One CA Podcast

Today, we welcome Cleo Paskal, Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a frequent lecturer for the U.S. military about the Indo-Pacific region.

Cleo came in to discuss the PRC's efforts to infiltrate Guam and the regional islands to undermine US relationships with those communities, the threat it creates to national security, and how we need to do to respond. 

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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at [email protected] 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

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Special thanks to Noel Flores for the sample of the Album Eat Your Greens and song Anger Management by Anita  Schwab on his channel Jazz of the South Pacific. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/zfRUrnNhwfs?si=Afcsham-r5Gjnjaj 

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Transcript

00:00:04    Introduction

Today Brian Hancock interviews Doug Stevens who is an expeditionary pastor, working faith-based diplomacy to improve international relations. The discussion is on his work travelling to partner nations to reach out to locals and leaders to overcome social trauma from war, genocide and help rebuild communities. 

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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at [email protected] 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

Links mentioned: Hope international ministries: Hope4nations.org

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Special thanks to Dimitar Dodovski for sampling Keith Jarrett's album Spirits 20. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yeh7OX5m4E

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Transcript

00:00:03    Introduction

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes.

00:00:38    BRIAN HANCOCK

I'm Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hancock, and I will be your host for this session. Today we have with us Pastor Douglas Stevens to discuss religious outreach, relief operations in Ukraine, and mission opportunities in Ukraine. Doug is a graduate of both Cal Berkeley and Fuller Seminary. Doug is active with humanitarian missions in Eastern Europe. in Haiti and elsewhere. He is a people lover, culture watcher, mountain bike rider, and avid world trader. Isn't that the truth? A quick disclaimer to the audience, a reminder, all remarks are solely those of the presenters. Further, due to the subject matter of our session today, some of the content may be a little bit disturbing to some audiences. Now, Doug, I first met you in the United States. when you swooped in to rescue our church as God's quick response force. Do you remember those days? I do. I remember them fondly. It seems like a lifetime ago to me, so much has happened since, but our church is still standing, so you must have done something right.

00:01:36    DOUGLAS STEVENS

It seems

00:01:42    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Well, it was a great time. I have friendships from that that continue.

00:01:46    BRIAN HANCOCK

Outstanding. Some of the things that you do are similar to what we do in the Army of the United States, or at least there are some similarities to it. The way we view the American military is as an expeditionary force. We often go places with large numbers, with lots of equipment and logistics and partnerships. And oftentimes these areas we are going to are characterized by great suffering. Relief agencies may not be able to get in there to operate. So that's usually when the world often turns to the U .S. military. Now, it seems to me that you've spent much of your life in a similar capacity as an expeditionary pastor.

00:02:29    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Well, first of all, I just want to say what you're doing and what you represent is not well enough known as a part of the U .S. military's mission, the humanitarian side of that. And I just want to encourage you. So thank you for what you're doing. Now, my experience is on a different plane and yet heading in the same direction, just trying to help people. and have been in a variety of places around the world. In Haiti, for example, serving in Colombia, South America. I have been to Bosnia during the war back in the 90s when things were very tense. That was with World Vision. I have been to Rwanda in East Africa. That was with International Justice Mission. I have been overseas to places like Beijing, China, Cambodia, in the aftermath of their genocide. And have seen light shining in some of the darkest places in the world, places that you wouldn't expect any good news to come out of. And yet some wonderful people doing some heroic work in those places. In fact, we have just returned from more than a weekend in Ukraine. I know that you personally have a podcast that you host.

00:03:34    BRIAN HANCOCK

know that you personally have a podcast that you host. Yes. Very, very inspiring. Hello, darkness. Stories that transform. And I'll tell you, having read about... The scenario in Rwanda you mentioned, I think a number of people have watched the movie Hotel Rwanda. Yes. Very dark. You've got Hutu mothers murdering their neighbors Tutsi Chol. Yeah. You've got massive numbers fleeing. Yes. You have the radio saying there is work to be done. Kill the cockroaches. Right. You have female leaderships in the government calling the men in the camps, often stadiums, other places where, Hutu have herded the Tutsis to kill them brutally with machetes and complaining, saying, well, you need to rape these women before you kill them. And they're saying, well, we're just too tired because of all this killing. It's what they were saying at the time. And of course, the international community, we have some bases there and some other things, but we are not allowed to leave the base. There is no protection that is offered by the international community. There is no sanctuary. Clearly, this was hell on earth. It was. Have you seen some light come out of something like that?

00:04:48    DOUGLAS STEVENS

It went on for about 90 days back in 1994. That took nearly a million lives, as I understand it. We were there in the aftermath and the recovery time. And they had these wonderful trials for people who had been convicted of murder. But in these trials, you actually had the opportunity for reconciliation. You had the opportunity to extend forgiveness. potential repair of communities. And so we were close to that. We were supporting efforts as that was happening. There was a filmmaker who was there with us. So that was our time in Kigali and the countryside in Rwanda. And pleased to see the development since then. And of course, there are more complications now politically, and that's happening in our world. So that's a whole nother story.

00:05:33    BRIAN HANCOCK

I hear you. But I'm also glad to hear that some justice, some reconciliation, some path forward does exist there that you were able to see. Now, in Army Civil Affairs and United States Marine Corps Civil Affairs, both of us work with what we call united action partners. These may be local allies, they may be host nations, oftentimes the non -government organizations. We often can't work directly with them if they need to maintain a neutrality. help both sides, such as Doctors Without Borders. You are for World Vision and I believe a few others. What is it like working with a non -government organization doing this type of work? And did you ever have any interaction with the military in that role? And would you have even liked any interaction with military civil affairs?

00:06:30    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Well, we primarily worked with churches and NGOs that were there doing a variety of things, and those folks are the heroes on the ground, often unsung and unrewarded for what they did. But they didn't do it for that reason. They were doing it for the people they loved, the people they were sacrificing for. And we worked very closely with them and wanted to support them because they were the ones who were on the ground. We're going to be there for a long time after we left doing whatever we were doing. And often we were bringing in humanitarian aid. Sometimes we were doing leadership training. Sometimes we were doing reconciliation, conflict resolution, working with local churches that were... suddenly coming back to life again and wanting to encourage them, and the work they were doing in drawing people close to the, well, the work of God, if I can put it bluntly, because what needed to be done seemed impossible. How do you crawl out of this deep, dark hole? But it was happening, and there was a tremendous resurgence of faith in the hearts of many people who were then living it out. Hard to explain how this happened except to call it a miracle.

00:07:35    BRIAN HANCOCK

And I'm glad that miracles still do happen.

00:07:37    DOUGLAS STEVENS

They do. You have to invest in it. It doesn't happen because you're hoping for it.

00:07:42    BRIAN HANCOCK

Right. May of last year, you found yourself in Moldova. Now, that may not be a household name for many folks in America. I knew nothing about it until I went there.

00:07:51    DOUGLAS STEVENS

knew nothing about it until I went there. Next door to Ukraine.

00:07:54    BRIAN HANCOCK

We have a regionally aligned civil affairs commands who get to know some of these places. And for the European region, civil affairs command is... the 353rd Civil Affairs Command, which is back on the East Coast. And in January 2023, they actually published an excellent article in our flagship publication in the military, the Military Review. You've arrived if you get peer review publication in Military Review. And the functional specialty team, a couple of brilliant captains, published. an article regarding food resiliency in Moldova. So this is a hot topic. Can you tell the audience a bit about the mission that you were doing in Moldova, as well as what you experienced?

00:08:41    DOUGLAS STEVENS

Well, Moldova is a relatively poor country inside the EU, hoping to get in, not in NATO yet, hoping to enter, be approved, along with Ukraine, of course. that took in a million refugees in the last couple of years that were flooding out of Ukraine, looking to escape. The Moldovans themselves, many of them literally have their bags packed in case Ukraine is overrun by the Russian invaders. And they know that they would be next and they have no defense. And NATO is not officially obligated to intervene. So right now, for the moment, they look relatively safe, but they have absorbed an awful lot of special needs. coming in from Ukraine. Now, Moldova is also an agricultural country. They produce a lot of what they need, but they were overwhelmed by this crisis that took place. And so there is help coming in from other places. We were able to bring some of those materials in, and we were very impressed by the work of many different missions and churches working together in ways they never have before. And that's happening all across this area. People are working together like they never have. So it's a great thing to watch that happen and be part of it.

00:09:54    BRIAN HANCOCK

That's outstanding. And of course, right now, you've got a lot of Russian interference in going Moldavian elections.

00:10:00    DOUGLAS STEVENS

We've heard about that. It's still a controversy because Russia apparently is jealously looking at other parts of other countries they would like to retake as part of the Soviet venture. Now, no longer part of the Soviet experiment, which closed down in 1989, 91, somewhere in there. but want to now reestablish, according to Putin, the Holy Russian Empire. And it now has a religious overtone, backed by the Russian Orthodox Church, that basically wants to reclaim all of these lands, whether it's Poland, whether it's Georgia, whether it's Moldova, Ukraine, the Baltic states. We don't know how far this ambition goes, but we've been shocked so far, so nothing right now is going to shock me.

