September 1, 2025 • 54 mins
Text the ATB Team! We'd love to hear from you!
In this episode of the GNSI At the Boundary podcast, USF’s Dr. Rob Burrell is joined by Colonel Dave Maxwell (Ret.), of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and the Global Peace Foundation, and Lieutenant General Charles T. Cleveland (Ret.) to examine the future of the American way of irregular warfare. From the overlooked role of the human domain to the need for a national-level capability dedicated to irregular warfare, the conversation challenges conventional thinking about U.S. defense and security.
General Cleveland highlights why the United States must move beyond a purely conventional mindset, while Colonel Maxwell revisits the Nunn-Cohen amendment to Goldwater-Nichols, advocating for a dedicated organization to address the nation’s irregular warfare challenges. Together, they argue that political warfare and irregular strategies must be fully integrated into U.S. national security policy—just as airpower became indispensable in the 20th century.
Links from the episode:
• Register for.a webinar on irregular warfare with Dr. Rob Burrell and Chris Mason!
• Resilience and Resistance: Interdisciplinary Lessons in Competition, Deterrence, and Irregular Warfare
• The American Way of Irregular War
At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
Jim, hello everyone. Welcome to this
(00:12):
week's episode of at theboundary, the podcast from the
global and national securityInstitute at the University of
South Florida. I'm Jim Cardoso,Senior Director for GNSI, and
your host for at the boundary.
Today on the podcast, we'rekicking off the latest research
initiative here at GNSI, thefuture of warfare. GNSI Senior
(00:37):
Research Fellow, Dr Rob Burrell,is one of the world's leading
experts on irregular warfare,resilience and resistance. He
recently published his latestbook titled resilience and
resistance, interdisciplinarylessons in competition,
deterrence and irregularwarfare.
Retired US Army LieutenantGeneral Charles Cleveland,
(00:58):
former commanding general of USArmy Special Operations Command,
and previously, my deployedcommander, wrote the foreword
for that book. He'll be one ofRob's guests today, along with
retired Colonel Dave Maxwell, a30 year Army veteran who
recently served as associatedirector in the School of
Foreign Service at Georgetown,their conversation involves
(01:18):
educating professionals onassessing and planning for
irregular warfare. We'll get tothat in just a moment. On a
related note, Rob will host afireside chat with GNSI non
resident fellow Dr Chris Mason,who created the study of
internal conflict database. Thisevent will be presented in
person at GNSI and over zoom onSeptember 9, at 10am Eastern at
(01:43):
that time, they'll discuss howthey can use predictive
analytics to foretell theoutcome of internal conflict
with 100%accuracy. Needless to say,
That's a bold claim, and Irecommend you register to attend
and check its validity foryourself. We'll post a link in
the show notes. Registrationwill also be opening this week
(02:04):
for the first ever GNSI Floridasecurity forum, scheduled for
November 4. We're hosting theconference in partnership with
port Tampa Bay. As we examineport and maritime security risks
and resilience, we'll bediscussing both physical and
cyber threats, potential futurecritical events and the national
security implications. Keep aneye out for registration
(02:27):
details. Okay, I'll turn it overto Rob Now as we begin our
latest research initiative, thefuture of warfare here on at the
boundary.
So greetings from the Universityof South Florida, where our
motto is truth and wisdom, andthat's just what we're going to
(02:47):
uncover today. Welcome to thefirst installment of the future
of warfare series. This serieswas initiated following the
publication of a new bookentitled resilience and
resistance, which was publishedby Joint Special Operations
University Press. If you'd liketo check it out, you can go to
the show notes, and it's free.
I'm Dr Rob Burrell, the editorof that book, and a senior
research fellow at the globaland national security Institute.
(03:09):
Today we'll we will be talkingto one of the authors in the
book, Colonel Dave Maxwell, andalso with a very prestigious
gentleman who wrote the forward.
Joining us today is LieutenantGeneral Charles T Cleveland in
2003 then Colonel Cleveland wasthe commander of 10th Special
Forces Group, where he led asuccessful us unconventional
(03:31):
warfare campaign in northernIraq. He also served as a
commanding general of US ArmySpecial Operations Command from
2012 to 2015Following his retirement, he was
the senior mentor to the Chiefof Staff the Army's Strategic
Studies Group from 2015 to 2017general Cleveland is a board
member for the new NationalCenter for narrative
intelligence. Is also the authorof a monograph, the American way
(03:54):
of irregular war, as well as anarticle titled maximizing the
potential of American irregularwarfare in strategic
competition. We will bediscussing both of those
publications in today's podcastwith hyperlinks in the show
notes. General Cleveland,welcome to the program, Rob.
Thank you very much. It's goodto be here,
(04:16):
and congratulations on the book.
And I hear it's it's success. Soit's good to see I do think
you're doing important work atthe school. And the the
heartening thing is you're partof what I think is a growing
constellation ofacademic research that's
happening in places that matteraround the country. And so
(04:38):
that's encouraging, because ifwe're going to solve a lot of
these problems, it starts byknowing what the problem is, and
then what are potentialsolutions. And that's got to
come from places where men andwomen are doing deep study on
the subject. SoI appreciate your great work,
and thanks for including me.
Thank you, sir, also joining ustoday.
(05:00):
Is Special Forces Colonelretired David Maxwell. Dave
spent more than 30 years in Asiaas a practitioner, and
specializes in Northeast Asiansecurity affairs in a regular
unconventional warfare andpolitical warfare. He is the
vice president for the Centerfor Asia Pacific strategy and a
senior fellow at the GlobalPeace Foundation, where he
(05:20):
focuses on a free and unifiedKorea. He is a member of the
Board of Directors of theCommittee for Human Rights in
North Korea, and he is theeditor of the small wars journal
with Arizona State University.
He serves on the academic boardsof the nonprofit organization
spirit of America Foundation andthe global soft Foundation, and
is one of the honorary chairs ofthe OSF society. In short, he's
(05:41):
very busy, and he's joining usfrom Korea. Dave, welcome to USF
at the boundary podcast. Thankyou, Rob, and I echo the
General's comments. The workyou're doing is very important,
and I really commend you forshepherding the book from, you
know, from start to finish, andand writing some important works
(06:02):
in that book, and and for reallypushing forward on all thoughts
about irregular warfare,resistance, resilience. And, as
a general said, these areproblems that we really need to
understand, have deepunderstanding of, if we're going
to solve them for our nation. Sothank you. Thanks, Dave. I
appreciate that. And so let'sjust get right into it. I think
(06:25):
we all share the opinion thatirregular warfare and irregular
competition will pose thegreatest threats to US national
security over the next couple ofdecades, and all three of us
have written extensively aboutit. General, you wrote the
American way of irregularwarfare with Rand, which is an
obvious Compendium to Russell.
(06:46):
Russell, widely American way ofwar. Can you briefly describe
what you argue is a peculiarlyAmerican way of addressing
irregular warfare? Confessionsup front, right? I mean, let's
widely book was a textbook atWest Point. You know, it was
issued to me. I think for one ofmy national security classes,
(07:10):
there actually a future Sam'sleader was the my instructor in
that course.
But I have to admit, I was notthe greatest student. I skimmed
it a lot, right? I i purloinedthings that needed to be taken
out for papers that wererequired, but I don't. I didn't
really get into the book, anddidn't do that until later,
(07:32):
when, after retiring, I say, Ihad to look back and say, what,
you know, what did my careerreally consistent, because I
knew was it happened, just byhappenstance, to be at a very
important time, I thought, in inAmerica's history, and certainly
in this development of thisphenomena that is irregular
(07:55):
warfare, right? Widely. Wrotehis book in 73 was printed in 73
I entered the academy in 74 andyou could say that I began my
military career with, really,essentially, when the downfall
of Vietnam, right in April of 75I was still a, you know, about
(08:15):
ready to graduate at, or move upfrom being a plea if I could get
through my First Year. You know,it had a very visible impact on
our instructors. All of themwere Vietnam veterans, all of
them senior captains, youngmajors. They were truly
phenomenal warriors, and hadgiven much of themselves in the
(08:38):
fight in Vietnam and andobviously the fall of Saigon was
had a significant impact onthem, and of course, it had an
impact on us. I don't know if Iknew at the time just how much
of an impact it had. And thenscroll forward, and I have the
great fortune of staying in ourgreat army for 37 years.
(08:58):
And it's at the end of thatcareer that I I'm leaving with,
you know, in Afghanistan, 2015at the time I retired. Here,
we're going on 15 years. Itobviously goes on for more after
that. You know, 20 years Iraq, Isee, you know, this very
(09:18):
unsatisfying solution and end towhat we were doing in Iraq, and
so that, that was my career. Andso what happened between the
start and the endin national security history for
America was deeply rooted, in myview, in irregular warfare, and
frankly, in our unsatisfyingoutcomes in these ventures.
(09:46):
And I wanted to know why. I meanwhat you know, and could I maybe
look at, you know, the historyduring that period, kind of
through my lens, kind ofrefitting the.
What I saw, perhaps, as a young,younger officer, as I moved up
with what I knew later, andtrying to, you know, put it in
(10:08):
context. And that's what theAmerican way of irregular
warfare is about. It's not aboutme. It's really about irregular
warfare as it was taking placein our military history and in
the country's history, from theperiod that, you know, Vietnam
fell and then Iraq andAfghanistan were coming to very
unsatisfying conclusions. Thatwas, that's the background of
(10:32):
the book. What I what I cameaway with, is that we came into
Vietnam with a conventional armythat up to that point, and then
a conventional national securitystructure, mainly because it was
successful, primarily in WarTwo, and arguably semi
(10:55):
successful in the place that youknow Dave is located, right in
Korea. We, I think, kept usingthese approaches, and
increasingly those approachesbecame less and less effective.
