Decisive Point Podcast

Since achieving victory in World War II, the United States military has a less than enviable combat record in irregular warfare. Through a detailed historical analysis, this article provides perspective on where past decisions and doctrines have led to defeat and where they may have succeeded if given more time or executed differently. In doing so, it provides lessons for future Army engagements and argues that until America becomes proficient in irregular warfare, our enemies will continue to fight us at the lower levels of the spectrum of conflict, where they have a good chance of exhausting our will to fight.

Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss3/3/

Episode Transcript: “Why America’s Army Can’t Win America’s Wars”

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 US government.

Decisive Point welcomes Dr. John Nagl, author of “Why America’s Army Can’t Win America’s Wars,” which was featured in the autumn 2022 issue of Parameters. Nagl is an associate professor of warfighting studies at the US Army War College. He is author of Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory and Practice.

Welcome to Decisive Point, John. Thank you for being here.

(John Nagl)

It’s terrific to be here, Stephanie. Thanks for having me.

Host

Let’s talk about “Why America’s Army Can’t Win America’s Wars.” You note in your article that since achieving victory in World War II, the United States military has a less-than-enviable combat record. Ouch. Give us a brief overview of where past decisions and doctrines have led to defeat.

(Nagl)

Yeah, I think “ouch” is the right word. And, of course, I love the Army dearly and care about the well-being of the nation. I’ve seen what happens when wars go badly. It’s very painful to write that, but it’s intended to be tough love for an organization that really matters. And for the most important country in the world, I might add.

What I argue in the article is that the United States government is one, three, and one in our nation’s wars, and I’ll go through them quickly. Korea (the Korean War), the first war after World War II, where the United States was decisive and won decisively: Korea ended in an armistice. The important lesson for that, I think, is the United States was unprepared for conventional combat in Korea. It was unprepared to be the global hegemon that the international order yearns for and so desperately needs.

And we learned from that. We created a state of readiness. The 2nd Infantry Division in Korea’s motto is “Fight tonight,” and they’re ready. And that readiness for combat—for conventional combat—is something that the American Army, I think, can be enormously proud of.

But, since Korea, with Vietnam (the Vietnam War); the first Iraq war (the Persian Gulf War); Afghanistan (the Afghanistan War); and the second Iraq war (the Iraq War), Operation Iraqi Freedom, our record is decidedly not as good. We are, I would argue, one and three in those wars, with (Operation) Desert Storm being a clear win, but Vietnam and Afghanistan being decisive losses, and the second Iraq war, the current Iraq war—it’s still too soon to tell, but it’s hard to put it in the win column. So I looked for—as I thought about the combat record of the United States military since World War II, I tried hard to isolate what it was that led to that less-than-enviable combat record. That’s really the point of the article. Is there something in common with the wars that we don’t do well in that provides lessons for the Army as it thinks to the future?

Host

Let’s unpack that a little bit. What, in your opinion, was the biggest misstep?

(Nagl)

After the Korean War misstep of being unprepared for combat full stop, the United States decided to focus on a particular kind of war. And this argument draws very heavily from the late Russell Weigley. He wrote a book called The American Way of War (The American Way of War: A History of United States Military Strategy and Policy), which argues that since the United States became capable of conventional combat—conventional great-power war, according to the standards of the day—that is the kind of war for which it has chosen to prepare. And that worked well for the United States—and the United States Army, in particular—in the First World War, in World War II, after initial readiness problems in the Korean War and in (Operation) Desert Storm.

But there is another kind of war: irregular war—an ironic name because the world has seen much more irregular war than it has seen so-called regular war over the course of human history. Irregular war is called the war of the weak, war of the flea. It’s a war in which the opponents of a great power choose to fight in ways that minimize the advantages of the great power and maximize the advantages of the lesser power in particular—generally, greater staying power for the lesser power. And the United States has chosen not to prepare for that kind of war. I give the Army in particular something of a break on that prior to Vietnam (the Vietnam War). And I argue in my doctoral dissertation—became the book Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife—that the Army learned and got better over the course of the Vietnam War at counterinsurgency, a particular type of irregular war. So I give the Army sort of half marks for that.

But in the wake of the Vietnam War, the United States turned away from irregular war, decided those were bad wars, wars that we weren’t gonna fight anymore. And, unfortunately, the enemy gets a vote. And the real crux of my argument is that no sane opponent of the United States, having seen the extraordinary conventional capability of the United States military, would choose to fight that tooth to tooth, nail to nail. Our enemies are going to choose ways to try to achieve their political objectives without confronting the full might of the American military. That’s what the Viet Cong and, largely, the North Vietnamese did during the Vietnam War to our dismay.

It’s also the path that . . . after the initial reasonably successful invasions, efforts to topple the government of Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq after those conflicts, our opponents chose to fight us in an irregular manner. And that presents a whole series of challenges for the United States military for which we are not optimized. And that may be okay because the cost of losing one of those wars is far, far less than losing a conventional, great-power-versus-great-power war. But it’s still not good.

And so I argue, certainly with passion, and I hope with some degree of resonance that the United States military—an enormous organization, the most powerful organization on the face of the Earth—ought to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time, ought to be able to deter conventional war and, at the same time, increase its ability for irregular wars’ capability, its capacity, its understanding of irregular war so that we present our enemies with no chinks in our armors, no Achilles’ heel, and no place to take us on where their chances of success are any kind of good at all.

Host

Where could we have succeeded if given more time, or maybe if things were executed differently?

(Nagl)

Counterfactuals are always difficult, of course. I’m a big fan of a man named Lewis Sorley who goes by Bob, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, student of the Vietnam War, and biographer of Creighton Abrams, who believes that a choice as simple as one that the President Lyndon Johnson confronted when he was choosing the commander in Vietnam as that war heated up, as we moved toward full engagement in the Vietnam War, when he chose General (William) Westmoreland rather than General Abrams as the commander—Bob argues that a choice as simple as that might have made a difference in the Vietnam War, in an extraordinarily costly war.

Bob has studied Vietnam (the Vietnam War) more extensively than I have. He served in it. I’m not willing to argue with him. I do think there are a number of points during the Vietnam War which we could have made choices that would have rendered that campaign more successful. The bitter irony is that by the end of the war, under Creighton Abrams, we had achieved what looked like success in these irregular wars—that is, a host-nation security force that is able to confront the forces that oppose it with some degree of American support—in particular, American airpower—and that combining and Joint force of host-nation security forces, American airpower, American advisers on the ground can guarantee the survival of the government against any conceivable enemy. We had actually reached that point by the end of the Vietnam War. But it didn’t matter. The American people had lost faith in the war. For some reason, it’s connected to the war; for other reasons, connected to the Nixon administration.

And so we ended that advisory effort, and unbelievable suffering resulted in Vietnam, but also in Cambodia next door, as a result of our failures to learn and adapt rapidly enough to the demands of counterinsurgency in Vietnam. Therefore, recent counterinsurgency campaigns—there’s a whole lot we could have done. We could have prepared better for that part of the spectrum of conflict, we could have created host-nation security advisory forces earlier than we did, both in Iraq and in Afghanistan. But that begs even earlier questions, right?

We could have not invaded Iraq in March of 2003, which was not just the critical error in Iraq in Operation Iraqi Freedom, but it was also the critical failure for the Operation Enduring Freedom, the war in Afghanistan. The United States didn’t have the capacity to fully resource extensive counterinsurgency campaigns both in Iraq and in Afghanistan at the same time, or at least chose not to mobilize the nation to fight both of those wars at once. And so, the critical mistake, I think, for both the Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom was choosing to invade Iraq in March of 2003—an Iraq that had nothing to do with the attacks of September 11th; an Iraq that did not have any significant (weapon of mass destruction or) WMD capability; an Iraq that was an important counterweight to Iran—our greatest threat, our greatest rival in the region.

And so, as I noted in the article, Tom Ricks, student of the war in Iraq, argues in the first line of his book Fiasco (Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq, 2003 to 2005), the American invasion of Iraq in March 2003 may well be the most profligate act in American history. It was an unforced error. It was a war of art. Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations compares (Operation) Desert Storm—my first war—and Operation Iraqi Freedom—my second war—with the book titled, War of Necessity, War of Choice (War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars). It’s even more damning to make mistakes in a war of choice because we chose when it was going to happen. We chose the hour it was going to happen. We had the opportunity to walk away from that war. We chose not to, and, again, huge suffering in Iraq, but, also, unbelievable and continuing suffering both in Iraq and in Afghanistan as a result of that misguided decision to invade. And then, a whole lot of subsequent mistakes were made as well.

Host

How can we avoid things like this going forward? Do you have any suggestions?

(Nagl)

The obvious answer is to be more careful about the wars in which we choose to engage. This is a super-important lesson. And, to be fair, the Army and significant parts of the Department of Defense leaned in hard against the invasion of Iraq in March of 2003. Lieutenant General Greg Newbold, the J3 on the Joint Staff, pushed back hard on Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld’s war plans for the invasion. General Eric Shinseki, the chief of staff of the Army, argued convincingly in congressional testimony that it would take far more troops to pacify Iraq after invasion than it would have, and did, to topple the government there. The military expertise was present, but it was not listened to. And so part of the story here is that civilian leaders elected by the American people may make choices that are not to the benefit of the American nation. So voting matters. Those choices really, really matter.

But also, there are civil-military questions here. That is, we have to ensure that our elected leaders value the military judgment of those who are chosen to advise them. But also, the military doesn’t get to decide what wars it fights. And so, in particular, in Parameters, in an article directed at the strategic leadership of the US military and, particularly, the strategic leadership of the US Army, this article is a plea not to do what we did after Vietnam (the Vietnam War), not to step away from really hard learned lessons in counterinsurgency and irregular warfare, but hold onto those lessons, hold onto the force structure. The advisory force structure, the combat adviser units that we built way too late in these wars, 15 years into these wars, but that we have finally built and that will help us to remember will help us to build a doctrine for, will help us to understand that success in these wars ultimately depends upon building host-nation security forces that can pick up the ball and carry it with fairly minimal American and allied assistance. So there are responsibilities for the military, regardless of the decisions our civilian leadership makes, that can make these wars less likely, less costly, and make it more likely that America is going to achieve its long-term strategic objectives in this kind of war.

Host

Before we go, do you have any final thoughts?

(Nagl)

aI’ve had the privilege of serving in uniform in two of our nation’s wars and Operation Desert Storm as a tank platoon leader and in Operation Iraqi Freedom as an armor major in a tank battalion task force. So, I’ve seen both conventional combat and irregular war, and I understand deep in my soul why the American military wants to prepare for the first of those wars, wants to prepare for (Operation) Desert Storm, and doesn’t want to prepare for irregular warfare.

As we saw in Vietnam, the later stages of Iraq (the Iraq War) after Saddam was toppled, and the later stages of Afghanistan (the Afghanistan War), I understand why it makes those choices and wants to make those choices. But, for the well-being of the Army and of the nation, it is absolutely essential that we dig deep and look very honestly at our failings as a military; also, at the American government and mistakes that led to these hugely costly and, in many ways, counterproductive wars. And we gather those lessons and learn from those lessons. We look hard at ourselves in the mirror and ask ourselves “What have we shown the world about how to attack the United States?” And we need to repair our armor and prepare ourselves for anything the world throws at us because the cost of not doing that is paid for in the blood of our sons and daughters. This is as important as it gets.

Host

Thank you so much for sharing your insight. Like you noted, an important topic indeed.

(Nagl)

Thanks. Thanks, Stephanie. It’s a privilege to work with your team, and I hope we do it a whole lot more in years to come.

Host

If you’d like to take a deeper look at “Why America’s Army Can’t Win America’s Wars,” check out the latest issue of Parameters at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 52, issue three.

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.

Author information:

Dr. John A. Nagl is an associate professor of warfighting studies in the

Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations at the US Army

War College. He is the author of Knife Fights: A Memoir of Modern War in Theory

and Practice (Penguin Books, 2014).

The military profession needs to be redefined by examination of its expertise and jurisdictions of practice, whereas previously the focus was on securing its professional identity. Twenty years ago, the original Future of the Army Profession research project responded to growing concerns among officers that the Army was no longer a profession in light of the post–Cold War drawdown and the onset of global operations including Iraq and Afghanistan. Today, the profession faces recurrent challenges raised by the changing character of war, the renewal of great-power competition, crises surrounding issues of sexual harassment and assault, the effects of a major global pandemic and associated social and political unrest, and the growing societal distrust toward professions in general. Richard Lacquement and Thomas Galvin propose that the questions of professional identity, while still important, are now less salient than those about the professions’ jurisdictions of practice and domains of expert knowledge. Clarifying them will help better prepare US military professionals to exercise discretionary judgment effectively. They also propose a new Future of the US Military Profession research effort that addresses these jurisdictions across service, joint, and defense enterprises to clarify the divisions of professional work and responsibilities. This is a must-read for any steward of the military profession.

