One CA Podcast

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But it's really being operationalized by our opponents who don't want to meet us in a hard power contest and instead are trying to utilize the seams. the gray areas, and compete with us at levels below conflict. And that's really where CA, and this is a big part of our paper, can come in and really make a difference in identifying where sharp power is being executed and also finding where its vulnerable populations on key strategic areas might be, as well as coming out with our utilizing all elements of national power and a smart power methodology to counter it.

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Hi, this is John McElligot, your host for today's episode of the 1CA podcast. We're joined today by three captains, authors of the paper, Civil Affairs as a Function of Smart Power, Redefining Assessments, Reporting, Education, and the Role of Civil Affairs Within the Evolving Paradigm of Great Power Competition. The three captains are Kevin Chaplin, who is an active component U .S. Army Civil Affairs officer. He has deployment experience. in Africa, Indo -Pacific, and he's currently assigned to Bravo Company, 83rd Civil Affairs Battalion, which is based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Captain Promotable, James Masici, who is an active component Army Civil Affairs officer with employment and service experience in the Arabian Peninsula, Africa, Afghanistan, Europe, and Indo -Pacific. He's currently a master's candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, or Boston MA. And Captain Kyle Starin, who's currently a planner at the 353 KCOM and a master's candidate in international security policy at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York City. He previously served with the 83rd CA Battalion at Fort Bragg, and he has deployed to Bahrain and Niger as a civil affairs officer. Gentlemen, thank you very much for being on the 1CA podcast.

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We mentioned before recording here that we've got one of you in Fort Bragg, one in Boston, and one in New York. So I have not yet asked if we've got any Red Sox fans or Yankees fans or where you guys hail from. James, where's your hometown? Where did you grow up? Charleston, Virginia. So neither Red Sox or a Yankees fan here. So we're not going to offend anyone either way. Kevin, how about you? Yeah, so I actually grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania, and if you ever see me office, I grew up right outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania. So not much of a baseball fan, but I do support the Mets, and that's kind of disappointing persistently. Yeah. Is there any town in Pennsylvania that resembles the office, the actual town? Yeah, so that's actually a real place. Okay. The Steamtown Mall exists. Nice. And Kyle, where are you coming from? Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, so I have no loyalty to the Yankees or the Red Sox. I sympathize with the Mets just because I find them sympathetic.

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Or pathetic, maybe. Either way. They have the best jingle of all time. I don't think any other baseball team has their own jingle.

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Either way. They have

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Right. That's a good one. Well, gentlemen, we're here today to talk about your paper that you guys put together and the methodology you used, what kind of findings you had. Let me start with the first question. You talk about civil affairs as a function of smart power. So what does smart power mean to you? And this is a question I'll throw out to anyone. You could say who's responding or not at all. Just let us know how you define smart power. What does that mean? I'll take that one up front. This is James. If you look at smart power, smart power is coined by Joseph Nye, who is a political scientist of international relations. And it's a combination of... hard and soft power together. So what it is, it's using all the elements of national power, whether it's political, economic, military, law enforcement, even cultural power, to achieve national goals. Not having an overemphasis on hard power or overemphasis on soft power, but having the correct balance to pinpoint where, when, and how we can best... Okay. So you guys all came from civil affairs based at Fort Bragg, the center of the universe and the home of a lot of C -8 tactical units. So it sounds like what you're talking about is more at the strategic level. Are you generally arguing that civil affairs should be brought up from tactical operational to more operational strategic levels?

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massive structural change. I think it's more of a reformatting of the outlook. So to get back to what James was talking about, tying in elements of national power into a cohesive strategy going forward,

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of national

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going forward, even a tactical unit can inform tactical combat commanders in terms of how to use other elements of national power at a tactical level.

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unit can

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combat commanders in terms of how to use other elements of national power at a tactical level.

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of how

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So I think that's what we're talking about, is just getting after how to tie in military units with... initiatives put forward by the embassy in that country and vice versa, telling the embassy what the military has to offer in terms of capabilities to achieve strategic ends, even at a tactical level. So why would you say that using civil affairs as a function of smart power is needed, or why is that a wise move for the U .S. government? Hey, Kevin here. I'll take that one. So I think it's important to emphasize that as civil affairs, we're often working in areas that are Continuously being contested by a lot of different actors on the interstate scale, meaning that puts us in a real good position to kind of identify and determine how these peers are using their, in this case, sharp power to disrupt our efforts abroad or trying to exploit a population. maybe trying to desabilize the environment. So it really puts us in a good position, and I think that allows us to inform policymakers or inform the DOD to then inform policymakers to identify exactly which tools need to be used, why, and where, and for what end. So, Kevin, you brought up a new term for the audience here, sharp power. You mentioned sharp power in the paper. We started off mentioning smart power. So what's sharp power all about and who wields sharp power? Within the context of our paper, I'll let James follow up with this because this is pretty near and dear to his heart. But within the context of our paper, in this case, pure competitors like China, Russia are those wielding sharp power. And the National Endowment of Democracy. defined it as enabling authoritarians to cut razor -like into the fabric of a society, stoking and amplifying existing division. So in this case, it could take the form of China expanding its Belt and Road Initiative across Africa or through Pakistan, using their infrastructure back to exploit local economies on the continent of Africa for that. for that matter um but i'll let james kind of follow up with the details on that one yeah this is james so yeah sharp power it's a pretty new concept that's out there but i think it's something that we've seen in a while so uh i think the previous incarnation was known as soft balancing and what sharp power really comes from is the fact that u .s and our allies still remain the largest power brokers in terms of hard power around the world so even though our competitors are starting to make uh some small incremental gains in hard power levels we have, we still remain, with our allies and alliances, the predominant hard power in the entire world. And furthermore, to that point, if you look at this as well, the economic interdependency between the U .S. and our competitors is so much... uh ingrained after such a large period of globalization following the 90s on the 80s and all through the 90s and early 2000s that an actual armed conflict would be very detrimental to all parties so we have these system level deterrences in place and if you look at joint doctrine note 1 -19 so this is actually in doctrine it's we are in a part something called a competition continuum and of those three legs the competition continuum one of them is competing at levels below conflict And that's really where sharp power comes in. So what it is, it's manipulative, it's precise, it finds areas where there's instability, that you can use micro -level inputs to get macro -strategic -level gains. And this is being wielded by China. One can look at their three warfares, the strategic psychological operations they utilize, the overt and covert need manipulation, the exploitation of natural and international legal systems. Also, the Gerasimov Doctrine by the Russians. And you can also look at some of the regional actors out there as well. So Ron's use of the militias throughout the Shia Crescent, it really highlights this as well. So this is something that is out there. It's still being studied and manifested, but it's really being operationalized by our opponents who don't want to meet us in a hard power contest and instead are trying to utilize the seams, the gray areas, and compete with us at levels below conflict. And that's really where CA... and this is a big part of our paper, can come in and really make a difference in identifying where sharp power is being executed and also finding where its vulnerable populations on key strategic areas might be, as well as coming out with our utilizing all elements of national power and a smart power methodology to counter it. Good point. Now, the definition of sharp power referenced, I believe, authoritarian regimes, but sounds like... It's not just relegated to authoritarian governments to wield sharp powers. You know, your argument is part that the U .S. should be doing this as well, right? I would take a step back and say sharp power has negative connotations to it, specifically with trying to tear down democracies, tear down governance to make strategic ends met. So if you look at what Chris Krebs said, he's the director of the Cybersecurity Center for Homeland Security. He says, you know, Russia's not trying to. win the game, so to say. They're just trying to cause instability. They're trying to cause chaos, and they're trying to destabilize. So smart power is about stabilization. It's about governance. It's about building stable systems. Now, sharp power, inversely, is about tearing those down. So you really have two diametrically opposed constructs that we can see forward here. Okay. But I think the 95th, for example, is focusing on some governance and anti -governance. So would anti -governance, for example, if we were in a country where we wanted to help tear down the government or institutions to build up ones that were sided with the U .S. interests, then that could be seen as sharp power as opposed to smart power? Or is it really just based on your perspective? Yes, I think the resistance, counter -resistance narrative or the offensive or defensive resistance, as I've heard it also called as well, that can kind of be filled in the sharp power. The thing is, sharp power is mostly aimed at either unocracies or democracies. So we'd have to look at the kind of situation, state in which it's going on. All right. Gentlemen, you argue that the U .S.'s most dangerous rivals will utilize non -military means to compete. So maybe talk about some evidence that supports that claim, what's been happening in the news that we could talk about that's unclassed. And what are the global conditions that you would assume for this world of less military conflict with U .S. rivals? Yeah, this is Kyle. So James talked about the three warfares of China doctrine. That came out in 1999, so we're already 20 years behind that doctrine. And what they argued in that paper in 1999 was just a confluence of military and economic means to achieve national goals. And we're seeing that most clearly. in how they're executing the Belt and Road Initiative across really the world, across Asia, into Africa, into Southeastern Europe even. And not only are they achieving infrastructure development that they control and then directly benefits national Chinese companies, but also if a country cannot repay certain debts, the Chinese government itself gains complete legal control of key... infrastructure such as ports and harbors.

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Wow. So they didn't really get them over a barrel. Competing at a level below conflict in such a way that they actually gain key nodes in the globalized economy physically.

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such a way that they actually gain key nodes in the globalized economy physically. We saw in Russi

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This interview with Lieutenant Colonel Sue Gannon was conducted in June of 2019. She's currently halfway through her Army Fellowship at Tufts University. Enjoy the episode.

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The thing with the Ready Forces, regardless of how we feel about whether or not it's implemented right or anything, it's there for a reason. It's being driven by a real threat, and it's something that we have to do as an Army, right?

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So it's incumbent on me and my battalion command team and my peers to help us figure out the best way to do this.

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incumbent on me and my battalion command team and my peers to help us figure out the best way to do this. so that we preserve good soldiers in the force. But when the call of this come forward, those are the soldiers we take to war with us.

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Hi, and welcome to the 1CA Podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're joined today by Lieutenant Colonel Sue Gannon, who is the outgoing commander of the 450th Civil Affairs Battalion Airborne, Preserve Component Unit based in Maryland, recently relocated to White Plains, Maryland, in the southern part of Maryland. Lieutenant Colonel Sue Gannon hails from Eden, New York, a town south of Buffalo. She attended the University of Pittsburgh and commissioned through ROTC in 2003 onto active duty in the Air Defense Artillery Branch. One of the first women accepted into Divisional Air Defense, she was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division as an Avenger Platoon Leader. deploying in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom 2. Colonel Gannon's remaining time on active duty was spent as a headquarters battery commander at Fort Bliss, Texas, with an appointment in Qatar, Kuwait, and as an action officer on the Joint Staff. In 2012, she left active duty and transitioned to the reserve component, earning her civil affairs qualification and serving as the commander of Delta Company, 450th Civil Affairs Battalion, Airborne. She has also served at the Civil Affairs Command level, as a theater security cooperation planner and airborne operations officer prior to taking battalion command in 2017. Lieutenant Colonel Gannon has a master's degree in management and leadership from Webster University, and on the civilian side, she supports the headquarters department of the Army, G357, as a requirements and congressional analyst for air defense and field artillery portfolios. Lieutenant Colonel Sue Gannon, thank you and welcome to the 1CA podcast.

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a lot, John, for having me.

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Absolutely. Now, ma 'am, by the time this episode airs, you will have completed your first command of a battalion in the Army Reserve Civil Affairs Battalion. What would you say stands out from that experience?

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out from that experience? Wow. So, you know, that's actually kind of a hard question, as these two years have really been quite a ride, and it's been great. I will honestly say, best job I've ever had, hands down. what stands out most for me is that when you go into a battalion command, you head into it with this idea of where you are going to take the battalion. You spend a lot of time learning how to develop a vision, a philosophy, how to set goals. But what they don't tell you and what you really need to consider when you take a battalion is where is that battalion really going to take you? The 450th is a great battalion. It has a strong sense of identity. It has a very, very powerful legacy and a strong alumni. understanding and respecting that legacy has really shaped the success of this unit.

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What was the legacy that you knew of? So you were a Delta Company commander, so you knew about it before you took command as the battalion commander. What was that experience like going from company to then battalion commander in the same unit?

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Quite different than I expected. When I came into the 450th off of the access component, I will tell you the 450th is unlike any unit I've ever served with, and I've served with great units. strong sense of identity, maybe some of it's the paratrooper identity in them, and also the unit has deployed multiple times throughout the global war on terrorism. So there's a really strong connection. So when I came into Delta Company, I kind of came in on the back end of that and really had to learn to understand this unit. So I had time in Delta Company that was an awesome command. I would say it was almost harder than my active command because the reserves is all about learning how to... motivate people to do things when you only see them two days a month, and that's really a great growth opportunity as a leader. But then coming back as a battalion commander, you know, it was like looking at the unit with new eyes, right? So as a company commander, I had my small little company, and then coming back as a battalion, really seeing the breadth and the depth of capability across the formation was pretty awesome.

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And you said that you thought you were going to come into the battalion command So when you started, did you come on with an initial set of areas of focus or anything that you heard from the outgoing commander who transitioned over to you that, hey, this is the kind of stuff you need to focus on for training?