And it was actually thebeginnings of a recognition of
that problem, to some degree,when they looked at, you know
(11:18):
this, how do we handle theseKorean partisans in the war, and
then this idea of, well, weought to have something like the
OSS and help maybe harness this,this power, this resistance
power that's manifesting itselfin possible
insurgence that We can useagainst the North Koreans and
(11:42):
the Chinese. And of course, fromthat comes Aaron bank being
called back, and the branchbeing stood up, the Special
Forces branch being stood up. Sothe Special Forces branch, born
of the Cold War, basicallybecomes one of the first changes
to say, hey, what we have inthat in the inventory isn't
(12:04):
working, isn't quite right,right? So,
but I think primarily we wereable to be successful, and
Western countries, for the mostpart, were able to be successful
using blunt force. Until we sawDiem van Phu. We saw the lesson
the French learned there. Wejust said, Well, we in Vietnam,
(12:26):
scroll forward. We had advisoryefforts through 65 it was
primarily a South Vietnamesefight. We were we were
organizing and helping them asbest we could. CIA was doing
great work. Others were doingtheir work. We hadn't committed
huge amounts of conventionalforce. And then, of course, we
(12:46):
introduced in 65 after, youknow, the helms turned over from
an assassinated President toJohnson and and then, I think he
became increasingly reliant onthe traditional tools, and
didn't necessarily believe in,if you will. I think what was a
(13:06):
very indirect approach thatKennedy was proposing against
this new in this new form ofwar. And so we went down that
road, and then 74or 75 Saigon falls, a failed
experiment. In my view,important to note that the men
that led us in that effort werethose men of the greatest
generation, right? The seniorleaders there cut their teeth in
(13:29):
World War Two, right? They wereand so it was. It's it's easy to
see, because even leaders today,you actually ground how you view
the world, you know, it's kindof like that. I, you know, I've
learned everything I need toknow by the time I was in
kindergarten, right? Well, it'skind of the same thing in the
military. In your militarycareer, by the time you make
(13:51):
major you kind of, you're set inyour ways. And I think that's
got implications today, frankly,with some of the ways we're
picking senior leaders, becausethis whole field of irregular
warfare is way under representedat the senior ranks.
So that's why I thought I'd letme, let me see if I can. Might,
(14:16):
you know, maybe help put myfinger on on the problem and
then make some recommendations,you know, come to some
conclusion and make somerecommendations.
You know, could we have donesomething differently? Why
didn't we do somethingdifferently? And
a lot of reasons for that too.
(14:37):
And so I wrote the book, I willsay, just updating the thought
process as we roll intoincreasingly rely on AI that I
worry that conventional warmachinery, which is absolutely
essential and needs to be thebest at, you know, World at War,
fighting against other armies.
(15:00):
90s is going to becomeincreasingly, though
ineffective in these populationcentric fights. And so I think I
worry that, you know, the twoare actually separating and
getting wider and further apart.
Lastly, I would say my whole onelast thing, I know it's long
here, but the last thing is, Ido believe that we, you know,
(15:24):
what's unique aboutthe American way of approaching
these problems is, you know, wewere always the good guys, Dave
and I always, you know, in ourthroughout our careers, when we
went someplace, we didn't gothere
to occupy. We went there tofacilitate and help a host
(15:46):
country solve its own problems.
And I think that's that's veryimportant to note. We're not
extractive, right?
We're here to represent,frankly, the, you know, God's
gift to mankind in terms of away to govern itself that
happens to have embodied itselfin the United States of America,
(16:06):
and we got the chance to bemilitary ambassadors of a sort,
you know, for that, thatgreatest approach to the way we
should sort our affairs as humanbeings on this planet, there are
others who are fighting againstthat approach, and it's ours.
Was a noble cause. And again, Ithink we were always the good
(16:27):
guys in these fights. Thank you,General. Yep, free the
oppressed.
Totally agree. So in yourmonograph, as you lay out the
American way of war, you look atthree options of kind of where
are we going to go from here?
You know, the first one is, arewe going to return to the era
after Vietnam, where we justsay, Yeah, we're never going to
do a regular warfare again? Thenext, the next option you lay
(16:51):
out is that we're going to use awe're going to have a
conventional force, and thenwe're going to modify that force
for a regular conflict if ithappens. And then your third
option is that the US will buildand mature a regular warfare
capability that's professional,world class level, is what you
describe it, and the samecapability that we have for
(17:13):
conventional or nuclearconflict. So where do you think
we're headed? What are thepossibilities here? I think if
the research continues at a paceas it's going on right now, the
effects of that research have tobe in a re viewing and review of
you know, how we approach theseirregular warfare problems,
(17:38):
these and population centricproblems. What I unfortunately,
think is happening is, while thefirst option, well, let's just
wish it away, I think is whatthey would like to have. I mean,
I think if the national if thedefense department had its way,
it would want to give theseirregular warfare problems to
(17:58):
others, whether it's the StateDepartment, CIA,
so that's I think, but we allknow that, unfortunately, they
can't do that. I mean it, thoseproblems will intrude on us to a
degree that we have to usemilitary force, and the military
is going to be a part of any ofthese solutions out there. I do
(18:22):
think that the way things aregoing right now to include
inside the SOCOM community,unfortunately, I think
everybody's running headlongtowards the second option, which
is a conventional force. Youknow, these other fights will do
them when we need toand and we'll just fold spindle
mutilate to create somethingthat's necessary out of the
(18:45):
conventional force, and it'ssupporting SOF, right? But our
focus, rightly so, for theconventional force will be on
the conventional war, fightagainst, you know, primarily our
pacing threat. And then SOF Yourjob is to support that fight.
(19:06):
And I think the mistake we'remaking is we're way over
investing in you know thatwhat's going to be essentially
secondary supporting effortswhen really there's a lot of
work that needs to be done. I'mnot saying those aren't
important, but I wouldn't makethem the primary effort,
unconventional warfarein places, obviously in Taiwan,
(19:28):
others, making that ready. Ithink that's our job, working on
the periphery, working aroundthe globe, though, and trying to
win a new Cold War, right? Andyou know, again, I think we won
the last Cold War to no smalldegree because deterrence held.
(19:51):
But between the interagency, youknow, the State Department, the
IC and special forces inparticular, in our engagements
around the world, and.
Of we basically inflicted defeaton the Soviet Union through a
death of 1000 cuts around theworld. It was a long term
effort. It was long campaigns.
But that's the nature of thesekinds of these kinds of wars.
(20:11):
Which takes me to my third whichis hopefully the research you're
doing and this research that'staking place. And I would ask
Dave to kind of identify theother centers out there that are
actually doing, if you don'tmind, you know the good work,
you know the irregular warfareinitiative. There are just some
tremendously good thingshappening out there. Even the
(20:32):
irregular Warfare Centerthat has stood up, I think, is
starting to get his feetunderneath it and looking at the
problem appropriately.
We never fail at the tacticallevel, though, and the and Dave
and I have talked a lot aboutthis is
when you get when you look atit, our failure is not
(20:56):
necessarily that we don't lack,we lack the tactical tools.
There are new tactical toolsthat probably need to be
developed or reshaped, the onesthat exist.
But what is really missing isirregular warfare capable,
architecture, headquarters, ifyou will, intelligence
(21:17):
approaches above the tacticallove right now, the 911 call
will again go to, if it's got tobe a core level, you know, some
kind of major, sort of majoreffort will go to headquarters
that are built on conventionalwar. And you know, 911 for
everything winds up being 18thairborne for or perhaps a meth
(21:37):
for something else. And whilethey have their place,
they're not necessarily theright tool. For instance, as
they went into Afghanistan, youknow, they brought with them
their conventional war fight.
When the Marines went intoVietnam, they brought in
basically their conventional warfight.
So I hope that, in my view, weget to a point where we
(22:00):
recognize that the third optionis required, and that is, hey,
let's do what America has alwaysdone, let's build the thing that
will actually dominate in thisspace. And I would say that
you can't get there by boldspindling and mutilating the
conventional force that you havefor deterrence.
(22:23):
Thank you, General. Yeah,you mentioned there was a lot of
great work happening out thereat joint social operations
University, irregular WarfareCenter, the irregular warfare
initiative, Naval War Collegehas the Center for irregular
warfare and armed groups. Andthen Arizona State University,
which Dave is intimatelyinvolved with, is also doing
(22:43):
some great work, so it's good tosee the academic
emphasis, and I appreciate youbringing that up, Dave. You, you
similarly have writtenextensively on irregular warfare
for decades now.
You often talk about a triad.
(23:04):
I know you like the power ofthrees, but irregular warfare,
unconventional warfare andpolitical warfare. So I mean,
what are those? Can you explainwhat those three things are and
why that's important for the USto identify and perhaps build
capabilities forWell, yes, thank you. And you
know, first of all,you know all of these terms,
(23:26):
obviously, words have meaning,and they have different meanings
to everybody. And so I'd justlike to caveat up front that we
spend a lot of time ondefinitions. We spend a lot of
time on trying to to frameeverything and develop common
terminology.
And you know, that's important,and it has real impact, I
(23:50):
understand, for the whole dotLPF process, you know, from
doctrine through, you know,training and material and all of
the things that are necessary,you know, ultimately, to funding
and, you know, in in resourcingforces. And so it's important to
have those definitions, but wespend a lot of time arguing
(24:12):
about them. So I look atirregular warfare,
unconventional warfare andpolitical warfare in really
three ways. One, unconventionalwarfare is really the foundation
for Special Forces. It's whatspecial forces was designed to
do. And of course, thedefinition is, you know, to
enable a resistance or aninsurgency to coerce, disrupt or
(24:35):
overthrow an occupying force, anoccupying power or government,
through or with an undergroundauxiliary or a guerrilla force
in a denied area, and that isreally a population centric
focus on enabling a resistance.
(24:56):
And like general, Clevelandsaid, you know, we really exist
to help others.
She mentioned de oppresso liberto free their press. The real
way to talk about that is tohelp others free themselves.
That's really how I like todescribe to de oppresso liber to
help others free themselves. Sounconventional warfare is really
(25:17):
the foundation of specialforces. Irregular warfare is the
broad context that we have beentalking about, and it is really
one of the three forms ofwarfare that we will always
face. Nuclear Warfare, obviouslythe worst case, conventional
warfare, large scale combatoperations, theater level
(25:38):
warfare, conventional warfare,and then irregular warfare. And
of course, irregular warfareconsists of many things, and we
try to define it in many ways,but it really consists of, I
think, unconventional warfare,political warfare. And of
course, the title of your book,resistance and resilience. And
(25:59):
it is population centric, it isthe human domain. And of course,
the military has decided in thistime of now, all domain warfare
to not have a human domain,because humans are on land, and
so humans are part of the landdomain. But as I think General
(26:21):
Cleveland would argue, and and Isupport this, is that we really
do need to focus on the humanelement. You know, the
battlefield of human terrain,and that's six inches between
our between our ears and ourconventional war fighting is
kinetically focused, whereasirregular warfare,
(26:43):
unconventional warfare andpolitical warfare are really
cognitively focused.
