Decisive Point Podcast

This podcast presents four factors to consider in evaluating Taiwan’s strategic importance to the United States and its allies and answers a question often raised at forums concerning the Indo-Pacific: “Why should the United States care” about this small island in the Pacific? The response often given is simply US credibility, and while this is an important factor, this podcast reviews a wider array of possible factors to consider when answering that question. The study of these factors should assist US military and policy practitioners in accurately evaluating the related strategic environment. Through a survey of official US policy statements and strategy documents across administrations, part two of this article (to be featured in a future issue) will examine the evolving US perception of Taiwan throughout the aggressive strengthening of China and during Taiwan’s domestic political development into a full-fledged democracy.Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol53/iss2/11/Keywords: Taiwan, geopolitical, credibility, democracy, authoritarianAbout the author:Luke P. Bellocchi, JD, LLM, MSSI, MBA, served in senior and senior executive positions throughout his government career and is now an associate professor of practice at National Defense University, where he teaches strategy and a China elective at the Joint Advanced Warfighting School. His recent work, “The U.S. One China Policy: A Primer for Professional Military Education,” can be found at https://jfsc.ndu.edu/Media/Campaigning-Journals/.

Allison Abbe, a Professor at the US Army War College, discusses the intricate dynamics of national security. She argues that understanding adversaries requires perspective taking rather than mere empathy. The conversation delves into how cognitive insights can enhance decision-making for strategists. Abbe also critiques current methods of measuring perspective-taking and proposes unique approaches, like engaging with literature and history, to strengthen these crucial skills. Tune in for a thought-provoking analysis on the psychology behind national security!

Scholars have been using the wrong card games to analyze Carl von Clausewitz’s analogies in On War, which has led to errors in understanding his ideas. This podcast identifies the games Clausewitz discusses, allowing for a more accurate interpretation of his original meaning for the study of war. Since Clausewitz’s ideas underpin strategy development within service education systems, it is critical his ideas are fully understood in context.Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol53/iss2/12/Episode Transcript: Geniuses Dare to Ride Their Luck: Clausewitz’s Card Game AnalogiesStephanie Crider (Host)b>You’re listening to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production focused on national security affairs. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the authors 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 today with Dr. Nicholas Murray. Murray designs and runs war games for the Secretary of Defense Strategic Thinkers Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Professional Military Education. He also translates the works of Carl von Clausewitz and other theorists. He’s the author of “Geniuses Dare to Ride Their Luck: Clausewitz’s Card Game Analogies,” which was published in the Summer 2023 issue of Parameters.Welcome to Decisive Point, Nick.Nicholas A. A. MurrayThank you very much for having me. It’s a pleasure.HostYour article asserts that scholars have been using the wrong card games to analyze Clausewitz’s analogies on war, which has led to errors in understanding his ideas. Please expand on that.MurrayThe reason I got into this . . . I think a bit of background might help . . . is the card games we use, which are typically blackjack, poker, or games like chess and bridge and things, didn’t seem to line up with what else I was reading and finding in his histories in terms of how he understood luck. And so, as I dug into it, the question struck me, which was what games would he have actually been familiar with, and what would he have played?And except for chess, the other games weren’t popular or even invented at the time of his life or writing. So, I started to look into that. What I found was that the games that he had in mind and actually discussed often—sometimes explicitly—were different stochastically in terms of luck. And they were different in terms of player interaction. And they were different in terms of things like cheating, which was an inherent part of almost all the games with which he was familiar. Taking that into account, it meant that contemporary analogies, using, say, blackjack, where one can card count, you can change the strategy of playing against the casino in your favor, for example. That simply didn’t exist. And so, he wasn’t thinking about something like that. He was thinking about something far more chance ridden than we have in mind.HostWhich card games was Clausewitz likely talking about?MurrayThe three I’ve been able to identify, along with something called würfel, which is a version of a variety of different dice games, which is simply you roll a dice and bet on it. Sort of like craps, I suppose.But the three main ones are games called faro, skat, and ombre. And these were games that were familiar to Clausewitz. He explicitly references two and implicitly references skat via phrases that occur within that game.These card games are much different from the ones we would think about in terms of blackjack or poker. I think it’s worth the reader just having a quick understanding, if that would be helpful, I think, of what these entail. Faro is often described as little better than playing dice. It’s a banking game based on an older game called basset. Multiple players can play. The banker turns over a card, and you bet on a number. And if your number is matched by the card that turns up, you can win. And then the bets, depending on how you play, typically, you can win 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 times your stake, depending on the way the bank is set up. So, it’s enormously risky. It’s inherently wonderful for the banker. It’s typically known as one of the most fraudulent games . . . across cultures I found, as well, which is quite interesting. It’s all on the turn of a card. It’s essentially all about luck. There’s really no skill involved. And there’s no player interaction, either, which is one of the things that current scholars often, when they talk about card games, talk about the interaction between players. So, one of the main games that Clausewitz explicitly references has virtually no interaction with players and is almost exclusively luck based. It’s fundamentally different from often how we look at and interpret what he’s saying.Skat is a trick-taking game that originated in Thuringia, just near where Clausewitz was living. It was popular at the time. It typically involves three players. Good luck or bad luck can overcome a bad hand or good hand, respectively, irrespective of the skill of the player. But skill is definitely required, as is a good strategy.And then the third game, again, this is one of the two he explicitly references, is ombre, which was the (probably) card game of the seventeenth and early–eighteenth centuries. It requires an enormous amount of luck. Daring play is often celebrated and rewarded, even if it leads to losses. And so, it‘s the nature of the game, and how you play it is as important as the fact that it‘s a trick-taking card game, that’s inherently luck based. You can have a strategy, but players are celebrated for being exceptionally daring when they play, and that’s something to take into account when we’re thinking of context about how he and his contemporaries would have thought about what this means.HostClausewitz writes about the relationship between risk and chance. Examining his writings through the lens of these card games you just told me about, how might this alter the meaning of previous interpretations of his work?MurrayI think it’s profound. We tend to see and we tend to think about Clausewitz as, you know, making sure you understand what it is you’re getting into before you start anything. And I don’t think that changes, but it really drives home that if it’s as chance ridden as he is implying with the type of games he has in mind, then that behooves us really to emphasis that question, which is what is it you’re trying to achieve here? What do you think it’s going to take? Because chances are, as soon as you start, it’s going to be far more costly, far more difficult, and far less likely to match any of your preconceptions or ideas.And so, when we think about it today, what we often see is, if we just do enough analysis (sometimes you’ll see if we’re using the example of whether it’s chess or bridge or things like this, if we count cards, if we play skillfully) we can pretty much guarantee X outcome or Y outcome. And what Clausewitz is saying is, “No, that may help us in terms of if luck is on our side. But in reality, luck plays such a big role, and emotion plays such a big role” particularly if the other side is cheating, and that’s something that’s often not taken into account when we think about this.With the idea that if we can’t really predict these things, and one of the things that he tells us about this— and it gets often mentioned but ignored—is he talks about (Leonhard) Euler and (Sir Isaac) Newton, two of the greatest mathematical minds of the previous four or five centuries, I should think, and certainly the previous two centuries for Clausewitz. If they can‘t figure this stuff out, these are equations that are beyond them, as he puts, essentially, how are we meant to, sort of, as mere mortals actually figure this stuff out?And so, one of the points that he’s driving home here is you’re always betting against the odds. And the bank essentially is the opponent or luck or whatever it is . . . fate. And he’s not necessarily always exactly clear about this. So, if that’s the case and we’re always betting against the odds, and luck plays a role, we have to be daring because we can make a series of small bets and hedge our bets or be cautious, but at the end of the day, we can make losses on each of those small bets and we’ll never win big. Even if we win the occasional bet, we’re not going to actually win the war or win that particular part of the campaign or whatever it is that we’re trying to do at that particular moment. So his argument, to a certain extent, is if you believe you’ve made all the right choices, you’ve amassed your force, you’ve done the things you’re meant to do, you need to commit and you need to dare to win, essentially.So when he’s, then, looking at historical examples, he looks at Frederick. He looks at Napoleon. And he’s often sarcastic, as well, with both of them—but particularly with Napoleon. But one of the things he really highlights is how important daring is and the moral courage to make a bold decision. And he frequently excoriates those historical commanders who fail to do that. He’s absolutely scathing, “feeble minded beetles,” he calls the Austrian generals “scurrying around on the battlefields in 1796.” He’s really trying to drive home this connection between this moral courage, luck, and, obviously, his concept of genius.HostWhat do we need to consider, then, going forward?MurrayIt’s tough because I’m not necessarily 100 percent sure. Partly because, obviously, for me, I’ve been sort of in the middle of this, but also, I’ve been teaching PME (professional military education), and Clausewitz is fundamental to PME instruction, pretty much across the globe. The standard translation is the Howard and Paret translation, and it’s important because they downplay the role of luck. And they emphasize and actually enhance (far more than Clausewitz does) the role of rationality. There’s a number of reasons for that. A number of scholars that Professor (Antulio) Echeverria, Professor Hugh Strachan, and, I mean, a number of scholars, have looked at this and talked about these issues.What this tells us, to a great extent, is, actually, that’s, in many respects, not only wrong, but fundamentally misleading that Howard and Paret have emphasized this. We understand why they did it. The Cold War was going on and they’re trying to de–risk catastrophic thermonuclear war, essentially. Or reduce the likelihood of it. But the problem we have for scholars is that we’re teaching service personnel to make decisions in the future using this. Well, if he’s not actually talking about something that’s fundamentally predictable in a way that we’ve often implied, if not explicitly stated, what does that mean for the types of decision making, the types of officers or officer education? And I think for the services, it’s profound because I think we really have to emphasize decision–making ability moral courage, which, to a certain extent, is an ethics question, as well, not just physical courage. We really have to emphasize that first part there, and that’s something I know that’s built into the service education systems.But I also think we have to think about what does that mean for the way we conceive of prewar planning . . . prewar strategy in–war planning and in–war strategy? Do we hedge, constantly, our bets—as we’re often wont to do? But if Clausewitz is right, I’m not saying he is, but if he is, I do think we fundamentally need to reconsider how we think about those big, particularly prewar and planning, questions. Or certainly planning questions within a conflict and the way that we actually train officers and educate officers, right down through the entire decision–making command structure of the armed services in terms of what is it we’re trying to get out of this and what’s the best way of approaching this if Clausewitz is right? And I happen to think he probably is, which then means do we need to reconsider the entire education structure of the armed services in terms of what we emphasize within decision making, within the theoretical part of the courses the officers take—particularly JMP levels one and two And I think, with that in mind, we also need to think about do we provide enough context within the education system to explain what he’s getting at? And I’d argue with what I’ve learned in researching this is any indication, we don’t provide necessarily enough context for the officers and decisionmakers to actually fully understand what the philosophers or theorists were talking about for the officers to extract the most utility out of what they’re learning. And, that’s ultimately what we need them to do. It’s not just developing their brains. It’s extracting utility from their education as well.HostDo you have any concluding thoughts you’d like to share?MurrayI do think we need to relook at the version of On War that we use in PME. There are other versions out there, whether they’re ideal or not I don’t know. Chris and I, who’ve done three volumes of Clausewitz, we’re working on a fourth, and I won’t give the names, but we’re already starting to retranslate and we’re finding a number of things like this within the new translation that come up that are not necessarily the same but similar to what I found with the issue with just the one question of card games.I do think that going forward, we need to reconsider, as well, the use of decision exercises, war games . . . not necessarily ones that lead to practicing and exercise but ones that allow the officers to make multiple decisions in an uncertain environment against a live opponent. And I think in PME we have some absolute centers of excellence where that occurs, but I don’t think it’s built into the curricula in the way that it could or should be because I think having officers, in particular, and NCOs as well, practice decision making on a regular basis in an environment, ultimately, that it’s only ever little wooden blocks or pixel people that get killed, but allowing them to learn and grow from something that ultimately is low–threat in terms of actual life allows them to develop that ability to rapidly make and practice things like bold decision making, which, of course, comes with consequences.And I’ll give a quick example. I had a board game about 12 years ago at Command and General Staff College. It’s the Battle of Battle of Frœschwiller from the Franco–Prussian War. One of my officers was doing exactly what he should be doing, which was being very bold and aggressive with the Prussian army attacking the French position and (this is from 1870) and after about two hours of fighting, in terms of game terms, he said, “I’ve lost several of these units. How many casualties is that doc?”And I said, “Well, you’ve actually taken about 8, 000 to 10,000 casualties in about 2 – 3 hours of fighting.”And he just paused and said, “That can’t be right.”So I said, “No, no, that’s absolutely right. And if you keep pressing on, what you’re doing, actually, is incredibly successful. It’s incredibly bold.”He did press . . . credit to him. Because I’ve had officers go, “I can’t do that,” even though they’re little figures on the table. Mentally, that’s sometimes too much. So, he pressed on, and he absolutely crushed the French even more catastrophically than what happened historically. It was one of the best results in terms of that particular battle of war game that I’ve seen, but it was one of those that that moment of sudden recognition. Now of course, we want that to happen in a war game. We don’t want that to happen in real life, but if it does happen in real life, we want it to lead to a devastating success. And so, that would be one of those things, I think, that perhaps if we could build more of that into the education system, I think it would benefit all of us.