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So, you know, I came into the battalion at an interesting time. So when I arrived here, I was technically the fourth battalion commander acting or appointed in less than a year. And that was due to some out -of -cycle promotions and schools that the previous commander, who I should have officially replaced, had gone through. And this had caused some significant churn within the organization. Because I was fortunate to be familiar with the unit, so I heard that some of this sort of, there's some trepidation for, great, here we go, here comes another commander, right? My initial focus was re -establishing that key leadership team and achieving some buy -in and trust. I knew there were great leaders here, but they were also very frustrated because it was a constant change. And my focus coming in and what I've told the leaders is our job is to prepare to train soldiers to go to war, come home safely, and provide the best ability to our supported commanders. And I wanted to ensure that these leaders knew they had the full support of the battalion command team. to do just that. The capability was there. They needed to know they had that full support to get that done.

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Could you describe the unit for people listening? Who do you have in not only a civil affairs reserve battalion, but the mix of people that I think is pretty unique to have just outside the Washington, D .C. area? How many soldiers do you have? How many Department of the Army civilians are in the unit? And what are some of these amazing, I guess, day jobs, civilian expertise that comes to the table?

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That's an awesome question. So from a purely numbers standpoint, so the battalion sits currently at about 225 soldiers, which is actually overstrength. This battalion is chronically overstrength, and I'll talk more about that. So those 225 soldiers, you have 12 active guard reserve soldiers that support us, so they're the full -timers. And then we currently have four PA civilians assigned. We have three other vacancies that are in the process of getting filled. unit is authorized about 200, 203 is what we're authorized. So we chronically sit anywhere from 130 to 150 % over strength. And that I would say is the number one strength of this battalion is the amazing talent pool that it has. Nowhere else in the army are you going to find over 200 people with such diverse and dynamic skill sets. We have soldiers of all ranks with multiple advanced degrees and professional experiences. I mean, these range from medical and law degrees to UN workers. We have a video game tester in the S6 shop. We have soldiers that speak more than one language in all sorts of different languages. And you won't see this replicated in an active duty unit. I would offer, John, you're an example of that incredible depth that the reserve component CA force brings to the fight with your time in the Peace Corps. The 450th, we probably attribute some of this fortune, I think, as you said, to the proximity to DC. But at the same time, There's something about this skill set and this mission that attracts people to have sort of these out -of -the -box professional experiences, and that's what makes the Reserve Proponent Civil Affairs Force so valuable, is that we're out -of -the -box from the traditional Army.

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Would you think that's why the Army continues to have the vast majority of the force in the Reserve Proponent?

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Oh, absolutely, and they need to stay with that, because... I mean, I spent nine years on active duty, and I didn't get anywhere close to being out of the box until I came into a civil affairs unit. I had very good active duty experience, but I did not have this. I didn't have professional experiences that really stretched me or had me look other than sort of a traditional Army way.

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So I guess that leads me, ma 'am, into the next question about the strengths and weaknesses inherent to a reserve CA unit. Some of the strengths you're talking about now are? the civilian jobs that we bring to the table. What else do you see as strengths, and what are some of the weaknesses?

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Additional strengths that you have, and it kind of goes more towards your talent pool and the professional level that you find within the forces. You have a group of soldiers that is very dedicated, reserve soldiers, and I'll admit it, I was one of those active duty soldiers that did not get what the reserves was and thought that they were just me. lazier than active duty because they only went twice a month.

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than active

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What I didn't realize is that the commitment and time it takes to be a reserve soldier really pushes you above and beyond a certain level. I mean, these leaders put in time unpaid, after hours, and unasked because they know that that is what needs to get done. And when you have people that are intrinsically that committed to their unit and to their team and to the mission, you can't help but be successful. I truly did not appreciate that until I became a reserve soldier myself and saw the work across all ranks that was getting done and how well it was being done.

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Yeah, and that's after coming home from a day job or in between breaks of a day job, you're working on Army stuff.

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Exactly, or in between coaching soccer games or putting kids in the tub. Yeah. You know, all these different things, all these things, these components of life, and yet all of these soldiers have chosen. to make space for this reserve duty. And I think that there can't be understated how incredible that really is.

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You know, all

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how incredible that really is.

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Yeah. And what would you say are some areas of weakness that you always have to be working on for people who are in reserve component? And for CA, is it any different from a normal reserve unit when you talk to other commanders?

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So I think, you know, with all reserve units, time is absolutely our biggest constraint. There just really isn't enough of it. Because in theory, you get 24 drill days a year plus two weeks of IEDT,

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two weeks of AT,

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of AT, excuse me. Maybe you get some more based on schooling and stuff, but you really don't have a lot of time together. So trying to build a team in that little bit of time, especially when that time is broken up every month, it can be really challenging. The other thing that makes it, and one of the biggest challenges I know that I've identified in my time that we continue to work on is If you don't have strict, tight administrative processes, which often get truncated and shorted when you're short on time, it impacts all other aspects of the talent. Everything from getting the mission done to making sure soldiers' promotions and medical and all that stuff stays on top of it.

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the mission done

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That requires a very close coordination and integration and appreciation of the full -time unit staff, both the AGRs and civilians. That full -time staff... carries the yeoman's work during the week to keep those processes alive. The TPU staff needs to be just as aware and integrated into that piece to make sure that those processes survive tu

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This is part two of our two -part series with author Sean McVeigh. Thank you for listening.

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Hi, and welcome to the 1CA Podcast. My name is John McKelligot, your host for today's episode. We're joined by Dr. Sean McFate. He is an author, novelist, and foreign policy expert. He is a professor of strategy at the National Defense University and Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Washington, D .C. He is also an advisor to Oxford University's Center for Technology and Global Affairs. A specialist in national security strategy, Dr. McFate was a think tank scholar at the RAND Corporation, Atlantic Council, Bipartisan Policy Center, and New America Foundation. Recently, he was a visiting scholar at Oxford University's Changing Character of War program, where he conducted research on future war. His career began as a paratrooper and officer in the U .S. Army's storied 82nd Airborne Division, where he served under Stan McChrystal and David Petraeus, and graduated from elite training programs such as Jungle Warfare School in Panama, and he was also a Jumpmaster. Dr. McFate then became a private military contractor. Among his many experiences, he dealt with warlords, raised armies for U .S. interest, rode with armed groups in the Sahara, conducted strategic recon for oil companies, transacted arms deals in Eastern Europe, and helped prevent an impending genocide in the Rwanda region. In the world of international business, he was a vice president at TD International, a boutique political risk consulting firm. He was also a manager at Dyncore International, a consultant at Baring Point, and an associate for Booz Allen Hamilton. His nonfiction books include The New Rules of War, Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder, which we're going to discuss today, that was published by William Morrow, and The Modern Mercenary, Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order, which was published by Oxford University Press. His fiction books include Shadow War and Deep Black, both published by William Morrow. A coveted speaker, Dr. McFate has also written for and appeared on numerous media outlets. He has authored eight book chapters and edited academic volumes. and published a monograph for the U .S. Army War College on how to raise foreign armies. He holds a B .A. from Brown University, a master's in public policy from Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a Ph .D. in international relations from LSE, the London School of Economics and Political Science. He lives in Washington, D .C. For more information about Dr. McVeigh, visit his website, which is seanmcvete .com. Now, you talk about gray matter is superior to silicon, and... I want to talk about ways that we could really invest in training people and just instead of just investing hardware, you know, do both. But Americans are typically not inclined to speak foreign languages because most Americans don't have to. You know, we have we're bordered in the north by candidates, English speaking and in the south and Mexico and Spanish speaking. There's a growing population of America, of the United States that speaks Spanish. And we do have migrants who speak foreign languages and some of them join the military. What are the requirements you see in future war training or military personnel for the future warfare that you've envisioned?

00:04:51    SPEAKER_02

And we spend, I think, too much of our time investing in technological solutions to tactical problems and not enough time on training our minds, our thinking about, you know, how do we think out of this problem? And I think, you know, look at China, that's what they're doing. I mean, they are strategically, they're using strategic cunning to win places like the South China Sea and not, you know, blunt force. And at the tactical level, I mean, at the tactical level, we're actually quite good at this and soft in my opinion. it, but we need to become better. And of course, you know, Americans don't have to be multicultural because, again, as I was saying, we are the world's hegemon. We live in a country that's born by English speakers. Everybody speaks English, you know, mostly and largely in part of the last 70 years of dominance. You know, the business language of the world is English, but I think we can do better in terms of training and education. And, you know, think about this. Education, I think liberal arts is a great education for strategic thinking. Why do I say that? Because the liberal arts, when you read Dostoevsky's, you know, Brothers Karamazov, for example, you're not really reading about late 19th century Russian society. I mean, you kind of are, but you're learning to think about ambiguity. That's what good critical thinking is. That's what good liberal arts is, is thinking about ambiguity. And that's what, if you think about national, like, war problems, national security issues, it's all about wicked problems and ambiguity. But what do we train at academies? We train, you know, engineering. Engineering is the wrong model of thinking for modern warfare. So I think there's a lot of things that we can do that's not just languages. It's just education at large. But ultimately, we have to invest in people and not platforms.

00:06:41    SPEAKER_03

And do you see that as? For example, when someone raises their arm and volunteers to join one of the military services as being too late, does the United States as a nation need to invest in the liberal arts training or training that goes back to what Orson Scott Carr talked about in Ender's Game, starting when people were in their childhood?

00:07:20    SPEAKER_02

We get people like Abraham Lincoln, who is a great strategic thinker. We don't really, as I said earlier at the beginning of the podcast, we don't really have, there's no civilian universities for strategic thought. War colleges are more abundant. And I think, how old is an officer, how many years does an officer have before he gets a strategic education? Do you know?

00:07:40    SPEAKER_03

Typically, I mean, you have to get to, I think, 05. Yeah, 05. So you've got 15 to 20 years in. Why are we waiting? 15 to 20 years to teach our officers to think strategically.

00:07:51    SPEAKER_02

officers to think strategically. Why don't we do that when people are cadets in midshipmen? Why don't we do that in an A -knock and B -knock? I don't know. Why do we think that only officers can think strategically? And why do we think that only people in uniform can think strategically? Let's have a program where we invite, you know, we can recruit strategic thinkers from the civilian world. So I think we need to be a little bit more imaginative. That's why, like, Orson Scott Card, because in his book and, I guess, the movie, Ender's Game, they have a program where they identify strategic thinkers who are children, and they raise them up as children. I'm not saying we should do that, but it's a model that's kind of interesting to think about.

00:08:32    SPEAKER_03

Yeah. You also talk about, in the book, the balance of power between the executive branch and the legislative. And where do you draw the line between the powers the president should have for waging war as the commander -in -chief, which has really grown in power over the last several decades? And the check and balance that Congress has had with declaring war, you know, and funding them, right? So they really have the power of the purse. But, you know, where is that balance? Where should it be? That's an outstanding question. So this is a debate that's been raging since the founding of the republic, right?

00:09:03    SPEAKER_02

Where our founders distrusted standing militaries because they didn't want to have a military hunt up.

00:09:07    SPEAKER_02

up. And so it's curious that in the Constitution, you read it, they say that Congress was authorized to... This has always been a problem, and it's been a growing problem since the end of World War II. The last time our Congress declared war officially was World War II.

00:09:27    SPEAKER_02

So all the conflicts from Korea to Afghanistan, those are not technically official wars. Congress did not declare them official wars. This became a problem in the 1970s, and the War Powers Act was passed to sort of constrain what some saw as an imperial presidency. Others defend it. Say, look, we're a superpower now. You know, we have to have an executive who can act with power rapidly. We can't send it to a committee, you know. And those are the two camps. It's dangerous when, you know, we all love the military. I love the military. I'm a vet, but I teach at National Defense University in Washington. We have international students from around the world, and these are people who are going to become generals of their military someday. Some of them are kind of a little scared. degree of sort of flag waving and martial support in our country. Some people think that our civil and military relationship is kind of out of balance.

00:10:30    SPEAKER_02

And it's not that the generals are pushing this. It's not that. It's actually civilians. If you think about the Warhawk civilians from Madeleine Albright, you know, who's like, let's go to Bosnia, intervene there in Samantha Power, to like, you know, Wolfowitz and the neocons. In some ways, it's a reverse of Sam Huntington's The Soldier in the State, where the soldiers were seen as the bloodthirsty generals, for example, Dr. Strangelove, and the civilians are restraining them, which is the Clausewitzian approach. Now it's kind of flipped on its head. Now we have, like, bloodthirsty civilians who I think are mostly as chicken hawks, frankly, who want to go to war, and it's the military that's holding them back in a sort of Jacksonian way.

00:11:05    SPEAKER_00

want to go

00:11:09    SPEAKER_02

a sort of Jacksonian way. But I think we... need to have a national discourse about, not just about war, but what is our relationship to war, and who's in charge, you know, which branch of government is in charge. I see largely Congress, I guess, abdicated a great deal of power over the decades to the exact same branch, and not just in the sphere of warfare, but all sorts of areas. And that's, again, it's not a Republican versus Democrat issue, it's an American.

