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- 33: Jamie Schwandt on Swarm Intelligence, Swarm Learning, and Red Teams
Welcome to One CA Podcast. Today we have Jamie Schwandt, Major in the Army Reserve, talks about swarm intelligence, swarm learning, red teams, and how they relate to Civil Affairs. We also discuss lessons learned from Ender's Game. Major Schwandt is a prolific writer. Learn more about him and his ideas at https://www.jamieschwandt.com/
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Transcript:
00:00:00 SPEAKER_01
Being afraid, my third point was leaders' fear that they would expose as frauds.00:00:44 SPEAKER_04Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're joined by special guest Major Jamie Schwand. He's a maverick, critical thinker, leader, and innovator. He challenges the status quo. He's a Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt Red Team member for the Department of the Army. He's an accomplished writer, publishing in military journals, magazines, and blogs, including the Army Magazine. It's published by AUSA, a partner organization of the Civil Affairs Association. MOA, the Military Officers Association of America, and Task and Purpose. He is the recipient of the Douglas MacArthur Military Leadership Writing Award, sponsored by the Douglas MacArthur Foundation in Norfolk, Virginia, and administered by the Center for Army Leadership. Major Schwan is also the recipient of the Command General Staff College CGSC Iron Pen Award. He is an adjunct professor at the Robbins College of Business and Entrepreneurship in the Department of Health and Human Performance. at the Fort Hayes State University, where he teaches. He's also the 2016 Young Alumni of the Year Award recipient at Fort Hayes. Major Schwant received his doctorate in education from Kansas State University and his MS and BS from Fort Hayes. He has published several books, including Succeeding as a Foster Child, a workbook, Finding Your Hero, and Succeeding as a Foster Child. Major Jamie Schwant, thank you very much for being on the 1CA podcast. talk with you about the writing you've done over the last several years, some of the more current stuff, and your background as a logistician for the Army, how that may relate to critical thinking applied to the Army and applied to civil affairs. So, sir, I wanted to start with a question about swarm learning. Some people may not have heard about that term before. You've written a lot about swarm learning and swarm intelligence. And I know that the term relates to large groups of insects. So what does swarm learning mean?00:03:59 SPEAKER_01example, an ant colony would use because it's completely autonomous, really. It's decentralized. There is no, you know, the queen ant doesn't give commands. Ants, you know, they'll go searching for food, for example. They'll shoot pheromones. Another ant will find those pheromones if it's strong enough, and they'll go to a food source, and they'll deplete that food source. Then they'll spread out, you know, spurs, and shoot more pheromones, you know, kind of like that, and they use simple rules. simplicity underlies complexity, simple rules, instead of complete command and control. And I wrote a piece that was discussing this idea with mission command, where I kind of argued that mission command is essentially swarm intelligence. But without going down a rabbit hole or in a rant, that's kind of the gist of swarm learning.00:04:48 SPEAKER_04Okay. How did you come up with the concept? Why was it in the forefront of your mind and in the connection to the military?00:07:38 SPEAKER_04It sounds like, I mean, some of that is very historical, looking at the Socratic method, where you may have someone who's an instructor just facilitating thinking, and I don't know if Socrates had all the answers, right? But his approach to students was to facilitate their discussion, and he wasn't always the person, certainly didn't have PowerPoint, but if he did, I don't think he would have used it. He would have just facilitated a discussion in the class.00:08:50 SPEAKER_04So that's at college, university level. Normally, as a professor, you would have to submit your syllabus, approved by the department, and, you know, under the auspices of that college, and therefore the provost is for the university, and you're locked in sort of to that syllabus for the semester of that session. How can you, do you have the latitude within a college or university system to adjust course during that semester? You know, I've never asked for...00:09:53 SPEAKER_04question sir because it might be difficult00:09:54 SPEAKER_01question sir because it might be00:10:24 SPEAKER_04That's really good to hear. Yeah, I asked that question to lead into my next one because it seems to me like professional military education, PME, is built on the same model for civilian education where professors have to submit their syllabus and for the PME courses that listeners may have gone through or will be going through, it's pretty rigid. And when you talk about taking command and control out of the classroom or reducing it somehow, That is inherent with the military structure. So would you propose that PME shift to the model that you're talking about, and how would that happen?00:12:29 SPEAKER_04that's where we're starting here. I want to encourage people to go to your website to find out more about swarm learning and read what you've already published. Sir, you wrote, quote, swarm learning not only teaches students to be comfortable with ambiguity, it weaponizes it, end quote. So could you describe that and offer some examples?00:15:04 SPEAKER_04It does, and I think that's the added value of why students are paying to be in person and learn from an instructor like yourself, to stretch their mind, to think outside the box, and to hear new ideas. Folks, you've been listening to an interview with Jamie Schwann, U .S. Army major, logistician, and author. We're going to come back and talk to him about how this is connected possibly with Ender's Game, a popular book, and to connect the concepts of swarm learning and swarm intelligence with red teams.00:15:39 SPEAKER_04Do 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 Friday 30 August. To better assist authors, you can find recent papers, reports, and articles, as well as an array of cited references and historical documents, and the new online research library under the association website page, Resources. You can also call upon the new Publications Advisory Board for assistance. They'll help you in crafting the argument for your paper. The top five papers will appear in the 2019 -20 Civil Affairs issue papers, and authors will present them at the CA Symposium in Tampa, Florida in October. First prize is $1 ,000, second prize $500, and third prize $250. Good luck to all the authors.00:17:09 SPEAKER_04Welcome back to our interview with Major Jamie Schwant. Sir, I wanted to talk to you about swarms and preparing students. Those ideas were popular in Orson Scott Card's famous book, Ender's Game, where it had very young students brought together. They had been pre -selected by society and the military to train them at a higher level. They were fighting against these ant -like formics, and the student leader, Ender Wiggin, was the young warrior who succeeded in ambiguity. Did you get ideas for the swarm learning or swarm intelligence from books like these?00:18:26 SPEAKER_04I think it's still required learning for officers in the Marine Corps. I think when they're junior officers, tactical level, it's a book that the Commandant in the Marine Corps encourages Marines to read. That would make sense. It seems like the Marines have that.00:18:40 SPEAKER_01that. I love what they have to read.00:18:43 SPEAKER_04Yeah, exactly. And there are follow -up books to that. They had several books that Orson Scott Card put out after Ender's Game that carries through time and space, and then the popular movie that came out several years ago. Sir, I wanted to ask you if there are any parts of the military already succeeding with the ideas of swarming or swarm intelligence, whether it's people or technology. I guess I don't know the answer to that. I'm assuming there are.00:19:09 SPEAKER_01I mean, you look at some of the swarming robotics or some of the AI that's coming out. I know that I just read something on the U .K. the other day about adopting swarming AI and robotics. I know the military, I can't remember what the U .S. military has.00:19:55 SPEAKER_04Sir, I want to try to connect these concepts to red teams. You've gone through the red teaming program at Fort Leavenworth, which is amazing from everyone who's attended. I've heard it's a really good thing. We've got the red team member courses, the red team leader course, which is more involved and more lengthy. So if we can try to frame red teams for the audience right now, who are they? What do red teams do? Where do they operate? And why do they exist?00:22:06 SPEAKER_04I wanted to ask you where they operate. They're typically like a staffing element, right, that would support the planting cell.00:22:55 SPEAKER_04Okay, so that's connected to an article that you wrote, published in Task and Purpose, titled Five Irrational Reasons Why Military Leaders Hate Red Teaming. What are those five reasons?00:23:06 SPEAKER_01I forgot about that one. Sorry, go ahead. What did you say?00:23:08 SPEAKER_04Yeah. Sir, can you talk about what those five reasons are? And then the last question we'll get to to close it out is a connection you may see between swarm learning, swarm intelligence, and red teams. Possibilities for it.00:26:38 SPEAKER_04the swarm learning, the swarm thinking could be really tied well with red teaming. You just don't know if it is formally right now.00:27:28 SPEAKER_04Makes sense. Well, sir, I think we could leave it there. This has been an eye -opening discussion for me to learn more about swarm learning and swarm intelligence. I hope the listeners can go to your website, which is jamieschwant .com, and that is spelled J -A -M -I -E -S -C -H -W -A -N -D -T .com. Your blog is named The Honey Badger, which I think is amazing. The books you've been putting out are great. I really appreciate the articles. I don't know where you find the time with your family and the work that you're doing to put out those articles, but this is the type of critical thinking the Army needs and that the Army and the Marine Corps and everyone else in civil affairs can learn a lot from your thoughts. So I would encourage everyone to go to your website, look at the publications that you've put on there and linked. And is there anything that you have for any final tips for? the listening audience of civil affairs and some of the things you may have coming up in a few months.00:30:10 SPEAKER_04man. Sir, I really appreciate your time. Glad you came on the 1CA podcast.00:30:15 SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you.00:30:23 SPEAKER_03Thank you for spending some time with us. Please subscribe and come back for another installment of 1CA. Until then, be safe and secure the victory.00:30:39 SPEAKER_00Save up to 70 % during the Sleep Better Tonight sale at Mattress Warehouse. Yes, we're a warehouse. A warehouse full of the best mattress brands at unbeatable prices. All in stock and available for next day delivery with savings up to 70 % and 0 % interest financing. Come in today and sleep better tonight knowing you got the best possible price. So where would you look to find the perfect mattress? In a little mattress store or a mattress warehouse? Visit mattresswarehouse .com.31 min - 32: Jay Liddick and Scott Dickerson on the CA Force Modernization Assessment
Colonel Jay Liddick and Lieutenant Colonel Scott Dickerson discuss the ongoing Force Modernization Assessment, its phases, and potential outcomes for Army Civil Affairs. Colonel Liddick is the CA Commandant and Lieutenant Colonel Scott Dickerson is the Chief of Concept Development, JFK Special Warfare Center and School.
51 min - 31: Narayan Khadka on Nepal, castes, and community trauma
Narayan Khadka, PhD, discusses Nepal, the caste system, and training Army and Marine Corps Civil Affairs. Dr. Khadka is a Psychological Cultural Anthropologist, and holds a doctorate in ethnic and cultural conflict from Nova Southeastern University, and three master’s degrees in conflict resolution, political science, and law from New Delhi, Katmandu, and Greensboro, NC. Originally a refugee from civil war in Nepal, he specializes in the pathology of family and community trauma and breakdown from violent extremism and extremist identity ideology.
