July 28, 2025 • 36 mins
Text the ATB Team! We'd love to hear from you!
In this episode of the “At the Boundary” podcast, GNSI’s Jim Cardoso speaks with Dr. Rob Burrell, Senior Research Fellow at the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, about GNSI’s new research initiative on the Future of Warfare. Dr. Burrell also introduces his upcoming book, Resilience and Resistance, and outlines a fresh analytical framework for understanding irregular warfare in the 21st century.
The conversation explores how resistance movements evolve—from nonviolent protest to full-scale civil war—and how emerging technologies like AI and cyber tools are reshaping the battlespace. Burrell also previews future episodes in this new podcast series, featuring leading experts such as General Charles Cleveland and Dr. Chris Mason.
Whether you’re a defense strategist, policymaker, or curious listener, this episode offers critical insights on how the U.S. must prepare for an era of complex, unconventional conflict.
Links from the episode:
• 2025 Notes from Cambridge Blog
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.
A "boundary" is a place, either literal or figurative, where two forces exist in close proximity to each other. Sometimes that boundary is in a state of harmony. More often than not, that boundary has a bit of chaos baked in. The Global and National Security Institute will live on the boundary of security policy and technology and that's where this podcast will focus.
The mission of GNSI is to provide actionable solutions to 21st-century security challenges for decision-makers at the local, state, national and global levels. We hope you enjoy At the Boundary.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jim Cardoso (00:00):
Jim, hello everyone. Welcome to this week's
(00:14):
episode of at the boundary, thepodcast from the global and
national security Institute atthe University of South Florida.
I'm Jim Cardoso, Senior Directorfor genocide, and your host for
at the boundary. Today on theshow, we're excited to announce
the newest GNSI researchinitiative on the future of
(00:34):
warfare. Our guest today will beGNSI Senior Research Fellow, Dr
Rob Burrell, who's leading theinitiative, he'll be using his
extensive experience in theconcept of resilience and
resistance to create a roadmapfor what future global conflict
will look like. He'll be joiningus in just a minute. Couple
quick notes. First, the latestpost from our notes from
(00:56):
Cambridge student blog is now onour website. We sent two USF
students, Kyle Rudd and mayBurch across the pond for the
summer to study at the worldrenowned Cambridge International
Security and IntelligenceProgram. This week, Mae writes
about connecting with USFPresident Ray law while in the
UK, as well as other greatexperiences she and Kyle are
(01:17):
having. We'll drop a link totheir blog in the show notes
too. By the way, we do plan tosend students to isI every
summer. USF students startbuilding your resume for next
year's application. We also needexternal support, so if it's
something you'd like to helpsponsor, drop us a note. We'd
love to have a conversation withyou. We're also looking forward
(01:39):
to cyber Bay 2025, as USF newBellini College of artificial
intelligence, cybersecurity andcomputing, is working with cyber
Florida, Bellini capital and theUSF Institute for ai plus X to
build one of the premiercybersecurity and AI events in
the country. GNSI is partneringto put together the national
(02:01):
security segment for theconference. It's slated for
October 13 through 15th indowntown Tampa, and a
registration link is in the shownotes. GNSI is also partnering
with one of the country'sleading national security
institutions to organize afollow on event right here on
the USF campus on October 16.
We'll have the officialannouncement and details in near
future. So stay tuned. Allright, let's bring on Dr Rob
(02:25):
Burrell, GNSI, Senior ResearchFellow and one of the world's
foremost authorities onirregular warfare concepts of
resilience and resistance. Healso holds a fellowship in the
prestigious irregular warfareinitiative, and is on the
doorstep of publishing hislatest book, resilience and
resistance, interdisciplinarylessons in competition,
(02:47):
deterrence and irregularwarfare. Rob, welcome back to
the podcast. Thank you. I'm gladto be here. So it's been a few
months since we previously spokeon at the boundary and beyond
finalizing the book and gettingthe future of warfare initiative
going. What else have you beenworking on?
Dr. Rob Burrell (03:04):
Well, last month, we brought on the study
of internal conflict from theArmy War College to USF. This
offers a huge opportunity forresearch about illegal warfare
for USF students. Andadditionally, we brought on
alumni, Dr Chris Mason from thefrom the War College as a senior
non resident fellow. So thisresearch program has sparked a
(03:26):
lot of interest already from USFstudents, but also some students
outside of USF who've contactedboth of us. Chris and I
published recently an article oncivil war in Myanmar, and we use
the study of internal conflictsfive factor analysis to
determine if the Myanmargovernment could win. And that
article was published by thenational interest. So the study
(03:49):
of internal conflict in its 50case studies has a lot of
promise going forward. It'sexciting stuff.
Jim Cardoso (03:54):
Yeah, I saw that.
And the Myanmar article that youwrote as well, I found that
really interesting, discussingthe critical, critical rare
earth elements there that areexisting there, and some of the
political nuances that go withtrying to have access to them.
Dr. Rob Burrell (04:11):
That's That's right. So you know, the catch
and resistance is importantbecause of the international
implications of rare earths.
Unfortunately, to getinternational attention,
sometimes you have to havesomething in the bag, right? So
that's what they have in thebag. Yes,
Jim Cardoso (04:25):
they do. And we'll be talking about rare earths
more in GNSI as we look at ourtechnology policy boundary, type
of type of research, andobviously rare earths play a big
role in that. In this podcast,though, we are introducing a new
GNSI initiative on the future ofwarfare, and you're leading that
effort. Tell us about it.
Dr. Rob Burrell (04:44):
Sure. Well, I'm really excited about the future
warfare series. Theinspirational event driving the
series is the release of my newbook, which you talked about
resilience and resistance. Thisbook presents an entirely new
lens to utilize for the study oftomorrow's come. Conflict. To
inform this series, I'm bringingin the best war fighters and
academics to discuss how warfareis changing and how the United
(05:07):
States can prepare for that. Inthe first episode, I'll
interview General CharlesCleveland, in my opinion, the
greatest American general toever prosecute unconventional
warfare. He performed remarkablyin Afghanistan and Iraq. I also
want to talk to Colonel DaveMaxwell about the Pacific
Theater in particular. DaveMaxwell is an expert on North
(05:28):
Korea. The second episode is avirtual live cast with Dr Chris
Mason. I mentioned him earlierabout the study of internal
conflict. Mason is the scholarwho developed the study of
internal conflict. So we'regoing to talk about this study
virtually with a globalaudience. Mason is going to
(05:49):
examine how scholars andpractitioners can leverage this
study for predictive analysis indetermining the outcomes of
ongoing civil wars andinsurgencies. I'm really excited
about the third episode with mylifelong mentor, historian, Dr
Craig Simons. Simons has writtenover 20 books on warfare. His
(06:10):
latest is a history of AdmiralChester Nimitz in World War Two,
and we plan to discuss thePacific War and then what
lessons the Pacific War offersfor future conflict, perhaps
with China. In the fourthepisode, I'll meet with Colonel
Brian Pettit and talk about avery popular topic in special
operation circles, theresistance operating concept.
