have spoken to Gen Alpha folks lately and experienced Gen Alpha slang and had to figure out whether you had the “rizz” and all of these things to deal with the young people. It’s a different way of navigating the world linguistically.And so, communicating bilaterally and building trust through communication, requires a skill set for leaders that’s certainly far past what my article is talking about, but if we want to tap into young people’s collective identity, we may need to be able to meet them where they are and communicate with them on their terms.AllenI think, again, when we talk about those generational differences, Allison Abbe, one of our faculty members at [the US Army] War College, I push back on the concept of generational gaps. I think we go back to the basic human nature that every individual wrestles with. Who am I? What is my purpose while I’m here? Who am I working with and why? And then, why do I matter? Or do I matter at all?If we can connect those individuals at that level and then build that collective, cohesive vision of identity and purpose, then a motivation will come, irrespective of the generation.SnyderAbsolutely.HostAgree. Agree. This is for both of you.What’s an actionable step that leaders can take to build trust and purpose?SnyderWell, I guess I’ll go first, and, kind of building on the frame that we’ve been on, which is, I think that we all just need to be fully conversant with other people, with different generations, with folks from different cultures and subcultures and societies. We all need to learn some Gen Alpha slang, to gain some insight into how they see the world and how they navigate it.They are people. To Chuck’s point, they’re individuals, and we ought to meet them there, and at some point, just accept that they are the future of the country. Time stops for no person. And, they will staff the military, hopefully voluntarily, in the future. And so, we sort of need to recognize that they’re going to have a unique outlook, unique values, that they’re not static. And we need to be attentive to those changes and work with them. And we can’t presume that, you know, graying old people like me should be able to impose values. Instead, if we want to lead them, we need to figure out what motivates them and [how] to incentivize their behavior.AllenAnd for me, I think we go back to this idea that we look at the recruiting data for the past number of years, and one of the greatest predictors of someone who is going to join the service is someone who has a family member in the service. Or they’re located in communities that have a military presence. So, [what] we’ll find is that these individuals that we were looking for, they come in [and] have seen role models in their communities and their families. They provide the best example of what to expect within the service. And again, they also reflect the values that we espouse are important in the service. And [what] we’ll find, again, is that we have to have role models [and] guidelines. We have to have structures in place that people can lean into, they can cling on to.One of the primary responsibilities of leaders is to make sense of a world that is very confusing and ambiguous around them. And I think the other parts are, too, that we have to realize, like Neil has said, we have to trust, extend trust, into the younger generations, [and have faith that] that they can understand the values, that they can hold on to the task at hand, that they can hold together with themselves to move forward.So, we have to be able to extend trust in order to gain their trust in the process. And from that, being a role model, understanding the values what we espouse are really important. But more important, what you say must be what you do. The audio has to match the video.HostChuck, I really love that, and, I guess my next thought is, how do you track and measure the trust? Or do we even need to?SnyderI like this question, and I’m engaged in some research on this very question right now. And it has seized me, absolutely. I think I want to back away from the question, not to dodge it at all, but I think we need to understand what trust means for different people. And, you know, military leaders, communicate it almost sometimes as a commodity that’s given. Whereas, scholars sometimes communicate it as a conditional expectation for behavior. And those are divergent sets of ideas. And in my work, I’m talking about trust in the military on a national scale, and I truly think that we need a dedicated, multi-year effort to get to a really granular understanding of what, why, how, and when Americans trust the military and to delink ideas about values expectations and expectations of our character from their views of our competence or battlefield efficacy and how those two things overlap. And much of what we see seems to indicate that that confidence in the military, which we conflate with trust, is durable but shallow, based on things like symbolic patriotism or, worst case, partisan allegiances, which is what Peter Feaver’s book, as Chuck mentioned, kind of describes. And that may not be healthy. So, I think what we need is this multidimensional assessment of trust because we may not have an accurate picture of Americans trust in the military. And so, if your question is, how do we build trust? I think that we need a much-refined operationalization of what trust means and to work to common measures of that before we try to consider any kind of bold policy interventions to build trust. Why act without understanding? I guess is what I’m saying.AllenA few years ago, I wrote a paper with William Trey Brown, one of our colleagues, called “Trust: Implications for the Armed Professions.” We wrestle with the exact same things that Neil is talking about. One was our assessment mechanism. So, our bureaucratic answer is to put out very formal surveys. We’ve got organizational culture surveys [and] command climate surveys. We’ll do these things, again, to try to come up with a quantitative data of what the trust looks like within the organization and then try to extend that to public confidence and trust.Places like Harvard, the Gallup Poll, and the Pew Research [Center] have done studies like that on [trying to] quantify this conversation of trust. But, for me, I think the indicators we ought to focus on more [are] within the military, within the organization itself. What are the focus groups we can grab hold of to have a conversation with and see what themes are emerging over time, rather than rely on what we’ve used before in the past.We have command and information sessions for leaders with members of their organizations so that we can now engage with them. Engagement is a key point to invite them for the conversation and to see what themes are popping up that we hadn’t talked about before. And then the idea within organizations, how do you have these kind of team and group huddles as a matter of course? Not as episodic, but as a matter of course. Or when we engage with each other, what do we talk about that will give us indicators of the trust level, of the engagement levels, of the trends that we think are might be influential in helping us decide what we need to do. I think all of these are things that help us go back and look at those core values and principles that we espouse and see how close we are to them.I generally show a diagram where we’ll have a set of clouds in the sky on my PowerPoint slide, and I say, “These are the aspirations of our values and the things that we come up with for our basic assumptions.” And then I’ll show a little brick wall down below that. Here’s the day-to-day place where we live—the decisions that we have and our behaviors. And we will find in most circumstances [that] there’s a distance between the clouds and the brick, the brick wall. There’s inherently a gap between what we aspire to and then what we are actually doing on a day-to-day basis. And a responsibility of leaders is [to] one acknowledge that the gap exists and then to determine if the gap is getting too large, and then how do you bring it back in to make it closer?It probably won’t match exactly to what we’re doing in practice, but at least there’s an aspiration that’s in place. And so, for me, that goes back to our society. There’s a number of things that will happen that folks will ask us, what do we believe in? What are our values? What does our culture tell us that we’re going to do?And then we read the news reports. We’ll get certain examples of either bad behavior or questionable behavior. And then there’s a gap. And we have to ask ourselves, what are we going to do about that? I think our responsibility goes back to our Congress and our Executive Branch. What do we owe the American people? To be true to our values, to have a strong culture, and to meet the mission and task that we espouse to and complete. And from that, be trustworthy and earn the trust of the American people.HostI would love for each of you to share one timeless leadership principle or civic value.SnyderWell, I will return to kind of what I thought, which is that in difficult times, the most important thing a leader can do is make the people around them feel safe and valued. And if you can do that, you can find ways to have common ground and trust, even if you have different, you know, perspectives on the world. And, you know, that may not scale up and doesn’t necessarily apply to my research, but that’s something that rings true for me. And the organizations that I’ve been most proud to be in had leaders that made people feel safe and valued.HostYou have the last word, Chuck.AllenNot quite the last word, but I have a, probably, unsourced quote that says, “The purpose of an organization does not reside within itself.” And for me, that comes back to say our purpose has to be anchored in service. Leaders provide others what they need to be successful, and thus leaders exist to serve others, not the other way around.And I think we have to focus on that again. [The question] within our formations, within our institutions, is how do we serve others? Within our military, we serve the American people. We use a document called the Constitution as our guideline, our guiding principles.Thank you for this opportunity to have a conversation with you, two. I really appreciate that.SnyderThank you.HostListeners, you can read the genesis article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 55, issue 3. For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.