00:10:44    BRIAN HANCOCK

I thought we had closed the chapter on large wars in Europe. Maybe not. It sounds like Putin styles himself a bit of a czar. We know how well that worked out. It's a shame that we seem to be heading that direction. Putin's language, of course, is, hey, we want to open another front just to take Ukraine.

00:11:02    DOUGLAS STEVENS

And, of course, the war in Ukraine has been going on from at least 2014 when they took Crimea. And then the oblasts in the east, they've been occupying there. And now, of course, trying to come across. Right now, the front is essentially frozen, although I will defer to you and the military for a better estimate of what is actually happening. And we don't know where this is going. And my role, our role, is to come in and support those who are doing this good humanitarian work, especially in the faith -based areas.

00:11:30    BRIAN HANCOCK

Yeah, I'd like to tug at that string a little bit, because you just literally, a few days ago, got back from a mission in Ukraine. And I understand that it was a multifaceted mission. You're doing a number of different things, all important works, why you're there. Now, while most of the audience is at least to some degree aware of the mental suffering that's taking place in Ukraine, can you, having some firsthand experience, tell us a little bit about what you saw, what you did, and what you found?

00:12:00    DOUGLAS STEVENS

A year ago, when I went into Ukraine, we went from Odessa all the way to Kyrgyzstan, all the way to the front lines, essentially, visiting along the way, doing leadership training, because the churches were asking for that. As people left, all kinds of new people flooded into these churches, which was a surprise to me. I didn't know about that. I wasn't expecting that. I thought maybe they'd be emptied out. But because they are serving so well, not just their own congregation, but the whole community now is looking to the church, even more than the government, which is busy fighting a war to supply those needs. And there are... Of course, other organizations that are there are Samaritan's Purse, World Vision, World Central Kitchen, various other churches in that area. And I had no idea how strong the church was in Ukraine, the evangelical, Protestant, Pentecostal, Catholic working together. Not the Orthodox so much. They tend to be a little bit more aloof. Some of them are still aligned with Russia, even though Russia is the invader. But the other churches working together and mitigating the trauma and the food insecurity and everything else that's needed and providing m

Today, Assad Raza interviews Drew Biemer, an energy outreach strategist and senior advisor to the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission. Drew has experience leading domestic and international campaigns to support energy sector projects and came on the show to discuss how Civil and Public Affairs are key to building positive relationships between projects and the population. 

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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at [email protected] 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

---

Special Thanks to Sahraoui and Fadela for providing the sample of "Mani" from the album Arabic Groove. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCJI52eWDLw&list=PLloxRkIwt8TNujJnQFxjH7kJ0yjKJkpeg&index=7

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Transcript

00:00:03    Introduction

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes.

00:00:39    ASAD RAZA

I'm your host, Asad Raza, and today our guest is Drew Beamer. Drew is a management and communications professional with 20 years of experience in governmental, public, and civil affairs. He is the current administrator of the Site Evaluation Committee, SEC for short, the Agency Directorate for Energy Facility, Sitting, Permitting, and Enforcement of Compliance, in the U .S. state of New Hampshire. Thank you, Drew. I've been following your Baseload Power newsletter on LinkedIn for a while, and you touched on a broad list of topics from leadership to strategy to include civil affairs and information operations. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for having me.

00:01:12    DREW BEAMER

00:02:35    ASAD RAZA

Drew, I really like how you are applying civil affairs strategies and information operations to civilian sectors, specifically the infrastructure development. So why are civil affairs strategies important in energy resource development?

00:02:48    DREW BEAMER

Well, one thing that energy developers need to realize, every single boot on the ground, is an arm of this operation. Every single person who interacts with the local community, whether you're a line worker on a utility project or you're a soldier in theater, the tactical missteps can create massive strategic problems. And one of the things that energy developers do not take seriously is that even if you're working on a domestic energy project in the United States, the local population is going to view you as an occupying force. That doesn't mean they'll view you in a negative light. It just means that they will view you as an occupying force. Most of the time, your construction workers and your contractors are going to be new people to the region. They're going to have cultural differences that may rub locals the wrong way. And what you really need to focus on is how do we endear ourselves to the local population? How do we let them know that we're going to be good community partners? is not achieved by simply telling them things. You need to actually build that capital and you need to build that capital before you need it. Because a lot of projects will just parachute in and they'll say, hey, we're here to help support our project. And that's not an effective strategy. You need to be on the ground in advance. You need to be listening to folks. You need to be helping them address their problems. And then once you've built capital, then you can call on that capital when it comes time to build something and you need local support.

00:04:25    ASAD RAZA

Drew, I like the way how you frame that. When we were in Iraq and Afghanistan, they had a saying about the strategic corporal, that corporal that's on the ground engaging with the local population. Any actions that they're doing can have a strategic impact negatively or positively. So what are some of the common pitfalls that developers fall into during the process? There's a phrase called the engineer's fallacy.

00:04:47    DREW BEAMER

the engineer's fallacy. And the engineer's fallacy states that an engineer will interpret any lack of support, any deficit in support as the stakeholders not having all the facts. So what I mean by that is I propose a project. You're a local stakeholder. You oppose the project. The engineer's fallacy says that I will address your opposition with just more facts because I believe in the project so much that I believe. that any opposition from you is just a deficit of facts. I don't take into account that it might be an emotional argument. I don't take into account that I've failed to build capital with you. And this engineer's fallacy is inherent in a lot of civil affairs context. You certainly look at some of the hearts and minds campaigns that we've embarked on in the 20th century and the early 21st century. is you don't win hearts and minds by just telling people why your way of life is the best, right? You don't win hearts and minds on an energy project by going into the region and just selling people on facts alone. You need to build capital with people. So one of the pitfalls that developers fall into is, first of all, they're not in the field early enough. They show up when they support, not before. And then they don't take into account the fact that a lot of these arguments become cultural and or emotional arguments, not necessarily factual arguments. So you need to exercise a good bedside manner. You need to make sure that locals know that you are there to help them solve their problems, rather. And once you've done that effectively, then you're going to get support. or minimally you're going to mitigate opposition.

00:06:43    ASAD RAZA

Interesting when you're talking about the engineer fallacy, engineers motivated or driven by facts when other stakeholders, specifically the local populations, are probably viewing the problem through either emotions or some other interest versus just the facts alone. So how do you shift the mindsets for engineers that are focused on the facts and driven by their own views and help them to look at the problem through the local population's eyes? That's a good question. I would say that civil affairs,

00:07:09    DREW BEAMER

that civil affairs, public affairs, government affairs is important enough that the person running the entire project should be from one of those disciplines. They should not be an engineer. And this goes into a lot of corporate environments and a lot of governmental environments where people promote subject matter experts, the leadership positions. And there's a saying that when you're a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. When you're an engineer in charge of a major. infrastructure project, every problem looks like an engineering problem. So one of the things that I did in the private sector as a consultant is I would get put over top of these big projects. They could be adjacent to energy development or they could be like disaster power restoration projects. We have to communicate real time with stakeholders in the community and you need to communicate with local elected officials and local governments to give them real time updates. So in those scenarios, they would call on people like me to lead an ad hoc team that we assembled. And that team would include people who are above my pay grade. I mean, they would have people who are directors and VPs of companies. You'd have external consultants. You'd have people who had more experience. And the way that you get them out of that engineer fallacy mindset, you need the person running it to understand the nuances of the campaigns. You need to demonstrate proof of life on your concepts. You need to be able to demonstrate how focusing on things like civil affairs and public affairs make everybody's life easier. Because when you avoid those small tactical missteps, you don't create major strategic blunders for yourself. And the other issue is once you've painted yourself or you've allowed opponents to paint you as an occupying force, anything you do positively or negatively will be held against you. I've worked in scenarios where we were trying to build an energy project and the developer had let the information space get away from them. And they would say things like, we may have to use eminent domain to get the property needed for this project. And people would say, well, that's corporations taking private property. Then the developer would say, well, we're just going to pay a lot of money. We're going to pay several times value for your project. And the opponents would say, now you're just paying people off. You want to avoid those damned if you do, damned if you don't situations. And one of the issues, circle back to the crux of your question, is the engineer's fallacy is avoidable for the same reason a lot of these types of issues are avoidable. I would recommend against putting a subject matter expert in charge of one of these projects. You need somebody who's more of a generalist and more of a manager. And just like a military operation, you want the commanding officer to understand all the different components. They don't have to be an expert in all the components, but they have to know how they work synergistically with one another to create a holistic operation. And an engineer, generally speaking, is not going to be very good at that.

00:10:13    ASAD RAZA

That makes sense. Engineers aren't developed to think like that. They're developed to be engineers and be subject matter experts within their field. So which makes sense. You hit something and you're talking about how your competitors can exploit these tactical mishaps. So how can some of these energy projects become proxy wars between their competitors or their meat peers? In the United States, you have a dynamic that's called astroturfing.