You know, we think of of warfareas as politics by other means,
and you know, our adversarieslook at politics is warfare by
other means, and warfare ispolitics by other means to our
(27:06):
adversaries. It is warfare, andwe shouldn't be afraid to call
it that. So irregular warfare ispopulation centric, human
focused, focused on the humandomain, and it encompasses
political warfare. Now,political warfare is, of course,
born out of George Kennan's memoin 1948 his policy planning memo
(27:28):
on the the the beginning ofpolitical warfare, and of
course, basically defined as theuse of all elements of national
power, short of war, to achieveyour objectives. And he
describes it as usingovert information also black
propaganda. It includesalliances, includes economic
(27:50):
warfare, economic coercion,sanctions, and it includes
support to resistance againstour adversaries, creating
dilemmas for our adversaries.
And so political warfare wasreally conducted throughout the
Cold War. As as a general said,deterrence held. We had
(28:12):
deterrence. We fought limitedconventional wars. But really,
political warfare is what wonthe Cold War, and it was using
all elements of national powerto achieve our objectives.
And so I really look at it thisway, irregular warfare is the
(28:33):
military contribution topolitical warfare which should
be waged at the national level.
Our national security apparatusshould be able to conduct
political warfare, particularlyin this environment, against
this axis of authoritarians, theso called Crink China, Russia,
Iran and North Korea. And wereally should focus our ability
(28:55):
to be able to compete againsttheir unrestricted warfare,
their three warfares, their newgeneration warfare, their
unconventional warfare, and evenNorth Korea's unconventional
warfare and political warfarewith Juche idea, Juche
characteristics. So I that isreally how I look at these three
now, irregular warfare,unconventional warfare and
(29:18):
political warfare are reallysupported by another Trinity,
and that Trinity is really thecomparative advantage of in
particular, us, Army, specialoperations forces. And that
Trinity is, number one,influence, the ability to
influence populations. Numbertwo is governance, the ability
(29:40):
to help shape governingfunctions and governance in in
areas that are occupied bytotalitarian regimes, and they
help shape a new form ofgovernance. And then the third,
the real comparative advantageof in particular.
Special Forces is support toindigenous forces and support to
(30:04):
indigenous populations. Andthat's really the comparative
advantage of, again, inparticular Army Special
Operations Forces. But reallyall special operations forces
that have a special warfarefocus, marine Special Operations
Command, MARSOC,you know, some of our seals,
seal platoons and havedemonstrated great capabilities,
(30:26):
but really it's built around thecapabilities of Army Special
Operations, in particular, as Imentioned, Special Forces,
psychological operations andcivil affairs. And so that's how
I look at those, at the Trinity.
Now I just like to say oneother, one other thing on this
(30:48):
line here,and that is, you know, as
General Cleveland said, we havea very powerful conventional
capability. I mean, our, youknow, we're known. Our military
is the best in the world. Wehave the nuclear capability. We
have the conventionalwarfighting capability and the
ability to solve complexmilitary problems, but we need
to solve complex politicalmilitary problems, and to do
(31:11):
that, we need irregular warfarethinking in the military and in
the Department of Defense, andwe need political warfare
thinking in the US government.
And so you ask, what isirregular warfare thinking?
Well, it's thinking about thehuman element in the full
spectrum of competition andconflict, up to and including
(31:32):
conventional and nuclear war. Itincludes, but it's not limited
to all aspects of lawlessness,Subversion, insurgency,
terrorism, political resistance,nonviolent resistance, political
violence, urban operations,stability operations, post
conflict operations, cyber and,of course, operations in the
information environment. And asgeneral Cleveland said, we
(31:56):
really have to think about thestrategic level, the strategic
influence through informationadvantage and information and
influence activities that alsoincludes public diplomacy from
state psychological operations,military information support
operations and Public Affairs.
And all of this is done workingthrough with and by indigenous
forces and populations. Again,conducting irregular warfare,
(32:20):
political warfare, economicwarfare, through allies, through
diplomacy, competitivestatecraft in conflict areas
around the world. So as I said,irregular warfare is the
military contribution topolitical warfare, and political
warfare is the action of thewhole of government in strategic
competition. Dave, you hadmentioned the human human
(32:43):
domain. I was actually at theSOCOM headquarters when we lost
that fight. I was on the frontline in doctrine when we we fell
right on our face. That was adecade ago. And general
Cleveland you, you reignited thefire in 2023 bringing up the
human domain again. So, youknow,
(33:04):
can you tell us? You know, doyou still believe the human
domain needs to be an element?
Why? And maybe, maybe have somethoughts also on what, what Dave
just mentioned. Go ahead, Dave,just, just let me jump in there,
as you were fighting it at SOCOMgeneral Cleveland was really
partnering with the Army and theMarine Corps, you know, as
really a SOCOM guy, as acommander of USF, he was really
(33:26):
pushing it at that point aswell, and you were providing all
the supporting fires for that.
But, you know, we lost thatbattle. And I think that's to,
you know, that's to our nation'sloss. Over to you, General,
yeah. I mean, where to begin onall that? First of all, Dave, I
thought that was a greatrundown, honestly. And
(33:50):
I do think that one of theproblems we have right now, and
Dave alludes to it, is, youknow, what's our what's our
objective here in and you know,you kind of say, what's our
military strategy shooting for?
Right? What are we trying to do?
And what I hear most is thisidea of integrated deterrence,
(34:12):
right?
I personally think that is waytoo defensive, right? We didn't
win the first Cold War. Youknow, deterrence was a part of
it, as we just went to we'vetalked about it, but we set out
to win. We set out to win overan extended time horizon by
really playing our own versionof go, right? I mean, we we
(34:34):
looked at where we gotpositional advantage, we
invested, we and I, and Ithought we did a pretty good job
in that first effort,but it culminated, I think, with
a president that said, No, ourpurpose here really is to win.
And I think given what ouradversaries are really trying to
do globally, we ought also to belooking to.
(35:00):
Win, and winning will take youto needing to ensure that
populations recognize andunderstand the alternative forms
of governance that are availableto them right now. They can do
their own versions of this, but,but I think that, to me, is
important just trying to do aholding pattern inadvertently, I
(35:25):
think, downplays the importanceof these populations, these
indigenous populations aroundthe world. And I think we do
that to ourbasically to our disadvantage
long term. You know, what we cansuffer then is the death of 1000
cuts by their efforts, right?
And so I do think it's importantto one of the things is that we
(35:48):
nationally, have to reframe whatwe're trying to accomplish here
and say, you know, no, ourobjective is, in fact, to win in
this fight. Now, what you cansay is, what is when looking
like? What does winning looklike? And that's a fair
question. I have my own thoughtson that, and it certainly
doesn't involve the CCP runningChina, or, you know, a corrupt
(36:11):
oligarchy running Russia. Butthat's for the Russian and
Chinese people to decide.
On the human domain front.
The idea,and I will say, I think I will
say, I think I was the first oneto actually, you know, kind of
said, Okay, well, what theheck's going on was in 2011
(36:33):
I was in that in between periodwhere I was not in command at
USF sock, and I was at the tailend of my time at
at soccer. And I was invited tobe because the Saxon commander
gets invited to speak at thisbig weapons bazaar that they
have over in Jordan every year.
And so I went over to do my, youknow, fulfill my obligation to
(36:55):
speak at this very tech centricsort of
confab that they hold. It's veryimpressive. I'm, you know, the
king, he does he they did itright. But I'm not a tech guy.
And so I,I basically said in my talk that
I thought what we werewitnessing, and because we were
(37:16):
struggling so much with thesepopulation centric fights, what
we were witnessing was theemergence of what we called,
before Human Terrain, andto actually a domain. And I The
analogy I used was the airdomain. You know where you know,
until the Wright brothers flewan airplane the air domain. I
(37:39):
mean air it always existed. Itjust wasn't consequential to the
success of our militarycampaigns. You know, Billy
Mitchell sinks a Navy ship fromthe air in the interwar period.
And then we end world war twowith the dropping of two very
big bombs on Japan and air powercouple years later, what emerges
(38:01):
as its own service, and in theprocess, basically that's a
declaration that isn't it is, infact, its own domain. Why?
Because if we don't dominatethere, or at least control it,
to to the manner, to the to thelevel we need to for our
campaign to be successful, ourcampaigns are at risk. So this
is not out of, we're not doingthis out of, you know, some
(38:24):
desire to just apply technology.
We're doing this because youhave to do it in order to win.
And I would submit to you,that's the same problem that you
have with the human domain. Thedomain model, as it sits right
now does not adequately addresswhat Dave was talking about,
(38:45):
which is, you know, this humandesire to oppose oppression and
tyranny, this human, very humandesire to have a future that's
better For your kids than theircurrent situation, this human
desire to be able to, you know,feel free to actually pursue the
(39:07):
things that they want to pursue.
Those are very basic, and theyare at the core of how we
actually engage and can use, youknow, I used to manipulate the
human and my very good friendfrom Notre Dame University,
who's a said, No, you know, wereally can you just use
influence, not manipulate? Isaid, Okay, well, sometimes we
(39:29):
influence, sometimes wemanipulate, but the bottom line
is that's a whole different setof skills. And I would say that,
you know, the human domain,then, has gone through various
forms here when I got to USA,sock very early on,
thanks to the great work byBennett Sakala at SWIC, where he
(39:52):
got the army to actually say, wewill let you write at p3 05,
which.
Like all the doctrine guys willtell them, you know, they'll,
they'll cuss at me here forsaying this. But up to that
point, we really, we wereauthorized to write field
manuals about how we did ourbusiness, right? And so in the
(40:13):
process, you could read abouthow I did my business and hit
with and how, then it could beapplied, maybe in your business,
if you're a division commanderor so forth.
