Decisive Point Podcast

In the fourth installment of the SRAD Director’s Corner, Shatzer focuses on the Taiwan/China relationship. He reviews The Trouble with Taiwan: History, the United States and a Rising China by Kerry Brown and Kalley Wu Tzu-hui and Taiwan Straits Standoff: 70 Years of PRC–Taiwan Cross-Strait Tensions by Bruce A. Elleman and shows how these books might help strategists better understand the contentious and violent history of cross-strait relations between Taiwan and China so they can deal with the problem today and in the future.Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss4/16/Episode Transcript: SRAD Director’s Corner: Taiwan as Strategic ImperativeStephanie 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 Colonel George Shatzer, director of the Strategic Research and Analysis Department in the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College. Schatzer is the author of SRAD Directors Corner. In this issue, he focuses on preserving Taiwan as strategic imperative.In your SRAD Directors Corner series, you review books of possible interest to contemporary military strategists—especially those serving in the US Army in joint positions. The Winter issue contains the fourth installment of this series, and the focus is on Taiwan. Thank you for joining us again.Col. George ShatzerWell, it’s great to be back, and I appreciate the opportunity to discuss these important issues.HostYou profiled the security challenge from China in your first review article in the series. Well, that article mentioned Taiwan. It had a broader focus. Maybe you could briefly summarize the key points from that first article and then describe why you decided to narrow in on Taiwan, this time.ShatzerThe first article appeared in the spring edition of Parameters this year and reviewed The Long Game by Rush Doshi and The Strategy of Denial by Elbridge Colby. You are right that both books took a wider or grand strategic look at what the People’s Republic of China’s global ambitions are and what the United States should do about them.Doshi argues that the PRC has patiently planned for decades to overtake the United States as the world’s dominant power. He describes how the PRC has first sought to blunt the US’s control of affairs, regionally, and then attempted to build its own control over the region and then how the PRC has expanded those blunting and building efforts globally. Doshi speaks to all aspects of national power when he recommends how the US should essentially follow its own blunting and building strategy to curb the PRC’s growth.Colby, though, focuses on just military power in his book, but still from a strategic perspective, and doesn’t get deeply into any operational matters. He suggests the US overtly build an anti-hegemonic coalition to check PRC advances.Both authors, of course, mentioned Taiwan, but their books include far more than that.I always planned to come to Taiwan as its own topic in the article series. And with the events this past summer following US Speaker of House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan and the violent PRC reaction, it was clearly the right time to do that.The potential for armed conflict between the US and the PRC might well be the highest it’s been since the Korean War era and the first Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1954 to 1955. This is no theoretical or purely academic problem, either. The PRC has attacked Taiwan and held territory several times in the past. The US has intervened many times, and the PRC has been very clear and vocal about its willingness to attack again. Even though some argue the true potential for war over Taiwan is low, it would still be a war between the world’s two most powerful nuclear armed states. Such a conflict would be a catastrophe and have devastating consequences for millions of people around the world. That’s a problem set that deserves very careful study and attention.HostLet’s talk more about the likelihood of a war over Taiwan. I take it from the article that you believe that a war is more likely today.ShatzerThat’s right. I’m very concerned, actually. I don’t say this explicitly in the article, but I believe the trajectory of the military situation around Taiwan has entered a dangerous new phase following what some have called the 4th Taiwan Strait crisis from this last summer. In earlier straight crises, the US took very concrete military and diplomatic steps to respond and intervene to warn off the PRC and prevent a larger conflict.In this year’s crisis, three factors appeared to have changed very substantially since the last crisis in 1995 and 96. First is Taiwan’s ability to defend itself. Taiwan military capacity has decreased significantly since 1996. Taiwan’s military is much smaller. It hasn’t kept pace in key areas of modern combat systems technology, and most of its conscripted service members are required to only serve four months. Yes, that’s months. The second factor is the massive growth in PRC military power. Today, most point to the 95-96 straight crisis in which the US deployed two naval carrier strike groups in response to PRC military actions as a major driver in convincing the PRC to modernize its military because it realized it had no real means to respond to the US carrier deployments. I first became seriously involved in examining the PRC’s People’s Liberation Army, or PLA forces, in 2008. From 1996 to 2008, the growth in PLA capability was remarkable. Subsequent growth in PLA capability since 2008 has been at least as significant, if not more so. Relative to Taiwan and US military capability since 1996, the PLA is vastly more capable and dangerous today. The third differences are pure C perceptions of itself and its perceptions of the United States. This is less clear cut than the other two factors, but I think it’s very likely that the PRC is much more confident in its military capability to seize Taiwan by force today.Additionally, the PRC has seen a much more muted response from the US to this year’s straight crisis. That might well have been a sensible way for the US to defuse tensions, but what signal did it send about US resolve to defend Taiwan? Yes, the US has made public statements reaffirming commitments to Taiwan security, but lacking a clear set of military moves, I’m concerned that the US may have fostered the PRC belief that the US might not back up its words with deeds. So, taken together, I’m generally worried that the PRC has a much greater capacity to at least isolate Taiwan by force and that the PRC believes it has much greater latitude to do so.HostWhat you’re describing, then, is a major break from past history with the Taiwan Strait crisis. This history is the focus of the first book you reviewed. What does this book offer for strategists today?ShatzerBruce Elleman is one of the foremost experts on Chinese warfare, especially maritime operations. But his book, Taiwan Straits Standoff, does a great job of examining each past crisis in all dimensions. Understanding history is key to understanding PRC perspectives on warfare and on Taiwan, so Elleman’s book is mandatory reading, in my view, for anyone engaged in this problem. The book was published prior to this year’s crisis, which is actually good in that the book provides a clean perspective on everything that’s come before. The short book is stuffed full, though, of valuable strategic insight about the importance of Taiwan, the past thinking of US policymakers, patterns of PRC military behavior, and even how Russia factors into the equation. I thought the most valuable aspect of the book was the discussion of the various problems the PRC has faced in trying to act against Taiwan in the past and the range of problems the PRC faces today.All of these are suggestive of strategic options the US could use today to frustrate PRC aims. To mention just one is the fixation that the PRC has about Taiwan, and how the US historically leveraged that, especially during the Korean War, to influence PRC behavior. Elleman also reminds us that for much of Cross Strait history, the PRC has viewed war with the United States over Taiwan as being pointless. The PRC has traditionally believed that they could gain control of Taiwan through propaganda and subversion. This “win without fighting” mindset is still fundamental to Chinese military thinking, and it holds great deterrent value. If the United States can encourage the PRC to cling to this idea, then maybe war can be avoided. Unfortunately, growth of PRC nationalism and impatience to “reunify” with Taiwan threatens to erode this barrier to conflict. It’s worth noting too, that Elleman recounts in great detail the US Army LED noncombatant evacuation operation from outlying Taiwan Islands in 1955. It was a massive operation. Eventually evacuating nearly 30,000 people, military, civilian from the threat of PRC attack. I mention this because many questioned what role the US Army could really play in a Taiwan conflict today.HostSpeaking of nationalism in China and impatience over the Taiwan problem, the other book you reviewed brought a unique perspective to these questions. What was that?ShatzerCorrect, The Trouble with Taiwan by Kerry Brown and Kalley Wu Tzu Hui offered a fresh, compelling take on the PRC–Taiwan problem. The authors approached the issue through the lens of identity— how history, internal politics and a host of other factors shape the way peoples define themselves and others. In fact, the authors assert that identity is, today, the key driver of the PRC–Taiwan Rift and for the potential for war. They wade through some very complex cultural dynamics in a way that makes the core issues easy to understand for a Western audience.Put simply, the PRC views itself as the rightful and only legitimate leadership of the Chinese nation. And because the Chinese Communist Party has so clearly and forcefully proclaimed its historical and cultural right to control and re empower the Chinese nation, the status of Taiwan is deeply and symbolically now a key component of the party’s legitimacy. In effect, Taiwan is a test case for the party itself. If it were to give up on Taiwan or fail to gain control of it, this would call into question every other sovereignty claim the PRC makes to places such as the South China Sea, Tibet, and Xinjiang. Relinquishing or failing on these claims would mean breaking up the Chinese nation, something the party simply can’t permit.The authors further argue that because the PRC has grown wealthier and more powerful, it feels its status has increased. And because the PRC believes it is more capable of forcefully seizing Taiwan, the PRC’s desire for so-called reunification with Taiwan is now more urgent. The authors also stress that notions of China as a civilizational force and mother culture amplify a strong Confucian sense of the PRC being an elder sibling to Taiwan and, hence, deserving of its respect. So, for the PRC, its own identity as the elder prevents any possibility that Taiwan could be of equal status or be sovereign.For all these reasons, the authors conclude that this is an intractable problem where “to be fully China, to have the status it wants to rank as a great global power, the PRC needs Taiwan to be part of it.”HostWhat hope then, is there that the Taiwan dispute can be resolved peacefully?ShatzerBrown and Wu Tzu Hui offer that Taiwan status as a democracy is actually a powerful defense because it means that Taiwan can always say it isn’t ruling out joining with the PRC. That reunification is a possibility because its people may elect to do just that. They also point out that the growing sense of a unique Taiwanese identity—as is distinct from a Chinese identity—while concerning to the PRC, also has a deterrent value.The PRC should be concerned that a firm Taiwan resistance to a PLA military operation to seize the island will result in a quagmire and undercut the party’s claim to legitimacy. I’m not sure how much these factors deter the PRC, though, especially for the long term or when tensions spike again. I do agree with the authors that the problem is intractable in the sense that there is no real way the Chinese Communist Party can give up its claim to Taiwan. Persistent competition with the PRC may well be the best the US can do, by maintaining a credible deterrent through forward posture and demonstrating the clear will to defend Taiwan. But like with the Soviet Union in the end of the 20th century Cold War, I think the only way the PRC threat to Taiwan ends is if the party in Beijing collapses or experiences a revolution that completely remakes it. That’s something that will only result from internal forces and popular action.HostYou also point out that US will to defend Taiwan is not clear, at least in the minds of some.ShatzerThat’s true, unfortunately. Despite the US being very clear in its statements and actions about its commitment to Taiwan since 1955, I think most that question US will do so because they don’t understand the importance of Taiwan to the United States. In the article, I discussed various aspects of that importance, particularly the economic, geographic, and military advantages the PRC would gain from seizing control of Taiwan, enabling the PRC to dominate its neighbors in the rest of the region. But really, the risk even greater than the growth of PRC power would be the damage to US power and prestig—in the region and globally.If the US permitted the PRC to terminate a democratic nation of almost 24 million people, how could the US credibly claim that it would stand with any other democracy in the face of a similar threat? And if the US can’t be counted on to defend other democracies, why should they look to the US for leadership on anything?US power starts from the idea that its form of democratic government is superior to all others, especially authoritarian ones. If the US is unwilling to defend that ideal from predators, then it effectively cedes global leadership to any other power willing to seize it. That turn of events might not be an existential threat to the United States in the short term, but it would greatly undermine US influence, wealth, and security in the long run.HostRun how does the US prevent that outcome?ShatzerThrough a serious and unambiguous commitment to maintaining a credible capability of defeating military aggression against Taiwan, by working closely with Taiwan to do just that, and by convincing the PRC that military force will not work, that they must resort to a long game of trying to win without fighting.Fundamentally, the PRC must be made to fear that the risk of an operation to seizeT aiwan is simply too great, and then a failure in that operation will threaten the very existence of the Communist Party. I think only by holding at risk the party’s grasp of power in Beijing will they be deterred from acting against Taiwan. All this is much easier said than done, but it’s what we must do.HostLots of food for thought here, like always, and plenty of resources to dig into. Thanks so much for your time.ShatzerWell, thanks again for the opportunity to discuss this today.HostIf you’d like to dive deeper into the contentious and violent history of the relationship between the PRC and Taiwan, and how it impacts today’s situation, read the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 52, issue 4.If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, you can find us on any major podcast platform.Author Information: Colonel George Shatzer is the director of the Strategic Research and Analysis Department in the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College.