(The web group has the wargame rule set for the scenario for the Battle of Frœschwiller. Owner Christoper Pringle is making this available for free for a limited time. There are many other free scenarios for war games here as well. https://groups.io/g/bloodybigbattles)HostListeners, you can dig into the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 53, issue 2.Nick, thank you for making time to speak with me today. This was a real treat.MurrayThank you.HostIf you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, you can find us on any major podcast platform.About the author: Nicholas Murray, D.Phil. F.R.Hist.S., is the author of four books: The Rocky Road to the Great War (Potomac Books, 2013), examining the development of trench warfare prior to 1914, and three translations (with commentary) of Clausewitz’s histories covering the French revolutionary campaigns in 1796 and 1799–1800. He is currently working on further translations of Clausewitz and other theorists. He designs and runs wargames for the Secretary of Defense Strategic Thinkers Program at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and professional military education. He has advised and assisted the Office of the Secretary of Defense with policy regarding military education and wargaming, and he has received numerous awards, including the Exceptional Public Service Award—the office’s highest medal.Keywords: card games, luck/chance, genius, gambling, daring, probability, trinity, cheating

In an evolving and expanding biothreat landscape caused by emerging biotechnologies, increases in global infectious disease outbreaks, and geopolitical instability, the Department of Defense now faces challenges that alter its traditional approach to biothreats and prompt the need for modernized, improved preparedness for—and response to—potential biothreat scenarios. These challenges further complicate specific weaknesses revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic, including the Department’s inability to sustain the military mission while meeting intragovernmental expectations to assist with civilian public health resources and services.Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol53/iss2/8/Episode Transcript: “Responding to Future Pandemics: Biosecurity Implications and Defense Considerations”Stephanie Crider (Host)You’re listening to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production focused on national security affairs. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.Decisive Point welcomes Drs. Diane DiEuliis and James Jordano, authors of “Responding to Future Pandemics: Bio Security Applications and Defense Considerations,” which was published in the Summer 2023 issue of Parameters.DiEuliis is a distinguished research fellow at the National Defense University, and Giordano holds several distinguished titles, including the Pellegrino Center professor in the departments of neurology and biochemistry.Thank you for joining me today, Drs. DiEuliss and Giordano.Dr. James GiordanoThank you.Dr. Diane DiEuliisThank you. It’s great to be with you today.HostYour article addresses three primary factors that have complicated the evolving landscape of biodefense threats. What are they?MurrayGiordanoMurrayLet me take the first. The first one that we mentioned is emerging biotechnologies across a spectrum of potential applications in recent developments. These include, but certainly aren’t limited to, things such as gene editing. Probably the one most people are most currently familiar with is the use of a particular gene scissoring tool called CRISPR CAS9. But realistically, what that does is that just adds to our current armamentarium and makes our current armamentarium more facile and far easier to both acquire and use with regard to the existing techniques and technologies for gene editing to modify the genome and perhaps direct various phenotypes (expressions of physical characteristics). Going right along with that is the vast field of synthetic biology. Synthetic biology ranges everything from the molecular to the mass effect to the subcellular all the way to those things that can produce social change and a variety of different applications.Certainly, we’re concerned about those things that directly affect humans, but realistically, there’s a number of things in synthetic biology that can disrupt and affect the ecologies and the environments upon which humans are dependent and interact. And this can then have ripple effects. And, really, I think the potentiator, and as Diane and I both have argued in print, the force multiplier for these is the use of big data coupled with forms of machine learning that are iteratively becoming forms of artificial intelligence. You put all these things together and you got yourself a juggernaut of biotechnological capability with a broad, broad range and field of different applications and uses and potential misuses. Diane?DiEuliisThanks, Jim. Tagging on to that as a second concern is the fact that we may be looking in future at an increasing incidence of emerging infectious disease. And as the world’s population grows, we see more and more infringement of human populations into natural habitats. And as you know, much of emerging infectious diseases that appear in human beings comes from what are called zoonotic jumps, or a jump from a disease pathogen in an animal that then becomes adapted to human populations. And then we could see pandemics resulting from that. As we move into the future, we may see more incidences of zoonotic jumps, but also, we see things like people living in more close spaces in urban environments, which in some cases could just be an incubator for spreading diseases in a pandemic fashion. So, this is also a reason for why we need to reexamine the biothreat landscape. Jim, did you have more to add to that?GiordanoIf you take a look at the second and the first, in other words, the increased incidence and perhaps prevalence of infectious diseases, both in humans and in other species upon which humans are dependent—and the use of biotech—one thing is not mutually exclusive from the other. As the COVID crisis brought into stark relief, many of our emerging biotechs are prompted by, if not in direct response to what may be seen as biological risks and/or threats such as COVID. But more than that, I think, what tends to happen is that you do get this march along, whereby the biotechnology is beginning to address more and more areas that are so representative of human susceptibilities and vulnerabilities. And in so doing, that interface between those things that are environmental, from the microbial level all the way to the geopolitical level, become the targets of those things that we can use biotechnologically to assess those risks and threats, and to engage those risks and threats, in a variety of different ways. Diane?DiEuliisThose are really interesting points, and one of the things that we talk about in the paper is this sort of irony in emerging biotech in that some of these tools and the emerging capabilities that are offered by biotechnology are sort of the same tools that we want to use in order to mitigate things like pandemics, things like COVID-19. The goal is going to be moving forwar how to balance that how to balance the potential emerging threats that can come from these expanded capabilities while at the same time safely leveraging these technologies for the benefits that we can get out of them. And there’s a wide swath of benefits that could be used both by DoD and the community writ large that could be used to combat bio threats into the future.HostHow do you see these factors playing out against the changing landscape of bio threats?GiordanoI think we’re seeing an increased ecological disruption, everything from that writ large, climate change, for example, and the total human footprint over a period of time, particularly over the 19th, 20th now to the 21st century. And, I think writ small, as Diane noted, what we’re seeing is urban and suburban spread and sprawl, but also an increased level of commercialization and technologization of various environments that then disrupt those environments in those ways that make those environmental niche factors far more feasible, viable, and, therefore, accessible to humans and human populations.So, these two things work together, both as respective of human progress and perhaps also as intentional disruption. I mean, seeing the ecology and the environment as a battle space, whereby disruptions of that ecology can then prompt individual and collective notions of dread and threat, forced migration, and/or in some cases, various responses, I mean, true responses, particularly in the psychological operations base, can be seen very, very importantly as a domain of perhaps non kinetic engagement, which then gets us directly into kinetic engagement. The use of these bio threats and bio risks as weaponizable entities on a variety of scales, from the individual all the way to the international.HostSo, through this lens, what should the Department of Defense consider when it comes to maintaining readiness and preparing for the next pandemic?DiEuliisI really have two areas of response to that, and the first one is . . . of course, we learned quite a bit in responding to COVID-19. That entire experience really highlighted a number of things that DoD needs to be concerned with moving forward. The first of which is DoD obviously does defense support of civil authorities. Sometimes we nickname that DSCA. That’s an expected role that DoD has played for a long time is supporting civilian authorities in responding to disasters, or, in this case, a pandemic of global proportion. But at the same time, DoD needs to protect the warfighting force from whatever it is that’s happening and needs to maintain readiness in the warfighting force.So, one tension that was revealed during COVID-19 is that our civilian response to the pandemic was leaning heavily on the DoD for logistical and other kinds of support. So that may not be the ideal situation moving forward because DoD quickly learned that extending itself to support the civilian response had some drawbacks on the DoD side. We were quickly depleting some of our stockpiles of response materials in the way of PPE and other kinds of things as simple as nitrile gloves and other things that are involved in that. That is one thing that DoD will have to strike a balance. How much can they lean forward in supporting the civilian response versus how much to continue to maintain their protection of the forces internally.The second piece of that gets to more of some of the things that we cover in more detail in the paper. And that is this sort of overlap space between the general health and welfare of warfighters versus protecting war fighters from very specific intentional bio threats. Let me describe that in a little bit more detail. It’s general purpose is keeping a healthy fighting force keeping people from getting sick, helping when they’ve been sick, get back to health and get back into the fight. These are just general considerations of health and wellness that the Department of Defense utilizes the same kind of medical advice, treatments, therapeutics that everybody else uses. And they rely on whatever is considered best practice in general public health to maintain the readiness of the fighting force. But DoD has to worry about specific biothreats.So, by this we’re talking about things like the potential of, say, an anthrax attack or someone who may try to recreate a smallpox and infect warfighters with something like that. So, we have a program that’s devoted specifically just for nasty things that war fighters might be exposed to in their daily work or their deployments. And so Dod has full control of this latter program, the investments, and what they do to develop those kinds of therapeutics.On the other side of it, on just the health and wellness side, they’re completely at the mercy of the public health community in the US. What COVID-19 demonstrated is that readiness was somewhat compromised because DoD had to wait for the CDC, for general public health authorities, to provide them with things like test kits and diagnostics, whereas in the other category, DoD develops their own diagnostics and their own medical countermeasures. So, looking forward, in addition to balancing this DSCA problem and how much should DoD lean forward in helping defense support of civil authorities, they’re also going to have to navigate this space in terms of how much should they rely on the public health community to provide them with what they need if they cannot provide it rapidly enough in the case of a pandemic or other kind of bio threat.GiordanoIt sort of does get into the idea of this interface between what is cooperation and what is competition, not only with regard to intranationally, in terms of what are they cooperative domains and what are the competitive domains for resources, services, and goods during these times of crisis. But more broadly, and I think as COVID, once again, has illustrated quite well, is that this is multinational. I mean, let’s face it, at its core, science and technology have a strongly cooperative bend. I mean, realistically, what we find is that these things coming together under a convergent scientific approach utilizes technology to advance science and utilizes science to advance technology, and certainly intranationally, or within allied economic and scientific groups, that’s very much, de rigueur.But very often it’s some kind of overarching or undergirding competitiveness that provides the prompt, in other words, to get to some proverbial metaphorical finish line first—to a new cure or new treatment, some advancement. And those things can have a variety of different pay offs from the financial all the way to the idea of international power, and even perhaps military leverage. So, what we found is that when that competition gets too stripped, too dense, as COVID has shown, that can be a zero-sum equation. And no one wins because there’s not that necessary sharing of resources, knowledge, capabilities. By the same token, we do recognize both macro and microeconomic factors, and that frank openness of that level of gross cooperation can very often stultify competitive drives and, therefore, can be problematic in the same way.So, if we’re looking more of a plus some possibility, what we’ve entertained is this idea of cooperative competition or coopetition because what it really does is it defines key areas of dependencies. One group may be dependent upon another group