35 min - 30: Jay Liddick and Scott Dickerson on CA in Large Scale Combat Operations
Welcome to the One CA Podcast. Today we have Colonel Jay Liddick, CA Commandant, and Lieutenant Colonel Scott Dickerson, Chief of Concept Development, discuss CA in large scale combat operations.
COL Liddick and LTC Dickerson co-authored with Major Linda Chung a paper titled, "Calibrating Civil Affairs Forces for Lethality in Large Scale Combat Operations. Published in Small Wars Journal, the authors argue that, in the future operating environment of Multi-Domain Operations, "CA must counter enemy hybrid warfare in the expanded battlefield, specifically in operational and tactical support areas, as part of an integrated security team through civil reconnaissance, civil network analysis, and civil network development."
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Transcript:
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My poor baby. Got a cough and runny nose. Any ideas? Worried mama here.00:00:06 SPEAKER_01Sounds like the flu. Did you test for COVID? Probably just allergies. I hope it's nothing serious.00:00:09 SPEAKER_00allergies. I hope it's nothing serious. Stop guessing. Just go. With Inova Go Health Urgent Care, reliable care is just a tap away. Book a virtual visit, save your spot, or just go. Walk into a nearby Inova Go Health Urgent Care today.00:00:29 SPEAKER_02You know, I think, again, as a military, and rightfully so, we're continually looking for technological advantages.00:00:37 SPEAKER_02But, you know, even with AI and the things that have been done, or that have been done in the past and are, you know, working on the future, I just don't believe you can never remove the human -to -human contact. We're never going to be able to put just a sensor out there that understands exactly what people are thinking, who key players are. properly engage and address an operational environment that takes face -to -face, on -the -ground engagement to gain understanding and to influence people.00:01:19 SPEAKER_01Hi, and welcome to the 1CA Podcast. I am John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're joined by a couple special guests from the Army CA proponent down in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. We have Lieutenant Colonel Thurman Scott Dickerson, U .S. Army, currently serving as the Chief of Concept Development at the CA Proponent. He began his career as an armor crewman in 1996 and was commissioned as a Medical Service Corps officer in 2000 from Radford University. He holds a Master of Science degree in Criminal Justice from Radford and a Master of Arts in Strategic Security Studies from the National Defense University. Since 2008, Colonel Dickerson has served in... Diverse conventional and special operations command and staff positions within civil affairs, to include ARSENT CMO Officer Forward, Brigade Executive Officer, and 18th Airborne Corps Deputy G -9. He has deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan multiple times, Qatar, Yemen, and served a one -year hardship tour in Kuwait. Colonel Jay Liddick, U .S. Army, currently serves as a civil affairs commandant. He received his commission as an engineer officer from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in 1995. and holds a Master of Strategic Studies from the U .S. Army War College and a Master of Arts degree in International Relations from Webster University. Since 2004, Colonel Liddick has served in diverse command and staff positions within civil affairs to include Human Resources Command CA Branch Chief, Deputy Brigade Commander, and the Civil Affairs Advisor Irregular Worker Integrator at the U .S. Army Peacekeeping and Stability Operations Institute. He is deployed to the Dominican Republic, Bosnia, Iraq, Colombia, Afghanistan and Indonesia, and had a one -year tour in Honduras. Colonel Dickerson, Colonel Liddick, thank you very much for being on the One State Podcast, and welcome.00:03:05 SPEAKER_02Hey, thank you, John. Really appreciate the opportunity to talk to you and the platform to talk about something we love, civil affairs.00:03:12 SPEAKER_01Gentlemen, we wanted to talk today about what's happening within civil affairs and how it relates to large -scale combat operations. And this discussion is really born out of an article that you wrote together with a third author. I'll note it was Linda Chung, Captain Promotable, who by now may be a major, who is also working. Oh, that's great. Well, please tell her hello and congratulations for co -authoring this article with you.00:03:44 SPEAKER_02We will. She's an awesome officer.00:03:46 SPEAKER_01That's good to hear. I'm glad to hear that also and see that you and other officers are putting out. and some thought leaders within the branch putting out some articles like this. The three of you published in Small Wars Journal an article entitled Calibrating Civil Affairs Forces for Lethality in Large -Scale Combat Operations. For analytic to you, what is going on in sort of the big picture in the Army, and what led you to wanting to write this article?00:04:27 SPEAKER_02unprecedented, and I think you'd have to go back to post Vietnam, late 70s, early 80s, you know, creation of TRADOC, and to see similar major changes. The Army's looking at all its processes of how do we modernize, how do we be more agile in adapting and creating the force that's going to be required in the future operating environment.00:05:01 SPEAKER_02But with change, there's opportunity. And from a civil affairs perspective and things that we'll get into further as we have this discussion, it's really given us the right point to take a hard look at our force and see what does the civil affairs force of the future need to look like to be integrated at an echelon to help the Army win.00:05:07 SPEAKER_02that we'll get into further as we00:05:19 SPEAKER_02of the future need to look like to be integrated at an echelon to help the Army win. You know, in competition, but like we talked about, large -scale compound operations. and then getting back into returning to competition. I tell everyone when I speak, the Army's number one warfighting challenge is situational understanding. And my personal and professional perspective on that is, in large part, it's because civil affairs have not been able to deliver our peace to situational understanding, which is, you know, providing a commander that in -depth understanding of the civil environment. article is a thought piece on things that we need to do to adapt specifically in large -scale general combat operations. But I can tell you as a proponent, we're looking hard across force modernization, training, and doctrine, and even personnel, how we develop people, of how do we provide the commanders the right civil affairs capability to need to understand the civil environment, the human geography, if you will.00:06:44 SPEAKER_01So, sir, your article that was published in the Small Wars Journal, it depicts the evolution going from combined arms warfare to joint warfare to what we now call hybrid warfare. What would you say about, what is it about hybrid warfare that is fundamentally changing the way that civil affairs forces need to prepare to fight in the future?00:09:55 SPEAKER_01Are those actions that adversaries are taking in hybrid warfare mainly in the civil domain? Are they mainly within the wheelhouse of civil affairs forces? Yes. I mean, specifically, I don't want to use specific examples, but specific actions that are being done are proxy forces,00:10:10 SPEAKER_02that are being done are proxy forces, special purpose forces that are utilized by a lot of conflict and also in conflict that essentially weaponize forces of the population, create the force multiplier effect for their actions. and give credence to certain political narratives that are used to undermine the will of the adversary.00:10:26 SPEAKER_02certain political narratives that are used to undermine the will of the adversary.00:12:41 SPEAKER_01So, gentlemen, does that mean that this renewed focus on hybrid warfare, does that require a shift in CA core tasks?00:14:44 SPEAKER_01That's good to hear.00:14:44 SPEAKER_02That's good to hear.00:14:45 SPEAKER_01I just know it takes two to three years to develop something and get it approved, and if a hybrid worker was in mind when that was drafted.00:14:46 SPEAKER_02know it takes00:14:54 SPEAKER_02It was to a degree, but I don't think to the degree we're able to bring to it with what we're working through with our force modernization assessment that we'll get into.00:15:42 SPEAKER_01Okay, good. Gentlemen, could you describe, please, how civil affairs forces could assist land force commanders in securing support areas? And how do we then employ the civil components protection capabilities?00:16:30 SPEAKER_02force multiplier for protection through00:17:02 SPEAKER_02worry about security.00:22:30 SPEAKER_01Ladies and gentlemen, you've been listening to an interview with Lieutenant Colonel Scott Dickerson, Chief of Concept Development of CA Proponent, and Colonel Jay Liddick, the CA Commandant. When we come back from the break, we'll talk with the gentlemen about how they see civil affairs as an ISR platform and some ideas for improving the network analysis capability. We'll be right back.00:23:07 SPEAKER_01The 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 in established 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 will find in many other associations. If you're not yet a member of the Civil Affairs Association, go online to civilaffairsassoc .org and join today.00:24:20 SPEAKER_01and our interview with Lieutenant Colonel Scott Dickerson and Colonel Jay Liddick from the CA Commandant's Office. Gentlemen, how do you see civil affairs as an ISR platform as you argued in this paper that was published in Small Wars Journal?00:26:18 SPEAKER_02takes face -to -face, on -the -ground engagement to gain understanding and to influence people.00:26:29 SPEAKER_01And it's connected to a soft truth, I think the first one, that humans are more important than hardware.00:26:33 SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Yes.00:26:35 SPEAKER_01So, gentlemen, in my few years in civil affairs, I've seen and heard about a range of tools and approaches to civil network analysis. And how do you think that CA forces need to improve what we do for that network analysis capability?00:31:06 SPEAKER_01is in line with, we started this discussion saying that focus more on the how and not the what. And what you just mentioned connects with a previous interview we had with a gentleman named Nick Crowley who did some work in Iraq with human terrain. Nick had talked about how civil affairs forces need more of a process. So we have the SIM process. We have those steps right now. And it ends with analysis and then goes from there. You have something, you produce it, and then you disseminate. And that cycle continues over and over and over again. He was arguing in the discussion that there's not as much information telling the CA forces how to do that work. Yeah.00:33:40 SPEAKER_01tied to that, I guess, gentlemen, what do you think that civil affairs forces should be doing to better integrate our reports and the civil information that come out of this process to support the ground force commander staff processes? And I guess, you know, to improve that, why is that not happening now?00:39:23 SPEAKER_01Yes, sir. Well, this has been a great conversation. I really appreciate your time. Ladies and gentlemen, Lieutenant Colonel Scott Dickerson, the Chief of Concept Development at the CA Proponent, and Colonel Jay Liddick, Civil Affairs Commandant. Gentlemen, thank you very much for being on the 1CA Podcast.00:39:40 SPEAKER_02Hey, thank you, John, again. Really appreciate the platform.00:40:01 SPEAKER_01Thank you for spending some time with us. Please subscribe and come back for another installment of 1CA. Until then, be safe and secure the victory.00:40:17 SPEAKER_04the Virginia Lottery's founding family of scratchers in store. And try the new Bucs triple play online game in -app or online today at valottery .com slash Bucs. Must be 18 or older to play. Please play responsibly. 888 -532 -3500.40 min - 29: Giancarlo Newsome and Jesse Elmore on Military Government Specialists
Welcome to the One CA Podcast. Today, Major Giancarlo Newsome and Captain Jesse Elmore discuss turning the 38G Military Government Specialist program from strategy to reality.