Presidential management style, foreign policy preferences, and domestic political interests all affect the national security agenda. International crises, however, are particularly likely to garner the attention of the National Security Council. This podcast analyzes a novel data set of all the issues raised at National Security Council meetings from 1947 to 1993 and finds that contemporaneous crises are very likely to be discussed, but that crisis management attenuates the Council’s attention to noncrisis national security matters. The results suggest presidents focus on crises at the expense of other strategic matters, and they do so when political conditions favor crisis management.Keywords: national security, presidency, international crises, political science, strategic studiesStephanie 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 in the studio with Colonel Neil Snyder, author of “Tyranny of the Inbox: Managing the US National Security Agenda,” which was published in the Spring 2025 issue of Parameters.Snyder is an assistant professor in the Department of National Security Strategy at the US Army War College.Let’s just go ahead and get started. You describe in your article how international crises dominate presidential attention, often at the expense of broader strategic issues. What are the long-term risks of this crisis-driven focus for US national security planning?Colonel Neil Snyder If I could, maybe I’ll back up and just kind of start with my intuition and my curiosity and why I was doing this research at all.And, it’s something that my guess is that many of the Parameters readers and [Decisive Point] listeners will relate to, which is the simple intuition that crises can dominate your life. When you are attending to crises, it seems to crowd out all of your other priorities, and I think leaders have this natural intuition whereby when you’re stating priorities, you’re actually talking about the things that . . . It’s a choice. You’re stating which you’re not going to do, what you’re going to defer or just table completely. And, I had this abiding curiosity of whether or not that was happening to us in the national security and strategy realm, too.It’s kind of like this tyranny of the inbox where, maybe how you and I might manage our e-mail, where if you just answer every e-mail that comes in, in the order in which it comes in, it’s not exactly a dominant strategy for managing your e-mail, right? You’re not choosing to spend your time on those important messages—the ones from family or the ones about your bank accounts or something that might matter the most. You’re just sort of managing the flow that comes in. That tyranny of the inbox can happen two ways—[by] attending to the things that are unimportant or, alternatively, focusing on only the most urgent thing that popped into your inbox at the expense of everything else that might matter to you.Eisenhower had this concept of Eisenhower’s window [The Eisenhower Matrix]. I’m sure many of the readers have seen it, where it’s this matrix, a two by two of the urgent versus the important. And, I kind of had this intuition that, in the national security world, we focus almost exclusively on the things that are urgent and important to the expense of those things that are important but not urgent.And, I wondered whether that was actually true or not. So, my curiosity started [not] with a question of whether or not [but] how the US relates to the world. And how we manage national security is affected by a kind of crisis myopia by which we are exclusively attentive to national security [issues] that are urgent. And so, it’s a matter of almost strategic discipline, which is a phrase, a term of art, that we hear a lot now, which is to say, do we have the discipline to attend to a broad range of topics, to have a breadth of our national security agenda, or do we sacrifice that breadth to attend to crises?And it’s a dilemma—like, we can’t not deal with crises—that’s the nature of a crisis. It’s urgent. It’s a high stakes, [and includes] high risk of use of military force. How do you not deal with that? And that, I see, as a kind of persistent problem. And so, my research is on the presidency. I look at all the presidential national security meetings from 1947 to 1993, the entirety of the Cold War, using primary-source records. And I looked at the post–National Security Council (NSC) meeting accounts of what topics they looked at—so, issues or topics that actually got [a] president’s attention in formal meetings of the NSC. And I looked for patterns, and I used a kind of algorithmic, computational text analysis to figure out whether or not those topics dealt with contemporaneous crises—things that were happening at that time—or other national security issues.And, I had a few expectations. One is, I thought style would matter, that presidents would vary. You know, Johnson did his Tuesday lunch clubs, whereas Eisenhower had large numbers of very formal NSC meetings. And Nixon was different. He chose to centralize things with Kissinger. And Reagan was certainly different. So, style matters. Every president would likely have different policy views and preferences and preference for either formal meetings or not, and that would determine whether or not they held meetings at all and whether or not they were attending to crises a lot when they did so.The second expectation I had was that conditions kind of matter. So, I had previously written a piece, in an academic journal called Presidential Studies Quarterly, which basically showed that NSC meetings become more likely during crisis periods. And so, not only do crises drive attention to national security, generally, because of linked threats, [for example] a crisis in the East might have impacts on security interests elsewhere because of forced trade-offs and these kinds of things. You know, the conditions themselves could drive interest in national security, but the problem with it is that those conditions that cause presidents to pay attention to things can invoke the threat of opportunity costs that, just by taking on an issue, it may trigger public opposition, congressional opposition, Congress may have partisan differences or policy differences with the president over an issue, or perhaps, alternatively, may simply use the opportunity of a president taking on an issue to take the opposite position for horse trading.And so, you know, when presidents are choosing whether to answer that e-mail in the inbox or not, what they’re actually doing is choosing whether to take resources on or to use resources to take on an issue and potentially overcome congressional opposition. And so, what are the risks, you ask, like, what are the long-term risks of a crisis-driven focus for US national security planning?Well, if we come back to [a] president’s logic about why they would take things on, they have incentives to deal with crises because it’s a chance for policy gains or political gains, potentially, but also, it comes with a cost. And so, that calculus in my data seems to suggest that presidents are particularly likely to take on crises, and that when they do so, they pay less attention to all other topics.The president is the most powerful person in the world [and] has a massive range of national security issues that presidents deal with. The challenge of that is that when you focus on one thing, the Ukraine today, the Taiwan today, the Gaza today, you’re not doing the other things. And so, the risk is agenda breadth. The long view tends to suffer.We tend to get crisis myopia, and it’s a question of how this gets extrapolated over time. In an era when crises are particularly prevalent, what we likely see is that attention to all other things drops off, and that compounds over time as crises last longer and become more frequent, which really reduces our strategic breadth. That’s concerning. It’s concerning for me when I can’t manage my e-mail, and it should be concerning for everybody else who would want our national security system to have a really broad view—because Americans have lots of interests.HostHow do domestic political dynamics shape the way presidents prioritize national security issues? How about an example for the audience?SnyderI’m a social scientist by training. My work isn’t commentary. It’s certainly not a commentary on partisan positions or polarization or anything like that in a contemporary environment. And I’m speaking to data from the Cold War. So, it’s largely retrospective. But what my take is, is that I focus on institutions and incentives. Kind of the way I was describing it earlier is that when presidents make a choice to chart an agenda, they’re taking on issues, and the simple choice of taking on issues is also the choice to take on opposition or to take on the resource costs necessary to either drum up public support for an issue or drum up elite support for an issue or overcome elite opposition to an issue.You ask, like, what is the domestic political dimension that’s affecting this? Well, my view is that the domestic and the foreign are not separate [and] that [a] president’s decision making is conditional both on international conditions (like crises) and also on the array of partisan forces through our institutions—be that in Congress, in the House and Senate, or [in] the potential for bureaucratic opposition within the executive branch agencies, which has its own kind of bureaucratic domestic politics. The institutions, the separation of power system, the shared power system between Congress and the presidency for certain national security instruments, creates these incentives for political actors on different sides to force negotiations. And those negotiations affect [a] president’s calculus of whether to take on certain issues, and that’s absolutely what the data bears out, that we see attentiveness to crises varies with whether or not the president’s co-partisans are in control of Congress.So, we can think about it in simple terms. If my friends are in charge over in Congress, they’re probably not going to vote against me, and they probably have policy preferences that are like mine.So, if I’m considering whether to take on an issue that I have beliefs about, I’m going to feel safer doing it knowing that the costs are going to be less if my friends are in charge. Whereas, if it’s [a] divided government where the opposition owns or has control of all or part of Congress, then you’re going to see substantial difference where they may be less likely to do things.HostDo you have an example that you can give us?SnyderI like to draw back to good historical examples. The one I use in the paper is [President Harry S.] Truman. President Truman ends World War II. We think of him as a great president. He assumed office after [Franklin D. Roosevelt’s] death. You know, he’s the one and only person in human history to have employed nuclear weapons to end a war. [He was], like, this great president.Well, by 1948, things were not going well for him. So, [in] the spring of ’48, he’s got his partisan opposition in control of Congress—the Republicans. He was a Democrat. The Republicans had control of Congress. His approval ratings in the spring of ’48 were super low. They were below 40 percent for the whole of the spring. His party was going to force him to a convention to get the party nomination for his reelection in the fall of ’48, so he knew that, come June, July of ’48, he was going to have to drum up party support to stay in office.He was in this very precarious position at home, where his attention was, by some accounts, focused on his own political fortunes and not getting voted out of office as this great president who won World War II.Then there’s the Soviets. The dawn of the Cold War. There was a conflict, [a] competition, over what would happen with Berlin. And, in June of ’48, the Soviets blockaded Berlin and, eventually, we had the Berlin Airlift and all of these things that everybody knows about [like] American pilots bravely dropping candy to kids over Berlin. Well, the question is, how did Truman deal with the situation? That crisis seized the government. I mean, we considered a forcible ground option to penetrate Soviet defenses and retake Berlin, like, essentially reopening World War II—the endgame of World War II.We considered nuclear strikes in the period of the crisis. Truman ends up holding something like 25 different National Security Council meetings on the issue, 16 of which, I believe, were about Berlin itself or related to Berlin. The question is, did his domestic weakness cause him to be more (or less) attentive?In the article, I don’t call the case.I’m using this case to stimulate curiosity because there seems to be a real intuition from Truman’s case that it probably did. In fact, [the] chairman of the Joint Chiefs at the time, the first chairman, Omar Bradley, in his retrospective memoir, essentially criticized the president for being too attentive to domestic politics instead of the crisis, which is a pretty damning indictment.I’m interested in patterns like how did this play out over the entirety of the Cold War? And my intuition and the data [seem] to say that domestic politics really, really matters, which is striking. Like, you would think that we would attend to international crises because of the crisis and security stakes, not because of domestic politics. But that’s not what the data shows—that, in fact, presidents sometimes don’t take these things on simply because of the domestic political costs involved.HostGiven the centrality of the National Security Council, what reforms or practices could help ensure the NSC maintains strategic breadth even during periods of intense crisis?SnyderI have more recent personal experience with the National Security Council in the last few years, but that’s not the topic of the research, and I’m certainly not commenting on current things, but I think there are some lessons.Right?So, what we see is that over the course of the Cold War, foreign policy and national security issues [became] increasingly centralized at the White House. And, in fact, this was by design. There was a debate after World War II about what presidents need to manage US security, now that the US was this leading global power. We equipped the president with the National Security Council, and that has multiple things that help the president maintain some breadth, thing one is the system itself. So, presidential meetings of the National Security Council are