(06:32):
This is a strategy of the nationstate organizing resistance to
occupation prior to conflicteven happening. It's a radical
idea which has caught hold inseveral countries, including the
Baltic. Then in the fifthepisode, I'll interview Dr Chris
Marsh, who teaches irregularwarfare with National Defense
University at Fort Bragg, NorthCarolina. We're going to discuss
(06:56):
Russia and its specialoperations forces, as well as
Russia's irregular strategiesutilizing conflict recently,
particularly in Ukraine, and inthe last episode, I'll meet with
Dr Namrata Goswami from JohnHopkins University to talk about
artificial intelligence, cyberand space and how special
operations can leverage these infuture conflict. Dr Goswami is
(07:18):
one of the leading experts inthese types of technologies. And
I think that discussion is goingto be out of this world.
Jim Cardoso (07:25):
Is there any like strategy pursued to bring these
type I mean, it's a wide varietyof speakers. You have some
longtime practitioners, you havesome academics, you have some
that are right at that, youknow, doing that, that advanced
technology and application toit. It's a pretty broad
spectrum. Are they just, arethey people you knew, or is a
combination of people you knewand just some of the eminent
(07:46):
experts in the field, or
Dr. Rob Burrell (07:47):
what? Yeah. So working at Special Operations
Command at the University forfour years, I brought on into my
curriculum a lot of academicsand practitioners on certain
topics, to give exposure to thestudents, to all those different
(08:09):
all those different fields also,you know, the the position I
held as an assistant professorat the University was
specifically aninterdisciplinary scholar, so I
couldn't just rely on history,and so I had to build a
curriculum that had all thosedifferent facets in it,
engineering. It had diplomacy,and it had, you know, the
(08:32):
practice, the practitioner,which is really good for special
operation students, because yougot to be able to translate, you
know, what's an academic topicinto actual, real world
practice, right? And so I liketo have practitioners, you know,
I had every, every single one ofthese, these folks that are part
of the book that I just wrotein, that are part of the series
(08:54):
I worked with in instructing aregular warfare with Special
Operations students.
Jim Cardoso (09:00):
Yeah, I worked for general Cleveland in Iraq in
2009 he was my direct boss whileduring my deployed time over
there. And, yeah, I would, Iwould agree with you. I mean, I
think very highly the man, andreally enjoyed working for him.
And he's, he knew his stuff whenit came to, you know, special
the Special Forces world,irregular warfare,
(09:21):
unconventional warfare, thosetypes of, those types of errors.
He was definitely had thatexpertise. How did you? How did
you, How'd you meet how'd youget to know him? Well, to Jay
Sal, or that
Dr. Rob Burrell (09:31):
I started on my journey with a regular warfare
and unconventional warfare whileI was the doctor in chief at
SOCOM. So 2011 through 14 isreally when I created my, my,
my, my human network on thetopic. And then later, when I
taught at JSO, I asked generalCleveland to come speak when I
(09:51):
when I taught on conventionalwarfare, you know, as kind of a
capstone speaker to come and geta. Questions from the students,
or talk talk about Task ForceViking, which was the largest
unconventional warfare campaignever, ever conducted by the
United States, over 50 odas. Soit was huge, huge, you know,
(10:12):
mobilized 50,000 Peshmerga tofight against Saddam Hussein. So
he participated in all those forfree. And you know, I'm very
grateful for that.
Jim Cardoso (10:23):
Yeah, okay, yeah, that's fantastic. So let's you
talk. You mentioned the book, solet's turn to the book now, the
book on resilience andresistance. So why did you write
it?
Dr. Rob Burrell (10:34):
I would like I said, I was working at at J Sal
Joint Special OperationsUniversity, and in 2021 the
House resolution on theconsortium to study irregular
warfare came out so Congressspecifically identified the need
for the DOD to educate onirregular warfare. This came
about after two decades of warin the Middle East, and in
(10:55):
recognition that the DoD hadmade some mistakes, both in Iraq
and Afghanistan, I taughtirregular warfare,
unconventional warfare andcounter terrorism at Joint
Special Operations University.
So I understood where Congresswas coming from. There wasn't a
single textbook in the DoD or inacademia, for that matter, on
teaching and learning irregularwarfare. This isn't the first
(11:18):
time I had, you know, seen thishappen. So when I was at the
Naval Academy and I taughtMarine Corps history in 2003 and
2004 there wasn't a textbook onMarine Corps history, believe it
or not, you know that you coulduse it as a textbook in a class.
So in 2003 I wrote one calledcrucibles, selected readings in
(11:38):
US Marine Corps history. So twodecades later, I decided the
best way to get after a regularwarfare education was to do the
same thing, write a book. Andthat's what I did.
Jim Cardoso (11:50):
Well, I also read, you know, in as I was getting
ready for this podcast, that youwere either an author or you
were behind the writing of jointpub three, dash your 5.1
switches on a regular warfare. Ididn't, I didn't realize that
until unconventional warfare,yeah, until just just prior to
this podcast, I realized we hadthis that's that type of
(12:11):
capability.
Dr. Rob Burrell (12:12):
It's a whole it's a whole story there. But
yes, I was able to bring a thefirst joint doctoral pub on
unconventional warfare into theDOD. Well,
Jim Cardoso (12:20):
I spent most of my time in the joint world during
my time in the Air Force, so Iwas very familiar with the joint
pubs. And, yeah, I alwayswondered who were the people
behind writing those things. Andnow I am sitting across the
table from one. That's right.
Very exciting. Good times.
Exactly, you talked about someof the practitioners, the
eminent practitioners andscholars that help you write
this book. Could you tell us alittle bit more about
Dr. Rob Burrell (12:41):
them? Sure.
Well, irregular warfare,deterrence and competition are
the three areas covered in thisbook, and that's a lot of
material to explain, and wewanted the lessons to be
interdisciplinary, so the bookis broken down into chapters on
military science, politicalscience, international
relations, sociology, historyand engineering. So there's a
(13:05):
mix of academics andpractitioners throughout the
book, and that was purposefullydone. We wanted to ensure that
every lesson had practicalapplication. And this is not
just knowledge presented for thesake of learning, but in
utilizing in conflict. So thebreakdown by subject in the
book, about 40% is appliedscience of irregular warfare.
(13:26):
Then we pretty much cover whatthe what the DoD calls the four
plus one. So that's the fourprimary adversaries of the
United States, which are China,Russia, Iran and North Korea.