What ATP 305 actually allowed usto do is write about the the the
phenomena that is specialoperations and how it
(40:36):
contributes to nationalsecurity. And in the process of
doing that. That's where you sawus take apart the business of
special operations and say,well, it really consists of two
parts, right? It really is thehyper conventional raid, right?
Which is where you and I, I talkabout is treating, how you treat
(40:58):
uncertainty. And these two,these two types of soft one is
you basically try to remove asmuch uncertainty as possible,
and then you act for speed andfor surprise, right? Mcravens
formula, right? Very, it'sbrilliant. It's exactly what
that form of Special Operationsis about. It is it makes it
(41:19):
special because of the, youknow, the technologies, the the
operators, the level oftraining, the planning, so
forth, right?
But that's solving and reducingrisk from out, from without this
other form of Special Operationshas to actually go into the
(41:39):
middle of the problem to evenknow what the problem really is,
right? Because you don't know inthis human situation. You know
you have to be there to solveit, and primarily solve it at
the local level, from the insideout. And so you handle risk by
saying, I'm building an element,an element that can actually
(42:01):
survive and not distort theenvironment that I put them in
and out of that comes a 12 maneight attachment that's got a
medic and a combo guy and anengineer and so forth. Brilliant
concept, right? I know you know,making it a 16 man element, or
whatever I think you're I thinkyou're tinkering with the Bible,
if you ask me, when you ask me,when you start doing that,
(42:23):
right? So, but that was and sowhen I came into USF sock
and we took apart specialoperations, and we tried to
describe how then we supportnational security through that
which is in the documents aresoft 2022
and our soft 2220 22 part twoand our soft next. Those
(42:46):
documents basically lay out,really, the intellectual work by
a very talented group ofofficers that cycled into USF
headquarters from all of thetribes to try to describe
intellectually what it was wewere doing, and we captured that
in ADP, 305, and in there wesaid, we're about the human
(43:06):
domain. Psycholic pushed thebutton on getting that thing
staffed. And I would say, withintwo days, the Marine Corps came
up with a hard non concur. Why?
Because in one sentence in thedocument in lowercase letters,
we said human domainand and they were not coming off
of that position. Now, in themeantime, we're working to try
(43:30):
to get them off that position,Admiral McRaven and General
Odierno. They get General Amosto sign a letter that I think is
still unique in the annals ofmilitary history, which is this
clash of wills document. Andagain, I would say people should
take a look at that. And inthere they talk about this human
(43:50):
domain, this idea.
Scroll forward. I'm near the endof my time. The multi domain
operations, businesses coming onboard. We've, you know, we're,
we've lost the fight with theMarine Corps. They're not going
to recognize the domain and andso we, we basically are left
(44:13):
with, okay, you know, what's thebest of a bad situation here?
And they come up with the jointconcept for integrated
campaigning, after a joint compsconcept for military or for
human activities, impact tohuman activities on military
affairs. I don't know, jehaimo,I think was the name of it
(44:35):
anyway. That was basically acompromise to the strategic land
power task force was stood up totry to say, Hey,
what is this about? You know,this, this human thing, and how
it fits. They came up with theseartful ways to get around the
fact that we didn't want to do,do a domain, but at the at the
(44:55):
end of the day,there will be a human domain,
right?
Because I go back to why a humanwhy a domain exists. It exists
because you have to buildcapability for it in order to be
successful. And as I said, AIand the way technology is
pushing conventional forces, itis, it is be creating a larger
(45:18):
and larger gap with what'srequired for the military
irregular warfare, as Dave said,the military's contribution to
political warfare. And so that'sa long way around the barn, but
that's, you know, the humandomain is as a concept, you
know, the you know, again, ithit at the wrong time, right? We
(45:39):
had the Chairman of the JointChiefs saying, Hey, we're going
to make cyber a domain. So cybercame on as a domain. There was a
great article, I think it'ssmall wars journal, or, I don't
know, Dave might remember this,where somebody had said, you
know, I predict was when one ofthe prediction articles, I
predict that next year, they'regoing to merge the human domain
and the cyber domain. That thatwas, I think, somewhat
(46:02):
prescient. That may be wheresome of this is going, I don't
know.
And then we, of course, shortlyafter that, we get a new
president, and he says, okay,space is important. Space
becomes its own domain. SpaceForce is created. And of course,
the services are contributing tostand up all these things. And
to them, it's a zero sum game.
So any mention from a lowlythree star down there that a,
(46:27):
you know, we ought to have ahuman domain,
was met with some pretty stiffresistance, right? So, you know,
again, I stand by the wholeidea. I think that, you know,
it's Dave often quotes theTrotsky thing. You know, you may
not be interested in the humandomain, but the human domain is
(46:48):
going to be interested in you,right? So my prediction is that
all this good work that you guysare doing with research, I hope,
brings about, you know, theright kind of change. And you
don't have to call it humandomain. You can call it
whatever, but it's justrecognition, as Dave said about
population centric combat, war,manipulation of them and
(47:10):
influencing and get puttingpeople on side, and frankly,
doing it, as I said at the verybeginning, from a position where
we have the superior message,you know, on what we represent.
So anyway, that's a greatexplanation. I really loved your
analogy with with air power. Itreally, really makes it
(47:34):
visible. I think to mostlisteners,
this has really been a great andinsightful conversation on
irregular warfare andcompetition as well. One last
chance to advocate for how theUnited States can best prepare
for the future of warfare. Whatis the number one priority
Congress and the DoD couldaddress over the next five
(47:56):
years? I'll give a chance toboth of you to answer that.
Dave, you first.
Well, I would like to see arealization of the nun Cohen
amendment to Goldwater Nicholsand what we, you know, we got it
half right. We established usSOCOM, a unified command, which
(48:17):
has done tremendous things forfor special operations, you
know, particularly in theorganized train and equip
title 10 functions. And it was,it was on a path, I think, to
really develop, and it hasdeveloped a world class special
operations capability. But upuntil 911 it was really doing
some, some great things with itsservice, like functions. But
(48:41):
what none Senator Nunn andSenator Cohen envisioned was
somebody to own low intensityconflict. We've had many names
for it at the time, and lowintensity conflict still exists.
You know, later we called itmilitary operations other than
war. We've had all of thesethings. And of course, today,
we're really talking aboutirregular warfare. And so we
need a capability for irregularwarfare. And I would like to see
(49:07):
the evolution of nun Cohen andGoldwater Nichols to where we
give responsibility to irregularwarfare to someone or some
organization. Now I always ask,Who is the champion for
irregular warfare today. Who?
Where is that champion? Youknow, in World War Two, where we
come from, our heritage, OSS thechampion was General Donovan and
(49:28):
President Roosevelt. You know,the champions for for special
operations after desert, one,you know, became Senator Nunn
and Senator Cohen. And they gaveus, you know, us SOCOM, but we
never really pinned the rose onirregular warfare. And nobody
has really picked up the mantlefor irregular warfare. And so
(49:50):
Congress, I think, would dowell. And they, I think they've
tried. That's why we have anirregular Warfare Center. They,
you know, there's been.
Fits and starts. We have anirregular Warfare Center,
really, at the behest ofCongress, but we really need a
national level capability,really that general Cleveland
outlined in his monograph on theAmerican way of irregular war.
(50:14):
And we have to have thatnational capability to prosecute
irregular warfare on behalf ofus, national security
objectives.
Thank you, Dave. Appreciatethat. General you get the last
word here. What's, what's thenumber one priority Congress in
the DoD need to address over thenext five years?
Well, first of all, I think Daveis 100% right. We got it. I
(50:40):
think the intent was right, butexecution was half right. You
know,I think that Congress should
look at creating an organizationthat can provide that national
level, world class capability inthis space, it resides in a
whole bunch of different places.
(51:03):
Again, the failings are largelynot at the tactical level,
although you know, accruing theright kind of tactical assets
for these what would be theirregular warfare or political
warfare campaigns that you havethat you would execute and and
put together around the world,would require tapping into that.
It's really this ability abovethem, above the tactical to
(51:27):
actually develop and prosecuteliterate irregular warfare
campaigns, literate politicalwarfare strategies. And I think
Congress needs to set aboutdoing that, recognizing that
none Cohenis only going to be partially
right. I mean, it addressed theDoD part. We all know that
(51:49):
irregular warfare has largecivilian pieces to it. I'm an
advocate for a new OSS, if youwill, a rebirth of that. But
again, I think that theobjective should be standing up
a world class capability todominate in the human domain.
(52:12):
Excellent, excellent. Well, youand Dave agree on that, and me
too. So asa world war two historian, I
really love the OSS and itslegacy, and I think we could
still know some great lessons.
So okay, listeners, that's allthe time we have today.
Unfortunately, thank you so muchfor joining us. For those who
would like to see the resilienceand resistance book or general
(52:32):
Cleveland's publications, pleasetake a look at the show notes.
Also stay tuned for the rest ofour series on the future of
warfare. Our next event willtake place on nine September as
I conduct a live interview withDr Chris Mason and discuss the
study of internal conflict,there are research opportunities
on irregular warfare, and we arebringing those to the University
(52:53):
of South Florida. There will bea link in to this special event
on nine September in the shownotes as well, mark your
calendars and Go Bulls.
Today's episode went a littlelonger than usual, but we
thought kicking off the futureof warfare research initiative
with these three exceptionalleaders was worth the extra
(53:14):
time.
Special thanks to our guest,retired US Army Lieutenant
General Charles Cleveland,retired Army Colonel Dave
Maxwell, and, of course, our ownDr Rob Burrell. Look for new
episodes of his researchinitiative in the coming weeks
on our YouTube channel. Youdon't want to miss any of these,
so go to the channel and clickon that subscribe button next
(53:36):
week on at the boundary, ourspecial guest will be Dr Randall
Gentry. He's a principalresearcher with the CNA
Corporation, which operates theUS Navy's Research and
Development Center. He'll bediscussing an upcoming GNSI
decision brief on the actionsneeded to revitalize the current
state of shipbuilding in the US.
We'll publish that decisionbrief later this week. Gentry
(53:58):
will also be speaking at ourupcoming Florida security forum
at Port Tampa Bay in November.