Read the monograph: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/945/

Episode Transcript: “Framing the Future of the US Military Profession”

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 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. Richard Lacquement and Dr. Thomas P. Galvin, authors of Framing the Future of the US Military Profession, published by the US Army War College Press in January 2022. Lacquement is a research professor at the (US Army) War College Strategic Studies Institute, and Galvin is an associate professor at the (US) Army War College.

Welcome to Decisive Point, Richard and Tom. I hear your piece won the Madigan award at the (US) Army War College. Congratulations! That’s really exciting.

(Richard Lacquement)

Thank you.

(Thomas Galvin)

Thank you.

Host

I’m really glad to have you here today. Let’s talk about your monograph. This piece builds on previous work. Give our listeners some background and tell us about the original project from 2002 and 2005, please.

(Lacquement)

Sure. I want to shout out to one of our former professors here at the (US) Army War College, Dr. Don Snider, who had also worked at West Point (Academy) for many years, who was the lead of what was called the “Future of the Army Profession project.” It ended up with two edited volumes that came out in 2002 (first edition) and then in 2005. And I had been fortunate to join a group: probably about two to three dozen scholars who all worked on different elements of what is the US Army profession, partly dealing with the post-Cold War challenges coming out of the 90s and right about the time we went into what became the Global War on Terror (war on terrorism).

And I had been part of that project, and, looking back on it with Don Snider a few years ago, we thought it could use an update based on . . . it’s been over 15 years, and—oh, by the way though, the project was focused on the US Army—our sense was that it really applied to the entire US military; we wanted to broaden the scope to do that.

So, once I got the chance to go on sabbatical, I sort of took that as my sabbatical project to help build it out and recruited Tom. I’m a political scientist, and then Tom worked in our Department of Command, Leadership, and Management and studied the sociology more. And I really needed that perspective on how to understand the evolution and how professions are understood and studied to help flesh out how we would apply that going on 15 to 20 years after the Future Army Profession project, which had used a cortex by Andrew Abbott out of the University of Chicago. That’s very solid but couldn’t do everything we would like it to do as we thought about the whole profession.

Host

Thanks, Richard. Tom?

(Galvin)

I came into the project at Richard’s invitation because I had done some work in studying Abbott and also other related works in organization theory, management science. So that’s the lens that I’m coming into this. There were some . . . what I had always felt were some gaps in the previous work. The previous work is absolutely fantastic in terms of laying out a way of thinking about expert knowledge and how the professions compete, but there were some other things that were not as robustly represented, such as how do the various parts of the military collaborate? Because, at the same time we’re competing, we’re also collaborating. And there was, uh, opportunities to bring in a wider sociological framework to think about the totality of how the military serves as a profession, serves as an organization, and help address some of the emerging problems and challenges that the military faces today.

Host

What gaps does your work seek to fill?

(Lacquement)

So I wanted to identify a few things that we were trying to get at. Tom just talked about some of the literature and how to frame it. But, more importantly, I think in terms of what are the challenges to the US military profession in the United States today? Part of it was the evolution of things that had happened over the last 15 to 20 years—particularly, some of the technological changes bringing in domains of cyberspace and sort of maturity or for the way our understanding of how space affects military operations—how that’s matured. Challenges in terms of actual strategic performance. Looking at events in Afghanistan and Iraq, Syria and Libya, and unsatisfying strategic outcomes to say the least in what we could do to better articulate what the military should have known better. What should we learn from that, and how do we understand what the expertise of the military is and how that’s evolved because of the changing character of war and the changing international environment? And how to do a better job at sort of, again, expanding from just the Army to the entire US military, but looking at those particularly daunting challenges in the changing character of war, changing strategic context, and also some of the societal demands—diversity, equity, inclusion, gender roles, for example—and how those have evolved. And what does that mean for the military profession going forward?

(Galvin)

I would add that a gap is that the previous work had focused heavily on the operational aspects of the military profession—you know, the expertise in fighting and winning wars—much less on the institutional side. And there’s a lot of important professional work that’s done in terms of running and resourcing the military that hasn’t been as appreciated. There’s also some elements from the research agenda that the 2005 project left, such as, “Should there be a joint profession?” Well, I think, 15 years later, we’re in a better position to answer those kinds of questions. And so, we want to look at not just the services, but also what is the role and function of the Joint layer? What about defense agencies? How does the existence, the growth of those entities put pressure on the services? On the Army as a profession?

And I also believe an important gap, getting back to the point about collaboration, is about how professions . . . we do a lot of boundary spanning. So, we have the Army as a profession, but we also have different communities of practice, which handles certain requirements that the military needs to be able to sustain itself or to be able to perform its mission that cross professional boundaries, such as resource management; such as the special operations community; such as the special professions of military doctors, military lawyers, military chaplains. Those, I think, deserve a treatment because they are a very, very important part of the profession, but their role has not really been explored as much as it could be.

Host

The monograph maps a way forward to three practical outcomes. Will you please briefly explain them for our listeners?

(Lacquement)

Sure. If I were to put a gloss on all three of them, it’s what I described sometimes being kind of an owner’s manual of how to understand the military. My sense is that the word “military” is a pretty big and amorphous one that is misunderstood by many. Either there’s an assumption about a very narrow view of maybe just battle or combat or a very broad one, which gets to that three-million-person organization, the Department of Defense, and everything it does, which goes way beyond just battle and combat. So articulating sort of what it is that the US military does do. What is its expertise? What expertise is kind of unique to the military as well as ones it shares with other professions or other segments of society? So, helping US citizens and members of the military understand what is the military and who are military professionals.

Secondly is civilian leaders—particularly, the ones in the federal government or the government, meaning legislative as well as executive branch. And, really, at the state and national level, to sort of help them understand what that expertise is, what the profession does. And so, since they’re the ones who ultimately put it to use, civilians decide how to use it, helping those leaders understand what it does and how to use it. And then, also, the flip side of that for the military leaders: that they understand how to be good stewards of the profession, which includes helping civilians understand what we do. But I think a lot of it is we tend to internally and externally be very vague about or have common misunderstandings about precisely what we do or should do or what we think we should do and to be open to the fact that this evolves over time and that that’s a negotiation between civilian and military leaders and the military and society as a whole. To clarify what we do for the country.

Host

What are the objectives you hope this will accomplish?

(Lacquement)

Well, I think that first off is to get people talking about this, we’ve been expanding the circle. I think Don Snider did a wonderful job. And his group expanded within the Army, and there are some touchpoints with folks beyond the Army. But I sense that those principles and, though he scoped it to the Army, this principle certainly apply well beyond. We’ve talked to some folks in the Air Force, Navy communities, and trying to expand that discussion, partly thinking this framework is a strong one that should be used more broadly to understand how we really respond to things that change. So, you mentioned gaps earlier, but, frankly, one of the main things that drives this is this is a living profession, and the needs that the profession, you know, meets evolve over time. And so a lot of this is just a renewal, but I think also extending the way that Don Snider and others helped us talk about the Army profession so that we socialized that more broadly. So an edited volume probably is the concrete product within the next couple years that we would like to see with a lot of contributors. But, really, to generate more importantly, you know—try to shift the conversation a bit onto these terms of professions and their communities of practice in understanding the expertise in jurisdictions that we perform for American society.

(Galvin)

Yeah, I would add that this is an opportunity to really get more in depth about what stewardship really means because that means a lot of things to a lot of people. One of the things that I think we as a profession overlook is the responsibility to maintain and make useful our domains of expert knowledge. We don’t spend as much time doing that. We spend a lot more time trying to turn the crank at the bureaucratic machine. What does it mean to be a steward? Is it worth further exploring? Because it tends towards the skewing towards particular functions of maintaining the norms and values of the organization, but not as much about, say, some of the professional responsibilities that Abbott cites in his work.

Another main outcome of this, we hope, is that, uh, we will sustain and strengthen society’s trust in the military profession. Now for some time, the military has been cited as one of the most trusted of institutions within the United States. It’s still one of the most trusted, but those trust numbers are declining, and some of it is not necessarily what the military is doing. But it also was reflective of changes that have happened, say, in the past few years. And so, there’s always room to do some introspection and think about what it is that we as a military profession should be doing better, especially given the pressures that we anticipate coming in terms of increasing budgetary pressures about what we’re going to be able to do and increasing demands for using the military in ways that may be outside of what we consider to be our professional jurisdictions. It’s a conversation that needs to continue. It’s time to renew that conversation, and it’s time to do another inward look. See what it is that we are doing well, not doing well, what we should be doing better.

Host

Final thoughts before we go?

(Lacquement)

I was thinking if I were gonna shelve this somewhere, you know, in a bookstore or library, where would I stick it? And I’d probably put it on the shelf for American civil-military relations . . . is that, although we’re talking about professions, it sounds maybe a little bit esoteric and sort of inward looking and just about what the military profession is. Ultimately, the most important contribution I we’ll contribute to—I don’t think we solved the issue—is trying to support healthy civil-military relations, which really starts with clarity about how we understand. I mean, if there’s broad assumptions about you, we will serve civilians. That is an American foundational principle: that civilians are in charge. But the civilians mean leaders in the executive branch, Congress, and society more broadly; all the American people. And being able to help both members of the military—understand that servant role and how the leaders are stewards of that profession on behalf of American society—requires that we be, I think, clearer about how we articulate that, how we understand and discuss. Because the military can’t just declare, “This is what we do.” We have to negotiate that this is how we serve society, and society, civilians, decide. And so, I think that element of capturing it, pulling it all together, this is important to, I think, healthier civil-military relations through better understanding of roles and responsibilities.

(Galvin)

And I would say that we’re titling this Framing the Future of the US Military Profession, but a very sizable chunk of the work that we’ve already done and the work that we will continue to do in this applies to any military in a democratic society. Just because it’s labeled as for the US military profession . . . I think that the monograph that we’ve written and the project that we’re undertaking—there’s a lot of room for how this can be useful for other militaries or militaries of other nations.

Host

What a treat to talk with you today. Thank you so much for sharing your time, sharing your insight.

(Lacquement)

Thank you. I enjoyed it.

(Galvin)

Same here.

Host

If you’d like to dig a litter deeper into this topic, you can find this publication at publications.armywarcollege.edu.

If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or any other major podcasting platform.

Strategic leaders must possess a range of skills to work successfully in complex environments. To use those skills to best effect, they rely on character traits that enhance the likelihood of their effectiveness as leaders and maximize their success when working in teams. Certain character traits facilitate work in demanding settings that rely heavily on communication, integration, and cooperation. Programs designed to educate senior leaders must help future national security professionals identify these character traits and then practice and hone them. Highlighting individuals with challenging roles in World War II, this podcast analyzes the character traits that enabled them to succeed in their work.

Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss2/14/

Episode Transcript:

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 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. Tami Davis Biddle, author of “Character Traits Strategic Leaders Need,” which was featured in the Parameters summer 2022 issue. Biddle retired as the Elihu Root chair of military studies at the US Army War College, where she’s now a distinguished fellow. She’s written extensively on military history, airpower, and strategy. The author of Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare (2002), she is currently writing Taking Command: The United States in the Second World War for Oxford University Press.

Welcome to Decisive Point, Tami, I’m really glad you’re here.

(Tami Davis Biddle)

I’m delighted to be here, Stephanie. Thank you.

Host

Let’s talk about your article. You open with a statement that might not occur to many people. Security professionals engage in activities that are intensely analytical, but also intensely human. Students of strategy, therefore, must develop an understanding of decision making and its pathologies and must comprehend the role of cognitive psychology in that process. What does this look like in real life?

(Biddle)

This comes out of my experience and teaching for a long time and teaching war college-level students for two decades. And I realized that they have an opportunity at . . . especially at the beginning of the year to stop and really do some intentional thinking about how they process information and about how they think and how they articulate ideas. And one of the things that I think is terribly important is for them to understand the background influences on their thinking; the institutional influences on them; even the influences of other individuals, mentors, family the way that they’ve been brought up to see the world and the way that their experiences have shaped their perception of the world.

Because if they can understand that, they’re in a much better position to think clearly, to think analytically, and to understand where their biases or their predilections or their . . . even their prejudices might be influencing the way that they think about the world and therefore interfering, potentially, with strategic thinking and strategic decisions or analytical thinking.