to establish and maintain relative dominion within a particular niche or milieu or field. But what it actually does is it leverages leverage, and in so doing, creates balance, whereby these domains of capability and power are decided upon through some process of deliberation, discourse, and dialect. And there are actually ways that we discussed both in the paper and elsewhere about how this may be entertained. But then ultimately this reaches some form of an equilibrium whereby A, whatever A may be, cannot be achieved without B, and B cannot occur and be achieved without A. So that mutuality accents and very often brings to the fore the cooperative necessity and the competitive domain. And we view that as a realistic sight picture, particularly in strategic ways, in light of the genuine and authentic risks and potential benefits that can be yielded through science and technology going forward.HostDo you have any final thoughts you’d like to share before we go?DiEuliisFirst and foremost, I want to thank my colleague, Jim. It’s always a pleasure to work with you and it was great writing this paper together. And thanks to Stephanie for hosting us for this podcast.I encourage folks to take a look at the paper. And I would say that one thing to keep in mind as we are all coming out of this COVID-19 experience is that just about everybody … federal agencies, state, and local public health authorities, international forums, the WHO, the Biological Weapons Convention. Everyone is scrambling now to understand the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of what did we do well, what did we not do so well, and many, many efforts are going to be focused on what should we do in future to do a better job. And there’s going to be a lot of investment, a lot of churn, a lot of activity in the space. And so, I encourage people to really think carefully and to not just have sort of knee-jerk responses to the aftermath of COVID-19 but to really sort out some of these issues in a thoughtful way so that we can really carefully plan and prepare for next time.GiordanoI agree. And thanks very much both for your interest in our work and your attention to it and providing this wonderful forum, and we would encourage the listeners of the podcast to get in touch. Our emails are available at the end of our paper and certainly has our contact information.A lot of the work that Diane and I are engaging, both that which is funded by the DoD and other federal agencies and that which has been sort of representative of our long-standing careers in this space, address not only this issue in particular, but the broader field of issues of balancing the apparent benefits of bioscience and technology and also recognizing, appreciating, and addressing those burdens, risks, and harms that can occur if you do certain things or if you don’t do certain things. And once this begins to occur on the multicultural, multi-natural global stage of the 21st century, I mean that multinational stage by itself, I think, produces particular opportunities and challenges. And so addressing these things in that forum and it with those realities is going to be an ongoing focus of our work. So again, thanks to the listening audience for your attention and your interest. And uh, thanks to you as well, it’s been a pleasure.HostListeners, I echo what my guests just said. I suggest you read the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 53 issue 2. You can get into so much more detail here.This was a really great time. Thank you.GiordanoThank you.DiEuliisThank youIf you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, you can find us on any major podcast platform.About the authors:Diane DiEuliis, PhD, is a distinguished research fellow at the National Defense University. Her research focuses on emerging biological technologies, biodefense, and preparedness for biothreats. Specific topic areas under this broad research portfolio include dual-use life sciences research, synthetic biology, the US bioeconomy, disaster recovery, and behavioral, cognitive, and social science as it relates to important aspects of deterrence and preparedness. DiEuliis has several research grants in progress and teaches various foundational professional military education courses. Prior to joining National Defense University, DiEuliis was deputy director for policy and served as acting deputy assistant secretary for policy and planning in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), Department of Health and Human Ser vices. She coordinated policy in support of domestic and international health emergency preparedness and response activities, such as Hurricane Sandy and Ebola outbreaks. She was responsible for the implementation of the Pandemic All-Hazards Preparedness Act, the National Health Security Strategy, and the Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise (PHEMCE).James Giordano, PhD, MPhil, is the Pellegrino Center Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Biochemistry; chief of the Neuroethics Studies Program; director of the Cyber-SMART Center’s Program in Biotechnology, Biosecurity, and Ethics; chair of the Sub-Program in Military Medical Ethics at Georgetown University; and senior bioethicist of the Defense Medical Ethics Center (DMEC) and adjunct professor of psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences. Giordano is senior fellow of the Project on Biosecurity, Technology, and Ethics at the US Naval War College; Stockdale Distinguished Fellow of Science, Technology and Ethics at the United States Naval Academy, and senior science advisory fellow of the SMA Branch, Joint Staff, Pentagon. He has previously served as Donovan Senior Fellow for Biosecurity at US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM); as an appointed member of the Neuroethics, Legal and Social Issues Advisory Panel of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); as research fellow and task leader of the EU-Human Brain Project Sub-Program on Dual-Use Brain Science; and as an appointed member of the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP).

The US military, intelligence, and diplomatic communities have overlooked a key vulnerability in their assessment of a potential military conflict between China and Taiwan—Taiwan’s growing reliance on agricultural imports and its food stocks (except for rice) that could endure trade disruptions for only six months. This podcast assesses Taiwan’s agricultural sector and its ability to feed the country’s population if food imports and production are disrupted; identifies the food products that should be prioritized in resupply operations, based on Taiwan’s nutritional needs and domestic food production; and outlines the required logistical assets. These findings underscore the urgency for US military planners to develop long-term logistical solutions for this complex strategic issue.Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol53/iss2/10/Keywords: Decisive Point Podcast, China, resiliency, Taiwan, food insecurity, naval blockadeEpisode Transcript: “Taiwan’s Food Resiliency—or Not—in a Conflict with China”Stephanie Crider (Host)You’re listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.Today, I’m chatting with Captain Gustavo Ferreira and Major Jamie Critelli, authors of “Taiwan’s Food Resiliency—or Not—in a Conflict with China.” Ferreira is a senior agricultural economist with the US Department of Agriculture and serves as an agricultural officer at the 353 Civil Affairs Command, US Army Reserves. Critelli, US Army Reserves, is a civil affairs officer serving as an agricultural officer in the 353 Civil Affairs Command. He’s a seasonal farm business owner and has worked globally in agriculture on five continents.Welcome back to Decisive Point, gentlemen.Jamie CritelliThank you for having us here, Stephanie.Gustavo FerreiraThank you, Stephanie. Happy to be here.HostYour article . . . it focuses on Taiwan’s food resiliency. Please give us an overview of Taiwan’s agricultural sector.FerreiraI would like to start by emphasizing how recent supply chain disruptions, crop failures in some key producing countries, as well as the war in Ukraine, have pushed global food prices to record high levels and also reminded many countries about the risks associated with the dependency on food imports to feed their populations. In the case of Taiwan, as this country industrialized its economy and developed key manufacturing sectors such as the semiconductor sector, its agricultural production had been declining for decades. As a result, Taiwan’s ability to feed itself has decreased, and food imports now cover about 2/3s of its annual caloric intake. What’s problematic with this is that contrary to what we’ve seen in Ukraine(where the) United States and other NATO allies are being able to supply Ukraine with massive amounts of supplies through a vast shared land border. A similar effort will not be possible for Taiwan because of A). Taiwan being an island and B). China’s Liberation Army Navy and Rocket Force have now the capabilities of denying freedom of movement to any adversary naval force in the air. In the context of a conflict with China; it will be extremely difficult and risky for cargo ships and airlift to reach Taiwan.Another challenge will be the fact that China will likely attempt to capture major operational ports to use them to dock their own merchant civilian ships to supply its invasion of Taiwan. As a response, the Taiwanese military will almost certainly try to deny China’s access to these ports via obstacles such as sea mines or sunken ships. With all main ports no longer operational, we believe the United States and its allies will struggle to transport and unload critical food supplies to Taiwan.Nevertheless, it’s important to note that Taiwanese authorities are well aware of these vulnerabilities, and the build-up of public food stocks have been a central component of the country’s food resiliency strategy. And I’ll give an example, during the COVID-19 crisis the Taiwanese government shared that the population that the nation had enough Food and Agriculture commodity stocks to handle disruptions in agriculture trade for six months. That was their promise. Our own analysis also shows that Taiwan has enough food reserves to feed its population for about six months. After that, the island will have to import food products to meet its nutritional needs.HostIn the event of a naval blockade enforced by China, which food products should be prioritized in early stock build-up efforts or resupply operations based on Taiwan’s nutritional needs and domestic food production?CritelliTaiwan, population 23 million, is actually the 16th largest food-importing country in the world. As you heard from Gus, it’s heavily reliant upon food imports to meet its needs, and certainly, any naval blockade will disrupt these flows. Food products must be prioritized in any efforts to build up stockages pre-conflict and should be included in US and allied resupply operations during a conflict.Specific food products we consider are prioritized based upon two factors. First is widespread consumption of the food product already by the Taiwanese population, so we know that they eat it. And number two, a large volume of Taiwan imports due to the inability of domestic production to meet the demand nationally. When we look at the food that the Taiwanese are eating, about 50 percent of the calories come from grains. A large chunk of this is covered by domestic rice production, so we can exclude that, but wheat, corn, and soy are almost completely imported to meet the needs because there is no domestic production. In fact, the imports of wheat, corn, and soy amount to some 9 million metric tons annually. Wheat is used for them to produce flour, while corn and soy are almost exclusively used as livestock feed, predominantly for poultry and hogs. Next up on the list would be animal protein, 50 years ago, the average Taiwanese citizen derived 75 percent of their protein needs from plant sources and 25 percent from animal sources. The new mix is now nearly 50/50. A third of this animal protein comes from fish. The grains that I mentioned earlier are used to feed poultry and hogs. There is barely a domestic beef sector in Taiwan, so all beef is imported. With fish, however, the coastal and deep sea fishing industries provide it, but in the event of any naval action, these industries will be limited as well. So to produce fish, it will need to move on to shore into aquaculture facilities. Both fish and chicken are remarkable at transforming their rations into protein and should be prioritized in production to reduce the grain import needed to provide protein sources to the population in the first place.Finally, while it isn’t a food stuff, do not forget about chemical inputs. These would include fertilizers and pesticides needed to grow plants as well as any chemical inputs and antibiotics needed for increased levels of dry land aquaculture. Despite whether the country needs to transition to a higher level of domestic production or it needs to start eating lower on the food pyramid due to a naval embargo, it will still need the means of sustaining itself with increased domestic agriculture.HostWhat logistical assets would be required to strengthen Taiwan’s food resiliency?FerreiraIn this study, we developed three scenarios that assess the ability of Taiwan’s food system to endure a partial or a total Chinese Navy blockade. These scenarios are not intended to be exhaustive.We started with scenario number one, which assumes that China effectively denies US and Allied food resupply operations. So, in other words, Taiwan becomes completely cut off from the rest of the world. Under this scenario, Taiwan will not be able to get external assistance. They will need to have sufficient food supplies at hand right at the beginning of the conflict. This is because while the current food stock levels may sustain Taiwan for six months, they will be insufficient in the event of a much more prolonged naval block. And let’s not forget it has been a year and two months since Russia invaded Ukraine, so nothing is certain about how long any military operation will last. So Taiwan will be better off being prepared for a longer-term scenario. To do so, we proposed two particular strategies. The first one is to increase its food reserve levels, and the second one is to increase its domestic food production. But we gotta say that, unfortunately, these two options also come with their own challenges and limitations, and we’ll cover those in a minute.Starting with the first one, increasing food reserve levels for that, Taiwan will have to make major investments in storage capacity and strengthen its strategic stockpiles of key materials to include foodstuff. The problem here is the large storage facilities, and you can think of grain silos or cold storage warehouses; they’re also very vulnerable targets. Therefore, you know, Taiwan’s military will have to, at the same time as they build this infrastructure, they will also have to think about developing protective systems to defend this critical infrastructure from either kinetic or cyber attacks. The second option, which will be to increase domestic food production in order to make Taiwan more resilient, will come with also some problems.So first, in order to boost more traditional agricultural production, that will take time, and it will require significant changes in the country’s rather antiquated agricultural system. The other thing is the island will be also capped by its limited farmland and agricultural labor, so if we want to go the traditional route, there are those limitations.We propose to circumvent those constraints that Taiwanese authorities consider two options. The first is to develop a victory garden program. Back in World War I and World War II, the US developed this program, and just as an example, by the end of 1944, about 20 million victory gardens in the United States accounted for large shares of the country’s total annual fruits and vegetable production. So they were instrumental in maintaining food security during a major conflict. The second strategy will be