Thanks for listening today. Ifyou like the podcast, please
subscribe and let your friendsand colleagues know. Follow
along with GNSI and our LinkedInand X accounts at USF,
underscore GNSI And check outour website as well at USF,
(54:20):
debt, EDU slash, GNSI. Whileyou're there, don't forget to
subscribe to our monthlynewsletter
that's going to wrap up thisepisode of at the boundary. Each
new episode will feature globaland national security issues we
found to be insightful,intriguing, maybe controversial,
(54:42):
but overall, just worth talkingabout. I'm Jim Cardoso, and
we'll see you at the boundary.
You.
Jim, hello everyone. Welcome to this
(00:12):
week's episode of at theboundary, the podcast from the
global and national securityInstitute at the University of
South Florida. I'm Jim Cardoso,Senior Director for GNSI, and
your host for at the boundary.
Today on the podcast, we'rekicking off the latest research
initiative here at GNSI, thefuture of warfare. GNSI Senior
(00:37):
Research Fellow, Dr Rob Burrell,is one of the world's leading
experts on irregular warfare,resilience and resistance. He
recently published his latestbook titled resilience and
resistance, interdisciplinarylessons in competition,
deterrence and irregularwarfare.
Retired US Army LieutenantGeneral Charles Cleveland,
(00:58):
former commanding general of USArmy Special Operations Command,
and previously, my deployedcommander, wrote the foreword
for that book. He'll be one ofRob's guests today, along with
retired Colonel Dave Maxwell, a30 year Army veteran who
recently served as associatedirector in the School of
Foreign Service at Georgetown,their conversation involves
(01:18):
educating professionals onassessing and planning for
irregular warfare. We'll get tothat in just a moment. On a
related note, Rob will host afireside chat with GNSI non
resident fellow Dr Chris Mason,who created the study of
internal conflict database. Thisevent will be presented in
person at GNSI and over zoom onSeptember 9, at 10am Eastern at
(01:43):
that time, they'll discuss howthey can use predictive
analytics to foretell theoutcome of internal conflict
with 100%accuracy. Needless to say,
That's a bold claim, and Irecommend you register to attend
and check its validity foryourself. We'll post a link in
the show notes. Registrationwill also be opening this week
(02:04):
for the first ever GNSI Floridasecurity forum, scheduled for
November 4. We're hosting theconference in partnership with
port Tampa Bay. As we examineport and maritime security risks
and resilience, we'll bediscussing both physical and
cyber threats, potential futurecritical events and the national
security implications. Keep aneye out for registration
(02:27):
details. Okay, I'll turn it overto Rob Now as we begin our
latest research initiative, thefuture of warfare here on at the
boundary.
So greetings from the Universityof South Florida, where our
motto is truth and wisdom, andthat's just what we're going to
(02:47):
uncover today. Welcome to thefirst installment of the future
of warfare series. This serieswas initiated following the
publication of a new bookentitled resilience and
resistance, which was publishedby Joint Special Operations
University Press. If you'd liketo check it out, you can go to
the show notes, and it's free.
I'm Dr Rob Burrell, the editorof that book, and a senior
research fellow at the globaland national security Institute.
(03:09):
Today we'll we will be talkingto one of the authors in the
book, Colonel Dave Maxwell, andalso with a very prestigious
gentleman who wrote the forward.
Joining us today is LieutenantGeneral Charles T Cleveland in
2003 then Colonel Cleveland wasthe commander of 10th Special
Forces Group, where he led asuccessful us unconventional
(03:31):
warfare campaign in northernIraq. He also served as a
commanding general of US ArmySpecial Operations Command from
2012 to 2015Following his retirement, he was
the senior mentor to the Chiefof Staff the Army's Strategic
Studies Group from 2015 to 2017general Cleveland is a board
member for the new NationalCenter for narrative
intelligence. Is also the authorof a monograph, the American way
(03:54):
of irregular war, as well as anarticle titled maximizing the
potential of American irregularwarfare in strategic
competition. We will bediscussing both of those
publications in today's podcastwith hyperlinks in the show
notes. General Cleveland,welcome to the program, Rob.
Thank you very much. It's goodto be here,
(04:16):
and congratulations on the book.
And I hear it's it's success. Soit's good to see I do think
you're doing important work atthe school. And the the
heartening thing is you're partof what I think is a growing
constellation ofacademic research that's
happening in places that matteraround the country. And so
(04:38):
that's encouraging, because ifwe're going to solve a lot of
these problems, it starts byknowing what the problem is, and
then what are potentialsolutions. And that's got to
come from places where men andwomen are doing deep study on
the subject. SoI appreciate your great work,
and thanks for including me.
Thank you, sir, also joining ustoday.
(05:00):
Is Special Forces Colonelretired David Maxwell. Dave
spent more than 30 years in Asiaas a practitioner, and
specializes in Northeast Asiansecurity affairs in a regular
unconventional warfare andpolitical warfare. He is the
vice president for the Centerfor Asia Pacific strategy and a
senior fellow at the GlobalPeace Foundation, where he
(05:20):
focuses on a free and unifiedKorea. He is a member of the
Board of Directors of theCommittee for Human Rights in
North Korea, and he is theeditor of the small wars journal
with Arizona State University.
He serves on the academic boardsof the nonprofit organization
spirit of America Foundation andthe global soft Foundation, and
is one of the honorary chairs ofthe OSF society. In short, he's
(05:41):
very busy, and he's joining usfrom Korea. Dave, welcome to USF
at the boundary podcast. Thankyou, Rob, and I echo the
General's comments. The workyou're doing is very important,
and I really commend you forshepherding the book from, you
know, from start to finish, andand writing some important works
(06:02):
in that book, and and for reallypushing forward on all thoughts
about irregular warfare,resistance, resilience. And, as
a general said, these areproblems that we really need to
understand, have deepunderstanding of, if we're going
to solve them for our nation. Sothank you. Thanks, Dave. I
appreciate that. And so let'sjust get right into it. I think
(06:25):
we all share the opinion thatirregular warfare and irregular
competition will pose thegreatest threats to US national
security over the next couple ofdecades, and all three of us
have written extensively aboutit. General, you wrote the
American way of irregularwarfare with Rand, which is an
obvious Compendium to Russell.
(06:46):
Russell, widely American way ofwar. Can you briefly describe
what you argue is a peculiarlyAmerican way of addressing
irregular warfare? Confessionsup front, right? I mean, let's
widely book was a textbook atWest Point. You know, it was
issued to me. I think for one ofmy national security classes,
(07:10):
there actually a future Sam'sleader was the my instructor in
that course.
But I have to admit, I was notthe greatest student. I skimmed
it a lot, right? I i purloinedthings that needed to be taken
out for papers that wererequired, but I don't. I didn't
really get into the book, anddidn't do that until later,
(07:32):
when, after retiring, I say, Ihad to look back and say, what,
you know, what did my careerreally consistent, because I
knew was it happened, just byhappenstance, to be at a very
important time, I thought, in inAmerica's history, and certainly
in this development of thisphenomena that is irregular
(07:55):
warfare, right? Widely. Wrotehis book in 73 was printed in 73
I entered the academy in 74 andyou could say that I began my
military career with, really,essentially, when the downfall
of Vietnam, right in April of 75I was still a, you know, about
(08:15):
ready to graduate at, or move upfrom being a plea if I could get
through my First Year. You know,it had a very visible impact on
our instructors. All of themwere Vietnam veterans, all of
them senior captains, youngmajors. They were truly
phenomenal warriors, and hadgiven much of themselves in the
(08:38):
fight in Vietnam and andobviously the fall of Saigon was
had a significant impact onthem, and of course, it had an
impact on us. I don't know if Iknew at the time just how much
of an impact it had. And thenscroll forward, and I have the
great fortune of staying in ourgreat army for 37 years.
(08:58):
And it's at the end of thatcareer that I I'm leaving with,
you know, in Afghanistan, 2015at the time I retired. Here,
we're going on 15 years. Itobviously goes on for more after
that. You know, 20 years Iraq, Isee, you know, this very
(09:18):
unsatisfying solution and end towhat we were doing in Iraq, and
so that, that was my career. Andso what happened between the
start and the endin national security history for
America was deeply rooted, in myview, in irregular warfare, and
frankly, in our unsatisfyingoutcomes in these ventures.
(09:46):
And I wanted to know why. I meanwhat you know, and could I maybe
look at, you know, the historyduring that period, kind of
through my lens, kind ofrefitting the.
What I saw, perhaps, as a young,younger officer, as I moved up
with what I knew later, andtrying to, you know, put it in
(10:08):
context. And that's what theAmerican way of irregular
warfare is about. It's not aboutme. It's really about irregular
warfare as it was taking placein our military history and in
the country's history, from theperiod that, you know, Vietnam
fell and then Iraq andAfghanistan were coming to very
unsatisfying conclusions. Thatwas, that's the background of
(10:32):
the book. What I what I cameaway with, is that we came into
Vietnam with a conventional armythat up to that point, and then
a conventional national securitystructure, mainly because it was
successful, primarily in WarTwo, and arguably semi
(10:55):
successful in the place that youknow Dave is located, right in
Korea. We, I think, kept usingthese approaches, and
increasingly those approachesbecame less and less effective.