So I felt it was really important to start students off with a emphasis on greater self-awareness and greater self-awareness about the process of thought and discussion. Understanding those and being able to be aware of those is super important, I think, for students and for helping them to understand how to interact with others and how to do the best possible strategic thinking that gets them sometimes out of their own heads and enables them to see the perspectives of others and develop empathy and to not simply be prisoners to their own biases or their own predilections.

Host

There are so many rich examples in your article. Let’s hit some of the highlights.

(Biddle)

Sure.

Host

Who’s Harry Hopkins? And what qualities did he exemplify?

(Biddle)

Oh, Harry Hopkins is such an interesting character. He was the leading adviser, the closest adviser, and the most trusted adviser to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR). They met in 1928 during, basically, FDR’s campaign for the governor of New York, and then they worked together pretty much consistently from that time onward. And of course, when FDR became president, it was in the height of the Great Depression, and the most important thing to do, or he felt that he had to do, was to improve the lives of Americans. To help people who were destitute, who didn’t have work, to try to find useful work to restore their pride, to get the economy back up and on its feet and going again, and to help Americans just basically regain their self-confidence.

And Harry Hopkins was, it turned out, exactly the right man to do that. He thought like the president. He had been basically a social worker. He went to Grinnell College, he came to New York City, he saw people who were struggling on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He became committed to helping them, and then, when the financial crisis occurred, he had some experience. So he was in a perfect position to help the president understand how to move forward.

He became head of the Works Progress Administration and was crucially important in that role, and, also, this was kind of a first for the country. Really, the idea that a state has responsibility for its citizens was still pretty new in the 1920s and 1930s, but it’s an idea that FDR promoted and believed in deeply, and Harry Hopkins shared that belief. And so, they were a great team and they worked together on the New Deal. They tried to restore American confidence and American dignity for working people. And then, when (Adolf) Hitler became the chancellor and then became increasingly powerful in Germany, and then when the Second World War began in Europe, they worked together as a team once more. And they were working in a realm that was fairly new to Hopkins. In particular, he didn’t start out as a foreign policy analyst, but one of his great strengths was to learn quickly and to know exactly what is most important. And he recognized the crisis facing the world because of Hitler and because of fascism was the most important issue.

And he helped FDR keep that uppermost, and then he became a tremendous . . . basically, communicator for FDR. Because the president had polio and because he had limited mobility, he couldn’t often go and do the things that a modern president who has full mobility can do. So Harry Hopkins became the eyes and ears and the arms and the legs of FDR. And he went and met with very important people. He met with (Winston) Churchill early on in January of 1941. This was right after—obviously, Britain had been fighting alone in 1940, and Britain was in pretty desperate straits. The US wasn’t in the war yet, and we were trying to figure out ways—at least, FDR was—trying to figure out ways to help the British. And Hopkins ended up playing a really crucial role in that—figuring out, first of all, that Britain was in fact going to stay in the fight. Essentially, when FDR sent Hopkins over to Britain in 1941, early in ‘41, it was to find out if Britain was going to manage, if Britain was going to be able to stay in the fight, because many Americans like Joseph Kennedy were saying, “No, Britain’s gonna be overrun” or “Britain’s gonna make a deal.” And so, the first thing that Hopkins had to ascertain was is Churchill going to keep this country together? Is it going to keep it fighting? And if we send them materiel, will they be able to use it in the long run? And Hopkins determined that, in fact, Churchill was going to stay in the fight. Britain was going to stay in the fight. And yes, if we sent materiel and became essentially the arsenal of democracy, that Britain would survive. And this became kind of the keystone of this tremendous alliance between the British and the Americans in the Second World War.

So, in a way, he was discerning, like we’ve lately been discerning if Ukraine was going to survive and stay in the fight, and whether it was worth our sending materials and support or whether it would just be taken up by the Russians after a short fight. But, in fact, Churchill and Hawkins formed a very tight bond, and one of the things that Churchill appreciated so much about Hopkins was that he stayed focused on the key issues. He knew what was salient, he knew what was most important, he didn’t waste time. He went right to the key issues, and he figured out how to move forward on those key issues.

When I was evaluating my students, one of the things that I was often looking for was a sense of their ability to discern what is most important. Can they separate the wheat from the chaff? Can they really zero in on what’s key and what’s crucial and move forward and bring others on board and keep them focused on what is most important? And Hopkins did that in spades, and he did it over and over and over again. He traveled with FDR, he went to all the major international conferences and helped the president keep everyone on track. Even when there were huge differences, Harry Hopkins found a way to get people to agree and to simply create good outcomes through determination and through, I think, a certain optimism that he shared with the president.

The president had a confidence that was, oh, just winning and contagious, and this is why I think he was such a successful president in the Depression, when people were feeling so ill at ease and so anxious and so demoralized. He lifted them up, and Harry Hopkins was able to do that too. He brought this optimism—focused optimism to all the tasks that he undertook.

Host

You also speak specifically about some of FDR’s qualities.

(Biddle)

Yeah.

Host

Can you expand on them here?

(Biddle)

Well, I talked a little bit about that infectious optimism that he had. And that made him a winning personality, a successful politician. and I think if you just have charisma, if you come into a room and you sort of own it, you have a huge advantage politically. And FDR had that. He had this kind of sparkling quality to his personality. But you have to have more than that. You have to have an imagination to think up initiatives, an instinct for what’s going to work, and then a degree of shrewdness in the political world to be able to see it through—to make sure that you’ve got the right people in place to push it forward, the right words to articulate it so that you can sell it to the people who need to understand it and then implement it. And I think FDR had this combination of real optimism and charisma and leadership ability—but, also, political instincts and shrewdness and a sense of what needed to be done to take an idea to reality.

So, for instance, I talked a little bit about, recently, Hopkins and providing weaponry. FDR conceived of what became the Lend-Lease Plan (Lend-Lease Act) of 1941, which gave aid to our allies—particularly Britain early on, but then, after the Soviets were attacked by Germany, also to the Soviet Union. And Lend-Lease became an incredibly important instrument of victory in the Second World War. But it was largely the president’s idea. He conceived it, basically, on a fishing trip after the 1940 election. So he had the imagination to come up with it, but then he had to have the shrewdness and the political skill to figure out how to get it passed through Congress, which was no easy trick, and then how to persuade the British that we would in fact provide this aid and that we would be reliable partners and we were going to make a big investment and make sacrifices ourselves to help them.

And this was Lend-Lease, and it was just crucially important to the war effort, prior to the American entry after Pearl Harbor. And you know, that’s just one example of the way that FDR was able to combine a huge creative imagination with the practical skill of being a politician; has to work with Congress, has to work with interest groups, has to persuade people, and has to set up bureaucratic administration to make things actually happen.

Host

You write about Dwight Eisenhower as well. What qualities of character did he bring to the hard choices of World War II?

(Biddle)

Many. Eisenhower intrigues me. You know, he’s got this sort of baby face, and he’s . . . he’s got this kind of charisma in a way that FDR had. He had an ease with people, and he had a sort of instinctive and apparent leadership quality that made him stand out. So when he walked into a room, you had a sense there was a real presence there and an important person. He was also attentive to scholarship, to learning, to knowledge. He had a real interest in history, an interest in people, in how they think and how they behave. He also, I think, had great integrity. He was a man who understood the important roles that he held for the country when he held them, and he wanted to do his best. He wanted to put his best foot forward at all times. He wanted to give as much of himself as he possibly could. And he also had a great sense of balance—even though, like all people who, I think, are great leaders, he had an ego. He had a strong sense of himself, but he also had balance. So, when he was working, for instance, with his allies, he understood that even though they weren’t going to agree with him all the time, that finding common ground was terribly important, and he could set his own ego aside to find ways to go forward. And, again, I think Hopkins could do this, FDR could do this, all of them could do it—to find destinations . . . sort of strategic ends that they were seeking and, in order to get there, could work with other people and could find ways of compromising, accommodating different cultures, accommodating different perspectives, and still keeping their eye on the ball and moving forward to the destination while not being so brittle as to insist that it had to be done “my way,” which I think is terribly important.

I read a letter that Eisenhower wrote to (George) Patton early in World War II. It probably was 1942, but he was basically saying, “Look, you’ve got to get over your tendency to think that the Brits don’t know what they’re doing or that they’re not doing it your way or that they are inferior. They’re not. They are very capable. What you have to do is respect them. Recognize this, and move forward in a strong sense of alliance and relationship.” And it was actually a very forceful and, in some ways, a fierce letter because he was mad at Patton.

Patton had basically upset Anglo-American relations, and Eisenhower was mad. But he wrote this in such a way that it was a magical wording where he was forceful and yet he never humiliated Patton. He brought him onboard, and he was very forceful, and he was very directive. But he did not humiliate him. And I think that’s sometimes a fine line to walk, but it’s terribly important when you’re dealing with subordinates and when you’re trying to get people to work with you.

Host

That’s a great point. Unfortunately, we have to end it here. Thanks for your time today; this was a real pleasure. Listeners, if you would like to explore even more about the qualities of character that strategists need, visit https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/. Look for volume 52, issue 2.

If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or any other major podcasting platform.

Author information:

Tami Davis Biddle retired as the Elihu Root Chair of Military Studies at the US Army War College, where she is now a Distinguished Fellow. She has written extensively on military history, airpower, and strategy. The author of Rhetoric and Reality in Air Warfare (2002), she is currently writing Taking Command: The United States in the Second World War for Oxford University Press.

Distilling lessons from the author’s book, The Media Offensive: How the Press and Public Opinion Shaped Allied Strategy during World War II, this podcast provides applicable suggestions for the US military today. As in World War II, the press is both a weapon and a possible vulnerability in modern warfare.

Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss2/15/

Episode Transcript

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, US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.

The guests in speaking order on this episode are:

(Guest 1: Alexander G. Lovelace)

Decisive Point welcomes Dr. Alexander G. Lovelace, author of “Tomorrow’s Wars and the Media,” which was featured in the summer 2022 issue of Parameters. Lovelace is a scholar-in-residence at the Contemporary History Institute of Ohio University. His first book, The Media Offensive: How the Press and Public Opinion Shaped Allied Strategy during World War II, is being published by the University Press of Kansas in 2022.

(Host)

It’s great to have you on Decisive Point, Alex. Thanks for making time for us.

(Lovelace)

Thank you for having me.

(Host)

Let’s jump right in. Your essay offers practical suggestions for how the press can be used by public affairs officers, commanders, and policymakers to achieve victory in coming conflicts. You say these lessons are applicable for today’s wars, even when they’re fought on TikTok. So give us some historical context. How did we get here?

(Lovelace)

The Second World War was a media war for two big reasons. The first one is that all sides really tried to harness the media as a weapon during that conflict. This really came out of the philosophical and technological mindset of total war. There’s a real philosophical shift where warfare is suddenly not so much something you do to the enemy army, but also has to involve the enemy population.

That grows from the French Revolution up to World War II, and it’s accompanied also by a technological shift. Warfare is becoming much more deadly, particularly for civilians. At the same time, the media is also part of this change. You have technology such as telegraphs and photography which has a military use but also has a civilian use and a media use for civilian press.

So by World War II, which is the first total war, at least the first one that is openly fought as such, the media is going to play a big role in that. So that’s one reason.

The second reason is even as commanders are trying to use the media as a weapon, they’re also being susceptible to it influencing their decisions on the battlefield. You have these two things: the media as a weapon and the media being used by commanders, influencing commanders’ decisions, and it creates a model of military-media relations which survives total war. We haven’t fought many total wars lately, but, in the era of limited war, the media is still a big factor. Vietnam becomes a television war, and there’s a big debate over how much that influences. But you see this throughout the war on terror (war on terrorism) and up to the current conflict in Ukraine, which some commentators have called a TikTok war because a lot of Americans and a lot of news is being shared on the latest information-sharing platform.

(Host)

Can you explain in a little bit more detail how the news influences commanders’ battlefield decisions?

(Lovelace)

The news really influences commanders’ decisions in, I would say, three big ways.

The first one is maybe the most obvious to Hollywood. It’s the general who’s media-obsessed, wants publicity, wants to make a name for himself, and that’s probably a little less common than one would suppose, but it does happen. The second way that commanders use the press is to create political support for a policy or their theater or campaign. And the third type of influence the press can extract from a commander is more insidious, and that is the commander doesn’t really know it’s happening, or he’s letting it happen because he thinks he has to.

(Host)

Today’s media is different from the press of, let’s say, World War II. And you say that’s OK. How so?