well placed for a country that is as densely populated as Taiwan. And this would be the use of hydroponics which will allow many households to produce leafy greens within their own houses. There are some issues here, too. Hydroponic vegetable production has a steep learning curve and also requires considerable upfront investments. While these new surpluses will be dispersed throughout the country and, therefore more resilient to Chinese attack. They’ll also only partially mitigate the problem, and this is because they will produce food categories in where Taiwan’s already highly sufficient, and that’s vegetables, fruits, and roots. Nevertheless, it will provide some relief to the population, at least in the short run.The second scenario contemplates the United States and its allies, anticipating that they can sustain limited resupply operations to Taiwan, even within the context of a Chinese naval embargo. And the rationale for this, we think along the lines of what’s happening currently at the Black Sea and Ukraine and Russia. So Ukraine and Russia agreed on the Black Sea Grain Initiative, which has kept critical grain corridors open to international buyers. We think that China could also allow limited maritime traffic to bring essential food products to Taiwan in order to avoid a major humanitarian crisis. So under this scenario, however, it’s unclear whether commercial shipping companies will be willing to operate (in) that region. And that’s due to the elevated risk and high operational costs. Think about really prohibitive insurance rates and even the difficulty obtaining things such as shipping letters of credit. In that case, the US and allied navies may need to ensure the arrival of critical food supplies to Taiwan using their own logistical assets. This raises another question, (which) is whether the US military and the Allies can replace those commercial operations.And this is because this will include all different classes of shipping vessels to bring bulk cargo and containers and ranging from small vessels to very large ones. So think about what it would take to bring the volume of soybeans imported by Taiwan in 2021, which amounts to 2.6 million metric tons. So that will require about 47 Panamax-sized vessels. This is the largest ship that can cross the locks of the Panama Canal. Because of such large import volumes, that also will rule out completely a Berlin Airlift-type of operation, especially if China contests the airspace surrounding Taiwan.Still, under this scenario, other logistical considerations include, that most agricultural imports arrive to Taiwan through four main ports. So it would be essential for those ports to stay operational and even to expand their capacities to sustain full supplier operations. Another issue is that about 90 percent of agriculture imports that arrive to Taiwan come through sea routes, and out of that, 85 percent comes through shipping containers. So why is this important? Taiwan’s heavy reliance on shipping containers is a vulnerability because China is the world’s top producer and exporter of shipping containers. The recent supply chain disruptions during COVID highlighted that issue.The last scenario looks at the situation where the United States and allies foresee an impending Chinese naval blockade and begin to quickly coordinate food resupply operations before the blockade is in force. In this situation, it will involve the United States first anticipating the imminent invasion and naval blockade, and then we’ll have a limited window of opportunity to start resupply operations and try to bring as many foodstuffs as possible before maritime traffic to the islands is completely disrupted. Because time is essential, it will be challenging for allies to contract and mobilize the additional civilian maritime and military maritime transportation assets that can quickly bring the additional food supplies before the conflict begins. Also, in that situation, like Major Critelli mentioned, the United States and allies will have to prioritize transportation of certain food products, those should be upfront in those operations before that window is closed.Finally, on the receiving end, Taiwan would need to have sufficient infrastructure and the supply chain channels to receive, absorb, store, and distribute the sudden spike in imports of such large volumes of food commodities. Otherwise, what might happen is that the food products make it to the island, but they end up getting spoiled or go waste due to waiting longer periods at the shore or improper handling, or inadequate storage capacity.HostWhat conclusions can we draw from this?CritelliThe global focus at the moment is on Ukraine and the Black Sea Grain Initiative and the relative food insecurity of several countries around the world appearing as a result, but we can also draw lessons from that conflict that would apply to a potential conflict involving Taiwan. Ukraine is a major global food exporter, so the bulk of impacts are felt outside of Ukraine. Taiwan as a major food importer, will feel the impact inside the country. Taiwan focused on economic development instead of focusing on ag development, so the global impacts we will feel in the event of a Taiwan embargo, would be felt downstream. Globally, they would be felt within the supply chains of semiconductors, for example in other items, and there would be third order impacts appearing elsewhere that we haven’t even thought about.As Gustavo mentioned, Taiwan is very different from Ukraine due to its geography. So in many cases the response in the event of a conflict must be very different as well. We must consider novel approaches to ensuring Taiwan can meet its nutritional needs over a long time horizon. We must look at Taiwan strengths and weaknesses and see how we can pivot a weakness into an opportunity to meet their needs based on what they already do well. We, therefore, propose more aquaculture and hydroponics and more of a closed-loop production network with local production as much as possible. We can reduce the impact of an invasion by drastically reducing dependency on imports. We must do everything we can to prevent a conflict from happening in the first place. A war in this part of the world, involving the countries who could be parties to it would be absolutely catastrophic. NATO doesn’t exist in the Pacific. We need to pursue a diplomatic approach with a group of nations to best position Taiwan to prevent or to speedily deescalate emerging conflict.FerreiraAs we got deeper in our research, it became really clear that US and allied efforts to break the blockade will very likely be unsuccessful or difficult at best, and in this matter, China could endure the consequences of a prolonged confrontation much better than Taiwan could. And going back to what Major Critelli said, the time to prepare is now, in order to increase that resiliency to the island.HostThank you so much for making time to speak with me today.FerreiraThank you, Stephanie, for giving us the opportunity to talk about our paper.CritelliThank you for having us, Stephanie.HostListeners, you can read the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 53, issue 2.If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, you can find us on any major podcast platform.About the authors:Captain Gustavo F. Ferreira is a senior agricultural economist with the US Department of Agriculture and serves as an agricultural officer (38G) at the 353rd Civil Affairs Command, US Army Reserves. He holds a PhD in agricultural economics from Louisiana State University, and prior to joining the federal government, he was an assistant professor in agricultural economics at Virginia Tech University. He has published numerous research articles in top-ranking economics and military journals.Major Jamie A. Critelli, US Army Reserve, is a Civil Affairs officer serving as an agricultural officer in the 353rd Civil Affairs Command. He is a seasonal farm business owner and has worked in agriculture on five continents. He also serves as the director of the Operational Excellence Department at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He graduated with honors from Cornell University with a degree in horticulture and holds an MBA in supply-chain management from ETH Zurich.

In contemporary military operations, some problems are so complex they do not give way to linear solutions but require problem management instead. Combining the fundamentals of Dao De Jing philosophy with the US military design process offers a new perspective to analyze complex security problems, devise management strategies, and plan military operations. Applying this new approach to the complex security environment in Syria allows for a nonlinear mapping of long-term goals and a new perspective on relationships between key actors, environmental factors that restrict changes in the security environment, and where planners should focus their attention.Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol53/iss1/12/Keywords: Syria, Dao, military planning, ISIS, design thinkingEpisode Transcript: “Daoism and Design: Mapping the Conflict in Syria”Stephanie Crider (Host)You’re listening to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production focused on national security affairs. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the authors 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 today are Colonel Ned Marsh and Dr. Heather Gregg, authors of “Daoism and Design: Mapping the Conflict in Syria” from the Spring 2023 issue of Parameters. Colonel Marsh is a US Army Special Forces officer and a current garrison commander within the Installation Management Command. Dr. Gregg is a professor of irregular warfare at the George C. Marshall Center for European Studies and is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Welcome to Decisive Point, Ned. Welcome back, Heather.Dr. Heather S. GreggIt’s great to be here.COL Ned B. MarshThanks for having us on.HostYour work says combining the fundamentals of Daoist philosophy from the ancient literary work of the Tao Te Ching with the US military design process offers a new perspective with which to analyze problems, devise management strategies, and plan military operations. Tell me more. How so?MarshThe Dao’s what we see as an alternative perspective to a Western mindset. The Western mindset tends to see life as linear, objective-based, a realm of cause and effect. Instead, the Dao sees life as a constant flow of events with some things that are in our control and most that are out of our control. The philosophy emphasizes the continuous nature of being that people flow through life around obstacles like water would around a stone in a river. I think the simplest summary is that we should worry about the things we can control and not worry about the things that we cannot.There’s four fundamentals. The first is that there’s no permanent reality. So, our reality is an endless continuous stream of interactive situations. The second is that every event is the result of the interaction of all the preceding events. It’s never-ending. It’s a ceaseless development of new context. And this limits the value of concepts such as linearity, cause and effect, and prediction. Third is that we only see life from the perspective that we are in it. We’re the water in the river. We’re not standing on the shore looking at the water. Those fundamentals, they describe the reality. The fourth describes how we fit into it. The good news is that we have agency. Our path isn’t predestined. Our actions can shape the future and influence our environment. So, we recognize these realities. And then we cultivate ourselves, our organizations, and our environments to foster success. We can create emergent opportunities, and we can be successful.HostHeather, did you want to weigh in on this too?GreggThinking in these terms is particularly useful for complex problem management. So many of the problems that we see in foreign policy today are so complex that they don’t give way to easy solutions, and that thinking linearly and thinking that things have an immediate or near-term end state is not helpful. So, when you can’t think in terms of military end-states or objective end-states, what do you do? What’s a mindset that can help you think about problem management? And I think the Dao does just that.HostLet’s apply this to Syria, which includes intertwined politics, culture, economics, information, and more, as well as several types of conflict.MarshThe key is probably . . . how do we integrate . . . design is you go from where you are, you look at the problem as to how you want to get there. And you design a solution. And a lot of times that becomes very linear. It leads to lines of effort. It includes objectives. It provides a definitive definition of victory, articulates a military end state. Design is meant to be done multiple times, but a lot of times it’s done sequentially. It’s done once and we come up with an operational approach, and then we get frustrated when our operational approach doesn’t create the solution which we want in the timeline which we want.I think the easiest analogy which I’ve come up with is if you think of child raising. I have a child and I want my child to have a successful life and be a successful adult and I can design a solution with an operational approach and try to execute that strategy. And the odds of it happening are pretty low. But if I take the philosophy of the Dao, and I think, OK, it’s endless. So, you don’t ever stop raising your child. Success has to be produced continuously. I don’t really have any knowledge. So, everybody’s a first-time parent. You only get one shot at being a parent. That your child goes through endless interactions, both internal and external. That they have their own agency.The parent has to balance risk and understanding. We have to recognize that control is an illusion, and we have to have the long game. We have to be positional. Where do I put myself to best influence? And then, ultimately, I cultivate them. I cultivate myself. I cultivate my family. I cultivate the environment to foster emergent success. You take a structured design process to get there—ends ways means. Let alone if I step outside of childbearing and I go to a military problem like Syria, where you have adversaries who are trying to keep you from achieving your goal, your future vision.The Dao allows you to take those two things and combine them together so you can iterate. You can adjust. You can be in the flow. I wanted to kind of get that out before we dove into how do we apply the philosophy and design together when you talk about a problem like Syria, which doesn’t really have set solutions because the interdependency. I’ll pause there.I’m not sure, Heather, if you want to add a little context to that.GreggWhat’s so fascinating about the conflict in Syria is how intractable it seems right now. I’m sure most of our listeners are well aware that there’s been a civil war since 2011. You had the emergence of the Islamic State within Syria. But then also in Iraq you had the decline of the Islamic State, or the demise of the Islamic State, but you still have ISIS present. You have Turkish interests. You have Israeli interests. You have Iranian interests and Iraqi interests and United States all in there. And Russia, I think, as I mentioned, all competing for security control, competing for resources, competing for bases and populations, and access.So how to address these problems and understand what can we change and what can’t we change becomes crucial. We don’t want to waste resources and time. We also don’t want to make the situation worse. And so, thinking in these terms that Ned outlines are particularly important for thinking about what we can influence and what we can’t.MarshThere’s three interdependent problems which constrict solutions in Syria. First, the Assad regime has survived; they continue to survive because of external support. Two, the United States were unable to help the Syrian Democratic Forces establish dominant positions because Turkey, a NATO ally and ally United States, they’re steadfastly anti-SDF for their significant support for the