And then the plus one stands forviolent extremist organizations.
So to get at all those topics,we have authors from the US,
Army, the Navy, the MarineCorps, National Defense
(13:48):
University, from the Universityof South Florida, from the State
Department, from NATO, fromSpecial Operations Command, and
from Johns Hopkins. And then totop the cake, the forward is
written by Lieutenant GeneralCharles Cleveland. This book
really does have an all starcast, and it tackles education
on a regular warfare like it'snever been done before.
Jim Cardoso (14:10):
Like you said, the first, really, the first of its
kind, it really does
Dr. Rob Burrell (14:13):
is, yeah, there is no, there's no textbook on a
regular warfare, hmm,
Jim Cardoso (14:16):
okay, so, I mean, I definitely and when? When does
it come out? It comes out soon,
Dr. Rob Burrell (14:23):
but it should be, it should be out when this
podcast is released. Oh, that
Jim Cardoso (14:28):
soon. Okay, all right, excellent. Well, that's
good. Well, we can, maybe we canlink some in the show notes,
potentially they help peoplefind it really quickly. So
talking about the book, let thefirst article, it talks about
the resilience and resistancemodel, and it really establishes
the framework for the entirebook and LA, and really informs
(14:49):
a lot of your research on thefuture of warfare as well. So I
think it's, it's worth spending,you know, a few minutes diving
into that a bit, you know, firstbaseline, I would think a lot of
people. To this podcast, mayhear resilience and resistance,
not sure exactly what that is.
Could you go and explain to uswhat that means?
Dr. Rob Burrell (15:08):
Yeah, so irregular warfare can sometimes
comprise a sub component ofstate on state conflict. So you
know, World War Two, there's aregular warfare happening, but
it normally occurs within asingle state. So the two forces
in the state at work againsteach other comprise the
resiliency of the currentgovernment and its institutions,
(15:29):
combating against resistanceelements who who desire change,
right? So this yin and yang ofresistance and resilience
pulling on each other todetermine the nature of future
governance. It occurs withinevery state. Every state has
resilience, resiliencyinstitutions and actors, and
(15:50):
every state has resistance tothem. Sometimes resistance
results in public demonstrationsor protests, something
nonviolent, and sometimes itemerges in political violence.
Intrastate conflict has explodedsince the end of World War Two.
So in 1946 there were about 18countries with rebellions and
(16:10):
insurgencies. In 2024 there's60. That's about a third of all
nations. So in addition to thegrowing trend in interstate
conflict, external nations haveincreasingly become involved in
trying to shape the outcome ofthese civil wars. That
phenomenon is calledinternationalized intrastate
conflict. Of the 60 nationscurrently battling internal
(16:34):
violence, about 40% areinternationalized. So these some
examples you know that mostpeople are familiar with because
of recent events, Sudan, Libya,Yemen, these are all
internationalized examples ofinterstate conflict. So when you
compare the frequency ofintrastate conflict with state
(16:57):
on state conflict, how manystate on state. Conflicts are
happening right now.
Unknown (17:05):
Just one, right? I mean, the main one you think
about, what is Russia, Ukraine,
Dr. Rob Burrell (17:10):
Ukraine and Russia? Right on state? Yeah.
Now, even though intrastateconflict is the new norm, it's
happening with increasedfrequency. The US, Department of
Defense and its state departmentare predispositioned to address
state on state conflict. I mean,that's what they focus on.
That's their bread and butter.
Today, the Army, Navy, Air Forceand Marine Corps are all
(17:32):
preparing for conventional warin the Pacific with China,
right? Yeah. So in a new era ofthis multi polar world, the
future world, or world order,will likely be determined in
these internationalizedinterstate conflict, not in a
world war three, which probablywon't happen. So, so this is
what my book addresses. Youknow, it's how the US government
(17:55):
and its military can understandinterstate conflict across a
spectrum of non violentresistance through civil war,
and how can the US governmentsupport partners, both state and
non state actors, to achieve USforeign policy objectives? You
know, the subtitle of the booksays lessons in deterrence,
competition or regular warfare,because those are the primary
(18:17):
battlegrounds in which we willlikely win or lose, not in
conventional
Jim Cardoso (18:24):
war, the model specifies for components or
nodes, basically to helpscholars practitioners
understand the dynamics ofchange occurring within the
context of interstate conflict.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthese nodes?
Dr. Rob Burrell (18:38):
Sure, so the first scholar to recognize and
dry out these types of nodes wasGordon McCormick, and he wrote
about the Shining Path ofinsurgency in Peru in the 1970s
I adapted McCormick's work todemonstrate that those four
nodes are part of all interstateconflict, including nonviolent
resistance, and not justinsurgencies. So I broadened the
(19:00):
mark the model to encompass allresilience and resistance
activities. The two nodesopposing one another include the
resistance node on one side ofthe model and then the
resilience node on the otherside. The resistance node
desires institutional change.
The resilience node wants tomaintain the status quo,
maintain the status quo. So nowthe two other nodes include the
(19:22):
domestic population, which bothresilience and resistance are
trying to influence and pull intheir direction. And then the
international audience, youknow, an international sponsor,
you know, in is the ones we lookat mostly are states. But it
doesn't have to be a state. Itcan be the diaspora, or it could
be illicit organizations,religious organizations. In
(19:44):
fact, the pope just recentlyintervened in Syria, right? So
he's taking a stand for theDruze in Syria. It could be
corporations. Corporations areinvolved in many interstate
conflicts, particularly inAfrica. Yeah. So within this
framework, a very dynamicinteraction is taking between
all four nodes of resilience,resistance, the domestic
(20:06):
population and the internationalaudience. Each of the nodes has
has agency, and all areattempting to determine the
future of the state.
Jim Cardoso (20:17):
And this framework it I mean, I think sometimes you
can think of this in terms of,okay, this is what's happening
in some type of active conflict.
But this, this may not be anactive conflict. I mean, these
types of, this resiliency,resistance, this yin and yang,
as you talked about, and thefour nodes, these are happening
around the world in multiple,multiple locations, at all
(20:41):
times, impacted by states, nonstates, industry, all sorts of
different actors as well,
Dr. Rob Burrell (20:50):
100% so like you know, whenever I start
talking about these models, mostAmericans will stop and ask me,
have you done This for UnitedStates? And I say, No, I don't
do domestic stuff. But, youknow, I could. I mean, I I
can't. Every time somethinghappens United States, of
course, as an academic, I'mlooking at it, but I'm not
(21:11):
writing about it. In fact, whenI was in I went to NATO to do a
discussion about some of mytypologies, and discussing it at
the NATO Special Special Forcesschool. And when I was talking
about the nonviolent aspects ofresistance versus resilience,
(21:33):
all these weird I got all theseweird, you know, facial things
like, oh, that doesn't happenwith us. I was, like, a million
people just protested in Parisyesterday. You weren't paying
attention. Yeah, that's yourthat's your ally, that's your
partner. So you should, youshould be paying attention to
resistance, not just in thosethat you want to support the
resistance to, but in stateswhere you might want to subvert
(21:54):
the resistance and help yourhelp your partner be successful.