(Lovelace)

I would say there’s two main factors. The first is methodology. The press during World War II is often seen as somewhat more subservient or respectful of authority. Many reporters and news organizations today see themselves as international companies, not necessarily American companies. Exxon’s a massive, worldwide company. CNN is too, so there’s that shift when it comes to methodology.

The second real difference is technology. Today you have 24-hour cable news. You now have a plethora of blogs and Internet sites. The media is very different. I think one way technology really changes how news is reported was the onset of television where editors and paper owners and media company stockholders have a lot less influence when it comes to the editorial opinions of, say, anchormen. Suddenly, Walter Cronkite has a lot more editorial freedom than he might have had if he was just writing for a newspaper and having to get his stories past editors. So that’s one of the big changes. That’s even more different than today; there’s many different news sites, and they tend to be more focused towards specific audiences. There’s a very interesting study the RAND Corporation put out a couple years ago that talked about the focus of how news is becoming more focused towards select groups.

However, one of the big things is that the problems are different, but a lot of the issues are not. One of the big myths of the Second World War is that the press was kind of a lapdog of the government or the military, America was all united, and that wasn’t true at all. There was an opposition press to the Roosevelt administration before and leading up to the entry of the United States into World War II. That doesn’t go away. A lot of military journalists were also free to question the military. I mean, there was censorship, but censorship was not used to prevent criticism.

The press wasn’t necessarily always promilitary during the war. Another thing is that commanders during World War II were also dealing with new technology. They were dealing with radio. They were dealing with newsreels. They were dealing with magazines that dealt with photographs, and they had to learn to adapt to this kind of new technology. Likewise, the speed of news increases during the war.

(Host)

Talk to me about the press as a weapon and TikTok wars.

(Lovelace)

Well, during World War II, the US military tried to use the press as a weapon in several ways. First, they understood that a democracy at war had to have an informed public. They did a lot to encourage reporters. They have accreditation. They do have censorship, but it does tend to be of a fairly mild variety. So an informed population is one.

An informed soldiery is another. A lot of commanders believe American soldiers fight better, particularly when it’s a draft Army, when they know what they’re fighting for. So there’s also a big effort to get news to soldiers. Some commanders, George Patton is one, also tried to get news of ordinary soldiers back to hometown papers and to praise subordinates in the press in a big way. And the Army near the end of the war eventually catches on and begins institutionalizing that.

And there’s some attempts to use the press for deception during D-Day. It’s funny to see how the final announcement is worded: “Landing has begun on the northern coast of France.” Well, what does that mean?

There’s another way that the press is used and that is to not necessarily always give good news. By 1943, George Marshall and others in the military are worried that the American people are going to take the war for granted—that it’s already been won and we can sort of slack off. And Marshall and the Pentagon begin trying to make sure that bad news isn’t hidden. Mid-1943, they begin releasing pictures of dead American servicemen to show that the war’s still pretty serious.

Now, that’s World War II. Let’s talk about TikTok. TikTok is, first of all, not a social media app. There’s not a whole lot that is social about it. It’s an information-sharing platform. Now, the information might be goofy videos, but it also can be news, and some of it, I would argue, is somewhat sinister.

And I would say that for three reasons. Last September in 2021, the schools across the United States were hit by something called a TikTok challenge called ”devious licks,” in which the challenge was to vandalize your school’s bathroom or steal something and then videotape yourself doing this on TikTok. I couldn’t find any estimates of how much damage this caused. It must have been well within the millions of dollars. There were many arrests of children.

It shows just how powerful this app is, and it’s powerful for a number of reasons. How it works is it’s trying to figure out what you like so you can go on and you see these short little videos. And if you linger on one, TikTok knows it. It will try to feed you more videos like that.

Out of professional obligation, I opened TikTok for an hour. I decided I was going to try to see how fast I could get on stuff with Ukraine. It opens up, you see a goofy video. You see another goofy video. I found something with gas prices, I lingered there. I found something else on gas prices, I lingered there. 15 to 20 minutes in, I was getting all Ukraine stuff.

One of the things this algorithm does is that it also tends to be addictive. You’re seeing things you like in a way that is flashing at you, kind of like a (Las) Vegas slot machine. So it’s really hard to get off. And, finally, TikTok is a company that is run by a regime which is fairly hostile to the United States. And I don’t think that it was any accident that the third or fourth video I found on Ukraine was also the Chinese foreign minister explaining the Chinese position on the war.

To tell you the truth, I’m concerned about TikTok. It may be a little too late to ban it. I think it’s harmful in ways that go well beyond armed conflict. But it is something that policymakers and military commanders are going to have to be aware of. It also has been used in a good way in Ukraine. President (Volodymyr) Zelensky has used it incredibly well to rally international support and promote the legitimacy of his cause, and I don’t think this war would be the same without it. So that’s a good thing. At the same time, the next war may not be the same situation.

(Host)

You offer several suggestions, though. What can US military officers and policymakers do to prepare for tomorrow’s media war?

(Lovelace)

First, I think policymakers and officers need to understand that media is going to be used as a weapon, and they are susceptible to having their own decisions influenced by media pressure. I would say one of the best things you can do is try to understand how the media has worked in the past and how the media works today.

One of the things I do in this article is talk about how things that seem like they are public opinion actually are not. Twitter is a great example of this. A lot of times, you’ll see news articles saying Twitter blew up over, I don’t know, Johnny Depp or something like that, and you’ll read it and you’ll just see a bunch of Twitter posts from people you’ve never heard of. And that’s the news story. It’s just what some people said on Twitter. That’s something, and it lends to elite policymakers, such as if a US senator or a US president is on Twitter—that’s going to make news, and that’s going to influence other news outlets.

But at the same time, just because a lot of loud people on Twitter does not necessarily represent public opinion, commanders need to basically train themselves that they probably have a better understanding of what is happening on the ground. They have to make judgments based on the best military training and just sometimes ignore public opinion.

I do not want anyone to walk away thinking that wars are won in the media. Wars are won on the battlefield and through violence. The media is just one area of what commanders have to deal with. And I guess one final lesson to take away is for commanders to try to take time to create good relations with reporters and news outlets. I think the military actually doesn’t do such a bad job of that these days, and I think it’s well worth the time.

(Host)

Thank you, Alex. This was a really good time.

(Lovelace)

Thank you so much, Stephanie.

(Host)

Listeners, if you’d like to dive deeper into this topic, the author offers interesting insights and examples in the article. You can read it at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 52, issue 2.

If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or any other major podcasting platform.

Author information:

Dr. Alexander G. Lovelace is a scholar in residence at the Contemporary History Institute of Ohio University. His first book, The Media Offensive: How the Press and Public Opinion Shaped Allied Strategy during World War II, is being published by the University Press of Kansas in 2022.

This podcast discusses drone swarms, which can be used at sea, on land, in the air, and even in space, are fundamentally information-dependent weapons. No study to date has examined drone swarms in the context of information warfare writ large. This article explores the dependence of these swarms on information and the resultant connections with areas of information warfare—electronic, cyber, space, and psychological—drawing on open-source research and qualitative reasoning. Overall, the article offers insights into how this important emerging technology fits into the broader defense ecosystem and outlines practical approaches to strengthening related information warfare capabilities.

Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss2/13/

Episode Transcript

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, US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.

(Guest 1: Zachary Kallenborn)

(Host)

Decisive Point welcomes Zachary Kallenborn, author of “InfoSwarms: Drone Swarms and Information Warfare,” which was featured in the summer 2022 issue of Parameters. Kallenborn is a policy fellow at the Schar School of Policy and Government, a research affiliate of the Unconventional Weapons and Technology program at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Response to Terrorism (National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism), a senior consultant at ABS Group, and a self-proclaimed US Army “mad scientist.” He is the author of publications on autonomous weapons, drone swarms, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction.

Zach, I’m glad you’re here. Thanks for making time to chat with me today.

(Kallenborn)

Thanks for having me.

(Host)

Your article explores the dependence of drone swarms on information and the resultant connections with areas of information warfare—electronic, cyber, space, and psychological warfare—drawing on open-source research and qualitative reasoning. Put this in context for us, please.

(Kallenborn)

The context of the discussion is looking at drone swarms—a rapidly emerging technology that numerous states are developing. Obviously got the big players—China, Russia, the United States are all developing this technology. But even smaller powers, like South Africa. And this technology is even already being used in combat. We saw just last year that Israel used a drone swarm in combat in the fight against Gaza. Now, before jumping into these sort of larger issues of information warfare, it’s important to understand briefly what we mean by “drone swarm” here.

We’re not necessarily talking about simply large numbers of drones used en masse, which is often how the term is used within media, but really what we’re talking about is drones that have some level of communication and coordination between them so that they’re operating effectively as a singular unit instead of, say, 10, 15 individual drones.

Now, what that means is there’s potentially a range of capability within that. Because if we’re talking about simply coordination and communication at the basic level, that’s a pretty simple thing. So in the case of like the Israel example, likely all they’re really doing is just doing some coordinated searches over an area to help identify a target. It’s not anything all that fancy or unusual, but we can imagine in the future how artificial intelligence and autonomy may make coordination communication fairly significant. You could imagine, for example, a drone swarm that’s made up of multiple different types of drones operating in different domains with different types of payloads where they’re intelligently selecting, like, “Alright, let’s use this antitank weapon against this identified tank over here, and we’re going to send our antipersonnel weapons to this infantry unit over here,” and collectively sort of adapt and engage with the reality on the ground working across multiple domains, and all autonomously.

But the important thing, and what we’re going to get at in this article, is that regardless of that complexity, one of the key issues when it comes to drone swarms is information warfare, and, particularly, their dependence on those various subsets: electronic, cyber, space, and psychological warfare.

(Host)

Let’s start with electronic warfare. Electronic jamming: What do we need to know?

(Kallenborn)

We can start with individual drones because that’s the simple example here. One of the things that we’ve seen is that electronic jamming has been a really common form of attempting to defeat that system—namely, because drones typically rely on some sort of communication signal between the operator and the actual drone platform itself. So the idea is if you sever that communication link, then the drone may not necessarily be able to operate at all.

And that problem scales extensively when we talk about drone swarms because, necessarily, you have that same problem. You have an operator who has to send links and information to that swarm. But it becomes more complicated because to get at that point, the key issue of swarming is that communication and coordination between the different drones, which means you have another opportunity to jam, and, particularly, that inner-swarm communication. Because if you break down that communication, the notion of a swarm stops being meaningful.

Now one of the open questions, though, is how exactly that works in practice. Based on the way that the algorithms work from having, say, a dedicated leader—that sort of helping organize things to massively decentralized approaches—to having different communication pathways through a complex network. So how exactly jamming might work in practice may vary a lot.

And of course, if we’re talking about multidomain swarms where you start getting undersea drones interacting with surface vehicles, that becomes more complicated. But, nonetheless, the notion of jamming signals is equally appropriate there.

(Host)

What about cyber? What do we need to know?

(Kallenborn)

There is sort of a silly depiction, but I think it has some seriousness to it, of drones as sort of flying computers. And in a sense, that’s what they are. They’re kind of onboard systems that manage all aspects of the drone’s flight from specific flight controllers that manage the propellers and the various movement and the habitation of that system.

And when we start talking about drone swarms, that’s even more the case because you now have algorithms and systems to manage that broader communication, that coordination, the broader behavior of that swarm, so that at a very basic level, you may have—say, for example, task allocation algorithms to say, like, “OK, these drones are going over here, these drones are going over here, these drones are going to do this, those drones are going to do that.” And that’s a very cyber-based system, which of course means that it also creates vulnerabilities in the cyberspace for those systems.

So what happens if you have cyberattacks aimed at the systems that control the flight controllers? What happens if you attempt to manipulate those? You could get all sorts of problems, from the drones not operating correctly to crashing into one another, and you can imagine other types of cyber activities.

So, for example, if you’re using artificial intelligence-based machine vision in the swarm to help navigate the world around it, that could potentially be manipulated through cyber means by, for example, it manipulating the training data that goes into creating those machine vision systems through what are called, “(artificial intelligence or) AI poisoning attacks.” Conversely, you can also imagine using cyber to, say, again, break that link between the operator and the actual system itself. Except, rather than using . . . jamming the actual signal, you are manipulating the system that is actually responding and taking in those orders. And then, at an extreme level, you could imagine cyber being used to actively take control of and manipulate the swarm, which is perhaps the scariest, where your friendly swarm is now turned against you and destroying your own military forces, which could be quite bad.

(Host)

What about space warfare and the Global Navigation Satellite System? How do they relate to drone swarms?