Their article, "Civil Affairs 38G Functional Specialists: From Strategy to Reality," tied for third place at the 2018 CA Symposium. It was published in the 2018-2019 Civil Affairs Issue Papers on "Optimizing Civil Affairs." Copies are available to download on the Civil Affairs Association website.
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Transcript:
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If they can dominate, let's say, a province's justice system, commerce system, we, and they are an enemy, I think the same logic and approach can be applied. And you train the generalists, just like you train military soldiers to go on patrol. The generalists are on patrol. identify targets, and just like maybe a soldier lazes a target, a generalist lazes a target for 38 goblins to come in and bring in the weapon system to take it out.00:00:52 SPEAKER_00Hi, and welcome to the 1CA Podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're joined by Major... John Carla Newsome and Captain Jesse Elmore, authors of a CA issue paper entitled Civil Affairs 38 Golf Functional Specialists from Strategy to Reality. And it was tied for third place among the CA issue papers from 2018. Major Newsome and Captain Elmore, welcome to the 1CA podcast. Thank you.00:01:18 SPEAKER_03Thank you, John.00:01:20 SPEAKER_00Gentlemen, I wanted to... I ask you if you could introduce yourselves to the listening audience, Major Newsom, you first. What are you doing in the CA community?00:01:29 SPEAKER_03Well, John, I am relatively new to the CA community, stumbled into it. My background is aviation, and I think it was kind of like discovering a hidden gem,00:01:38 SPEAKER_03think it was kind of like discovering a hidden gem, the Army's best -kept secret. And with my background, when I came in, the 38 Golf program, I was introduced to it, and it really fit well my background and just even my connections,00:01:48 SPEAKER_00in, the00:01:54 SPEAKER_03really fit well my background and just even my connections, and saw that it was a great strategy.00:01:58 SPEAKER_00my connections,00:02:01 SPEAKER_03that it was a great strategy. As I got more involved there, I realized that there's kind of a missing gap between connecting the strategy to reality, getting these 38 Gulf's talent as weapon systems into the hands of the 38 Alphas and the combatant commanders downrange.00:02:03 SPEAKER_04I got00:02:08 SPEAKER_03the strategy to reality, getting these 38 Gulf's talent as weapon systems into the hands of the 38 Alphas and the combatant commanders downrange. Yeah.00:02:19 SPEAKER_00Well, welcome to the community. I'm glad that you ran into someone who was CA or somehow got convinced to come over. Appreciate it. And Captain Elmore, how about you?00:02:28 SPEAKER_03Yeah, so I've been doing CA for a little while. Did a ROC deployment at the TNC for Civil Affairs 0809, and then was deployed in 1213 for a civil affairs planning team at Regional Command South in Kandahar. So the relationship between Major Newsom and I is more of a – he's got the brains on the 38 golf expertise. And I've seen firsthand the void, that gap that needs to be filled, trying to implement development things on ground, in theater, to have non -lethal and sometimes lethal effects. And not myself being an expert in a field such as – commerce or economics, et cetera. So the relationship there is one of where I have seen and felt the need for this assistance, you know, being able to phone a friend, as it were. And then Major Newsom is that expert to fill that gap, as it were, for this kind of a field.00:03:31 SPEAKER_00Right. Major Newsom, you're 38 golf, and Captain Elmore, you're 38 alpha, so you've got the tag team that you mentioned bringing together. Major Newsom, Could you describe for listeners who may not be familiar with 38 Golf what it means and how it differs from 38 Alpha or 38 Bravo?00:03:49 SPEAKER_0338 Alpha and Bravo, they're the kind of eyes and ears for civil considerations for the field, the combatant commanders on the field. They're identifying problems, threats that aren't kinetic in effect, right,00:04:04 SPEAKER_03to help the combatant commander realize it. his mission and achieve his lines of effort. 38 golfs are theoretically,00:04:15 SPEAKER_03and I say theoretically because it's not, the connection's not been made, that's kind of the point of the paper, is when that 38 golf runs into, let's say, a threat, let's say there's a power shortage, there's a water issue, there's rampant unemployment, there's law and order challenges. One of 18 different functional specialty areas that the Army has defined as potential, and I'll just define it, threat or instability areas. The 38 Alpha, the way I understand the process to work, is supposed to have reachback capability to get some expertise to help that. Today, per a paper that General Garner wrote, he was a former USKPOC commander, pretty much we just tell young captains, hey, just figure it out, go find a solution for that. power issue that commerce issue and of course our soldiers being great the good army ethos to figure it out you know take the hill with a knife we have to um they do a great job but we know that that's only a short -term result with some long -term disadvantages and i've heard it countless times from jesse and others that you know we might not got a an oer bullet that sounds good but we're we can kind of create some non -race problems and it's been a problem i've heard repeated over and over which hurts our relevancy as a branch. How did I do, Jesse? Yeah, that sounds exactly right. As a generalist of the Alpha, 30 Alpha, we can find problems. We run into them all the time on the battlefield, but we don't have necessarily the expertise to solve those problems or even fully understand them. So the bleach back to the golf that is one of those 18 specialties is a huge asset.00:05:59 SPEAKER_03a huge asset. point behind the paper.00:06:03 SPEAKER_00Yeah. So let's get to that paper. You already talked about how it's requiring a shift from a strategy to reality. Could you start by talking about the current state of the 38 Gulf program and why is it not a reality?00:06:16 SPEAKER_03I think the strategy that we just shared, you know, everyone nodded the vertical. Sounds great.00:06:22 SPEAKER_03The practical application of getting a 38 Gulf to leverage their expertise, their network support of 38 Alpha. That tactical function, the devil is in the detail, has not been worked out. So, you know, there is a process by which a unit says, I need so many, you know, M9s, M4s. And a unit acquires them, right, and gets ammunition to pay for them. There is no such structure to engage, let's say, these 38 Gulf weapon systems. Okay.00:07:06 SPEAKER_00Gentlemen, you described three steps to close from strategy to reality. First, you call for Army leadership not to give up on the 38 Gulf program. Second, you suggest resolving practical problems non -bureaucratically with a commercial off -the -shelf mindset and approach. And then third, you want to create an open API mobile app. So if we could start at the first step there. Do you get a sense that civil affairs or big army leadership cares for 38 golf program and will support its growth? And do you have any evidence for or against that?00:07:40 SPEAKER_03There is no program support for 38 golfs. There is no even informal group. Like I'm a commerce. That's my functional specialty is commerce and trade. I don't know who my peers are. I don't have a lead mentor to coach me, to share best practices. As like we do at the generalist level, there is no qualification course or even, you know, I forgot what the name of the course is, like for doctors, kind of that, you know, we bring in doctors and, you know, there's a formation course to help doctors know how to assimilate and be effective, you know, in an Army environment. Also, the IMST, Institute for Support to Military Governance, it was unfunded. So from my view, there's a missing executive champion. at senior army leaders and i just think we've you know it's uh not by anyone's intention it's just uh it's easier it seems easier to focus on the more traditional kinetic fight sure yeah okay yeah absolutely i would second i would second that too and um so my second deployment experience afghanistan regional command south was referred to as the stability platform at the regional command00:08:43 SPEAKER_00okay yeah00:08:47 SPEAKER_03my second deployment experience afghanistan regional command south was referred to as the stability platform at the regional command So it's a two -star command, and the leaf eater side of it is the stability platform, and ostensibly it's partnership with the State Department and USAID, which it was absolutely the case. But we came there as a civil affairs planning team, without gulfs,00:09:14 SPEAKER_03to do planning for four provinces for the future stability of the southern part of Afghanistan.00:09:24 SPEAKER_03And that came with all of its challenges to all the different sectors, all the 18 specialties that Major Newsome represents. And we came as a planning team, as reservists, and we didn't have on paper identified one golf. It sort of predated the program a little bit. But today, talking with colleagues that are coming out of the 95th, 96th, there's still a lack of integration of the golfs into any operational framework.00:09:55 SPEAKER_00Gentlemen, we have five core tasks in civil affairs. Do you think that there are some of those core tasks that are more closely aligned with 38 Gulf than others?00:10:06 SPEAKER_03We talked in the paper about just conceptually as the Gulf being a weapon system. So that concept as a weapon system then moves us away from some of the supports of civil authorities kind of thing. more touchy -feely parlance, and it moves us towards the real tactical find, fix, finish, and follow -through notions. And that's where Major Newton and I really connected on the topic was because he could see it from his aviation background and expertise in commerce and realized that, yeah, we have the five areas for civil affairs,00:10:45 SPEAKER_04we have the00:10:46 SPEAKER_03for civil affairs, but we're not even utilizing civil affairs in the context of action. It's really, at best, a supporting effort. And over the phases of operation, you know, we would posture that it could be a main effort. If you looked at this Gulf thing as a main weapon system, like you would look at operational deployments of main battle tanks, you know, thinking about how you're going to find, fix, and finish bad guys through civil domain. So that's a long answer to that question, but that's kind of the concept.00:11:19 SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it's a good idea because that's the way we need to frame it for combatant command, certainly, and Futures Command or anyone else that's been working the last couple of years on lethality and winning the fight the same way that Chief of Staff of the Army or General Lucky for the Army Reserve or anyone else who's been talking about it. We need every soldier to be ready to fight as quickly as possible to engage with and destroy the enemy, and every program needs to be aligned with that. So I think you're talking about this in the right terms. It's the question now of how to turn it from strategy to reality. When I was at the IMSG, I got a chance to work at the Institute for Military Support to Governance. We went through the .mil PFP for 38 Gulf program, and a few of the hot topics were trying to figure out the appropriate levels of war in which to embed 38 Gulf. What are your thoughts on whether 38 Gulf personnel should be used at strategic, operational, or tactical levels?00:12:18 SPEAKER_03Well, maybe just to kind of connect Jesse's last thought, is the enemy operates at those three levels.00:12:25 SPEAKER_03enemy operates at those three levels. And the enemy can be lethal in ways that don't necessarily involve kinetic guns and bullets, right? If they can dominate, let's say, a province's justice system, commerce system. We, and they are an enemy.00:12:51 SPEAKER_03I think the same logic and approach can be applied. And you train the generalists, just like you train infantry soldiers to, you know, to go on patrol. The generalists are on patrol in these sectors, identify targets, and just like maybe a soldier lazes a target. A generalist lays as a target for 38 Gulf to come in and bring in the weapon system to take it out. Now, obviously, it's more complex, right? And I think maybe that's the challenge we have, but it's also an enormous opportunity.00:13:24 SPEAKER_00Yeah. Captain Elmore, what do you think about how 38 Gulf, should they be used at all levels? And how would you weight them? So if you have 500 personnel, do you think more of them should go to the operational tactical levels or put them as strategic?00:13:43 SPEAKER_03forward each of those expertise is at all the levels. We have an example right now of, you know, with Venezuela, where the humanitarian list is sort of that kick -in -the -door operation. Is that tactical? Is that operational? Is that strategic? You know, the jury's out on that one, but we can see that it's something that's at all those levels. How many get weighted towards which endeavor, which level? I don't know. I know that we have, all three of us, experienced some hemming and hawing over coulda, shoulda with previous engagements, whether it's Iraq or Afghanistan, and the forethought, or maybe lack thereof, that went into those mission plans and the effects that those had, strategic and operational and tactical. I can talk, having worked at tactical and operational levels,00:14:35 SPEAKER_03levels, that they're slowly needed and slowly lacking. And I've seen where we weren't able to get the desired effects to support a line of effort for support commander because we couldn't solve the problems in front of us. We could identify them, but we just didn't have the ability to solv32 min - 28: Nicholas Krohley on Human Terrain and CA Integration
Welcome to One CA Podcast. Today we have Nicholas Krohley, PhD, Founder of FrontLine Advisory, and author of "The Death of the Mehdi Army," discussing human terrain and the need for better processes to integrate the mission of Civil Affairs with other military elements.