And it was actually thebeginnings of a recognition of
that problem, to some degree,when they looked at, you know
(11:18):
this, how do we handle theseKorean partisans in the war, and
then this idea of, well, weought to have something like the
OSS and help maybe harness this,this power, this resistance
power that's manifesting itselfin possible
insurgence that We can useagainst the North Koreans and
(11:42):
the Chinese. And of course, fromthat comes Aaron bank being
called back, and the branchbeing stood up, the Special
Forces branch being stood up. Sothe Special Forces branch, born
of the Cold War, basicallybecomes one of the first changes
to say, hey, what we have inthat in the inventory isn't
(12:04):
working, isn't quite right,right? So,
but I think primarily we wereable to be successful, and
Western countries, for the mostpart, were able to be successful
using blunt force. Until we sawDiem van Phu. We saw the lesson
the French learned there. Wejust said, Well, we in Vietnam,
(12:26):
scroll forward. We had advisoryefforts through 65 it was
primarily a South Vietnamesefight. We were we were
organizing and helping them asbest we could. CIA was doing
great work. Others were doingtheir work. We hadn't committed
huge amounts of conventionalforce. And then, of course, we
(12:46):
introduced in 65 after, youknow, the helms turned over from
an assassinated President toJohnson and and then, I think he
became increasingly reliant onthe traditional tools, and
didn't necessarily believe in,if you will. I think what was a
(13:06):
very indirect approach thatKennedy was proposing against
this new in this new form ofwar. And so we went down that
road, and then 74or 75 Saigon falls, a failed
experiment. In my view,important to note that the men
that led us in that effort werethose men of the greatest
generation, right? The seniorleaders there cut their teeth in
(13:29):
World War Two, right? They wereand so it was. It's it's easy to
see, because even leaders today,you actually ground how you view
the world, you know, it's kindof like that. I, you know, I've
learned everything I need toknow by the time I was in
kindergarten, right? Well, it'skind of the same thing in the
military. In your militarycareer, by the time you make
(13:51):
major you kind of, you're set inyour ways. And I think that's
got implications today, frankly,with some of the ways we're
picking senior leaders, becausethis whole field of irregular
warfare is way under representedat the senior ranks.
So that's why I thought I'd letme, let me see if I can. Might,
(14:16):
you know, maybe help put myfinger on on the problem and
then make some recommendations,you know, come to some
conclusion and make somerecommendations.
You know, could we have donesomething differently? Why
didn't we do somethingdifferently? And
a lot of reasons for that too.
(14:37):
And so I wrote the book, I willsay, just updating the thought
process as we roll intoincreasingly rely on AI that I
worry that conventional warmachinery, which is absolutely
essential and needs to be thebest at, you know, World at War,
fighting against other armies.
(15:00):
90s is going to becomeincreasingly, though
ineffective in these populationcentric fights. And so I think I
worry that, you know, the twoare actually separating and
getting wider and further apart.
Lastly, I would say my whole onelast thing, I know it's long
here, but the last thing is, Ido believe that we, you know,
(15:24):
what's unique aboutthe American way of approaching
these problems is, you know, wewere always the good guys, Dave
and I always, you know, in ourthroughout our careers, when we
went someplace, we didn't gothere
to occupy. We went there tofacilitate and help a host
(15:46):
country solve its own problems.
And I think that's that's veryimportant to note. We're not
extractive, right?
We're here to represent,frankly, the, you know, God's
gift to mankind in terms of away to govern itself that
happens to have embodied itselfin the United States of America,
(16:06):
and we got the chance to bemilitary ambassadors of a sort,
you know, for that, thatgreatest approach to the way we
should sort our affairs as humanbeings on this planet, there are
others who are fighting againstthat approach, and it's ours.
Was a noble cause. And again, Ithink we were always the good
(16:27):
guys in these fights. Thank you,General. Yep, free the
oppressed.
Totally agree. So in yourmonograph, as you lay out the
American way of war, you look atthree options of kind of where
are we going to go from here?
You know, the first one is, arewe going to return to the era
after Vietnam, where we justsay, Yeah, we're never going to
do a regular warfare again? Thenext, the next option you lay
(16:51):
out is that we're going to use awe're going to have a
conventional force, and thenwe're going to modify that force
for a regular conflict if ithappens. And then your third
option is that the US will buildand mature a regular warfare
capability that's professional,world class level, is what you
describe it, and the samecapability that we have for
(17:13):
conventional or nuclearconflict. So where do you think
we're headed? What are thepossibilities here? I think if
the research continues at a paceas it's going on right now, the
effects of that research have tobe in a re viewing and review of
you know, how we approach theseirregular warfare problems,
(17:38):
these and population centricproblems. What I unfortunately,
think is happening is, while thefirst option, well, let's just
wish it away, I think is whatthey would like to have. I mean,
I think if the national if thedefense department had its way,
it would want to give theseirregular warfare problems to
(17:58):
others, whether it's the StateDepartment, CIA,
so that's I think, but we allknow that, unfortunately, they
can't do that. I mean it, thoseproblems will intrude on us to a
degree that we have to usemilitary force, and the military
is going to be a part of any ofthese solutions out there. I do
(18:22):
think that the way things aregoing right now to include
inside the SOCOM community,unfortunately, I think
everybody's running headlongtowards the second option, which
is a conventional force. Youknow, these other fights will do
them when we need toand and we'll just fold spindle
mutilate to create somethingthat's necessary out of the
(18:45):
conventional force, and it'ssupporting SOF, right? But our
focus, rightly so, for theconventional force will be on
the conventional war, fightagainst, you know, primarily our
pacing threat. And then SOF Yourjob is to support that fight.
(19:06):
And I think the mistake we'remaking is we're way over
investing in you know thatwhat's going to be essentially
secondary supporting effortswhen really there's a lot of
work that needs to be done. I'mnot saying those aren't
important, but I wouldn't makethem the primary effort,
unconventional warfarein places, obviously in Taiwan,
(19:28):
others, making that ready. Ithink that's our job, working on
the periphery, working aroundthe globe, though, and trying to
win a new Cold War, right? Andyou know, again, I think we won
the last Cold War to no smalldegree because deterrence held.
(19:51):
But between the interagency, youknow, the State Department, the
IC and special forces inparticular, in our engagements
around the world, and.
Of we basically inflicted defeaton the Soviet Union through a
death of 1000 cuts around theworld. It was a long term
effort. It was long campaigns.
But that's the nature of thesekinds of these kinds of wars.
(20:11):
Which takes me to my third whichis hopefully the research you're
doing and this research that'staking place. And I would ask
Dave to kind of identify theother centers out there that are
actually doing, if you don'tmind, you know the good work,
you know the irregular warfareinitiative. There are just some
tremendously good thingshappening out there. Even the
(20:32):
irregular Warfare Centerthat has stood up, I think, is
starting to get his feetunderneath it and looking at the
problem appropriately.
We never fail at the tacticallevel, though, and the and Dave
and I have talked a lot aboutthis is
when you get when you look atit, our failure is not
(20:56):
necessarily that we don't lack,we lack the tactical tools.
There are new tactical toolsthat probably need to be
developed or reshaped, the onesthat exist.
But what is really missing isirregular warfare capable,
architecture, headquarters, ifyou will, intelligence
(21:17):
approaches above the tacticallove right now, the 911 call
will again go to, if it's got tobe a core level, you know, some
kind of major, sort of majoreffort will go to headquarters
that are built on conventionalwar. And you know, 911 for
everything winds up being 18thairborne for or perhaps a meth
(21:37):
for something else. And whilethey have their place,
they're not necessarily theright tool. For instance, as
they went into Afghanistan, youknow, they brought with them
their conventional war fight.
When the Marines went intoVietnam, they brought in
basically their conventional warfight.
So I hope that, in my view, weget to a point where we
(22:00):
recognize that the third optionis required, and that is, hey,
let's do what America has alwaysdone, let's build the thing that
will actually dominate in thisspace. And I would say that
you can't get there by boldspindling and mutilating the
conventional force that you havefor deterrence.
(22:23):
Thank you, General. Yeah,you mentioned there was a lot of
great work happening out thereat joint social operations
University, irregular WarfareCenter, the irregular warfare
initiative, Naval War Collegehas the Center for irregular
warfare and armed groups. Andthen Arizona State University,
which Dave is intimatelyinvolved with, is also doing
(22:43):
some great work, so it's good tosee the academic
emphasis, and I appreciate youbringing that up, Dave. You, you
similarly have writtenextensively on irregular warfare
for decades now.
You often talk about a triad.
(23:04):
I know you like the power ofthrees, but irregular warfare,
unconventional warfare andpolitical warfare. So I mean,
what are those? Can you explainwhat those three things are and
why that's important for the USto identify and perhaps build
capabilities forWell, yes, thank you. And you
know, first of all,you know all of these terms,
(23:26):
obviously, words have meaning,and they have different meanings
to everybody. And so I'd justlike to caveat up front that we
spend a lot of time ondefinitions. We spend a lot of
time on trying to to frameeverything and develop common
terminology.
And you know, that's important,and it has real impact, I
(23:50):
understand, for the whole dotLPF process, you know, from
doctrine through, you know,training and material and all of
the things that are necessary,you know, ultimately, to funding
and, you know, in in resourcingforces. And so it's important to
have those definitions, but wespend a lot of time arguing
(24:12):
about them. So I look atirregular warfare,
unconventional warfare andpolitical warfare in really
three ways. One, unconventionalwarfare is really the foundation
for Special Forces. It's whatspecial forces was designed to
do. And of course, thedefinition is, you know, to
enable a resistance or aninsurgency to coerce, disrupt or
(24:35):
overthrow an occupying force, anoccupying power or government,
through or with an undergroundauxiliary or a guerrilla force
in a denied area, and that isreally a population centric
focus on enabling a resistance.
(24:56):
And like general, Clevelandsaid, you know, we really exist
to help others.
She mentioned de oppresso liberto free their press. The real
way to talk about that is tohelp others free themselves.
That's really how I like todescribe to de oppresso liber to
help others free themselves. Sounconventional warfare is really
(25:17):
the foundation of specialforces. Irregular warfare is the
broad context that we have beentalking about, and it is really
one of the three forms ofwarfare that we will always
face. Nuclear Warfare, obviouslythe worst case, conventional
warfare, large scale combatoperations, theater level
(25:38):
warfare, conventional warfare,and then irregular warfare. And
of course, irregular warfareconsists of many things, and we
try to define it in many ways,but it really consists of, I
think, unconventional warfare,political warfare. And of
course, the title of your book,resistance and resilience. And
(25:59):
it is population centric, it isthe human domain. And of course,
the military has decided in thistime of now, all domain warfare
to not have a human domain,because humans are on land, and
so humans are part of the landdomain. But as I think General
(26:21):
Cleveland would argue, and and Isupport this, is that we really
do need to focus on the humanelement. You know, the
battlefield of human terrain,and that's six inches between
our between our ears and ourconventional war fighting is
kinetically focused, whereasirregular warfare,
(26:43):
unconventional warfare andpolitical warfare are really
cognitively focused.