00:10:36    DREW BEAMER

a dynamic that's called astroturfing. I'm assuming it exists elsewhere in the world. But astroturfing is basically the manufacturing of grassroots, okay, through dark money. So when one company proposes an energy project, you'll see grassroots opposition crop up. They'll all be singing off the same sheet of music. The messaging will be dialed in. They'll have branded collateral materials. They'll have yard signs. They'll have t -shirts. And I would say nine times out of 10, that opposition is funded and ginned up by whoever your competitor is, usually an industry incumbent. Okay. So there's a dynamic that we've seen in proxy wars in the past hundred years anyway. And that is that In a proxy war, sometimes you want to defeat the enemy, but other times you just want to bog them down. You just want them to bleed out money forever and ever and ever. So you were building a hydroelectric project and your chief competitor in the market was a nuclear power plant. The operators of the nuclear power plant are going to have a cost assessment where they're going to say, if your hydro dam comes online, it's going to cost them X millions of dollars a month in lost revenue. So if it's going to cost X millions of dollars a month in lost revenue, then if they can delay you by a year, they've just made X times 12 in found money. So what they will do is they will hire political operatives to create a grassroots insurgency against your project. And bringing it back to the engineer's fallacy, the grassroots insurgency will be based primarily on emotion. It will be people who... at the grassroots level who've been convinced that your project is going to completely destroy their way of life for one reason or another. It's going to have environmental issues. It's going to have cultural issues. They're going to throw a lot of messages at the wall and they're going to see what sticks because one of these messages is going to saturate. And the engineer's fallacy is people will look at this grassroots opposition and they'll say, well, we can sway them on. facts and reason and logic. We're just going to tell them how clean the power is, how many jobs it's going to create, how it's going to improve energy security and lower energy prices. We keep telling them those facts. They'll have no other choice but to eventually support us. And that works almost as well as going into South Vietnam and telling people that the American way of life is the way everybody should live. absent cultural context, absent building capital, the facts are not going to matter, which is why one of the reasons I say, if you think you're going to build something somewhere, get in the field very, v

Today, we welcome Pavlo Kukhta, Ukrainian Economist and Special Advisor on Reconstruction. Additionally, Mariah Yager from SMA joined me as cohost of the conversation. 

We brought in Pavlo to discuss the current state of conflict reconstruction, the strategy for post-conflict reconstruction, and how to overcome challenges like balancing government oversight with designing a system that removes major corruption while managing Ukraine's transition into the EU. 

I set up this interview because I know that many diplomats, aid workers, and servicemembers are focused on helping Ukraine now and after the conflict.

---

One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at [email protected] 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

---

Pavlo's info: https://ua.linkedin.com/in/pavlo-kukhta-93190091 

SMA version of the interview: https://nsiteam.com/smaspeakerseries_20june2024/ 

Special Thanks to Jamming Edward for the music sample. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/lRboIm0tlqE?si=be0Mai-k4EsIQr3h

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Transcript

00:00:07    Inroduction

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes. Today we welcome Pavlo Kufta, Ukrainian economist and special advisor on reconstruction, and Mariah Yeager from SMA to co -host the conversation.

00:00:52    JACK GAINES

We brought in Pavlo to discuss the current state of conflict reconstruction and the strategy for post -conflict reconstruction, as well as how to overcome the challenges of balancing government oversight with designing a system that removes major corruption while managing Ukraine's transition into the EU. I set up this interview because I know there are a lot of diplomats, aid workers, and service members focused on helping Ukraine now and after the conflict. So let's get started. I think it's critical that people are looking forward to the future of Ukraine, the vision of where it's going and how it could be. And your work has been seminal in going around the international community, talking to leaders, talking to people about how important it is to support Ukraine in its current fight, but also to look at the future and how Ukraine can be a partner in the international community and how they can help support making that happen.

00:01:48    PAVLO KUFTA

Oh, and by the way, I have to give a warning to you guys. If I drop out suddenly, this means there is a blackout. Because periodically electricity goes out, unfortunately, these days in Ukraine. So I will be back with you in a minute or two. I just simply need to shift to my mobile. Actually, that's kind of my main job these days. I'm working with a whole bunch of companies, mostly European, mostly from Central Europe, on getting them into the reconstruction effort. Right now, a lot of it is focused on energy. We spend about a third of our time here without electricity. I mean, I have a generator in my house. I'm also installing battery systems now. With all that, I should be going more or less independently. Most of Ukrainians actually live in multi -apartment buildings. Millions of families suffer from that, and into the winter it will be even tougher. And here I actually have to thank the American public for their help, because it's actually USAID spearheading the provision of gas generation. the small steel power plant running a natural gas to Ukraine for the winter to actually make it through. Because the blackouts will be with us for a year or two now, but one thing is to periodically have electricity, another is freeze to death in the winter. We really need that equipment here that aid is quite appreciated. It's life -saving.

00:03:17    JACK GAINES

Now, you're private industry, but you're also the senior advisor to the Minister of Finance on... Ukraine Reconstruction, right?

00:03:25    PAVLO KUFTA

Reconstruction. We're actually now out. You've heard about the old team.

00:03:30    JACK GAINES

Yeah, Mr. Mustafa, right? Mustafa is the head of the agency, and Mr. Alexander Kubrick,

00:03:36    PAVLO KUFTA

who was an advisor, he was the deputy prime minister for Reconstruction. Now the team for the Reconstruction is not in limbo, but it's hanging up in the air. We don't know who will be appointed, how will the system work now?

00:03:51    JACK GAINES

Well, like most cabinets in war, people rotate in and out because of stress, because of politics, family, everything else. Well, there's politics in every country, right? Yeah. Because as a private citizen working in a private industry, you're able to continue focusing even as the reshuffles occur.

00:04:09    PAVLO KUFTA

I've been working on that simply as a voice in Ukraine, respected and heard as one of the top economists in the nation, as someone who has close relationships to literally everyone in the government. These are my former colleagues for many years. Some of them I've known for more than a decade we've worked together. So I'm working with everyone, and reconstruction has been my priority since a short stunt at the front lines.

00:04:57    JACK GAINES

We all have skills that we have to go forward with. Right, but your work in economics is much larger.

00:05:04    PAVLO KUFTA

The magnitude is totally different. So since then, I've been engaged mostly in the efforts for reconstruction of Ukraine. I've produced some internal reports to the government and how to help construction so that it is most conducive to private sector. Because my firm opinion is that the key to get Western multinationals,

00:05:27    PAVLO KUFTA

because that is the type of economic agent. or let's say stakeholders that we lack in Ukraine. I mean, there are many multinationals here. They're working here, they're present in the market, but compared to the more successful economies of Eastern Europe who are in the EU, the share of international companies, multinationals present there is much larger. And consequently, the structure of the economy is much different, much less resource -based. more complex, more production -oriented, more knowledge -based. So that is what we want to do, right? We will not be rebuilding this old Soviet industry that has been destroyed by the war. It's useless. Just to illustrate, so these blackouts, why are they happening? Because the Russians have done a concentrated, unfortunately quite successful, assault and sprained on Ukrainian energy system. But what they have destroyed, they have destroyed all power. That's the bulk of the assets that they have wiped out. They've also damaged heavily old hydroelectric dams, but the main problem comes from these full power plants. These were old Soviet assets, essentially in our conditions in Europe destined for being thrown out. We're switching to gas. Europe is switching to green renewables. That's what happened to them anyway. So what the Russians have done is in a very destructive and catastrophic fashion, but they've... If destruction, that would have happened anyway. Because the coal power plants are out. We're not going to lose. But the question is what to build instead. Because depending on the success on that endeavor, that is actually, you know, the definition of victory here for me. Because victory is not just getting Russians out or getting to some stable peace. Victory is throwing them out, drawing the iron curtain behind them. and then rebuilding Ukraine in a way that would clearly make it as successful as its EU natives. Because that way, we will firmly get this territory and this nation into the West, integrate them in such a way where it will become fixed. In the same way as Poland has become fixed as part of the Western alliance, in the same way as Slovakia has become fixed as part of the Western alliance. Even Hungary, with all these political issues around it, political conflicts. still is firmly fixed in NATO, EU, Western political structures, and ultimately it's not about anywhere. And that is actually the goal, which I believe it's not just about restoring justice, it's not just about stopping bloody war, it's also about finally closing that tissue between the two worlds, between the West and the authoritarian Asia that Russia essentially represents. Because if Ukraine is no more in some kind of gray zone where we don't know what it is, the two sides can fight for it. Or at least Russia can pretend it's fighting the West over Ukraine, right? While the West was not really fighting and then had to come in to help Ukraine. So we close that picture. Once that picture is closed, once it's clear to everybody where the border between the two civilization and the border should run on the eastern border of Ukraine.

00:08:38    JACK GAINES

Okay. Have you been working with Parliament on building up better foreign investment laws to protect companies coming in with the government of Ukraine as well as going out into the international community and recruiting foreign investment?