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So good your cat will ask for it by name.00:01:00 SPEAKER_01As soon as we took our foot off the gas and we backed off, ultimately withdrew from Iraq, it was remarkably fast that the Islamic State kind of rose up from the ashes. And it's a cautionary tale, I think, when you look at it. The money that was spent, the resources allocated,00:01:19 SPEAKER_01the intensity of the campaign that we took against al -Qaeda and Iraq. As soon as you stop, those gains are not consolidated by virtue of what you've been doing. It has to be linked up.00:01:29 SPEAKER_04It has00:01:49 SPEAKER_03and welcome to the 1CA podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're joined by Dr. Nicholas Crowley, who is a consultant and researcher. He's the founder of Frontline Advisory and the author of The Death of the Medi Army, the rise, fall, and revival of Iraq's most powerful militia. Nick specializes in firsthand examination of localized dynamics of conflict development and urbanization in the developing world. His work aligns strategic plans with local realities. and equips frontline operational personnel with the skill sets and local insights necessary for success. Nick had previously served as a social scientist with the Human Terrain System. He also contributed to various NATO initiatives to integrate social -cultural information into military planning and operational processes, and he was instrumental in designing and delivering research planning and collection training for the UK's Defense Cultural Specialist Unit. Nick has Ph .D. and M .A. degrees from King's College London and a B .A. from Yale University. His book, The Death of the Mighty Army, was excerpted in Foreign Affairs, reviewed in Millie's Quarterly as, quote, the best recent book on Iraq, and shortlisted by RUSI for the Duke of Westminster's Medal as Book of the Year in the Field of International Relations and Military Studies. Dr. Nick Crowley, thank you for being on the 1CA Podcast, and welcome.00:03:11 SPEAKER_01Thank you. Thanks for having me.00:03:13 SPEAKER_03Now, you're calling from London, where you're currently residing, and you've got your own firm. Where can people go to find out more information about Frontline?00:03:21 SPEAKER_01Yeah, if you look up frontlineadvisory .com, there's a whole overlay of business and what we do and how we do it.00:03:28 SPEAKER_03That's great. And where are you doing some of your work now?00:03:32 SPEAKER_01So our work varies. We're doing some work at Fort Bragg with CA around the concepts we'll talk about today. We're also doing some very similar work in Iraq with the Iraqi government. We're looking to develop capabilities along these lines. Then there's a commercial side of the business. And if you think about the skill sets of human terrain analysis and the idea of helping the military go into an unfamiliar environment and make sense of what's happening on the ground, we do a version of that for Western companies going into the Middle East and Africa. How do they take a local view of what matters about the human terrain, the landscape around them, socially, culturally? dealing with things like labor issues, security issues, community relations, and that sort of thing.00:04:17 SPEAKER_03That's great. And so that's built on your background of working in that area of operations, is that right?00:04:23 SPEAKER_01Yeah. So it's based around personal experience in the Middle East and North Africa, principally. And also, my work with the Army was formative in terms of how we think about... entering into difficult environments and the way we take a view on what's happening and what matters. My time with Human Terrain System was definitely a formative experience just trying to go into an environment like Iraq and figure out where do we start to look, what questions do we ask, how do we ask them, and then how do we integrate those answers into a practical decision -making process. So the lessons I took from that early experience back in 2008. has shaped what I've done since then, you know, on the military side from a training standpoint and on the commercial side, providing advisory services.00:05:16 SPEAKER_03That's awesome. And so you referred to some of the questions that we're going to get into. So I wanted to tell listeners about the article that sparked the interest in talking to you today. It was published by the Modern War Institute at West Point. That's part of USMA. It's entitled Moving Beyond Post -9 -11 Manhunt. translating tactical wins into strategic success. And it sounds to me very similar to what we're talking about in the CA community about consolidating gains. You've made some progress on influencing the human population for the commander's intent, moving towards some of the lines of effort and integrating civil information, for example, but how that can be translated to a higher level for strategic success. And I think that's the gist of what you're talking about in this article. Is that right?00:06:04 SPEAKER_01Yeah, and the word integration is key in all this. And you hit on that right there. It's how do we get all these different lines of effort joined up? And the article looks at some of the issues we've had where we develop extraordinary capabilities. And the article itself focuses on lethal targeting. We have this amazing capability, but how well are we actually joining it up with the other lines of effort that have to complement it? so that we can achieve a result. Yeah.00:06:35 SPEAKER_03So we'll talk about that. You argue that despite how the U .S. military has incredible efficiency in hunting and killing enemy targets, the U .S. government is just failing to turn these tactical wins into strategic success. And you argue that lethal targeting, largely through drone strikes, is something that's here to stay. And that can just continue to evolve as new technologies emerge. One article stuck out to me that you wrote, quote, a growing reliance on lethal targeting as a core instrument of foreign policy should be worrying. Why is that the case?00:07:09 SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, the short answer to that is because it hasn't worked in terms of delivering a strategic result. The lethal targeting approach, whether you talk about drones, you talk about direct action, it's here to stay, I think, because... At first glance, at least, it's a pretty good or pretty appealing solution to a lot of the asymmetric threats we're looking at in the Middle East and Africa and elsewhere. It's low profile. It's inexpensive comparatively. And we can romanticize this idea of sort of a surgical approach to counterterrorism, a surgical approach to counter -narcotics, and even aspects of stabilization. The problem is that you have to find a way to link it up elsewhere. We look at this idea. We can go in with kinetic action, lethal action, and achieve certain effects. And you look at how good we are at doing this. And the technology involved, the people involved, there are incredible capabilities there. But think about the theaters in which we've applied it. Let's think about one where it's actually delivered a result that's commensurate to our proficiency. And you just don't see it. I don't see a break away from this as an element or a core element of our approach. When you look at the frustration and the disillusionment, the return on investment we got from all the development and capacity building work done in Iraq and Afghanistan, billions of dollars were spent to very limited effect. I was in Baghdad in September. You can go around that city and challenge yourself to find the legacy of SERP spending. How many billions of dollars were spent? And the lingering effect of that are concrete T -walls. It really wasn't as effective as it ought to have been. And we can look back to, well, this didn't work and it's expensive and we don't want to do this anymore. The U .S. isn't in the nation -building business anymore. And it's tempting or it's kind of sexy as well to fall back upon this direct action approach, this lethal targeting approach to just surgically managing threats worldwide. you know, through special operations forces, through drone strikes, etc. But there's danger in that because, again, we haven't seen a result from it. And there are some examples in the article about, you know, instances in which it just didn't deliver. And, you know, what you wind up doing, you know, in the best case scenario, is this sort of never -ending whack -a -mole exercise where you're disrupting networks, like we did in Iraq during the surge, and you're keeping the enemy off balance. But at worst, you can have all kinds of unintended consequences. Civil affairs is very much in the second and third order effects business, right? And you can run these campaigns, and I talk about Mexico in the article. They ran an incredibly efficient lethal targeting campaign targeting the cartels, which had monstrous unintended consequences. We can talk about that a bit later if you want.00:10:12 SPEAKER_03I'm thinking back to a book that I read called The Mission the Men and Me by Pete Blaber. And he's a former Green Beret who wrote about some of his experience in training. And he talked about the need to always have a guy or gal on the ground. And despite the drone strikes that may have been called in, he felt like he needed to have someone on the ground to confirm or deny intelligence and to assist with the targeting. But to get a sense of... what enemy movements have been like and whether the local population is for or against you. And you just can't win things remotely all the time. Right. What has been your experience about having a guy or gal on the ground relating to the human terrain team or the work that you're doing now? What's the value added to that?00:11:01 SPEAKER_01the value added to that? I think having that human being on the ground is absolutely essential. And this is something that's sort of a big theme in the work that I do. And I was over at the staff college here in the UK yesterday, actually, talking about this to a group there. There's a big push toward, you know, the technologization, I guess, to make up a word of analysis and of intelligence and this idea that we can remotely understand what's happening to these various sensor systems and remotely man drones, et cetera. and just sort of keep our hands clean to a certain extent. My point of view is that local human eye is absolutely essential. You need someone on the ground to ask the right questions, to look at what's happening, to make sense of why things are happening, because technology and the systems we have can give us the all -seeing eye. You can have real -time coverage of all these different things, but nothing in that whole system or that system of systems enables us to make sense of it. What does it mean? We see these things happening. We see troop movements. We have various data streams on economic activity, instances of violence, etc. What does it mean? The technology and the rest can show us correlation that can identify patterns, but it can't explain any of it. And the challenge is to have someone on the ground or with access to people on the ground to get into it. Now, that's the first step to my mind. And it's easy, I think, to... not along to that if you think that way where it gets difficult is executing and this is where i remember reading the coin manual back in 2007 where you can read that and you can read the new ca manual i found it to be a very similar document where you can read it and agree and there's all these different you know assess this understand that you know remain cognizant of this monitor that there are these sort of statements of intent of things to do but how do you pivot from theory to action uh you know what do i do with you know i can sit there and think i have human terrain is a decisive terrain and the population is the center of gravity and all these great quotes but if i'm there you know in yemen on a thursday afternoon what do i do with that you know that's a big place where the human terrain system fell down is that it didn't have a systematic answer to that question you know what is the process what is the method through which When we're there on the ground, we figure out what matters. Because one of the huge challenges of any human terrain type endeavor or civil reconnaissance, whatever you want to call it, this is variations of the same thing, is where do you start? If you think about a place like Yemen or even a city, I think of a city like Mosul in Iraq. This is something I talk with the Iraqis about. How do you go into that environment and figure out what matters? How do you go in and take a view of... The fundamentals of the human terrain, what are the different things we have to be aware of? How do they relate to different objectives? How do they relate to the campaign of the enemy? There's so much going on. Knowing where to start and having a process to follow is absolutely critical. That was the biggest takeaway for me from my time with the human terrain system in operational terms. We had to develop on the fly. a process and a method you know our own system uh and then you know refine it over time by doing uh this is something that you know looking around you know41 min - 27: Dale Yeager with Travel Safety Tips
Welcome to One CA Podcast. Today we have Dale Yeager, CEO, Seraph the Problem Solving Company, provides tips to keep you safe when traveling abroad.