but one feature of what we call the Scowcroft [Model] for the NSC. So, you have presidential meetings, and you have principals’ meetings—which are the cabinet officials and the adviser—without the president present. You have deputy’s meetings. You have interagency policy coordinating committees and sub IPCs, and they’ve got different names, but all of those structures allow attention to national security matters, even with the president not in every meeting. Thing one—how do we get strategic depth is the system itself is fairly resilient.Thing, two, is the NSC staff. Now, the staff size is varied—and it sometimes includes lots of professionals—sometimes lots of detailees from the departments and agencies. That system ensures that the president has access to experts who have topical focus areas and [that] they're maintaining the work on that portfolio throughout the administration.And the third part is the WHSR, the White House Situation Room, the nerve center for the NSC with communications and access to intelligence and information to inform decision making and figure out what issues ought to surface.These structural features have really evolved over time. And, you know, today what you see is that these structures allow the NSC to have a lot of breadth, bearing in mind that the limiting factor is that there’s only one president. If there are certain hard issues that [are] truly urgent and important that need to go to the president for direction or decision, there can only be one, so to speak. And so, that is a chokepoint. And that is a feature of the system by design. The president can only do so many things.HostYou mention that inattention to non-crisis issues may contribute to strategic decline. Can you give us some examples where deferred issues later escalated into crises, and maybe how better agenda management might have changed outcomes?Snyder In the paper, from a pure science perspective and in terms of methodology, I’m applying a method of looking at the topics that are raised over time. And so, it’s really, really difficult to draw the different continuities between different kinds of topics. And so, it’s difficult to know whether there’s a shadow cast forward or cast after crisis periods, which is to say, social scientists will struggle to know whether or not inattention or attention today—because the US is so powerful and has so many capabilities—might prompt crises later, or not.So, in fact, there’s a problem of endogeneity and the rigorous way of saying it where, like, “what I do today might affect whether or not there’s a crisis that I have to attend to later, which might lead to crisis myopia later (or not),” and that’s difficult to untangle. And, I’m careful in the article to recognize the limits of what the data can tell us.And so, I don’t want to extrapolate beyond my support, too much, but what I will comment on is that the NSC deals with a massive range of issues. For example, today, it might be about space policy or cyber biotechnology, quantum computing, general artificial intelligence, or all kinds of other issues that can get securitized or brought into the national security domain when any of the world's issues could be the president’s issues and could get on the table. Then certain crises—like an ongoing war, Arab-Israeli conflict in the ’60s and ’70s, [and the] ’50s, crises over the Taiwan Strait—when those things demand attention in the immediate, what happens, and what you see in the data, is that those topics take on a certain weight, a certain frequency of attention during the crisis, and then, after. There’s this lagged effect. And, in general, NSCs only deal with so many topics per meeting, they can only cover so much, and these are complex, thorny issues, and the NSC is a forum for deliberation. These are hard topics.What we see is that when we attend to crises, there’s this current and then downstream effect. And, I’ve looked at this several different ways. I’ve looked at it through the lens of meetings themselves, which is what the paper is about. I’ve also looked at it through national security directives to see if the types of guidance that [come] out of the NSC to the government drops off about certain topics after a crisis, and the answer is there’s some evidence that it does.Essentially, these crises cause a massive drop off across everything that's noncrisis. And so, you asked, “Can you give an example of a particular issue that's deferred?” My answer is actually that it’s not a particular issue. It’s all the issues that get deferred. That becomes the all-consuming challenge that we should be worried about. That, when all things that I should be paying attention to, I don’t, well, we have a problem. That’s the problem with strategic breadth that I’m talking about—I mean, agenda breadth, the scope of things that we could look at as the most prosperous, secure, powerful country in the world. We have a big agenda, and we should. And the question is, how do we manage that? And if we’re only managing today’s problems, are we living up to American’s expectations for what we should be doing to care for their security?And, I have questions about that.HostIn today’s environment of simultaneous crises—Ukraine, Gaza, Taiwan—how can the United States walk and chew gum strategically?SnyderGoing into my research, I had this intuition, and maybe it’s because I was inspired by some great historians that I’ve been mentored by over the years, that if there was going to be a one period of American history when we could look back and say the US had great strategic breadth and vision, I would have thought early Cold War, you know, [for example] Eisenhower, [and] the birth of the NSC. He was known for having used it very effectively.And even during that period of time, you see crisis myopia, where the presidents get drawn into these things and can’t escape the dilemma of paying attention to the urgent and important at the expense of everything else. Today, crises are perhaps more prevalent. And if you believe that we are in a kind of a new multipolar world where balance-of-power strategies are becoming more prevalent, then [the] contemporary environment, along with media attention and the ability for the information environment to hype or kind of inflate risk perceptions in crisis conditions, I think that the dilemma is probably getting worse.Our current conditions may exacerbate the idea of crisis myopia. And so, if I were to predict, and I’m not really, in the paper, speaking off the cuff, I think that we may see NSC processes that become increasingly affected by crisis myopia. So, increasing centralization to the White House plus this information environment plus domestic discord plus media creates all kinds of incentives for continued crisis myopia. And what might that mean? Well, sadly, it may mean that we may be entering into a period of continued or persistent crisis myopia where we’re not really able to look long, and that is going to have potentially negative consequences.HostSo, maybe extending that thought a little bit, we do need to wrap it up. Do you have any concluding thoughts or takeaways?SnyderI think the obvious question is, like, how do you get out of the dilemma? And so, woe be it from me as just a lowly professor at the [US Army] War College, to try to, like, offer advice to presidents about how to solve this.But I think, as a leader in the Army, I think to myself to remind leaders that taking on issues is a choice you’re making a choice. It should be a thoughtful, reasoned choice. And you ought to be careful about what you’re choosing to defer and how you delegate [and] who you empower to do other things so that many things can happen simultaneously.And, I guess the last thing I would say, [is that] maybe we should extend our national security leaders some grace [and] be cognizant of the huge burden that they bear and that they’re facing these dilemmas. The weight of their responsibility is massive, and it likely takes a toll on them as people across the organization. And, maybe we should just give them some grace and recognize that there are these strong forces that condition them and that lead them to focus on crises and limit their worldview.HostWhat a great point to end on. Thank you.Listeners, you can read the genesis article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 55, issue 1. For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.

Dr. Shang-Su Wu and Dr. Collin Koh discuss the ties between the Philippines and Taiwan and how the Philippines would be affected in a conflict between Taiwan and China. Their discussion also delves into topics such as military modernization in the Philippines and US involvement in the Philippines.Keywords: Philippines, Taiwan, China, Philippine-Taiwan relations, security, military modernization Disclaimer: This transcript has been edited for clarity.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.Joining me virtually today are Dr. Shang-Su Wu and Dr. Collin Koh. Wu is the author of “The Philippines’ Security in the Face of China's Rising Threats,” which was published in the Winter 2024–25 issue of Parameters. He's an assistant professor and research coordinator in the Homeland Security Program at Rabdan Academy in Abu Dhabi.Koh is [a] senior fellow at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) based in Nanyang Technological University. He primarily researches maritime security and naval affairs in the Indo-Pacific region, focusing on Southeast Asia.Welcome to Decisive Point.Dr. Shang-Su WuThank youDr. Collin KohThank youHostTell me about the security connection between the Philippines and Taiwan. What are the likely scenarios that might play out in Taiwan, and how would these different scenarios impact the Philippines?WuGenerally, if China wants to use force against Taiwan, there's probably two most likely scenarios. The one is a blockade, then another—of course, after a blockade or certain fire projection—[is to] try to eventually do the invasion. So, deployment of the US military near to Taiwan, no matter in Okinawa or in the Philippines, they [are a] dilemma [for] China because China, on the one hand, if they want to constrain the conflict [bilaterally], just go straight. Yes, they would not like to attack, but on the other hand, that means their flanks are opened for the intervention for the attack. On the other hand, if you want to extend the conflict, then, of course, the scale will be much bigger, the outcome will be much worse, or the risk much higher. In that case, they have to pay very [close] attention on military deployments.And, in the past, of course, the Philippines remained less relevant because most invasion [scenarios] remain focused on Taipei, the northern part of Taiwan. So, Japan’s side will be important, but nowadays, if they are doing a blockade (of course, if they are surrounding the island), they would also [employ] the longer range of the weapon systems for the munitions.So, even the northern part [of Taiwan] would be under the firepower [deployed from] the Philippines. That’s why the US military deployment in the Philippine would matter a lot. But, on the other hand, the Philippines have various weakness. The one weakness is their armed forces haven’t been modernized since, generally, between the 1980s to the 2000s or early 2010s. So nowadays, their capability is still weak, especially compared to China. And, you know, they have the maritime disputes over various islands, and China may use that to press the Philippines. Another issue is [that] the Philippines likes to export the labor force for their economy. And in Taiwan, they [have] at least 154,000 Filipino workers. China may use these people as a kind of hostage to threaten the Philippines. And in 2003, the Philippines quit Operation Iraqi Freedom [because] al-Qaeda threatened the Filipino workers overseas, and there could be a similar situation [in Taiwan someday]. So, that makes the US deployment in the Philippines, and overall, the security connection with Taiwan, significant.KohYes, thank you. I think, first of all, allow me to first comment [compliment], Shang-Su, on the new publication. Congratulations. And, it's a great honor to be here to share about what I feel to be the security connection between the Philippines and Taiwan.This is a very timely discussion we are having because the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] Eastern Theater Command started a whole new series of [exercises], and one of the itineraries that was being exercised was the blockade [in] some parts of the waters around Taiwan.As Shang-Su has rightly pointed out, in the past, it used to be that the invasion would have focused on the northern part of Taiwan—and particularly around Taipei. I do understand that there is still an emphasis on the defense around the Tan-shui River area, but now, given that the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) has been maneuvering more frequently around Taiwan, it's not [an] “around Taiwan” issue. So, the conception has all changed. The south of Taiwan, which is right close to the doorstep of the northern Philippines, has become increasingly more saliant. The Bashi Channel, which is the channel—the waterway—just in between southern Taiwan and northern Philippines, is a key waterway for the transit of various forces, not just for the PLA, but also for US and Allied forces. So, it will be a contested waterway in times of conflict, and the Philippines will find it rather difficult to stay out of it completely. So that's one.Second is with the [Ferdinand] Marcos Jr. administration, in recent times, there has been a boost to the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) between the two countries. Under this agreement [signed in 2014], which is, in fact, dated all the way back to the late [Benigno Aquino III] administration, there [have] been moves to reinvigorate the bases and other access arrangements centering around [the] northern Philippines. Those exercises that we see, for example, [in the] exercise Balikatan, they actually have a focus on the northern area of the Philippines in mind, and that actually has Taiwan right in the crosshairs without being them actually naming Taiwan as the area of focus.But, clearly, the intent is to boost the forces—both the American forces and the Philippine forces—to deal with a Taiwan contingency. So, whether or not the Philippines like it or otherwise, being involved in some way or another in a Taiwan Strait conflict might be a higher possibility