00:08:54    PAVLO KUFTA

Actually, that's kind of what my career was mostly about. It's not about fighting groups or some kind of social justice. It's about an old Soviet corrupt model of the economy where essentially, Whoever is in power, whoever has begun, exploits everyone else, extracts resources from them. Versus the modern, liberal, normal market economy, where people earn money meritocratically, right? Whose ideas is better, who work more devoted wins, resources. And that's how it worked. And that's at the core of this question of Ukraine. Because you hear a lot of talks about Ukrainian corruption. Mostly these go nowhere. either descriptions of some corrupt officials, but this doesn't really tell you the nature of what we're dealing with. And we're dealing with this old legacy, because that is how the Soviet system essentially comes. You had the party and their apparatus, kind of keeping everyone else enslaved and then exploiting them. That's international, that's what Soviet Union was. Since that system did not really collapse, rather there was a kind of gradual transition. The former communists declared themselves now to be nationalists and pretended they are pro -independent Ukraine. Well, really, they are the former party bosses. Unlike to the West, unlike in Poland, where the system crashed and the new people came and the old guys were kicked out, and Ukraine did not happen. And that's why Ukraine went on this different path, much less successful. Because then no really quick and sharp reforms were possible. Well, there was a lot of shock here, but there was no therapy. because there were no real market reform. Instead, there was this mishmash of gradual introduction of market mechanisms into the Soviet system, which allowed to generate future profits, which created dollar guards, which created all kinds of injustices, instead of a normal market economy where you compete in whoever is better with. So that legacy is the problem, and that's what we're trying to get rid. And it's a fight right now. These days, it's a fight. I believe to win it, what we need is a proper... integration into the eu so it's kind of a carrot stick where the country has to change its system in exchange for money but not just giveaways for it to grow just hand something into the budget and you know they pay pensions with it no what we're talking about is an exchange okay you change your environment we give you structural funds to build up infrastructure to attract investment So the reforms create a better environment for the actors which we bring in to then change our economy, kick out the oligarchs. And then in a proper market time, really corruption, it doesn't disappear, right? Then you need a strong state, good institutions to fight it.

00:11:44    MARIAH YEAGER

Thank you. What is the scope for greater political decentralization as a route to limiting corruption?

00:11:52    PAVLO KUFTA

So decentralization has been ongoing in Ukraine. It's been a tool used pretty heavily over Europe. So all European countries were pretty centralized, unlike the U .S. Federal nations, all European countries used to be very centralized at some point. Then they realized that it's very inefficient. And they've started descent. It makes the system more efficient because it introduces competition on the level of local authorities. The decision -making is much closer to people, so it's much more effective and more efficient. It's simply a better system. It's not necessarily a tool for fighting. Because what happens is corruption from the center and it moves to the big cities or towns, local buildings. Not necessarily better. I mean, the examples are everywhere, including the states. We all know, like, towns captured by corrupt officials who then start rigging local election systems. perpetuating themselves in power, even in very developed countries. So these things can happen in any of this environment. So no, decentralization, I would say it's just simply a necessary reform for a modern way of life, because our modern societies are way too complex to be governed for one capital city. And that's why, you know, when people start talking about using some kind of strategist model, free construction of Ukraine, right? Let the state control everything and it will run everything. They don't know what they're talking about because that is exactly the way to create new oligarchy, new corruption, and to fail miserably. We need to keep it as a free market competition, as many Western companies and businesses as we can get, as much Western funding, Wester

Welcome to One CA Podcast.

Today, Brian Hancock talks with Phillip Smith about his experience as commander of the 451 Civil Affairs Brigade, his time as a student at the Army War College and his work designing how Civil Affairs can respond to domestic crises and disasters. 

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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at [email protected] 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

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Special thanks to "Traveller" for the sample of Federico Abuele's "Contigo." Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-AL7q5mDSc

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Transcript

00:00:04    Introduction

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes.

00:00:40    BRIAN HANCOCK

I'm Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hancock, and I'll be your host for this session. Today we have with us Lieutenant Colonel Philip Smith. He serves on an active duty tour at the Joint Staff J -5 in the Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasian Affairs Division. In his civilian capacity, Lieutenant Colonel Smith is an Assistant Attorney General in the State of Texas. where he works on general civil litigation. Quick reminder for the audience, all remarks are solely those of myself and the prosecutors. Now, you've done many things in your 26 -year military career, and can you walk us through your journey where you started in military intelligence, then moved to psychological operations, and now are in civil affairs. Tell us a little bit about that journey.

00:01:29    PHILIP SMITH

Absolutely. So going all the way back to 2002, coming out of Texas Tech, I don't really know that I had a great bead on where I was going to go. And I knew that I wanted to do military intelligence. I recall at advanced camp when I went through in summer of 2001, before 9 -11, we had what you call branch orientation day and all the branches presented their best foot forward. And I recall that we had the G2 from I -Corps there. And he didn't really put on much of a presentation. It was a lot like, hey, I get 5 ,000 or however many applications. And I know that he was addressing the active component there. But I had things pretty well sewn up as far as a unit. The 413th Civil Affairs Battalion was going to take me in as their S -2. So I knew that I had everything locked in. Well, then 9 -11 happened one month almost to the day after graduating from advanced camp. And I recall that they had to rebuild the sessions packets from scratch. Normally by about Thanksgiving, you would get your branch assignments, but we didn't get ours until spring break in March of the next year. So it was a different time moving from there to OBC. I went to Fort Huachuca at a time when seeing the ground invasion in Iraq happened, OIF -1 happened while I was at OBC. And I thought, oh my God, just like everything else that had occurred prior to this time. Desert Storm, Panama. It was going to be over before I had a chance to get over there, participate in something that made history.

00:03:05    BRIAN HANCOCK

You're concerned that it's going to be over before you can go in and lend a hand. That's very impressive. It's what you train for. You never hoped for it,

00:03:12    PHILIP SMITH

for. You never hoped for it, but when it happens, you want to be part of that effort. You want to be part of that victory. And so I moved very quickly afterwards to get to deploy over there. I went with... field artillery battalion for the West Virginia National Guard, and then stayed there for another year. So I did two years back -to -back because the unit that replaced us was the Texas National Guard. And being able to then spend that year in Iraq with those folks was another opportunity that your friends that you grew up with in Iraq can be able to partake in an effort of that magnitude with them. It was just a tremendous opportunity. So I stayed there another year and then came back home, finally, And then went and took a tour after I sat for the LSATs at the Joint Analysis Center and RAF Molesworth from USUCOM, working on counterterrorism capabilities for several North African countries and leading a team that put those together and directing them and helping to guide their efforts was another great opportunity. From there, law school, three years. for 15th Civil Affairs Battalion then after that. And then got back home to Dallas after graduating, went to the 345th PSYOP in Dallas. And from there, had the opportunity to go through the PSYOP -2 course with you and then got ready to deploy to Horn of Africa. Preparing for deployment.

00:04:45    BRIAN HANCOCK

for deployment. Do you remember those heavy days?

00:04:48    PHILIP SMITH

Brian, I absolutely do. And we had a great group in that class. It does seem like a lifetime ago, and that was a great opportunity to be able to exercise those skills that we learned. I think from one of the best in the trade, Greg Cisa, I think absolutely one of the best instructors that we could have hoped for and gotten really prepared us well for deployment. And then also my experience at the SOC pack. built upon those prior experiences. But yes, it has been a while. And I look back fondly. I don't know how fondly I look back at Camp McCall. But, you know,

00:05:26    BRIAN HANCOCK

know, we would take the bad. Now, the coordinating assignment for successful officer careers, of course, battalion command. Now, you were the battalion commander for the 451st Civil Affairs Battalion. What was that lot?

00:05:40    PHILIP SMITH

Just a tremendous experience to be able to work with some of the finest in our profession. in our regiment to take the 451 battalion that was coming off of COVID and in many respects not seeing each other in at least a year. It was a very trying time because you have to have that physical face -to -face. So that was one challenge that we inherited when I took command. We went in two CTC rotations, NTC, JRTC, and then we had a warfighter just before I relinquished commands.

00:06:19    BRIAN HANCOCK

That's a pretty ambitious schedule just coming out of what it mattered to a year at Reset. You're getting back together and trying to establish policies, procedures, stand up training and prepare for the mission. And then the missions just fall in on you back to back. Absolutely. How did you overcome them?

00:06:38    PHILIP SMITH

Correct response to a situation is sometimes no response, but to let the situation transpire a bit, get you a little bit more information and not to knee jerk, I think was one of the biggest lessons that I distilled out of battalion command. Sometimes you need to let things transpire or let your subordinates make the decisions and run with things and not interject. Let them grow and develop or let the situation transpire.

00:07:09    PHILIP SMITH

instance, we had a lot of unsatisfactory participants. And the problem was essentially getting people to physically show up. You mentioned problem solving and everything starts with framing the problem. How do we get people back to drill? So what I did was I sat down with my sergeant major and chaplain, and we decided to develop what we called the battalion wellness working. And what we did through that was we would have the sergeant major, the chaplain. And the first sergeants from the companies sit down and just see how can we engage these soldiers? Who are the problem soldiers that we're recognizing some of these signs and that we're not seeing things that we're having contact with, but we're not able to connect with? And how can we connect and bring them in? And our chaplain was tremendous in being able to facilitate that and provide some ideas and being a conduit for our companies to be able to bring. and reconnect the soldiers. So that post -COVID world was a great challenge. The other one that I have sticking out in my mind was NTC, which was our first CTC rotation. And we had a trucker strike. Our truckers would not cross the picket line to go into California. You just can't make this stuff, right? Not one bit. So I have soldiers there at Fort Irwin with no equipment. And it's, sir, what are we going to do? And basically it was, hey, you're going to have to try to hitch a ride. You know, a lot of it was just questioning the company commander to try to lead him to the right conclusion. And together we worked on it to resolving it was basically a nut you can't crack. You can't materialize those vehicles there. But at the same time, you know, you need some transport. So you're going to have to really knuckle down on that relationship with the supported unit. You're really going to have to do something at least until the strike breaks. So a lot of what I found working with my company commanders, and I had a tremendous slate of company commanders that were great. I had Courtney Bone was my HHC commander during the warfighter. I had Matt Horschow as my Charlie company commander. Both these challenges developed into something where I think that as a commander. You are more of a shepherd insofar as you've got to work with your people and you've got to lead them to the resources. Part of development and growth is to cause them to exercise the six most important inches of real estate on the battlefield. And that's the gray matter between your ears. And I think as commanders, we have to facilitate that.