Host John McElligott.
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Background song "Something Elated" by Broke For Free.
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Powder your wigs and fasten your buckles. The Virginia Lottery has a new family of scratchers. From Washington to Jefferson, Lincoln, Hamilton, and Jackson, these new scratchers are historic to say the least. And with the new Bucs triple play online game, you get three games in one. Play in -store, in -app, or online today at valottery .com slash Bucs.00:00:24 SPEAKER_02Must be 18 or older to play. Please play responsibly. 888 -532 -3500. you00:01:20 SPEAKER_03podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We have a special guest, Mr. Dale Yeager, who is a forensic profiler and CEO of Serif, the problem -solving company. Dale's been working with clients for, I think it's about over 20, 25 years now. Your company, Serif, focuses on specialized consulting and training in the spaces of legal eye -building security. And the firms that you deal with tend to be in education, legal, business, law enforcement, and government. And the tie for today is discussing tips that you and the company could provide regarding travel safety. And since this audience is civil affairs and national security, we want to talk about tips that you may have for civil affairs folks, if they are operating or if they're government employees traveling abroad, how they can reduce their footprint, pack you know the right way how they can try to reduce their profile and as a target so um we want to welcome mr dale yeager to the podcast thank you hi john how you doing thank you for having me doing very well you know we've known each other for a couple years now and um really enjoyed hearing everything that serif has been doing over the last uh several decades could you tell people about the history of the company briefly well back in uh00:02:58 SPEAKER_03Washington, D .C., and the program was shut down. And I ended up, through a very close family friend meeting, Sam Sullivan. And for those of you who don't know, if you've ever watched the...00:04:30 SPEAKER_03That's great. Congratulations in 20 years. Thank you. Thank you. So you and the company put out a lot of travel tips. You have an amazing Twitter feed. You have blog posts that you put up. And some of the content focuses on travel safety. What are the questions that your clients bring to you regarding travel safety? And they're probably connected to what we want to talk about for civil affairs. Several years ago, I just... conflicts of Okay.00:09:08 SPEAKER_03And so how does it start? For example, if you're in the military, if you have a security clearance, you need to, whether it's personal or professional travel, you have to get a clearance briefing with the intel person. Let's go to the S2, for example, and say, hey, I'm going to travel, take a vacation to go to Costa Rica or Canada or got some work. I'm going to go to this country. Then you have to get a brief, and they have to say, okay, yeah, it's secure enough for you to go, or when you go, you need to keep these things in mind. When clients come to you, where do you start in that conversation? Which country do you want to go to, but how do you prepare for it? Well, forget the...00:12:20 SPEAKER_03Most countries are not ADA compliant or care about that. Correct. Right. So that's number one is your medical issues, your body, and all the people traveling with you. Next thing is, what are you going to wear? So there's a concept called the everyman.00:12:38 SPEAKER_03The everyman is preppers do this, people that are waiting for the zombie apocalypse. So how do you dress like an everyman? Anybody that's an intelligence officer has learned how to do this.00:14:34 SPEAKER_03They start looking at you from the bottom up sometimes. Look at your shoes first, right?00:16:07 SPEAKER_03Those are great points, Dale. So one thing I wanted to bring up with you is the off -duty operator. The concept of the clothing that 511 Tactical or some other related companies that are outdoor -ish, very functional, great pockets. So if you're a concealed carry or if you've got some wallets that you want to add somewhere else or whatever it is, a key for something, you're not going to have a ball cap that has the Fort Bragg 5K. Written on the back of it. Yeah. So the military, for the military folks listening, the military has some descriptions of what those items and what that attire would be. Are you recommending just throw that out the window and get into a country and buy local clothing? Or buy the, what is the nondescript? No, you don't have to buy local clothing. You don't have to buy local clothing, but the pocket pants, that is not something people generally wear overseas. It'll make you stand out. Yeah. Now, if you don't care, that's your business. But if you want to travel safely, you don't want to stand out like that. And by the way, nobody's buying that you're Canadian, so please don't try that either. But I think that you have to do some homework.00:17:32 SPEAKER_03some homework.00:18:29 SPEAKER_03It's not a big leap, but it's different. I have to humble myself and say, okay, these people know this weapon because I don't know this weapon. I know the M16. So humble yourself. You've been listening to the 1CA podcast and our interview with Mr. Dale Yeager. When we come back, we'll ask Dale about the importance of culture and other tips to keep you safe when traveling abroad.00:19:05 SPEAKER_00We're looking for a few good men and women to assist with one CA. Help us to record interviews. Heck, if I can do it, then anyone can. At least that's what my wife says. It doesn't take much. Just find an interesting person, prepare some questions, set your smartphone to record and have a conversation. And you may be famous. Think about all the lines you're going to skip outside of busy nightclubs. Or the easy access to scan groceries without needing assistance from a store manager. Whenever the machine breaks down or doesn't recognize the weight of bananas that you've moved into your own bag.00:19:37 SPEAKER_03of bananas that you've moved into your own bag. All of that and more may be possible when you're working on the 1CA podcast. If you're interested, then please send us an email at capodcasting at gmail .com. As a side note, I should say that producing episodes for 1CA has none of the benefits I just mentioned. But you would meet very smart people, learn more about civil affairs, and maybe just maybe. become a media mogul. So please email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. Thanks.00:20:16 SPEAKER_03Welcome back to the 1CA Podcast. I'm your host, John McElligot. We continue the conversation with Mr. Dale Yeager of SARA.00:24:05 SPEAKER_03Carry yourself. How would a person, especially if they had military experience, there's a tendency that even regardless of the clothing that you're wearing, there's a way that you may carry yourself with your shoulders and your head up that will kind of give it away that, oh, he's a person who's military trained or maybe American. Are there ways that Americans walk on a street that other people don't? And how would you change the way that you carry yourself to blend in?00:26:03 SPEAKER_03Yeah. Don't they have an inside voice? I go, no, that's their voice. And they were bad people. I mean, it's just that they were talking very loudly inside what is basically a museum. Yeah. So, again. Quaker or not.00:27:52 SPEAKER_03You're just asking for trouble. Yeah, nothing good happens after midnight. Yeah, nothing good happens after midnight. And people say, oh, that's nonsense. I go, well, okay. You look at the crime statistics, most violent crime on the streets is happening after midnight. So I think the stats tell the story.00:28:16 SPEAKER_03They do. Well, Dale, this has been a fascinating discussion. ask you where people could go to follow the company to get more information about Seraph, and if they're a potential client, where they can go to contact you? My email is very simple. It's dale, D -A -L -E, at seraph .net. And we have a website, seraph .net, S -E -R -A -P -H .net. We're pretty easy to find on Google. And the last thing I would say to you is get to know the staff. Yes. Please, I beg of you, when you travel, even if it's on government business, sign up for STEP. Literally, it will save your life. It's free.00:29:29 SPEAKER_03Exactly. Thank you. Dale, thank you very much for being here. Serif provides legal liability and security problem solving for the education, legal, business, law enforcement, and government communities. You've been doing this for the last 20 years. Congratulations on 20 -year anniversary. And if people have more questions, they can email Dale and go online to serif .net. There's also another website, which is serifproblemsolving .com. So check out their information. Check out the Twitter feed with free information about travel tips. And if you ever want to know a lot more about Dale's background, his bio and everything is online. It's quite extensive. And the company he's been leading for the last 20 years is amazing. Dale Yeager, thank you very much for being on the 1CA podcast. Thank you very much.00:30:20 SPEAKER_00Thank you for spending some time with us. Please subscribe and come back for another installment of 1CA. Until then, be safe and secure the victory.00:30:34 SPEAKER_01Powder your wigs and fasten your buckles. The Virginia Lottery has a new family of scratchers. From Washington to Jefferson, Lincoln, Hamilton, and Jackson, these new scratchers are historic to say the least. And with the new Bucks triple play online game, you get three games in one. Play in -store, in -app, or online today at valottery .com slash bucks.00:30:58 SPEAKER_02Must be 18 or older to play. Please play responsibly. 888 -532 -3500.31 min - 26: Cori Wegener on Cultural Heritage Preservation
Welcome to One CA Podcast. today, we have Cori Wegener, Director of the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative, discussing cultural heritage preservation, Monuments Men, black market sales of antiquities, the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, and work in Syria and Iraq.