00:11:36    SPEAKER_03

Do you think that having so few Americans serve in uniform leads them to want to ask veterans to stand at every baseball game and be overly patriotic, if that's possible, but to defer so much to the military and say, well, you're amazing, let's use you as a tool for whatever the political lines are?

00:12:05    SPEAKER_02

was horrible. And I'm really happy to see American society hug their military as it should be.

00:12:17    SPEAKER_03

Yeah, much better approach than the Vietnam era. Yeah, you know, of course, sometimes from the jingoism of thank you for your service at the airport,

00:12:25    SPEAKER_02

at the airport, I mean, even if that's kind of rolled our eyes about this at the time. But I do think that, you know, if you think about it, you know, less than 1 % of our country serves in uniform. And we're asking our military to do...

00:12:40    SPEAKER_02

It's just not, you know, I think if we had a national service, it didn't have to be military national service. It could be civilian national service. I think Americans would be a lot more circumspect about foreign policy and listen to the debates a lot closer. Because right now, it's very easy for Americans to say,

00:13:09    SPEAKER_02

yeah, we're strong, we're USA, and you and the people go and fight the war for us. I think if we all had skin in the game, Americans would pay a lot more.

00:13:22    SPEAKER_03

After a break, we're going to return to our discussion with author Sean McFate.

00:13:30    SPEAKER_04

This episode is sponsored by Third Order Effects, the premier choice for governance and cultural advising. Third Order Effects maintains a private network of high -end consultants for advising at the most senior levels. Our people have a mix of military and civilian -acquired skills and experience. Their time living and working overseas combined with their linguistic abilities make them the best qualified personnel to analyze other cultures and advise clients within the governance domain. We help clients eliminate the consequences of second and third order effects of poor planning and execution of the missions focused only on short term outcomes. Apply to join our team or contact us about contracting opportunities. Visit us at thirdordereffects .com.

00:14:21    SPEAKER_03

Welcome back to the 1CA podcast. I'm your host, John McElligot. Today, our guest is author Sean McFate.

00:14:29    SPEAKER_03

So your fourth rule that talks about hearts and minds do not matter. I was reading and interpreting as that the United States should get its hands dirty and really dirty with troops in the ground, possibly for a longer term. And my understanding is that American society generally abhors. prolonged wars. There's little consistency across administrations supporting them, right? You talk about every 48 years, the wins change and the strategy changes if we have that. So unless more Americans get involved in fighting the wars, do you ever

My poor baby. Got a cough and runny nose. Any ideas? Worried mama here.

00:00:06    SPEAKER_04

Sounds like the flu. Did you test for COVID? Probably just allergies. I hope it's nothing serious.

00:00:09    SPEAKER_01

allergies. I hope it's nothing serious.

00:00:13    SPEAKER_00

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00:00:29    SPEAKER_02

This is part one of our interview with author Sean McFaith. Please come back after the episode and listen to part two.

00:01:20    SPEAKER_01

Hi. I'm Doug Hurst, CEO of Third Order Facts, the premier choice for governance and cultural advising. 3OE was created to fill the need for improved governance advising for use by the Departments of Defense and State, USAID, foreign governments, and the private sector. Contact us at thirdordereffects .com.

00:01:44    SPEAKER_02

Hi, and welcome to the 1CA Podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're joined by Dr. Sean McFate. He is an author, novelist, and foreign policy expert. He is a professor of strategy at the National Defense University and Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Washington, D .C. He is also an advisor to Oxford University's Center for Technology and Global Affairs. A specialist in national security strategy, Dr. McFate was a think tank scholar at the RAND Corporation, Atlantic Council, Bipartisan Policy Center, and New America Foundation. Recently, he was a visiting scholar at Oxford University's Changing Character of War program, where he conducted research on future war. His career began as a paratrooper and officer in the U .S. Army's storied 82nd Airborne Division, where he served under Stan McChrystal and David Petraeus, and graduated from elite training programs such as Jungle Warfare School in Panama, and he was also a Jumpmaster. Dr. McFate then became a private military contractor. Among his many experiences, he dealt with warlords, raised armies for U .S. interests, rode with armed groups in the Sahara, conducted strategic recon for oil companies, transacted arms deals in Eastern Europe, and helped prevent an impending genocide in the Rwanda region. In the world of international business, he was a vice president at TD International, a boutique political risk consulting firm. He was also a manager at Dining Court International, a consultant at Baring Point, and an associate for Booz Allen Hamilton. His nonfiction books include The New Rules of War, Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder, which we're going to discuss today, that was published by William Morrow, and The Modern Mercenary, Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order, which was published by Oxford University Press. His fiction books include Shadow War and Deep Black, both published by William Morrow. A coveted speaker, Dr. McFate has also written for and appeared on numerous media outlets. He has authored eight book chapters and edited academic volumes. and published a monograph for the U .S. Army War College on how to raise foreign armies. He holds a B .A. from Brown University, a Master's in Public Policy from Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and a Ph .D. in International Relations from LSE, the London School of Economics and Political Science. He lives in Washington, D .C. For more information about Dr. McFaith, visit his website, which is seanmcfaith .com. Dr. McFaith, welcome to the 1CA Podcast.

00:04:03    SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and thank you for your time. I know you've got a lot going on these days. You've been connected to the civil affairs community for quite a while and know some people who are in the Civil Affairs Association. Today we want to focus the conversation about your latest book, The New Rules of War. What's at stake really with The New Rules of War? And you talk about in the book how the U .S. has such a huge lead on other countries in terms of military spending and technological advantage so that we could defeat many foes several times over. So why do the new rules matter to policymakers and military leaders?

00:05:03    SPEAKER_03

national image tarnished by low -level foes. Yet we have the best military, even our enemies know that. So what's the problem? Why are we struggling at winning wars? And that's why I wrote the book to answer that question. Like, why are we continuing to struggle with wars despite all of our advantages,

00:05:25    SPEAKER_03

despite our amazing military? What's the problem?

00:05:28    SPEAKER_02

And so you took, would you say it was a scholarly approach or scholarly? combined with your personal experience, because you have a lot of stories about what you've gone through in your career and applying it to the new rules. Yeah, so this book, it's not a scholar. Well, it's undergirded by real scholarship,

00:05:45    SPEAKER_03

by real scholarship, real rigor. But I wrote it like a magazine article. I wrote it to be read. I wrote it so you can read it on an airport or you can read it downrange or anywhere. It's not like a heavily footnoted academic home or treatise. It's written so everybody can read it. It's written like me. sold at Walmart and everybody would read it, and it is. Because we have to get, all of us have to get the word out. We need a national discourse about what does winning look like in modern war because what we're doing is not working.

00:06:13    SPEAKER_02

Yeah. And you mentioned you wanted to write this for your mother. Was your mother one of the early reviewers and gave you feedback on it too? No, she, my mother's not. My mother is like, you know, the furthest away from war. I wrote it so like everybody could read it. I mean, I wrote it so like I could go to a local parking lot. oh, this is interesting. It does not read like a think tank walk piece. It does not read like an academic press piece or some piece of political science. The ideas that undergird it are very serious, very rigorous, but it reads, again, it reads like a Vanity Fair article.

00:06:49    SPEAKER_02

Yeah, no, it's a great read. And I think you try to frame it by talking about strategic atrophy. What you argue is at the heart of why Western militaries have been losing wars for decades. There were many battles but losing the wars. So why does that continue? So look, the last time the West decisively won a war was 1945, right? World War II. Since then, the West has been struggling all the world. Think of like, you know, it's not just the United States and Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan.

00:07:20    SPEAKER_03

It's the French in Vietnam and Algeria. It's the British.

00:07:28    SPEAKER_03

struggling, including our own. The reason, tactically and operationally, at those levels of war, we dominate, we rock, we kick butt. The problem is at the strategic level of war, the national security establishment, that's the problem. We have a low strategic IQ.

00:07:48    SPEAKER_03

We have an amazing military. We have other amazing instruments of national power, but the people in charge of deploying them are frankly not high strategic IQ people. Republican or Democrat. And I call this strategic atrophy. And I talk about this in the book, about what does that mean? So winning wars is, you know, it takes strategic thought. And that is the problem. Our strategic thought is atrophied.

00:08:17    SPEAKER_02

So we have a National Security Council. We have a whole body of government that has committees of oversight. We have all these agencies. Who are these people at the table who should be? developing the strategy?

00:08:29    SPEAKER_03

Great question. So the people who are developing the strategy,

00:08:33    SPEAKER_03

the strategy, if you look back to the last time the U .S. had a real grand strategy, it was the Cold War, it was containment, it was Kennan's long telegram and NSE 68. Those were strategic thinkers. The people who are in the National Security Council today, I'm not talking about the secondees in the interagency and the military. I'm talking about the political appointments. These are speechwriters. They have no background. There's no Dean Atkinson. This is not a partisan issue. This is not a Democratic versus Republican issue. This is an American issue. And that's the problem. We don't have strategic thinkers. And there's a lot of reasons for it. One reason is that in a civilian university world, there's nowhere you can learn to study warfare. War is just not politically correct. So nobody studies it. And in our war colleges, and there are no war colleges in the civilian world, in the war colleges, we've had to fade into war colleges. There's some war colleges that still teach, essentially stuff from the 1980s. That really is not relevant. War has moved on. We have to move on, too. And that's one of the reasons I like the CAA community, because I think the CAA community, they are on the frontier of warfare, and they see what's required. And one of the rules of the 10 new rules of war layout is that some of the best weapons don't fire bullets.

00:09:56    SPEAKER_02

Okay. Let's dive into this a little bit more. Well, before we do that, I want to ask you about being a futurist, right? So this is about future war. And in your book, you talk about how everyone else who predicts future conflicts is wrong. But that's what you do in the book. So why are your predictions any better than anyone else's?

00:10:19    SPEAKER_03

But war has moved on. We have not. That's the bottom line problem. That's why we struggle. So what's the reason for this? The reason is because our war futurists are backwards looking. So where does the Pentagon think? You know, when you think like, well, okay, the Pentagon wants to buy two more aircraft carriers. Who's driving that demand signal? It's war futurists. You know, there's obviously Lockheed Martin and Congress. They have their fingers in pots. Ultimately, war futurists have a vision of the future of war that we're buying stuff against, that we're training against. And who are the most powerful war futurists? It's not generals and soldiers. It's not even think tank people or academics. The most powerful war futurist is Hollywood. It's novels. Because they have the ability to fire up our imagination. So if you look at, and if you think about what do they base war on? For them, it's World War II with better technology. I mean, think about Star Wars. Star Wars is like midway in space, about a midway in space with light sabers, right? You know, most people, if you look at Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising, a book about World War III in the 1980s that everybody read, it was basically World War II with better technology. There's no nuclear weapons in that book, nothing. And so most war futurists, they think they're looking forward, but really they're looking backwards and they imagine the future of war being fought with the last war with better technology. And for us, that's World War II. And everything we're doing now, like F -35 or the Ford -class carrier, this is all for like some big battle of midway in the South China Sea using Ford -class carriers and F -35s. But that's not how China's winning the South China Sea.

00:12:06    SPEAKER_03

They're winning it without carrier groups. and that's an example of what I'm talking about.

00:12:10    SPEAKER_02

So you go back into history a little bit to talk about Billy Mitchell, General Billy Mitchell, who came up with some great ideas that were poo -pooed at the time. So that was from the 1930s. You've come out with an amazing book, which I think you probably know the numbers, read by thousands of people, purchased the books, downloaded copies, gone to the library. Has DOD given you the cold shoulder? Do you have what you call Cassandra's Curse as well? And it's actually being read widely within DOD.

00:12:45    SPEAKER_03

We can talk about the reactions in DOD, which are a bit nuanced. But basically, one of my heroes is Billy Mitchell, right? Billy Mitchell was a true war futurist. Most war futurists are fraud, but they do exist, and they're rare, these war prophets. And when they come out, they're usually, as you said, poo -pooed.

00:13:02    SPEAKER_03

And Mitchell's an example. So he was a U .S. Army aviator in World War I. And he saw the future of war, and it was air power, air power. And when he came back as a one -star to Washington, he told all his friends and colleagues, peers, the future is air power. We've got to prepare for it. And, of course, they were backwards looking, too. They thought the future of war would look like the last war, which would be trench line warfare. So they and, like, the French and others, what did they invest in? They invested the Maginot Line, the biggest trench system in history. Mitchell was saying, no, the future is air power, and nobody would listen to him. He went on this command tour of the Pacific Ocean. He came back, and he said, he predicted in 1924 that the Japanese will launch a sneak attack at Pearl Harbor on a Sunday morning at 7 .30 a .m. using airplanes.

00:13:58    SPEAKER_03

And guess what happened after this?

00:14:11    SPEAKER_03

And we know how this ends. You know, Pearl Harbor happened 15 years later. The military set was caught completely by surprise, even though one of its own called it. And that's what we're doing now. We are sitting behind our national lines of these big -ticket tactical warfare items like Bradley fighting vehicles and, you know, again, F -35s, which we spent $1 .5 trillion on. Trillion. You know, and these are magical lines.

00:14:38    SPEAKER_02

So it's not like we're asleep at the wheel. People are doing things, but you think they're the wrong things to be doing, the wrong investments that are happening. Yeah, at the strategic level.