Assad regime that they have Iranian support, that they get Russian support. Those are also super interdependent with regional and global geopolitical implications for the United States. And Kurdish fracturing internal is a significant problem.And so, the United States can’t solve the solution of keeping the Syrian Democratic Forces in position and appeasing allies . . . the ally Turkey, that’s gotta be managed . . . anymore than it can push Iran or Russia out of Syria because that’s interdependent with other problems, which it can’t solve there. And so instead of frustrating ourselves on those, the Dao would seek to foster an environment which you can influence. And manage that problem.The Dao planner should recognize what you can control and what’s not, what can be influenced and what can’t. Success is not a one-time proposition, like I stated. Anything which we would do in Syria, we would have to continue to do. There would have to be a solution in there. We would have to recognize that there’s no knowledge. That despite our limited understanding that we still can manifest success even if we don’t necessarily know how. And that ultimately that there’s no end-state in Syria. So, planners have to view that as an opportunity.What can the US government do? If you look at it from the perspective of how the Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk has described it, it is avoiding maximalist goals, timelines, and objective end-states, and then getting back to basics of partnership, alliance, and patience and understanding that through the use of hard and soft power across time and space and throughout the Middle East, they can reinforce neutral goals. By creating an environment in Syria, you protect Iraq, you help Lebanon, you protect your allies in Jordan and interests in Saudi Arabia. And your integrated strategy becomes more holistic.HostYou just answered my next question. How would Daoism and design work in Syria? Heather, did you want to add to that?GreggThis article has taught me that these are practices we’re not particularly good at in the United States. Things like patience, things like realizing that we can’t fix the problem in the near term and waiting for emergence, waiting for an opportunity that might change the dynamics and might allow us to take other actions. I particularly want to underscore the point that Ned made about building partnerships, getting back to the basics, and working with partners and allies because certainly this is a conflict that we can’t unilaterally fix. And that’s deeply important.MarshIt really is a merger of philosophy, a way of thinking with a methodology. Design doesn’t just lead us to the solution, it’s a great tool to get us to think conceptually, but you have to have an aligned philosophy with it. Some problems are linear. You can see a solution. I can design. I can apply resources. I can get there. Other problems are much more complex and complicated. And interdependence requires that you be a little bit more agile, a little bit more flexible with things like timelines. That sometimes you balance action with inaction. Sometimes maybe I don’t want to do something somewhere because I don’t know what the effect is going to be. Let me allow things to develop in due course, and then ultimately that I have some humility in what I know and what I think I know and what I can do and what I can’t do. But if you cultivate yourself, you cultivate your organization, you cultivate your relationships, and you cultivate the environment to become a place where things can grow, that can foster emergent success, that you can be successful.HostAny final thoughts you’d like to share before we go?MarshI just want to say thanks. Thanks for the opportunity to have this in Parameters. Thank you for your time here today. And I want to say thanks to Dr. Gregg for all her guidance and mentorship as we’ve worked through this and her hard work, as well.GreggI want to say thank you too for this opportunity and, Col. Marsh, for all that you’ve taught me in this process.I would just close by saying that we’re in an age of strategic competition where things like victory and near-term end-states just aren’t viable. This is not the kind of security environment we’re in. And so, applying tools like Daoism with design helps us to think about what does problem management look like in the age of strategic competition and what should we be focusing our attention on? How should we be building partnerships and alliances, practicing humility? All these things that Colonel Marsh said, I think are just deeply important in an age of strategic competition.HostListeners, you can download this and dig into all the details at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 53 issue one.Ned and Heather, thank you so very much today. This was really interesting and all the effort you put in to actually coming together to make this happen is much appreciated.MarshThank you, Stephanie.GreggThanks, Stephanie.HostIf you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, you can find us on any major podcast platform.Author informationColonel Ned Beechinor Marsh is a US Army Special Forces officer and garrison commander within Installation Management Command. His previous Army and Joint assignments include 1st Special Forces Group, US Army Special Operations Command, and Special Operations Command Europe. He has served throughout the Central Asian, European, and Indo-Pacif ic geographic areas. He is a graduate of the US Army War College, the School of Advanced Military Studies, and the Naval Postgraduate School.Dr. Heather S. Gregg is a professor of irregular warfare at the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch, Germany, and is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She holds a PhD in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of Religious Terrorism (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Building the Nation: Missed Opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan (University of Nebraska Press, 2018), and The Path to Salvation: Religious Violence from Jihad to the Crusades (University of Nebraska Press, 2014).

This podcast offers a preview of the latest Parameters demi-issue and full issue.Keywords: China, Taiwan, biotechnology, COVID-19, food resiliency​Read the demi-issue: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol53/iss2/1/Episode TranscriptStephanie Crider (Host)You’re listening to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production focused on national security affairs. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the authors 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 have Dr. Conrad C. Crane, acting editor in chief of Parameters, with me today to talk about the summer demi-issue and the forthcoming full summer issue of Parameters. Thank you for being here, Dr. Crane.Dr. Conrad C. CraneGlad to be here.HostAlways glad to have you. So, the Demi issue—this is a relatively new product for the Army War College Press. It’s released about a month before the full issue of Parameters, and it addresses unfolding current events and topics critical to our readership. It generates interest in the forthcoming full issue, and it tackles the big questions being asked today in the fields of military strategy and defense policy.What does the summer demi-issue have in store for our audience?CraneWe’ve got a couple of very interesting articles. The first is an In Focus special commentary responding to future pandemics, bio security implications, and defense considerations by a couple of civilian PhDs—Diane DeEuliis and James Giordano. They look at the expanding bio threat landscape, and they look at the experience of COVID-19 and the challenges that put on (the Department of Defense) DoD, especially. And (they) argue for a modernized improved preparedness and response system.They contend that the COVID-19 experience revealed a bunch of weaknesses, including the Department Defense’s inability to sustain the military mission while dealing with intra-governmental expectations to assist with other pieces of the government. And it’s really going to challenge how we balance our resources. So, it’s an interesting look at the future, perhaps, of these future pandemics.The second piece is a piece of a Taiwan Forum where we’re taking a look at Taiwan in this issue and it’s on Taiwan’s food resiliency—or not—in a conflict with China. The authors there, Gustavo Ferreira and Jamie Cartelli, are both reserve officers. They deal with some military issues in their normal work, but they really talk about the dilemma that we face with Taiwan is if it gets cut off, it’s got about six month’s worth of food. So, the question is, how do you deal with the possibility that the Chinese may blockade or somehow degrade their ability to sustain themselves?And they really look at the potential scenarios and findings that underscore the urgency for US leadership and for military planners to really develop long-term logistical solutions before this crisis happens. So two very insightful articles, (going in) a little different directions, but really should give our readers something to think about. And then, of course, there’s more articles coming in the full issue when it comes out about a month later.HostSpeaking of the full issue, what can we expect? Do you have any idea what we can look forward to?CraneWe’ve got a set of very interesting articles scheduled for the full issue, starting out with Dr. Allison Abbe, who’s one of the faculty here at the War College. The title of her piece is called “Understanding the Adversary: Strategic Empathy and Perspective Taking in National Security,” and she looks at this whole issue of how do you gain insight into the motives and mindsets of adversaries and partners? She looks at a number of different scenarios. It’s interesting that she talks a lot about this idea of strategic empathy, but in her conclusion, she says that the security practitioners don’t really need to aim for full empathy but for what she calls perspective and perspective taking, for her, is the most fruitful piece of strategic empathy. And she says that, basically, that that skill requires shifting in and out of other people’s perspectives, not adopting them.So, you just gotta kind of understand what the other side is doing and shift. This frame shifting aligns with developmental approaches to systems thinking and how one views the system from the perspective of multiple actors. It’s an interesting discussion, again, to try to figure out how to look at these situations and come up with our own solutions. It’s very detailed. It also looks at how practitioners should use feedback to improve (and) how to use teams to make the effort better. I like her last recommendation (which) is that empathy researchers recommend maintaining humility and recognizing uncertainty. Even with all of this, where we end up is with a situation that we may end up being wrong, but we’ll do the best we can with it.The next one is another Taiwan piece. Luke Bellucci has given us an initial introduction to what will probably be a two-part presentation by us. This will be the first part, which basically talks about Taiwan’s strategic importance to the United States and its allies, and he focuses on Taiwan’s location is obviously geopolitically important to the US and its allies. But it’s even more important to relative to China. He also talks about the commercial significance of everything that Taiwan does and how it’s a beacon of democracy for people of China and other people around the world.The loss of Taiwan’s democracy to authoritarian China would undermine our credibility with our allies and obviously have long-term implications in the region. So that’s really what he looks at in this first chunk of his work. Part two, which will come in a later issue, will review recent changes to the strategic environment current responses, including a hard look at our own national security strategy.Next, Nicholas Murray has a piece that’s called “Geniuses, Ride Their Luck: Clausewitz’s Card Game Analogies.” And the interesting thing about his piece is he talks about (how) the scholars talk about Clausewitz’s use of card games in On War and in other places. But they use the wrong card games. They use our own modern card games as examples, whereas Clausewitz, obviously, is writing a couple 100 years ago, and he’s not looking at the same card games that we are. He looks at the different perspective that you get with Clausewitz if you use these older card games. The main games that Clausewitz really references are faro, skat, and ombre, and one of the things is you can cheat a lot more. There’s a lot more uncertainty in results, and he says, you know, the degree of cheating in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century, gambling and card games undermines any claims that Clausewitz’s card game analogies represent any kind of reasonable degree of calculable probability in war. Basically, these were kind of very unpredictable card games because there was so much cheating that went on. And once you’ve got that, that these are far chancier games, it really changes a lot of the ways that people have to look at Clausewitz.If you use the right card games that Clausewitz used, then the perspective on Clausewitz changes somewhat. It’s a very interesting discussion. The thing that really struck me going through it was he talks about how much cheating went on in these games, and, for him, it makes it very clear the commanders had to be willing to gamble and take a lot of risks in in their approaches to warfare. So it’d be interesting to see how other people perceive it, and I’m sure there’ll be some pushback from some other researchers. But one of the points he makes is, you know, if chance and luck in war is far more extreme than was thought, and players struggle to make rational decisions because of the extreme emotion involved, then scholars must revise the way they might use game theory to model behavior. Furthermore, if there is no baseline expectation of honesty, then the raw luck and emotion is enhanced, then genius as Clausewitz describes it, becomes even more critical. So, I thought those were really interesting conclusions out of that article. We’ll see what kind of comments we get back.John Bonin and Jim Scuderi, a couple of researchers here at the War College, have done a piece on the institutional Army—six case studies and changing innovation. They’ve gone back and they’ve looked at some historical case studies of institutional army reforms over the last 160 years and done an evaluation of how they (the Army) operated. And they tried to provide some historical insights to inform current practices to fulfill the Army’s articulated 2022 Institutional Strategy. They end with a very hard look at Army Futures Command and predicting how that might go.I mean, they look at the Calvary Bureau and the Civil War. They look at the peacetime habits and wartime changes in the Army after the Spanish American War in 1898, looking at the next couple decades, including World War I—that’s a very detailed study. They look at General Marshall and the development of Army headquarters for World War II and how that evolves. They look at Secretary McNamara and the development of the Army Combat Developments Command and the evolution of that particular process. They look at General Abrams and his 1973 reorganization of the army after Vietnam. They look at the role of some of his key assistants like William Depuy, and then they close with this look at Futures Command and try to speculate on some of the lessons from the early cases and how it might reflect on how Futures Command develops. It’s a very interesting study. It says a lot about implications for the Army for today.One of the interesting things I thought . . . in their conclusion, they talk about one of the problems with a lot of these changes is that substantive change and adaption have to outlast the specific secretary and chief of staff. The problem is we lose a lot of these innovations because the country goes to war or something happens (a different commander changes priorities). That the dilemma is how do we keep these