Yeah,
Jim Cardoso (21:57):
there's lessons learned. It doesn't mean that
the state is in the verge ofcollapse, but there's lessons to
be learned from that. And nowI'm, you know, it's hard not to
look it's, it's no secret thatit's, it's a politically dynamic
time in the United States rightnow. So, I mean, you can sit
back and you can take some ofthese models, and you know, if
you especially, I wouldrecommend everybody look at the
book as you get the book, lookat the book, and you can see
(22:17):
these models, and you can kindof see things that are happening
right now, of course, that that,you know, there is, there's a
there's a resilience, there's aresistance mode, there's a
puppy, you know, all these, allthese things are happening in
the US. I think it's wise thatyou stay away from them, from
projecting them too much as asan academic. But, I mean,
mentally, go for it. Yeah,absolutely. But I think it's
interesting is, as we do thingsat GNSI, as you put this book
(22:39):
out, so that people canunderstand this model and how to
apply it. I mean, you should beable to apply it to situations
across the world and even, andeven here in continent United
States,
Dr. Rob Burrell (22:49):
it's happening all around us. One of the, one
of the lessons I would teachspecial forces folks before they
went down range was, don't justcount the AK 40 sevens. Look at
the graffiti.
Jim Cardoso (23:00):
Yeah, yep. No, that's, that's great. So you
touch on the you also touch onthe resistance continuum as a
way to provide, you know, scaleto the level of protests against
the government. Can you talkabout that, and maybe pride some
examples, so that, you know,people can hear this,
understand. Oh, okay, yeah, Iget what he's talking about.
Dr. Rob Burrell (23:18):
Sure. Well, resistance comes in many forms.
Each resistance movement isunique. However, there are
commonalities in resistancewhich can be used to categorize
their general nature.
Additionally, the methods ofresistance movement utilize has
implications in internationallaw, so these typologies have
legal significance. JohnCosgrove and Aaron Hahn, both
(23:41):
lawyers from Johns Hopkins,first introduced these terms
about seven years ago with us,Army Special Operations Command.
So the five types of resist,resistance typologies describe
how these organizations resist,either through nonviolent but
legal means. That's one type, orthrough illegal means, but which
(24:03):
cause no harm to other humans,that's another type, or through
the use of limited violence orrebellion, or through a well
developed insurgency, or in anall out Civil War. I'll provide
some examples of each so mostpeople would recognize Martin
Luther King Jr's movement asusing non violent but primarily
(24:24):
legal means of resistance, likedemonstrations. Now, violence
could erupt from a peacefulprotest, but mlks activists were
extremely disciplined andaccepted the brutality of the
state's response withoutresponding in kind. King
expected this. This was this wasdesired for him, yeah, and
through the medium oftelevision, his move, his
(24:47):
movement, achieved empathy fromthe rest of America and the
global audience to support hisobjectives of of equal voting
rights. So using non violentlegal. Means, has some real
strengths as a typology, butit's probably more effective in
democracies than in, you know,authoritarian states.
Jim Cardoso (25:08):
Yeah, term you use in the book to refer to that,
that people have probably heardof civil disobedience. Yes,
that's, that's one, one notdoesn't capture at all, but it's
a good it's kind of that, thatarea is where the non violent
legal. There seems to resist
Dr. Rob Burrell (25:22):
a lot of terms.
Non violent action is another.
So the second resistancetypology is non violent, but
it's illegal. So Harriet Tubmanin the Underground Railroad,
which helps slaves move fromslave states to free states,
provides an excellent example.
Tubman didn't use violence, buther actions of resistance were
inherently illegal undercongressional law. The third
(25:43):
category is rebellion. Rebellionuses violence against humans,
okay, but it's normally small insize or duration. Nat Turner's
slave revolt in 1831 is a goodexample. Turner used violence.
He killed I think 55 peoplesimultaneously. Local government
rooted him out fairly quickly.
(26:05):
So rebellion is like a smallflare up of violent resistance.
Jim Cardoso (26:09):
But this is the first one. The first two really
are not designed to be violent.
Violence may occur in them, butthey're not designed to be
violence, whereas in rebellion,that's where violence is truly a
tool.
Dr. Rob Burrell (26:19):
Your target is other humans, yeah, in the in
the last three examples here. Sothe fourth category I described
as insurgency. So in this formof violence, the state cannot
deal with intensity of thecombatants, right? So it uses
its arm component. It uses itsown military to fight the
insurgency. And that's reallythe difference between rebellion
(26:43):
and insurgency, is that thestate can no longer address it
through law enforcement. It hasto use its own military against
its own population. And then thefourth or the fifth category is
belligerency or or civil war,right? And so the the best
example of that is in, you know,the US Civil War is the
(27:04):
Confederacy, right? The, in thiscase, the belligerent, the the
opposition to the state lookslike another state. You know, it
does governance, it does taxes,its armed component looks like a
uniform military. So those thoseare, that's a that's a civil war
example, that's the most evolvedform of resistance. So these
(27:27):
five typologies of resistancecan be illustrated across
continuum, non violent, legal,non violent, illegal, rebellion,
insurgency and belligerency.
These categories are useful whenyou want to examine resistance
within a state, you can identifywho the primary organizations
are resistance, and then thatreally affects your methods of
support, because each one ofthose resistance organizations
(27:49):
has different weaknesses anddifferent strengths, right? So
if you provide Gandhi, you know,some, some armed means of
resistance, like, give him some,some rifles that doesn't really
help his cause, because that'snot the type of means he would
prefer to use. Meanwhile, ifyou're, if you're supplying arms
(28:10):
to a, you know, a rebellion andit, and you don't want, like, a
long term conflict, then youprobably shouldn't be providing
a lot, right? So you really haveto look at what your outcomes
that you desire are, what kindof resistance movements are
there, and then kind of workwithin the framework of what
works best to support thatmovement, or to if you want to
(28:32):
combat the movement and you'reworking with your ally, which
are the best ways to reallycombat that moment, right? So if
you're supporting the British inIndia, and you help them to use
violence that might not helptheir cause, one thing you
Jim Cardoso (28:50):
didn't mention, which I think a lot of people
listening may say, may go, Hey,didn't talk anything about
terrorism. I would thinkterrorism would somewhere in
there. And you do talk aboutterrorism, actually, within the
model, could you kind of talk alittle bit more about that?