these days. I remember Marcos Jr. did mention that it will be inevitable for the Philippines to be involved in one way or another.The question here is: If the US has to be involved in direct combat operations around Taiwan, and if the Philippines would opt to stay out of direct combat operations around Taiwan, then it would mean that the Philippine forces will have to take on the primary mantle of safeguarding its waters in the South China Sea. And that, in itself, is going to be a tall order for the Philippines, as Shang-Su rightly pointed out. The armed forces of the Philippines is still currently in the midst of modernization, and there is much to be done before they become a more credible deterrent force going forward.HostRegarding the balance of forces, what impact does America’s involvement in the Philippines and Taiwan have vis-à-vis China’s threat?WuBecause [of] the Philippines very limited capability—there’s just one squadron of fighter jets and, and maybe it will expand to four very soon, this year—[it] has a very limited capability to defend itself. So, if the armed conflict happened—and in the Philippines—then US detachments would have to shoulder most [of the] responsibility of the missions because the Philippines itself only can protect very key locations, very few—even [in] most of [its] territory.Regarding this imbalance, of course, we have to mention [the] Philippines since 2012, because the Scarborough Shoal incident, they indeed put the effort into modernization, but unfortunately, they face China, the quickest expanding (or military increasing), the rising power. So, [the] Philippines’ effort compared to China is very limited. It’s very insufficient. So, if anything, the US will play a very key factor [in bringing] balance. But, on the other hand, it also means the US knows [it has] to handle different locations—so, how [many forces the US can provide to the] Philippine regarding defense—and that will be challenging.KohIf I could chime in quickly on that. Shang-Su, you rightly pointed out the current modernizational challenges faced by the AFP—the Armed Forces of the Philippines—and, I think one thing to also point out is that the Philippines, as an archipelagic state, has multiple maritime areas of interest. And, given that it doesn’t just have the West Philippine Sea, which is the area within the South China Sea that they claim under their sovereignty and jurisdiction, other than the West Philippine Sea, we have also the eastern seaboard of the Philippines, which, of course, [centers] around what they call the Philippine Rise, which is an underwater submerged feature that is considered resource rich. And not to mention that there are key waterways that run through the Philippine archipelago that actually allow access right into the open western Pacific Ocean. Now, one example would be that in recent times we have seen PLA Navy ships actually transiting some of those waterways, for example, the Basilan Strait, which is in the southern part of the Philippines. And, it also could mean that in wartime, those waterways could be contested, largely because the Philippine armed forces on its own might be unable to, in fact, police effectively those waterways, much less to even think about defending them in times of war.So, it will really depend on the US, but what I do tend to see is that the war in Ukraine might actually offer some very important lessons. For example, Ukraine was derided as having no Navy to talk about. But Ukraine—with the help of Western, primarily US, intelligence and other [types] of support—was, in fact, able to deal a blow to the Russian Black Sea fleet with the sinking of the flagship Moskva soon after conflict broke out in Ukraine. I believe, using this model, the Philippines might be able to stand a chance in at least dealing a blow to Chinese forces in certain parts of its archipelago. But, it goes without saying that the armed forces of the Philippines remain pretty limited when it comes to capacity, especially when we are talking about a long-drawn sustained conflict over a period of time.HostWhat do our listeners need to know about the Philippines’ military modernization?WuBefore the 1960s, it took the lead in Southeast Asia because of the ties under the [US-Philippines Mutual] Defense Treaty with the US, and also the US military deployment, then also during the Cold War context. So, [the] Philippines received a certain kind of capability [to] build out the Navy and the Air Force, but during later 1960, when their insurgency happened, they [were mostly at] war. And in war, that means the external [issues like modernization for] the Navy [and] Air Force generally were [considered] secondary development. And, of course, [because of these circumstances, it] turned out their Navy, until [the]2010s, didn’t have any [missiles]. So, the defense fell behind other countries, and especially after the [Ferdinand] Marcos Sr. regime collapsed in1986. More of the internal turmoil made the military modernization even worse. Then, following the US closing of [its] bases, they found their resources could not handle [the requirements of] modernization. So, overall, they lay behind—not just compared to China [but] compared to all the other Southeast Asian countries like Vietnam, United Malaysia. They fell much behind [the] others.So, from the Scarborough Shoal [incident of] 2012, because they proved then their overall capability, China is really too [much for the Philippines to] even maintain [a] forcing presence. So, they started to modernize [and] started to build back against the [Chinese] build up—build back the capability. But a build-back capability based on the Philippines financial capacity is limited. It is still at a slow pace. Then, of course, also, from 2012 until now, they have [had] three different administrations. And in the Philippines, every presidency will have a different approach [regarding defense spending]. So, the route—I can’t say it is very zigzag, but of course, it won’t [be the same as what] all the less strong efforts like Vietnam or other South Asian country will have done. So, this is relatively less than just, unfortunately, their territorial contest. And now, with the location with regarding Taiwan facing China, [it gives] them much more, much heavier pressure.HostCollin, do you have anything to add?KohYes, very interesting. Shang-Su rightly pointed out [that] this evolution of the Philippines’ security conception and threat perceptions over time, much of it, of course, has to do with the fact that right into the 1990s, all the way into the early 2000s, the priority has always been on internal security. I mean, look, there has been a militant threat in the post–9/11 environment. The militant threat actually magnified in the Philippines, especially around the southern Philippines, in particular. The Philippines was also facing a communist insurgency. So, much of the emphasis had been on internal security [rather] than on external security.Those presidencies that existed back then, talking about the [Joseph] Estrada administration, before that was the [Fidel V.] Ramos administration. They have largely been looking more inwards than outwards, and that, thereby, means that over time, despite what happened in 1990s with the first flare-up on the South China Sea, with the Philippines centering around Mischief Reef, in fact, there was more of a conception that, you know, that wasn’t so much a big problem. But, dealing with internal threats from communist insurgents and militants will take precedence, and there has always often been a somewhat, I call, fatalistic defeatist type of thinking that there’s no point or very little meaning in trying to build up the armed forces with a credible deterrent capability because there’s no way the Philippines is able to fight a war with China anyway, so don’t waste time on that.So, now it all changed last year because now, with Marcos Jr., he has adopted a more assertive stance on the South China Sea issue, together, backed up by a very supportive congress [of the Philippines], and we are going to look at what’s going to happen with the midterm election in the Philippines and, of course, a largely supportive population that backs up the administration’s South China Sea policy, its approach on China, as well as the modernization of the Philippines’ military. The problem here is funding is short. At the same time, the armed forces of Philippines is starting from a pretty low base—the low base that actually was frozen since the 1960s [and] ’70s ’til now. So, the base was so low that any modernization effort has to be not just sustained, but it does require a lot more effort in trying to, sort of, match up various aspects—air, naval, land, cyber, and other domains as well.HostIs there another really important factor as it relates to Taiwan, the Philippines, and China that you want to touch on? WuAll I want to add [is] as previously mentioned about the Philippine overseas labor in Taiwan, that this issue, so far, is, I think, still very hard to solve. And [regarding] the military modernization for the Philippines—just as Collin mentioned—there is this huge gap, but on the other hand, it’s [about] the profits. There’s no shortcut. Of course, if [the] US [has a] large military deployment [to the area], they [might] show up very quickly [and fill] the gap. Another thing [is that] the Philippines may not politically accept [going] back to the Cold War era. So, what they do is still their modernization and, if possible, they [can] adjust their own overseas labor deployment or, overall, the labor distribution around the major market may help. And, either way, [it] won’t be fast.But, on the other hand, there's probably no other solution, so they have to take this slow pattern. Then, the US and the other [allies or partners] for the Philippines probably only can just assist them because as long as the Philippines [builds itself] better [and prepares] better, it will lower the cost and then lower the burden on others and also [generate] a more confident or credible attitude to face the challenge.KohYeah, I will quickly chime in on what Shang-Su has shared, but I will focus more on what probably hasn’t been so much touched on, namely the security or, rather, informal security relationship between Taiwan and the Philippines.The Philippines has officially embraced a One China policy, and there is no way of publicizing much of those interactions between the two militaries. But, first of all, we have to highlight that the answer of those arrangements that actually existed, for example, the two countries’ coast guards actually police the Balintang Channel—and, of course, that is part of the Bashi Channel in itself—over fishery operations. There have been instances of illegal fishing that took place across the waterways from time to time. Having the two coast guards coordinate and at least engage in some form of communications with each other is, in fact, a good thing to have. And, that might actually potentially form the basis of any potential wartime strategic coordination, if necessary. So that is one.Second is that between the two navies—at least from an earlier Philippine report—there was an instance where the Taiwanese navy and the Philippine navy engaged in some form at-sea interaction, practicing the core unplanned encounters at sea, or queues, that came about more than 10 years ago with the Western Pacific Naval Symposium. Though these two navies practiced queues during their interaction, which, while it might be minor, I tend to see it as, again, one type of interaction that could serve as a basis for future operational cooperation between the two forces in terms of contingencies that concern both entities.HostShang-Su, last word to you. Do you have any closing comments or a rebuttal to Collin?WuOkay, the final spot probably is not about the Philippines [but] something with [Taiwan] because [for] Taiwan, the external focus has always been on the US and China. I mean Southeast Asia, yes, they mentioned the ostensible policy, but [it is] still quite limited, especially like the bilateral relations with the Philippines, especially after 2013 because there [was] a fishing incident. But I think further engagement [has] to improve—we can see [that relations between] Japan and Taiwan improved quite much in the last decades, but I think the Philippines have a lot of potential in Taiwan—and Taiwan [in the Philippines] (both sides) regarding the coordination of certain kinds—at least the mutual understanding that could be improved.KohI guess it is important to look at, from the standpoint of the Philippines, that engagement in any future conflict over Taiwan is going to be a very tricky calculation for Manila because, on the one hand, there is, of course, the obligation that the Philippines has to fulfill as a treaty ally to the US under the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty [United States-Japan Security] . But on the other hand, clearly, you know, there are interests that Manila could not ignore, and that will be, of course, the South China Sea interest [and] concerns that if the Philippines is involved one way or another that it will be possibly embroiled in a conflict in the South China Sea with China. In other words, the Taiwan Strait conflict, right, may potentially expand into a larger conflict that involves the South China Sea that the Philippines will have to be involved [in] directly.So, therefore, I think there is quite a bit of soul searching on the part of Manila when it comes to future planning. But with the military exercises from the PRC [People’s Republic of China] around Taiwan, now the armed forces of the Philippines has instructed the Northern Luzon Command, which is [all] the command that is, in fact, you know, centering on the northern part of the, of the archipelago itself, telling the command to start to prepare for any future Taiwan contingency. So, right now, as we see, there is now serious talk about what the contingency is like. Very possibly, we won’t see that plan that will transpire, but what I tend to see is the Philippines slightly calibrating its involvement in any future Taiwan conflict going forward.HostIt’s been a real pleasure talking with you both. Thank you so much for making time to speak with me today.KohThank you, Stephanie. Thank you, Shang-Su.WuThank you, Collin. Thank you, 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. For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.