Now that Vladimir Putin has chosen a path of escalation in his unnecessary war of aggression against Ukraine, it is imperative Western policymakers know the consequences and how he might escalate further. This podcast examines recent events on the battlefield; the implications of the announced annexation of territory, mobilization of forces, and threats to employ “all means” to defend Russian territory; the domestic ramifications and Russian thinking on “hybrid warfare”; and the possible weaponization of food and energy as Putin determines future escalatory steps. It will assist American and European leaders in determining policies to deal with the ongoing crisis at this moment and prepare for an uncertain future.Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss4/4/Episode transcript: “Putin Chooses between a Series of Bad Options”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 doctor Jeffrey McCausland, author of “Putin Chooses between a Series of Bad Options,” which was featured in the winter 2022–23 issue of Parameters.McCausland is a visiting professor at Dickinson College and a retired US Army Colonel, a national security consultant for CBS Radio and television. He’s the founder and CEO of Diamond 6 leadership and strategy and the author of Battle Tested! Gettysburg Leadership Lessons for 21st-century Leaders, published by Post Hill Press in 2020.Welcome to Decisive Point.I’m really glad you’re here.Dr. Jeffrey McCauslandStephanie, it’s great to be with you.HostYour article, “Putin Chooses between a Series of Bad Options” addresses Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent escalation in his war against Ukraine. In what three ways did Putin escalate the war?McCauslandWe have to consider, Stephanie, that escalation occurs vertically as well as horizontally, and he’s actually done or threatened to do both. You know vertically it’s the use of more and more sophisticated military equipment. As the war progressed to use thermobaric weapons, he attacked civilian population as his situation on the battlefield deteriorated, he’s threatened to use nuclear weapons, and he’s mobilized additional military forces, as well as the economy. But then there’s also a horizontal explanation. Moving, if you will, in that direction, and here we see the Russians using hybrid warfare. And, therefore, using the food weapon, shutting off the export of grain to around the world.I’m fully convinced the Russians were behind the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline and effort to intimidate Europeans about the possible use of energy and the use of overall energy as a weapon as he has done that to manipulate particularly Western Europ ean public opinion potential. Potential threats and nuclear power plants like around Zaporizhya, which he can kind of press or not as he sees fit. And if he were to cause a major disaster there, he could have similar effects to a nuclear weapon with, perhaps, not exactly as much international backlash. He could try to blame it on the Ukrainians. And recently, he’s made threats to go after US and European satellites. So he’s escalated both vertically with more weaponry as well as horizontally.HostSo, given all this, what are his options now?McCauslandThose options are to, again, further process horizontally or as well as vertically–the recent suspension of the food export was an example of that. It now seems to be back online. There is some suggestion he may try to expand the war to Belarus. Move Russian military forces into Belarus and use that as a geographic location to attack Ukraine. Even threatening to do that has already forced the Ukrainians to a degree to move some military forces to the north to, in fact, prepare for that. Should that aggression, in fact, occur.Sure, he could strike NATO territory, particularly those points that are key to the importation of military hardware coming from the United States or our European Allies in an effort to restrict that. Or they can do is think as most likely right now, which is hunker down as winter progresses, hoping to stabilize the battlefield as the ground freezes as snow arrives. And by depriving Europeans of a lot of energy, hope that the European population in the West will become more and more disenchanted with the war, causing social unrest, and they’ll force their leadership to put pressure on the Ukrainians. Furthermore, of course, his ongoing campaign to strike Ukrainian energy infrastructure may have a similar effect in Ukraine, forcing more refugees as people in the eastern part of the country, in particular, are now faced with a long winter with the possibility of no energy.HostIn your opinion, what’s the probability of Putin using nuclear weapons?McCauslandI think the probability is low, but it certainly isn’t zero, and we need to keep that in mind and be clear-eyed about it. You know it’s sort of ironic that we are experiencing what I would argue is the greatest nuclear confrontation we’ve had since the Cuban missile crisis, which was almost exactly 60 years ago this past October.He could use a strategic nuclear weapon. He has a large arsenal. There’s no two ways about that. But obviously that would have, I don’t think it necessarily military effect. It would make him a global pariah. Make him, in essence, North Korea. Even the Chinese would not support that. He could use a tactical nuclear weapon, a smaller nuclear weapon, on the battlefield. And there are reports out even today that the Russian military has considered that. But again, I find that doubtful he would do that. Russian military doctrine has always talked about using such weapons for two reasons.Reason number one. In an effort to break through a stalemate on the battlefield and then exploit those opportunities with large scale mechanized advance. He doesn’t have the mechanized forces left to do that. And #2, if in fact, the very existence of the Russian Federation was at risk. That’s certainly not the case right now, though he could say the territories he had next, which are Russia are, in fact, being invaded by the Ukrainians now, which is sort of an odd turn of events. But I think he would, again, lose a lot of international support. He would not have the battlefield effect, and he also has to understand, of course, that nuclear weapons, once used, raise the possibility of escalation with the United States, which he doesn’t want either. And finally, of course, even localized effects like radiation affects his forces as well. As it turns out, most wind in that particular portion of eastern Ukraine blows from west to east, so the large-scale radiation patterns would endanger not only his own forces, but perhaps even Russian territory.HostYou note that it’s critical the West adopt policies to deter or respond to potential future escalation by Moscow. What would that look like?McCauslandWell, it looks like is unity of effort, of course is key and this year Putin made the assumption of the very onset of this war that two things would happen.One, the war would be over quickly, the Ukrainians would collapse. That didn’t happen. Second of all, the West, NATO, and the United States would not get their act together. They would be complaints, but we would basically accept this like we did in 2014. That has been untrue. And NATO is a lot more powerful today than, I would argue, it was back in February. As somebody pointed out, you know in a matter of a couple of weeks, Mr. Putin managed to undermine about two centuries of Swedish neutrality and about four decades of German pacifism in one fell swoop. So that unity of effort in the West is key. Now Putin has got to be comforted by social unrest he see sees in France, a new government in the United Kingdom, a new government in Italy, perceived as quiet even in Germany on the nature of this war going for a long period of time. And even recent comments here in the United States by senior Republicans about, we can’t give retrain a blank check and progressive Democrats sending a letter to Mr. Biden urging negotiation, which they subsequently, by the way withdrew.I think the second thing we gotta do is we gotta continue to emphasize that Putin is committing war crimes. The attacks on civilians, the attacks on civilian infrastructures, are by any definition, war crimes. We cannot allow him, in essence, to use the same tactics the Russians and the Syrians did against Syrian civilians in the Ukraine. We’ve got to continue not only to provide military assistance, which will change and has evolved from stingers and javelins to longer range artillery to high Mars and now more sophisticated air defense, as this relentless attack by the Russians continues. But we also have to provide humanitarian assistance and economic assistance to the Ukrainians. And I fear this winter may see a second refugee crisis.And last but not least, I say we need to continue to tailor our military assistance and coordinate it with our European Allies to make sure we have maximum effect and consider, I think doing things much more bold. For example, I think we need to consider, if not direct military assistance in Ukraine, at least contractor support in Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces on their territory and repair equipment on their territory that can more quickly then be returned to the battlefield.HostUnfortunately, we’re running out of time here, give us your final thoughts though, please before we go.McCauslandMy final thoughts would be these. First of all, Putin’s lost. By any measure, he’s lost. I mean, consider the effect on the economy. He has lost highly skilled young people. Perhaps as many as 750,000 have fled the country following the initiation of the war and the mobilization. He’s had over 100,000 casualties. Some estimate as many as 40,000 dead. The long-term effect on your Russian economy is inestimable, and people estimate, who follow economies, that it will drop by 5% this year and 10 to 15% next year. If you were an extraction economy, which Russia is, the one thing you don’t want to be described as is unreliable. The second thing we need to keep in mind is he still thinks he can win.And he thinks he must because he knows only two Soviet leaders left office still standing up. That was Khrushchev and Gorbachev. The rest of them all were carried out the front door of the of the Kremlin. Defeat, therefore, for him may be existential. So he has to think about the 3 variables that will make that possible. One is, does his army continue to fight? That, I think, may be increasingly problematic.Second of all, will the Russian people put up with this as the economy constricts?And thirdly, what does the economy actually do in Russia, and how precipitous does that in fact happen?Finally, I think when you keep in mind that this is not a war between Ukraine and Russia per se.The stakes here are far, far larger. I think we all agree that democracy around the world is threatened. Therefore, it’s more than just a war between Ukraine and Russia, and we cannot afford to lose this. To do so would encourage every desperate from Iran to North Korea to China, seeking to take over Taiwan, et cetera, that the international norms established at the end of World War II, whereby territory was not seized by military aggression, are no longer in place and they can do willy nilly what they think is necessary and the opportunities they think now present themselves.HostThanks for sharing your insights on this topic. It was a real treat to talk with you.McCauslandMy pleasure, Stephanie.HostTo read the article visitpress.armywarcollege.edu/parameters, look for volume 52, issue 4.If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, you can find us on any major podcast platform.Author Information: Dr. Jeffrey McCausland is a visiting professor at Dickinson College and retired US Army colonel. During his military career, he served as the dean of academics at the US Army War College, a combat battalion commander during the Gulf War, and a member of the National Security Council staff in the White House during the Kosovo crisis. A national security consultant for CBS radio and television, he is regularly interviewed on US national security policy issues. He is the founder and CEO of Diamond6 Leadership and Strategy and author of Battle Tested! Gettysburg Leadership Lessons for 21st Century Leaders (Post Hill Press, 2020).

To illustrate the logic and grammar of coercion, this analysis relies on decision-theory methods, such as game theory, that examine the strategic decision-making process in interactions with adversaries and partners. The intent here is not to offer predictive models of rational-actor behavior. Rather, the intent is to use game theory and similar approaches to understand how coercion works better. This analysis considers competitive interactions between actors that have discrete and qualifiable, if not quantifiable, preferences and who behave rationally, though this analysis acknowledges the behavior that is considered rational is frequently informed by nonrational social, cultural, and psychological factors. Considering these competitive interactions allows one to identify “rules of thumb” that can orient and guide actors as they compete.This analysis emphasizes coercion does not depend simply on imposing costs; rather, it depends on placing adversaries in positions in which they must act and their most rational option is the one most beneficial to one’s own cause. To achieve this result, actors must carefully calibrate their demands to ensure their adversary’s cost of concession is as low as possible. To prevent challenges in the first place, actors should convince the adversary acting on a threat is one’s most rational response. If convincing the adversary is not possible, then one must find ways to decrease the value of the adversary’s challenge. When none of those options are possible, preparing for conflict is likely one’s rational option. This analysis then applies the rules of thumb to US relations with China, Russia, and Iran.Keywords: Iran, China, Russia, international competition, game theory, coercion theoryRead the monograph: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/952/Episode Transcript: Coercing Fluently: The Grammar of Coercion in the Twenty-First CenturyStephanie 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 Dr. C. Anthony Pfaff, author of Coercing Fluently: The Grammar of Coercion in the Twenty-First Century, which was published by the US Army War College Press in August 2022. Pfaff is the research professor for strategy, the military profession, and ethics at the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute and a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council. A retired Army foreign area officer for the Middle East and North Africa, he has a doctorate in philosophy from Georgetown University.Welcome back to Decisive Point, Tony.(C. Anthony Pfaff)Hey, thanks. Very happy to be here.HostWhy did you take on this topic?(Pfaff)It had been kind of, I think, boiling for a little while. In fact, one of the topics of the year, when we started it about two years ago, was, you know, rethinking coercion and competition. And that, I think, came from a strong sense of frustration over the way the United States was competing globally at the time. China was not only asserting itself in the South China Sea and getting more aggressive over Taiwan, as it is still doing now, but it was also building relations globally—particularly, in continents like Africa—that was threatening to displace US influence. And then you had Russia. You know, you got the invasion of Ukraine, which is a very obvious failure of deterrence. But even before the invasion, Russia was a . . . very much a destabilizing influence—particularly, in Europe—already having seized Crimea, supporting Ukrainian separatists, while at the same time using sort of gray zone means, like social media and others, to sow domestic instability or uncertainty within United States and, uh, its European allies.Then you always have Iran. Iran’s really good at this, you know, using . . .HostYes.(Pfaff)Their proxies. They were pretty much able to attack US forces—especially, in Iraq, but, also, elsewhere—with relative impunity. And whenever we struck back, we always found ourselves in a worse position than if we hadn’t struck back. And that kind of quagmire is very frustrating. And what was really frustrating, from a lot of the practitioners that we talked to, is there was no theory of the case on what to do about it. We study war. We know how to use and apply military forces in war, and so our deterrence thinking is often shaped by the idea that as long as we have the right kinds of capabilities, we’ll get the right kinds of deterrence. That’s part of the equation, but it’s not the whole thing. And that’s why I kind of started looking at grammar as a way of thinking about this. You know, (Carl von) Clausewitz famously said, you know, “Apply the idea of grammar to war,” saying war has a grammar of its own, but its logic is peculiar to itself. So if war has a grammar of its own, why wouldn’t coercion have a grammar of its own?HostIn your work, you talk about compellence, deterrence, and coercion. What are the differences between the three?(Pfaff)Very little, actually. Well, so, compellence and deterrence are forms of coercion. As the theory goes, coercion is about getting somebody to do something that you want them to do (compellence) or getting them not to do something you don’t want them to do (deterrence). I like doing . . . calling them, you know, they’re two sides of the same coin. As (Thomas C.) Schelling argues, you can see the difference between deterrence (and) compellence kind of lies in the timing and initiative, determined by who makes the first move and whose initiative is tested. But there are differences where deterrence is obviously kind of more of a passive activity. You could draw a line, and you tell people, “Don’t cross the line. If you do cross the line, I’m gonna do this.” Whereas compellence is a lot more active, “Stop this now. Uh, you have exactly five minutes.” So, you have to specify time and space where, you know, the compellent threat will be enacted. And so, it’s kind of got a timer on it. Where deterrence is open ended, compellence is a lot more limited.HostGame theory and coercion: How are they related?(Pfaff)Trying to figure out, given the problem, how do you compel and deter—particularly, against adversaries who seem to be, you know, doing a little bit better than we are. What’s the method by which we sort of analyze these things? Basically, we’re talking about an interaction, and that’s kind of what game theory does. It’s probably more accurate to say that we’re using sort of the structure of the game theory to kind of help understand the interactions under the specific conditions of international competition. You know, having said that, even though we . . . you know, this project doesn’t have quite the mathematical rigor you normally associate with a lot of game theoretic analysis, it gives us a way to discipline and structure our thinking about a problem so we can increase our understanding of it. So whether they’re looking at any kind of predictive or even descriptive reliability, it’s kind of trying to look at those interactions, pull out the logic of them, and discern, “What are some rules of thumb that follow from, uh, these interactions, you know, in the real world, can apply when engaged in a competitive interaction?”HostHow would that work?