(Kallenborn)

Yeah, so, there’s a couple dimensions to it. Firstly, there’s obviously the communication element. At the moment, most of the drone swarms are very sort of tactical, very short-range type operations. But as we start scaling, you could potentially look and need satellite-based communication to relay some of those signals. Likewise, we know that, at least at the moment, many of these drone swarms are heavily dependent on global position navigation, a positioning system for navigation timing. Basically, they need to understand where are they potentially located in space?

Now that’s one place where technology is developing, and there has been work on using a more autonomous, image-based recognition to help the swarm actually navigate. But, at the moment, there’s a close dependence on (the Global Positioning System or) GPS. But how exactly that works is again going to be very dependent on the nature of the swarm.

So, an interesting example of this is undersea swarms where you know GPS navigation is pretty difficult to get to those units. Instead, what researchers are doing are things like creating buoys on the surface that can access GPS signals and then use acoustic signals from the drones to the buoy, and then using that to sort of figure out where the drones are located in space and time to orient themselves to accomplish their missions.

(Host)

You say drone swarms have the least relevance for psychological warfare. How so?

(Kallenborn)

When we think about psychological at the more strategic aspect, we’re talking about shaping society’s perceptions and that type of thing. And in that case, you’re not really going to have much real use there. It’s pretty difficult to imagine, like, drone swarms spreading much propaganda pamphlets. And I suppose you could do that. But I don’t really know why you would want to. I think where the relevance starts is drone swarms as an object for mis- and malinformation.

There’s been broad global interest in placing bans on autonomous weapons. A big example of that, of course, is the Stop Killer Robots movement that wants complete bans on all autonomous systems. Now, personally, I think some of that is a little bit ridiculous, but, nonetheless, there is certainly a public concern about autonomous weapons generally. Many NATO countries have concern about this. So the concern is if we have all these drone swarms being used on the battlefield, well, what happens if some adversary says, “Oh, these are autonomous weapons, and they have all of the concerns that those systems do”? From escalation concerns to risk to civilians to accidentally targeting third, neutral parties to a conflict—that type of thing. And so, in that way, it can become a little bit relevant in which people create those concerns. And that’s exacerbated that many of the autonomous systems is a matter of programming and how the system is set up.

So, if the United States is accused of using some concerning system, how does the United States disprove that without showing directly the code? And that’s going to be something both probably very sensitive and—because we’re talking about potentially classified software systems—and, also, difficult to understand because your average person on the street—they’re not going to understand at all some complex coding of how the system works.

(Host)

How do you see AI and robotics shaping the future of drones?

(Kallenborn)

So technology advances hit on all of these aspects of information warfare for both good and bad. So, if we talk about electronic jamming, for example, a significant development is autonomy for drones in general. That is, if a drone doesn’t necessarily require human input, then they don’t really care that much about jamming, right?

Similarly, if we talk about GPS satellite information used to help navigation, if you have advanced AI and autonomy that can read and understand the area around them so that they can navigate by themselves without having GPS, then that dependency goes away. Conversely, we can imagine on the other direction as well, where artificial intelligence and robotics may improve some of these capabilities. So say, for example, using . . . combining artificial intelligence to improve electronic jamming capabilities to more effectively attack and defeat swarms. Alternatively, you can imagine swarms incorporating some of those same capabilities. What if a drone has a payload that has a jammer on it, perhaps to attack another swarm to make it more difficult to operate? That can then support the use of other types of payloads that are more directly destroying the actual platform.

(Host)

Let’s kind of pull it all together here. What are your recommendations going forward?

(Kallenborn)

The biggest picture is more conceptual . . . being commanders and military leaders needing to think seriously around the interconnections between drone swarms and information warfare.

Now to an extent, of course, information warfare is relevant to all forms of warfare. Even regular human beings need to communicate between one another. But unlike human beings, drones do not necessarily have the complex cognition to make decisions where they can potentially operate without that human control. And so, being aware of that, I think, is really critical. That of course comes across multiple aspects of conflict that starts with simply drone swarm acquisition phases, to understand, “What are the potential vulnerabilities that these systems may have,” that then extend potentially to use on the battlefield as well as training with that system to understand how it might be used or some of the risks. And then, when you actually use it in the battlefield, understanding, “What are the information warfare risks that come into play in that particular context?”

And then, likewise, I think there’s, at a bigger-picture level, the necessity to consider the broader information space. Because there has been at least some evidence, albeit a little bit mixed, that the United States has had some issues when it comes to information warfare from not using capabilities as much as they should or potentially having, in the case of cyber, widespread vulnerabilities, as was identified in a recent Government Accountability Office report. Now I’ve seen some pushback on those, but, nonetheless, I think there’s a broader need to the extent that drone swarms are part of the battlefield and, more broadly, drones generally are part of the battlefield to think through that sort of complex information environment and think through what gaps might the United States have, and where might they create vulnerabilities, and how might we plug them to be successful in the future.

(Host)

It was a treat to talk with you. Thanks for your time.

(Kallenborn)

Yeah—thanks for having me.

(Host)

Listeners, if you’d like to learn more; get some rich details; and get some relevant, current-day examples of “InfoSwarms: Drone Swarms and Information Warfare,” I urge you to read this article. You can find it at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 52, issue 2.

If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or any other major podcasting platform.

Author information:

Zachary Kallenborn is a policy fellow at the Schar School of Policy and Government, a research affiliate of the Unconventional Weapons and Technology program at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, a senior consultant at ABS Group, and the officially proclaimed US Army “mad scientist.” He is the author of publications on autonomous weapons, drone swarms, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction.

This podcast examines faits accomplis—how states attempt to seize disputed territory using military force, hoping to avoid war in the process—and offers suggestions for how to deter them. Since 1945, faits accomplis have become the most common means by which states attempt to take over territory, even though they frequently result in armed conflict. US deterrent efforts, however, often focus on stopping invasions, not limited land grabs. This study combines the traditional literature on deterrence with Dan Altman’s recent research on faits accomplis to suggest Department of Defense leaders should frame territorial disputes as a real estate market they can both analyze and manipulate.

Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss2/12/

Episode Transcript

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.

The guests in speaking order on this episode are:

(Guest 1: Brandon Colas)

(Host)

Decisive Point welcomes Mr. Brandon Colas, author of “Defining and Deterring Faits Accomplis,” which was featured in the Summer 2022 issue of Parameters. Colas is anArmy officer [unintelligible] currently embedded with the United Kingdom Strategic Command Intelligence Center in London as a liaison officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

Welcome to Decisive Point, Brandon. It’s great to have this chance to chat with you. Let’s talk about your article, “Defining and Deterring Faits Accomplis.” This study combines the traditional literature of deterrence with Dan Altman’s recent research on faits accomplis to suggest Department of Defense leaders should frame territorial disputes as taking part in a real-estate market that they can both analyze and manipulate to discourage our opponents from conquering without conquest.

What does this look like? Please give us an outline here.

(Colas)

So when I started this research, I began with Tom Schelling (Thomas C. Schelling) and his 1968 classic and, in a lot of ways, Schelling—even though his book is breezy, it’s academic lectures that he’s talking about. It really has defined the US deterrence discussion ever since.

And so Schelling talks about brute force and coercion. And so, brute force—we used to think like (Adolf) Hitler, Poland 1940, right? And coercion would be just building up those forces on the border until the other side caves and gives up their territory or makes those concessions that you’re wanting.

So again, going back to Hitler, you think about him entering Denmark unopposed, right? So those are sort of the two classic examples. But more recent international relations research, especially led by Dan Altman, who’s at Georgia State (University), has looked at small, limited territorial seizures. He calls them faits accomplis, so there’s limited territory that’s disputed. There’s the use of military force, but the aggressor statement still attempts to avoid war in the process. And what’s interesting, Altman goes back from 1945 to present, and he discovers that there’s only four cases of brute force actually being used to seize territory since then. And so that’s when one state again uses their military to completely absorb another state. And those cases—some of them succeeded, like North and South Vietnam. Some of them failed, like Iraq and Kuwait, but it’s actually not that common. And he finds that coercion for seizing wholesale seizure of territory is actually even less common.

So you have this sort of contradiction where you think about words as being caused by territorial conflict, and yet major territorial conflict doesn’t take place. And that’s where Altman looks at faits accomplis and discovers that there’s 65 cases post-1945 of limited use of military force to seize limited territory, like land grabs.

So the classic example is Russia in the Crimea in 2014. It’s just striking, looking back on it, how much Ukraine loses there: It’s 10,000 square miles of territory, two million citizens, pretty much all of their navy. And yet there’s only one Ukrainian casualty.

And so yes, there was some violence involved. All the violence was latent, but it was there. But at the end of the day, this is not a traditional invasion that we think of. It was a fait accompli.

Or we think about China in the South China Sea or the East China Sea that’s like building islands in the middle of nowhere to expand their territory again. There’s violence involved there. They have military defenses placed on these, and yet we don’t really know quite how to deter this or how to handle it. And so that’s what I wanted to study in this article is: How do we frame these limited uses of the military to seize limited pieces of territory, and then how do we deter them? It doesn’t seem like it’s big enough to go to war over, and yet it’s still something that needs to be stopped.

(Host)

That leads right into my next question: Explain the calculus of determining the desirability of faits accomplis. How do states seize territory?

(Colas)

I wanted to think about why they would seize territory at a particular time. A fait accompli might be something gradualist and slow, or it might be something really kind of quick, like Russia in the Crimea. But what are the factors that would make a state want to seize a piece of disputed territory? And in the article, I came up with the idea of this territory as a sort of real-estate market where you have two opposing states that are looking at this territory, and each state values the territory a little bit differently. But what they have in common is that they don’t want to go to a full-scale war to seize the territory. That’s why the territories are disputed. But that’s also why it isn’t resolved yet.

And so, as I was thinking about that, I wanted to also ask the question of what factors could change to make a state decide, “Now is the time to risk going to war to seize this territory” or “Now still isn’t the time.” And so that’s where I looked at the idea of states factor in the cost of war if they’re going to seize the territory, and I think states would be planning for the worst-case scenario: What happens if they try to seize the territory and end up losing? The second is just the probability of war. Can they actually move in like Russia did in Crimea and not go to war? And then the probability of victory gives them war. So if it does come down to a fight, are they going to win and get this territory at the end? And so the market model isn’t really asking how they see the territory so much as why they seize the territory at a particular time. What are those factors?

(Host)

Can you talk a little bit more about the model that you offer in your article and just walk us through how that works?

(Colas)

Thinking about how states are looking at the probability of war, the probability of victory, and then also the cost of war, I thought of four factors that states both influence for themselves and try to shape for other states’ perceptions. The first is going to be historical claims. States make historical claims on territory in order to show that they value the territory.

You look at like China’s claims for the South China Sea. They end up going back to this kind of questionable 1947 map. And then, in 2016, they ended up saying they actually found a book that was 500 years old that really proved this has always been Chinese. And then, when the BBC tried to go interview the person who had found the book, they actually had lost the book. So there’s all these crazy historical claims, but states still make them because it’s a signal. It doesn’t convince anybody. I mean, it might convince people within the state itself; it doesn’t convince anybody else though. But it’s a signal that things matter. And you look at (Vladimir) Putin’s crazy essay in July of last year where he talks about how Russia and Ukraine have always been one people. It’s this horrifically boring tone. You can’t follow his logic or his reasoning, but it’s a signal that this matters to Putin. And so, states do this all the time.

And one thing we should think about, too, is even with our allies, if they’re not making claims about these territories that they are in dispute over, like Japan and the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyu Islands) against China—if our allies aren’t making the same sort of kind of tedious, tendentious historical claims, it’s a signal that perhaps it’s not actually that important to them.

So these historical claims do matter not because they convince people, but because they show a measure of conviction by a state and its leaders. The second and third both affect the cost of war for a state. The first is obviously military modernization and military developments. If you have a better military, the cost of war is likely to go down for you. It’s likely to increase for your opponents. So that’s something that states need to watch: As another state increases the quality capabilities of its military, it could make them more likely to be aggressive because the cost is less for them.

Another way we can affect the cost of war is looking at the possibility of broadening the quarrel. The focal point here is disputed territories. But when a state brings in other matters into the quarrel, it can make it a lot harder to justify war for this particular territory. So by one example—this is just speculation obviously; this not US government policy; it probably never will be—but if the US tied Chinese student visas and linked that to Chinese expansion in the South China Sea—sorry, started cutting Chinese student visas—on the one hand, these are not related issues. On the other hand, by expanding the quarrel, it forces China to take a step back for their aggression. And so that’s one way that states are able to affect the cost of war: by bringing in matters that are unrelated.