00:09:43    BRIAN HANCOCK

Right. Give them the estate and give them positive feedback. I think that positive feedback may be something that we don't do the best job in the military. I'm not sure we coach and mentor as effectively as we could at times. But critical to learning, it seems like we have to experience things ourselves for us to really cement that learning. Well, let's look at the flip side. We've talked about some of the challenges. We know that it's not easy to be a battalion commander. And sometimes, at least in Comp3, there have been some difficulties in getting enough people to manage this. So, curious to you for throwing your name in the hat and getting selected. In that time, I imagine it was a very valuable experience, though. Did you do anything particularly novel or anything that you found in your good time? And can you tell us a bit about it?

00:10:31    PHILIP SMITH

Absolutely. I think that each one of those events and the outcomes from them are something that remain a source of pride for me during my command tenure. I think that the legacies that... Sergeant Major Hardy Hay and I left for the 451. I would like to think that they echo to this day. All of them are a testament to the dedication of the soldiers of the 451. One is Resolute Sentinel, Guatemala, where we sent CA teams down there. We had an enduring presence. They're going to Southcom and supporting efforts down there. And to great aplomb to the soldiers down there, that was something I'm proud of and how we were able to achieve effects. And then finally, the three -quarter warfighter exercise, we supported 1st Cavalry Division. A great opportunity to be able to go down there, interface with our active component brothers and sisters, and support them in an exercise of tremendous magnitude. Again, achieved tremendous effects in many cases. I couldn't have been prouder to see our soldiers really shine a light and set the example. That was the capstone for my command.

00:11:40    BRIAN HANCOCK

command. Earlier, we'd see one of the regional groups has had such a kind of doings, filling all the battalion command positions. They did the public report for how to be studied on. I think it was a missed opportunity that many of the battalion commanders that I had talked to and said, look, this is a very demanding timeline. You're looking at, oftentimes, 20 plus hours a week doing various things, whether it's... Signing papers, drafting things, reviewing things, making decisions, building plans, political coordinations, etc. So you've got that road when you are sitting as a battalion commander. Then you've got clearly a very challenging civilian career. Do you have any advice for the audience, those folks who find themselves in a very demanding civilian job, at the same time as a very demanding military job? How do you manage your time to make sure that you stay healthy?

00:12:37    PHILIP SMITH

I found that really kind of prioritizing things helps and sitting down and setting the time aside for all of those aspects that you mentioned really helps. And I've found just from other leaders and mentors that I've talked to and worked with, and this is what I've adopted, is setting aside the time to give to each one of those aspects every day. Obviously, when not on orders, what am I going to do? I've got a lot more time dedicated than to the civilian job. But I always set aside at least maybe an hour every day or period of time to look at the prioritized issues, especially when in command, what's being presented to. Now, that's not to say that fires don't pop up, things don't occur that demand immediate attention. heavily empowered my subordinates. I think you've got one battle as a commander where you really knuckle down on assessing your AGR full -time staff leadership. That paramount when you take command because those are the folks you're going to be relying on and you've got to assess everything. Exactly. And those are the people that are going to become the threshold filter and you've got to assess your confidence in them and where that contours of that confidence lie. And so, I was always confident in my operations officers that I gave them signature authority. My SSA, I gave Ms. Glasgow 451, I gave her signature authority because I could trust them. And that's the thing, trust and confidence. A

Please welcome Mickey Bergman, lead author of the book "In The Shadows," where he discusses his experiences negotiating the release of hostages and people unlawfully imprisoned in some of the most restrictive places on Earth. 

In the book, Mickey takes the reader through his time working with Governor Bill Richardson and, after his death, transforms his legacy into the non-profit Global Reach, where he now brings in a community of people to continue the work. 

This is part two of a two-part episode. Check out last week's episode to hear part one. 

Global Reach Website: https://www.reach.global/

Link to the book: https://www.amazon.com/Shadows-High-Stakes-Negotiations-Americans-Captured

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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at [email protected] 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

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Today's music is a tribute to James Chance, who passed away this week. The solo is from his album White Cannable. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/vUfcWDHMEQY?si=gPGLKe6_05aFSE24

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Transcript

00:00:01    Introduction

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes. Please welcome Mickey Bergman, lead author of the book In the Shadows, where he discusses his experiences negotiating the release of hostages and people unlawfully imprisoned in some of the most restrictive places on earth.

00:00:49    JACK GAINES

In the book, Mickey takes the reader through his time working with Governor Bill Richardson, and then after his death, transforming his legacy, into a nonprofit called Global Reach. This is the first of a two -part episode. The second part will air next week. Enjoy. I really appreciate you guys reaching out. I did finish the book. It was great. And in my perception of it, it kind of encapsulates the work and legacy of Governor Richardson and then that transformation that you had to do with his death into Global Reach. So it was kind of both a historical document. and continuing the work through the aggregate of other specialists in the field, and then continuing on with the mission. Is that similar? Am I right on your goals?

00:01:36    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, no, you're right. It's interesting because, look, I wrote the book. Obviously, the governor was alive, and he hasn't even read it because I was waiting until the manuscript was final in order to share it with him because the governor referred to him as Gov. He was like my six -year -old father. You know, father figure, but also juvenile as a six -year -old. And I knew for the first time in his life, somebody else was telling the stories and the role that he played and not him. And that's a great thing to have. And I think it comes out really, really well in the book, but I knew that he's going to nitpick and find something and give me hell for it. So I was really, really dreading. point. And so I wanted to give it to him when it's done, when I can't do anything about it. It's already published, boss. What can you say? But then he died. And I'm sad that he didn't get to read it. But after he died, I figured that I can't publish a book and not address his death. So basically, I wrote it in one day. I wrote this section to him and telling the story of how I found out and then touching on the first mission that we did after his death. And that's where Global Reach kind of came in. So it was not intentional in the design of the book, but out of circumstances, it was important to convey that this continues. And not only that, the mission to Venezuela, where the book ends with us going, the book does not cover the actual mission and the fact that 13 Americans came home in December, partially because of that mission. So I like that dynamic. At some point, you have to cut.

00:03:13    JACK GAINES

You have to because you're constantly on another mission. Correct.

00:03:16    MICHEY BERGMAN

Because they just continue to go.

00:03:18    JACK GAINES

Yeah. Reading that last portion, that was my perception is you were focused absolutely on a good ceremony and burial for the governor. But this Venezuela issue was on the back of your neck the whole time. And so to me, reading it, it felt like you were like, all right, the best way to appreciate this is after the ceremony. Get back to work and finish his mission, his goals, and then find a path forward from there.

00:03:43    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, and not only that, we had the trip to Venezuela was planned before he died. And we had a whole process. We knew exactly where the deal was stuck. We had an idea for it. We wanted also to make sure that the two Green Berets that were there in Venezuela, Luke Denman and Aaron Berry, are included in it because they were never designated. by the U .S. government as wrongfully detained, we were very worried that they would not be included. So we needed to get that commitment directly from the Venezuelan leadership to lock them into the deal. And we had that all set up to the extent that the day before the governor died, I actually shared with the families that were going. And then when I got the news the next day, and I was like, the first thing, of course, is the personal grief that you have. The second thing is, oh, shoot, he was my access over there. He had a relationship with Maduro. He had a relationship with Jorge Rodriguez. You know, I was like, oh my God. And it took about 24 hours to figure out, oh, he would love me to use his death for one last mission of rescue. In the WhatsApp group of the team and of the mission, we call that group the governor's last rescue.

00:04:56    JACK GAINES

Right. Wow. And that brings up an interesting point.

00:04:59    JACK GAINES

brings up an interesting point. And that is what in the tech community, they call the founder's curse. And that is the founder starts a movement or an organization and they are so entrenched in the details in the process that it's hard for them to separate the program from themselves. And often if that transformation doesn't happen, the legacy dies with the person. Almost sounds like he brought you in because he was considering his legacy and brought you into the fold and in the details to the point where he didn't predict his death. But he knew that by bringing some people like you and others in to understand the details and the nug work within the negotiations, he was sort of a life preserver to the mission versus passing away and the whole thing just goes flat.

00:05:45    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, well, it's funny because, look, in his mind, he was immoral. Yeah. Of course, like typically they are. And he had a huge personality and a huge presence. And I worked with him for 17 years. You know, he gave me compliments and then he would balance them with punches. That's typically his management style, which was a lot of fun, right? But towards, in the last couple of years, he had these little sessions with me that were just so uncharacteristic to him. We just like to say, Mickey, you're better than everybody else just because you don't have a government title. Don't you realize that you get it better than the high officials? So he was very encouraging from that perspective, but he never spoke to me about what happens after. That is a conversation that we had without him, with his board, not because we expected him to die. Obviously, he died too soon. There was no underlying disease there or something that was expected. It was a surprise, but his mortality was not a surprise. And so we had that conversation. And then with the board immediately after, with the board of directors of the organization, because you're right, it's not the first government organization that I worked with. I've seen the founders curse. I've seen what happened immediately after the founders death, not even stepping away and retiring, just death. There is so much emotions and nostalgia because the board is made of his friends. Right.