(Pfaff)You have to identify who the relevant actors are; what their interests and goals are; what they can do in pursuit of those interests and goals; and, just as importantly, what they know and believe about other actors—particularly, how they might respond. And these factors boil down to preferences actors have for cooperation, concession, or conflict because that’s basically the . . . you know, that’s basically the shape of the choices that both or however many actors are in play are making.And so, when we’re looking at these interactions, we’re looking for equilibrium. What do we learn from studying these kinds of interactions? So now we’re thinking putting yourself not in the shoes of the other person in a way. You understand the credibility’s less about how they perceive your resolve as much as how they perceive what’s your interest in doing something?If the Russians, for example, believe that we would be worse off if we intervened on behalf of the Ukrainians, they would not take our deterrence, our deterrent threat, as credible because we would be worse off if we applied it. It also has to be capable. But here, capability isn’t measured in terms of balance of power necessarily. It’s more measured in terms of if the deterrent or compellent threat is triggered. If they don’t comply, if they don’t cooperate, are they going to be worse off if you apply that threat? Russia, believing that yes, it might be subjected to sanctions and, perhaps, you know, trade restrictions and things like that, felt that no, given the deterrent threat, as they understood it, they would not be worse off if they had invaded Ukraine. I think we’re seeing they were wrong about that.And a lot of times, in game theory, you talk about rational actors. We talk about rationality. But rationality in this sense just really means knowing what you want and how to get it. Couple of other things fall out, particularly regarding compellence and deterrence. Compellence may not always work out quite the way you think it would in real life—in particular, because the possibility of future interactions and iterations impacts how other actors are going to respond. First, for the one who’s doing the challenging, doing compelling, it offers, you know . . . offers you an opportunity to, uh, test your opponent. So you might be logical—and you see this sometimes—to open up with a very high demand. Even though you don’t expect that they’ll concede, you want to test the waters. And that’s particularly true in stronger/weaker interactions where the stronger actor can afford failure, as a result, might make a very high demand but not be willing to go all the way through to achieve it. Because on the other side, the weaker actor’s incentivized to resist, even where the demand might actually be reasonable if this were a single iteration sort of thing. Because of a fear of future demands, they’re incentivized up front to really dig in. And you kind of see this with the Iranians, right? You know, we make lots of demands. They dig in because they fear there’s going to be another one.HostHow can it be applied when it comes to, say, China, Russia, Ukraine?(Pfaff)There’s three things that you can get out of it. One is helping understand the outcome of an interaction. One is then maybe prescribing effective strategies—at least, things you can try as well as assessing strategies relative to others. Why does something work, and why does something else not work?So, for example, a key advisor to President Xi (Jinping) of China, Jin Canrong, made a bunch of speeches in 2016 where he really laid out a detailed strategy on how China was going to achieve global hegemon status. And that strategy is comprised of six sequential moves that involve, first, a lot of cooperation, intertwining US and Chinese interests, while establishing alternatives to the United States for other countries like the Belt and Road Initiative that would eventually displace US influence while constraining what the US can do because that cooperation, that status quo they’ve created is now too valuable for the United States for it to, you know, just easily walk away from. It’s a strategy based of “Let’s cooperate in some areas, maybe as many areas as possible, so we’re in a better position to challenge in others.”Now compare that to the US maximum pressure campaign against Iran. Which one’s more likely to work? Well, maximum pressure just raises the stakes for Iran as well as raises concerns that if they give in to one demand, others will follow. Logically, you know, they should dig in and absorb whatever cost short of war the US is willing to impose and while imposing some costs on their own. It’s a strategy that gives them little to lose.That point doesn’t mean that a maximum pressure campaign was necessarily a bad idea. It’s just not going to alter Iranian behavior. So if that’s his point, it’s going to fail. But in this context, we can also take a step back and look at what this analysis will tell you is “What’s the space for changing that behavior?” And it’s probably very little. There’s very little room for cooperation, so a strategy that denies Iran resources and makes it harder for them to compete might be the best move.And then, when it comes to Russia, uh, its interests are limited. Where it has success is with countries where we have little interest. And there’s probably a little we . . . very little we can do about that other than sort of change those other countries’ interests.But let’s look at, um, Ukraine real quick, just to kind of wrap things up. NATO was criticized in the United States for not signaling resolve. For (Vladimir) Putin to be deterred, he had to believe that the deterrent threat was both credible and capable, which meant that we would “out-escalate” him. There was just really no good reason for him to believe that. And even though the United States, prior to the invasion, basically said, “We’re gonna impose really high costs,” there was enough caveats in the way people were presenting things. There was, uh, an appearance of, uh, lack of consensus among NATO nations on what to do. And in a situation like that, that’s going to signal to the other actor, and it’s time to act.But Putin made a mistake too, I think, uh, or may have. Well, not only did he not get that right. Uh, apparently the resolve was there, despite how he interpreted the signals. He also probably caused that a little bit or incentivized it. In December of 2021, he issued an ultimatum. He said, “Okay, we’ll back off. We won’t invade Ukraine.” But he demanded no further enlargement of NATO to the east; all cessation of military cooperation with post-Soviet countries, which includes a lot of NATO allies; a withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from Europe; and cessation of many military activities in Ukraine. It also demanded a withdrawal of NATO forces all the way to the borders of 1997, which would leave, basically, all of Eastern Europe, you know, vulnerable ’cause that’s the 14 Eastern European and Baltic states that joined after that date. Not only would exceeding these demands prevent any kind of military intervention in Ukraine, it would impair the alliance’s ability to meet its defense obligations under article V. It would essentially kill NATO—probably, the unraveling of the alliance.As we talked about before, that raises the stakes, which is likely to increase resolve. ’Cause, you know, it went from “Do we just defend a single country,” or are we now worried about the alliance? Now, he’s put it on the alliance. Now what you could say is that this might’ve been used as a separating strategy. “This is a really tough demand. What’s NATO gonna do?” That might’ve been the case, but when you do those, you kind of have to have a plan to walk it back if they stand. And he didn’t walk it back.So it wasn’t that, and it certainly backfired and increased the resolve of NATO, to the point that it doesn’t look like he’s gonna get any kind of outcome that he’s going to want. The stakes are very high for him. He’s gonna resist all the way down, however many nodes you’d want to go. So if we don’t want to escalate the war, the math says, basically, there has to be some kind of accommodation, or the conflict continues and will continue to escalate. Now, whether that means nuclear weapons—this is where the . . . you know, you leave the analysis.’Cause the analysis says, yes, that, you know, there’s no limit. Whether or not he’s going to do it is going to depend on a host of other reasons that might fall outside this. And that’s another lesson is that, what this also does for you, you sort of bound that but give you a direction to go look for the other things that’ll fill in your knowledge gap so that you can make better-informed decisions.HostSo, last question before we go: The way forward—what do we need to keep in mind?(Pfaff)The competition’s generally open ended and, you know, coercive failures can sow the seed for future success. In fact, some strategies might integrate failure into the plan in order to get more information. But then, what it tells you is you’ve got to be sufficiently opportunistic, agile enough to take advantage of the things that arise out of that particular interaction. So coercive failure’s not also a bad thing. And there’s a couple other things. So, like, regarding forced postures, it says you should favor those that are flexible and create ambiguity, may be more productive than those that signal overmatch and overcommitment. There’s a lot that it says about how to collect, what to collect regarding intelligence and gearing it towards understanding adversary preferences, their thresholds, as well as, most importantly, their assessment of you. Because as we talked about Putin, he assessed us a certain way. He got it wrong. But knowing he assessed us that way should inform how we respond. Do we want to retain that ambiguity? Do we want to signal more clearly?And then, third is finding more space to compete in and be out there. So, for example, the United States’ contributions to peacekeeping operations went from a high of 115 to 34 in 2020. And so, we’re not really resourcing those. But those are places where there is a lot of competition going on. When we withdrew our observers out of, uh, Congo, for instance, Russians and Chinese filled it in. That gives them leverage . . . and that gives them leverage and access in those places that we now don’t have. Now maybe we don’t want to do this, but now we need to understand when we withdraw from these sort of inter- and intranational sort of things, we’re ceding space to the other guys. And yes, you’ll have to take into account, you know, whatever agreements or cooperation. There’s always cheating. Know that your adversary’s building that into their costs. Build that into yours as well. And that’s it.HostThanks, as always, for your time.(Pfaff)Thank you. Much appreciated.HostYou can learn more about Coercing Fluently: The Grammar of Coercion in the Twenty-First Century at press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs.If you enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more, you can find us on any major podcast platform.Author Information:Dr. C. Anthony Pfaff is the research professor for strategy, the military profession, and ethics at the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute and a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council. A retired Army foreign area officer for the Middle East and North Africa, he has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and economics from Washington and Lee University; a master’s degree in philosophy from Stanford University, with a concentration in philosophy of science; a master’s degree in national resource management from the Dwight D. Eisenhower School for National Security and Resource Strategy; and a doctorate in philosophy from Georgetown University.

After Russia’s unprecedented seizure of Ukraine’s nuclear plant at Zaporizhzhya, the United States needs to adjust its military planning and policies to cope with hostile military forces’ targeting, seizure, and garrisoning of armed forces at large, operating nuclear plants and clarify its policies regarding possible US targeting of such plants. This podcast analyzes these concerns. It compares Russia’s assaults with previous strikes against research reactors and nonoperating nuclear plants in the Middle East and clarifies what new military measures and policies will be needed to cope with military operations against large, operating nuclear plants. US Army and Pentagon officials, as well as military and civilian staff, will discover ways to mitigate and reduce future military harm to civilians in war zones and understand the operational implications of military assaults on and seizures of civilian nuclear facilities.Keywords: radiation, nuclear reactors, Zaporizhzhya, Law of War Manual, Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action PlanRead the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss4/3/Episode Transcript: “Present Danger: Nuclear Power Plants in War”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 Henry D. Sokolski, author of “Present Danger: Nuclear Power Plants in War,” which was published in the winter 2022–23 issue of Parameters. Sokolski is the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, a Washington-based nonprofit organization founded in 1994 to promote a better understanding of strategic weapons proliferation issues among policymakers, scholars, and the media. He teaches graduate-level classes on nuclear policy in Washington, DC. He’s also a senior fellow for nuclear security studies at the University of California in San Diego’s (University of California, San Diego’s) School of Global Policy and Strategy.Welcome back to Decisive Point, Henry. It’s great to chat with you again.(Henry D. Sokolski)Well, thank you for having me.HostAbsolutely. My pleasure. In your article, you note that Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s nuclear plant in Zaporizhzhya should inspire the US to adjust its military planning and policies when it comes to hostile military forces and operating nuclear plants. What about this situation inspired your article?(Sokolski)Well, I think what got me going was something halfway around the globe in Taiwan. The election of the current president in 2016 came with a pledge to shut down their nuclear power plants. They had three and one partially constructed. And when I went and visited, it occurred to me that one of the strongest arguments in support of the government’s position was not being made, and that was that these plants were targets, and . . . uh, the more I looked into that, the more I discovered that, indeed, the Chinese were targeting those plants and planning to target them and that the radiation releases, depending on the time of the year, could be quite remarkable and devastating. And I . . . I worked that, and then I started looking around the world.By the time Zaporizhzhya occurred, I was ready. So that was six years of research that I had been doing on this topic and . . . and problems there.HostSo this isn’t the first nuclear plant to be attacked. How is this situation different from other attacks?(Sokolski)Well, it’s different in several ways. First of all, this is the first nuclear power plant to be attacked . . . uh, we have lots of history in the Middle East of plants being attacked, but they either weren’t operating, or they weren’t power plants. Power plants are big. Power plants present radiological release dangers that are significantly higher than small research or production reactors. That’s one difference.I think, in addition, attack was not seized by the enemy. We have Russians running . . . trying to run this plant and trying to steal it. That had never happened ever before. Also, we’ve never had strikes against plants with anything akin to drones that are precise. All the attacks before were done by, you know, gravity bombs or by planes flying over the target or inaccurate missiles. Why does that matter? With accurate strikes, you can pick specific things, rather than decimating the whole plant. And that’s exactly what’s been going on at Zaporizhzhya, and it is unprecedented. Before, it was all or nothing at all in the way of an attack.Yet another way in which the strikes against reactors in the Middle East really don’t tell a tale similar to what’s going on at Zaporizhzhya is none of those plants in the Middle East were surrounded by cities or population. I mean, Zaporizhzhya, Oblast has 1.7 million people living there. Now, admittedly, there are far fewer now. But you’re talking about hundreds of thousands still, and the ability of a population to protect itself against radiation if one of these plants produces a massive release is pretty limited. And that’s something folks striking reactors in the Middle East really did not have to worry about or think about much.And then, finally, none of the reactors previously targeted in the Middle East were adjacent to treaty parties to a security pact with the United States, whereas you have NATO nations—Japan, South Korea—located close to or having . . . themselves have reactors. And that’s important because in the case of, uh, Zaporizhzhya, if radiation wafts over into NATO territory, it’s not clear what that will or will not trigger in the way of a response, and that’s totally different and unprecedented as well.HostYou had some specific recommendations for the Pentagon. Will you share those with us?(Sokolski)Sure. There are three. The Pentagon needs to start looking at these plants in war zones as stationary, potential, slow-burning, radiologically dispersing nuclear weapons instead of simply another portion of the civilian infrastructure. If they look at them that way, then the deterrents and security alliance implications of waging war anywhere near these plants has to be thought out. That includes in Europe, the Middle East, and in Asia. And they . . . they have to start asking what they’re going to do under different circumstances and what, if anything, they are going to plan around themselves. Are we going to strike these plants? Hope not, but, you know, right now, that’s an open question. They need to close that question in some fashion or another by doing some planning.The second thing that they need to do is they have to take a more active role in the US nuclear export license application process. They need to be giving their view as to how vulnerable proposed plants that are going to be built by the United States, supposedly—again in Ukraine, in Poland, and in Romania, to say nothing of other places in the Middle East—how vulnerable they would be to being attacked. They have a statutory requirement to do this already. I don’t think they are doing enough to take that statutory requirement seriously. Now they have cause to. I think in addition, they have their own military reactor program that they claim they’re going to base overseas, so they have a real stake in trying to be clear about what their thinking is.And then, finally, the department needs to clarify and strengthen its current guidance with regard to targeting nuclear plants in a war. We are signatories to a protocol in the Geneva Convention (Geneva Conventions) that strongly discourages targeting electrical power-generating plants. And when you take a look at how the military interprets this obligation, the Pentagon ultimately comes down on the side of freedom of action, such that if a commander in the field thinks it’s important to hit a nuclear power plant, he’s given authority to do it. I think that may need to be reexamined.And then, the presumption against hitting these things is much stronger in the protocol that we’ve signed than what the guidance and interpretation of that protocol says. I think that that is an invitation for mischief. We are the . . . perhaps amongst the only country other than Russia that hasn’t ratified this agreement. Now, Russia pulled out of it, but even China and North Korea have ratified the darned thing. All of our allies have, so we need to consider how we interpret this. I’m not saying we need to ratify it, but I think we need to come to terms that it’s time to take another look after Zaporizhzhya on how we view that obligation.HostI so wish we had more time. There’s so much to unpack here. I just want to thank you, though, for sharing your time and for sharing your insight. It’s always a treat when I get to talk with you. Thanks, Henry.(Sokolski)Well, thank you.HostTo read more about nuclear power plants and more, visit press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 52, issue four.If you enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more, you can find us on any major podcast platform.Author information: Henry D. Sokolski is the Executive Director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, a Washington-based nonprofit organization founded in 1994 to promote a better understanding of strategic weapons proliferation issues among policymakers, scholars, and the media. He teaches graduate-level classes on nuclear policy in Washington, D.C. He is also a Senior Fellow for Nuclear Security Studies at the University of California at San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy.