And then the last thing: Thinking about how states affect the probability of war, recent research has been pretty clear that troop placement is a major factor in whether or not territory gets seized. Altman’s research shows that post-1990, when you’re looking at faits accomplis, the majority of them take place in territories that are not garrisoned. And there’s different speculations as to why that is. Part of it is if the territory’s valuable, you probably already have troops there. Part of it is if you have troops there, they could serve as a trip wire and escalate matters. But regardless, I think the case of the matter is, if it’s a disputed territory, especially for our allies, and they don’t have a garrison there, or they don’t have troops nearby, the signal that they’re sending is that it might not be that important to them.

So again, four different areas—historical claims, military developments, broadening the quarrel, and troop placement—they’re all ways that states can use to shape the value of this disputed territory—both for themselves, and then you can try to shape it for your opponent as well. In an ideal situation, if you want the status quo—so you just want to keep the territory disputed, you agree to disagree? You want to keep the value about the same for you, and if your opponent’s value is going up, you try to raise your value. If your opponent’s value is going down, you’re cautious about raising yours because you don’t want your own population to try to increase it. On the other hand, if you want to seize the territory yourself, you’d be wise to lower the value in your opponent’s perception and raise the value of your own.

(Host)

How can the market model be used to deter faits accomplis?

(Colas)

Even thinking of relatively simple steps that the (the Department of Defense or) DoD is already doing—joint training and exercises with allied forces—what that’s going to do is help their military improve our military improve as we have interoperability like that.

So when it comes time to dispute a territory—again, thinking back to like the South and East China Seas, as the US does joint operations with the Japanese Self-Defense Force and improves that capability and we improve our own capability, the cost goes up for China at the same time if they wanted to try to seize the territory.

So the relatively simple things, a lot of which we are doing, can affect the value of territory. Where I think that matters is that we’re intentional about why we’re doing it and that we focus that attention especially on these geographically disputed areas where war could happen at any time.

(Host)

Do you have any final thoughts before we part ways?

(Colas)

Yeah, just two things. The first is that I think contested issues are issues of value. And so, the article that I wrote about focused on territorial disputes and, like, deterring our opponents—obviously, we have to ask, “Deterring them from what?” But if we’re able to shape their values and shape our values, I think that can make a difference in how we choose problems.

The second is that our opponents’ tactics, what they use—that’s a means of communication. So, uh, Thomas Schelling talks about the idiom of military action, and the idea behind that is that the means that they use to pursue an end are telling us something, whether or not they want to tell us it. So when we look at a fait accompli, the state is seizing the territory, they’re using the military, they’re risking war—at the end of the day, they’re doing this because they don’t want to go to war for the territory. And so, this signal is they’re going to risk war, but they’re not exactly there yet. And so, one thing that Altman’s researchers showed is that a vigorous military response to a fait accompli when it’s happening often is enough to make it fail. And it can stop there.

And so I think one takeaway from this article is we have to listen to what our opponents are saying. We have to listen to what they’re not saying as well. We’ve been hearing different Russians screaming about red lines ever since February. At the end of the day, we’ve crossed a lot of those red lines so far, and Russia hasn’t done anything, so the real message here that Russia is implicitly sending, whether they want to or not, is that they don’t have the capability or the will to stop what we’ve been doing so far. So I think that’s another important takeaway from this article.

(Host)

This was a real pleasure. Thank you so much for taking time today.

(Colas)

Oh—thanks so much for the chance, Stephanie.

(Host)

Listeners, if you’d like more details about defining and deterring faits accomplis, you can read the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 52, issue 2.

If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or any other major podcasting platform.

Author information:

Major Brandon Colas is a US Army foreign area officer currently embedded with the United Kingdom Strategic Command Defence Intelligence in London as a liaison officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency.

This podcast argues shortfalls in the international institutions governing the Arctic have allowed Russia and China to expand control over the region. It provides an overview of regional governance and power dynamics, outlines a three-part approach to correcting deficiencies, highlights attempts by Russia and China to circumvent international governance, examines how the Arctic’s governing institutions address Russian and Chinese growth in the region, and focuses on the institutional failures that have allowed Russia and China to expand—failures academic scholarship and US policy have not adequately addressed. Practitioners will find specific steps for rectifying issues with Arctic institutions to support the United States’ interests in the region.

Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss2/11/

Episode Transcript

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 guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.

The guests in speaking order on this episode are:

(Guest 1: Mark T. Vicik)

(Host)

Decisive Point welcomes US Army Captain Mark T. Vicik, author of “Strengthen Arctic Governance to Stop Russian and Chinese Overreach,” which featured in the summer 2022 issue of Parameters. Vicik is a student at the Military Intelligence Captains Career Course at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. He holds a bachelor-of-arts degree in international relations and Middle East and North Africa studies from the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He conducts research on and writes about Arctic great-power dynamics and security issues and is the author of “The Future Arenas of Great Power Competition,” which was published in The SAIS Review of International Affairs.

Mark, I’m glad you’re here. Let’s talk about Arctic governance. Observers often credit effective intergovernmental organizations like the Arctic Council and universally respected international agreements like the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea with maintaining this prolonged period of cooperation in the Arctic. American policymakers have consistently relied on the maintenance of this rules-based order as foundational for their national security strategy in the Arctic. How does Arctic governance currently work?

(Vicik)

Yeah, so, first off, thanks so much, Stephanie, for having me on and letting me share my work. It’s been such a privilege working with you and the teams at Parameters and Decisive Point. So the broad umbrella of what we call Arctic governance includes a variety of agreements that regulate activity in the region. The two that I highlight in my work are the ones that are most often cited by policymakers and academics as indicative of this spirit of cooperation that I look at kind of critically assessing questions about my work. But those two are the (United Nations or) UN Convention on the Law of the Sea or UNCLOS and the Arctic Council.

Looking in some detail at those two institutions, in 2008, in Ilulissat, Greenland, the five Arctic littoral states—Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the US—met and pledged to adhere to the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UN Convention on the Law of the Sea) to regulate territorial claims in the Arctic. This would give countries the right to exercise sovereignty to 12 nautical miles off their coastline as well as rights to exploring and exploiting resources up to 200 miles off their continental shelf and their exclusive economic zone. Any disputes to these territorial claims are supposed to be resolved through the UN Convention on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf).

Looking at the Arctic Council, it’s a multinational organization focused on improving conditions in the region. It provides a platform for Arctic states, indigenous groups, and interested observers to discuss issues like environmental protection, sustainable resource use, and human development. Russia, as an Arctic state, is one of the permanent members—and, as of 2021, is actually the chair, a position that rotates permanent members every two years. So, they’ll be in seat from 2021 to 2023. And China holds observer status.

Again, it’s frequently cited as one of the defining features to suggest this region’s atypically successful multinational governance.

(Host)

It looks like things might be changing, though. How do Russia and China fit into the Arctic dynamic looking forward?

(Vicik)

Speaking generally, Russia has a deep cultural connection to the region and has historically been one of the major players in international Arctic politics. To state the obvious, it has the largest Arctic territory of any state. It’s a key member of the Arctic Council and has historically had a pretty effective military capacity in its far north.

Since 2001, though, it’s really been rapidly expanding its military and economic presence in the region. It established the Northern Fleet Joint Strategic Command in 2014, and its 2008 (Foundations of the Russian Federation’s) State Policy for the Arctic (until 2021 and beyond) identified Arctic energy and mineral deposits as its strategic resource base for the future.

China, on the other hand, is lacking that historical connection to the region, so it’s been scrambling to artificially craft a foothold there as it increasingly acknowledges the region’s potential for future commercial activity. It’s been referring to itself as “a near-Arctic power,” which, I should note, the US government has referred to this title as nonsense (rightfully so).

More concretely, it’s been trying to work its way into Arctic governing institutions, primarily through scientific research. So it established the Yellow River Scientific Research Station on the Svalbard Islands in 2004, and, in 2013, that helped it get observer status in the Arctic Council. They’ve been using this scientific footprint to increasingly expand their economic—and, potentially, in the near future, military—capacity in the region. It’s been funding large infrastructure projects in various Arctic states, to include, in large part, Russia.

Talking specifically about my work, I argue that over the last decade or two, Russia and China have been deliberately exploiting shortfalls in Arctic governing institutions in order to increase their control in the region.

Regarding the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UN Convention on the Law of the Sea), there are two major, unresolved issues, the first being the Lomonosov Ridge, the second being the status of the North Sea Route (Northern Sea Route)—both of which Russia and China have been capitalizing to increase their control of the region.

Looking at the Lomonosov Ridge, it’s a roughly 1,100-mile-long underwater feature on the Arctic Sea floor that is likely quite resource-rich. In 2001, Russia submitted their first claim for its inclusion into their exclusive economic zone under UNCLOS. Since then, its claims have been rejected multiple times as scientifically insufficient. The ridge’s status still remains in dispute between various Arctic powers. In a 2007, though, we saw Russia send a deep-sea submersible to plant the national flag on the seabed there, which was an early indication that, without a clear ruling from the UN, they consider that space to be Russian territory—or, at the very least, space that they can and will attempt to exploit for resources.

The second issue pertains to the North Sea Route (Northern Sea Route), which is one of the key maritime transitways through Arctic waters, along with the Northwest Passage and the Transpolar Sea Route. It runs along Russia’s northern coastline. And with year-round ice coverage in the region increasingly shrinking due to climate change, it offers a potentially critical new commercial artery between East Asia and Europe.

Currently, the route’s status—that is, whether it’s classified as international waters or as a Russian internal waterway—remains ambiguous under UNCLOS. But Russia has been increasingly imposing constraints on foreign vessels attempting to navigate through the passageway. And additionally, they’ve been developing infrastructure fairly aggressively along that route, often with significant support from China via their Belt and Road Initiative.

Looking at the Arctic Council, its charter bans any discussion on military matters. Forums like the Arctic Security Forces Roundtable and the Northern (European) Chiefs of Defense used to partially fill this gap. But since 2014, Russia has been excluded from those venues based on their aggression in Crimea. And of course, China plays no role in them either. Economically, the Arctic Council has a pretty well-established norm of focusing on safe and noncontroversial issues, which has left these massive Sino-Russian infrastructure projects that increasingly define activity in the region as outside the purview of the Arctic Council.

So you can see that as developing military capacity and large-scale commercial operations increasingly define our adversaries’ activities in the region, Russia and China are able to continue to participate in following this rules-based international order while continuing to expand control of the region largely unchecked and outside the lens of multinational organizations.

(Host)

In your article, you suggest a plan to strengthen Arctic governance. What would that look like?

(Vicik)

Yeah, so, I offer up three areas of focus to supplement these existing Arctic governing structures to prepare for this increasingly competitive environment with our adversaries. The first is a proposal to supplement the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas (UN Convention on the Law of the Sea) to resolve specific Arctic maritime disputes—particularly, the ones that I highlighted earlier. The second proposal is for a new military and economic forum to fill the gaps in the Arctic Council. I genuinely appreciate the good work the Arctic Council has done. When Russia took over the chairmanship in 2021, it identified its priorities as promoting sustainable development, supporting indigenous populations, and protecting biodiversity. These priorities are pretty indicative of what we see on new countries taking over the chairmanship, and they’re good progressive goals that the US should be supporting.

But we can see that there’s a pretty glaring lack of mention of the massive economic projects and increased military activity that’s starting to form the foundation of Russian strategy in the region. We need a forum in place so that the US can continue to support those good, cooperative goals at the Arctic Council, but it has a venue to address and manage Chinese and Russian military and economic activity in a multinational setting.

Finally, I suggest the formation of the new northern security alliance that focuses on collective monitoring and security throughout the European and North American Arctic—like a (North American Aerospace Defense Command or) NORAD that would be extended to our European Arctic powers.

A lot of scholars talk about NATO as the potential future for multinational security alliances in the Arctic, but it really is falling short of being able to put forward a comprehensive plan for Arctic security. In 2016, NATO issued a general commitment to deter and defend threats to the North Atlantic. But, again, it’s fallen short of a comprehensive Arctic security policy. It’s a great alliance, but they’re just too many members with too limited an interest in the High North to really form an effective foundation for our security in the European Arctic. We need a more proactive, more streamlined, more focused northern security alliance to monitor and preempt Russian and Chinese incursions into the region.

(Host)

Do you have any final thoughts? Can you pull this all together for us and put a bow on it?

(Vicik)

I have two final thoughts, if you don’t mind: one focused and one a little less focused.