00:07:10    JACK GAINES

Or chaos because no one knows all of the different things that are going on in the process and they have to rediscover it. Yeah.

00:07:16    MICHEY BERGMAN

But emotionally, we were all, including myself, like, oh, my God, we have to create a legacy. We have to continue with this. And everybody's like, no, we'll step in. We'll make sure it happens. And I remember the day after his funeral, breakfast with the board. Just informal. It wasn't a board meeting. It was just breakfast. Just to debrief. And I told him, look, the governor and I actually had a conversation after Kofi Annan passed away. The Kofi Annan Foundation kept the name, and they wanted to keep this because they were. blown in with that kind of emotional response to it. But we talked about how it just feels like all they're doing right now is fundraising full time just to keep the lights on. But there's no substance left. And it's a miserable way for an organization to die out. And so I raised it with the board. I said, look, we can try. We can see if there's sustainability in it just for a couple of months to see where things settle. But I know that despite our very raw emotions right now, life continues. And life happens. And I do not want to spend all of our time just keeping the lights on because that's not what he would love. He wanted to find a way to keep the work going. So if we can't keep it as Richardson's center and there is a law of diminishing returns on the name, let me work and put a proposal in front of the board of what it looks like to do the different pieces of this legacy. One, of course, hostages and prisoners, which is a huge chunk. And that came out to be global reach. Another one was around the program we did with the Rohingyas and humanitarian work that we did. And that we basically have moved it, found a different home for it. It's going to continue at the Stimson Center instead of the Richardson Center with the funder that funded it is moving there with our guy, Steve Ross, who's the director of that program. So he's moving over there as well. And third, I wanted more of a name legacy piece. And that's when we established and announced the... The Bill Richardson Heart of a Patriot Award, which we hope will be known as the Billy. We're trying to make that stick. And that's going to be awarded every year at the Foley Foundation Gala. And the award is going to be given to former political and policy principals that, after leaving government, use their credentials and their gravitas to help bring Americans home.

00:09:35    JACK GAINES

Let's just make it stick. Let's just start calling it the Billy Awards. I like the Billy.

00:09:37    MICHEY BERGMAN

like the Billy. The Billies. The Oscars, we have the Billies.

00:09:43    JACK GAINES

Well, I apologize if I cut you off on your string, but that makes total sense. So how do you guys stay afloat? If it's something sensitive, I won't add it to the show. Oh, no,

00:09:52    MICHEY BERGMAN

no, no, absolutely. No, as you can tell, we're an open book. We love that. So we were lucky enough that during the pandemic, because there was just no commercial flights, but we still had hostages and we still needed to go there and get people out. And the governor has met an American businessman named Steve Menzies. He's an insurance guy out of Omaha. He runs a reinsurance company called Applied Underwriters. And he's done very well for himself financially. But he's one of those, you don't see him flying rockets to space. He's a quiet guy. He does his thing. And he and the governor got to this. He said, hey, you can use my jet for some of these missions, especially in places that you can't go commercially. Right. But I'm coming with you.

00:10:37    JACK GAINES

Of course, he wants the experience. He wants to feel a part of the cause. Yeah,

00:10:41    MICHEY BERGMAN

he came with us in the middle of the pandemic on a mission to Venezuela. Later on, he did a few other missions with us to Russia, including the return and recovery of the Taylor Dudley. That was a month after Brittany Griner came home and we went to Russia and got the former Navy guy, Taylor Dudley, out. That's the one where you're driving through Poland.

00:10:59    JACK GAINES

the one where you're driving through Poland. That is correct. And that was Steve's plane.

00:11:01    MICHEY BERGMAN

is correct. And that was Steve's plane. But it's not only his plane. At that point, he already started integrating his logistics skills into this and helping us really set this up. And so when the governor passed away, Steve and I sat together and he said, Mickey, we have to continue this, not only for the name of his legacy, but for the work that it is. And he says, but. I'm no Governor Richardson. I know that what he did with you was unique. So you tell me, Nicky, if you didn't have budget constraints, how would you build that and structure this in a post -Richardson world to be not only as good as what you did, but better? And so he gave me basically a blank check to put a structure together. And we looked at, A, the piece of what we did with the governor, which was this intergovernmental mediation and negotiations. And on that, I said, well, I'm going to run that part, but I'm not going to replace Governor Richardson with a single person because there isn't such one person.

00:11:58    JACK GAINES

Right. You did an aggregate.

00:12:00    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah. I wanted a bunch of people that we have worked with over the years, former diplomats, former politicians, Republicans, Democ

Please welcome Mickey Bergman, lead author of the book "In The Shadows," where he discusses his experiences negotiating the release of hostages and people unlawfully imprisoned in some of the most restrictive places on Earth. 

In the book, Mickey takes the reader through his time working with Governor Bill Richardson and, after his death, transforms his legacy into the non-profit Global Reach, where he now brings in a community of people to continue the work. 

This is the first of a two-part episode. The second part will come out next week. 

Global Reach Website: https://www.reach.global/

Link to the book: https://www.amazon.com/Shadows-High-Stakes-Negotiations-Americans-Captured

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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at [email protected] 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

---

Today's music is a tribute to James Chance, who passed away this week. The solo is from his album White Cannable. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/vUfcWDHMEQY?si=gPGLKe6_05aFSE24

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Transcript

00:00:01    Introduction

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes. Please welcome Mickey Bergman, lead author of the book In the Shadows, where he discusses his experiences negotiating the release of hostages and people unlawfully imprisoned in some of the most restrictive places on earth.

00:00:49    JACK GAINES

In the book, Mickey takes the reader through his time working with Governor Bill Richardson, and then after his death, transforming his legacy, into a nonprofit called Global Reach. This is the first of a two -part episode. The second part will air next week. Enjoy. I really appreciate you guys reaching out. I did finish the book. It was great. And in my perception of it, it kind of encapsulates the work and legacy of Governor Richardson and then that transformation that you had to do with his death into Global Reach. So it was kind of both a historical document. and continuing the work through the aggregate of other specialists in the field, and then continuing on with the mission. Is that similar? Am I right on your goals?

00:01:36    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, no, you're right. It's interesting because, look, I wrote the book. Obviously, the governor was alive, and he hasn't even read it because I was waiting until the manuscript was final in order to share it with him because the governor referred to him as Gov. He was like my six -year -old father. You know, father figure, but also juvenile as a six -year -old. And I knew for the first time in his life, somebody else was telling the stories and the role that he played and not him. And that's a great thing to have. And I think it comes out really, really well in the book, but I knew that he's going to nitpick and find something and give me hell for it. So I was really, really dreading. point. And so I wanted to give it to him when it's done, when I can't do anything about it. It's already published, boss. What can you say? But then he died. And I'm sad that he didn't get to read it. But after he died, I figured that I can't publish a book and not address his death. So basically, I wrote it in one day. I wrote this section to him and telling the story of how I found out and then touching on the first mission that we did after his death. And that's where Global Reach kind of came in. So it was not intentional in the design of the book, but out of circumstances, it was important to convey that this continues. And not only that, the mission to Venezuela, where the book ends with us going, the book does not cover the actual mission and the fact that 13 Americans came home in December, partially because of that mission. So I like that dynamic. At some point, you have to cut.

00:03:13    JACK GAINES

You have to because you're constantly on another mission. Correct.

00:03:16    MICHEY BERGMAN

Because they just continue to go.

00:03:18    JACK GAINES

Yeah. Reading that last portion, that was my perception is you were focused absolutely on a good ceremony and burial for the governor. But this Venezuela issue was on the back of your neck the whole time. And so to me, reading it, it felt like you were like, all right, the best way to appreciate this is after the ceremony. Get back to work and finish his mission, his goals, and then find a path forward from there.

00:03:43    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, and not only that, we had the trip to Venezuela was planned before he died. And we had a whole process. We knew exactly where the deal was stuck. We had an idea for it. We wanted also to make sure that the two Green Berets that were there in Venezuela, Luke Denman and Aaron Berry, are included in it because they were never designated. by the U .S. government as wrongfully detained, we were very worried that they would not be included. So we needed to get that commitment directly from the Venezuelan leadership to lock them into the deal. And we had that all set up to the extent that the day before the governor died, I actually shared with the families that were going. And then when I got the news the next day, and I was like, the first thing, of course, is the personal grief that you have. The second thing is, oh, shoot, he was my access over there. He had a relationship with Maduro. He had a relationship with Jorge Rodriguez. You know, I was like, oh my God. And it took about 24 hours to figure out, oh, he would love me to use his death for one last mission of rescue. In the WhatsApp group of the team and of the mission, we call that group the governor's last rescue.

00:04:56    JACK GAINES

Right. Wow. And that brings up an interesting point.