Dr. Rob Burrell (29:02):
Well, I put terrorism in the third category,
right, which is that you canaddress it with law enforcement,
but it's a first of all,terrorism. Terrorism doesn't
have a universal agreement, noteven in the US government. We,
every single agency in the USgovernment, has a different
(29:24):
definition for terrorism, andthat's for legal purposes.
Right? Most, most of the time,we use the word terrorism to
give us legal authorities to dothings. Right? In most places
where where you're using theterm terrorism, it allows you to
use military force. So you coulduse, you could use a domestic
(29:46):
force. It could be in the thirdcategory, or it could be in the
fourth category of insurgency.
It really depends on, on howlarge the threat is, and what,
what the what the what the what.
A government decides to use. Sosometimes, I guess it could be
in the fourth category. And evenin my in my own research, in
(30:08):
publications, I drift back andforth depending on the
situation. On it. If it's thesame as rebellion, a short term
one, or as a in the case of ainsurgency, you're using force.
ISIS is great example. Um ISISwas an insurgency, right? But in
(30:29):
many cases today, it doesn'thave the same power or
influence, so you might be ableto address it with your domestic
law law enforcement agencies,
Jim Cardoso (30:37):
yeah, you know. And so as we're starting to wind
down the podcast, you know,just, you know, for my i The
book's not out yet. I've gonethrough a little bit of it. Not,
not the whole thing, I'll admit.
But I mean, just the firstarticle on the resilience and
resistance model, I really foundfascinating. And like I said,
laying that grain, thatframework, but also, like you
said, it's not trying to createa okay, this is a separate study
(31:02):
of war that's kind of divorcedfrom the quote, unquote, you
know, I'm doing finger quotes.
Nobody can see that according tofinger quotes, real war. What
you're saying is that, no, thisis, again, along the lines with
your research study. This is thefuture of war for it's not so
much about kind of that state onstate on state action that we're
spending so much time. I know wetalked about this at the
(31:24):
beginning. You brought it up,but I think it bears repeating
that this is not a separatething. This is, is what, what
you see as framing what thefuture of all warfare is going
to look like.
Dr. Rob Burrell (31:33):
Yeah. I mean, the the Cold Wars are great, you
know, as as you know, the famoussaying goes, you know, war
doesn't repeat itself, but itdoes rhyme. The Cold War is an
example of two opponents tryingto influence the future of the
globe and never actuallyfighting each other directly,
(31:56):
right? Because the costs wouldbe so so grave that both decided
that wasn't a good idea. And Ithink with China, we're most
likely going to be in a similarexample, that there's not going
to be another world war three.
The Chinese aren't going to pushin all their chips and say,
Let's go at it. Let's go toe totoe. The Chinese Communist Party
(32:18):
hasn't really done that in itshistory, right? It doesn't like
to risk everything. It likes tochip away at you, and so I think
that's what we're going to seearound the globe. In this new
multipolar world, both with ouradversaries like Russia and
China and in Iran and NorthKorea, we're going to see this
(32:39):
fighting along the periphery.
And so the US can either stepback and lose all those fights,
or we can, we can step in andtry to shape a new new world,
New World Order. Those are alldecisions be made. But the way
to really look at all thosestruggles is to understand
what's happening within thestate, and then you have three
(33:02):
options. You can either supportthe resiliency of that state, or
you can support resistance tothe state and have some change
within the state. Or you cannotdo either one, but you should be
doing analysis so that you canmake that decision in the
future. Right? So when we havestates like Libya, which still
(33:23):
has a very this huge interstateconflict is just happening, the
Civil War ended in 2020 Yeah,those rumors aren't true, right?
So, so you still need to do theanalysis and stay engaged and do
the hard work of understandingwhat's happening within the
(33:44):
state and doing some contingencyplans so that you're able to do
something when the time isright.
Jim Cardoso (33:50):
Well, you certainly made the work easier with the
publishing of this book. So Imean, if people are looking to
do that hard work, they all theyhave to do is use the link, get
a copy of it, and they canstart, you know better,
informing themselves on thesethings moving forward. And then,
like we said, we have an entirefuture of war research campaign
coming up, and then over thenext few months and all those
(34:11):
things people will be able todownload those, watch those kind
of soak those in, so to speak,so that both policy makers,
decision makers, and just theaverage American citizen who in
a democracy needs to be have anactive role, if it's the work
right, can be well informed aswe go forward. So I think you've
done a great service, and I lookforward to seeing it come out,
(34:33):
formally published. I lookforward to seeing the other
stuff you're gonna put out aswell. So any final thoughts
before we finish the podcast?
No,
Dr. Rob Burrell (34:40):
I think I'm really excited about this. I'm
happy to contribute with thebook, but going the next step
forward, having these GNSIproductions with some really
great, talented, amazing folkswho who have, you know, great
scholars, but also some somegreat practitioners who have
done some amazing things. Yeah.
And getting getting more insightfrom them on these topics is
(35:02):
going to be great.
Jim Cardoso (35:04):
Yep, I look forward to it as well, Rob. Thanks for
being here today. Thank you.
Appreciate it many. Thanks to DrRob Burrell, senior research
fellow at GNSI, soon to bepublished author again, and the
architect of our latest researchinitiative, the future of
warfare. You'll be able to findall the future interviews and
discussions from that initiativeon our YouTube channel in the
coming weeks and months. Evenbetter, subscribe to the channel
(35:27):
and hit that alert button whileyou're there, so you'll be
notified whenever Rob has newinsights available next week on
at the boundary, our guest willbe Charles Lister, a senior
fellow at the Middle EastInstitute, and its director of
the Syria initiative. Weinterviewed Charles previously,
but with things ratcheting upover there, we wanted to bring
him back for some morediscussion. Thanks for listening
(35:47):
today. If you like the podcast,please subscribe and let your
friends and colleagues know. Youcan follow GNSI on our LinkedIn
and X accounts at USF,underscore GNSI And check out
our website as well atusf.edu/gnsi, while you're
there, don't forget to subscribeto our monthly newsletter that's
(36:14):
going to wrap up this episode ofat the boundary. Each new
episode will feature global andnational security issues we
found to be insightful,intriguing, maybe controversial,
but overall, just worth talkingabout. I'm Jim Cardoso, and
we'll see you at the boundary.
You.
Jim, hello everyone. Welcome to this week's
(00:14):
episode of at the boundary, thepodcast from the global and
national security Institute atthe University of South Florida.