In this episode, authors Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick and Dr. Hugo Harvey-Valdés compare the transatlantic partnerships between the United States and West Germany in the 1970s, the US and South Korea in the 1970s and 80s, and the US and Chilean armies’ relations in the 1960s. They discuss the successes and struggles of those partnerships and the strengths and limits of American influence during these time periods.Keywords: history, partnerships, Cold War, Post-Cold War, Federal Republic of Germany, South Korea, Chile, foreign policy, defense industry, political indoctrination  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 speaking remotely today with Hugo Harvey-Valdés and Michael Fitzpatrick. Both were authors of articles featured in the Historical Studies forum in the Winter 2024–25 issue of Parameters.Dr. Hugo Harvey-Valdés, full professor and researcher at the University of Los Americas Santiago, held a variety of field and academic positions during 27 years of active military service before retiring in December 2020. He is the author of “Allies, Partners, or Puppets: American and Chilean Armies, 1961–69.”Dr. Michael Fitzpatrick is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and supports the Defense POW-MIA Accounting Agency. Fitzpatrick wrote “Korea, Germany, and the Arsenal of Democracy.”Welcome to Decisive Point. Thank you for joining me.Michael FitzpatrickThank you for having me.Hugo Harvey-ValdésI appreciate the invitation. Thanks a lot for having me.HostWhat drew you to study these particular aspects of US foreign military policy?FitzpatrickI was drawn to this subject because I think the relationship between the US and its allies is so important to the crafting of contemporary foreign policy. I think, in the last several presidential administrations, Americans have really tried to reconsider their alliance relationships. And, I think that the actual mechanics of these relationships are often understudied in the historiography.And, I think that this is such an important subject and an interesting subject because I see a lot of overlap between the West German situation in the 1970s and the South Korean situation. The strategic outlook in both of those regions is very similar. And yet, American policy and American actions in those countries—and the result of American policy and action in those countries—is often radically different. And so, this creates an interesting opportunity for study and an interesting opportunity for comparison.HostHugo, what was your inspiration?Harvey-ValdésWhen I was working on my doctoral dissertation that was about President [Eduardo Frei Montalva’s] foreign policy between 1964 and 1970, I analyzed many declassified documents from the United States and Chile, which showed that Chile was not above its state—I mean that Chile didn’t follow the US guidelines in foreign or domestic policy. Despite the millions of dollars that Frei Montalva received from economic aid plans and that supported his presidential campaign in his first years in office.Then, I asked myself, “If the politicians developed independently, why would the military have faithfully followed US demands?”  Furthermore, in my own exchanges and training with the US Army, I never felt any intention to influence or ideologize my military thought.Therefore, I realized that there was a need to reassess prevailing narratives that have depicted the relations between American and Chilean armies during the Cold War, especially during [the] Kennedy and Johnson administrations.HostMichael, give us an overview of US military involvement in Korea and Germany. What were the strategic priorities in each case, and what time frame are we talking about here?FitzpatrickSo, the time frame of the article is actually quite broad. I started looking at the immediate post-war and the onset of the Cold War through to the current day. But particularly, I like to focus on the period of the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, which I think is a very dynamic period in the three-party alliance. The strategic priorities, generally, are very similar, I think, between South Korea and West Germany. Both countries were divided. East and West in the case of Germany [and] North and South in the case of Korea. The American allies in each country, their allied nations, were confronted by kind of aggressive neighbor states on the border, who looked to, at some point in the ambiguous far future, to try and end this artificial division and bring Marxist Leninism to these divided situations.So, for the United States, deterrence is an incredibly important component of their strategic outlook in these regions. Third, in the case of both divided situations, both sides of the division were backed by outside superpowers. The United States backed West Germany and South Korea, China backed North Korea, and the Soviet Union backed East Germany. And so, there was a tremendous amount of outside military aid, economic aid—support that flowed into these divided situations—which only exacerbated inflamed tensions. So ultimately, I would argue in both cases that the US pursues a policy of deterrence, and they focus on maintaining the status quo in each country—that they prefer the status quo situation rather than some kind of very violent attempts to realize it.The issue for American foreign policy, and I would love to talk about this more, is that in Germany the status quo for most of the period that we’re talking about is a pretty positive one. Germany remains democratic. It remains committed to the kind of government that’s created in the aftermath of World War II and is committed to a very specific interpretation of the aftermath of World War II. But in South Korea, particularly once you get into the 1960s and ’70s, the situation is undemocratic. There are significant problems in South Korea. And so, American commitment to the status quo in South Korea actually becomes very problematic to South Korean politics.HostHow was US military assistance to Chile in the 1960s different from Korea and Germany?Harvey-ValdésUS military assistance to Chile, during the 1960s, contrasted a lot with its relationships with Korea and Germany. While the US involvement in Korea and Germany included three kinds of relations—extensive long-term military alliances, operational developments, and joint technological developments—US and Chilean interactions remained just educational and professional. Military exchanges with Chile involved mainly training and limited equipment transfers.In fact, when the United States sold weapons to Chile within the Mutual Assistance Pact, in order to give stabilization within the region, similar equipment was transferred to neighboring countries [such] as Argentina, Peru, and Bolivia. Furthermore, US policy toward Chile was a joint effort complementing civilian-driven economic initiatives like the Alliance for Progress.HostWhat determined whether the United States treated a country as an ally, partner, or puppet?Harvey-ValdésThe distinction between what was considered an ally, partner, or puppet rested on the degree of autonomy first and then, the mutual benefits perceived by both countries. In Chile’s case, the relationship reflected mutual professional interests rather than a mere subordination. My research shows that Chile maintained significant autonomy in decisions regarding military cooperation, and these were always made by civilian authorities [and], thus, aligned with Chilean foreign policy.Chile’s refusal to fully support US policies during the Cuban Missile Crisis and then, during the Dominican Republic intervention in 1965, reinforced this position as a sovereign partner, rather than being a recipient or a puppet state. The nature of the relationship was based on the willingness and then capacity of recipient nations to exercise independent decision making.HostWas military aid meant to build independence or was it a tool for American influence in Korea and Germany?FitzpatrickThe historian’s answer is that both, I think, are true at different times as we look through the timeline. Ultimately, for the US, I think, military aid is a tool for independence, generally, and it’s a tool to secure deterrence. I think that, especially for Army planners in the Pentagon itself, military aid was necessary in order to produce the strategic outcomes that they were looking for. And, American influence was secondary to that—or a vehicle—in order to get the situation that they were looking for. Like I said, I think in both cases, but especially in South Korea, there was a desire to maintain the status quo. Using American influence to achieve that strategic outlook was something that was sometimes palatable, but I think that there’s significant variation from period to period.For example, in Germany in the 1950s, US aid was an important tool to the remilitarizing German Bundeswehr, which began to rearm in 1954. After that, American arms sales were important because they could keep Germany in the Western sphere. They could rapidly militarize, remilitarize, especially the German land army. Of course, weapon sales to the West German army were profitable for American companies, using that as a tool to try and support the US’s own deterrence and production posture. But ultimately, I think, also, in the 1950s, there’s still a concern about democratic backsliding in West Germany and the fear that a revived army could, in fact, follow some of the mischief, we’ll call it, of the German armies of the previous decades. I think in that case, it’s definitely a tool for American influence and American influence towards the promotion of democracy.That only goes away in the ’60s and ’70s when it becomes clear that backsliding is not going to occur and when the German military begins to establish more independence. Interestingly, though, I think in the 1960s and ’70s in South Korea, you see almost the exact opposite trend where, in South Korea, American arms initially, after the Korean War, especially, ends in 1953, are used to kind of maintain that position of American influence and maintain the American commitment to South Korea. By the 1970s, American planners are far more interested in preserving Korean independence—preserving Korean autonomy.There’s a period of strong democratic backsliding in South Korea. In [1963], the democratic government is replaced by the dictatorship of Park Chung-Hee. And in 1972, his dictatorship transforms from, kind of a, we’ll call it a light authoritarianism to a pretty hardcore authoritarian regime.American pressures for democracy and some of those, you know, kind of core national values, seemed like they would be apt and fitting for the difficulties of the Korean context. HostIs there anything else that you want to tell us about how US support influenced democratization efforts?FitzpatrickI think that in Germany, in particular, American military support was one tool used to prevent the resurgence of Prussianism and militarism and Nazism. Even before rearmament in 1954, American connections to German officers, the former officers of the Wehrmacht, were critical, I think, in trying to secure a democratic future and in offering a lot of these officers the possibility of a democratic future and suggesting to them that if they were to abandon some of the old ideologies that there would still be a viable place for them in the future of Germany. And so, I think that this military relationship with the Germans played such an important role in democratization and sustaining it through the period of remilitarization.And yet, I think it’s the opposite story in South Korea, where the US presence in South Korea not only rejects the value of democratization, sometimes even at the same time it’s being pushed in other