The US military must create standing, numbered, and regionally aligned Joint warfighting headquarters— American Expeditionary Forces (AEFs)—around a command council and a staff organized into Joint centers and cells. Calls for standing Joint force headquarters are not new, but the demonstrated military effectiveness of the Joint Task Force (JTF) model coupled with increasing service-specific resource requirements and tightening fiscal constraints have resulted in little evolution in joint force headquarters construction since the end of World War II.Analysis of the historical record has shown that joint warfighting is best conducted with a Joint warfighting command subordinate to the geographic combatant commands. However, the Joint Task Force model is problematic because the ad-hoc, post-crisis activation of JTFs, along with their antiquated command and control structure, inherently puts the United States at a strategic and operational disadvantage. In the future, the US military will primarily maintain its competitive advantage, especially in great-power competition, by being a superior and sustainable joint force sooner than its adversaries. The proposed AEFs draw on generations of hard-earned experience to maintain and grow American supremacy in Joint warfighting in an increasingly dangerous worldKeywords: Joint warfighting, Joint Task Forces, operations process, American Expeditionary Forces, functional staffs, Command Councils Read the monograph: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/953/Episode Transcript: The Future of the Joint Warfighting Headquarters: An Alternative Approach to the Joint Task ForceStephanie Crider (Host)Welcome to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production featuring distinguished authors and contributors who get to the heart of the matter in national security affairs.The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the podcast guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.Decisive Point welcomes Dr. Thomas Bruscino and Louis Yuengert, coauthors of The Future of the Joint Warfighting Headquarters: An Alternative Approach to the Joint Task Force, with Colonels Eric Bissonette, Kelvin Mote, Marc J. Sanborn, James Watts, and Commander Matthew B. Powell. Bruscino is an associate professor of history in the Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations at the US Army War College. He holds a PhD in military history from Ohio University. Yuengert is a retired Army colonel and an associate professor of practice in the Department of Command, Leadership, and Management at the US Army War College. He holds a master’s degree in operations research from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in strategic studies from the US Army War College.Welcome to Decisive Point, gentlemen.(Thomas Bruscino)Happy to be here.(Louis Yuengert)Yeah, it’s great to be here.HostGreat. Let’s just jump right in here. Your work offers an alternative approach to the Joint Task Force for Joint warfighting headquarters. Give our listeners some background. Why the need for change?(Yuengert)So Stephanie, Tom and I were teaching—this was two years ago—in the Carlisle Scholars Program. And in the scholars program, there’s a requirement that the students do two additional research projects. The reason we have the program is so that they have the space to do that. And in this case, one of the student committees for the Military Strategy and Campaigning course that Tom teaches identified that how we are organized for Joint warfighting was a vulnerability—and, especially, in near-peer competition. And so they asked Tom if they could explore this further after they had given their presentation as part of their research. And this paper was the result of that research effort. So, Tom, if you could talk about the need for change?(Bruscino)Yeah, so the work they did was they had multiple committees. And they had worked on Joint Task Forces and the formation of one, and they sort of got into the problems that are inherent in that: extensive delays in getting our warfighting headquarters; a lot of disorganization; some off-cycle training cycles; the need for what we have in the Joint Force, called the Joint Enabling Capabilities Command, which has to go and flies all over the world, filling in gaps. So they saw all this need with this.Another committee was doing the Joint planning process, sort of looking at how we do the fighting, planning for fighting. And a lot of the Joint planning process is focused on sort of the day-to-day activities, the competition activities, campaigning activities of combatant commands and maybe doesn’t apply as well to the dilemmas of Joint Task Forces or Joint warfighting commands.So this really kind of drove the thinking and the kind of the problem set that they were looking at, that we were looking at when we started researching and developing this monograph.(Yuengert)Yeah—just to add to that, we encourage the students as part of their research, if possible, to write something that could be published to have an impact. Either do it for a client—in this case, we did not enlist a client—or to do it so that it could be published and have some kind of impact. And in this case, I think it will.HostAnd what you all came up with was American Expeditionary Forces (American Expeditionary Force). What would this look like?(Bruscino)Yeah, so, American Expeditionary Forces: We chose that one because it has historical resonance, right? So, in World War I, it was American Expeditionary Forces (American Expeditionary Force) that General (John J.) Pershing commanded; World War II, it was Allied Expeditionary Forces (Allied Expeditionary Force). And our idea was we’re going to focus on this sort of American and Joint aspect of it, with an idea of if we can get that better, it can become combined down the road and work with allies. And then maybe it would transition to becoming an Allied Expeditionary Force. Either way, that was the idea of it. Now what distinguishes this is that there have been lots of calls for—and there used to be, and sometimes there still kind of are—standing Joint Task Forces.But we felt like that wasn’t quite sufficient. We needed something that was a little more regionally aligned. We needed something that was more flexible and allowed to deal with the sort of the problems that have always gotten in the way of standing Joint Task Forces working. We don’t flesh out the exact examples of what these would look like in this. We talk about sort of what they would look like generally in any sort of combatant command region, the geographic regions where they’d be.But the idea would be, sort of, we do have forces that are regionally aligned already in all of the services or literally in the regions. And the idea was that we would build the (American Expeditionary Force or) AEF headquarters out of the commanders and some key staff out of those to build these sort of standing AEF headquarters. Kind of have to read it to get into the details of what that looks like. We certainly hope people do that. But it doesn’t require as much sort of force generation as standing Joint Task Force headquarters do.So it’s a little bit more flexible. And one of the sort of major innovations in it is kind of a callback to sort of the way we’ve often ended up doing things, which is that the AEF headquarters is run by the AEF commander but not really run by the commander with the staff, but run by the commander with the different component commanders as part of what we call a “command council.”And so we sort of set up a whole bunch of ways that they could operate and they could do the detailed planning in each of the components and that a lot more of the conceptual ideas of how they’re going to operate as a Joint Force allow for better interoperability will happen because the conceptual stuff will be happening among these commanders who are thinking about this sort of bigger picture. And they’re really working together and knowing what their components are specifically able to do. It’s very difficult—and we say this in there—it’s very difficult for even the best, most Joint-educated Army officer or (US) Air Force officer to know how an Air Force wing operates if you’re an Army officer or how an Army corps operates if you’re an Air Force officer. And throw in fleets and (Marine Air-Ground Task Forces or) MAGTFs and all of that, and you can see how confusing it gets. And it’s only going to get more. So when we start bringing in (US) Space Force assets, cyber force assets, we need the people who do that for their business to be able to sort of talk to the commanders and think about how they’re going to work together instead of having a sort of spun-up Army staff become a Joint Staff and try to run these formations.HostHow would this concept increase the likelihood of Joint Force interoperability and enable effective maneuver in all domains, including, like you mentioned, operating environments like space and cyberspace?(Yuengert)Well, Stephanie, I think some of the things that Tom talked about and the fact that the AEF would be a standing task force within each combatant command . . . so it would be regionally aligned; it would have the service component commands that are important to that combatant command. So, in (United States Indo-Pacific Command or) INDOPACOM, the (US) Navy staff of that component command is very robust because it’s mostly a Navy headquarters. So they would have those capabilities within the service component command. And the fact that the service components, the people who own the forces, have such a robust staff—they would be able to do, as Tom said, the detailed planning that came into any concepts for an operation that the command council would come up with because those commanders and some key members of their staff would be part of that command council in the first place. And so I think that the standing nature of the AEFs coupled with the opportunity to exercise it during Joint concept development, Joint war games, and experiments would help to solidify that concept of the AEF and the teamwork that those combatant commands and those staffs would have to do.One of the things that is highlighted in the paper is that currently, there is no Joint headquarters that is, in the concept development, there to test out Joint concepts very well. And you take a service headquarters or you throw together a Joint headquarters that doesn’t usually work together to test those concepts, and now you would have a Joint headquarters that was used to working together that could come together. There’s no ad hoc nature to it, which is one of the major problems with the current concept. I think that as we mature and we have space forces that have their own component commands for combatant commands and a cyber force that has some plug into a combatant command staff, we’ll have the expertise in those domains to do the same kind of thing that we’re used to doing in the more traditional domains.(Bruscino)Yeah. To build on that, as it stands right now, when it comes to sort of the warfighting concepts, we try to figure out great-power competition, large-scale combat operations, what those would look like. The individual services are all doing their own concept development, and those are not necessarily aligned as well with the Joint concept. So, being kind of forced together, what’s great about this idea is that there’s good reason for the services to develop their own concepts because the dilemmas in the land domain are different than what’s in the space domain and different than what’s in the air domain, what’s in the maritime domain. And they should develop their own concepts.What this allows is for us to sort of sort and stack, have a better idea to go and exercise those things and work on those things and then say, “Hey, what really fits together and what doesn’t? What should a Joint concept look like that actually has real buy-in from the different services because they’ve worked on it together, and they see the importance of doing it together?”There’s an additional aspect of this, too. To the degree that we test Joint concepts—and we do—to the degree we test them, it’s sort of they’re temporary, kind of ad hoc. Like we say, almost all of this is ad hoc. We describe our Joint warfighting as it’s mostly done with pickup teams. And hey, they’re really good pickup teams. It’s a whole bunch of all-stars. It’s a whole bunch of all-pros, really. Our services are great at what they do, and so we can get by with that. But we could do so much better, especially as competitors get better themselves. And we should always be trying to get better. We could do so much better if we’re working together in these headquarters.And then part of this, too, is that not only do they exercise it together, they’re gonna be the ones who fight it together, if necessary. This is extremely powerful, just on the most basic sense of having already well-developed relationships, standard operating procedures. We allow for room in this; it’s not a very rigid concept that we’ve developed in here. We allow for a lot of room for them to develop their own best practices. And we would imagine those would be tailored to the particular domains. There’s gonna be a different dilemma in INDOPACOM than there is from (United States Central Command or) CENTCOM, than there is for (United States European Command or) EUCOM. That was our sort of major focus on this, and we think it’s very important because it has all kinds of implications that would resonate throughout the force: warfighting and, then, for force development along the way, too.So we think it’s a pretty important one, and we would love if everything we said was adopted. But if we just get people talking about this, about these issues, we’ll be pretty happy. And we give some people some different ammunition to bring to the discussions that are out there because we’re not the first people to think of this stuff. But we were sort of stunned about how many inefficiencies we have in our current system, how much disorganization we’ve had, how much we’ve had to kind of patch these things together and do things on the fly. We think it’s vitally important that, as we look to the future, we get better about how we go about Joint warfighting.And bottom line on this, too, you know: We’re not alone in that issue. We did get guidance signed by all the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying we need to look at dilemmas of Joint warfighting, and that really was a lot of the motivation for doing this, too. So this is our modest contribution to a very, very big problem, and we hope it has some effect.HostDefinitely a lot of great food for thought here today. And I just want to thank you both very much for your time. This was very insightful.(Bruscino)Thank you.(Yuengert)Thanks.HostIf you’d like to learn more about the American Expeditionary Force, visit press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/953.If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and any other major podcast platform.About the ContributorsColonel Eric Bissonette is a US Air Force pilot assigned to United States Forces Korea as the deputy commander’s executive officer. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the US Air Force Academy and master’s degrees from the Touro University Worldwide, the US Air Force Air Command and Staff College, and the US Army War College.Dr. Thomas Bruscino is an associate professor of history in the Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations at the US Army War College. He holds a PhD in military history from Ohio University. He is the author of A Nation Forged in War: How World War II Taught Americans to Get Along (University of Tennessee Press, 2010), Out of Bounds: Transnational Sanctuary in Irregular Warfare (CSI Press, 2006), and numerous book chapters and articles on operational warfare.Colonel Kelvin Mote, a US Army information operations officer assigned to United States Forces Korea, holds a master’s degree in national security from the University of Maryland Global Campus, a master’s degree in strategic studies from the US Army War College, and a doctorate in organizational leadership from Creighton University.Commander Matthew B. Powell is a US Navy submariner who currently serves as the commanding officer of the PCU Iowa. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology, a master’s degree in engineering management from Old Dominion University, and a master’s degree in strategic studies from the US Army War College.Colonel Marc J. Sanborn is a US Army engineer officer assigned to the Office of Security Cooperation – Iraq at the US consulate in Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq. He holds a bachelor’s degree from the United States Military Academy, a master’s degree in engineering management from the Missouri University of Science and Technology, a master’s degree in civil engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a doctor of philosophy in structural engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a distinguished graduate of the US Army War College and holds a master’s degree in strategic studies.Colonel James “Jimmy” Watts (US Army) is a graduate of the US Army War College and the Carlisle Scholars Program. He is board-certified in cardiovascular medicine and is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and currently serves as the consultant to the surgeon general for cardiovascular medicine.Professor Louis G. “Lou” Yuengert (colonel, US Army retired) is an associate professor of practice in the Department of Command, Leadership, and Management at the US Army War College, where he specializes in defense management and talent management. He holds a master’s degree in operations research from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a master’s degree in strategic studies from the US Army War College.