changes active? How do we keep the Army from going back to the way it was as soon as there’s a change in commander or some situation happens to make the army change its focus?For the last full article, Spencer French has a piece on innovation, flexibility, and adaptation—keys to the success of Patton’s information and signal intelligence services in 1944. Patton had this image as this combat commander and we talk about this very pugnacious Patton, but he was a very competent and systematic organizer. And the way he adapted 3rd Army for the operations they ran into in Europe, he had successful integration of informational resources, a very consistent operating concept for information and available technology combined with his organized mobility and flexibility and these are the same elements that modern commanders are also wrestling with. French argues pretty well that they could benefit from viewing patent strengths and 3rd Army’s accomplishments and how they organized this really cohesive and flexible system for managing information not only for managing our information but denying it to the enemy and how that aligned operational concepts or technological capabilities. So it’s a very interesting piece.We have a new director of strategic research at the Strategic Studies Institute, and he’s going to take a little different perspective than George Shatzer did. George would provide some book reviews or some other things. Eric Hartunian, who is the new Colonel in charge of strategic research is trying to explain research possibilities, and he wants to focus on, particularly in his first effort, the Republic of Korea and the situation there. It’s the 70th anniversary of our alliance. He looks at the quick region with key points, looks at threats in the peninsula and, he looks at the little bit of the implications of the current war in Ukraine on Indo-Pacific security concerns.His essay is not meant to cover every contingency opportunity that the US Korea Alliance represents. It is intended to set the stage for important research into the known and unknown opportunities that leveraging the US-Republic of Korea alliance may present as a joint force continues to March into very decisive decade.And, in the meantime, we’ve also tried to expand some things. We’ve added a whole number of book reviews. We’ve had quite a backlog of book reviews, and we’re trying to get rid of them. So, there’s going to be more book reviews in the issue itself, but we’re also initiating an online book review section. We’ll post book reviews there as well.We also need to highlight there’s a new SSI website coming . . . late summer, early fall. We need people to keep an eye out for that. It’ll be the same kind of place, but it’ll be a new look and have new capabilities and new things for people to see. And we think it really will enhance our ability to get information out to our readers that they really need to get.HostThere’s a lot going on at the Press.CraneWe’re busy. We’re busy.HostListeners look for the demi-issue at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Doctor Crane, thank you so much for your time.CraneThanks for having me.HostIf you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, you can find us on any major podcast platform.

Contesting Paul Scharre’s influential vision of “centaur warfighting” and the idea that autonomous weapon systems will replace human warfighters, Sparrow and Henschke propose that the manned-unmanned teams of the future are more likely to be minotaurs—teams of humans under the control, supervision, or command of artificial intelligence. They examine the likely composition of the future force and prompt a necessary conversation about the ethical issues raised by minotaur warfighting.Keywords: ethics, manned-unmanned teaming, future force, centaur warfighting, autonomous weapon systemsRead the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol53/iss1/14/Episode Transcript: “Minotaurs, Not Centaurs: The Future of Manned-Unmanned Teaming”Stephanie Crider (Host)You’re listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.Today I’m chatting with Rob Sparrow, professor in the philosophy program and an associate investigator in the Australian Research Council Center of Excellence for Automated Decision-making and Society at Monash University, and Adam Henschke, an assistant professor in the philosophy section at the University of Twente, Netherlands.Sparrow and Henske are the authors of “Minotaurs, Not Centaurs: The Future of Manned-Unmanned Teaming,” which ran in the Spring 2023 issue of Parameters. Welcome to Decisive Point, gentlemen. Set the stage for us, please, including Paul Sharre’s perspective.Robert J. SparrowWe’ve seen drones and teleoperated weapon systems play an increasing role in contemporary conflict. There is lots of enthusiasm for autonomy in weapon systems in the military, as I think 20 years ago, there was a paper in Parameters arguing that in the future the tempo of battle would increase to such a point that only computers would be capable of making the decisions that are required to win battles. So for a long time, there’s been a debate about the relationship between human beings and unmanned systems in warfighting. Recently, Paul Sharre has argued that we don’t need to worry about autonomous weapon systems taking over all the combat roles because, actually, the future of warfighting involves manned-unmanned teaming, and Sharre suggests that we should think of this on the model of what he described as a Centaur. A centaur is a mythical creature with the head and upper body of a human being and the lower body of a horse. And that’s a really nice image. You’ve got the human being in command and in control and the machines doing the physical work involved in warfighting.We think that’s perhaps optimistic for a number of reasons, and that what we’ve seen, is really in applications, is it’s often easier to get machines to be making decisions than it is to get machines to do physical work. And so, for that reason, we think that the future of manned-unmanned teaming might be better imagined as what we call a minotaur. And so, rather than the human being in charge of the team, we suspect that in many roles, actually, the AI will be in charge of the team. And the human beings will be effectively under the command of the AI and doing the physical work, where the mental work will be performed by artificial intelligence.HenschkeOne way to think of Paul Sharre’s approach is, as Rob said, he’s advocated this view of centaur warfighting, and there the human is generally seen as the head, the decision-making part of the warfighting operation. And the robots and the machines, they do the, kind of, the grunt work. They’re the things that do the stuff on the ground. So, the way in which this manned-unmanned kind of vision is put forward in Sharre’s work is humans do the deciding and the robots, or the machines, do the fightingHostBut you disagree. Will you expand on that please?SparrowWe do think that in many domains and in many situations it’s more likely that the machine will be in charge—or effectively in charge. We think that it’s quite hard to get machines to do something like move a gun into place or walk up the stairs or talk to these people and ask them where the insurgents are. Those roles, we think, will still need to be carried out by human beings. But, for instance, wargaming or identifying and tracking targets, those tasks machines can outperform human beings already in lots of circumstances.If you are considering the team, we think a lot of the executive and cognitive tasks will actually be handed over to artificial intelligence, and the human beings will be left doing what the AI says. And so, in that context, you should think of this as a minotaur team, as a kind of cyber with an artificial intelligence head and the body made-up of human beings.HenschkeOn this, Rob came up with the idea of flipping the central view to suggest that we might instead think of these robot/human teams like minotaurs, where the thinking is done by the machine and the fighting, or the grunt work, is done by the humans. So, the robot becomes the head, and the human becomes the body, kind of flipping it from the central vision. The idea is that we ought to think of these more as unmanned-manned teams, like a minotaur rather than a centaur.HostI love that visual. Would you walk us through the key technical dynamics and the particulars of minotaur war fighting?SparrowWhen people started thinking about artificial intelligence, they thought the hard task was going to be getting machines to do the things that we find difficult—playing chess, calculating, looking for patterns in data. But when people started building robots, what they discovered was the machines were quite good at that stuff. Machines were able to calculate . . . were able to do scheduling tasks. They were able to, in the end, play chess reasonably easily and very, very well.Where machines struggled were doing things that children and animals can do, and so we don’t recognize as requiring sophisticated capacities— things like walking into a room and recognizing where the chairs in the room are or simply being able to walk up steps or pick up a cup. Those tasks actually turn out to be incredibly difficult for machines.We still don’t have robots that can, for instance, walk into your office and find your coffee cup. Machine vision systems are much better but in complex environments, and where there’s a need to recognize context and maybe move around the cluttered environment, machines fail very quickly. If you’re looking for tasks to automate, if you’re looking for tasks that machines can perform, often where people end up employing machines is in these executive or cognitive roles. For instance, scheduling which offices get cleaned and making sure that there are people to clean them . . . that task can be outsourced to a machine scheduling system. Actually walking into the office and emptying rubbish bins, setting for the next vacuuming, that still needs to be done by human beings.HostLet’s talk about ethics. What are the ethical implications of minotaurs and minotaur warfighting?HenschkeWell, one of the main things in the notion of the minotaur warfighting as we describe it in the paper is that you’ll have the machines, computers, and AI in a combination of technologies, directing and guiding how humans engage in a conflict zone. And as result of that, you’ve got decisions being made by machines carried out by humans. And this has quite a few ethical implications. One of the most interesting ones, or at least one of the first ones that we want to point out, is in these situations there might actually be a strong case for minotaur warfighting. If this would either decrease the likelihood of military mistakes, would decrease the likelihood of fratricide, and/or put your own soldiers at unnecessary risk, we might want those decisions to be made by the computers, by the machines. And so, there is a bit of an argument in favor, first, of minotaur warfighting, and, picking up from what Rob had just said, there might also be a case for minotaur warfighting in many situations over centaur warfighting.So, if you think of what Rob was saying about navigating physical terrain, when we think of terrestrial warfighting—warfighting on land, for instance—that’s really really complex, really complicated physical environments. You might have sand. You might have water. You might have trees. You might have humans or equipment moving through these complicated environments. And in that sense, the centaur is probably gonna face a whole lot of trouble. Whereas the minotaur system, or minotaur unmanned-manned system, that might actually have a far better capacity to operate in these sorts of complicated, complex, terrestrial environments. So, there we might see that there’s actually a case for the minotaur warfighting if it’s going to increase both the likelihood of success and decrease the chances of making military mistakes.SparrowWe also think that people might be quite horrified by that prospect. I mean, really, the idea that you were just following a list of tasks or strategic objectives given to you by a computer system, I think people are going to really struggle with that. And there’s an understandable sense that human beings are valuable in a way that machines are not and that placing machines in authority or giving machines effective power over human beings is getting that relationship backwards.We think there’s a relationship here with the debates about autonomous weapons systems, where critics of autonomous weapons systems have often insisted that machines shouldn’t be given the power to take a human life, that there’s something about the value of human life that suggests we shouldn’t let a machine make a decision about taking a human life. That intuition also, I think, counts against minotaur warfighting, because minotaurs, therefore AI systems, will be placing warfighters in harm’s way. They may sometimes have to put people into combat that they’re unlikely to survive, and I think people will balk at that, despite the fact that there are these very powerful arguments to suggest that might actually reduce the average risk to warfighters.There’s some questions here also about what we expect when we give reasons to each other. And you know, it’s a really important ethical principle that when you are relating to someone, you should be able to provide reasons for the way that you’re treating someone. And there’s some problems with the idea of machines giving reasons. Nowadays, machine systems can spit out reasons. I mean they can give you what looks like a reason, but they don’t have skin in the game in the same way that human beings do. They don’t stand behind their words in a way that a human being does when they explain why they have ordered you to take on this very difficult task. So, there’s some questions here again, about whether it’s ethically acceptable to have machines effectively ordering people into battle.HostI read one of the potential scenarios in your article about what if AI uses humans, basically, as fodder to achieve a larger goal or greater objective. That rattled me somewhat, I’d never considered it.HenschkeI was going to say exactly that point. One of the other really fundamental principles in ethical theory goes back to the work of Immanuel Kant. And one of the things he said is that we shouldn’t treat people as tools. We should treat them as ends in themselves. And if you’ve got a machine that, as Rob had said, lacks the capacity to morally reflect on decisions telling humans what to do and to go on and do things, there is a really significant concern that the humans there become like a tool. They become fodder. And that is something that goes against a really, really core set of foundational principles in ethics. So that’s something that is problematic, definitely for the minotaur warfighting (and) probably also for centaur warfighting in various forms that that might take as well.HostWhat should we consider going forward? This obviously isn’t going away.SparrowSo clearly a key question here is whether or not we can intervene to prevent minotaur warfighting from emerging, or perhaps control the sorts of tasks where machines are given effective power or authority over human beings. We worry about an arms race here. We think that minotaur warfighting will evolve because in lots of circumstances, we think these systems will win battles . . . that, essentially, a military force that leaves too many decisions up to human beings may struggle to compete with a military force that is more willing to hand over certain sorts of decisions to AI. So, there’s a potential for something like an arms race.If you did want to try to prevent or slow down the development of minotaur warfighting, one obvious way of going about it is trying to build better robots . . . is to think about how we can build robots that actually can take on these sorts of physical tasks that are currently very difficult for machines. And we think one of the real problems there is the source of technologies that you would need to develop in order to get machines that can