You know, we think of of warfareas as politics by other means,
and you know, our adversarieslook at politics is warfare by
other means, and warfare ispolitics by other means to our
(27:06):
adversaries. It is warfare, andwe shouldn't be afraid to call
it that. So irregular warfare ispopulation centric, human
focused, focused on the humandomain, and it encompasses
political warfare. Now,political warfare is, of course,
born out of George Kennan's memoin 1948 his policy planning memo
(27:28):
on the the the beginning ofpolitical warfare, and of
course, basically defined as theuse of all elements of national
power, short of war, to achieveyour objectives. And he
describes it as usingovert information also black
propaganda. It includesalliances, includes economic
(27:50):
warfare, economic coercion,sanctions, and it includes
support to resistance againstour adversaries, creating
dilemmas for our adversaries.
And so political warfare wasreally conducted throughout the
Cold War. As as a general said,deterrence held. We had
(28:12):
deterrence. We fought limitedconventional wars. But really,
political warfare is what wonthe Cold War, and it was using
all elements of national powerto achieve our objectives.
And so I really look at it thisway, irregular warfare is the
(28:33):
military contribution topolitical warfare which should
be waged at the national level.
Our national security apparatusshould be able to conduct
political warfare, particularlyin this environment, against
this axis of authoritarians, theso called Crink China, Russia,
Iran and North Korea. And wereally should focus our ability
(28:55):
to be able to compete againsttheir unrestricted warfare,
their three warfares, their newgeneration warfare, their
unconventional warfare, and evenNorth Korea's unconventional
warfare and political warfarewith Juche idea, Juche
characteristics. So I that isreally how I look at these three
now, irregular warfare,unconventional warfare and
(29:18):
political warfare are reallysupported by another Trinity,
and that Trinity is really thecomparative advantage of in
particular, us, Army, specialoperations forces. And that
Trinity is, number one,influence, the ability to
influence populations. Numbertwo is governance, the ability
(29:40):
to help shape governingfunctions and governance in in
areas that are occupied bytotalitarian regimes, and they
help shape a new form ofgovernance. And then the third,
the real comparative advantageof in particular.
Special Forces is support toindigenous forces and support to
(30:04):
indigenous populations. Andthat's really the comparative
advantage of, again, inparticular Army Special
Operations Forces. But reallyall special operations forces
that have a special warfarefocus, marine Special Operations
Command, MARSOC,you know, some of our seals,
seal platoons and havedemonstrated great capabilities,
(30:26):
but really it's built around thecapabilities of Army Special
Operations, in particular, as Imentioned, Special Forces,
psychological operations andcivil affairs. And so that's how
I look at those, at the Trinity.
Now I just like to say oneother, one other thing on this
(30:48):
line here,and that is, you know, as
General Cleveland said, we havea very powerful conventional
capability. I mean, our, youknow, we're known. Our military
is the best in the world. Wehave the nuclear capability. We
have the conventionalwarfighting capability and the
ability to solve complexmilitary problems, but we need
to solve complex politicalmilitary problems, and to do
(31:11):
that, we need irregular warfarethinking in the military and in
the Department of Defense, andwe need political warfare
thinking in the US government.
And so you ask, what isirregular warfare thinking?
Well, it's thinking about thehuman element in the full
spectrum of competition andconflict, up to and including
(31:32):
conventional and nuclear war. Itincludes, but it's not limited
to all aspects of lawlessness,Subversion, insurgency,
terrorism, political resistance,nonviolent resistance, political
violence, urban operations,stability operations, post
conflict operations, cyber and,of course, operations in the
information environment. And asgeneral Cleveland said, we
(31:56):
really have to think about thestrategic level, the strategic
influence through informationadvantage and information and
influence activities that alsoincludes public diplomacy from
state psychological operations,military information support
operations and Public Affairs.
And all of this is done workingthrough with and by indigenous
forces and populations. Again,conducting irregular warfare,
(32:20):
political warfare, economicwarfare, through allies, through
diplomacy, competitivestatecraft in conflict areas
around the world. So as I said,irregular warfare is the
military contribution topolitical warfare, and political
warfare is the action of thewhole of government in strategic
competition. Dave, you hadmentioned the human human
(32:43):
domain. I was actually at theSOCOM headquarters when we lost
that fight. I was on the frontline in doctrine when we we fell
right on our face. That was adecade ago. And general
Cleveland you, you reignited thefire in 2023 bringing up the
human domain again. So, youknow,
(33:04):
can you tell us? You know, doyou still believe the human
domain needs to be an element?
Why? And maybe, maybe have somethoughts also on what, what Dave
just mentioned. Go ahead, Dave,just, just let me jump in there,
as you were fighting it at SOCOMgeneral Cleveland was really
partnering with the Army and theMarine Corps, you know, as
really a SOCOM guy, as acommander of USF, he was really
(33:26):
pushing it at that point aswell, and you were providing all
the supporting fires for that.
But, you know, we lost thatbattle. And I think that's to,
you know, that's to our nation'sloss. Over to you, General,
yeah. I mean, where to begin onall that? First of all, Dave, I
thought that was a greatrundown, honestly. And
(33:50):
I do think that one of theproblems we have right now, and
Dave alludes to it, is, youknow, what's our what's our
objective here in and you know,you kind of say, what's our
military strategy shooting for?
Right? What are we trying to do?
And what I hear most is thisidea of integrated deterrence,
(34:12):
right?
I personally think that is waytoo defensive, right? We didn't
win the first Cold War. Youknow, deterrence was a part of
it, as we just went to we'vetalked about it, but we set out
to win. We set out to win overan extended time horizon by
really playing our own versionof go, right? I mean, we we
(34:34):
looked at where we gotpositional advantage, we
invested, we and I, and Ithought we did a pretty good job
in that first effort,but it culminated, I think, with
a president that said, No, ourpurpose here really is to win.
And I think given what ouradversaries are really trying to
do globally, we ought also to belooking to.
(35:00):
Win, and winning will take youto needing to ensure that
populations recognize andunderstand the alternative forms
of governance that are availableto them right now. They can do
their own versions of this, but,but I think that, to me, is
important just trying to do aholding pattern inadvertently, I
(35:25):
think, downplays the importanceof these populations, these
indigenous populations aroundthe world. And I think we do
that to ourbasically to our disadvantage
long term. You know, what we cansuffer then is the death of 1000
cuts by their efforts, right?
And so I do think it's importantto one of the things is that we
(35:48):
nationally, have to reframe whatwe're trying to accomplish here
and say, you know, no, ourobjective is, in fact, to win in
this fight. Now, what you cansay is, what is when looking
like? What does winning looklike? And that's a fair
question. I have my own thoughtson that, and it certainly
doesn't involve the CCP runningChina, or, you know, a corrupt
(36:11):
oligarchy running Russia. Butthat's for the Russian and
Chinese people to decide.
On the human domain front.
The idea,and I will say, I think I will
say, I think I was the first oneto actually, you know, kind of
said, Okay, well, what theheck's going on was in 2011
(36:33):
I was in that in between periodwhere I was not in command at
USF sock, and I was at the tailend of my time at
at soccer. And I was invited tobe because the Saxon commander
gets invited to speak at thisbig weapons bazaar that they
have over in Jordan every year.
And so I went over to do my, youknow, fulfill my obligation to
(36:55):
speak at this very tech centricsort of
confab that they hold. It's veryimpressive. I'm, you know, the
king, he does he they did itright. But I'm not a tech guy.
And so I,I basically said in my talk that
I thought what we werewitnessing, and because we were
(37:16):
struggling so much with thesepopulation centric fights, what
we were witnessing was theemergence of what we called,
before Human Terrain, andto actually a domain. And I The
analogy I used was the airdomain. You know where you know,
until the Wright brothers flewan airplane the air domain. I
(37:39):
mean air it always existed. Itjust wasn't consequential to the
success of our militarycampaigns. You know, Billy
Mitchell sinks a Navy ship fromthe air in the interwar period.
And then we end world war twowith the dropping of two very
big bombs on Japan and air powercouple years later, what emerges
(38:01):
as its own service, and in theprocess, basically that's a
declaration that isn't it is, infact, its own domain. Why?
Because if we don't dominatethere, or at least control it,
to to the manner, to the to thelevel we need to for our
campaign to be successful, ourcampaigns are at risk. So this
is not out of, we're not doingthis out of, you know, some
(38:24):
desire to just apply technology.
We're doing this because youhave to do it in order to win.
And I would submit to you,that's the same problem that you
have with the human domain. Thedomain model, as it sits right
now does not adequately addresswhat Dave was talking about,
(38:45):
which is, you know, this humandesire to oppose oppression and
tyranny, this human, very humandesire to have a future that's
better For your kids than theircurrent situation, this human
desire to be able to, you know,feel free to actually pursue the
(39:07):
things that they want to pursue.
Those are very basic, and theyare at the core of how we
actually engage and can use, youknow, I used to manipulate the
human and my very good friendfrom Notre Dame University,
who's a said, No, you know, wereally can you just use
influence, not manipulate? Isaid, Okay, well, sometimes we
(39:29):
influence, sometimes wemanipulate, but the bottom line
is that's a whole different setof skills. And I would say that,
you know, the human domain,then, has gone through various
forms here when I got to USA,sock very early on,
thanks to the great work byBennett Sakala at SWIC, where he
(39:52):
got the army to actually say, wewill let you write at p3 05,
which.
Like all the doctrine guys willtell them, you know, they'll,
they'll cuss at me here forsaying this. But up to that
point, we really, we wereauthorized to write field
manuals about how we did ourbusiness, right? And so in the
(40:13):
process, you could read abouthow I did my business and hit
with and how, then it could beapplied, maybe in your business,
if you're a division commanderor so forth.
What ATP 305 actually allowed usto do is write about the the the
phenomena that is specialoperations and how it
(40:36):
contributes to nationalsecurity. And in the process of
doing that. That's where you sawus take apart the business of
special operations and say,well, it really consists of two
parts, right? It really is thehyper conventional raid, right?
Which is where you and I, I talkabout is treating, how you treat
(40:58):
uncertainty. And these two,these two types of soft one is
you basically try to remove asmuch uncertainty as possible,
and then you act for speed andfor surprise, right? Mcravens
formula, right? Very, it'sbrilliant. It's exactly what
that form of Special Operationsis about. It is it makes it
(41:19):
special because of the, youknow, the technologies, the the
operators, the level oftraining, the planning, so
forth, right?