First off, I mean, whether or not everyone agrees with all of my assessments or recommendations, I hope that, at the very least, getting my work out there helps better frame the way we look at the strategic balance between cooperation and competition in the Arctic.

Since I started research for this paper, we’ve already seen some increased acknowledgement of the competitive aspects that our adversaries are bringing into the region. And the Army’s newly released Arctic Strategy, I think, does a really good job of acknowledging the changing competitive environment in putting forward some really good tactical- and operational-level changes to build our capacity to compete with our adversaries up there.

That being said, as we build this capacity to confront overreach by our competitors, I think it’s important to acknowledge that there’s good cooperation occurring in things like science and sustainable development and support to indigenous populations. And we need to be putting structures in place to separate the cooperative successes from the competitive necessities.

My second piece—and if you don’t mind me taking just a quick step back from the Arctic for a moment—I think it is worth noting, I have the privilege of being probably one of the more junior officers who’s had the privilege of contributing to this podcast. And I wanted to take a moment just to encourage my generation of young officers to think and write more critically about these strategic-level issues where we’re stepping into a highly complex strategic environment.

Based on all the junior officers and (noncommissioned officers or) NCOs I’ve had the opportunity to work with, I know we have teams in place that are more than capable of meeting those challenges. But I think we owe it to the American public that we’ve taken the oath to defend to continue to engage with these issues and prepare ourselves accordingly.

(Host)

Thank you for taking that little side step, and thank you also for your contribution to Parameters.

(Vicik)

I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to get my voice out.

(Host)

Listeners, if you’d like to learn more about Arctic governance, you can read the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 52, issue 2.

If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or any other major podcasting platform.

Author information:

Captain Mark T. Vicik, US Army, is a student at the Military Intelligence Captains Career Course at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. He holds a bachelor of arts degree in international relations and Middle East and North Africa studies from the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He conducts research on and writes about Arctic great-power dynamics and security issues and is the author of “The Future Arenas of Great Power Competition,” which was published in The SAIS Review of International Affairs.

This podcast assesses the American-Russian economic relationship, identifying how Russia exploits strategic asymmetries to gain advantage in the space below armed conflict and how the United States can modernize its economic statecraft. It draws upon a wide range of comparative research, from US-Russian military thought to the American-Eurasian economic interrelationship, to evaluate the full range of economic statecraft within a single dyad of countries in the context of coercion theory. This analysis will assist American policymakers in reforming priorities and processes according to principles of economic statecraft to sustain ongoing American coercion and set conditions for advantage upon the return to bilateral competition.

Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss2/10/

Episode Transcript

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 guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.

The guests in speaking order on this episode are:

(Guest 1: Ryan J. Orsini)

(Host)

Decisive Point welcomes Major Ryan J. Orsini, author of “Economic Statecraft and US-Russian Policy,” which was featured in the summer 2022 issue of Parameters. Orsini is a US Army infantry officer assigned as a student at the Command and Staff General College (Command and General Staff College) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He holds a master of public policy degree from Georgetown University. Ryan, I’m glad you’re here. Thanks for joining me today. Let’s talk about the US, Russia, and economic statecraft. Please lay the groundwork for us. What is your working definition of economic statecraft for this scenario?

(Orsini)

Thank you for the question. Thank you for having me. So, put simply, economic statecraft is the use of a nation’s economic means in pursuit of either geopolitical or domestic goals. That’s everything from trade policy, industrial policy, sanctions—it’s a big bucket. Now, here, I address a small portion. So I’m speaking, specifically, the US-Russian dyad and a particular spot on the conflict spectrum: the gray zone, the space between peace and war.

But, really, I’m addressing two fundamental questions: first, how Russia uses its economic means, both licit and illicit, to sort of punch above its weight class and garner international influence, extracting these gains despite US deterrence policy and overall advantage in economic means. And then I ask, “What can the US do to leverage the economic instrument and really achieve the coercion it desires?” So I put forward the policy recommendation of domestic coordination, international cooperation, and transatlantic transparency.

(Host)

Well, let’s break it down. Walk us through them. Let’s start with domestic coordination. What needs to happen here?

(Orsini)

So US economic statecraft—it often lacks unity of effort. Its authorities and its resources are spread across branches of government and the interagency. What does this look like in practice? Well, first, it’s organization. Identifying a lead agency or task force. There are lots of options. I propose some, but, really, this agency serves a couple critical roles: assessing the changing Russian vulnerabilities to US economic leverage over time, evaluating the effectiveness of US policy over time, and ensuring that coordination across the interagency of the statecraft.

Second is priority. Unlike in the defense community, there is no overriding document. There’s no national defense strategy guiding the economic tool. And also it’s about economic lines of effort. For instance, in this new era of great-power competition, how do we prioritize counterauthoritarian influence operations versus counterthreat finance?

These are guiding principles that can really help guide the overall economic instrument. And, finally, it’s process: creating the legal mechanisms that the interagency can use to enforce antimoney laundering in the modern age to protect both privacy and access to data that it needs to be effective on today’s global stage.

(Host)

International cooperation: What does that look like in your plan?

(Orsini)

I’m looking in particular since the 2014 Crimean crisis. And if you look in the snapshot, the US economic statecraft has often lacked the broad international enforcement or has failed to maintain it over time. And, ultimately, this dilutes or nullifies intended effects of economic statecraft. So what does this look like? Really, it’s working with like-minded international bodies, political, economic, intelligence agencies. And the key is to work within the current overall Eurasian politic.

So I offer a mix of positive and negative economic inducements. We often forget that economic statecraft is also positive inducements—how to prioritize sanctions and sanctions relief. And, ultimately, the big goal here is to align the incentive structures and build resilience for other states from Russian influence.

(Host)

Your final point was transparency, and I need to point out it’s not just about dollars and rubles exclusively. This included Bitcoin, (Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges or) INSTEX, the central-bank digital currencies, and you also mentioned the US Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020. Can you walk us through this part of your plan?

(Orsini)

So data might not quite be the new oil per se, but it really is the key to understanding Russian influence as well as how effective American statecraft can be against it. And you offered a bunch of mechanisms by which Russia can exploit these blurry legal and financial structures. And that starts here in the US.

We have a myriad of antimoney-laundering laws that help define beneficial ownership across economic transactions. I point to plenty of potential legislation or legislation that is in execution right now.

And why is it transatlantic? Well, the hub of international finance still runs a lot through New York City, London, and Brussels. So at end state, it’s about building actionable attribution and accountability. And these mechanisms within the international community—we can really garner a lot of influence just within our like-minded partners.

(Host)

Before we go, do you have any final thoughts?

(Orsini)

Knowing the readers of Parameters, I’d like to bring this idea of consolidating gains to making temporary advantage enduring. And, you know, there is a nonmilitary aspect to the American way of war. The economic tool usually shapes, and it usually translates advantage into some enduring outcome. But we often build it around a military action. I’d encourage the listeners, wherever you are in the interagency and whatever instrument you are a part of—think about how your piece can support this economic tool. It’s not normally how we think of it, but in a world where deterrence is really our largest contribution, it may be how we focus going forward, and this is a place where Russia has had success. It’s a playbook that they can bring off the shelf and utilize. And so, pending the results of ongoing conflict, it’s something they might likely go back to. It behooves us to look at this environment and shape it while there is a policy opportunity here now.

(Host)

Thank you, Ryan. Listeners, you can read this article, “Economic Statecraft and US-Russian Policy,” to get details about how Russia exploits strategic asymmetries to gain advantage in the space below armed conflict and how the United States can modernize its economic statecraft. Visit press.armywarcollege.edu. Look for volume 52, issue 2.

If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or any other major podcasting platform.

Author information:

Major Ryan J. Orsini, US Army, is an infantry officer assigned as a student at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He holds a master of public policy degree from Georgetown University.

In this podcast, Colonel George Shatzer, director of the Strategy Research and Analysis Department of the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College, discusses books of relevance to US Joint planners and strategists, as well as those of allies and strategic partners. He applies his experience and education as a US Army senior strategist to extract insights useful to anyone contemplating how to confront the challenges of today’s strategic environment.

Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss2/16/

Episode Transcript

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, US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.

The guests in speaking order on this episode are:

(Guest 1: George Shatzer)

(Host)

Decisive Point welcomes Colonel George Shatzer, director of the Strategic Research and Analysis Division in the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College. Colonel Shatzer authors the (Strategic Research and Analysis Division or) SRAD Director’s Corner in Parameters. In the 2022 summer issue, he covers Russia and Ukraine.

SRAD Director’s Corner is relatively new to Parameters. In it, you review books of possible interest to contemporary military strategists—especially, those serving in US Army and Joint positions. The summer issue contains the second installment of this section, and the focus is on Russia and Ukraine. Thanks for being here.

(Shatzer)

Well, thanks for the opportunity to discuss the article and this important issue.

(Host)

This conflict has not unfolded the way many people thought it would. Your piece emphasizes the value of knowing your enemy, and how it’s a pathway to understanding oneself and the kind of war on which we’re embarking. It’s through this lens that your reviews are written.

(Shatzer)

That’s right. As I mentioned in the article, the day-to-day demands of commanders, leaders, and strategists to ensure our nation’s security can be all-consuming. There are endless demands on time when you are preparing to deter war or to be ready for it, and those demands are mostly internal or focused on ourselves. Even with the assistance of very dedicated intelligence professionals, it can be easy for decisionmakers and strategists to lose sight of the adversary’s views or motivations.

So, taking the time to read works such as those that I profile in the review series can help us build insight on what the adversary is thinking.

(Host)

How does Oscar Jonsson’s The Russian Understanding of War: Blurring the Lines between War and Peace inform this topic?

(Shatzer)

Jonsson’s book was fascinating. I really appreciated how thoroughly he built a case through his review of pre-Soviet, Soviet, and modern Russian military writings and doctrine. He argues that the current Russian view of the very nature of war, not just its character, has fundamentally changed.

In brief, Jonsson asserts that Russian leaders and security professionals believe that the US and the West have become so expert in information and psychological warfare that the nature of war is no longer defined by armed violence. Instead, they believe that the nature of modern warfare is defined by political and social subversion and that these means now have effects akin to those of armed force, when you consider what subversion campaigns have done to governments recently.

And what the Russians are referring to, of course, are the so-called “color revolutions” in the early 2000s, particularly in countries such as Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus, but also in the Arab Spring events in the Mideast in 2011. What most in the West saw as populist grassroots movements by oppressed peoples to demand a voice in their otherwise corrupt governments, the Russians saw as coordinated subversion campaigns engineered by the US and the West to overthrow legitimate governments and trample traditional social values in those countries. And, more broadly, the Russians view these movements as the opening moves of a campaign—an undeclared war, in effect, by the US and the West intended to destroy the Russian state and nation as they exist today.

So understanding this perspective is important for a couple of reasons, I think. First, it clarifies the motivations for the current Russian war in Ukraine. From the point of view that Russia is defending itself against an undeclared US and Western war, then most any action is justified. In fact, Russia has been very open for many years now, well before its 2014 intervention in Ukraine (the Ukraine crisis), that Ukraine is in essence a vital national interest for Russia. And Russia has been clear that it would act to defend its security interest there—namely, the ethnic Russian people that live in Ukraine and the territory of Ukraine that borders the Russian state, which is also, in Russia’s view anyway, actually the land of the larger Russian nation.

There are also a host of other factors that make Ukraine important to Russia that I mentioned in the article—chiefly, the agricultural and industrial capacity there as well as the Black Sea coast. So this all gets to the second reason why the Russian perspective is important to consider: It gives us a better sense of Russia’s commitment to their so-called “special military operation” there.

A lot of attention has been paid so far in the war to the Ukrainian will to resist, but we should also be gauging the potential Russian will to persist. Accepting that Russia views its vital security interests as bound up in Ukraine to the point that those security concerns are even existential for Russia, then it would seem to suggest Russia will not end their invasion readily. When we also consider that Russia has been trying to destabilize the Ukrainian government for at least 10 years at this point through support to rebel groups in the eastern regions of Ukraine and even with the direct, unconventional intervention of its own soldiers in 2014, then we see even more clearly the depth of Russia’s investment. Russia will not give up in this conflict quickly.

(Host)

Neal Jesse’s Learning from Russia’s Recent Wars: Why, Where, and When Russia Might Strike Next was your next choice. What does it add to the conversation?