countries, it’s being pushed in Western Europe, it is being rejected in South Korea. And instead, the US presence often either supports or legitimizes or enables the dictatorial and often brutal regimes of the South Korean government.And in that case, the US is more interested in deterrence and is less worried about the dangers of the Korean government or the possibility of rampant Korean militarism, which has not historically been an issue for East Asia in same way that German militarism is for Western Europe. And so, Americans are, I think, a lot more willing to sit by and watch the South Koreans repress their people, for example, with the implementation of the Yushin Constitution in South Korea in 1972, which I would argue is a direct consequence of the Nixon Doctrine and Nixon’s strategic revision in 1969, or the Gwangju Massacre in 1980 in the city of Gwangju, as dictator Chun Doo-Hwan kind of establishes his regime. And, a little bit more than tacit American support for the execution of the suppression of the Gwangju democracy movement leads to almost another decade of dictatorship in South Korea.HostThe impact of US military training in Chile, did it strengthen democracy or push Chile toward authoritarianism?Harvey-ValdésThe evidence shows that US military training did not push Chile to any kind of [regime]. Rather, it made it mainly reflected professional military objectives aligned, again, with Chilean foreign policy. In fact, during the ’60s, there were many political events unfolding in Chile, an intervention by the United States—or [to] a lesser extent, the Soviet Union—did not change their course. There are many critics that argued that programs and institutions, such as the [The School of the Americas,] had politically indoctrinated Chilean officers, leading to the 1973 coup. But, Chile sent two or three officers to this school for training each year—until the first large group that was sent in 1968. However, this large group, [consisted of] just 50 second lieutenants that took part in a tailored course that lasted one month and that was very different from other countries or armies that came from the Caribbean area.All these officers were just lieutenants by 1973. So, they didn’t have any power or much influence in any decision-making processes. Probably the only place where a military officer could be idealized would be in war colleges. But Chilean government voted against the creation of the Inter American Defense College because Chile had a war college since 1896.So, the first officer that was sent to the Inter American Defense College was in 1967. My research offers another perspective that says that a small fraction of the officers that were sent to the United States for training were sent to attend controversial courses, I mean, counterinsurgency, internal security training, [and] counterintelligence. And it was just 2.5 percent of the whole personnel. So, that shows that this ideological influence is more like rhetoric, or some is historiography, made with some second intentions.FitzpatrickI really liked your point about the War College and the role of institutions, especially multinational institutions, in developing new cultures and outlooks and being a place where democratization or values changes might be able to happen.I think it’s so interesting in the South Korean context, you also have, it would be my guess, more South Korean officers traveled, to American war colleges. South Korea, in 1946, with their own remilitarization, establishes their own domestic defense institutions. And South Korea, through the Cold War, very much preferred rather than rely on American defense institutions to rely on their own domestically located alternatives.And now, most of these institutions were just totally created in the mold of their American counterparts. So, they have an army war college, which almost totally resembles the American war college. They develop, in 1980, Korean Army TRADOC (Training and Doctrine Command), which totally reflects the US Army TRADOC. And in fact, many of these organizations even use American teaching materials.But importantly, to your point about the role of multinationalism and democratization. A lot of these are [set up so that] Korean nationals, only, attend these institutions. And so, they provide an insulating effect for officer corps as they are promoted and trained up. It’s no surprise in South Korea that the two later dictators come out of the army.The dictators themselves, Park Chung-Hee and Chun Doo-Hwan, come out of the army. They’re supported by members in the army and other people who retire and become politicians but are almost totally isolated as they come up through the ranks of the Army, I think, from exposure to some of these, American institutions.Harvey-ValdésProbably the Chilean experience [demonstrates] that Latin America is not a homogeneous whole. Therefore, US foreign policy in a system probably should consider each country’s political dynamics and particular historical context to ensure long-term cooperation. Historical examples from Chile underline the technical military training alone—that’s not assurance, political alignment, nor redeeming evidence. Instead, effective partnerships could require understanding national identities, domestic politics, and institutional cultures. Probably for contemporary US policymakers, this historical case has underscored the importance of flexible, respectful, and mutually beneficial relationships rather than overly prescriptive or paternalistic approaches, thus preventing strategic misunderstandings or resistance to cooperation.HostWhat lessons do Korea, Germany, and Chile offer about the limits of US military influence?Harvey-ValdésIt’s difficult to make recommendations of this kind, especially when we are facing an international order change. But in general, there are geopolitical conditions that no political context can overlook or change. For example, in Chile, policymakers understand that no matter how many trade relations we have with China or how much we want to look like Europe, the United States will always be to the north, and Chile will always be within its [sphere of] influence.In that sense, I think that the United States probably should consider to have a more sustained interest in Latin American countries because usually when the US realizes that something is going on or happening in its backyard, it’s already too late, and its policies tend to be somewhat aggressive.FitzpatrickI think that the US has a lot of influence that its military can wield, in [some] cases, more influence than we often give credit for in terms of the political situation. As I argued before, I think the US really helped to build democracy in important ways in the early period in German history, in the early part of the Cold War and abdicated that power in South Korea for most of the Cold War. And so, I think for policymakers, an important lesson from these two situations, I think, is the role that American military officers can play in the development of countries’ domestic politics and domestic social relationships.This can be an affirmative role if Americans want it be, for example, in the case of Germany—trying to rebuild that nation’s politics. But even if American officers don’t want to take a role, as they didn’t in South Korea, they wanted to try and maintain the status quo and focus only on the military and strategic concerns. The forces deployed there nevertheless have an influence, and the focus on the military relationship does not necessarily get American officers out of influencing domestic politics and domestic issues. And so I think policymakers, even when the goal is not to try and change politics and change the regime and change the nature of society in a country, need to be cognizant of the fact that their very presence in a place may have that effect no matter what and how that presence can be used and channeled to reinforce American values, rather than perpetuate anti-American circumstances.HostGoing forward, should the United States take a different approach when building alliances, and what might that look like? Harvey-ValdésWell, I consider it essential to approach these kinds of issues from a multidisciplinary perspective, integrating approaches from history and from international relations. I think that the study of these topics [demonstrates]demonstrates the value of primary sources and declassified documents, allowing scholars to reinterpret the specific episodes of the Cold War, which have always been oversimplified, misunderstood, or ideologically framed, especially within Latin American historiography.I think that such [an] empirical basis would provide a solid foundation to critically challenge and debate existing theories in international relations, then enabling the scholars to test and reassess theories against historical realities.FitzpatrickI see [a] lot of similarities between the 1970s and today. I think one of the big underpinnings of my work, both this article and some of my larger work, is that I think that we can draw a lot of lessons from the 1970s and bring them into our current era. And in terms of alliance building, I definitely see that for Europe, the 1970s was a period where, especially, West Germany sought to assert a stronger independence from the United States and looked to develop a coequal relationship with the United States within the context of the NATO alliance and Western security. And ultimately, Americans were forced to accept that and to nurture that and, actually, this has developed into a very positive military relationship by the 1980s in the late Cold War.And, now I see very similar dynamics in the European Union, more broadly. And American policymakers have the opportunity to either try to fight this trend and hold back the tsunami or re-channel it into something that is productive for both partners. And so, I think trying to figure out what Americans want from Europe, what are our strategic interests, what can be our overlapping military interests, and then using that to develop new technologies and doctrines which are going to help both sides could lead to a very productive outcome in the future.And, in very similar ways, I also see the 1970s threatening to repeat themselves in South Korea with their own constitutional crisis and political turmoil in Seoul. And, if you look at some of the protests and some of the demonstrations, you see the symbols of the American alliance displayed quite openly. I think that for South Korea, the American relationship is still very important.South Koreans still feel they need the alliance with the United States and that they desire an alliance with the United States. We’re two very close allied partners. And so I think developments that happen in the United States are not going to stay in the United States, and there is a strong possibility that our alliance is going to work both ways. There’s a strong possibility that what happens in the United States is going to flow back into South Korea and vice versa.And so I think, in that case, officers traveling to Korea and working with Korean counterparts should again think about what American values are important to assert and important to demonstrate to our allies—with the understanding that whether they want to or not, South Korean partners will look to Americans for inspiration or support or camaraderie and will look to maintain that very close relationship.HostHugo, Mike, thank you so much.Harvey-ValdésThank you. And thanks to the US Army War College, and it was a pleasure to have this moment.FitzpatrickThank you.HostListeners, you can read the genesis articles at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 54, issue 4. For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace. 