I'm Jim Cardoso, Senior Directorfor genocide, and your host for
at the boundary. Today on theshow, we're excited to announce
the newest GNSI researchinitiative on the future of
(00:34):
warfare. Our guest today will beGNSI Senior Research Fellow, Dr
Rob Burrell, who's leading theinitiative, he'll be using his
extensive experience in theconcept of resilience and
resistance to create a roadmapfor what future global conflict
will look like. He'll be joiningus in just a minute. Couple
quick notes. First, the latestpost from our notes from
(00:56):
Cambridge student blog is now onour website. We sent two USF
students, Kyle Rudd and mayBurch across the pond for the
summer to study at the worldrenowned Cambridge International
Security and IntelligenceProgram. This week, Mae writes
about connecting with USFPresident Ray law while in the
UK, as well as other greatexperiences she and Kyle are
(01:17):
having. We'll drop a link totheir blog in the show notes
too. By the way, we do plan tosend students to isI every
summer. USF students startbuilding your resume for next
year's application. We also needexternal support, so if it's
something you'd like to helpsponsor, drop us a note. We'd
love to have a conversation withyou. We're also looking forward
(01:39):
to cyber Bay 2025, as USF newBellini College of artificial
intelligence, cybersecurity andcomputing, is working with cyber
Florida, Bellini capital and theUSF Institute for ai plus X to
build one of the premiercybersecurity and AI events in
the country. GNSI is partneringto put together the national
(02:01):
security segment for theconference. It's slated for
October 13 through 15th indowntown Tampa, and a
registration link is in the shownotes. GNSI is also partnering
with one of the country'sleading national security
institutions to organize afollow on event right here on
the USF campus on October 16.
We'll have the officialannouncement and details in near
future. So stay tuned. Allright, let's bring on Dr Rob
(02:25):
Burrell, GNSI, Senior ResearchFellow and one of the world's
foremost authorities onirregular warfare concepts of
resilience and resistance. Healso holds a fellowship in the
prestigious irregular warfareinitiative, and is on the
doorstep of publishing hislatest book, resilience and
resistance, interdisciplinarylessons in competition,
(02:47):
deterrence and irregularwarfare. Rob, welcome back to
the podcast. Thank you. I'm gladto be here. So it's been a few
months since we previously spokeon at the boundary and beyond
finalizing the book and gettingthe future of warfare initiative
going. What else have you beenworking on?
Dr. Rob Burrell (03:04):
Well, last month, we brought on the study
of internal conflict from theArmy War College to USF. This
offers a huge opportunity forresearch about illegal warfare
for USF students. Andadditionally, we brought on
alumni, Dr Chris Mason from thefrom the War College as a senior
non resident fellow. So thisresearch program has sparked a
(03:26):
lot of interest already from USFstudents, but also some students
outside of USF who've contactedboth of us. Chris and I
published recently an article oncivil war in Myanmar, and we use
the study of internal conflictsfive factor analysis to
determine if the Myanmargovernment could win. And that
article was published by thenational interest. So the study
(03:49):
of internal conflict in its 50case studies has a lot of
promise going forward. It'sexciting stuff.
Jim Cardoso (03:54):
Yeah, I saw that.
And the Myanmar article that youwrote as well, I found that
really interesting, discussingthe critical, critical rare
earth elements there that areexisting there, and some of the
political nuances that go withtrying to have access to them.
Dr. Rob Burrell (04:11):
That's That's right. So you know, the catch
and resistance is importantbecause of the international
implications of rare earths.
Unfortunately, to getinternational attention,
sometimes you have to havesomething in the bag, right? So
that's what they have in thebag. Yes,
Jim Cardoso (04:25):
they do. And we'll be talking about rare earths
more in GNSI as we look at ourtechnology policy boundary, type
of type of research, andobviously rare earths play a big
role in that. In this podcast,though, we are introducing a new
GNSI initiative on the future ofwarfare, and you're leading that
effort. Tell us about it.
Dr. Rob Burrell (04:44):
Sure. Well, I'm really excited about the future
warfare series. Theinspirational event driving the
series is the release of my newbook, which you talked about
resilience and resistance. Thisbook presents an entirely new
lens to utilize for the study oftomorrow's come. Conflict. To
inform this series, I'm bringingin the best war fighters and
academics to discuss how warfareis changing and how the United
(05:07):
States can prepare for that. Inthe first episode, I'll
interview General CharlesCleveland, in my opinion, the
greatest American general toever prosecute unconventional
warfare. He performed remarkablyin Afghanistan and Iraq. I also
want to talk to Colonel DaveMaxwell about the Pacific
Theater in particular. DaveMaxwell is an expert on North
(05:28):
Korea. The second episode is avirtual live cast with Dr Chris
Mason. I mentioned him earlierabout the study of internal
conflict. Mason is the scholarwho developed the study of
internal conflict. So we'regoing to talk about this study
virtually with a globalaudience. Mason is going to
(05:49):
examine how scholars andpractitioners can leverage this
study for predictive analysis indetermining the outcomes of
ongoing civil wars andinsurgencies. I'm really excited
about the third episode with mylifelong mentor, historian, Dr
Craig Simons. Simons has writtenover 20 books on warfare. His
(06:10):
latest is a history of AdmiralChester Nimitz in World War Two,
and we plan to discuss thePacific War and then what
lessons the Pacific War offersfor future conflict, perhaps
with China. In the fourthepisode, I'll meet with Colonel
Brian Pettit and talk about avery popular topic in special
operation circles, theresistance operating concept.
(06:32):
This is a strategy of the nationstate organizing resistance to
occupation prior to conflicteven happening. It's a radical
idea which has caught hold inseveral countries, including the
Baltic. Then in the fifthepisode, I'll interview Dr Chris
Marsh, who teaches irregularwarfare with National Defense
University at Fort Bragg, NorthCarolina. We're going to discuss
(06:56):
Russia and its specialoperations forces, as well as
Russia's irregular strategiesutilizing conflict recently,
particularly in Ukraine, and inthe last episode, I'll meet with
Dr Namrata Goswami from JohnHopkins University to talk about
artificial intelligence, cyberand space and how special
operations can leverage these infuture conflict. Dr Goswami is
(07:18):
one of the leading experts inthese types of technologies. And
I think that discussion is goingto be out of this world.