This podcast argues the more trauma endured by a population, the more civil war the country will experience in the future. Drawing on mental health, trauma, and neurobiological research, it builds a new theory of civil war that fills existing gaps in current civil-war literature, and then tests the theory via statistical analysis of a large sample size (large-n statistical analysis). The conclusions will help policymakers and US military leadership better understand civil wars and the limits of American power to end them.Keywords: violence, civil war, trauma, insurgency, mental illnessRead the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss3/7/Episode Transcript: “Linking Trauma to the Prevalence of Civil War”Stephanie Crider (Host)Welcome to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production featuring distinguished authors and contributors who get to the heart of the matter in 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 Dr. Erik W. Goepner, author of “Explaining the Prevalence of Civil War,” which appeared in the autumn 2022 issue of Parameters. Goepner has a PhD in public policy from George Mason University. A retired US Air Force colonel, he currently works as a civil servant in the federal government.Welcome to Decisive Point, Erik. Thank you for being here.(Erik W. Goepner)Hi, Stephanie. It’s nice to be with you.HostLet’s get started. Your article argues the more trauma endured by a population, the more civil war the country will experience in the future. Lay the groundwork for us, please.(Goepner)Sure. The trauma theory kind of has its origins in the experiences and observations of my Provincial Reconstruction Team. We were in southern Afghanistan in 2010—height of the surge, give or take—and the president had said words to the effect of “You have 18 months to get it done.” So we were busy iterating. If we found something that worked, we would do as much of it as we could—kind of channel your Will Ferrell, “more cowbell” here. And if we were doing things that weren’t achieving objectives, we tried to, as dispassionately and quickly as we could, jettison them and just stop doing them.Not long into our deployment, we started to see different evidence that suggested trauma was having a huge, negative impact in Afghanistan and a significant impact on our ability to kind of achieve an enduring peace in the country. We’re in a culture—particularly, with the Pashtuns—where emotional control is like a really big deal. We’d go to shūrās, which are Afghan meetings where they have 20, 30, 40 village elders and government officials, and we’d see men going into hysterics. We would see examples of towns that were firmly under the control of insurgents rise up very briefly; push the insurgents out; and then, just as soon, kind of kowtow and capitulate to the insurgents again. But, perhaps most importantly, we’d see violence used frequently in everyday settings. You know, think of the idea of normalizing the use of violence in your everyday life.So we’d be with a district chief. The district chief would get angry at another official in the public setting, would just smack the official in the head—like, really hard. You’d have middle-aged, field-grade officers in the Afghan police or the Afghan army. And when they would have a dispute, instead of debating it or just maybe flipping each other the bird, they would actually get into a full-blown brawl, you know, right there at the police headquarters.And so that normalization of violence is kind of what got me thinking about this. Then, when I got back from my deployment, I had a chance to do some more focused research. And it turns out that the civil-war literature tends to ignore the threshold at which citizens will use deadly force against each other. And in the case of civil war, when they would use deadly force against their own government, it kind of gets either ignored or it gets treated as a constant, as if it doesn’t change from culture to culture or time versus other times. And despite any headlines that we’re reading, it’s really rare for one human being to take the life of another human being. The military’s done really interesting studies that show that even in combat, warfighters will go to fairly great extents at times to not kill in combat. So they’ll try to make it look like they’re participating, but they’ll take lengths to not actually discharge their weapon or discharge it in the direction of the enemy, hoping not to kill.So if you’re a wannabe rebel leader, you’ve got a lot of problems, obviously. One of the big problems is you need recruits for your rebel movement. But, more importantly, you need recruits who are willing to kill their fellow human beings. You know, very specifically, you need people who are willing to attack their own government, to include their government security force. And that’s not an easy task. So that’s kind of the background of the “hurt people hurt people” trauma theory of civil war.HostYou talk about three ways trauma might increase the prevalence of civil war. I’d love to hear more about this.(Goepner)So first and most importantly is how trauma itself may be a cause of civil war. And so the theory in a nutshell is that people become more violent as they’re exposed to severe and repeated traumatic stressors. And if listeners are wondering what a traumatic stressor is, the most notable or most severe would be things like torture or being assaulted with a weapon. Those have really profound, negative impacts on people.So as people are exposed to repeated and severe traumatic stressors, it lowers the threshold at which they’ll use deadly force or which they use violence to kind of achieve their goals or to resolve their problems. And the pathway from the person to the trauma to the increased use of violence will typically go along three different dimensions. One, if you’re heavily traumatized, the likelihood that you’re gonna be a substance abuser increases, the likelihood that you will meet the criteria for one or more mental illnesses increases, and the likelihood that you will suffer from something called “diminished impulse control” also increases.And diminished impulse control: easy example, you drive into work, you get cut off. Somebody with good impulse control doesn’t do anything, or they mutter under their breath. Somebody with diminished impulse control does something really unwise like chases after the person or actually sort of hits their car in response type of thing. And I’d like to share a cool example if I may.HostAbsolutely. Please.(Goepner)Alright. So for Doctor Strangelove (Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb) fans, instead of the war room, think of the Afghan Operations Center. It’s the summer of 2010, and you have two Afghan colonels in a heated debate. One is the chief of police for the province, who all the Americans love. And the other is the chief of the (National Directorate of Security or) NDS, which is kind of like legacy KGB. So two Afghan colonels, both in their middle age, having a heated debate. And the colonel that we all loved—it’s worth pointing out that we also assessed that he had a substance abuse problem. He had spent all of his life in a war zone either receiving or meting out war-related trauma. And so he was like self-medicating was our interpretation. But we loved him. He was bold, daring, brave, and low on the corruption scale.So unfortunately, in this exchange, he, the colonel that we loved, is kind of getting skewered by the other colonel. And so, there in the middle of the Afghan Operations Center, the one that we all cared for, Colonel Jelani, kind of got to the end of his rope. And so they’re in front of his subordinates. He removes his firearm, ostensibly because he’s gonna kill the other colonel. And then, thankfully, there was a American officer that was there, and he really bravely stepped in between the two of them. The officer didn’t speak much Pashto. Colonel Jelani didn’t speak much English. But the American was able to use kind of gentle hand gestures and kept repeating, “It’s OK, Colonel Jelani. It’s OK.” And Colonel Jelani eventually holstered his weapon. And so that kind of became like my North Star for the research in terms of what trauma can do to somebody and how it normalizes violence in their life for a variety of reasons.The other two pathways: The traditional arguments for civil war have to do with grievance—like “I’m so angry with my government. I’m gonna take up arms against them.” And then, the other main theory is feasibility: “I’m gonna rebel against my government because I have the ability or the opportunity to do that.” And so trauma helps make those theories more robust. For instance, if somebody’s been heavily traumatized, it’s obvious that they have grievances. And those grievances typically can be focused at a particular person or a particular group. So that’s one argument. And then the second argument regarding feasibility or the opportunity for war is that when you think about a traumatized state like Afghanistan, and you think about how they recruit their security forces, they’re largely pulling from a really traumatized population. So the likelihood of getting an incompetent security force member’s pretty high. And so that makes civil war more feasible because it’s easier for a rebel force to fight against an incompetent security force than a competent one.HostThank you. How does your paper test the trauma theory of civil war?(Goepner)So we’re gonna kind of geek out a little bit. I spent 23 years in the world’s greatest air force, so I may be a little geek, but I also have a little cool stuff in the history as well.HostI love it.(Goepner)First, I developed a trauma index, and I used four categories of variables. The first category relates to the most pernicious form of trauma, which is torture. The second category measured the amount of rape. Third category was war-related—and, here, we’re looking at like the length of wars; the breadth of wars across the country; and then, the intensity of those wars. And the fourth category of variables was more general forms of trauma, to include things like natural disasters.And so I looked at the universe of countries from 1990 to 2014 and basically assessed scores that could have been as low as zero for essentially no trauma to as high as 100 for, essentially, “you couldn’t have any worse or more trauma in your country if you tried” type of thing. Not hard to imagine, but countries like Finland and Iceland: very low trauma scores. For that 25-year period, their score averaged under five. And then you compare that to the average country, which was about 27, and then you compare that with trauma states like Sudan, Somalia, and Afghanistan, who were all up in the 70s.And so one of the interesting things that the research showed is that when you have a low amount of trauma, the risk of civil war is negligible. It’s almost nonexistent. And that low probability of civil war stays until it dramatically increases as a trauma score approaches around 50. At that point, a country has about a one in 10 chance that year of going into civil war. And then just bumping it up from the 50s into the 60s, that one in 10 chance becomes one in five. And so it’s kind of a parabolic curve where low to moderate amounts of trauma do not seem to be associated with much civil war, but, once that trauma intensifies, you really see a rapid increase in the probability of civil war.Stephanie, I’m gonna hit one more thing there, if that’s OK, on the testing.HostYes. Please, absolutely.(Goepner)And so, in the actual testing, developed the index; kind of did correlations to show the different numbers and how they related to probability of civil war; and then, really kind of geeked out and did various statistical analysis. And I’m not gonna spend long on this because it doesn’t interest me much, and I can’t imagine it interests your listeners too, too much either. But the first analysis I used was logistic regression with something called “lagged variables.” And, basically, that’s just kind of the industry standard. So if you’re a civil-war researcher, you tend to use logistic regression with lagged variables. And so that’s kind of why I used those.But if you’re looking at what the best or optimal statistical technique is, it would be something called “instrumental variables,” which I also used. And, basically, that helps get rid of the circular argument. It’s obvious, noncontroversial to say that civil war causes a lot of trauma, and, here, I am arguing that trauma causes a lot of civil war. And so it gets very hard to disentangle that relationship, and instrumental variables, in a sense, helps you bypass that because the variable you use is only related to trauma. You can demonstrate that it has no relationship to civil war, and that’s the way to kind of break the circular argument.HostGot it. So in that same vein, talk to me about conclusions. What conclusions can we draw from this study?(Goepner)So five conclusions. The number one, which would be “foot stomp, foot stomp, footstomp,” is that the United States should not intervene in the civil wars of trauma states because countries with high rates of trauma—and Afghanistan would be the poster child—are going to likely experience more civil war because of those high trauma rates because the trauma has institutionalized or normalized the use of violence in daily life. And that use of violence is a critical threshold for rebel leaders when they seek to recruit their rebels. So those countries are susceptible to increased future civil war because that normalization of violence is kind of at the ready and is accessible to rebel leaders.The second one is “OK, if, failing number one, political leaders decide we still need to go in, then let’s estimate and plan for the negative effects of trauma on the host country before we intervene.” We do great planning as military warfighters, and so let’s incorporate that mental health angle, not in a soft kind of helping-agency perspective, but thinking about it from a security perspective. And that’s the third recommendation is that, yes, we all respect and have high empathy for mental illness trauma. But, in this context, we can treat trauma as a security concern because it does appear that trauma will have a certain impact or a certain effect on our ability as we conduct the war to achieve US goals.The fourth conclusion would be to deploy mental health capabilities to the trauma states if we do go there. And this would be directed towards kind of the key government or security force leaders to try and minimize or mitigate the negative consequences of trauma on them. Because when you think of like an Afghanistan or Iraq, we were there in large part to build up those indigenous forces and capabilities, and it’s going to be very difficult to get them to a certain level of performance absent some type of mental health intervention.And then the fifth is more predictive, and it’s the idea of including the trauma index in predictive models. So organizations like the CIA, (Department of Defense or) DoD, Department of State have a history of using predictive models to anticipate flash points across the globe. And my argument in the paper is that if we added the trauma index, that would help to predict potential hot spots—specifically with civil conflict, civil war—that the United States might find itself in in the future.HostI’m sorry—we’re almost out of time here. Can you give us your final thoughts on this topic?(Goepner)So two final thoughts. The first one is going back to recommendation one: The United States should not intervene in the civil wars of high-trauma states. It’s not a guaranteed losing proposition, but it’s really difficult, and there’s only so much that US efforts can achieve when you’re dealing with a population with high trauma rates, and the likelihood that they’re gonna slip back into future civil war is much higher than if they were a low-trauma state. And then the second and final thought is that we need to continue maximizing the use of America’s combat experience. We have 20-plus years of warfighting in different theaters, which has given us a lot of experience. When you think about warfighting, there’s a huge difference between the theory of warfighting. There’s a huge difference even in doing exercises related to warfighting as compared to the actual warfighting. So to the extent that we can get increasing numbers of America’s war veterans to share their stories, and, then, potentially, to combine those operational experiences with additional research and publish, I think America will benefit.HostThank you for your time today. This was a really tough topic, but it was an absolute pleasure talking with you.(Goepner)Thanks so much, Stephanie. I appreciate it.HostIf you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more about the connection between trauma and civil war, check out the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 52, issue 3.If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and any other major podcast platform.