The threat posed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a neglected and under-prioritized problem across the US government, requiring a dramatic change of approach. Most proposals for Goldwater-Nichols reform focus on geography, either increasing or decreasing the number of geographic commands. Based on our personal experience as Joint military planners at strategic-level headquarters, we argue that the change needs to go further, focusing on global national security problems instead of geography. This article’s analysis and conclusions will provoke conversation across the national security enterprise about how the United States competes with multiple global threats.Keywords: North Korea, South Korea, Goldwater-Nichols reform, National Defense Strategy, force structureDisclaimer: This podcast was recorded March 28, 2025, prior to the election of South Korea’s current president, Lee Jae Myung, in June of 2025.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 today with Justin Malzac, coauthor with Rene A. Mahomed of “Korea: The Enduring [Policy] Blindspot,” which you can find in the Winter 2024–25 issue of Parameters. Malzac is a senior information planner and policy adviser for the Department of Defense in Korea. He’s also a historian with a focus on East Asia. His history work on Korea has been published in the International Journal of Korean Studies and other venues. Welcome to Decisive Point, Justin.Justin MalzacThanks for having me, Stephanie. Unfortunately, my coauthor, Rene, could not be here today due to scheduling issues, but I’m going to try to make sure that I bring up some of the points that he wanted to mention here.HostSet the stage for our listeners, please, and give us a brief overview of the article.MalzacSo, our article looked at Korea—North Korea, in particular—as a policy problem, and argued that it is a under-prioritized issue. We did a comparison of North Korea and the issues and the threats emanating from North Korea and also Russia and the degradation of Russia in Ukraine, making an argument that strategic prioritization needs to be shifted and that North Korea needs to be elevated as a more severe threat. We also provided one recommendation on how you might do that through restructuring the combatant commands. For today, I wanted to really focus on the problem-framing piece of it—understanding the North Korea problem and understanding how we got here.HostLet’s start with the impeachment issue. Can you put the current South Korean impeachment issue into context for us?MalzacYes. So, obviously one of the biggest news events coming out of South Korea recently is the impeachment of President Yoon [Suk-Yeol]. It’s hard to talk about South Korea as an ally or the Korean Peninsula as a strategic battle space without addressing that elephant in the room. There’s a lot that has been published on the impeachment issue in a variety of media with a lot of very, I don’t want to say inflammatory, but headlines that are there to draw attention. So, for example, in January an article was released in Foreign Affairs entitled “Can South Korea’s Democracy Survive?”—very provocative title. But if you actually open up the article, the author says [that] South Korean democracies—the institutions—are healthy and sound. And the author actually goes into showing that South Korea faces a lot of the same problems that most modern democracies are facing today, things like polarization, extremism, misinformation, and those types of problems. So, the problems faced by South Korea’s democracy are not exactly unique to it.However, to understand the impeachment issue, you really have to jump back in time and you kind of need a little bit of a historical framework. South Korea is a very young democracy. The current system, where popular elections that have been legitimate, really only goes back about 30 years. You go back to the end of the Korean War [and] the first South Korean president, Syngman Rhee, was really forced upon South Korea. He was, you know, the one that the United States side had chosen to lead. He survives as president until around 1960–1961, and then, there are scandals, corruption, and vote-rigging scandals; and protests—large protests—[and] public pressure. He’s removed from office. There’s a power struggle, and then in 1961, General Park Chung-Hee launches a coup and initiates a military junta at the end of 1961. And that’s actually what I wrote about in my historical article. Park Chung-Hee rules for about 20 years. In 1979, he is assassinated in another period of turmoil and another coup d’etat, and General Chun Doo-Hwan comes into power. Particularly in the ’70s and the ’80s, South Korea is really an authoritarian police state. Protests are brutally suppressed, student protesters are disappeared, the intelligence services are watching everybody. It’s a very rough time. And then, towards the end of the ’80s, South Korea starts to come out of it. And, after Chun Doo-Hwan (he’s replaced by the election of Roh Tae-Woo in 1987), it was a transition period—you really weren’t at democracy yet.Then in 1992, with the election of Kim Young-Sam, that’s the first civilian elected to the ROK (Republic of Korea) presidency. So that’s the period where the modern South Korean democracy really takes off is 1992. From then, it’s been relatively stable. And you wouldn’t know by watching on TV because you see things like ROK lawmakers in the parliament building setting off tear gas grenades and things like that—really flashy politics. But the systems and the institutions have been very stable. The first Korean president [impeached was] in 2016. That was Park Guen-Hye, and it was a significant vote—234 out of 300 lawmakers voted to impeach, and then they went to the Constitutional Court and [the vote] was upheld. So, it’s only ever happened one time before. She was removed from power. There was another election. There was a transfer of power. The system was working.I think, really, when you look at South Korea today, the signs that democracy is healthy is the reaction to President Yoon’s martial law declaration. The reaction was immediate. The public came out in droves to the streets to protect the parliament building and to protect the lawmakers. Senior level—not the top generals who were initiating the military activities, but people right under them—were refusing orders to arrest lawmakers and do other things. So, Koreans have seen this movie before. They know what martial law means, and they weren’t going to take it. And across the layers of society, they resisted it. And then the institutions took over, and the Parliament voted to impeach. It got referred to the Constitutional Court.[An] interesting nuance about impeachment in South Korea is that extra layer of the court review, the judicial review, that we don’t actually have in the United States. So, really, in the United States, there isn’t something that can prevent, you know, a political party who has a super majority in both houses of Congress from just wielding impeachment as a political weapon and just impeaching and impeaching and impeaching. There’s no check on that. In South Korea, all the impeachments have to go to the court and get validated. And we saw that working out with, most recently, the vice president’s impeachment, Vice President Han Duck-Soo. His impeachment was overruled. The Constitutional Court said it wasn’t valid. Yoon was impeached, removed from power, Han took over as the interim president, and the opposition party in the legislature wanted him to do very specific things. And, when he didn’t do those things, the court said that’s not valid. That was a political move.All in all, the country is in a period of transition because they don’t have an elected president. But soon the court is going to very likely rule that the Yoon impeachment is valid, which is going to trigger a new election which is going to trigger a transfer of power and all the systems are gonna come back into balance, I highly suspect. There’s gonna be some protests, probably, but I highly suspect anything that’d be disruptive. So, our ally is here. Our ally is still engaging with US whole-of-government agencies that are here.HostIn your article you suggest deterrence has failed. Why?MalzacIn the article, this is actually Rene, my coauthor’s, major part of the paper. So, I’m going to do my best to respond for him here. I’m going to start very quickly with a quote from the US Northern Commander’s recent posture statement to Congress where he said, “Regime rhetoric surrounding the new ICBM suggests Kim [Jong Un] is eager to transition his strategic weapons programs from research and development to serial production and fielding, a process that could rapidly expand North Korea’s inventory and narrow my confidence in NORTHCOM’s existing ballistic missile defense capacity in the coming years.”So NORTHCOM is basically saying, “This problem is getting out of hand, and we can’t handle it anymore.” How has that come about? Well, North Korea has not been a strategic priority for a very long time. The DoD [Department of Defense] official media announcement of the 2022 National Security Strategy didn’t even mention Korea. It’s been something that we have, for a long time, kind of neglected and ignored. Meanwhile, North Korea continues to develop nuclear weapons [and] ICBMs [and] continues to engage in other gray-zone activities.Really, the core of the problem, in my opinion, is that the US policy towards North Korea is a requirement for complete, verifiable, irreversible denuclearization, or CVID, and this has been a long-held precondition that the United States imposes on North Korea to even enter in negotiations. Denuclearization has to be on the table for the United States even to approach that level of negotiations. Of course, those nuclear weapons are what guarantee Kim Jong-Un his regime survival, so he’s not going to give them up. And we’ve seen that a lot of writers and pundits have agreed that that is not a valid starting point that’s going to get you into negotiations. Writing in Foreign Policy in 2024, Stephen Walt called it a neurotic fixation of the US Defense and policy enterprise to think that he’s ever going to give up those weapons.We can look back in history and we can see examples, such as South Africa. I think South Africa only had five or six weapons, and they were safe. They had alliances and they had no, you know, existential threats. So, it was very easy for South Africa to give up their nuclear weapons. North Korea sees the United States as an existential threat. They truly believe that the United States may, given the chance, launch a preemptive strike to remove the regime as they have seen happen across the world throughout many decades of history.So, understanding what the right starting point is for negotiations is the important thing, and then, understanding that those nuclear weapons that North Korea has now can reach anywhere in the continental United States. So those ICBMs can reach Washington, DC, and they’re just getting more of them as time goes by. And then, North Korea is also engaged in a variety of other gray-zone activities such as cyber, hacking, cyber crime, crypto theft, providing arms to a lot of regimes that we don’t like, such as Iran and, I believe, Sudan and other places in Africa—and then, of course, support to Russia. You know, [it] started as logistical support and weapons, and now there are North Korean soldiers in Ukraine. Our paper was written before the current relationship really manifested, and we were making an argument that Russia was effectively degraded and had lost too many troops and equipment. And now there’s this influx of troops and equipment, and Russia is taking back the Kursk region that Ukraine had occupied. So, all in all, a very significant problem on the deterrence side.It’s an equal problem on the assurance side. The South Korean public now strongly supports a domestic nuclear weapons program. A June 2024 poll showed around 70 percent public support for a South Korean nuclear weapons program, and that support has only grown due to a variety of changing strategic circumstances. If that happens, it puts the United States in a very untenable political