00:14:44    SPEAKER_03

are happening. Yeah, at the strategic level. So at three levels to war, there's tactical at the bottom, operational in the middle, and strategic at the top. The strategic level, which is where wars are won and lost, you know, I think, again, you can win every battle but lose the war. That's where we're messing up. And we're investing in the wrong things. Things that we need to inve

If the terrorist organizations are very successful in remote areas...

00:00:38    SPEAKER_01

Hi and welcome to the 1CA podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're joined today by Dr. Abu Bakr al -Noor, who is a cultural conflict sociologist. He received a degree from Nova Southeastern University Department of Conflict Studies, and he's been currently working with refugees and assisting with the Valkomir team. We had previously interviewed James Pastor Christian and Dr. Alex Nesich. So they have an extensive team of experts, all of whom have advanced degrees and come from other countries. Dr. Elnor, thank you very much for being on the 1CA podcast.

00:01:15    SPEAKER_02

Thank you for having me, John. I really appreciate this opportunity.

00:01:20    SPEAKER_01

Absolutely. We're glad that you're here. And, sir, I wanted to go a little bit into your background so that listeners can understand where you're coming from, conflict that you have lived through, and how that led to where you are today. You and your family come from, how do you pronounce it? Is it Zakawa? People of western Sudan and Chad? From Darfur,

00:01:43    SPEAKER_02

northern Darfur in Sudan. So the northern Darfur region is predominantly inhabited by the Zakawa tribe and also the four tribes in some part of it.

00:01:58    SPEAKER_01

Okay. Could you tell people what most families do in that group? What's a typical family like, and what do people do to make a living? What they do for a living is they are pastoralists in nature,

00:02:10    SPEAKER_02

a living is they are pastoralists in nature, and also they do some farming. But the thing that they are not willing to do or they don't want to do is joining the military.

00:02:32    SPEAKER_01

So cattle and camels for sale? Is that you take the cattle and camels to market for sale? Well, the first purpose of having these animals is like social status.

00:02:41    SPEAKER_02

of having these animals is like social status. That's the number one thing. And number two, you know, like if you need anything, then you take one, two or three or, you know, as many as you want to take them to the market and then you sell them and then you buy your... your needs. Mostly they have them for social status. So the more animal you have, the higher status that is.

00:03:11    SPEAKER_01

Oh, I understand. So how many head of cattle or camels would a typical family have?

00:03:19    SPEAKER_02

Some people have like 400 heads. Some people like 300 heads. And some of them is like just 50 to 100 heads of animals. Especially like camels.

00:03:31    SPEAKER_01

Wow, so it's a huge area, land area, so there must be just cattle everywhere grazing. Is it a fertile area? Is there any grasslands? How do people get by with access to water and food for the cattle? It's a desert,

00:03:47    SPEAKER_02

pretty much. So that's why, you know, raising camels in that area, that's the ideal place to raise camels. Right. And also, you know, like the Zagawa,

00:04:06    SPEAKER_02

and then east of Chad and then the northern part of Sudan. So that is the expansion of the Sahara Desert.

00:04:18    SPEAKER_02

Yes, by nature they are nomadic. So even though sometimes they leave, you know, like you have a family, you leave your family and then you take your animals and then you go, you know, just roaming. grazing lands for your animals, and so on and so forth. So they are nomadic by nature.

00:04:43    SPEAKER_01

Okay. Dr. O 'Nour, you mentioned that people there would not want to join the military. Why is that the case? Well, because the Zahawa tribe...

00:05:06    SPEAKER_02

And they don't want to join the military because part of it also, the Sudanese military, you know, like officers in the Sudanese militaries, like they are from same tribes from the north.

00:05:21    SPEAKER_02

from the north. So whenever people from that region want to join the military, you just, you know, like just being like enlisted. Okay. Right. Not more of the officers. So that's why. They don't want to join the military. Working for someone. I think that's understandable.

00:05:43    SPEAKER_02

You should have that right to compete with others.

00:05:49    SPEAKER_01

Sure. And they're not on equal footing. They cannot compete for positions as officers like people from other tribes can, it sounds like.

00:05:57    SPEAKER_02

Yeah, that's the number two reason for not having or not wanting to join the military.

00:06:04    SPEAKER_01

Okay. Understood. Yeah. Sir, before you earned a degree from Nova Southeastern University, this was the Department of Conflict Studies, you had lived through conflict and experienced trauma yourself. And I wondered if you could talk to the listeners about what the Darfur conflict, the Civil War, was about and how that impacted your family because that was a watershed occurrence. That changed the trajectory of your life. I think they heard about this conflict at a distance. There were many celebrities who tried to shed light on what happened in Darfur, what continues to happen in their area. But could you talk to folks about what was the Darfur Civil War about? When did this begin? And how did it impact you?

00:06:57    SPEAKER_02

Well, first of all, the Darfur conflict, like the real conflict,

00:07:06    SPEAKER_02

You know, like we had a lot of, you know, back and forth and some sort of conflict, but not manifested as the way it is right now, or at least the way it was in 2003. But let me give you a little bit of a...

00:07:35    SPEAKER_02

The name Darfur, Dar in Arabic, is the home. And then four is the tribe. So pretty much the name Darfur means the home of the four tribes. So the four tribes is the number one tribe in Darfur. That's why they took the name. And then there's the Zahawa tribe, and then the Masali tribe, kind of like number three. And of course, there are other tribes, those who consider themselves. They are nomads, so they are roaming from one place to another. Prior to the Kingdom of the Four, there was a kingdom called the Tajo Kingdom, and that ruled the region from 1100 to 1480. It's about 380 years. And then after this kingdom came another kingdom called the Twindu Kingdom, and that also...

00:08:44    SPEAKER_02

And then the four kingdoms came, and the four kingdoms started from 1640 until 1916, about 276 years.

00:08:57    SPEAKER_02

And then after that, you know, like the...

00:09:28    SPEAKER_02

what they called the council of state the sovereignty kinds of council and that also started 1956 right after the independent for two years until 1958 and then after that um there was a general called ibrahim abud took over through a coup detail or the military coup that and he ruled from 1958 until 1956 so about

00:10:09    SPEAKER_02

it's about also four years and then another military coup took place by one of the general generals called Ann Mary and that was in 1969 until 1985 and then followed by a transition which is something a lot of people say that that was a military coup by Suara Dhab and that lasted for one year from 1985 until

00:10:38    SPEAKER_02

And then another elected government of Prime Minister Sadik al -Mahdi, and that from 1986 until 1989. And that government lasted only about three years. And then al -Gashir, who is the current Sudanese president,

00:10:58    SPEAKER_02

came through a military coup in 1998. And it's been like, it's been 30 years since. So this is kind of like an overall history or a background,

00:11:15    SPEAKER_02

a brief background about the Darfur.

00:11:30    SPEAKER_01

Even under al -Bashir in the last 30 years, I guess that's been the most consistent leadership, I suppose. A series of tumultuous times since the kingdoms had folded into the modern -day nation -state of Sudan. That's what happened exactly.

00:11:57    SPEAKER_02

We had like three elected, so to speak, three elected governments. It only lasted for like 10 years in total. So that's the problem. a little bit of his purple background you know like since independence we had pretty much five major conflicts

00:12:39    SPEAKER_02

conflict between Muslims and Christians. But so to speak, a lot of people say it's a struggle, it's a power struggle. But people have their own opinions. They may agree or disagree, but mostly about power. And also there was like, was still going on the Nuba Mountain conflict in the West and the Blue Nile conflict also in the West -South and the Pija conflict also that was in the East.

00:13:29    SPEAKER_02

or the middle of Sudan, not having a lot of policy makers from the region, from Darfur. So that's why people view political causes or political, but through marginalization of the region, that's like one of the drivers that contributed to the Darfur conflict. So we feel that, yeah, the Darfur people feel that we're not sharing. Right, I can see why. Yeah, that was the number one driver for the comfort.

00:14:06    SPEAKER_02

Also the inequality, people view Darfur are not equal as people from the north. Whether it's true or not, a lot of people view it that way. You know, inequality in education, in healthcare, and a lot of things that people perceive themselves as not being equal to their peers. And also in Darfur, As I mentioned before, there are some Arab tribes, at least those who identify themselves with the Arabs. So the government armed those tribes, gave them some weapons. So also that's one of the major drives for the Danforth conflict.

00:15:05    SPEAKER_02

Okay. Dictatorship, corruptions, and also we have the politicization of the religion, Islam in particular. Right. People are just trying to use that religion as a vehicle, trying to achieve some sort of gains through mobilizing people, you know, like, we are this, we are this people, we are...

00:15:38    SPEAKER_02

people and so on and so forth. Also there are some sort of external influences like the Arab League or at least some Arab countries helped or at least helped the Sudanese government in some way or another as having the Sudanese government identifying itself as being an Arab elite.

00:15:46    SPEAKER_02

like the Arab League or at least some Arab countries helped or at least helped the Sudanese government in some way or another as having the Sudanese government identifying itself as being an Arab elite. So the current government had a lot of support from the Arab League and some countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and some Muslim countries like Turkey and so on and so forth. So that is the political part that sparked WIDA for conflict. Other people think that there are other environmental issues also, the scarcity in resources, and that has led to conflict between herders and farmers,

00:16:36    SPEAKER_01

the pastoralists and the farmers. That's probably always been there, though. If there are nomadic peoples competing for resources for feeding families and growing crops and feeding livestock, I would think that in that region, over hundreds of years, those conflicts, have they always been there, though?

00:16:55    SPEAKER_02

It's been there for so many years. And as you mentioned, due to the scarcity of resources, you see the competition.

00:17:08    SPEAKER_02

on these lands and those who own the farms they want to you know benefit from the crop the crops that they grow so you see a constant conflict between these two uh two groups okay so that's that's one also yeah and also there are other cultural cultural facts or drivers that contributed to the therefore conflict and the notion of identity who are you know like some people identify

00:17:30    SPEAKER_02

that contributed to the therefore conflict and the notion of identity who are you know like some people identify identify themselves as being Africans. So that is a huge struggle in the Darfur region.

00:17:48    SPEAKER_01

Right.

00:17:49    SPEAKER_02

And also, yeah, and there are also ethnic tensions between Arabs and non -Arab tribes and between, you know, like even within one group, like the Arabs themselves and African tribes themselves. So also that is huge. And the last thing that I want to add to this one is like, Even though that is, it looks like political, so the government enforced the idea of acculturation. I call it forced acculturation. So you have to adapt, you know, the Arab culture, whether you like it or not. So that's the identity issue, you know, like they force you to embrace other cultures that you don't like it or at least that is not yours. So these are the...

00:18:43    SPEAKER_01

It started in 2003. Continues today? It still continues. Not as it was in 2003 or 2004, but it's still not completely settled down. So I would consider it's still going on.

00:18:57    SPEAKER_02

would consider it's still going on.

00:18:59    SPEAKER_01

Folks, you've been listening to an interview with Dr. Abu Bakr al -Noor. We're talking about the Darfur conflict. When we come back, I'll ask Dr. al -Noor about the research he's been doing on the underlying psychological drivers of violent extremism. in some Muslim communities.

00:19:22    SPEAKER_01

The Civil Affairs Association continues to expand its value to its members. The Association recently established the Professional Publications Advisory Board and a supporting research library. Founded by the late Dr. Kurt Muller, retired Army Colonel, the CA Association Professional Publications Advisory Board, comprises scholars and policy and publications experts to assist civil affairs professionals in publishing papers and articles and establish professional journals. As a service to association members, the board also provides a research library to conduct research on academic or professional papers. Check out the website to find out which board members may be of greatest help and request their assistance by emailing the board. This is an amazing resource that you won't find in many other associations. If you're not yet a member of the civil affairs association, Go online to civilaffairsassoch .org and join today.

00:20:29    SPEAKER_01

Thanks for listen

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00:00:48    SPEAKER_00

I'm Sergeant Sarah Kelly with 450 SCA unit out of Maryland. And today I'm interviewing Major Devin Connolly. He is here in NTC as one of the OCs. So welcome, sir. Thank you so much for agreeing to the podcast.

00:01:03    SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no problem. Thanks for inviting me on. Yeah.

00:01:06    SPEAKER_00

How did you get involved with civil affairs? I don't know,

00:01:08    SPEAKER_01

don't know, by accident, right? So I was originally an artillery officer in the Army when I came in as a second lieutenant. I think like 2006, 2007 in Iraq, we weren't doing a whole lot of shooting of artillery. right? I ended up, I was basically a civil affairs officer for an armor company, I guess you could say, right? Managing their CERT projects and doing stuff with local police, local sheikhs, local government, all the types of stuff. So I was kind of doing CA work as an artillery officer. And then one of my buddies, another artillery officer, I don't know how he heard about like active duty civil affairs and like the recruiting briefings that came to Fort Stewart at the time, but he went and I just went with him. Yeah. And I decided to join. I mean, cause I thought it was just... to be challenged and I thought it'd be something that would be fun. And I think it's been both. So how many years actually have you been in civil affairs?

00:01:52    SPEAKER_00

how many years actually have you been in civil affairs? So it'll be like nine years in like two months.