Jim Cardoso (07:25):
Is there any like strategy pursued to bring these
type I mean, it's a wide varietyof speakers. You have some
longtime practitioners, you havesome academics, you have some
that are right at that, youknow, doing that, that advanced
technology and application toit. It's a pretty broad
spectrum. Are they just, arethey people you knew, or is a
combination of people you knewand just some of the eminent
(07:46):
experts in the field, or
Dr. Rob Burrell (07:47):
what? Yeah. So working at Special Operations
Command at the University forfour years, I brought on into my
curriculum a lot of academicsand practitioners on certain
topics, to give exposure to thestudents, to all those different
(08:09):
all those different fields also,you know, the the position I
held as an assistant professorat the University was
specifically aninterdisciplinary scholar, so I
couldn't just rely on history,and so I had to build a
curriculum that had all thosedifferent facets in it,
engineering. It had diplomacy,and it had, you know, the
(08:32):
practice, the practitioner,which is really good for special
operation students, because yougot to be able to translate, you
know, what's an academic topicinto actual, real world
practice, right? And so I liketo have practitioners, you know,
I had every, every single one ofthese, these folks that are part
of the book that I just wrotein, that are part of the series
(08:54):
I worked with in instructing aregular warfare with Special
Operations students.
Jim Cardoso (09:00):
Yeah, I worked for general Cleveland in Iraq in
2009 he was my direct boss whileduring my deployed time over
there. And, yeah, I would, Iwould agree with you. I mean, I
think very highly the man, andreally enjoyed working for him.
And he's, he knew his stuff whenit came to, you know, special
the Special Forces world,irregular warfare,
(09:21):
unconventional warfare, thosetypes of, those types of errors.
He was definitely had thatexpertise. How did you? How did
you, How'd you meet how'd youget to know him? Well, to Jay
Sal, or that
Dr. Rob Burrell (09:31):
I started on my journey with a regular warfare
and unconventional warfare whileI was the doctor in chief at
SOCOM. So 2011 through 14 isreally when I created my, my,
my, my human network on thetopic. And then later, when I
taught at JSO, I asked generalCleveland to come speak when I
(09:51):
when I taught on conventionalwarfare, you know, as kind of a
capstone speaker to come and geta. Questions from the students,
or talk talk about Task ForceViking, which was the largest
unconventional warfare campaignever, ever conducted by the
United States, over 50 odas. Soit was huge, huge, you know,
(10:12):
mobilized 50,000 Peshmerga tofight against Saddam Hussein. So
he participated in all those forfree. And you know, I'm very
grateful for that.
Jim Cardoso (10:23):
Yeah, okay, yeah, that's fantastic. So let's you
talk. You mentioned the book, solet's turn to the book now, the
book on resilience andresistance. So why did you write
it?
Dr. Rob Burrell (10:34):
I would like I said, I was working at at J Sal
Joint Special OperationsUniversity, and in 2021 the
House resolution on theconsortium to study irregular
warfare came out so Congressspecifically identified the need
for the DOD to educate onirregular warfare. This came
about after two decades of warin the Middle East, and in
(10:55):
recognition that the DoD hadmade some mistakes, both in Iraq
and Afghanistan, I taughtirregular warfare,
unconventional warfare andcounter terrorism at Joint
Special Operations University.
So I understood where Congresswas coming from. There wasn't a
single textbook in the DoD or inacademia, for that matter, on
teaching and learning irregularwarfare. This isn't the first
(11:18):
time I had, you know, seen thishappen. So when I was at the
Naval Academy and I taughtMarine Corps history in 2003 and
2004 there wasn't a textbook onMarine Corps history, believe it
or not, you know that you coulduse it as a textbook in a class.
So in 2003 I wrote one calledcrucibles, selected readings in
(11:38):
US Marine Corps history. So twodecades later, I decided the
best way to get after a regularwarfare education was to do the
same thing, write a book. Andthat's what I did.
Jim Cardoso (11:50):
Well, I also read, you know, in as I was getting
ready for this podcast, that youwere either an author or you
were behind the writing of jointpub three, dash your 5.1
switches on a regular warfare. Ididn't, I didn't realize that
until unconventional warfare,yeah, until just just prior to
this podcast, I realized we hadthis that's that type of
(12:11):
capability.
Dr. Rob Burrell (12:12):
It's a whole it's a whole story there. But
yes, I was able to bring a thefirst joint doctoral pub on
unconventional warfare into theDOD. Well,
Jim Cardoso (12:20):
I spent most of my time in the joint world during
my time in the Air Force, so Iwas very familiar with the joint
pubs. And, yeah, I alwayswondered who were the people
behind writing those things. Andnow I am sitting across the
table from one. That's right.
Very exciting. Good times.
Exactly, you talked about someof the practitioners, the
eminent practitioners andscholars that help you write
this book. Could you tell us alittle bit more about
Dr. Rob Burrell (12:41):
them? Sure.
Well, irregular warfare,deterrence and competition are
the three areas covered in thisbook, and that's a lot of
material to explain, and wewanted the lessons to be
interdisciplinary, so the bookis broken down into chapters on
military science, politicalscience, international
relations, sociology, historyand engineering. So there's a
(13:05):
mix of academics andpractitioners throughout the
book, and that was purposefullydone. We wanted to ensure that
every lesson had practicalapplication. And this is not
just knowledge presented for thesake of learning, but in
utilizing in conflict. So thebreakdown by subject in the
book, about 40% is appliedscience of irregular warfare.
(13:26):
Then we pretty much cover whatthe what the DoD calls the four
plus one. So that's the fourprimary adversaries of the
United States, which are China,Russia, Iran and North Korea.
And then the plus one stands forviolent extremist organizations.
So to get at all those topics,we have authors from the US,
Army, the Navy, the MarineCorps, National Defense
(13:48):
University, from the Universityof South Florida, from the State
Department, from NATO, fromSpecial Operations Command, and
from Johns Hopkins. And then totop the cake, the forward is
written by Lieutenant GeneralCharles Cleveland. This book
really does have an all starcast, and it tackles education
on a regular warfare like it'snever been done before.
Jim Cardoso (14:10):
Like you said, the first, really, the first of its
kind, it really does
Dr. Rob Burrell (14:13):
is, yeah, there is no, there's no textbook on a
regular warfare, hmm,
Jim Cardoso (14:16):
okay, so, I mean, I definitely and when? When does
it come out? It comes out soon,
Dr. Rob Burrell (14:23):
but it should be, it should be out when this
podcast is released. Oh, that
Jim Cardoso (14:28):
soon. Okay, all right, excellent. Well, that's
good. Well, we can, maybe we canlink some in the show notes,
potentially they help peoplefind it really quickly. So
talking about the book, let thefirst article, it talks about
the resilience and resistancemodel, and it really establishes
the framework for the entirebook and LA, and really informs
(14:49):
a lot of your research on thefuture of warfare as well. So I
think it's, it's worth spending,you know, a few minutes diving
into that a bit, you know, firstbaseline, I would think a lot of
people. To this podcast, mayhear resilience and resistance,
not sure exactly what that is.
Could you go and explain to uswhat that means?