The skill and capacity of Army cyber forces have grown in the decade since their creation. This podcast focuses on needed structural changes to the Army’s portion of the Cyber Mission Forces that will enable their continued growth and maturity since the Army’s past organizational and structural decisions impose challenges impacting current and future efficiency and effectiveness. This assessment of the current situation highlights the areas military leadership must address to allow the Army’s cyber forces to continue evolving to meet the needs of multi-domain operations.Keywords: Todd Arnold, unity of effort, workforce development, cyberspace, operations, task organization, unity of commandRead the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss3/8/Episode Transcript: “Assessing the Army’s Cyber Force Structure”Stephanie Crider (Host)Welcome to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production featuring distinguished authors and contributors who get to the heart of the matter in national security affairs.The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the podcast guest and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the United States government.Decisive Point welcomes from the United States Military Academy Major John Fernandes, Lieutenant Colonel Todd Arnold, and Dr. Jan Kallberg, who coauthored “Assessing the Army’s Cyber Force Structure” with Major Nicholas Starck, Captain Richard Schmel, and Major Charles Suslowics. The article was published in the autumn 2022 issue of Parameters.Welcome to Decisive Point. Your recent Parameters article discusses assessing structural divides in the Army cyberspace force for better support operations. Lay the groundwork for us here and give us some background, please.(John C. Fernandes)Hi, this is John. I guess I’ll get started. So the Cyber branch and the cyber units have been around for about 10 years now. And so, we thought it would be a good time to look at some of the decisions we made initially and see if the decisions were the right ones and at what challenges may have arisen and how we might need to change things as we move forward to make sure that we’re the most effective force that we could be. So that’s the basis of the article.(Todd Arnold)This is Todd. And to add onto what John was saying, really a good time to do that reassessment now because the entire Cyber Mission Force and the Army’s teams have all been operating for the last three years as fully mission capable. So all the teams across all of the different services are now built and working and then doing their missions fully for a few years. And it’s a good point to actually go back and reassess them with “OK, did all those decisions we were making when we were rapidly building the force—do they still make sense?”HostCan you briefly explain the offense/defense split and your considerations for mitigation?(Arnold)Yeah. I’ll start with a little bit on why there’s a split. So when we were initially building up the Cyber branch, it was built kind of piecemeal. Some of the offensive teams started getting built first. And the two previous branches that had been doing a little bit in each of the offensive and defensive work started building units separately. The Army tasked them to build those separately. And nobody was really doing it fully. (Military Intelligence or) MI was doing a little bit in the offensive side, and Signal Corps was doing a little bit in the defensive side. And the Army said, like, “Hey, start building these things up.” And so those two separate branches started building the offensive and defensive teams. And then we formed a branch because we were looking at how the other services were doing it, and we felt like building a branch was really going to get it to the point where we are moving forward, we have a full career path for people dedicated in this space because it’s not good to do it piecemeal. But, at the same time, we already had units established that were building up these teams, and so we just kept those units, one brigade for offense and one for defense, and they just kept rolling with building the teams. And so that’s how it’s played out for the last 10 years.(Jan E. Kallberg)Jan going to join in here, more from a broader perspective. It’s really tricky to get us doing defensive cyber operations and being siloed in that environment without, really, help. Of course, where is the threat intelligence coming from? If you always get your threat intelligence from how you get hit, it’s like a tank that doesn’t know really what’s coming except what’s already in the air. That’s not good. Of course, then, we just wait for the terminal effect.We’re also seeing that how you bridge this overlaps to avoid that you get one-eyed or—worst-case scenario—blind and how you sort of, say, have a proper knowledge and talent management through the force.HostJohn, did you have anything to add to this one?(Fernandes)Yeah. So I can start talking a little bit about what some of the challenges that then arose from the split. So now that we have this legacy division, we started to form almost silos within offense and defense where people who only saw one side or only saw the other or maybe didn’t understand how the other side works. And there’s benefit in being specialized, but we also noticed that there’s some challenges that come with that: not understanding necessarily what’s feasible, what’s realistic, what the costs are for doing things. And then just, sometimes, the . . . the normal human tendency to see inequity of one side looked like it’s more interesting mission or getting better funding or things like that. We thought that those are some of the challenges we’ve seen over the last couple years with this division.HostSomething else you mentioned: divided chains of command—another structural challenge. What are your suggestions for resolving this one?(Arnold)As part of that buildup, the Army deliberately said, “These organizations are gonna run and do the operations, and these organizations are gonna be in charge of just building up and creating and training up the teams.” That was good for the buildup. But now, that’s caused that rift that you mentioned that there’s a split between the people that, like, just maintain administrative and training versus the people that are doing actual operations. And that kind of really takes away from the whole point of command and the way the Army sees command. And so at whatever level the Army decides to do it at, I think we need to reassess that split. And what we should really start doing is like “OK, who is in charge of, say, a CPT or Cyber Protection Team? Who should be in charge of that? What level of command should that be?” And start actually putting those people in charge of the command, giving them a little bit of a staff to take care of some of their administrative things, and actually planning, like, this is how the Army does things. And making the officers and leaders in charge of some of those traditional Army tasks, but within the Cyber branch.(Kallberg)So, yes—Jan here. Now, of course, we . . . we’re talking to the war college. We can’t leave the discussion without the strategic outlook. So we’re also thinking, you know, as things may be more reactive—how we see things, the (observe-orient-decide-act or) OODA loops get shorter, and we have a more mission command driven with intent out there going. And also that we maybe see it’s better to have more cohesion to be able to steer the organization quicker.(Fernandes)So, ultimately, I don’t know if there’s a simple solution for this one because a lot of the things we’re talking about are normal Army principles that we should be applying. We just think that we need to make sure we’re doing it very deliberately now, now that we’ve identified it as a challenge. Making sure we’re keeping unit integrity to the greatest extent possible, that we’re clearly just delineating who has what roles as we talk support relationships, command relationships, and that we are . . . we’re looking at how we deconflict as we have competing requirements. Are we doing deconfliction by time? Are we doing a deconfliction by priority? And making sure that those are very clearly understood because as the branch has grown, we can’t solve those with only five people in a room. We have to have a little bit clearer processes moving forward.(Kallberg)Also, as Colonel Arnold and Major Fernandes hinted—Arnold spelled it out more—I mean, we got data. I mean, we’ve been running this machinery now for 10 years. Why not put these data to use and hone it and make it better?HostSo, going forward—give us your recommendations.(Arnold)I think it’s a good time to sit back and have the Cyber branch and leadership reassess some of those previous decisions and start looking at “OK, we made those decisions up-front. Do they still make sense?” And having deliberate, well-thought-out discussions on “Where should we go from here?” For instance, do we start integrating more of the command . . . mission command stuff that the Army traditionally does into the force and how it’s supposed to be done. What is that level of specificity or focus that individuals need in their mission? Should we have people that are a little bit more general? How many people need to be more focused on, like, offensive or defensive? Or what is that right balance between specialization and generality? So we need to make some deliberate decisions here in order to keep moving things forward. Ten years of building up all these forces. It was a very large task, and, now that we’ve got them built up, we need to stop, look at it again, and reassess like “OK, we’ve been operating for a little bit. We have the data. How do we move forward and continue making progress?”(Kallberg)I think it’s also important to think about retention. When things happens in the commercial world, in the corporate world, it only takes one big verdict . . . multimillion-dollar verdict; everybody start to hiring defensive guys. So we also have these outer forces that we can move talent within the organization and be—to use a really 2020 word, agile—and match up the incoming threats.(Fernandes)And I think this is an important point in time to really be thinking about this because the Cyber branch is growing as we incorporate electronic warfare. And the 915th Cyber Warfare Battalion (915th Cyberspace Warfare Battalion), stood up not that long, is growing. So taking the lessons we learned with the 780th (780th Military Intelligence Brigade [Cyber]) and the (Army) Cyber Protection Brigade and making sure that we’re incorporating those lessons as we continue to grow so that we’re growing in the most effective way is important. This idea of “Do we specialize or do we generalize?” As we start talking about another area, electronic warfare becomes more important because we can’t specialize in three things. We have to pick one maybe, or we have to decide that some people are gonna be generalists. And as we expand the branch, we need to really be thinking about these things to make sure that we don’t have to do another look in another 10 years because we missed the mark on something.(Kallberg)And also, if we really specialize, we also are gonna end up with a problem that we can’t ramp up the organization. Of course, people are so specialized that there is no overlap. Remember 1942, when the Army has had to go big. And so to increase this organization, we have to watch, as Major Fernandes says, that balance.HostI hate that we only had this short time because, like you said, Major Fernandes, very timely topic. And your article really does give a lot more details about it. This is a great overview, and I would encourage our listeners—if this is interesting to you at all, check out the article. Thank you so much for your time and for your insight. This was a real treat.(Kallberg)Appreciate it. Thank you.(Arnold)Thank you very much.(Fernandes)Thank you very much.HostIf you’d like to learn more about the Army’s cyber force structure and the authors’ suggestions for a path forward, you can find the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 52, issue 3.If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and any other major podcast platform.