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There's a discussion going on right now about Mosul, about preserving or trying to reconstruct historic sites. Is that really what the local population wants, or do they really want their houses rebuilt, et cetera? So it's really good to be aware of the ongoing conversation and what the local values are.00:00:39 SPEAKER_01And welcome to the 1CA podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're joined today by Cori Wegner. She's the director of the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative, SCRI, an outreach program dedicated to the preservation of cultural heritage and crisis situations in the U .S. and abroad. She's a former member of the civil affairs community for the Army, former CA officer, and has been working extensively on projects in Syria, Iraq, Haiti, Nepal, and elsewhere throughout the world. Corey Wagner, thank you very much for being on the One State Podcast, and welcome.00:01:12 SPEAKER_02Yeah, thanks a lot for having me.00:01:14 SPEAKER_01So we met in 2015 when we were doing, it was my first introduction, actually, to the civil affairs world training session at the Smithsonian. So you were working there at that time, and you walked us through essentially the history of the laws regarding cultural preservation. Talked a little bit about the modern -day mission of Monuments Men because I think this was shortly after the movie had come out. And it was still fresh in people's minds, so we made that connection as well. And then we went out to a satellite location, I guess, for the Smithsonian where a lot of items are preserved and maintained. And we talked sort of hands -on about that process for preserving cultural heritage. I thought it was amazing training. I think it's something that a lot of other CA soldiers and Marines should be able to go through, especially in the D .C. area. We're kind of fortunate to have so many federal agencies right there. So I want to get to some of those items later in the conversation. But first, talk about your connection to civil affairs. So you retired as a major in the Army Reserve. You spent 13 years in CA. I want to ask you who or what brought you into CA?00:02:28 SPEAKER_02Well, first of all, I enlisted right out of high school in the Army Reserve, and I did a couple different things. And then I got my ROTC commission, and I was in the Quartermaster Corps, and I went to the first Gulf War. I deployed to Germany, which was awesome, but I also was a little bit bored and thought I missed out.00:02:45 SPEAKER_02I also was a little bit bored and thought I missed out. My undergrad was in political science. I learned about civil affairs, and it kind of seemed like an obvious fit for me. I was living in Kansas City, Missouri at the time, so I switched branches and I went to the 418th Civil Affairs Battalion. So with that emphasis on political science and the cultural landscape and understanding what's going on in the communities that we're engaged in, I was hooked. And I also made my husband Paul switch branches as well. He was also a civil affairs officer.00:03:18 SPEAKER_01That's great.00:03:19 SPEAKER_02Yeah.00:03:20 SPEAKER_01So you've been working in cultural heritage for quite a while. Can you talk to people about what cultural heritage means and who says whether something is worth preserving?00:03:29 SPEAKER_02Well, yeah, that last part is the really tough one, right? Because it can be different. People can have different values depending on, you know, even in the same community, people can have different values. For instance, just the conversation about Civil War memorials here in the United States, and that's just one example. But so cultural heritage is what we inherit from past generations. that really informs our sense of identity and community and history, how we see ourselves. It's also what we create now and hand down to future generations. So a lot of people divide cultural heritage into two parts. There's tangible, that you can touch, see, and feel, and then there's the intangible, things we know or things that we express. Tangible heritage can be museums with all kinds of different collections of art, history, archaeology, scientific collections. or libraries, archives, cultural and historic sites and monuments, cemeteries, architecture, even whole urban landscapes of buildings that are historic, and also archaeological sites. So that subset, some people also call cultural property, which is important when you think about the Hague Convention, which I think we're going to talk about maybe a little bit later. And then there's the intangible. expressions like music, dance, and poetry, and also craft and traditional practice like cooking and recipes or traditional craft making. And then even the really important ones like wine making and beer brewing. Those are all forms of intangible cultural heritage that we pass down.00:05:07 SPEAKER_01Okay. So I see why the Smithsonian cares about preserving cultural heritage. It's connected to the mission of the Smithsonian. But there is an overlap with civil affairs and the Department of Defense. Why does DOD care about cultural heritage?00:05:21 SPEAKER_02I think DOD should care about it or does care about it in part because it's an international treaty, of course, the 1954 Hague Convention. So it's part of the law of war. It's the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in Armed Conflict. So what we just talked about, the tangible and intangible, the Hague Convention doesn't really protect intangible heritage, but mostly the tangible, the sites, museum collections, etc. Another interesting thing that a lot of people don't realize is the Hague Convention of 1954 was drafted. in the aftermath of world war ii and a lot of the elements of it they were looking back to what they considered the successful work of the monuments men in world war ii so there was a lot of input from people who observed that that protective element of what they were trying to do and thought it was a good thing so hence the treaty um but implementing the Protections of Hague, it's not just about compliance with international law. I think DOD and military operators should be interested in it because it's also part of understanding the civil information environment. Cultural heritage is a subset of cultural awareness. So it's not enough to know how to drink tea or that you should avoid showing the soles of your shoes in a meeting if you're in the Arab world or things like that. Cultural heritage is... More, it's like knowing where these religious and historic sites are located, establishing the connections with those cultural caretakers and understanding the local value that populations place on these sites. And that can make or break mission success if you choose poorly. So it's particularly true in ethnic and religious conflicts, as one would guess. So it's part of governance, too, because. Unlike the United States, most other countries in the world have a Ministry of Culture, and so the management of all those cultural sites is a government responsibility. So I think that's why DOD should care about it.00:07:27 SPEAKER_01So you talk about how DOD should care about it. Has DOD been caring about it for the last several years?00:07:34 SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think we're definitely miles ahead of where we were. Say, for instance, in 2003 with the invasion of Iraq, there was there was attention paid to the planning. But then the execution, we just, you know, didn't have enough people and there wasn't enough attention paid to the particular sites. And there are a lot of good, viable reasons for that. And I think we learned a lot from that. Like it can really be a bad thing if internationally. There's this attitude that the U .S. didn't care about Iraq's cultural heritage enough to protect those sites. And so it's been a gradual thing, but I think they do care about it more now. There's become many different training programs. The Marine Corps CMO school at Quantico teaches 12 hours of cultural property protection in their civil affairs school. The SWCC teaches. some cultural heritage elements as part of their training and especially in their field training for the CA school.00:08:34 SPEAKER_02CA school. So it's gradually becoming more and more. There's stuff in various field manuals. We actually have GTA 41 -01 -02 Civil Affairs, Arts, Monuments, and Archives Guide that's available out there both online and in print. But, you know, I think we could do more. I know the 38 Golf Program has cultural officers as part of that program, and I wish we had more of those and that there was a way for them to come together and train together more. But overall, we're making progress.00:09:08 SPEAKER_01That's good to hear. So you mentioned the connection to Iraq. Could you talk about what happened during and after the 2003 looting of the Iraq National Museum?00:09:18 SPEAKER_02Yeah, I can talk about that a little bit. I know the 352nd Civil Affairs Command was the command that was deployed for that mission, and I wasn't with them at the time. I was actually scheduled to go to Afghanistan with my unit at the time, which was the 407th out of Minneapolis.00:09:39 SPEAKER_02I mean, the story's out there for anybody who wants to read about it in various books about the invasion of Baghdad and what happened with the general looting around the city. And the Iraq Museum was one of the many places that was looted by sort of, you know, the local population. But the Iraq Museum was a little tough because... There was some insider knowledge about where to find some of the hidden storage areas of the museum. The museum staff had worked really hard to evacuate collections out of the galleries and into hidden secure storage. And as some of your listeners probably already know, that Iraq Museum in Baghdad was the repository for... the entire country the flagship museum of iraq and held some of the most important collections of ancient history of humankind there ancient mesopotamia and the the knowledge of some of those looters to go in and find that material and take it out they lost thousands and thousands of objects and looters also smashed a lot of objects in you know for whatever reason as as looters or want to do but in some cases it was because they displayed images or imagery of the human form things like that so it was really a terrible situation i got called up a few weeks later and when it was the fastest deployment i ever had i only spent one week at Fort Bragg, getting my shots and shooting and all the pre -deployment. And I went directly to Baghdad to join up with the 352 and started working at the museum with the civil affairs team there on the ground and trying to advise about stabilization of the museum.00:11:21 SPEAKER_01Okay. Were you there as an arts, monuments, and archives officer at the time?00:11:22 SPEAKER_02you there as an00:11:25 SPEAKER_02Yes, I was. I was designated as the Arts Monuments and Archives Officer as the liaison to the museum. And we had several other projects around the city as well, but that was my main function. And I served as liaison between the staff there and other international organizations trying to come in and assist. But it was tough because... There just wasn't that deployability for the type of organizations that can help in a cultural situation in the same way there are for humanitarian aid organizations. There was really no Doctors Without Borders. coming to help us with the Iraq Museum. And wait as I might, they didn't really come. So it was a gradual process to get expertise in there to assist besides just myself. I had some colleagues from the British Museum and some colleagues from the Italian Ministry of Culture. But it was a slow process.00:12:20 SPEAKER_01Okay. So you mentioned there's no group like what Doctors Without Borders have. So that's 2003. And then 2006, you founded the U .S. Committee of the Blue Shield. So it sounds like you created an organization to do what you just described had been missing previously. So what does that blue shield symbolize? And can you talk about, is the U .S. committee connected to a global organization like the Red Cross, the American Red Cross, is the U .S. affiliate for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies?00:12:51 SPEAKER_02Yes, there's definitely a link and a similarity. The International Committee of the Blue Shield was formed in the 90s as a response to the intentional destruction of cultural property in the Bosnian conflict.00:13:06 SPEAKER_02The Blue Shield, I should say, is the organization's name for the Blue Shield symbol. that's designated in the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property, as well as personnel who are working to protect cultural property. So it's very similar to the Red Cross is the international symbol for the Geneva Conventions, and for personnel, the Blue Shield is the symbol for the Hague Convention for Protection of Cultural Property. So the international organization existed, but it wasn't really deployable. It was more about policies in individual countries for implementing the Hague Convention.00:13:45 SPEAKER_02Hague Convention. And some of the Blue Shield organizations focus on natural disasters in their own countries as well, just much like the Red Cross also does natural disasters in individual countries. So I learned. At the time, when I went to Iraq, and I'm still ashamed to this day that I didn't know it, but in 2003, the United States had never ratified the 1954 Hague Convention. We followed it as customary international law, but we hadn't ratified. And this caused a lot of problems in my office with the Coalition Provisional Authority. office representing the Ministry of Culture for Governance. And we worked in a coalition office with Italians and Brits. The Brits had not ratified either. And the Italians were like, wow, you know, we we are not working under the same set of standards and rules for the law of war. And, you know, the Italians were pretty upset about the damage to cultural heritage sites. So they were that's part34 min - 25: Major General Darrell Guthrie of USACAPOC(A)
Welcome to One CA Podcast. Today, we have Major General Darrell Guthrie, Commander, US Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (Airborne), discussing the command, his priorities and vision for Civil Affairs, and whether CA has a sales problem.