00:01:55    SPEAKER_01

it'll be like nine years in like two months. So yeah, it's about nine years right now I've been in active UCA.

00:02:00    SPEAKER_00

What kind of areas of the world have you mostly been with?

00:02:03    SPEAKER_01

So like most people in the army, I've been to Iraq and Afghanistan, but then also spent eight months as CA team leader in Tajikistan as well. What motivated you to become an OC here at NTC?

00:02:10    SPEAKER_00

motivated you to become an OC here at NTC?

00:02:13    SPEAKER_01

The primary motivating factor was HRC. sending me orders telling me to come to NTC. So, and I got, so nobody really, nobody volunteers really to be an OC here. But I think what keeps me or like, that's what made me an OC. But I think what makes the difference between this, like people who are just gradually come here and people who actually make this a worthwhile experience is, you know, a desire to take our experiences, help other units, help other individuals grow while they're here. Because for most people, this is, this is going to be the biggest and probably most worthwhile. training experience they're going to have. So I think a desire to teach and to help other units grow that really makes people at OC as opposed to just orders from Human Resource Command. So you liked it that much during your rotation and decided to stay,

00:02:56    SPEAKER_00

you liked it that much during your rotation and decided to stay, huh?

00:02:59    SPEAKER_01

Yeah, for sure.

00:03:01    SPEAKER_00

And what exactly is it that you do here? First and foremost,

00:03:03    SPEAKER_01

and foremost, just like OCT, Observer, Controller, Trainer, I mean, that really is what we do, right? Observing units and I would say helping them see themselves. A lot of times when units come in, they kind of have a false sense of where their shortcomings are. and where their strengths are. Sometimes they're right, sometimes they're wrong. And I think that's one of the primary things that we do here is help them get an accurate picture of themselves. So we do that during force -on -force training here. Our team of CA and PSYOPOCs help run the sticks lanes that we do towards the end of NTC rotation. But then also we use our feedback for the scenario planners for ops group headquarters in order to continually improve the training, but also keep it relevant to what's going on with the force, you know, the way that units are being used, current conflicts are going on. on, like how do we continually make the training here most relevant, most worthwhile for units that come. And what would you say some of the units'

00:03:50    SPEAKER_00

what would you say some of the units' biggest pitfalls are? I mean,

00:03:52    SPEAKER_01

mean, the biggest pitfall is going to be, I think, integration. And then I think it's primarily because, especially for use of KPOC, CA, and PSYOP units, you just can't do that at a lot of other places, especially at the brigade level. So you maybe have opportunities at least to partner for a couple days or go to, you know, foot brag for some sort of training exercise that a brigade is doing there, but not at this level. So a lot of times the teams... Come in with an idea of how they want to integrate with battalion. Does it work out so well? And we see that teams get misutilized. And some of that, you could say, is on the supported unit. You know, battalion commanders not knowing how to use resources and stuff. But that's also on us to understand how can we talk to those units to make sure that we're being effectively utilized. So a lot of times, and I think you guys probably said during your rotation, some teams immediately got pushed down to a maneuver company. And then they seem to kind of disappear. And they have long stretches of time without doing anything worthwhile. Where some teams manage. keep themselves at the battalion headquarters. They do go down to line companies when it comes time for execution, whether that's doing civil reconnaissance or whatever, key leader engagements, but they go back to the headquarters and continue to build integration. And the company headquarters is always a struggle at the brigade combat team, especially if a brigade doesn't have an S -9 of how does the headquarters plug into all of the planning processes of the brigade. I mean, that's something that you just can't really train at home station, understanding. I think kind of how we talked about one of our big topics, you know. You know, in your AAR about IPB, intelligence preparation of the battlefield, how does CA plug into that? You know, and a lot of don't have a great idea of how that's supposed to work. I don't think it's a friction point that we generally see coming. Honestly, it's not really one you can do a lot to prepare for at home. There's some, but not a lot.

00:05:26    SPEAKER_00

Yeah, because I know for us, one of the biggest things we noticed really was communication, not just comms, but sometimes between different teams and within the teams themselves.

00:05:34    SPEAKER_01

Sure. So, I mean, communication is always one of these struggles for units here, right? And it's not just CA units, right? At the brigade level, communication. is one of the biggest friction points because until you've come to NTC, nothing can match the distances of NTC. The no training environment you're going to come upon is going to match that. You go to some training event at Fort Bragg or wherever at home station and you're like, yeah, FM communications, it works. It's awesome. It's easy. Sure, but because we're talking like a kilometer, two kilometers away, we start to get units and teams that are 30, 40 kilometers away. All of a sudden, FM is not going to do it for you. So then becoming understanding your second and third priorities for communication. having a pace actually is feasible, is understandable, and that we actually have the expertise and the training on all those systems to make sure that they can actually function. Yeah, it's difficult. I mean, that's probably the number one problem area as far as training that we see when units come in.

00:06:26    SPEAKER_00

Besides that, what other ideas for CA units to prepare to come out here, whether it be towards the KLE engagements or just kind of the understanding of the CA doctrines themselves? So,

00:06:36    SPEAKER_01

yeah, so understanding of CA doctrine, I think, is a big one. So I'll be the first person to tell you this. that doctrine is not the way it has to be done. Like, you can't just read this, and it's a guidebook, and it explains to me exactly how to do all of the things I'm supposed to do. No, I think it's really a guideline, and it's a set of principles about how you should be operating. However, it's not a very good guideline if you've never read it, and you don't know what's in there. It can't be used as a guide, so you still have to know what's in there. And I think it's totally fine if you understand the doctrine, you understand what it says, and that with the mission you've been given, the assets you have, you say, look, look, I make a conscious decision to not do, or to kind of... shift from doctrine a little bit because it's going to work better. I think that's totally fine. If, however, you're saying I'm operating this way, but I also don't really know what doctrine would tell me to do anyways, well, then that's a problem. So definitely a big one. I think more generally, it's, you know, the biggest thing for units is SOPs. And I go, it's a hassle because we talk about SOPs. It's like, oh, I got to write out like pages and pages of SOPs, which I got, I understand why that is such pain. But when it comes to communications, like understanding, not just like the physical equipment where using, but the methods, timelines, the formats of our reporting that we're going to be doing, having an idea before, especially before coming to NTC, about how we think that's supposed to work. Duties and responsibilities, not just on a team, the company headquarters level is even, I think, more complex because we have more people. And the things that the company headquarters could be asked to do, especially when you are plugged into a brigade headquarters and you've no experience doing this, understanding how we can break apart those duties and responsibilities so that we're effectively accomplishing all our tasks, we're making the use of every soldier. time, I think it's very beneficial. And I'm not saying that units should come in with like, here are SOPs. They're 100 % complete. We have validated them. We have done them. No, just like come in with, I don't know, like a 75 % solution. Like we think these are pretty good SOPs. We recognize that, you know, we've not actually been had a chance to test all of these very thoroughly. Awesome. Let's look at your SOPs on day one when you get here. Let's operate according to those SOPs for some days and we'll have some conversations about what is working, what is not working. You know, what do we need to add to our SOPs we've identified here so that when units leave NTC, I mean, they can have a very good idea of where they need to go in the months coming up. Like, what do we need to improve upon in order to make sure that, heaven forbid, we have to come back to NTC in six months from now. Like, we're better prepared.

00:08:49    SPEAKER_00

Now, do you see any difference between, like, a reserve unit coming out versus the active duty? I mean,

00:08:53    SPEAKER_01

mean, so sure, what you're asked to do, I mean, the structure of what you do here is a little bit different. Like, so reserves here, you guys are supporting a brigade combat team. We're on the active duty side. They're supporting Special Operations Task Force. But at the end of the day, like, the specific tasks, like healer engagement, civil reconnaissance, understanding the civil component of the environment, like all of those things are kind of the same. There's not this big difference between the two. There are like our differences, right? In the reserves, a lot of people, a lot of individuals have some great technical skills that they've got from outside of the army, whether that's, you know, law enforcement, medical, city planners, whatever. Active duty has the benefit of being on active duty and five or, you know, sometimes even seven days a week, they're training so they can put a little more time into that. So while there are differences at the baseline, I mean, I think the tasks are kind of the same, right? There's no, you know, I think what they're being asked to do is not drastically different. Have you ever seen an interaction together?

00:09:42    SPEAKER_00

Have you ever seen an interaction together? Or see reserve units teamed up together out here?

00:09:46    SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, I think we have. Yeah, we have. Absolutely, right? And so then there are times when overlap where... and reserved teams may have a different purpose for what they're doing in a certain urban area, but it's very beneficial for the two to team up in order to, you know, both having, sharing a key leader engagement, elements from both teams, you know, talking to the same person with different purposes, and that's fine. Or it just comes down to just a sharing of information that just like if you have multiple teams from your company working in an area, you should be working together to make sure that we're not duplicating effort, you know, helping each other out, sharing information can be extremely beneficial. Yeah, we see it, I think, every once in a while, yeah.

00:10:19    SPEAKER_00

What about with PSYOP? advice to give when working with them better? Because sometimes it's certain teams that seem to work out better than others, and I don't know whether it's sometimes personalities of the Clash or just different ideas of what's expected of them out here.

00:10:31    SPEAKER_01

It blows my mind when we get PSYOP and CA units out here that just refuse to work together. And we've had some really bad ones where they just almost refuse to talk, and I don't understand why. I think it just comes down to personalities. While our tasks, you know, what we're trying to do are not exactly the same, one, we're kind of in the same boat, especially here at NTC. where you're being plugged into a brigade combat team that doesn't, one, doesn't exactly know how to use you, but also your supporting element. We come with, like we talked about some communication challenges, some equipment challenges. It always works

Oh, could this vintage store be any cuter? Right? And the best part? They accept Discover. Accept Discover? In a little place like this? I don't think so, Jennifer. Oh, yeah, huh?

00:00:11    SPEAKER_00

Discover's accepted where I like to shop. Come on, baby, get with the times.

00:00:15    SPEAKER_02

Right, so we shouldn't get the parachute pants?

00:00:19    SPEAKER_00

These are making a comeback. I think. Discover is accepted at 99 % of places that take credit cards nationwide. Based on the February 2024 Nielsen Report.

00:01:17    SPEAKER_04

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. My name is John McGilligate, your host for today's episode. We're joined today by General Anthony Zinni. General Zinni was born in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania in 1943 and raised in the Philadelphia area. He attended St. Cosmos and Damien Grade School and St. Matthews High School in Conshohock in Pennsylvania. He currently resides in Williamsburg, Virginia. His military, diplomatic, business, and academic career has taken him to over 100 countries. General Zinni joined the Marine Corps' Platoon Leader Class Program in 1961 and was commissioned an Infantry Second Lieutenant in 1965 upon graduation from Villanova University. He held numerous command and staff assignments that include platoon, company, battalion, regimental, Marine Expeditionary Unit, and Marine Expeditionary Force Command. His staff assignments include service and operations, training, special operations, counterterrorism, and manpower billets. He has been a tactics and operations instructor at several Marine Corps schools and was selected as a fellow on the Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group. General Zinni's joint assignments include command of a joint task force and a unified command. He has also held several joint and combined staff billets at joint task force and unified command levels. His military experience includes deployments to the Mediterranean, the Caribbean, the Western Pacific, Northern Europe, and Korea. He has also served tours of duty in Okinawa and Germany. His operational experiences include two tours in Vietnam where he was severely wounded, emergency relief and security operations in the Philippines, Operation Provide Comfort in Turkey and northern Iraq, Operation Provide Hope in the former Soviet Union, Operation Restore Hope, Continue Hope, and United Shield in Somalia, Operation Resolute Response and Noble Response in Kenya, operations Desert Thunder, Desert Fox, Desert Viper, Desert Spring, Southern Watch, and Maritime Intercept operations in Iraq and the Persian Gulf, and Operation Infinite Reach against terrorist targets in the Central Region. He was involved in the planning and execution of Operation Proven Force and Operation Patriot Defender during the Gulf War, and noncombatant evacuation operations in Liberia, Zaire, Sierra Leone, and Eritrea. He has attended numerous military schools and courses, including the Army Special Warfare School, the Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School, the Marine Corps Command and Staff College, and the National War College. General Zinni retired from the military in 2000 after commanding U .S. Central Command. General Zinni, welcome to the 1CA Podcast. Thanks, John. Good to be with you. Thank you very much. And going through the long list of operations makes me wonder who comes up with the names and how they do that. Do you know how that works?

00:04:55    SPEAKER_04

And I would think the foxes and the vipers and the springs, all the animals you can put on a coin would work out well, too. Yeah. So we're here today to talk about your connection with civil affairs, what you've learned throughout your career, and give some guidance to listeners about where you see civil affairs as a joint force, Army, Marine Corps, where it may be heading, and as a capability to support of the U .S. government interests. So let me start by asking you, during your time in uniform, when did you first come across the Civil Affairs Unit?

00:05:26    SPEAKER_01

Well, you know...