The special operations community could best address the perceived ethical crisis it faces by professionalizing as an institution. While earlier assessments have attributed special operations forces’ ethical issues to a focus on mission accomplishment that led to a broken force generation process and a high operations tempo, such diagnoses obscure a more comprehensive solution. Using sociologist Andrew Abbott’s work on professions as a framework, this article explores the benefits of building the kinds of institutions that can claim a jurisdiction, develop and certify expert knowledge, and establish and apply a code of ethics that addresses special operations unique concerns so that it builds trust and better serves the American people.Keywords: special operations, civil-military relations, military ethics, professional studies, professional expertise, professional jurisdictionsRead the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss3/10/Episode Transcript: “Professionalizing Special Operations Forces”Stephanie Crider (Host)(Prerecorded Decisive Point intro) Welcome to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production featuring distinguished authors and contributors who get to the heart of the matter in national security affairs.The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the podcast guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.Decisive Point welcomes Dr. C. Anthony Pfaff, author of “Professionalizing Special Operations Forces,” which appeared in the autumn 2022 issue of Parameters. Pfaff is the research professor for strategy, the military profession, and ethics at the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute and is senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council. He holds a doctorate in philosophy from Georgetown University.Alright. It’s always nice to chat with you, Tony. Thank you for making time for this today.(C. Anthony Pfaff)My pleasure. Great to be back.HostLet’s cut to the chase. Your article opens with this sentence: “Special operations forces (SOF) appear to be experiencing an ethical crisis.” Diagnose the problem for us, please.(Pfaff)Yeah. This article got its start when I was asked by, actually, a couple of members of the special operations community to weigh in on what they were characterizing as a crisis. And if you recall, in 2020, they were in response to a number of very high-profile ethical failures. Congress, on two occasions, asked special operations to do an ethics review.I’m not going to be able to tell you the extent of the crisis or what its current status is now. But I will tell you, if Congress—who’s, in some way, your client—is asking for reviews, you have a problem. It’s a professional problem because it’s saying your client—in this case, Congress—doesn’t trust you. At least a little bit. And while it’s never all or nothing, that’s just still not a good thing. So in response, in terms of the diagnosis, you know, special operations did do a comprehensive review, which was a good start. It left much of the blame to external factors like a high (operations tempo or) optempo that was leading to breakdowns in leadership.I think it mentioned also training and so on that set conditions for ethical failure. It also pointed out interestingly that . . . and some of the services from there was an emphasis on physical fitness and, I think, specialized skills and, among other things, led to a sense of entitlement among some of the operators that also contributed to ethical failures, which I think is also something important to note.Another part of the problem might be—they didn’t connect the dots all the way, but—special operators start off in another service. And it’s that service that trains them to be special operators. Then they move off into the special operations community and (United States) Special Operations Command, and they may or may not continue to get professionalized in their original service. Special operations just doesn’t have that. I think they’ve got some of that infrastructure, but they don’t have a professionalized career path where officers, (noncommissioned officers or) NCOs, and others get certified, you know, as they progress in the same way the other services do.And so I thought that was kind of interesting, and it suggested to me that there’s really an opportunity here, which is what this article is really about.The idea here is at some level, these problems arise, maybe for the reasons that you’ve said, but there’s a solution to them. If you do the kinds of things that will make special operations more of a profession than what I think it is now, where it is a group of very highly skilled people who basically worked for the other services or the Joint Staff. And so here, it’s important to understand the concept “profession” being applied here. In the vernacular, we use “professions” in a lot of different ways. It can mean I got paid. I’m not using it in that sense. It can mean I’m really good at what I’m doing.Here I’m using the sense in which a profession involves an expertise that gives professionals this exercise over jurisdiction that gives professionals the autonomy to use that expertise.For example, in the medical profession. In the medical professions, their jurisdiction is the health of the client. Their expertise is being able to see to the health of the client. And as a result, they have the autonomy over that jurisdiction to do things like prescribe drugs or conduct surgery that a nonprofessional would not be allowed to do. So this idea of having a jurisdiction around which you exercise your expertise, that you kind of own. You have the autonomy to decide what the right and wrong thing to do is within that jurisdiction. And another ingredient is a code of ethics that sort of governs how you go about doing that because, ultimately, it’s maintaining the trust of the client is critical for that profession’s status. If you do that, if you start building that and building the institutions that can . . . and not only just build that expertise, certify it and others as well as govern, then you’ve got a profession. And my argument would be you’ll see better results.One reason I also thought this was kind of the right way to go was I also looked at what the special operations community themselves were saying about ethics. And that’s when I looked at things like the field guide (A Special Operations Force Ethics Field Guide: 13 Ethical Battle Drills for SOF Leaders). And that’s when I looked at some of the things that I found in blogs and quotes. And you do have a sense where seeing a profession the way I just described it would actually change the way the members would think about things. So, for instance, if you look in the field guide, they frame these dilemmas. The field guide is a set of 13 dilemmas that they navigate, and much of it is very good. Don’t get me wrong. However, from a professional perspective, framing these dilemmas as “right versus right” misses the point. So here’s a good example.One of the dilemmas is your special operations (commanding officer or) CO sees a friend of his stealing thermal sights from the arms room, and they say he now has a dilemma. Turning in his friend will do him harm, and he owes him a special obligation because he saved his life at one point. On the other hand, he’s stealing thermal sights. And so what does he do?This is actually not a dilemma. A pretty different professional perspective: Professions are stewards. They care for the resources that, in this case, for the military, the American people have given them. You turn in the person stealing thermal sights. As a steward of the profession, you turn them in. If that person had a shred of professional identity left, the thief would understand why.Because as a professional, you’re obligated to do these things. So, poof, something that actually may have seemed like a real problem goes away. Now how that impacts behavior, I don’t know. But if you start conceiving yourself as a steward, you’re probably gonna make decisions, and that gets ingrained in your identity because you now have an educating, training, and certification process that builds all that into you. You’re more likely to get people who aren’t going to tolerate these kinds of activities, and that will have good effects down the lane. And the other thing that . . . the kind of thing that came out is this idea that special operators are asked to do something unethical. And then, there’s a confusion when they leave that environment.Well, it shouldn’t be, right, because that goes against my point about the concept of professions. Professionals don’t do unethical things; they do things it would be unethical for nonprofessionals to do.So reconceiving things that way, I think you’ve got a better way of conceiving of special operations in the community, I think you’ve got a better way of thinking about ethical problems. I’m not gonna call them “dilemmas” because a lot of them aren’t. And also, if we look at the jurisdiction piece, there’s an opportunity here. Where does special operations operate? They were designed to operate below the threshold of war. I will tell you that that is largely ungoverned space. For a lot of the things that we do, there’s not a lot of international law. And there’s not a lot of reciprocity. And, for the most part, there’s no one taking responsibility for that in the way a profession would in terms of creating and implementing a coherent way to respond to the problems within that jurisdiction. That’s not exactly an ethical thing. But, again, if you have that, all this other stuff builds around it, and you’ve got now the institutional resources to A: Do good things, but also resolve a lot of the problems you have now.HostSo let’s take it a step further. What are your recommendations then for professionalizing special operations forces?(Pfaff)So that’s a great question. The first thing to stress is that this isn’t all or nothing. No one’s recommending that, overnight, we stand up special operations as an independent service now competing with the other services for resources, over things the other service is gonna do. Whatever happens, there’s going to have to be an evolution. And so, what I think this framework does is point in what direction that evolution should go.So what else can they do? Well, A: Let’s start looking, at an institutional level, what it means to have a jurisdiction. What is that thing (special forces or) SF does? One of the challenges for them is gonna be is SF is a pretty diverse group. You’ve got your special operators on the kinetic side or you got your Green Berets, your (US Navy Sea, Air, and Land teams or) SEALs, et cetera; you’ve got civil affairs; you’ve got information operations; you’ve got a lot of things. All these things are invaluable, are things that, you know, have to be brought together to have a coherent effect in conflict below the threshold of war. So let’s own that jurisdiction first. I don’t think they do. I think they they’re a force provider for other people who do that. But let’s own that jurisdiction and start figuring out what that means. And that will mean changes in curriculum at Joint Special Operations University and other institutions. But start figuring out what it means to own that jurisdiction and build that over time.And as you’re doing it, part of building that expertise is understanding how the exercise of your skill within that should be governed. So let’s solve one problem now, which is the concern raised by special operators who have written about this: that they’re being asked to do unethical things. Let’s actually start looking at what SF code of ethics would look like in that environment, under that jurisdiction and start developing that.So now you’ve got a professional identity, and now you’ve got an ethic governing the behavior that they previously saw as unethical. So that’s gonna actually help with your transition to other domains.So that’s a start. And then you build from there, and where you build—that’s gonna depend on what other folks are doing. One thing about this concept of professions is we’re drawing on Andrew Abbott. He sees professions as in competition. So there’s going to be a little bit of that. We also see that competition is kind of healthy. I would argue that that jurisdiction’s underserved. Sure, it’d be great if somebody kind of picked that up. Yes, there’ll be some competition as the different services sort out how they do things. But the point here isn’t this. To claim a jurisdiction doesn’t mean there’s not a role for other services any more than the fact Army claims Landpower is its jurisdiction doesn’t mean there’s not a role, even in high-intensity conflict, for special operations forces. It’s just who’s building the institutional capacity to operate in that environment and exercise expertise in service of the client. And, right now, I would say that’s not happening in that space.And as things evolve, I would work to evolve them in the sense of strengthening the institution to be able to do the things that I discussed earlier regarding governing behavior in that space.HostYou note that your recommendations also raise several concerns. Can you talk about those for me?(Pfaff)Sure! I’ve actually kind of previewed it. One way to interpret it—not the way I wanted to interpret it, necessarily—is do we make special operations a separate service? With all the things that brings on, that will really sharpen the competition that could lead to resources being diverted in ways that they really shouldn’t. It actually may be too big a lift right now for special operations forces to get from here to there. I’m not arguing that . . . like I said, none of this is all or nothing. This is more road map than an end state because no profession’s fully professionalized. No profession’s without its bad actors and ethical issues. In order to be fully professionalized, expertise has to continually evolve. The competition never ends. But I could see someone saying these recommendations entail dedication to resources and formal authorities and so on—which, it might in the future. It may in some ways. That’s not the starting point I think you need in order to get to where you want to go.HostGotcha. Well, your conclusion kind of sums this up with a statement that I really liked, actually. “Divorced from the calling, individuals will have little reason to take the hard right and avoid the easy wrong and certainly little reason to hold themselves accountable for attaining the professional ideal.” Final thoughts?(Pfaff)So my point here is simply that having a professional identity, which only happens when you have a profession, is institutionally deep, makes ethical behavior less of an accident. And without it, you’ll see the kinds of things you’re seeing now where, without that professional identity, other factors, other reasons, other rationales for acting and acting badly make sense.A strong professional identity would make those reasons and factors, et cetera, not make as much sense as well as create a community of people within that profession who see it the same way, making these bad outcomes less likely.HostWell said. Thank you. This was a good time!(Pfaff)Alrighty! Bye bye!HostBye.If you’d like to dig deeper into the concept of professionalizing special operations forces, you can find the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 52, issue 3.If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and any other major podcast platform.

The remarkable life of early-twentieth-century British adventurer Gertrude Bell has been well documented through her numerous travel books and biographies. Bell’s role as a grand strategist for the British government in the Middle East during World War I and the postwar period, however, is surprisingly understudied. This monograph offers insights into the role women play as grand strategists. It shows how Bell helped to devise Great Britain’s military strategy in the Middle East during World War I and its creation of the modern state of Iraq. Studying Bell as both a military strategist and a grand strategist offers important insights into how she helped to devise British military strategy in the Middle East. These insights include Britain’s efforts to work through secret societies and saboteurs to undermine the Ottoman Empire during the war as part of the Arab Bureau and the country’s attempts to stabilize the region after the war through the creation of the modern state of Iraq.As importantly, studying Bell offers a glimpse into how this extraordinary woman was able to become one of the principal architects of British strategy and the exceptional set of skills and perspectives she brought to these efforts. Bell’s education, firsthand knowledge of the region, fascination with archaeology, and, above all, her ability to make and maintain relationships with key individuals were invaluable tools for shaping and promoting British efforts at retaining influence as a great power in the postwar era as well as Britain’s aims to secure key resources for the empire, including military bases and oil. Ultimately, Bell helped to shape British strategy in the region from 1915–26 because she was a woman, not in spite of it. She had access to both men and women within the local population, she used her social skills to connect and influence key actors in the region, and she brought decades of learning and firsthand experience traveling through the region and speaking with its people to inform and shape her grand strategy.Additionally, Bell’s grand strategy offers important lessons for the challenges of creating peace and stability after war. Britain’s efforts at stability operations in Iraq following World War I demonstrate the inherent tensions in balancing an intervening country’s objectives and priorities with those the intervening country is trying to stabilize—especially, the challenges of creating transitional governments and including the population in stability operations. Bell’s unique legacy offers insights into the roles women have played and continue to play as influencers of grand strategy in male-dominated contexts and the importance of including diverse perspectives in strategic thinking.Keyords: World War I, Mesopotamia, Middle East, military strategy, Arab Bureau, Gertrude BellRead the monograph: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/950/Episode Transcript: The Grand Strategy of Gertrude Bell: From the Arab Bureau to the Creation of IraqStephanie Crider (Host)Welcome to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production featuring distinguished authors and contributors who get to the heart of the matter in national security affairs.The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the podcast guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.Decisive Point welcomes Dr. Heather Gregg, author of The Grand Strategy of Gertrude Bell: From the Arab Bureau to the Creation of Iraq, which was published by the US Army War College Press in July 2022. Gregg is a professor at the US Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute. She’s the author of The Path to Salvation: Religious Violence from the Crusades to Jihad and Building the Nation: Missed Opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan.Welcome to back to Decisive Point, Heather.(Heather S. Gregg)Great to be here. Thanks so much for having me.HostOh, absolutely. Let’s talk about your new monograph. Strategic Studies Institute Director Dr. Carol Evans notes in her foreword to your work that “The contributions women have made in devising both military strategy and grand strategy are surprisingly understudied and in need of greater attention.”What a treat to read about Gertrude Bell. Please give our listeners an overview. Who was she?(Gregg)Yeah, so Gertrude Bell was this fascinating woman. She was born in Britain during the Victorian era in the late 1800s. She was born to a wealthy family. She was one of the first women to go to Oxford University. She was the first to get a first class in modern history, and she was fascinated with the Middle East. She started traveling there at a relatively young age. She traveled extensively. She learned the languages. She wrote travel books. She was even an avid hiker and a mountain climber, which is fascinating to me. But it was her language and her experience in the Middle East that got the attention of the British military. And she became very useful to helping devise both British military and grand strategy in the Middle East from World War I through the end of the war to the middle war period.HostWhen and where did she work, and how and why were her contributions important for British strategy?(Gregg)Yeah, so she became part of a small group known as the Arab Bureau that was stood up in 1915 in Cairo. And she worked with between seven to 14 people, very small group, including T. E. Lawrence that we know as “Lawrence of Arabia.” And she helped devise an unconventional warfare strategy, which was a strategy designed to frustrate and undermine Ottoman authority in the British Empire—I’m sorry, in the Middle East—and on behalf of the British Empire. So she was very instrumental in helping to devise that strategy and work with local leaders. And Lawrence of Arabia became famous because he went out and actually executed the strategy, but she was a part of a small group that formed that strategy. And then, after that, she went to what was known as Mesopotamia at the time—what we now know as Iraq—and she helped devise the military occupation of Iraq after the British government and the British military seized it at the end of World War I. And then, she actually helped create the modern state of Iraq, and that included putting the first king in power in Iraq, who she knew personally and who T. E. Lawrence had worked with. So she had a huge influence on both what happened during the war and then what happened after the war.HostSo what were some of the techniques that Bell used to operationalize her strategy?(Gregg)Yeah, so she had a really interesting tool kit that I think shows that being a woman is actually an asset in certain circumstances. So, for example, she was very, very good at building friendships, and she built friendships that lasted a lifetime, both in the Middle East, but also back in Britain. And so one example of this is there was a bit of a fight that broke out between the Cairo office and the office in Delhi about who should control the Middle East. Should it be the government of India, the British government of . . . in India, or should it be Cairo, or should it be London? And Gertrude Bell happened to be lifelong friends with the viceroy at the time, who was who was in India. And she was dispatched to go to India and to smooth over this problem, which she did. So I think that’s a fascinating example of how this relationship she had had for a long time—she was able to work quiet diplomacy, friendship diplomacy, and resolve that problem.She also built lifelong friendships with people in the region, and this included King Faisal (Faisal I), the first king of Iraq. She was his trusted advisor for several years, and he put her in charge of antiquities. And she helped create laws for Iraq that protected their antiquities from Western archaeologists coming in and taking antiquities. So her relationship building was just phenomenal and, I think, very important.The second thing she did which I thought was really interesting was she was very good at throwing parties. And this might sound very superfluous, but it actually isn’t. She threw parties in a strategic way. She would put certain people in the room together so they could talk and meet one another. She was very instrumental in throwing parties for the wives of influential men. So she knew that wives had their husband’s ears, and so she was able to build relationships with those women, and then they, in turn, would help influence their husbands. So she did a lot of very interesting things, not in spite of being a woman, but because she was a woman. And I think that’s really interesting.HostHow was Bell able to have such influence and hold the positions she held as a British woman during and after World War I?(Gregg)Yeah, I think this is a really interesting question, and it’s something that I still am not entirely sure I know the answer to. But I think that one of the things that’s very interesting is that it seemed to me that the British government saw her as useful, and that was the priority—that they knew that she had on-the-ground experience. She had language experience; she understood tribal dynamics and key leaders and their relationships to one another. And they saw this as useful.So it’s surprising how little conversation there was about her being a woman and how much that her expertise was valued. I would also say that once again, her friendships were very important. So the fact that she knew T. E. Lawrence mattered. He was at the Arab Bureau first in Cairo. The first director of the Arab Bureau was actually not in the military. He was an academic and archaeologist, and they had also met on a dig, and so she knew him. So I think that was important too. But I think overall, this is a fascinating story about seeing someone as an expert first, and then seeing their gender second.And so that’s very interesting and, I think, important contribution that her legacy has made.HostLet’s talk more about her legacy. What would you say Bell’s legacy is today? What can we learn from her?(Gregg)Yeah, I think there’s just a lot of things that are deeply relevant for today. I’ve already mentioned that, you know, building friendships is incredibly important. A second thing I would add to this is that building the right team matters for creating good strategy. So the Arab Bureau drew from academic experts, from civilians, from military. They would add experts and remove them, depending on the problem that they were looking at. But it wasn’t just the military having a conversation about what to do. They really built a team, a table that included a wide array of voices and perspectives. And I think that was legacy, and I think it’s really important.Another thing that Bell leaves for us today is just how difficult it is to stabilize a country or region in the wake of war. So she had tremendous expertise. Her loyalties were to the British government and to the Crown, and her priorities were not to Iraq per se. But she was a British subject, and her loyalties were to Britain. I think she cared deeply about Iraq, but, still, the decisions that she made and the team made have lasting consequences and, frankly, many of those decisions, in retrospect, were probably not the right ones. And so I think it’s a very humbling story for me about someone with all this expertise and passion for the region, and things still didn’t go well when it came to stabilizing the country.I would say also that she had a real emphasis on working through the local population to shape dynamics. And, again, Bell is a very confusing person to me because she cared deeply about the local population and cared deeply about the region. But then, she would she would pick and choose when she listened to the local population. So when they chose to put King Faisal on the throne, make him the leader of Iraq, he was not Iraqi. He had never been to Iraq. He was the leader that Bell knew and that the British knew, not the Iraqis. And so she didn’t listen, I think, as well as she should have in that instance.But in other places, she did, and she cared deeply about the local population. So I think, yeah, for me, the big lasting takeaway is that stabilizing a state is very, very difficult to do in the wake of war.HostThat’s fair. Do you have any final thoughts before we wrap up?(Gregg)Just I’d like to take a moment to thank the press for this opportunity to write about this fascinating woman. This was a (coronavirus disease or) COVID project for me. Gertrude Bell’s letters and documents are all digitized. They sit on the University of Newcastle’s (University of Newcastle upon Tyne’s) website in Britain. They’re excellent. They’re easy to navigate, and it was just a tremendous opportunity to learn about this woman and learn from her.Thank you for this opportunity, Stephanie, to speak with you about Gertrude. And I hope that our listeners will download the manuscript and read it.HostI hope so too. I read it and really enjoyed it. So, well thank you so much for being here. This was a real pleasure.(Gregg)Thank you so much, Stephanie!HostIf you enjoyed this podcast and would like to learn more about Gertrude Bell, download the monograph at press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs.If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and any other major podcast platform.