00:04:59    JACK GAINES

brings up an interesting point. And that is what in the tech community, they call the founder's curse. And that is the founder starts a movement or an organization and they are so entrenched in the details in the process that it's hard for them to separate the program from themselves. And often if that transformation doesn't happen, the legacy dies with the person. Almost sounds like he brought you in because he was considering his legacy and brought you into the fold and in the details to the point where he didn't predict his death. But he knew that by bringing some people like you and others in to understand the details and the nug work within the negotiations, he was sort of a life preserver to the mission versus passing away and the whole thing just goes flat.

00:05:45    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah, well, it's funny because, look, in his mind, he was immoral. Yeah. Of course, like typically they are. And he had a huge personality and a huge presence. And I worked with him for 17 years. You know, he gave me compliments and then he would balance them with punches. That's typically his management style, which was a lot of fun, right? But towards, in the last couple of years, he had these little sessions with me that were just so uncharacteristic to him. We just like to say, Mickey, you're better than everybody else just because you don't have a government title. Don't you realize that you get it better than the high officials? So he was very encouraging from that perspective, but he never spoke to me about what happens after. That is a conversation that we had without him, with his board, not because we expected him to die. Obviously, he died too soon. There was no underlying disease there or something that was expected. It was a surprise, but his mortality was not a surprise. And so we had that conversation. And then with the board immediately after, with the board of directors of the organization, because you're right, it's not the first government organization that I worked with. I've seen the founders curse. I've seen what happened immediately after the founders death, not even stepping away and retiring, just death. There is so much emotions and nostalgia because the board is made of his friends. Right.

00:07:10    JACK GAINES

Or chaos because no one knows all of the different things that are going on in the process and they have to rediscover it. Yeah.

00:07:16    MICHEY BERGMAN

But emotionally, we were all, including myself, like, oh, my God, we have to create a legacy. We have to continue with this. And everybody's like, no, we'll step in. We'll make sure it happens. And I remember the day after his funeral, breakfast with the board. Just informal. It wasn't a board meeting. It was just breakfast. Just to debrief. And I told him, look, the governor and I actually had a conversation after Kofi Annan passed away. The Kofi Annan Foundation kept the name, and they wanted to keep this because they were. blown in with that kind of emotional response to it. But we talked about how it just feels like all they're doing right now is fundraising full time just to keep the lights on. But there's no substance left. And it's a miserable way for an organization to die out. And so I raised it with the board. I said, look, we can try. We can see if there's sustainability in it just for a couple of months to see where things settle. But I know that despite our very raw emotions right now, life continues. And life happens. And I do not want to spend all of our time just keeping the lights on because that's not what he would love. He wanted to find a way to keep the work going. So if we can't keep it as Richardson's center and there is a law of diminishing returns on the name, let me work and put a proposal in front of the board of what it looks like to do the different pieces of this legacy. One, of course, hostages and prisoners, which is a huge chunk. And that came out to be global reach. Another one was around the program we did with the Rohingyas and humanitarian work that we did. And that we basically have moved it, found a different home for it. It's going to continue at the Stimson Center instead of the Richardson Center with the funder that funded it is moving there with our guy, Steve Ross, who's the director of that program. So he's moving over there as well. And third, I wanted more of a name legacy piece. And that's when we established and announced the... The Bill Richardson Heart of a Patriot Award, which we hope will be known as the Billy. We're trying to make that stick. And that's going to be awarded every year at the Foley Foundation Gala. And the award is going to be given to former political and policy principals that, after leaving government, use their credentials and their gravitas to help bring Americans home.

00:09:35    JACK GAINES

Let's just make it stick. Let's just start calling it the Billy Awards. I like the Billy.

00:09:37    MICHEY BERGMAN

like the Billy. The Billies. The Oscars, we have the Billies.

00:09:43    JACK GAINES

Well, I apologize if I cut you off on your string, but that makes total sense. So how do you guys stay afloat? If it's something sensitive, I won't add it to the show. Oh, no,

00:09:52    MICHEY BERGMAN

no, no, absolutely. No, as you can tell, we're an open book. We love that. So we were lucky enough that during the pandemic, because there was just no commercial flights, but we still had hostages and we still needed to go there and get people out. And the governor has met an American businessman named Steve Menzies. He's an insurance guy out of Omaha. He runs a reinsurance company called Applied Underwriters. And he's done very well for himself financially. But he's one of those, you don't see him flying rockets to space. He's a quiet guy. He does his thing. And he and the governor got to this. He said, hey, you can use my jet for some of these missions, especially in places that you can't go commercially. Right. But I'm coming with you.

00:10:37    JACK GAINES

Of course, he wants the experience. He wants to feel a part of the cause. Yeah,

00:10:41    MICHEY BERGMAN

he came with us in the middle of the pandemic on a mission to Venezuela. Later on, he did a few other missions with us to Russia, including the return and recovery of the Taylor Dudley. That was a month after Brittany Griner came home and we went to Russia and got the former Navy guy, Taylor Dudley, out. That's the one where you're driving through Poland.

00:10:59    JACK GAINES

the one where you're driving through Poland. That is correct. And that was Steve's plane.

00:11:01    MICHEY BERGMAN

is correct. And that was Steve's plane. But it's not only his plane. At that point, he already started integrating his logistics skills into this and helping us really set this up. And so when the governor passed away, Steve and I sat together and he said, Mickey, we have to continue this, not only for the name of his legacy, but for the work that it is. And he says, but. I'm no Governor Richardson. I know that what he did with you was unique. So you tell me, Nicky, if you didn't have budget constraints, how would you build that and structure this in a post -Richardson world to be not only as good as what you did, but better? And so he gave me basically a blank check to put a structure together. And we looked at, A, the piece of what we did with the governor, which was this intergovernmental mediation and negotiations. And on that, I said, well, I'm going to run that part, but I'm not going to replace Governor Richardson with a single person because there isn't such one person.

00:11:58    JACK GAINES

Right. You did an aggregate.

00:12:00    MICHEY BERGMAN

Yeah. I wanted a bunch of people that we have worked with over the years, former diplomats, former politicians, Republicans, Democrats,

Today, we welcome back Major Gustavo Ferreira, a Civil Affairs agriculturalist.

Gus has published two articles, 

After publishing, Gus was interviewed on this show, which resulted in an interview with the Economist, a session at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 

and now resulting in a congressional testimony with the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission.

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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at [email protected] 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

---

Links: Commission link: https://www.uscc.gov/hearings/chinas-stockpiling-and-mobilization-measures-competition-and-conflict

Does China Have Enough Food to Go to War? https://www.armyupress.army.mil/Portals/7/PDF-UA-docs/Ferreira-UA.pdf

Taiwan's Food Resiliency—or Not—in a Conflict with China

Special Thanks to Joyful Jamboree · CM BGM Room Bossa Nova In The Café ℗ Cloud Media Released on: 2023-05-16 Producer: CM BGM Room Composer: CM BGM Room Music Publisher: CM BGM Room. 

Retrieved from https://youtube.com/watch?v=YCTzOnKNaSQ&si=v2hajnhu77yw3FzU

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Transcript

00:00:02    Introduction

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. Or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes.

00:00:38    House Chair

We'll begin with Dr. Gustavo Ferreira, Senior Agricultural Economist with USDA and a Civil Affairs Ag Officer in the U .S. Army Reserve.

00:00:46    Introduction

Today we welcome back Major Gustavo Ferreira, a Civil Affairs Agriculturalist. Gus originally came on Episode 123 to discuss agriculture's impacts on foreign policy. Gus had published two articles, Does China Have Enough Food to Go to War and Taiwan's Food Resiliency or Not in a Conflict with China. After publishing, Gus was interviewed on this show, which resulted in an interview with The Economist and a session at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and is now resulting in a congressional testimony with the U .S. Economic and Security Review Commission. Gus was joined by two others. But for this episode, I will only focus on his testimony and the discussion with the commission. I'll include links in the show notes for the full testimony and papers. Enjoy.

00:01:37    House Chair

Dr. Ferreira will assess China's dependence on foreign agriculture. Next, we're happy to welcome back Dave Collins, Baker Botts Fellow in Energy and Environmental Regulatory Affairs at Rice University's Baker Institute. Mr. Collins will assess Beijing's strategic energy reserves. Finally, we'll hear from Dr. Zoe Liu, our Greenberg Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Liu will detail China efforts and sanctions prove it to come. Thanks again to all the witnesses for your testimony. The Commissioners are very much looking forward to your remarks. I'll remind all the witnesses to please limit their remarks to seven minutes. And Dr. Ferreira, we'll begin with you.

