Decisive Point – the USAWC Press Podcast Companion Series

Released  5 July 2022.

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.

Click here to read the article.

Keywords: character, leadership, self-awareness, effectiveness, self-development

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.

 

Released  30 June 2022.

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.

Click here to read the article.

Keywords: press, World War II, public affairs, TikTok, media

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...

Released  23 June 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.

Click here to read the article.

Keywords: information warfare, drone swarms, unmanned systems, cyberwarfare, electronic warfare

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,

Released  17 June 2022.

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.

Click here to read the article.

Keywords: Russia, Ukraine, deterrence, territorial disputes, gray zone, brinkmanship,

escalation

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,

Released  15 June 2022.

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.

Click here to read the article.

Keywords: geo-economics, economic statecraft, Russia, gray-zone warfare, hybrid warfare, geopolitics, Artic

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 sover...

Released  26 May 2022.

This podcast examines critical issues for the field of strategic studies raised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including the waning of major war, strategic coercion, and “War Amongst the People.” Drawing on previous scholarship and current events, this commentary considers the questions raised by the first major war of the twenty-first century. It provides recommendations for scholars and senior leaders on how to work together to address the questions of strategy and policy that have and continue to arise as the war progresses.

Click here to read the article.

Keywords: Russia, Ukraine, strategic coercion, gray zone, compellence

Author information:

Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II had a distinguished career in the US Army and is currently the editor-in-chief of the US Army War College Press, which includes Parameters. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, the US Army Command and General Staff College, and the US Army War College. He holds a doctorate in modern history from Princeton University and is the author of six books, including War’s Logic: Strategic Thought and the American Way of War (2021), Military Strategy: A Very Short Introduction (2017), Reconsidering the American Way of War (2014), Clausewitz and Contemporary War (2007), Imagining Future War (2007), and After Clausewitz (2001), and more than 100 articles and monographs on strategic thinking, military theory, and military history.

Released  7 June 2022.

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.

Click here to read the article.

Keywords: geo-economics, economic statecraft, Russia, gray-zone warfare, hybrid warfare, geopolitics

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,

Released  1 June 2022.

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.

Click here to read the article.

Keywords: Russia, Ukraine, Russian military theory, integrated warfare, NATO

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 poli...

Released  26 May 2022.

This podcast examines critical issues for the field of strategic studies raised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including the waning of major war, strategic coercion, and “War Amongst the People.” Drawing on previous scholarship and current events, this commentary considers the questions raised by the first major war of the twenty-first century. It provides recommendations for scholars and senior leaders on how to work together to address the questions of strategy and policy that have and continue to arise as the war progresses.

Click here to read the article.

Keywords: Russia, Ukraine, strategic coercion, gray zone, compellence

Author information:

Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II had a distinguished career in the US Army and is currently the editor-in-chief of the US Army War College Press, which includes Parameters. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, the US Army Command and General Staff College, and the US Army War College. He holds a doctorate in modern history from Princeton University and is the author of six books, including War’s Logic: Strategic Thought and the American Way of War (2021), Military Strategy: A Very Short Introduction (2017), Reconsidering the American Way of War (2014), Clausewitz and Contemporary War (2007), Imagining Future War (2007), and After Clausewitz (2001), and more than 100 articles and monographs on strategic thinking, military theory, and military history.

Episode Transcript [Putin’s Invasion Of Ukraine in 2022]

Stephanie Crider (Host)

(Prerecorded Decisive Point intro) Welcome to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production featuring distinguished authors and contributors who get to the heart of the matter in national security affairs.

The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the podcast guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.

The guests in speaking order on this episode are:

(Guest 1: Antulio J. Echevarria II)

(Host)

Decisive Point welcomes Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria, author of “Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine in 2022: Implications for Strategic Studies,” which was featured in the Parameters summer 2022 issue. Echevarria had a distinguished career in the US Army and is currently the editor-in-chief of the US Army War College Press, which includes Parameters. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, the US Army Command and General Staff College, and the US Army War College. He holds a doctorate in modern history from Princeton University and is the author of six books, including his most recent, War's Logic: Strategic Thought and the American Way of War, published in 2021. He’s also authored more than 100 articles and monographs on strategic thinking, military theory, and military history.

(Host)

Your article notes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has the potential to shape the defense policies of the United States, its strategic partners, and their rivals in decisive ways. I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this. But first, thanks for being here.

(Echevarria)

Oh, thank you so much. My pleasure.

(Host)

Some pundits have argued the declining occurrence of major wars since World War II is evidence that armed conflict is disappearing altogether. What are the six principal explanations for what appears to be a decline in large-scale conflict?

(Echevarria)

It’s a very interesting set of explanations. The first of these is the proliferation of weapons of mass destructio...

Released  23 May 2022.

While propaganda and disinformation have been used to destabilize opposing forces throughout history, the US military remains unprepared for the way these methods have been adapted to the Internet era. This article explores the modern history of disinformation campaigns and the current state of US military readiness in the face of campaigns from near-peer competitors and proposes education as the best way to prepare US servicemembers to defend against such campaigns.

Click here to read the article.

Keywords: propaganda, disinformation, media literacy, military education, inoculation

Author information:

Dr. Meghan Fitzpatrick, a strategic analyst with Defence Research and   Canada (DRDC) Centre for Operational Research and Analysis (CORA), is a widely published author on trauma and resilience. Her current work looks at how militaries are navigating the increasing importance of the information environment. Since joining DRDC, she has received recognition for her research, including the CORA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Defence Analysis.

Dr. Ritu Gill has a PhD in social psychology from Carleton University and is currently a section head with DRDC. Her research examines online influence activities, specifically, how the Internet and social media influence the information environment, including the analysis of online audiences, and how deception techniques employed by adversaries, such as disinformation, impact audiences. She has been part of international defence research collaborations and was co-lead for the NATO Human Factors and Medicine Research Task Group “Digital and Social Media Assessment for Effective Communication and Cyber Diplomacy.”

Major Jennifer F. Giles, US Marine Corps, is currently a communication strategy and operations officer, a foreign area officer who advises commanders’ strategic and cultural engagement plans in the Pacific theater, and an instructor at the Marine Air-Ground Task Force Staff Training Program. She wrote Disrupting Disinformation: Force Protection through Media Literacy Training and recently spoke on media literacy and adversary disinformation for the Defense Information School “DINFOS Live.”

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.