(Shatzer)

Neal Jesse’s book brings in an additional layer of analysis on past Russian modern interventions and aggressions since the end of the Soviet Union. Particularly, he focuses in on the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute in Azerbaijan; the civil war in Tajikistan; the Transdniestria conflict in Moldova; the Abkhazia and South Ossetia conflicts in Georgia; the wars in Chechnya; but, especially, the 2014 intervention in Ukraine (the Ukraine crisis). Jesse’s commentary on Russia’s actions in Ukraine in 2014, which he wrote in 2020, I think, are particularly insightful.

Despite corruption issues and other problems in Ukrainian government, Jesse contends that Ukraine actually did a fair job at dealing with the resistance groups and Russian infiltrations. He argues that it managed to stabilize the security situation and largely forwarded Russia’s primary aims. His analysis makes one wonder what lessons Russia might have failed to learn in 2014 about Ukrainian resilience, actually.

Additionally, from his assessment of past Russian interventions, Jesse lays out a pattern of operations that Russia might use in a future conflict with Ukraine, and those assessments actually seem to hit the mark exactly with what we see going on there today: subversive activity to destabilize the situation, deployment of regular military forces, information campaigns, eventual violation of borders, seizing terrain, and the threat of nukes as strategic blackmail. As Jesse correctly concludes, quote, “The Russian threat to Ukraine is the most obvious and the most constant.”

(Host)

There’s no shortage of books on this topic. In fact, you very kindly suggest some at the end of your article. Why did you choose these two to focus on?

(Shatzer)

What I try to do with the article series is review one work that has a more, you know, theoretical, policy, or strategic focus and pair it with a review of a second book that is still strategic but offers a deeper look at theater, strategic, or even operational questions.

I did that in the first article, with reviews on two excellent books examining the security challenge China poses to the US. So Jonsson’s Blurring the Lines and Jesse’s Learning from Russia’s Recent Wars are a very good companion set of books. They’re both concise, at about 200 or fewer pages each. Both still managed to pack in an impressive amount of detail and some thoughtful analysis that I find very relevant to understanding what’s happening in Ukraine today. And together, the two books do a great job of encompassing theory, policy, strategy, and operations in a way that I think leaders and strategists will find useful. There are plenty of other books worth considering on this topic, and I do list a few of those at the end of the article, but I recommend these two as fine places to start if someone is looking for short, insightful works.

(Host)

I wish we had more time. I need to wrap it up, though. What are your final thoughts before we go?

(Shatzer)

So there’s been a fair amount of attention in the media recently about the upcoming 9 May Victory Day (V-E Day) celebrations in Russia and whether or not President (Vladimir) Putin will take the opportunity of those celebrations to declare war on Ukraine. I don’t think Jonsson’s or Jesse’s book really provides any direct insight into that. Who knows what Putin may decide to do on a particular day? But if their books are any kind of guide, I think we can be fairly confident that Russia will only deepen its commitment to the war in Ukraine.

And the other point I think I would make in closing is returning to the earlier aspect about understanding the enemy and the difficulties in doing so, I argue that even understanding the enemy, as a concept itself, is sometimes misunderstood. It’s a mistake to think the goal is to somehow predict what the enemy will do; not even the enemy knows what they will do in a particular situation. Instead, we should be trying to build an appreciation for knowing enemy habits and weaknesses—you know, identifying real vulnerabilities. The other point is to understand the motivations so that the limits of their will is made clear. If we know where the enemy is vulnerable and the limits of their endurance, we will have a major edge in competition in conflict with them. Understanding the enemy is also a pathway to understanding ourselves because it frees us from our limited perspectives. And because war is fundamentally defined by those involved in it, then this knowledge goes a long way towards understanding the kind of war on which we are embarking.

(Host)

Thanks so much for joining me today. It was a real pleasure.

(Shatzer)

Thanks again for the opportunity to talk about this today.

(Host)

Listeners, if you’d like to learn more and check out Colonel Shatzer’s other book recommendations, visit press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 52, issue 2.

If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or any other major podcasting platform.

Author information:

Colonel George Shatzer is the director of the Strategic Research and Analysis Department in the Strategic Studies Instituteat the US Army War College.

In this podcast, Colonel George Shatzer, director of the Strategy Research and Analysis Department of the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College, discusses books of relevance to US Joint planners and strategists, as well as those of allies and strategic partners. He applies his experience and education as a US Army senior strategist to extract insights useful to anyone contemplating how to confront the challenges of today’s strategic environment.

Read the article: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters/vol52/iss2/9/

Episode Transcript

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, US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.

The guests in speaking order on this episode are:

(Guest 1: George Shatzer)

(Host)

Decisive Point welcomes Colonel George Shatzer, director of the Strategic Research and Analysis Division in the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College. Colonel Shatzer authors the (Strategic Research and Analysis Division or) SRAD Director’s Corner in Parameters. In the 2022 summer issue, he covers Russia and Ukraine.

SRAD Director’s Corner is relatively new to Parameters. In it, you review books of possible interest to contemporary military strategists—especially, those serving in US Army and Joint positions. The summer issue contains the second installment of this section, and the focus is on Russia and Ukraine. Thanks for being here.

(Shatzer)

Well, thanks for the opportunity to discuss the article and this important issue.

(Host)

This conflict has not unfolded the way many people thought it would. Your piece emphasizes the value of knowing your enemy, and how it’s a pathway to understanding oneself and the kind of war on which we’re embarking. It’s through this lens that your reviews are written.

(Shatzer)

That’s right. As I mentioned in the article, the day-to-day demands of commanders, leaders, and strategists to ensure our nation’s security can be all-consuming. There are endless demands on time when you are preparing to deter war or to be ready for it, and those demands are mostly internal or focused on ourselves. Even with the assistance of very dedicated intelligence professionals, it can be easy for decisionmakers and strategists to lose sight of the adversary’s views or motivations.

So, taking the time to read works such as those that I profile in the review series can help us build insight on what the adversary is thinking.

(Host)

How does Oscar Jonsson’s The Russian Understanding of War: Blurring the Lines between War and Peace inform this topic?

(Shatzer)

Jonsson’s book was fascinating. I really appreciated how thoroughly he built a case through his review of pre-Soviet, Soviet, and modern Russian military writings and doctrine. He argues that the current Russian view of the very nature of war, not just its character, has fundamentally changed.

In brief, Jonsson asserts that Russian leaders and security professionals believe that the US and the West have become so expert in information and psychological warfare that the nature of war is no longer defined by armed violence. Instead, they believe that the nature of modern warfare is defined by political and social subversion and that these means now have effects akin to those of armed force, when you consider what subversion campaigns have done to governments recently.

And what the Russians are referring to, of course, are the so-called “color revolutions” in the early 2000s, particularly in countries such as Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, and Belarus, but also in the Arab Spring events in the Mideast in 2011. What most in the West saw as populist grassroots movements by oppressed peoples to demand a voice in their otherwise corrupt governments, the Russians saw as coordinated subversion campaigns engineered by the US and the West to overthrow legitimate governments and trample traditional social values in those countries. And, more broadly, the Russians view these movements as the opening moves of a campaign—an undeclared war, in effect, by the US and the West intended to destroy the Russian state and nation as they exist today.

So understanding this perspective is important for a couple of reasons, I think. First, it clarifies the motivations for the current Russian war in Ukraine. From the point of view that Russia is defending itself against an undeclared US and Western war, then most any action is justified. In fact, Russia has been very open for many years now, well before its 2014 intervention in Ukraine (the Ukraine crisis), that Ukraine is in essence a vital national interest for Russia. And Russia has been clear that it would act to defend its security interest there—namely, the ethnic Russian people that live in Ukraine and the territory of Ukraine that borders the Russian state, which is also, in Russia’s view anyway, actually the land of the larger Russian nation.

There are also a host of other factors that make Ukraine important to Russia that I mentioned in the article—chiefly, the agricultural and industrial capacity there as well as the Black Sea coast. So this all gets to the second reason why the Russian perspective is important to consider: It gives us a better sense of Russia’s commitment to their so-called “special military operation” there.

A lot of attention has been paid so far in the war to the Ukrainian will to resist, but we should also be gauging the potential Russian will to persist. Accepting that Russia views its vital security interests as bound up in Ukraine to the point that those security concerns are even existential for Russia, then it would seem to suggest Russia will not end their invasion readily. When we also consider that Russia has been trying to destabilize the Ukrainian government for at least 10 years at this point through support to rebel groups in the eastern regions of Ukraine and even with the direct, unconventional intervention of its own soldiers in 2014, then we see even more clearly the depth of Russia’s investment. Russia will not give up in this conflict quickly.

(Host)

Neal Jesse’s Learning from Russia’s Recent Wars: Why, Where, and When Russia Might Strike Next was your next choice. What does it add to the conversation?

(Shatzer)

Neal Jesse’s book brings in an additional layer of analysis on past Russian modern interventions and aggressions since the end of the Soviet Union. Particularly, he focuses in on the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute in Azerbaijan; the civil war in Tajikistan; the Transdniestria conflict in Moldova; the Abkhazia and South Ossetia conflicts in Georgia; the wars in Chechnya; but, especially, the 2014 intervention in Ukraine (the Ukraine crisis). Jesse’s commentary on Russia’s actions in Ukraine in 2014, which he wrote in 2020, I think, are particularly insightful.

Despite corruption issues and other problems in Ukrainian government, Jesse contends that Ukraine actually did a fair job at dealing with the resistance groups and Russian infiltrations. He argues that it managed to stabilize the security situation and largely forwarded Russia’s primary aims. His analysis makes one wonder what lessons Russia might have failed to learn in 2014 about Ukrainian resilience, actually.

Additionally, from his assessment of past Russian interventions, Jesse lays out a pattern of operations that Russia might use in a future conflict with Ukraine, and those assessments actually seem to hit the mark exactly with what we see going on there today: subversive activity to destabilize the situation, deployment of regular military forces, information campaigns, eventual violation of borders, seizing terrain, and the threat of nukes as strategic blackmail. As Jesse correctly concludes, quote, “The Russian threat to Ukraine is the most obvious and the most constant.”

(Host)

There’s no shortage of books on this topic. In fact, you very kindly suggest some at the end of your article. Why did you choose these two to focus on?

(Shatzer)

What I try to do with the article series is review one work that has a more, you know, theoretical, policy, or strategic focus and pair it with a review of a second book that is still strategic but offers a deeper look at theater, strategic, or even operational questions.

I did that in the first article, with reviews on two excellent books examining the security challenge China poses to the US. So Jonsson’s Blurring the Lines and Jesse’s Learning from Russia’s Recent Wars are a very good companion set of books. They’re both concise, at about 200 or fewer pages each. Both still managed to pack in an impressive amount of detail and some thoughtful analysis that I find very relevant to understanding what’s happening in Ukraine today. And together, the two books do a great job of encompassing theory, policy, strategy, and operations in a way that I think leaders and strategists will find useful. There are plenty of other books worth considering on this topic, and I do list a few of those at the end of the article, but I recommend these two as fine places to start if someone is looking for short, insightful works.

(Host)

I wish we had more time. I need to wrap it up, though. What are your final thoughts before we go?

(Shatzer)

So there’s been a fair amount of attention in the media recently about the upcoming 9 May Victory Day (V-E Day) celebrations in Russia and whether or not President (Vladimir) Putin will take the opportunity of those celebrations to declare war on Ukraine. I don’t think Jonsson’s or Jesse’s book really provides any direct insight into that. Who knows what Putin may decide to do on a particular day? But if their books are any kind of guide, I think we can be fairly confident that Russia will only deepen its commitment to the war in Ukraine.

And the other point I think I would make in closing is returning to the earlier aspect about understanding the enemy and the difficulties in doing so, I argue that even understanding the enemy, as a concept itself, is sometimes misunderstood. It’s a mistake to think the goal is to somehow predict what the enemy will do; not even the enemy knows what they will do in a particular situation. Instead, we should be trying to build an appreciation for knowing enemy habits and weaknesses—you know, identifying real vulnerabilities. The other point is to understand the motivations so that the limits of their will is made clear. If we know where the enemy is vulnerable and the limits of their endurance, we will have a major edge in competition in conflict with them. Understanding the enemy is also a pathway to understanding ourselves because it frees us from our limited perspectives. And because war is fundamentally defined by those involved in it, then this knowledge goes a long way towards understanding the kind of war on which we are embarking.

(Host)

Thanks so much for joining me today. It was a real pleasure.

(Shatzer)

Thanks again for the opportunity to talk about this today.

(Host)

Listeners, if you’d like to learn more and check out Colonel Shatzer’s other book recommendations, visit press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 52, issue 2.

If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or any other major podcasting platform.

Author information:

Colonel George Shatzer is the director of the Strategic Research and Analysis Department in the Strategic Studies Instituteat the US Army War College.