But that's solving and reducingrisk from out, from without this
other form of Special Operationshas to actually go into the
(41:39):
middle of the problem to evenknow what the problem really is,
right? Because you don't know inthis human situation. You know
you have to be there to solveit, and primarily solve it at
the local level, from the insideout. And so you handle risk by
saying, I'm building an element,an element that can actually
(42:01):
survive and not distort theenvironment that I put them in
and out of that comes a 12 maneight attachment that's got a
medic and a combo guy and anengineer and so forth. Brilliant
concept, right? I know you know,making it a 16 man element, or
whatever I think you're I thinkyou're tinkering with the Bible,
if you ask me, when you ask me,when you start doing that,
(42:23):
right? So, but that was and sowhen I came into USF sock
and we took apart specialoperations, and we tried to
describe how then we supportnational security through that
which is in the documents aresoft 2022
and our soft 2220 22 part twoand our soft next. Those
(42:46):
documents basically lay out,really, the intellectual work by
a very talented group ofofficers that cycled into USF
headquarters from all of thetribes to try to describe
intellectually what it was wewere doing, and we captured that
in ADP, 305, and in there wesaid, we're about the human
(43:06):
domain. Psycholic pushed thebutton on getting that thing
staffed. And I would say, withintwo days, the Marine Corps came
up with a hard non concur. Why?
Because in one sentence in thedocument in lowercase letters,
we said human domainand and they were not coming off
of that position. Now, in themeantime, we're working to try
(43:30):
to get them off that position,Admiral McRaven and General
Odierno. They get General Amosto sign a letter that I think is
still unique in the annals ofmilitary history, which is this
clash of wills document. Andagain, I would say people should
take a look at that. And inthere they talk about this human
(43:50):
domain, this idea.
Scroll forward. I'm near the endof my time. The multi domain
operations, businesses coming onboard. We've, you know, we're,
we've lost the fight with theMarine Corps. They're not going
to recognize the domain and andso we, we basically are left
(44:13):
with, okay, you know, what's thebest of a bad situation here?
And they come up with the jointconcept for integrated
campaigning, after a joint compsconcept for military or for
human activities, impact tohuman activities on military
affairs. I don't know, jehaimo,I think was the name of it
(44:35):
anyway. That was basically acompromise to the strategic land
power task force was stood up totry to say, Hey,
what is this about? You know,this, this human thing, and how
it fits. They came up with theseartful ways to get around the
fact that we didn't want to do,do a domain, but at the at the
(44:55):
end of the day,there will be a human domain,
right?
Because I go back to why a humanwhy a domain exists. It exists
because you have to buildcapability for it in order to be
successful. And as I said, AIand the way technology is
pushing conventional forces, itis, it is be creating a larger
(45:18):
and larger gap with what'srequired for the military
irregular warfare, as Dave said,the military's contribution to
political warfare. And so that'sa long way around the barn, but
that's, you know, the humandomain is as a concept, you
know, the you know, again, ithit at the wrong time, right? We
(45:39):
had the Chairman of the JointChiefs saying, Hey, we're going
to make cyber a domain. So cybercame on as a domain. There was a
great article, I think it'ssmall wars journal, or, I don't
know, Dave might remember this,where somebody had said, you
know, I predict was when one ofthe prediction articles, I
predict that next year, they'regoing to merge the human domain
and the cyber domain. That thatwas, I think, somewhat
(46:02):
prescient. That may be wheresome of this is going, I don't
know.
And then we, of course, shortlyafter that, we get a new
president, and he says, okay,space is important. Space
becomes its own domain. SpaceForce is created. And of course,
the services are contributing tostand up all these things. And
to them, it's a zero sum game.
So any mention from a lowlythree star down there that a,
(46:27):
you know, we ought to have ahuman domain,
was met with some pretty stiffresistance, right? So, you know,
again, I stand by the wholeidea. I think that, you know,
it's Dave often quotes theTrotsky thing. You know, you may
not be interested in the humandomain, but the human domain is
(46:48):
going to be interested in you,right? So my prediction is that
all this good work that you guysare doing with research, I hope,
brings about, you know, theright kind of change. And you
don't have to call it humandomain. You can call it
whatever, but it's justrecognition, as Dave said about
population centric combat, war,manipulation of them and
(47:10):
influencing and get puttingpeople on side, and frankly,
doing it, as I said at the verybeginning, from a position where
we have the superior message,you know, on what we represent.
So anyway, that's a greatexplanation. I really loved your
analogy with with air power. Itreally, really makes it
(47:34):
visible. I think to mostlisteners,
this has really been a great andinsightful conversation on
irregular warfare andcompetition as well. One last
chance to advocate for how theUnited States can best prepare
for the future of warfare. Whatis the number one priority
Congress and the DoD couldaddress over the next five
(47:56):
years? I'll give a chance toboth of you to answer that.
Dave, you first.
Well, I would like to see arealization of the nun Cohen
amendment to Goldwater Nicholsand what we, you know, we got it
half right. We established usSOCOM, a unified command, which
(48:17):
has done tremendous things forfor special operations, you
know, particularly in theorganized train and equip
title 10 functions. And it was,it was on a path, I think, to
really develop, and it hasdeveloped a world class special
operations capability. But upuntil 911 it was really doing
some, some great things with itsservice, like functions. But
(48:41):
what none Senator Nunn andSenator Cohen envisioned was
somebody to own low intensityconflict. We've had many names
for it at the time, and lowintensity conflict still exists.
You know, later we called itmilitary operations other than
war. We've had all of thesethings. And of course, today,
we're really talking aboutirregular warfare. And so we
need a capability for irregularwarfare. And I would like to see
(49:07):
the evolution of nun Cohen andGoldwater Nichols to where we
give responsibility to irregularwarfare to someone or some
organization. Now I always ask,Who is the champion for
irregular warfare today. Who?
Where is that champion? Youknow, in World War Two, where we
come from, our heritage, OSS thechampion was General Donovan and
(49:28):
President Roosevelt. You know,the champions for for special
operations after desert, one,you know, became Senator Nunn
and Senator Cohen. And they gaveus, you know, us SOCOM, but we
never really pinned the rose onirregular warfare. And nobody
has really picked up the mantlefor irregular warfare. And so
(49:50):
Congress, I think, would dowell. And they, I think they've
tried. That's why we have anirregular Warfare Center. They,
you know, there's been.
Fits and starts. We have anirregular Warfare Center,
really, at the behest ofCongress, but we really need a
national level capability,really that general Cleveland
outlined in his monograph on theAmerican way of irregular war.
(50:14):
And we have to have thatnational capability to prosecute
irregular warfare on behalf ofus, national security
objectives.
Thank you, Dave. Appreciatethat. General you get the last
word here. What's, what's thenumber one priority Congress in
the DoD need to address over thenext five years?
Well, first of all, I think Daveis 100% right. We got it. I
(50:40):
think the intent was right, butexecution was half right. You
know,I think that Congress should
look at creating an organizationthat can provide that national
level, world class capability inthis space, it resides in a
whole bunch of different places.
(51:03):
Again, the failings are largelynot at the tactical level,
although you know, accruing theright kind of tactical assets
for these what would be theirregular warfare or political
warfare campaigns that you havethat you would execute and and
put together around the world,would require tapping into that.
It's really this ability abovethem, above the tactical to
(51:27):
actually develop and prosecuteliterate irregular warfare
campaigns, literate politicalwarfare strategies. And I think
Congress needs to set aboutdoing that, recognizing that
none Cohenis only going to be partially
right. I mean, it addressed theDoD part. We all know that
(51:49):
irregular warfare has largecivilian pieces to it. I'm an
advocate for a new OSS, if youwill, a rebirth of that. But
again, I think that theobjective should be standing up
a world class capability todominate in the human domain.
(52:12):
Excellent, excellent. Well, youand Dave agree on that, and me
too. So asa world war two historian, I
really love the OSS and itslegacy, and I think we could
still know some great lessons.
So okay, listeners, that's allthe time we have today.
Unfortunately, thank you so muchfor joining us. For those who
would like to see the resilienceand resistance book or general
(52:32):
Cleveland's publications, pleasetake a look at the show notes.
Also stay tuned for the rest ofour series on the future of
warfare. Our next event willtake place on nine September as
I conduct a live interview withDr Chris Mason and discuss the
study of internal conflict,there are research opportunities
on irregular warfare, and we arebringing those to the University
(52:53):
of South Florida. There will bea link in to this special event
on nine September in the shownotes as well, mark your
calendars and Go Bulls.
Today's episode went a littlelonger than usual, but we
thought kicking off the futureof warfare research initiative
with these three exceptionalleaders was worth the extra
(53:14):
time.
Special thanks to our guest,retired US Army Lieutenant
General Charles Cleveland,retired Army Colonel Dave
Maxwell, and, of course, our ownDr Rob Burrell. Look for new
episodes of his researchinitiative in the coming weeks
on our YouTube channel. Youdon't want to miss any of these,
so go to the channel and clickon that subscribe button next
(53:36):
week on at the boundary, ourspecial guest will be Dr Randall
Gentry. He's a principalresearcher with the CNA
Corporation, which operates theUS Navy's Research and
Development Center. He'll bediscussing an upcoming GNSI
decision brief on the actionsneeded to revitalize the current
state of shipbuilding in the US.
We'll publish that decisionbrief later this week. Gentry
(53:58):
will also be speaking at ourupcoming Florida security forum
at Port Tampa Bay in November.
Thanks for listening today. Ifyou like the podcast, please
subscribe and let your friendsand colleagues know. Follow
along with GNSI and our LinkedInand X accounts at USF,
underscore GNSI And check outour website as well at USF,
(54:20):
debt, EDU slash, GNSI. Whileyou're there, don't forget to
subscribe to our monthlynewsletter
that's going to wrap up thisepisode of at the boundary. Each
new episode will feature globaland national security issues we
found to be insightful,intriguing, maybe controversial,
(54:42):
but overall, just worth talkingabout. I'm Jim Cardoso, and
we'll see you at the boundary.
You.
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