handle the complexity of the physical and the uncertainties of the physical environment might actually also make it easier for machines to work in other command roles.HenschkeOne other thing, too, that seems possibly quite obvious—there would have to be significant changes to training, education, and other ways in which the culture and practice of militaries operate. So, if we are going to go down some kind of minotaur route, then we’d need to recognize that the soldiers who are placed under the command of these machines, that they would have to receive particular training relevant to that. And also, quite importantly, the people who have the capacity to make the decisions about the minotaur warfighting . . . they would also have to undergo really specific training and education, understanding what the manned-unmanned systems are for, what their weaknesses are, what their limits are, what the implications are because there would be shifts in responsibilities, moral responsibility, who we assign moral responsibility to, and the training and probably some of the legal responsibilities would have to change as a result of that as well. So, one of the big important things would be to have a cultural shift in the militaries that recognize not just the practices of minotaur warfighting but a lot of the ethical, legal, and perhaps even social and cultural issues that might come around as well.SparrowIf people are freaked out by this vision. If people don’t want to see command roles handed over to AI, I also think that means that they should think again about autonomous weapons systems. There’s a lot of enthusiasm for autonomy in our armed forces for understandable reasons, indeed. The same reasons we think minotaurs will emerge . . . reasons that other people have been arguing that more and more tasks will be handed over to autonomous weapon systems. But machine autonomy here looks problematic in both cases, or neither. If you think it’s wrong to have a machine sending your troops into battle where they might be killed, it’s quite hard to explain how it can be OK to have a machine making decisions about which of the enemy to kill. So, there are some connections here between debates, we think debates that need to happen about so-called minotaur warfighting and debates that are going on at the moment about autonomy in weapon systems.HostDefinitely lots of food for thought, here.Listeners you can really dig deep in this and get into a lot of detail. Download the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters, look for volume 53, issue 1.Rob and Adam, thank you so much for making this happen. I know we’re on three different continents. It took a little bit of effort. I really appreciate you making the time for this.HenschkeThanks very much, Stephanie.SparrowThank you, Stephanie.HostIf you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and. Would like to. Hear more? You can find us on any major podcast platform.About the authors: Robert J. Sparrow is a professor in the philosophy program and an associate investigator in the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-making and Society (CE200100005) at Monash University, Australia, where he works on ethical issues raised by new technologies. He has served as a cochair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Technical Committee on Robot Ethics and was one of the founding members of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control.Adam Henschke is an assistant professor in the philosophy section at the University of Twente, Netherlands. His research is concerned with ethics, technology, and national security, and he is interested in ethical issues having to do with information technologies and institutions, surveillance, cyber-physical systems, human military enhancement, and relations between social information technologies, political violence, and political extremism. He recently coedited the 2022 Palgrave Handbook of National Security.

The US Army is unprepared to occupy and stabilize territory because it does not adequately educate active-duty officers to do so. One way to professionalize the Army’s ability to carry out military government and stability operations is to develop active-duty functional area officers who can advise commanders and integrate staff planning for these operations. In this episode, author Andrew Colvin analyzes case studies, doctrine, and commentary to envision specialized staff officers with foreign language proficiency, cultural skills, advanced academic abilities, and a strong professional ethic. These officers would enhance the Army’s competence in stabilizing territory to achieve American policy objectives.Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol53/iss1/13/Keywords: stability, civil affairs, foreign language, professional studies, military governmentEpisode Transcript: “The Case for an Army Stability Professional”Stephanie Crider (Host)You’re listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.Today I’m talking with Andrew Colvin, an active-duty engineer officer in the commissioned corps of the US Public Health Service and author of the “Case for an Army Stability Professional,” which was published in the Spring 2023 issue of Parameters.Andrew, thanks so much for joining me today. I’m glad you’re here. Tell me what inspired you to write this article.Andrew ColvinSo, I wrote this article because of my experiences as a civil affairs and engineer officer in the Army, and it left me convicted that we were missing something very critical to winning our nation’s wars. So, I began my research and discovered that I wasn’t the only one who thought this way, so I’ll start by stating the obvious. War is about exercising power over people and territory. It’s political at its core, but the army really struggles to translate violence into, say, a stable political arrangement that furthers American interests.And doctor Nadia Schadlow does a great job explaining this in her book War and the Art of Governance. But as an Army, we have words for this concept—stability, operations—in military government. We have doctrine for this concept. We even have recent experience trying to implement this concept. What we don’t have and what we’ve never really had is the right kind of education for leaders who can guide the Army to success.So, I wrote this paper to propose a solution to this problem, and I want to prepare conventional forces for stability operations during and after large-scale combat. And in a world of finite resources and time, stability operations are never going to get the attention they need from the Army. I recognize that. I think a workable solution is to invest in staff officers—leaders who are selected and educated to advise commanders and integrate staff planning for stability at the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war.HostYou recommend the Army develop stability professionals. Can you expand on that, please?ColvinI envision an active-duty functional area, a specialized officer career field to professionalize the Army’s ability to carry out stability operations, and military government. And I use the word “professional” in its highest sense in the Samuel P. Huntington sense of people who serve society as members of a distinct group with skills that require a lifetime of education practice to master. So this person I envision, the stability professional, is defined by three skills. One is their cultural awareness and foreign language abilities. Two is their advanced academic education. And three, is their military ethic and experience. And so I’ll elaborate on each one of those a little bit more.First, for cultural awareness and foreign language skills, a stability professional practices their profession outside the United States by definition. They need a professional level of cultural awareness and foreign language proficiency. And again, when I say “professional level,” that’s not a buzzword. I have in mind the DoD standards of competence for both culture and language that are contained in DoD I 5160.70. The Interagency Language Roundtable Scale gives us ratings from zero to five. Zero being no skill and five being functionally native. A level three is called “general professional proficiency,” and that’s the minimum proficiency I believe a stability officer needs. And the Army can only get people with this level of proficiency in one of two ways. They either recruit them directly or they send them to spend a year or more in an immersive language education program like the Defense Language Institute.Next is their academic knowledge. I believe full-time graduate study at a civilian institution is important to a stability officer for a few reasons. Stability operations are some of the army’s most complex and intellectually demanding missions. We’re talking about telling army officers to develop, implement, and manage government functions in a foreign country. That’s hard. And that’s not something most people in the Army know anything about; (it’s) not something any Army training institution is capable of teaching.Of course, there’s more to it than just sending people to grad school. We need to make sure that the knowledge these officers receive is relevant to the Army’s mission. To do that, I believe the Army should partner with civilian graduate schools that can align officers’ academic studies with the Army’s stability operations tasks. These schools should expose officers to different ways of thinking and solving problems and giving them an intellectual foundation for stability operations. Ideally, this immersive graduate school experience helps officers make connections with leaders in academia and government who are working on peace and stability issues, and those are the kinds of relationships that can help the army pursue unified action in its future stability operations.Finally, a stability officer’s military experience and ethic is an important part of this stability professional I envision. So-called civilian expertise by itself is not the solution. This is about officers who can apply academic knowledge in a military context. They are active-duty officers with years of military experience who are permanently assigned to conventional army units to manage a staff and advise commanders on stability operations, and these professionals need an ethic. This is especially true for the military. Without an ethic, you’re just a guy with a gun.One of the things that struck me about the Army’s successful stability military government operations as I researched it through history was that the successful ones all seemed to have officers with this notion of diligent compassion at their center. When you look closely at these successes, the Mexican-American War, World War I, to an extent, and World War II, you find a handful of leaders who go against the conventional military wisdom that says all the Army is supposed to care about is lethality, killing the enemy, and publishing body counts. The successful ones approach the human welfare of civilians as a military necessity, something that they plan for meticulously. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that instability operations when the Army stands for humanity, we tend to be successful—when we don’t, we have a hard time achieving lasting strategic results.HostOnce we get these stability professionals resourced and trained, what would that look like?ColvinIt would look like a functional area. So officers in a specialized career field. And they would be assigned at all levels through the tactical, operational, and strategic levels of war and command. So you’re talking about brigades, talking about divisions, corps, and combatant commanders. And there is a position for this on staffs already that the S9, G9, or J-9, depending on the echelon. The challenge is manning it in conventional forces and fielding the right people who can be there when a conflict starts because currently most of those in the conventional forces are slated to be staffed by reserve officers, and they’re going to face significant obstacles mobilizing and manning those positions in time for a large-scale combat operation.HostYou know that there are some arguments against this idea. Will you walk me through them, please?ColvinWell, first, there’s the “not my job” argument. Some people say that the Army isn’t supposed to be involved in nation-building wars. My rebuttal is that because the objective of war is to make political change by force, all wars are nation-building wars, whether the US Army likes it or not.Some say that other US government agencies, principally the State Department and USAID, are the country’s nation builders, and that’s correct in a sense. The 2018 Stabilization Assistance Review reaffirmed the concept that DoD has a supporting, not leading, role in stabilization. But while other government agencies can lead these efforts by implementing policies and programs, the wartime experiences of the United States, going back to our beginning as a nation, shows that the Army is going to have to shoulder a significant share of the burden for setting stable conditions during and after large-scale combat. And if we fail to do that, we’re going to have a bad time.The second major argument is that “we’ve already got one” argument. There are certainly some people out there who would say the army already has what it needs for stability operations. They’d say, look, we have some active-duty civil affairs people. They get a few days of governance training. We’ve got some reserve civil affairs forces that have civilian jobs, and we’re even standing up a team of experts in the military government program in the reserve. So, we’ve got it covered.But if you accept my criteria for stability professional, there’s a very simple way to test this claim. Get the commanders of all those units together and ask them to pull out their list of officers that, number one, speak a strategic language at an IR three level or better. Number 2, have a graduate degree that aligns with the Army stability operations, tasks, and, number 3, are permanently assigned on active duty to the staffs of conventional force units. I imagine those lists are not going to be long enough to sustain us in a protracted, large-scale combat operation.HostGive us your final thoughts before we go.ColvinA theme of my proposal is the importance of education over training. Training is what you do to prepare people to respond to predictable stimuli. You can train people to perform at a high level in very challenging circumstances, like jumping out of airplanes or fighting in urban terrain, but these circumstances and the actions soldiers ought to take are fairly predictable, nonetheless. Education is what enables people to find solutions to problems they’ve never seen before. Education is what soldiers need to prevail in situations that are so complex you cannot possibly train them for it.Officers doing stability operations with all their political, social, economic, and ethical complexities need the right education to succeed. I believe the concept of the stability professional I’ve laid out here unifies ideas that are fragmented across conventional and special-operations commands and the active-duty and reserve components. I believe it’s important because stability operations should be a whole-of-Army effort. We currently do not have officers with the right skills where they need to be to make those operations.HostThanks so much for sharing your insights on this.ColvinGreat. Thanks for having me.HostListeners, you can download “The Case for an Army Stability Professional at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters look for volume 53, issue 1.If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, you can find us on any major podcast platform.About the author: Lieutenant Andrew B. Colvin, PE, PMP, served on active duty in the US Army for nine years, including multiple assignments as an Engineer and Civil Affairs officer and two deployments to the US Central Command area of responsibility. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy and is currently on active duty as an Engineer officer in the Commissioned Corps of the US Public Health Service.