00:06:07    SPEAKER_01

in a hostile environment, and a lot of agencies that were going to show up, and non -governmental organizations, United Nations, other international organizations, and private volunteer organizations, and trying to figure out how this would all work. And that's the first time I really sat down with two civil affairs officers that were planners on our staff that I got to know very well,

00:06:29    SPEAKER_01

were planners on our staff that I got to know very well, and captains Elmo and Hess. who taught me a lot about what civil affairs could contribute. And I think for the J3 and our deputy commander at the time, we all were kind of saying, you know, we just didn't have this kind of understanding of what civil affairs could do.

00:06:53    SPEAKER_01

And I think one of the reasons why the operation was such a success is because the civil affairs participation in there, eventually we had a brigadier general.

00:07:04    SPEAKER_01

Because what we found, what I would say was the main effort eventually became that kind of coordination and connectivity with not only the people that were traumatized and were dealing with in their leadership, but with all these other civilian governmental and non -governmental volunteer organizations.

00:07:24    SPEAKER_01

organizations. And so that was an eye -opener, and I took that with me to Somalia. When I went to Somalia as the J -3 for the first task force, and then back again as an advisor with Ambassador Oakley, the second tour, then the third tour commanding the forces to cover the withdrawal. Civil affairs played a great deal in the planning that we had done,

00:07:50    SPEAKER_01

and my awareness of what they did, you know, really.

00:08:10    SPEAKER_04

So it sounds like the planning aspect of this is a key point, turning point, potentially positive way for CA forces to support their units. And you can't wait for you to be on the ground and hope, oh, the CA team is right over there. Of course we know what they do. And that rarely happens. It's kind of like getting an infantry commander to realize, well, logistics are key to your success overall. just as these other enablers like psychological operations or civil affairs may be, but that needs to start well in advance before you hit the ground and plan the operation. Does that happen routinely?

00:08:49    SPEAKER_01

And unfortunately, I think in a lot of cases, planners are not as aware of what civil affairs can do and bring as maybe we should be,

00:09:01    SPEAKER_01

especially when we're thinking in terms of, well, it's a combat operation, but in this day and age. You know, the kinds of environments we find ourselves in, it's combat rolled into all sorts of other kinds of missions. And I think, you know, up until the 1990s, probably everybody thought of civil affairs as an organization that came in, basically dealt with keeping civilians out of the way and tending to their needs. And then more in a support role, I think in the 1990s began to see. It was not only a major contributor, but like I said, at times it should be and could be the main effort.

00:09:37    SPEAKER_01

be the main effort. Certainly as you phased into maybe the drawing down of combat operations and now the more reconstruction efforts and stabilization efforts,

00:09:42    SPEAKER_01

the drawing down of combat operations and now the more reconstruction efforts and stabilization efforts, but still requiring military involvement. This is the ideal bridge and organization, but it has to be planned for and it has to be involved right from the beginning. But I think the key is that maybe in the 90s we began to see that it was more than just a supporting role, that it played a key role in the planning, and that it had operational level importance and certainly needed to be considered at that level,

00:10:03    SPEAKER_01

in the 90s

00:10:12    SPEAKER_01

operational level importance and certainly needed to be considered at that level, at the combatant commander level.

00:10:19    SPEAKER_04

Yeah. You spent most of your career in the Marine Corps and Joint Force elements. The Marine Corps still has civil affairs. The Navy got out of the business. The bulk of the CA forces are still in the Army, with most of it in the reserve component. When you, going through your experiences looking back and now what we have today with the force structure of civil affairs, is it the right mix? Does the Marine Corps need more or less civil affairs? And, you know, for the Army balanced active duty and reserve, do you think that's right?

00:10:49    SPEAKER_01

You know, I spent almost my entire general officer time.

00:11:01    SPEAKER_01

I think we have to think about it joint. Who are the best contributors? Obviously, the bulk of civil affairs will be from the Army. I think it's valuable that all the services have some civil affairs capability so that they're aware of it and its capabilities, and they contribute to the joint capability. I do think, though... And like we think of transportation command and all that, we need a joint command that does civil affairs. I don't think SOCOM is the right place for civil affairs. I think civil affairs is important. And there's a differentiation between what civil affairs does and what we do with special operations. And I think the integration and the requirement and the need to interface with other agencies. means that we should look at a unified or subunified command. And I think I would even go so far as if we really have people that want to think on a larger and more strategic scale,

00:12:06    SPEAKER_01

would even go so far as if we really have people that want to think on a larger and more strategic scale, this would be the ideal.

00:12:30    SPEAKER_01

It would help tremendously, I can tell you from a combatant commander's point of view, in planning because none of those other agencies plan at all.

00:12:35    SPEAKER_01

of those other agencies plan at all. They claim to, but they don't. I look at my deliberate war plans and I don't see a State Department or AID or other component about how we're going to manage things during the operations and in the later phases how we're going to do the transitioning.

00:12:53    SPEAKER_01

in the later phases how we're going to do the transitioning. I think a classic example was Iraq.

00:13:00    SPEAKER_01

Orha and CPA were disasters. You know, we keep trying to put lipstick on that pig, but it did not go well because it was a pickup ad hoc attempt at nation building, and you can't do business that way, even on a smaller scale.

00:13:17    SPEAKER_04

It seems like the last 20 years or so, maybe longer, DOD has been taking on... more and more missions that state or USAID had been doing traditionally, and the money has been going to DoD, and that slope just feeds the cycle of people saying, well, state and aid can't do it. Well, maybe they're not stepping up to the plate. Maybe they don't have the money they used to have. And DoD just continues to eat more of that mission set. Where do we get, do you think, the turning point where state and aid continue to pick up those missions or the Congress decides, hey, we need to fund them adequately? Otherwise, as General Mattis had mentioned, we need to buy more ammunition.

00:14:19    SPEAKER_01

Biden and Senators Curry and a number of others are on there. And this whole business of lack of interagency coordination and planning and then execution on the ground that really bothered them. And they formed a policy advisory group. And I was on it. I retired to sort of represent the military. And what surprised me is the lack of understanding by state and others about how extensive the planning had to be, the preparation. and the identification of the personnel and the people and the structure and the organization you were going to need. Because I was looking,

00:14:56    SPEAKER_01

when I was a CENTCOM commander, just on the Iraq plan, you know, where's the annex or where's the second part of the plan that tells me how we're going to transition this over? Who comes in behind the combat forces or with them, more appropriately, that begins right away restructuring the government? I did assessments after I retired in Iraq and Afghanistan, in Iraq for General Odierno and Afghanistan for General Mattis. And I kind of wandered around and looked at everything we had on the ground there. And what shocked me is seeing the percentage of organizations that were non -military that had military people doing that business.

00:15:26    SPEAKER_01

had on the ground

00:15:32    SPEAKER_01

-military that had military people doing that business. I would find the anti -corruption task force. You know, headed by Brigadier General H .R. McMaster with everybody. I looked around with one exception was wearing a uniform. The provisional reconstruction teams were 80 percent military, not counting security.

00:15:53    SPEAKER_01

You know, and you looked around and saw that we had no plan going into these operations because nobody did the planning. And we had no pre -coordination or pre -identification as to who was going to do all this. Therefore, you end up with those pickup teams with people that are coming in that have no clue,

00:16:12    SPEAKER_01

that have no clue, couldn't find the Middle East, you know, if they tried. And you end up with the military piece goes well, but the day after, the and then what question is up in the air,

00:16:26    SPEAKER_01

in the air, and that's where you end up failing. Right.

00:16:29    SPEAKER_04

So I want to circle back to a recommendation you had a few minutes ago. And this relates to a section of your book, which is entitled Before the First Shots Were Fired, that you've written with Tony Colts. And you cite a 2009 conference at which you recommended that civil affairs become, quote, a unified command responsible for integrating all the agency's efforts and providing the planning, administrative, and logistical support for the interagency teams on the ground, end quote. So we've already talked about some of what you've seen in your career

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00:00:30    SPEAKER_03

think there's a better job in the Army than being an NCO on a civil affairs team. There's nowhere else in the Army that a staff sergeant or sergeant first class has a strategic effect on a region or theater that they do on a civil affairs team. Our NCOs are routinely entrusted and engaged directly with U .S. country teams and embassies and indigenous partners and institutions around the world on behalf of theater commanders. The language skills and cultural expertise that they gain through a training pipeline is exceptional, and they'll always be confronted with and expected to solve complex problems with little more than the knowledge of the nation's interests and an understanding of the strategic intent.

00:01:29    SPEAKER_04

Hi and welcome to the 1CA podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're joined today by Command Sergeant Major Garrick Banfield. He entered the U .S. Army in June 1992. Since then, he has served in numerous leadership positions ranging from scout team leader to brigade command sergeant major. He currently serves as the brigade command sergeant major of the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade Special Operations Airborne. CSM Banfield's assignments have ranged from the 1st Squadron 3rd Cab rudiment, 4th Squadron, 7th Cav, 124th Infantry Regiment, 15th Cav Regiment, and the 1st Cav Regiment in Germany. He then switched over to Civil Affairs and was 1st Sergeant for the 96th Civil Affairs Battalion Special Operations Airborne based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He's also served as the Senior Enlisted Advisor for the Combined Arms Center Special Operations Forces Cell at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the Battalion Command Sergeant Major of the 81st CA Battalion in Fort Hood, the Brigade Command Sergeant Major of Task Force Sinai in Egypt, and Action Officer in USASAC for the Commander Initiatives Groups in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Command Sergeant Major has deployed on several contingency and combat operations to include Operation Desert Falcon, Operation Joint Endeavor, Operation Joint Guard, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation New Dawn, and the Multinational Force and Observer Mission. He holds a Master of Science degree in Defense Analysis and Regular Warfare from the Naval Postgraduate School and a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems Management from the University of Maryland University College. CSM Banfield, thank you very much for being on the 1CA podcast.

00:03:11    SPEAKER_03

Hey, sir. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me.

00:03:14    SPEAKER_04

I was trying to look up your name and the origin of both Garrick and Banfield, and it looks like it's an old English name. I think the finding, what I found from Garrick was one who governs with a spear and mighty warrior. Do you know the background of your first name or surname?

00:03:31    SPEAKER_03

Well, sir, actually, I was originally going to be named Garrett. However, my mother's best friend, who was pregnant at the same time, had her son a couple weeks before I was born, and she took Garrett. So Garrick was the next thing on the docket. So that's the origin of my name. I do appreciate your research and background, and I'm going to latch onto that and say it was the spirit of the warrior that she saw in me when she named me.

00:04:02    SPEAKER_04

Exactly. That's awesome. Thank you again for being here. Really glad to have somebody from the 95th. We wanted to dig in for the listeners to what the 95th is, what your responsibilities as a Sergeant Major are, and talk a little bit more about the battalions that serve under the 95th. So I want to start. By asking you, how long have you been with the 95th?

00:04:24    SPEAKER_03

Sir, this time around, I've been with the 95th for about a year. I assumed responsibility as the brigade command sergeant major last May. However, I originally came to the 96th in 2005 after graduating the civil affairs qualification course. I served with the 96th and dealt the company as a team sergeant. then the first sergeant in both charlie company and hhc 96 and then i left the 96 in 2011 to go out to naval postgraduate school in california on graduation from naval postgraduate school i was assigned to the combined arms center special operation forces cell at fort leavenworth kansas I served as a senior enlisted advisor to the CACSO South. And then I was selected on Battalion CSL in 2012 and moved out to Fort Hood, Texas. Served as a Battalion Command Sergeant Major for the 81st Civil Affairs Battalion from 2013 to 2015. In 2015, I was selected for an Army Brigade. Command Sergeant Major position, which I served in Task Force Sinai in the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt from 2016 to 2017. And upon returning from that assignment, I worked up at USASOC as an action officer for the Commanders Initiatives Group. And then I assumed my current position as a 95th Brigade Command Sergeant Major. Wow.

00:06:07    SPEAKER_04

That's an awesome... careers director that you've had. So how many total years in service now since 1992, I guess, right?

00:06:16    SPEAKER_03

Right. So I've got about 27 in July 9th. I'll hit 27 years.

00:06:21    SPEAKER_04

Wow. That's awesome. Now, a lot of listeners are probably familiar with the first sergeant and maybe the battalion sergeant major. What are the responsibilities for the brigade command sergeant major and your job in the 95th?

00:06:35    SPEAKER_03

My principal duties as a brigade command sergeant major are what they are outlined in the AR -600 -20, which is to advise a commander on the performance, training, appearance, and conduct of the brigade. I'm also responsible for enforcement of Army policies and standards and administering the unit's non -commissioned officer development program. So what that translates down to in my eyes is I'm the commander's wingman. I'm 100 % committed to making sure my commander is successful, and I take a lot of personal pride in understanding his intent and then taking the initiative and providing guidance and direction to the force to meet his intent. Colonel Burnett, the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade Commander, and I had the privilege of serving together for two years as a battalion command team in the 81st Civil Affairs Battalion. which meant we didn't need to spend a whole lot of time getting to know each other when we began our current roles together. In general, the CSM is very similar to the role of the first sergeant and the role of the team sergeant. I see the role of non -commissioned officers abroad at every echelon as being the agile member of the team that provides balance and fills in the gaps wherever it's needed to accomplish the day -to -day business of the organization.

00:07:53    SPEAKER_00

the organization.