position because the United States is a member of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is obligated not to support the development of nuclear weapons in other nuclear-weapon states. Israel has nuclear weapons, and we still engaged with Israel, but South Korea is different because we have troops here in South Korea that engage with the South Korean military day-to-day. We have a combined bilateral command and combined forces command—all that comes at risk if the South Koreans get a nuclear weapon because of NPT requirements for the United States.And then lastly, really the ultimate risk is not nuclear weapons being used, it is the outbreak of another conventional conflict on the Korean Peninsula, and nuclear weapons give Kim Jong-Un the security he needs to be more provocative and aggressive than he normally would be. And then, also, we see, potentially, the lack of assurance, but also the risk calculus on the South Korean side also leading to escalation. So, in 2010, the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong was shelled by North Korea, killing ROK marines and civilians, and the ROK government was planning to send fighter aircraft into North Korea to attack the artillery that had fired on them. And they were, luckily, talked down by the US side, but that tit-for-tat escalation, really, a lot of folks see that as the immediate risk in the region. And then those conflicts—a conflict on the Korean Peninsula—could easily spiral into a regional conflict or could trigger a sympathetic conflict such as [a] Chinese invasion of Taiwan.HostSo, what’s the answer then? How can the United States and its partners increase deterrence?MalzacWell, Rene had a good point he would have made here, and that is that deterrence begins with the coalition. Deterrence is a team effort. It’s not something that the US can do on their own. In particular, one of North Korea’s strategic goals is to break the ROK-US alliance or to fracture the US coalition in Korea. And one way that they try to do this is [that] they advocate for one-on-one talks with the US—so, between North Korea and [the] US having one-on-one diplomatic talks—and they want to do this because if they can get the United States to commit to something that the ROK cannot commit to, then you immediately have a structural break in the alliance.So, it is important that any negotiations with North Korea be multilateral, such as the Six Party Talks or some other framework and that it incorporates other allies: Japan, potentially; or United Nations command elements; or other elements such as that. It’s also important to bolster the legitimacy of those institutions. North Korea will often attack the legitimacy and the legality of United Nations Command (UNC) and Combined Forces Command. [For] Combined Forces Command, that is a prerogative of the United States and South Korea as sovereign states that want to work together and have a multinational command. United Nations Command was established by the United Nations has a valid mandate. The United Nations has taken up the vote to deactivate UNC, or at least some have tried to inject the vote into the UN to deactivate UNC, and it has never held up.So, the UN continues to maintain the validity of the United Nations Command, and recently it actually grew. So, Germany just—I think it was last year—Germany joined United Nations Command. So, it continues to grow, and it continues to be seen outside of North Korea as a legitimate entity. And then, of course, we need to, you know, apply pressure to those core supporters that support North Korea: China and Russia. Right? Obviously, Russia provides direct support. They are giving fuel and supplies and weapons and technology directly to North Korea now, and China has been a player that just refuses to enforce sanctions, casts a blind eye on things, you know, sanctioned materials that transit through their territory, engages in sanctioned coal transfers in the waters of the Yellow Sea. So, China is the core enabler of that behavior as well.And then lastly, we need to impose costs on North Korea and [its] strategic interests globally—that includes the hacking, the revenue-generation activities such as crypto theft, the procurement activities to get materials for the nuclear program that North Korea cannot generate domestically [and] those alliances with Africa, Iran, and other areas that give them safe haven and support. This is really the hardest piece of the problem because 1) North Korea is not a US national priority, so [there are] not a lot of resources placed to what is a global problem. They are all over the world. They have these connections, and they have these activities going on all over the world. And those US interagency and DoD elements that are going after the problem really are going after the problem in isolation. So, the [US Department of the] Treasury might sanction a specific company that’s doing dual-use stuff, or the FBI might indict some North Korean hackers. It’s all really kind of ad hoc and in isolation, and none of it’s really being synchronized because there isn’t the prioritization that creates a broader strategy on how to approach the global problem.HostWhat is South Korea’s security role in the region—and also globally?MalzacYeah, so I think one thing that we alluded to in our paper but that we didn’t really have a lot of space to examine was the increasing global security role that South Korea is trying to take on. In 2022, they published their first Indo-Pacific Strategy where they referred to themselves as a “global pivotal state.” They want to be a global pivotal state that actively defends the international rules-based order. In recent years, South Korea has not only expanded its own defense, its own funding across the board, it’s developed a strategic command; a cyber command; drone and counter-drone activities [and] capabilities; long-range fire capabilities. But they’ve also increased their partnerships across the world. A primary focus for the US strategic decisionmakers is the ROK and Japan relationship. It’s actually been very surprising to see how well South Korea and Japan have been cooperating on the military side in recent years because they’ve always, kind of, had this political tension amongst themselves. If you look back at history, you’ll know why. But the ROK also has expanding strategic partnerships with a variety of other countries in the region, such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, India, Australia, [and] Taiwan. Australia is very interesting because Australia is facing a lot of increased pressure from China right now, who’s actually doing military exercises in their backyard. Making sure that the ROK continues all those relationships is very important.And then, the other piece of it, too, is that the ROK ranks among the top 10 in global arms suppliers. They provide a large supply of weapons and, really, platforms like artillery, tanks, [and] aircraft to a lot of important US allies, including NATO. The ROK just recently completed a brand new missile frigate for the Philippines. They’re providing K-9 artillery to Estonia. They previously provided it to Poland, which allowed Poland to provide weapons to Ukraine. They’re providing FA-50 fighter aircraft to Egypt. So, they’re all over the place as [an] arms provider to folks that we traditionally try to help stabilize and see as our core partners.In deterrence, not only of DPRK, regionally, but PRC, globally, it’s important that our allies and partners have enough strengths—obvious strengths—to push back on coercion, and the ROK is really filling in that gap to make sure that a lot of those partners—particularly the Philippines, who historically has not really had a robust navy—[are] now getting ships from the ROK that they now can use to defend their waters against PRC incursions. So, I think that’s a really important way that South Korea supports global deterrence in support of our interests—the United States’ interests.HostI would like to end with the hypothetical here. What if North Korea is honestly signaling? What if it is no longer an aggressive threat? What would that circumstance mean for US strategy and force presence in the region?MalzacYeah, so I think a lot of folks who don’t pay a lot of attention to the region might not understand that there are a lot of things that North Korea is doing and saying that suggest they are trying to close off their borders and really just be left alone. In my opinion, I think Kim Jong-Un is likely telling the truth. He has taken many very clear actions, such as destroying roads and transportation nodes between the north and the south, installing obstacles along the border that just make no sense for anyone who has any intention of launching a ground invasion. He’s putting things in his own way. He is making it much harder for him to attack, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. And then, North Korea recently changed their official policy that confirms the two-state solution. They have recognized South Korea as a separate state. They call South Korea “the primary enemy.” The problem really is on the other side, it’s on the South Korean, it’s on the ROK side, because the South Korean constitution lays claim to the entire peninsula. It makes it very difficult for the ROK to politically or legally engage in any sort of discussion of recognizing North Korea as a separate, sovereign state.And you see this tension playing out, at least, I think I see this tension playing out. So, for example, in October 2024, the North Koreans blew up a major road and bridgeway that connected the North and South, and it was all on the North Korean side, but the South Koreans fired warning shots they said they were in self-defense. I think that was really the ROK side kind of acting out in desperation because there’s nothing legally they can do to stop North Korea from crawling back into its borders and fortifying its borders and just saying, “I want to be left alone, and I want to be a sovereign state.” And if North Korea wants to live on Russian handouts and just be left alone, obviously, they’ve got to stop being provocative, and they’ve got to stop, you know, launching missiles over Japan and doing other things and doing illegal cybercrime activities. But if they do all that, if they stop doing all that and they just say, “leave me alone,” there really isn’t much you can do about that. I mean, that’s their sovereign right.So, what happens to the US forces in Korea if that happens? If there’s no longer an actual threat that you need those forces in South Korea to handle, that you need Combined Forces Command to prepare defense plans against, I think it could be likely that those forces get pulled out of South Korea. Japan’s a little bit of a different animal because Japan really is more aligned against China and Russia and not really shy about picking those fights. South Korea really wants to stay out of the China-US fight in that rivalry because China’s their number one trading partner, but Japan is not afraid to poke China or Russia. So, those troops remaining in Japan or some troops remaining in Japan or having a US command in Japan, makes a lot of sense. But if the North Korean threat goes away because North Korea says, “I don’t want to play anymore. I’m just going to stay in my house,” then the justification for troops on South Korea becomes much less tenable.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.For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.Justin, thank you for making time to speak with me today.MalzacNo, thank you for the opportunity. 

Hamid Lellou, an independent analyst focusing on conflict resolution in the Middle East and Africa, and Dr. Amin Tarzi, a strategic studies professor, discuss the shifting landscape of US relations with Africa amid great power competition. They explore how African nations tackle their security challenges and criticize the notion of a homogeneous Africa. Lellou advocates engaging Africa through regional blocs, while Tarzi emphasizes the importance of understanding cultural diversity. The conversation highlights the need for the US to support African agency and navigate its complex geopolitical environment.