00:02:16    GUSTAVO FERREIRA

Thank you. Good morning. Commissioners and staff, thank you very much for inviting me to this hearing. Please note that I'm not here today on behalf of the U .S. Department of Agriculture or the Department of Defense, and I'm speaking only for myself. My testimony discussed the intersect between food security and national security in the People's Republic of China, and specifically focused on grains. This issue is of the highest importance for the PRC's government, and therefore, it should warrant our attention here in the United States. For millennia, the ruling class in this country has been extremely sensitive about ensuring food security for its population, gives the precedence of famines and food crises that trigger political instability and regime collapse. While the PRC is the largest food producer in the world and has made remarkable progress in the food security space, the country also faces growing challenges to feed its population of 1 .4 billion people. Furthermore, recent events such as the African swine fever outbreaks or the war in Ukraine revealed fragilities in the PRC food system. One must understand that the term food security translates literally to grain security in the Chinese language. Not surprisingly, the nation established self -sufficient targets at 95 % or higher for rice, corn, and wheat. Despite early successes, self -sufficiency rates for some food products fell below those targets. And in early 2000s, BRC's imports of grains and oilseeds began to soar to unprecedented levels. The country is now the world's largest buy of key agricultural commodities. As an illustrated example, in the year 2000, the PRC combined imports of corn, wheat, rice, and soybeans were just above 10 million metric tons. Fast forward to 2023, and those same imports surged to 140 million metric tons. This 1 ,200 % increase was mostly driven by soybeans. as the PRC now accounts for about 60 % of the world's soybean imports, mostly supplied by the United States and Brazil. Early on, the United States was the PRC's top soybean supplier, but in the past 15 years, Brazil gradually claimed that title. As a response to this growing import dependency, General Secretary Xi Jinping made food security a national priority, and under its leadership, the PRC is now employing a multi -pronged approach to tackle this issue. Some of the main policies that I would like to highlight here include significant increases in public investment in agricultural research and development, the goal of boosting agricultural production and the domestic seed industry. Another one is the diversification of the PRC pool of agricultural suppliers to mitigate geopolitical risk for the United States. Also, a notice of expansion grain stockpiles, but these are a state secret. Therefore, outsiders can only speculate about their location, true size, and quality. Nevertheless, official communications state that the PRC has built nearly 700 metric tons of grain storage capacity. Furthermore, USDA data provide evidence that the PRC has amassed very large commodity stockpiles. As an example, in 2023, the PRC alone accounted for 67 % of the world's corn stocks and nearly 60 % of the world's rice stocks. Another important note here has to do with the question of how long this strategic research will last. in the event of a conflict or major disruptions to trade. Evidence seems to indicate that the PRC has somewhere between one to two years' worth of stocks. However, there are also questions about the conditions of those stockpiles, given the complexities and the difficulties associated with maintaining the quality of so much grain over time. Despite its efforts to improve its food security status, the PRC faces significant challenges in the future, and I would like to highlight a few. First, the loss and shortage of farmland due to rapid urbanization, widespread pollution, and uses of land for other non -agriculture purposes. Second, climate change and its impacts on agriculture production, not only in the PRC, also in Maine's supply in nations. Third, decreased availability of agricultural labor, which constrained ongoing efforts to expand domestic agriculture production. And the last one, water scarcity. The United Nations assessed that the PRC is now facing extreme water shortages due to growing demands for the agricultural sector, rapid urbanization, and pervasive pollution of water sources. Climate change will only worsen water shortage in the PRC. The bottom line is that it is very difficult for outsiders to discern whether the PRC's actions to improve its food security are just a government reaction to this structural challenge or another step in the preparation for conflict. Nevertheless, U .S. observers should attempt to identify and monitor developments in the PRC's food and agriculture space, especially those that deviate from normal market signals that could be part of a large political capitalist. An example of such an indicator would be the noticeable surge in soybean and soybean imports in the context of very low profit margins with Chinese hog farms or decreasing domestic demand for pork meat. Our main policy recommendation focuses on improving our ability to better assess the true food security situation in the PRC. To achieve that, I propose a close collaboration between non -Title 10 and 50 federal agencies that have expertise in agriculture and trade and the intelligence community, which will collect new information and data related to PRC's food security space. Such cooperation could yield important wins, such as identification of early food -related indicators that may signal potential preparation for conflict. Lastly, if the United States is to effectively leverage the PRC dependency of food imports as part of a broader economic statecraft, it will need to work closely with other global agriculture powerhouses such as Brazil, Argentina, Australia, or Ukraine. This will involve strengthening our economic and diplomatic ties with these nations. perhaps even beginning to design compensation mechanisms that will incentivize nations to use agricultural trade to pressure the PRC in the event of a conflict.

00:08:21    House Chair

Thank you, Dr. Ferreira. Going in, reverse alphabetical order. Start with Mr. Wessel. One benefit of having a last name starting with a W on this commission. Thank you all for being here. If I could get a fairly quick answer to my first question, because I have some others, but... As we look at the potential lessons from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I think it surprised a lot of people as to the duration or the durability of the conflict. Have you seen an acceleration of stockpiling and other activities resulting from the duration of that, meaning that they think that the ability to sustain sanctions, or that a conflict could be of greater duration that they have to plan for more stockpiles. Thank you for your great question.

00:09:09    GUSTAVO FERREIRA

The conflict in Ukraine brought agriculture issues front and center, specifically strategic importance of grains and oil seeds. And he caught China right in the middle of an effort to expand his pool of suppliers. Ukraine was regarded as a key actor in their strategy. So that threw a kink in that plan. But what he did, he did alter the course in terms of stockpiling and increasing food self -revisation in the food space. I think he just accelerated. He really alerted the Chinese authorities about the perils of food supply chains, especially in an environment where some commodities are literally in the hands of two or three producers globally. And it takes one to be knocked out of the system to bring a lot of... external shocks to the markets. So, yeah, so I'll say it just confirmed the course and the need for the certain policies that are in place. Okay.

00:10:09    House Chair

Do you have any, is there any current reporting that you're aware of that would indicate sufficient capabilities to execute on a Taiwan contingency, or do we not know? For the food security space,

00:10:23    GUSTAVO FERREIRA

the Achilles heel, The PRC truly is the dependency on imported oil seeds. The thing is, in terms of how the PRC government is approaching this, first, it had to be acknowledged that we don't know the size of their stockpiles. As I stated before, it's a state secret. But even from conversations with colleagues, even the central government, Albert does not even know the true size of those stockpiles. I mean, they're massive. They're scattered across the provinces. There's issues with data, accuracy of data, reliability of some provisional data. So in terms of how to address this issue, the PRC knows there's no quick solution to it. And actually, the way they address it is eating the elephant one bite at a time. But none of those solutions will ever fix the issue. And I'll give you an example. So South America itself produces enough soybeans to supply the animal needs of China. However, that will put them on a very precarious situation because they will literally depend on the weather and crop conditions. One of the lessons from Russia's invasion of Ukraine,

00:11:42    SPEAKER_03

lessons from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I think it surprised a lot of people as to the duration or the durability of the conflict.

00:11:53    SPEAKER_03

Either of the first two witnesses seen an acceleration of stockpiling and other activities resulting from the duration of that, meaning that they think that the ability to sustain sanctions or that a conflict could be of greater duration, that they have to plan for more stockpiles. Mr. Ferrer, can you start?

00:12:17    GUSTAVO FERREIRA

Sure. In the agriculture space, I think... Remaining a reliable and affordable supplier of food products to the PRC is probably the best tourist that we can design. We are intrinsically connected by this massive trade. And a conflict with the PRC will obviously result in the loss of that market and will have significant structural shocks into our agricultural sector. Now, if we want to be proactive and prepare ourselves and lean forward. We'll have to start designing policies of what to do with those surplus. We already started to diversify our exports to

Please welcome Retired Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann. 

As a Green Beret, Scott designed and led the local village stability operations program in Afghanistan.

After leaving the military, he began to focus on using his experience with the struggle of transitioning from a fast-paced and high-risk lifestyle to build a healthy transition to the civilian world of work and family. As a result, he launched "Heroes Journey" to help servicemembers, first responders, and their families cope with post-crisis trauma through storytelling.

Scott also wrote and featured in the play and film "Last Man Out," which portrays the impacts of war on our Veterans and their families

Additionally, after Kabul fell to the Taliban, Scott and others launched Task Force Pineapple Express to help Afghan partners leave the country. 

Lastly, Scott has made three appearances on TEDx to discuss his work with veterans and first responders and is announcing his new book, "No One is Coming to Save You," which will be released in October. 

This discussion is split into two separate episodes. 

The first one is to discuss Scott's work prior to the book "No One is Coming to Save You," which airs in October. The Second episode releases in September and is a discussion and the book.

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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at [email protected] 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

----

Special thanks to Ahimsaz for the sample of “Shahamat." Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wmoH-fHhwQ

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Transcript

00:00:03    Introduction

Welcome to the ONE CA Podcast. I’m LTC Brian Hancock, and I will be your host for this session. Today, we have Major Megan O’Keefe-Schlesinger with us to discuss Civil Affairs, Information Operations, and the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS). MAJ Schlesinger, welcome to the show!

Megan O'Keefe-Schlesinger is an Information Advantage practitioner. She has served in the Nevada National Guard medical detachment, the Pacific, Europe and the Middle East in various capacities from the Army Medical Department to civil affairs planner and leader with special operations. In her downtime she volunteered with Team Rubicon assisting with disaster relief in the Mid West and COVID vaccine events. As a student at the command and general staff officer college she studied Defense Support to Civil Authorities and Homeland Security at the University of Kansas  School of Law. She went on to study the impacts of automation on the Army and applying emerging concepts in multi-domain operations to large scale military exercises. 

Disclaimer: A quick reminder for the audience that all remarks are solely those of the presenters.

One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at [email protected] 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

----

Special thanks to BluntedBeatz for the sample “Summer Breeze.” Retrieved from https://youtu.be/3P8Xz71BLes?si=r4-xvwcG21cLMWrO

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00:00:03    BRAIN HANCOCK