00:07:55    SPEAKER_03

get the training validation complete, and really enforce and uphold the standards of the organization. This allows the commander to focus on providing direction to the organization, whether that be at the team, company, battalion, brigade, or higher levels.

00:08:12    SPEAKER_04

Okay. Can you describe the relationship then, so between the brigade and the battalion sergeant major, sergeant's major? and what kind of direction or guidance you may provide to them, or does that come from their battalions only?

00:08:27    SPEAKER_03

So really the most critical relationship, although we're all one team, the most critical relationship in those command teams is between the command sergeant's major and that commander. So while I provide guidance and direction to the battalion command sergeant's majors and provide them guidance on how to accomplish the commander's intent, Really, they take their marching orders from their battalion commanders, who in turn take their battalion commander, take their marching orders from the brigade commander. So we are, the NCO support channel is almost an auxiliary channel that is there to support the chain of command. We have absolutely consistent and constant communication between the battalion command sergeants, Major and myself. We talk on a daily basis. They keep me abreast of issues within their formations that I sort of coalesce and provide that feedback to my brigade commander.

00:09:26    SPEAKER_04

Okay. Now, you've been with the 95th now for a while, as you've just described. What would you say is an elevator pitch or a capabilities brief for the 95th overall?

00:09:36    SPEAKER_03

Well, that's a great question. Several aspects to that. First is who we are. We're warriors, problem solvers. and regional cultural experts focused on the human component of the land domain in support of the geographic commanders, U .S. ambassadors, and at the end, the nation's priorities. But it's what we do as a brigade, and those break down into three key tasks, civil reconnaissance, civil and unified action partner engagement, and human network analysis. So our brigade has recently... refocus on developing our metal, and we currently have five tasks that are metal brigade metal tasks, and those are establish a civil affairs task force, conduct human network analysis, coordinate unconventional warfare, coordinate foreign internal defense, and coordinate foreign humanitarian systems operations. And the battalion metals are coalesced. in a line to support that brigade medal, which is passed further down into the guidance that the battalions give to their companies for their training. So we're trying to get to a sustained readiness model where it's medal -based, evaluated and validated against performance metrics that support the medal, as opposed to solely mission -focused training for an upcoming mission.

00:11:10    SPEAKER_04

You started out in the 96th, and the 95th Brigade grew out of that 96th Battalion in 2007. How many battalions are there currently under the 95th, and aren't they regionally aligned? Could you talk about those battalions and their regional alignments? Absolutely.

00:11:29    SPEAKER_03

So when I arrived to Civil Affairs, it was the 96th, and there were regionally aligned companies within the 96th. The Quadrennital Defense Review outlined the growth of civil affairs across the Army and directed the growth of the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade. And then we immediately went into growing the 96th into a brigade organization. And the brigade was actually activated in 2007. And it rapidly grew from one battalion into... five regionally aligned battalions that we have today. And those are the 91st Civil Affairs Battalion, which is focused on Africa and regionally aligned with Africa. The 92nd Civil Affairs Battalion, which is regionally aligned with Europe. The 96th Civil Affairs Battalion, which is regionally aligned with the CENTCOM AOR. The 97th Civil Affairs Battalion, which is regionally aligned with the Indo -PACOM Theater. And the 98th Civil Affairs Battalion, which is regionally aligned with Southcom. So they're focused on South and Central America.

00:12:43    SPEAKER_04

Would you say that the battalions will flex, grow a little bit as needed if there's more focus on CENTCOM AOR as opposed to AFRICOM, for example? Or now we're doing a lot of work in the Indo -PACOM area, so does 95th get more focus based on whatever the 95th? you know, hires telling the 95th and the 1st Special Forces Command and saying, hey, 95th, we need you to flex in this area more than others.

00:13:09    SPEAKER_03

So we're very, very focused on getting our civil affairs officers and NCOs regionally aligned by the battalions that they've been trained and educated for their language, their regional analysis and studies into those battalions. Each battalion has six line companies in a battalion with five civil affairs teams. And really based on the global employment requirements, we feel that we're right -sized right now to meet the requirements for contingency plans and persistent engagements throughout if we're manned to 100%. Roger.

00:13:55    SPEAKER_03

Some theaters require more teams than others. So while we do not like to break regional alignment, there's times that we have to. And we're going to, instead of piecemealing personnel and breaking their regional alignment and sending them into battalions and companies that are not regionally aligned, what we're looking at doing now for some mission sets in theaters is to deploy a company outside of their regionally aligned AOR. to augment those theaters an example would be in in centcom the 96 has a has a heavy requirement for civil military score elements uh within the centcom aor and they've been going pretty hard and heavy for the past uh past 16 years in the in the centcom aor right um we are now looking at taking rotating in companies from other battalions to pick up some of those missions within the CENTCOM AOR, specifically the combat -oriented missions that may be best suited compared to the civil -military support element missions for somebody that is not specifically regionally aligned to the CENTCOM AOR. Yeah,

00:15:11    SPEAKER_04

that's a good idea. So I've seen the public information on the website for the 95th that says that it's been in the process of growing, right? From 2017, there were about 1 ,200 soldiers to more than 1 ,800. Did that happen? Did that growth take effect?

00:15:28    SPEAKER_03

Well, we did get a good bit of that growth completely. We've sort of settled right now at about 1 ,700 soldiers, civilians within our brigade. We're not projecting any growth in the near future. And with minor exceptions, we seem to be about the right size to meet our current mission requirements. We've got 150 regionally aligned deployable civil affairs teams, 30 companies and five battalions that are able to meet the theater, special operations command, and geographic command and commander requirements. Wher

These communities have an incredibly high threshold, a high tolerance for insecurity. So if they're the ones saying that it's dangerous, that's pretty bad. It's kind of like if people on the south side of Chicago were saying, man, security is really a big issue. You're like, wow, this isn't like rural America. This isn't like suburbia. You guys have lived in an insecure environment for a long time. If you're saying that this is bad even by your own standards, then why? We got to unpack why.

00:00:39    SPEAKER_01

Hi, welcome to the 1CA Podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're joined today by Justin Richman. He is the founder and executive director of Imple Project. Before starting Imple Project, Justin worked as a forward -deployed engineer at Palantir Technologies. where he led field implementation during both the Typhoon Haiyan and Typhoon Hagapit responses in the Philippines. Previously, he served two tours in Afghanistan as USAID's District Stability Framework Coordinator, mentoring joint civilian -military Afghan teams on stabilization implementation in eastern Afghanistan. Prior to USAID, he served in the Army as a Special Operations Team Leader in the southern Philippines, focusing on stabilization, counterinsurgency, and information operations. Justin Richman, welcome to the 1CA Podcast.

00:01:28    SPEAKER_04

Thanks, John. I appreciate you having me.

00:01:30    SPEAKER_01

And we'll note for the audience that you're on daddy duty right now, recording from a park somewhere in the country, and we appreciate your time.

00:01:39    SPEAKER_04

Of course. Happy to do it.

00:01:41    SPEAKER_01

We want to talk about what you're doing at Imple Project. And for our listeners, that's spelled I -M -P -L. You said you pronounce it simple without the S.

00:01:53    SPEAKER_04

That's right. And looking back, I think I probably could have done a better job on the branding. But I wanted to make it pretty simple and straightforward. The focus of the organization is implementation and execution of tasks on the ground. I think the biggest frustration I had with civil society when I was both in the military and with USAID was there's always just so much talk and people aren't getting out there in the tough places and doing the hard work. That's the reason we started the NGO.

00:02:22    SPEAKER_01

That's awesome. Well, that was leading to my question about the mission. So that's how you started it. What would you say is the mission of the organization?

00:02:31    SPEAKER_04

So, yeah, the mission of the organization is really to focus on, like, sustainable, solid development work in the most vulnerable communities. So the gaps that we identified, myself, the other founders, one of whom was a civil affairs. officer back in the time leading up to 2010. The gaps that we identified were, number one, a lack of bad work, a lack of really understanding what the local communities needed and how to deliver it. The next thing that we saw, though, was that civil society wasn't doing a very good job at all of identifying which communities needed their work the most. I think anybody who's been deployed... can honestly look at their deployment and say, my goodness, we did a few good things, but I don't know if we did it in the right areas. Getting State Department, USAID, NGO partners to program alongside civil affairs teams has just been really difficult, partly because civil affairs teams tend to operate much farther beyond the comfort zone, the safety zone of civil society. So those are the gaps that we're looking to address, and I think we're doing a pretty good job.

00:03:45    SPEAKER_01

That's great. So I think that helps to answer a follow -up question I was going to have, which is how is the Imple Project different from other development nonprofits? So what are you doing that's new or better than others?

00:03:56    SPEAKER_04

A number of things. And I don't feel arrogant saying that. The places that we work, we have better data, we have better fundamental understanding of what's going on in these communities. It's partly because when I came out of Afghanistan, my biggest bone to pick was how we were doing work. was that we were spending so much money, but we really didn't understand the communities that we were working in. Even key terrain districts, which were strategic priorities, we just really didn't understand it. Outside of a couple people sharing some anecdotes, that's it. People will talk about the notes that they took at Ashura, and they spent $3 million according to those notes. I mean, that's not a representative sample of the community. So we really built this. After USAID, I went to Palantir for two years to really learn how to do data. And it was a great lesson for me.

00:04:42    SPEAKER_00

USAID, I went

00:04:47    SPEAKER_04

lesson for me. Granted, I kind of stuck out like a sore thumb, a 35 -year -old combat vet working at a Silicon Valley company. But it was a great experience. And that was what kind of led us to say, we can apply these things very rigorously with a live NGO. So let's try. That's cool. So the data side of it's huge.

00:05:10    SPEAKER_04

There's two more aspects that I think are pretty unique. One is that we work in really non -permissive environments. So we were the first international NGO back in Benghazi. In fact, this time last year, I had a team. Sorry, my son's really excited about going down the slide. Yeah, this time last year, I took a team of six expats into Benghazi, hired 45 Libyans, and we did the largest data mapping. of Benghazi ever 4500 face -to -face surveys another two three dozen focus group discussions key leader engagements and had a better understanding of the dynamics of Benghazi than anyone period so like we're able to create data scale really really quickly and work in areas that are really really tough so and these clients are for DoD USAID

00:06:03    SPEAKER_01

these clients are for DoD USAID

00:06:06    SPEAKER_04

across the board. Right now, if you were to look at our funding structure, it is pretty much even between State Department, USAID, DOD, and then private sector firms. We are waiting on a couple procurements right now that will then upset the balance. It looks like DOD is going to come out on top, and that's probably the thing that, that's the third thing that makes this kind of special. We will partner much more closely with... U .S. military or post -nation military than almost any other NGO that I know of will. And the reason is because we're not neutral. We completely believe that that's an antiquated paradigm. And I'll work with the military. I'll work with whomever is working in the best interest of the community. That's where my allegiance lies. Of the local community.

00:06:56    SPEAKER_01

the local community. Okay. Even if that's against U .S. interests.

00:07:00    SPEAKER_04

It usually isn't. I've never run into an example of where what's in the best interest of the community was not in the best interest of the United States. Now, the thing that I run into more often than that is when the U .S. doesn't know what the community actually wants, what they need, and so they don't know what the interests of the community are. That's the thing that I run into the most because, quite frankly, the people that are making a lot of decisions, whether it's the AOB, it's the SOTUS, it's the embassy, they almost never... They almost never get out to these rural communities. And we were working in Tillaberry, Niger, two weeks before the SF guys were killed there last year, or I guess almost a year and a half ago now in Tongo Tongo. So we were working in Tillaberry, and it was a really, really rough environment. And the problem was, you know, for us. We were telling people how dangerous it was, but people weren't really spending enough time with communities to get the sort of buy -in that they needed to have the type of protection. And essentially people telling them like, hey, today's a good day to come out here or today is a horrible day to come out here. Don't do it. There's a lot of bad guys waiting for you. So, you know, and that's one of the reasons that... we're able to operate in these environments is because we're closely partnered with the communities themselves. And whether they like U .S.

00:08:16    SPEAKER_03

And whether

00:08:17    SPEAKER_04

they like U .S. forces or not, they like us because we're actually bringing value. And once again, as a civil affairs person, civil affairs teams are able to bring value where other military assets are not.

00:08:30    SPEAKER_01

Good point. Let me ask you one other question, then we'll go to break. You talk about data collection. There are a lot of tools for data collection. So what does Invol use, and what kind of difficulties have you seen in infrastructure around the world when you're trying to collect data in remote areas?

00:08:47    SPEAKER_04

Sure. This is an easy question. It's actually a softball for me. So, look, when it comes to data collection, people need to understand what is the point, what is the so what that they're trying to get out of any sort of data collection. So, like, we have standardized our hardware. We use all. apple ipads or iphones we use commercial software to do the data collection it's able to do it disconnected so that that application is called a quick tap survey and then we also put that data into the socom instance of palantir nipper so like that's kind of the way we string all this together you know all this stuff has to work every time so if you're doing data collection first off if you're doing it by paper and pen you're already wrong because the time and energy you're going to waste coding that data into a spreadsheet is just waste of time it's No one's got the time and energy to do that, so having something that you can essentially do all the data management and knowledge management online in the cloud, that's exactly where you want to be. So those are the tools we use, and we spend a lot of time testing this. I mean, rural Niger, 2 ,300 surveys in 10 days. In Benghazi, Libya, 4 ,400 face -to -face in, I think, 15 days. And the reason that we were able to create that data scale is because we spent so much time honing the actual process.