Since achieving victory in World War II, the United States military has a less than enviable combat record in irregular warfare. This exchange provides differing perspectives on where past decisions and doctrines have led to defeat and where they may have succeeded if given more time or executed differently. This episode responds to John A. Nagl’s article, “Why America’s Army Can’t Win America’s Wars,” published in the Autumn 2022 issue of Parameters (vol. 52, no. 3).Keywords: irregular warfare, Vietnam, Afghanistan, World War II, Iraq, LandpowerRead the review and reply here: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol53/iss1/16/Email usarmy.carlisle.awc.mbx.parameters@army.mil to give feedback on this podcast or the genesis article.Episode Transcript: Review and Reply: On “Why America’s Army Can’t Win America’s Wars”Stephanie Crider (Host)You’re listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the authors 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 here with Alexander, special operations NCO, and Dr. John Nagle, author of “Why America’s Army Can’t Win America’s Wars,” which was published in the Autumn 2022 issue of Parameters. Welcome to Decisive Point, gentlemen.Dr. John NaglIt’s good to be here, Stephanie.AlexThank you for having me, Stephanie.HostJohn, please give us a brief recap of your original article.NaglThe article argued that the United States has a somewhat acceptable record of conventional war since it became the greatest power on Earth, sometime over the course of the Second World War. Not just the greatest power on Earth but the greatest power the world has ever seen, with a power differential unknown in human history. But it does not have a similar record in irregular wars. In fact, our absolute abject defeat with helicopters off the roof of the embassy in both Vietnam and Afghanistan.And while Iraq, arguably too soon to tell for sure, does have costs that far exceed any possible gain, I argued in the article that our record in irregular wars since we became the greatest power on Earth is 0 and 3. And I asked why that was and suggested that in the future, enemies of the United States would be very unlikely to confront us conventionally in what the Pentagon is now calling large-scale combat operations, but instead would fight us in ways where they know they have a chance of winning . . . in irregulars, wars, insurgencies, terrorism, the sort of wars that have stymied us for the last 20 years. And therefore, I argue that as the Pentagon focuses on preparing for war with China—to deter and, if necessary, to defeat China—it should spend at least a little time trying to understand why we keep losing irregular wars and more than a little time trying to make sure that we don’t lose the next one.HostAlex, you took issue with John’s piece. Please explain your perspective.AlexSo, I really appreciated John’s analysis, and I absolutely agree that we definitely need to start with why and seek understanding in that. Where I disagreed the most was with his conclusion that if a country is important enough to fight over, it is important enough to stay for generations. I think there are some conditions on that—the most important being that a cultural climate must first be gauged in order to assess how successful or worthwhile a commitment will be. The duration of the commitment really doesn’t matter because if the cultural climate will not support a country’s efforts in war, that country is wasting its time unless it’s willing to colonize whoever it’s fighting.It’s like trying to grow coffee in Alaska. Unless the climate in Alaska changes to support coffee growth, you’ll never be able to grow coffee there. Afghanistan was and is entrenched in tribalism and never fully developed into an industrialized nation state. Added to that, it is a culture that is generally hostile to anything originating from non-Muslim Western societies. So how long would be long enough to overcome those two deeply ingrained cultural dimensions to produce the functioning nation state that so many hope to achieve? I personally believe that there is no length of time that would have been sufficient to produce a fully functioning, self-sustaining democratic nation state with a strong national identity. Because the current cultural climate will not support it.HostYour thoughts John?NaglI’m not sure I disagree with anything Alex said. And I’d like to congratulate him on his eloquence and on the coffee in Alaska analogy, which is absolutely terrific. I think the root of our disagreement focuses on Afghanistan, where I know Alex has spent some time, and I spent a little time. My argument is that the Afghanistan case is very similar to the Vietnam case. That by the end of American involvement in both of those wars, we had achieved what is, broadly speaking, the best outcome we can hope for when fighting a protracted irregular war—that is a country that still is deeply troubled. It’s only deeply troubled countries that face protracted insurgencies. Those countries that have terrific government, where the population all gets along tend not to have those sorts of things. In countries like Afghanistan and Vietnam, the best you can hope for is a government that has a foreign policy that is, broadly speaking, in accordance with the interests of the United States (US is the intervening state) that is developing its own security forces and can with a relatively small number, (some thousands of American advisers, supported by American air power), can keep the threat at Bay.My argument is that that’s what the United States achieved in Vietnam, and it’s also what we achieved in Afghanistan. And I think we should be prepared if we’re going to fight a counterinsurgency campaign in a country to understand that we’re going to have American troops there, not for a generation as we did in Vietnam and Afghanistan, but for generations. And I can understand that people can disagree with that assessment. World War Two was . . . coming up on 80 years ago. And we still, four generations ago, and we still have American troops in Germany, Italy, and Japan. And will, in my estimation, for at least a century to come.And second, those troops are . . . they’re at some risk, of course. But in the 15 months prior to the American departure from Afghanistan, when, of course, we lost 13 in a horrific incident, we had lost no American soldiers. And I believe that the benefit of maintaining a government in Afghanistan that is in US interests, precluding the Taliban from regaining power, maintaining control of Bagram air base (an absolutely invaluable lilypad in a very dangerous part of the world), and perhaps most importantly, preventing the radical Islamic extremists (who still threaten us and our interests around the globe) from having what analyst Peter Bergen called their best day since September 11th, the day that the Afghan government fell. I think that’s worth keeping a couple thousand American troops and a couple billion dollars in American aid flowing to the Afghan government, to infinity and beyond.HostFinal thoughts before we go, Alex?AlexIt’s interesting you brought up World War II, John, because I’ve definitely spent some time thinking about, well, what set apart nations like Japan and Germany from countries like Vietnam and Afghanistan? And I still come back to the cultural aspect, which in many strategic analyses is overlooked. Both Japan and Germany had a more organized nation state that was willing to accept defeat and allow the victor, I suppose, to rebuild a nation that was already a fully industrialized nation state. So, it’s just the cultural mindset in Afghanistan and Vietnam was totally different.And it’s interesting to me that Vietnam became a communist country, and yet it’s a very different flavor from China today. And, in many ways, it is politically somewhat hostile to China’s actions. So it’s curious that Vietnam didn’t quite turn out the way that the domino effect might otherwise have indicated it would.NaglTerrific points, Alex. I appreciate your strategic empathy and your appreciation for different cultures. Japan and Germany were, of course, pretty completely destroyed by the end of the Second World War. Fortunately, in neither Vietnam nor Afghanistan did the wars have that sort of immediate impact on society, although they did over time in both countries. I think, in particular, in Vietnam, I would argue, as a result of our misguided counterinsurgency strategy.And so, I think the question is, for political decisionmakers, because both Vietnam and Afghanistan—those pullout decisions—what are you hoping to achieve? And if what you’re hoping to achieve is a country that looks like the United States, you’re obviously never going to get there. But if you believe that America has security interests in the region, which I very strongly feel it does in both Southeast Asia and in the Hindu Kush, then it may well be worth . . . I believe it strongly is worth . . . keeping a couple thousand American troops supported by air power there indefinitely.And Alex is certainly right that history is an unusual thing that the future is unknowable. That it takes twists and turns, and that Vietnam is now closer to the United States than anyone could have predicted almost 50 years ago when that horrible war came to an end. Nonetheless, the suffering that happened in between in Vietnam and Cambodia with the Khmer Rouge and here in the United States in the aftermath of a lost war, which as Alex noted, may be one of the reasons why the United States turned away from irregular war, sort of subcontracted that out to our special operating forces.I think that damage could have been avoided. More lives could have been saved, and Vietnam could be wealthier and safer, and a closer US ally now had we made some different choices, and, in particular, had we lowered our expectations and done a really hard calculation about our national interests. So I hope as we go forward that politicians will first understand that wars aren’t going to go the way they think they’re going to. They’re going to be longer and more costly, both for us and for the enemies we confront. And also, achieving an end state—a successful end state—in those wars is likely to require a multi-generational commitment of American troops as it has in Germany, Italy, Japan, and Korea.HostI think we have time, Alex, if you want to reply. And then last word to John.AlexI’ll reply. Thank you. I do agree with what John said about lowering the expectations or adjusting the expectations of what is it exactly that you hope to achieve and is that too grandiose of an expectation, given the culture? I suppose my main thrust with my points is that culture in the larger calculus seems to be largely ignored, and it should be given much more weight than it currently does.NaglI agree with that. I was the Minerva Research professor at the US Naval Academy for a couple of years. Secretary Gates appointed me to that position in order to try to increase our understanding of cultures and societies in the wars that we were fighting then, when I was serving in that role about a decade ago. And I’m continuing to advocate for that kind of understanding today.And I’d just like to close by thanking Alex for reading my stuff. You’re the one. I’d always hoped I’d meet somebody who would. And then engaging with me, both in writing and now in words, in a very thoughtful way that, hopefully, will help our army and our nation make better national security choices for many years to come. And I’d like to close by thanking him for his service. As a fat, old, retired guy, it’s men like you who keep us safe and able to get fatter. And I’d like to close by pointing out that round is, in fact, a shape.HostWhat a treat to talk with you both today. Thank you for your contribution to Parameters, and thank you for your time. Listeners read the review and reply in its entirety at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 53, issue 1.If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, you can find us on any major podcast platform.About the authors:Dr. John A. Nagl is an associate professor of warfighting studies in the Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations at the US Army War College. He is the author of Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice (Penguin Books, 2014).Alex is a special operations NCO.