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Transcript:
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We provide... Welcome to the 1CA podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We have a very special guest, Major General Daryl Guthrie. He's the Commanding General of the U .S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command, often referred to as USIC -KPOC. General Guthrie began his military career in 1985, commissioned as a second lieutenant after graduating from UAV. He then became a king of battle and field artillery, completed the civil affairs course, and went on to the Command and General Staff College and the Army War College. At some point, General Guthrie found time to earn a law degree.00:01:36 SPEAKER_02He has successfully held command and staff positions at company through division, joint and combined headquarters, and in support of the Department of State. His experience in civil affairs is extensive and throughout the country. And, sir, I'm not sure if you have time to do this anymore, but your civilian occupation is managing your own law firm. And for anyone who has attended UAB or Texas Tech, they will happily call you a fellow Blazer and Red Raider. General Guthrie, welcome to the 1CA Podcast.00:02:04 SPEAKER_03Hey, John. Thanks for having me. And go Blazers.00:02:09 SPEAKER_03And I think we say something like get your guns up at Texas Tech.00:02:14 SPEAKER_02Good. So are you still a resident of, you're on sort of active duty orders now, but you're from Texas, is that right?00:02:21 SPEAKER_03Well, I grew up in, I actually grew up in Alabama, just outside of Birmingham, but have lived.00:02:35 SPEAKER_03Civil Affairs and the 413th Civil Affairs Battalion there in Lubbock. But with this job, and now that my wife and I are empty nesters, we actually moved to North Carolina. So I'm a North Carolina resident for the time being.00:02:51 SPEAKER_02That's great. And I also read that you have four children with your wife, three of whom are serving the military. So this has become a family business for you.00:03:02 SPEAKER_03in the Marine Corps stationed at Quantico at present. And then I have a son that's in the 101st. He's actually in Iraq right now. And then a son that's at West Point in his third year. And then I have a daughter who's a physical therapist who can take care of me when I get old.00:03:23 SPEAKER_03take care of me when I get old.00:03:25 SPEAKER_02That's good. Well, congratulations to you and your family. So there's a lot to cover. We got some questions that came in from listeners from the podcast. A lot of people who wanted to get introduced to the command. So if we could, let's set the stage for listeners by describing the breadth and depth of personnel that are under use of KPOC, which is much more than civil affairs. Yeah, so use of KPOC is...00:04:07 SPEAKER_03operation.00:05:32 SPEAKER_02500 people is a lot, especially when you're looking at the structure of those units because I'm on a team of five people. So would you say that that reflects there are numerous teams and companies spread throughout the country, spread throughout the world?00:05:48 SPEAKER_03Yeah, yeah.00:07:19 SPEAKER_02Definitely the type of forces that punch above their weight. Sir, I wanted to ask you about the Ready Force X. There's been a shift under General Luckey's command of the Army Reserve to tag some units as Ready Force X. How many of your CA, PSYOP, and IO units are in this Ready Force status?00:08:12 SPEAKER_03the Army Reserve to get after this idea of fighting fast.00:08:53 SPEAKER_02Sir, what would you say are some of the biggest lessons that you've learned since taking command?00:14:00 SPEAKER_02We're listening to the 1CA podcast and interview with Major General Darrell Guthrie, Commanding General of USA KPOC. When we come back, I'll ask General Guthrie about his priorities for the next few years and his vision for civil affairs.00:14:19 SPEAKER_02Mark your calendars for the 2019 Civil Affairs Roundtable to be held on Tuesday to April at the National Guard Armory Conference in Washington, D .C. This year's roundtable will conclude the seminal discussion of optimizing civil affairs, started at last fall's symposium at Fort Fragg, North Carolina, and in the 2018 -19 Civil Affairs issue papers to be published before the roundtable. At the roundtable, the discussion shifts to a more granular identification of dot mill PFP pathways to guide CA modernization and continuous investment in an innovative and adaptive force that is well -networked in planning, and operational relationships, and persistently engaged and aligned regionally to facilitate political military goals and objectives. In addition to the speakers and panel discussions, attending members and friends of the regiment will conclude by looking at how to advance civil affairs at a more ambitious multilateral scale over the next year's cycle. In order to maximize official travel for uniformed members of the regiment, the roundtable immediately precedes the PKSOI Training and Education Workshop. which will be held on 3 to 5 April at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. For more information, including the agenda and registration, go to the Civil Affairs Association website, which is at civilaffairsassoc .org.00:15:48 SPEAKER_02Hi, welcome back to the 1CA Podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're continuing our conversation with Major General Darrell Guthrie, the commanding general, U .S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command. Sir, what are your priorities for the next few years? What's your vision for CA? Yeah, so I kind of start with I have four lines of effort.00:16:09 SPEAKER_03lines of effort.00:21:02 SPEAKER_02So does that mean building a force to combat a near -peer threat like China, Russia, or a massive ground force that may be needed for a place like North Korea?00:23:58 SPEAKER_02Sir, I could go on to additional questions here, the two that I mentioned earlier. Is there anything else before we do that that you'd like to share about any documents that you'll be unveiling to the force?00:24:10 SPEAKER_03We're working right now. the organization is thinking.00:26:18 SPEAKER_02That's good to hear, sir. Sir, I wanted to close this conversation by asking you a question about visibility and appreciation of the CA forces. Many Civil Affairs Association meetings have included discussions about the need to increase demand for CA forces or to secure greater visibility and appreciation of our capabilities for the Army and the Marine Corps. Sir, what's your maybe personal view on whether there's a sales problem within DOD or the larger national security community?00:28:07 SPEAKER_03operations. I've said here at the headquarters, and as I've gone out and visited some places recently, we all wear the same patch. And therefore, we've got to be willing to offer solutions to commanders. And those commanders have a lot of data points coming at them, a lot of inputs coming to them from a lot of people.00:30:05 SPEAKER_03now that only00:31:40 SPEAKER_03while at the same time we're probably changing some of our capabilities to be able to provide the best benefit on the battlefields of the future.00:31:52 SPEAKER_02That's right. Yeah, we need to adapt and evolve, and that's part of the reason how we're trained in civil affairs and SOAP and IO. And I would recommend to the listeners to continue to build up your personal professional skills. There's, for example, language money that's on the table for anyone who's CA qualified. And if you're not learning a foreign language, you're leaving money on the table that the command is offering for you to learn a language that would be relevant not only to your military career, but also your civilian careers. And there's a lot of self -training out there.00:32:23 SPEAKER_03a lot of self -training00:32:38 SPEAKER_03a problem, not just legally, but actually lead through the problem as well.00:32:53 SPEAKER_02General Guthrie, Commanding General of the U .S. Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command. Sir, the future is bright for CA. I thank you very much for being on the 1CA podcast and wish you well with the rest of your command. Hey, John, thank you very much and thanks for taking the time to let me spend a little bit of time with you and talk about00:33:13 SPEAKER_03little bit of time with you and talk about for the future. I'm a big podcast listener and I indeed listen to the 1CA podcast.00:33:26 SPEAKER_02Sir, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Take care, sir. All right. Thank you.00:33:40 SPEAKER_01Thank you for spending some time with us. Please subscribe and come back for another installment. 1CA. Until then, be safe and secure the victory.34 min - 24: Kwadjo Owusu-Sarfo on Ghana and Boko Haram
Welcome to One CA Podcast. Today we have Kwadjo Owusu-Sarfo, PhD, is a cultural conflict sociologist with Valka-Mir Human Security, LLC. We discuss Ghanaian culture, the Dagbon conflict, his research related to Boko Haram, and how Civil Affairs forces could better integrate with host communities.