Nuclear weapons have vastly raised the stakes and potential costs of crisis, making leadership and related human qualities of judgment and temperament crucial. This podcast analyzes one exceptionally dangerous US-Soviet confrontation, which barely averted war. Military and policy professionals will see how understanding the perspectives, incentives, and limitations of opponents is important in every conflict—and vital when facing crisis situations like nuclear war.​Keywords: leadership, deterrence, Cuba, nuclear weapons, missile crisisRead the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss3/11/Episode Transcript: “The Cuban Missiles Crisis: Miscalculation, Nuclear Risks, and the Human Dimension”Stephanie Crider (Host)(Prerecorded Decisive Point intro) Welcome to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production featuring distinguished authors and contributors who get to the heart of the matter in national security affairs.The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the podcast guest 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 Dr. Arthur I. Cyr, author of “The Cuban Missile Crisis: Miscalculation, Nuclear Risks, and the Human Dimension,” which was featured in the autumn 2022 issue of Parameters. Cyr has served as the vice president of the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and president of the Chicago World Trade Center (World Trade Center Chicago). He taught at the University of Chicago, University of Illinois, Northwestern University, and Carthage College and is the author of After the Cold War: American Foreign Policy, Europe and Asia, published by New York University Press in 2000.Welcome to Decisive Point, Art. I’m glad you’re here.(Arthur I. Cyr)Well, thank you for your kind invitation and for the opportunity to do the article for Parameters.HostOf course. We’re excited to have you.Your article talks about the Cuban missile crisis. Give us some context, please. What makes this crisis distinct from others?(Cyr)It was particularly close—a particularly close call. It was particularly increasingly evident with the passage of years after the October 1962 confrontation between the US and the Soviet Union. It was geographically close. We and our allies had put lots of weapons, including nuclear missiles, in Turkey and Italy, close to the Soviet Union. But this was only 90 miles away from the US, and the communist threat 90 miles away was a major theme in the legendary presidential campaign between John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. Kennedy, in effect, outflanked Nixon on that.HostWill you please briefly walk us through the highlights of the Cuban missile crisis?(Cyr)Yes. Cuba had become an increasingly intense focus in American politics. At the very beginning of the Kennedy administration, uh, the administration stumbled badly with the disastrous and total failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion—CIA effort to land anti-Castro . . . heavily armed anti-Castro exiles at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba and launch an insurgency, which they confidently told the president would be successful.That, it’s clear now, not only fed controversy in the US, but encouraged Nikita Khrushchev to place the missiles in Cuba following a very steady buildup of conventional forces there.HostLet’s talk about some of the lessons learned. Some of these weren’t even evident for years. Can we talk about that? What were they?(Cyr)Yes, indeed. Well, the problem of perception and, especially, misperception of the other side, always a great and perhaps principal challenge in international relations, which is why diplomas . . . diplomacy is such an important and, also, difficult occupation—Cuba, Castro, the US, Kennedy, Soviet Union—that they’re very reckless. Nikita Khrushchev had very different perceptions of what would be accepted and what was possible in international relations. The Americans, interestingly enough, were obsessed with not Cuba, but Berlin, where it was . . . anything that happened in the world, including in Laos and Vietnam—anywhere, literally, was related to Berlin. And, in fact, the evidence is clear that after the announcement of the missiles in Cuba, Khrushchev and associates hoped to use that dramatic change in the strategic landscape to apply new pressure and successfully force the Western allies out of West Berlin, which was another island, metaphorically, surrounded by East Berlin, East Germany, and the heavy and very powerful Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe.I hope that’s clear. But it made the stakes very high. But the basic lesson is how easy it is to misperceive what the other side is planning to do. Nobody around Kennedy, with the single exception of CIA Director John McCone—not a government professional, not an intelligence pro, but a Republican businessman—was brought in to succeed Allen Dulles (who’d been discredited), the longtime head of the CIA and was basically a fall guy for the Kennedy brothers after the Bay of Pigs disaster. With the single and very courageous exception of McCone, the Americans simply persuaded themselves the Soviets would never try to do this.HostHow are some of these lessons still relevant today?(Cyr)Well, we still have a nuclear-armed world. I don’t believe. But it’s important to keep in mind what I just said about misperception. I think partly because of the lesson of the Cuban missile crisis and partly because nuclear weapons since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the bombings which finally brought a thankful end to World War II in the Pacific and the surrender of Japan—nuclear weapons are so horrific that they continue to operate as a deterrent on the other side. But, thanks in part to the Cuban missile crisis, we’re no longer so inclined to engage in wishful thinking, I believe, collectively and assume the other side is not going to act.And communication: Kennedy and Khrushchev, to their great credit, established the so-called “hotline,” which was not a cell phone, it was not a landline, it wasn’t even initially a satellite phone, but it was a very complicated telecommunication system, an old-fashioned, big, clunky teletype machine. One was placed in Moscow, and one was placed in Washington. And the two sides were able to communicate much more readily than before. Today, telecom is no longer a problem, but miscommunicating, misunderstanding what the other side is going to do and wants to do is as dangerous as ever.Roberta Wohlstetter (W-O-H-L-S-T-E-T-T-E-R) is the single, I think, most important analyst well worth reading. She did a classic book in 1962—Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision—analyzing and explaining the US intelligence failures regarding the Japanese surprise attack on our naval base on December 7th, 1941. She also did an article for the fine journal Foreign Affairs in 1965, applying the same lessons to the Cuban missile crisis. She’s extraordinarily durable.HostThank you. Do you have any final thoughts for us before we part ways?(Cyr)We’re very much into quantitative analysis, and hard data and hard information is important in our military (quite rightly) from the start of warfare. But, certainly, the US Army and military services today give a tremendous amount of attention to data analysis. Our military is also quite valuable and fortunate in the sense that leadership is essential in academia, but also in government circles. I do believe—and I don’t think it’s just old age—I do believe that with the end of the Cold War, we’ve become more and more obsessed with what we like to do: analyze data. You see it in all walks of American life, including business. But leadership intuition, the human dimension, has never stopped being important, and it’s more important than ever before. (John F. Kennedy or) JFK looks better all the time. Whatever shortcomings may have been—and, obviously, his ineffectiveness early in his administration—he played a singular and decisive role in holding off nuclear war. The advisers he brought together when we first learned about the missiles in Cuba uniformly wanted to attack Cuba. We know now that there was some sense, especially on the part of Defense Secretary (Robert) McNamara, that the Soviets had some sort of short-range nuclear weapons in Cuba, but they had far more than Americans estimated at the time. And in a moment of insanity, Nikita Khrushchev had quite privately given one . . . his principal commander in Cuba the OK to use nuclear weapons without asking Moscow if the Americans invaded.The Soviet submarine—the B-59 under command of Valentin Savitsky—harassed by US surface ships dropping hand grenades and signaling depth charges, which the Soviets assumed were lethal, trying to force them to the surface, finally did so. American aircraft were busy shooting tracer bullets around the submarine. Savitsky ordered the torpedo tubes open, including one that held an atomic torpedo. He was going to destroy the American flotilla around him. He was gonna destroy his own submarine and launch a nuclear war. Vasily Arkhipov—by good fortune, a Soviet fleet staff officer happened to be on the submarine, and he literally physically prevented Savitsky from carrying out that order. Commander William Morgan, the captain of the US destroyer USS Cory, as described in the article, went out of his way to make sure that by, uh, searchlight signaling, Ensign Gary Slaughter apologized to the Soviets, who were, by that time, standing out on the deck of the surface submarine. We apologized. Commander Morgan brilliantly kept the atmosphere down. He kept telling his men “Let’s keep those Russian bastards happy. Let’s reassure them as much as we can.” Those courageous and very sane gentlemen literally prevented a nuclear war.Kennedy, at the top, crucial US and Soviet military people confronting one another deserve a lot of credit. It was far closer than anyone realized at the time, even though everyone knew it was a dangerous situation.HostI can’t even imagine. Thankful for clear heads, right? Calm demeanor.(Cyr)At that time, yes. More important than ever. And the more we go on after the Cold War without, thank God, a general war, I think the more easy it becomes—especially for intellectuals, I must say, but also some military people—to be very casual about the risks these kinds of weapons involved.I meant one final point without getting too personal. I was working at a supermarket after school and on weekends in October of 1962 in Los Angeles, California, my hometown, which was a prime target area. President Kennedy, the evening of October 22nd, made a public speech readily available on YouTube—and people should watch and listen to it—announcing the not attack, but quarantine, blockade of Cuba. When I showed up for work the next morning, Alexander Supermarket in Hollywood, California, was totally jammed with people. It wasn’t a riot. As far as we could tell, people paid for things. But, for the first time in my life, I really not only saw, but smelled, fear—a very curious, primordial kind of animal sense that arises when people and other creatures are terrified. It was an exhausting experience. It was a tiring, sort of monotonous job. But for the first time at work, I was completely exhausted. At the end, one poor woman—I took her out to an elegant Lincoln Continental. She had two shopping carts full of nothing but bottled water and toilet paper. It was really a very sad as well as scary time. We should all keep it in mind because, thankfully, Americans have not had to experience anything like that since. Very, very close, and don’t believe anyone, especially some professor who uses game theory and abstract conceptualization to argue that it never really was that dangerous.HostOh, my goodness. Thank you for sharing that story. I appreciate your time so much and your insight. It was such a pleasure talking with you, Art. Thank you.(Cyr)Well, thank you, ma’am. Anytime. I’m always available to Parameters and the US Army War College.HostIf you’d like to learn more about leadership and the human dimension as viewed through the Cuban missile crisis, you’ll find the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 52, issue 3.If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, and any other major podcast platform.