00:10:13    SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Wow, that's a lot of output. It is. But this is the thing.

00:10:17    SPEAKER_04

is the thing. If you, as a CA Bob, would come up to me and say, hey, look, I'm really interested in opening Benghazi up again. But, you know, the funding stream that we're talking about is only focused on youth. How much do we have for youth? Then from that 4 ,400, if I start disaggregating, you can say, you know, or I can say to you, well, you know. Of the 4 ,400, 2 ,400 are under the age of 30. So we still have enough data scale and just samples that we can make some really good analysis based upon that data. Whereas if you only do 1 ,000 surveys and you're now only looking at doing women, well, you're now down to 500. Or you're only doing youth and you're at like 600.

00:10:59    SPEAKER_01

Yeah, for all the Barrick statisticians, you need enough sample size and the power of the data you're collecting to be able to extrapolate.

00:11:07    SPEAKER_04

You really do. And the problem is that, number one, the U .S. government doesn't know how to procure data collection at all. It's horrible at it. It doesn't know how to set the proper requirements. They don't know what it looks like. And so, in fact, we're getting called in for a certain monitoring and evaluation baseline. and a program assessment for a USAID project. And they're like, yeah, you know, we're happy with a, you know, a 99 % confidence interval with a 6 % margin of error. And I was like, really? Like you spent millions of dollars on that project and you're comfortable with that? Because I'm not. When we were in Benghazi, we had a 99 % confidence interval with a less than 2 % margin of error. If I'm going to be operating in a really dangerous place and spending other people's money, I want to have a really... good understanding that, like, this is what the dads say. This is how we can help communities.

00:12:00    SPEAKER_01

That's good use of American taxpayer dollars.

00:12:03    SPEAKER_04

Well, I mean, we've all seen when people have been bad stewards. So, you know, we're absolutely trying to correct that. And the good news is when you have that much data scale, you can come back to it. Like, if there are other questions, you know, we can come back and ask these things after the fact. We thought working with the youth was going to be a really good idea. Man, it turns out the women are the real power placer in this community. Can we go back and we look at what the women say? Well, yeah, when you collect enough data, you can. And you can really start doing first order, second order, third order planning and set those benchmarks that all programs require. Good deal.

00:12:41    SPEAKER_01

deal. Folks, you've been listening to an interview with Justin Richman, founder and executive director of Imple Project. We'll be right back and ask Justin about... the experiences with projects in the Philippines and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Stay tuned.

00:12:59    SPEAKER_01

Do you want to make some money? Do you have an idea about how to better integrate civil affairs? If you do, then check out the Civil Affairs Association Call for Papers. Civil affairs integration surfaced as the forefront issue for the future development of the regiment at the conclusion of last year's discussion at the Washington, D .C. Roundtable. However, in order for civil affairs to become a better joint force for integration across multiple domains in human geography, the regiment must first better integrate itself, then with those it works for, by, with, and through. The Civil Affairs Association and its partners invite civil military professionals to send an originally written issue paper by no later than the close of business

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Sounds like the flu. Did you test for COVID? Probably just allergies. I hope it's nothing serious.

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I hope it's nothing serious.

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00:00:45    SPEAKER_02

Protecting civilians is at the core of what you do, and it's at the core of what I do, and I think that there are opportunities for us to work together in a lot of these theaters. I think that it's important for us to sort of understand how each of our organizations operate and what the limitations are, but also what the opportunities to work together are. So I beg anyone from the military who's in, you know, anywhere that there's a humanitarian context to familiarize yourself with the OSHA, always have SIGs -MILs coordination guidelines, and to figure out where the red lines are, but where the opportunities for us to work together are and to build relationships with the humanitarian community.

00:01:31    SPEAKER_03

Thank you for tuning in to the One TA Podcast. I am your host, David Thompson. With me is Alexandra Lamarche. Alexandra is an advocate for sub -Saharan Africa at Refugees International, where her work focuses on conflict, displacement crises, and peacekeeping. She led a research mission to Cameroon in March and April of 2019 to look at the internal displacement crisis and humanitarian situation there. Follow her on Twitter at Ali Lam. Alexandra, thank you for coming on the show.

00:01:58    SPEAKER_02

Thank you so much for having me. I feel like... humanitarian groups and armed forces should be spending a bit more time trying to understand the ways in which we both work, so I'm thrilled to be here.

00:02:08    SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. To get started, can you tell us a little bit about your professional and educational history that got you to where you are today?

00:02:16    SPEAKER_02

Yeah, of course. Admittedly, it was not where I was anticipating ending up, but I'm pleased to finally be where I am. I actually studied conflict and security with a focus on violent non -state actors at both the undergrad and the graduate level. And I always found sort of conflict dynamics to be very, very fascinating, but I eventually realized, sort of overcome with guilt that I should be and could be involved in addressing sort of the human consequences of conflict. eventually shifted away from conflict analysis and resolution to work to assess and report on the needs of those displaced by the very violence that I was always working on.

00:02:51    SPEAKER_03

Wow, that's really interesting. So what got you interested in refugees and then more specifically to your area, IDPs?

00:03:00    SPEAKER_02

Well, I was overcome with guilt and coming to the realization that I should be doing more to help people. I was living and working in Lebanon, and with the ongoing crisis in Syria, we were witnessing hundreds of thousands of Syrians come into Lebanon seeking safe refuge. And as I began to sort of delve into this issue of displacement, I noticed that in the context of displacement, internal displacement tends to be under the radar. If the displaced are not showing up in neighboring countries or in Western countries, more specifically, they tend to be forgotten in the eyes of the public, in the media and policymakers and international donors. You know, most of the internally displaced are often staying with host families, whether they be their own family or their friends or just complete strangers who are offering them a warm welcome. People pay less attention to them and seem to think that they don't need as much as a refugee does, but in reality, often their conditions are far worse. So as I continue to work on displacement, that tends to be my focus because, you know, my heart bleeds for under -the -radar crises.

00:04:04    SPEAKER_03

Absolutely. I think the recent report from the United Nations Refugee Agency stated that there were nearly twice as many IDPs as there are refugees.

00:04:14    SPEAKER_02

Yeah, there's 41 .3 million IDPs worldwide. So that's a pretty significant portion of people if you consider it. I mean, I'm from Canada, and there's, what, 36 million people in Canada? So more than the entire population of Canada is internally displaced in whatever country they come from.

00:04:29    SPEAKER_03

country they come from. If you add up the populations of IDPs with refugees, including Palestinian refugees, it's like the populations of California and Texas combined. So pretty staggering numbers.

00:04:45    SPEAKER_02

Staggering numbers that, I mean, surprisingly, the world continues to turn a blind eye to, unfortunately. We're talking about it. We're not doing very much.

00:04:54    SPEAKER_03

Well, that gives us into Refugees International, where you work, which is a really unique organization in that they do not take any funding from the U .S. government or the United Nations Refugee Agency, UNHCR. Can you tell us more about the work of Refugees International?

00:05:12    SPEAKER_02

Yeah, Refugees International advocates for life -saving assistance and protection for displaced populations and promotes solutions to these very crises. We're not affiliated with any government. We don't accept any government funding or UN funding, which allows us to ensure the independence and credibility of our work. And that's something that I find extremely valuable in the crisis where I work in Africa, where, you know, there's a lot of government crackdown in NGOs. We get to come in and be an independent voice.

00:05:29    SPEAKER_00

that's something

00:05:38    SPEAKER_02

without fearing getting kicked out of the country or having our operations blocked. And we're also not tied to any of the international donors so we can be critical and target them in our advocacy. So our business model is that we conduct fieldness and two crises, assess the needs of the displaced and how effectively they're being addressed by the humanitarian community, and then provide policy recommendations on how to better protect and better provide for those affected. And then, you know, there's a long advocacy period after a report is published on that mission where we push for, you know, policymakers within governments and UN agencies to hopefully enact those recommendations.

00:06:05    SPEAKER_04

know,

00:06:09    SPEAKER_04

that mission

00:06:12    SPEAKER_04

know,

00:06:17    SPEAKER_02

So we continue to engage on the crises well after we've left them.

00:06:21    SPEAKER_03

Who were your main audiences post -report during that advocacy period?

00:06:26    SPEAKER_03

during that advocacy period?

00:06:29    SPEAKER_02

That definitely changes from country to country or crisis to crisis. Obviously, the U .S. government is always the main target, given the fact that we're based in Washington. But we're seeing an increasing amount of time that our advocates are spending in other capitals, you know, in Geneva, especially because a lot of U .N. agencies are based there, in New York because other U .N. agencies are based there, in Canada, and, of course, in Brussels with the EU being based there. I work in a lot of Francophone African countries. There's a lot more interest from other Francophone countries.

00:06:42    SPEAKER_04

of time

00:07:05    SPEAKER_02

of a mix depending on the context and depending who the key players are.

00:07:10    SPEAKER_03

Wow, so a very diverse group there. But let's talk more specifically about your recent trip to Cameroon. So recently you conducted research for Refugees International in Cameroon. Can you provide us a background of the situation or a history of the conflict that got us to the present day?

00:07:28    SPEAKER_02

Yeah, of course. Cameroonian has long been viewed as a model for stability in the region fraught with conflict. I mean, it's a pretty rough neighborhood, you know, surrounded by Chad, Congo, Central African Republic, and Nigeria. And it's always been sort of economically a little bit more developed and far more stable given the fact that it has, what, 200 different linguistic groups. However, under the surface... Tensions between its Anglophone and its Francophone populations have been simmering for decades. The Anglophone minority, which is mostly concentrated in the northwest -southwest regions of the country, has long been marginalized, discriminated against, and economically disenfranchised since the referendum that ended federalism and joined the two populations under one country in 1972. In recent history, in 2016, that instability... And that tension sort of gave way to violence when protests against the government's imposition of Francophone teachers and lawyers in Anglophone schools and courts were met with military action. What we witnessed was peaceful protests being met with pretty extreme violence from the Cameroonian military, and that sort of just fueling separatist sentiment that was bubbling under the surface, but not nearly as strong as it is now. Armed groups have since sort of... Multiplied and enforced school boycotts were about to approach the third year of children not attending school. And the subsequent violent confrontations between the armed groups and the armed forces have forced more than half a million people to leave their homes and 1 .3 million people in need of assistance.

00:08:58    SPEAKER_00

the armed

00:09:00    SPEAKER_02

than half a million people to leave their homes and 1 .3 million people in need of assistance. So it's pretty big numbers. pretty fast as well. We saw those numbers pretty skyrocket over the last year. Both our groups in Cameroonian forces have targeted civilians and blocked humanitarian groups from reaching those in need, and it's a truly dire situation. But with the right pressure and the right elbow grease, I think we can initiate some change.

00:09:26    SPEAKER_03

Wow, those numbers you're talking, 500 ,000 displaced, 1 .3 million in need of assistance. And that seems to be a common thing where Governments respond to peaceful protesters by using violence, and then it creates more problems for the government and the people.

00:09:47    SPEAKER_02

It does. I mean, you know, I can't go back in time and see what would have happened, but I don't think the crisis would be nearly as bad or the violence even from armed groups would be nearly what it is right now if the armed forces hadn't responded the way they had. But that's just my own. Absolutely.

00:10:09    SPEAKER_03

So from reading your report and hearing you talk, I noticed the tension between the government of Cameroon providing support for refugees fleeing violence from Boko Haram while simultaneously denying access to IDPs. I'd like to hear your thoughts.

00:10:25    SPEAKER_02

Yeah, it sort of goes against Cameroon's sort of longstanding reputation in the region as being fairly welcoming of refugees from neighboring countries. I mean, it has a relatively long history of welcoming people from neighboring conflicts. It still hosts, you know, scores of Central Africans in the east, and it's, you know, has obviously been grappling with the issue of Boko Haram with displaced Nigerians and also Cameroonians up in the area called the Extreme North around the Lake Chad Basin where Boko Haram operates. However, The access that has been afforded to humanitarian groups in those regions is much better.

00:11:05    SPEAKER_02

It has not been hindering humanitarian access in those areas the way that it has almost completely done in the Anglophone areas.

00:11:11    SPEAKER_02

not been hindering humanitarian access in those areas the way that it has almost completely done in the Anglophone areas. A group present in the northwest -southwest, you're speaking out against the governments and have reported that after they've publicly reported on the extent of the means that the government authorities have blocked their access to populations, not only the Anglophone populations, the northwest, southwest, but also in the extreme north. So there's, you know, some pretty significant intimidation from the government on that front. And some international governments have been calling for unrestricted humanitarian access, but frankly, these calls have been pretty weak. And the government's negative role in the conflict goes beyond blocking access. The government is perpetrating violence against the civilian population. It is repeatedly demanded that international NGOs and UN agencies publicly state that they support government forces. And if they did that, then they would provide them unrestricted access. But this would be against humanitarian principles, and that's not a possibility for a lot of humanitarian groups.

00:12:19    SPEAKER_03

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