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Transcript:
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you know, with few exceptions, each extremist, terrorist, uh, violent gang.00:00:35 SPEAKER_01Welcome to the 1CA podcast. My name is John McElligot, your host for today's episode. We're joined today by Dr. Kwajo Owusu -Sarfo. He is a cultural conflict sociologist and holds a doctorate from Nova Southeastern University Department of Conflict Studies. He was originally a refugee from West Africa's Akan Tui peoples and is now a U .S. permanent resident. He spent significant amounts of time researching the psychological, sociological, and cultural foundations of communities in violent conflict in West Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Caribbean. He speaks English, French, and a contui, and specializes in the interface between human psychosocial culture and its categorization within ArcGIS. You are the lead researcher for the Valkamir Conflict Video Case Study on the Kanuri people and their involvement with the Boko Haram movement. Thank you very much for being on the WCA podcast.00:01:34 SPEAKER_03Yes, thank you very much for having me.00:01:37 SPEAKER_01Thank you very much for your time. You know, you were born to the Akan Tui peoples, and I know that the Akan Tui tend to be in the south -central region of Ghana in West Africa. And my understanding of doing some background was that Tui is a dialect of the Akan language. So could you talk to everyone about who are the Akan Tui, and what do most people from that group do?00:02:03 SPEAKER_03for having me. And yes, I am a member of the Akan people of Ghana. And I speak TRI, which is spelled T -W -I. So TRI happens to be one of the major dialects of the Akan language. Now, the Akan people...00:02:57 SPEAKER_03to be00:04:40 SPEAKER_01So that's a very short history of the Akan.00:04:41 SPEAKER_03a very short history of the00:04:43 SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a very long history. And so you said the vast majority of people living in Ghana today are Akan people. And so that makes sense that they are throughout this society. Do people who are Akan in Ghana tend to be considered the ruling class? Or are there people in other tribes that are less populous throughout business leaders or political leaders, for example?00:06:08 SPEAKER_01Okay. So there's one connection I wanted to drill on with America and I think specifically with African -American fraternities, I believe, and maybe sororities as well in colleges in the U .S. with the kente cloth. Very common for men and women who graduate from maybe historically black colleges and universities to wear a stripe of kente cloth around their neck at graduation. And when I was in Accra, I was there twice, actually, and came over briefly from Cote d 'Ivoire and then went back for a different water project and was able to pick up some kente cloth when I was there. Could you talk about the sign or the symbolism of kente cloth being aligned with different tribes and what that means translating to U .S.? I mean...00:09:43 SPEAKER_01It's quite a powerful symbol as well because the colors are so rich. It really stands out when people walk across the stage or wear it in public.00:09:54 SPEAKER_01Right. The food I thought was amazing, by the way. So if there's anyone listening to this who has not been to Ghana or has not been to a Ghanaian restaurant in the United States, you should definitely go. If there's a Black Stars game on television, go then because the crowd will be rowdy and lively. Yeah, a lot of amazing mixes of groundnut soup, stew, sauces, the mix of rice and vegetables and chicken and meat. So good.00:10:27 SPEAKER_02Yep. If you don't mind me asking, what was your pick? What was your favorite?00:10:33 SPEAKER_01I like the groundnut. I got a bunch of that in Cote d 'Ivoire. I think ground up with some chicken was so nice. Or a grilled fish. It's so common to get grilled fish, and you get the whole fish, right? In the U .S., we tend to take off the tail and the head and everything else, but you get the whole fish, which is nice.00:10:54 SPEAKER_02Right. And what did you eat the soup with?00:10:57 SPEAKER_01Typically rice. With rice, okay. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I was using hands at first, and then that got really, really hot, and so I started using the spoons. Right. You know, locals made fun of me at first, but I didn't care. It hurt.00:12:07 SPEAKER_03There's fufu that's made with banana, but there's also fufu that's made with cassava. Right. So, yeah, cassava, which is known as manioc in other places. Right. So, yeah, and then there's jell -off rice, which I hope you have the opportunity to taste. Oh, yes.00:12:26 SPEAKER_01taste. Oh, yes.00:12:28 SPEAKER_01Yeah. I don't think I ever had the wrist strength or the forearm strength to make, in the mortar and pestle, to make... Fufu. Fufu as well as women who would do that every day.00:12:40 SPEAKER_02Yes, yes. Fufu takes a lot of work,00:12:44 SPEAKER_03lot of work, but, you know, you have to, you know, first prefer the cassava.00:13:02 SPEAKER_03While it's being pounded, you have to gather the pounded cassava together into a starchy paste to make the fufu. So it's quite, yeah, it's a lot of work.00:13:21 SPEAKER_01Definitely worth it. Yeah, it's worth it when you eat it because it's one of the major delicacies in Ghana.00:13:28 SPEAKER_03delicacies in Ghana.00:13:30 SPEAKER_01So I wanted to get into... After one more other question, get into your evolution of coming from Ghana, coming to the United States, and what had happened. But first, talk about your first name. And this may be helpful for others listening, traveling to the region, who see repeatedly a lot of quodros, a lot of coffees, a lot of people with similar first names. And so your name indicates that you were born on a Monday. Yes. Could you talk about that naming system for boys and girls? Right. So it's not necessarily unique in Khan culture,00:14:06 SPEAKER_03not necessarily unique in Khan culture, but there's definitely other ethnic groups in West Africa that follow a naming system or pattern which corresponds to the day of the week on which...00:14:36 SPEAKER_03If you were born on a Tuesday, you would be Wabena. If you were born on a Wednesday, it's Kwaku. Thursday is Yao. Friday is Kofi, as in Kofi Annan. Saturday would be Kwame. And Sunday would be Kwesi. Now, the names that I've given you, though, are, those are the males. Those are the names of males. So the female version of somebody, of a female child born in the account culture on... is the female version of Kojo. And then for Tuesday would be Abena, which is the male version, the female version of Kwabena. And then for Wednesday it would be Aku, which is the female version of Kweku. And then for Thursday it would be Ya, which is the female version of Yao. begins with a Y -A -E, which is Yao. But all the other names have a qua prefix. So that's one way to distinguish somebody born on a Thursday from the other days of the week. So I hope that helps you understand the naming system.00:16:09 SPEAKER_03the naming00:16:11 SPEAKER_01It is helpful. Thank you. And the pronunciation.00:16:16 SPEAKER_01And the pronunciation.00:16:18 SPEAKER_03Yes, yes. You know, the interesting thing about the pronunciation is it's always hard to let somebody else to, you know, someone who's not from Ghana or who's not from the Akan culture, you know, to really help them with the intonation and the articulation. It's definitely good, you know, because... When I tell people that my name is Kwajo, it's different from how you would say it in Ghana. It's Kwajo. When I say Kwabana, it's actually Kwabana. I've just come to accept that it's very hard for people to really know how to say it right.00:17:01 SPEAKER_03how to say it right. Just like it would be hard for me to get the articulation and intonation of some other cultures.00:17:09 SPEAKER_03cultures. names correctly. Oh,00:17:13 SPEAKER_01absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It's good to hear from someone firsthand to say, oh, I'm sorry, you know, pronunciation is this way. So that, especially for people listening to this, if they're going to go to West Africa, they need to take the time to sit down with someone and get to know them and really have an interest in speaking the language more accurately and pronouncing names correctly. Right. Okay. Yeah.00:17:40 SPEAKER_01Well, so I wanted to... Yeah, go ahead.00:17:44 SPEAKER_03I was just going to say that you've touched on an important point, which we usually try to stress at Barcamir,00:17:50 SPEAKER_03to stress at Barcamir, is that when soldiers are deployed to various places that are involved in conflict, talking to people and trying to, for example, trying to understand how the name is pronounced, these are all important ways of... engaging people and building that, you know, rapport, which is important if you're going to be able to successfully work with these communities and, you know, in counterterrorism operations.00:18:24 SPEAKER_01Yeah, you need to have an interest and a value in the people. Yes, yes, exactly. Stick around for the rest of my conversation with Kwajo Owusu -Sarfo. We're going to talk about the Dagwon conflict, his research related to Boko Haram, and how civil affairs forces could better integrate with host communities.00:18:51 SPEAKER_01Mark your calendars for the 2019 Civil Affairs Roundtable to be held on Tuesday to April at the National Guard Armory Conference in Washington, D .C. This year's roundtable will conclude... The seminal discussion of optimizing civil affairs started at last fall's symposium at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and in the 2018 -19 Civil Affairs issue papers to be published before the roundtable. At the roundtable, the discussion shifts to a more granular identification of dot mill PFP pathways to guide CA modernization and continuous investment in an innovative and adaptive force that is well -networked in planning and operational relationships. and persistently engaged and aligned regionally to facilitate political military goals and objectives. In addition to the speakers and panel discussions, attending members and friends of the Regiment will conclude by looking at how to advance civil affairs at a more ambitious multilateral scale over the next year's cycle, in order to maximize official travel for uniformed members of the Regiment. The roundtable immediately precedes the PKSOI Training and Education Workshop, which will be held on 3 to 5 April at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania. For more information, including the agenda and registration, go to the Civil Affairs Association website, which is at civilaffairsassoc .org.00:20:18 SPEAKER_01Welcome back to the 1CA podcast and our interview with Dr. Quadru. Dr. Owusu -Sarfo, I always thought that Ghana had been a very safe place, especially in West Africa. There had been some turmoil. But there was part of, I guess, the Ghanaian history where you had an interest in leaving, right? So can you tell people, was that Ghana? What had happened in that situation? You know, why did you feel like you needed to leave and become a refugee?00:20:55 SPEAKER_03and being one of the more notable democratic countries in West Africa.00:21:35 SPEAKER_01You're talking about the part of the north closer to Burkina, like north of Tamale, that far north? Well,00:21:43 SPEAKER_02yeah,00:21:44 SPEAKER_03the northern part of Ghana, yes, exactly. So in the northern part...00:22:59 SPEAKER_03hundred years.00:24:48 SPEAKER_01of sustained peace and understanding, 20 years of violence, and now we're back to a spot where you feel like this is back to what they had before, or they trade off one to the next? Okay.00:26:42 SPEAKER_03infrastructure. So the government getting involved in the peace process and making sure that, you know, the North catches up in terms of development and, you know, infrastructure development, if the North catches up with the South, I think will also help and go a long way towards,00:26:59 SPEAKER_01you know, sustaining peace. That's really good to hear. Do you feel like it, at some point, the North would stabilize enough so that you would go back and see friends and family?00:27:13 SPEAKER_03show that both sides are interested in showing a good faith commitment to, you know, keeping and sustaining peace. So from what I've seen, I think there's a very good chance that I can go back and, you know, see old faces.00:27:33 SPEAKER_03Yeah. Hopefully, yes. That'd be great.00:27:36 SPEAKER_01Well, sir, I wanted to focus just a couple questions here on your current research and what you're doing for Valcomere, what you're doing on the side. And your research is focused on the psychological, sociological, cultural foundations of violent conflict. And the regions you've been focusing on in the past have been West Africa, Horn of Africa, and the Caribbean. So what are you studying currently? Which groups are you studying? And what have you found? Are there common themes, for example, across looking at psychological, sociocultural factors in all these regions, West Africa, Horn of Africa, and the Caribbean?00:28:14 SPEAKER_03So I've been studying the conflict in the Kanuri community of West Africa. What I've been studying specifically is the cultural origin, the sustainment, and epidemiology of Boko Haram, which I'm sure you've heard about. You know a lot about. So concerning that, you know, the U .S. Army Special Operations Forces mission in this conflict is really to support its eventual resolution and prevent the conflict spread beyond its current areas of occurrence. Now, some background on the Qunari. The Qunari are, you know, there are people who are the most closely involved in the41 min
About One CA Podcast
From the publisher's feed
One CA Podcast is here to inspire anyone interested in traveling to work with a partner nation’s people and leadership to forward U.S. foreign policy.
We bring in current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences and give recommendations for working the ”last three feet” of foreign relations.
The show is sponsored by the Civil Affairs Association.
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