Dr. Rob Burrell (15:08):
Yeah, so irregular warfare can sometimes
comprise a sub component ofstate on state conflict. So you
know, World War Two, there's aregular warfare happening, but
it normally occurs within asingle state. So the two forces
in the state at work againsteach other comprise the
resiliency of the currentgovernment and its institutions,
(15:29):
combating against resistanceelements who who desire change,
right? So this yin and yang ofresistance and resilience
pulling on each other todetermine the nature of future
governance. It occurs withinevery state. Every state has
resilience, resiliencyinstitutions and actors, and
(15:50):
every state has resistance tothem. Sometimes resistance
results in public demonstrationsor protests, something
nonviolent, and sometimes itemerges in political violence.
Intrastate conflict has explodedsince the end of World War Two.
So in 1946 there were about 18countries with rebellions and
(16:10):
insurgencies. In 2024 there's60. That's about a third of all
nations. So in addition to thegrowing trend in interstate
conflict, external nations haveincreasingly become involved in
trying to shape the outcome ofthese civil wars. That
phenomenon is calledinternationalized intrastate
conflict. Of the 60 nationscurrently battling internal
(16:34):
violence, about 40% areinternationalized. So these some
examples you know that mostpeople are familiar with because
of recent events, Sudan, Libya,Yemen, these are all
internationalized examples ofinterstate conflict. So when you
compare the frequency ofintrastate conflict with state
(16:57):
on state conflict, how manystate on state. Conflicts are
happening right now.
Unknown (17:05):
Just one, right? I mean, the main one you think
about, what is Russia, Ukraine,
Dr. Rob Burrell (17:10):
Ukraine and Russia? Right on state? Yeah.
Now, even though intrastateconflict is the new norm, it's
happening with increasedfrequency. The US, Department of
Defense and its state departmentare predispositioned to address
state on state conflict. I mean,that's what they focus on.
That's their bread and butter.
Today, the Army, Navy, Air Forceand Marine Corps are all
(17:32):
preparing for conventional warin the Pacific with China,
right? Yeah. So in a new era ofthis multi polar world, the
future world, or world order,will likely be determined in
these internationalizedinterstate conflict, not in a
world war three, which probablywon't happen. So, so this is
what my book addresses. Youknow, it's how the US government
(17:55):
and its military can understandinterstate conflict across a
spectrum of non violentresistance through civil war,
and how can the US governmentsupport partners, both state and
non state actors, to achieve USforeign policy objectives? You
know, the subtitle of the booksays lessons in deterrence,
competition or regular warfare,because those are the primary
(18:17):
battlegrounds in which we willlikely win or lose, not in
conventional
Jim Cardoso (18:24):
war, the model specifies for components or
nodes, basically to helpscholars practitioners
understand the dynamics ofchange occurring within the
context of interstate conflict.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthese nodes?
Dr. Rob Burrell (18:38):
Sure, so the first scholar to recognize and
dry out these types of nodes wasGordon McCormick, and he wrote
about the Shining Path ofinsurgency in Peru in the 1970s
I adapted McCormick's work todemonstrate that those four
nodes are part of all interstateconflict, including nonviolent
resistance, and not justinsurgencies. So I broadened the
(19:00):
mark the model to encompass allresilience and resistance
activities. The two nodesopposing one another include the
resistance node on one side ofthe model and then the
resilience node on the otherside. The resistance node
desires institutional change.
The resilience node wants tomaintain the status quo,
maintain the status quo. So nowthe two other nodes include the
(19:22):
domestic population, which bothresilience and resistance are
trying to influence and pull intheir direction. And then the
international audience, youknow, an international sponsor,
you know, in is the ones we lookat mostly are states. But it
doesn't have to be a state. Itcan be the diaspora, or it could
be illicit organizations,religious organizations. In
(19:44):
fact, the pope just recentlyintervened in Syria, right? So
he's taking a stand for theDruze in Syria. It could be
corporations. Corporations areinvolved in many interstate
conflicts, particularly inAfrica. Yeah. So within this
framework, a very dynamicinteraction is taking between
all four nodes of resilience,resistance, the domestic
(20:06):
population and the internationalaudience. Each of the nodes has
has agency, and all areattempting to determine the
future of the state.
Jim Cardoso (20:17):
And this framework it I mean, I think sometimes you
can think of this in terms of,okay, this is what's happening
in some type of active conflict.
But this, this may not be anactive conflict. I mean, these
types of, this resiliency,resistance, this yin and yang,
as you talked about, and thefour nodes, these are happening
around the world in multiple,multiple locations, at all
(20:41):
times, impacted by states, nonstates, industry, all sorts of
different actors as well,
Dr. Rob Burrell (20:50):
100% so like you know, whenever I start
talking about these models, mostAmericans will stop and ask me,
have you done This for UnitedStates? And I say, No, I don't
do domestic stuff. But, youknow, I could. I mean, I I
can't. Every time somethinghappens United States, of
course, as an academic, I'mlooking at it, but I'm not
(21:11):
writing about it. In fact, whenI was in I went to NATO to do a
discussion about some of mytypologies, and discussing it at
the NATO Special Special Forcesschool. And when I was talking
about the nonviolent aspects ofresistance versus resilience,
(21:33):
all these weird I got all theseweird, you know, facial things
like, oh, that doesn't happenwith us. I was, like, a million
people just protested in Parisyesterday. You weren't paying
attention. Yeah, that's yourthat's your ally, that's your
partner. So you should, youshould be paying attention to
resistance, not just in thosethat you want to support the
resistance to, but in stateswhere you might want to subvert
(21:54):
the resistance and help yourhelp your partner be successful.
Yeah,
Jim Cardoso (21:57):
there's lessons learned. It doesn't mean that
the state is in the verge ofcollapse, but there's lessons to
be learned from that. And nowI'm, you know, it's hard not to
look it's, it's no secret thatit's, it's a politically dynamic
time in the United States rightnow. So, I mean, you can sit
back and you can take some ofthese models, and you know, if
you especially, I wouldrecommend everybody look at the
book as you get the book, lookat the book, and you can see
(22:17):
these models, and you can kindof see things that are happening
right now, of course, that that,you know, there is, there's a
there's a resilience, there's aresistance mode, there's a
puppy, you know, all these, allthese things are happening in
the US. I think it's wise thatyou stay away from them, from
projecting them too much as asan academic. But, I mean,
mentally, go for it. Yeah,absolutely. But I think it's
interesting is, as we do thingsat GNSI, as you put this book
(22:39):
out, so that people canunderstand this model and how to
apply it. I mean, you should beable to apply it to situations
across the world and even, andeven here in continent United
States,
Dr. Rob Burrell (22:49):
it's happening all around us. One of the, one
of the lessons I would teachspecial forces folks before they
went down range was, don't justcount the AK 40 sevens. Look at
the graffiti.
Jim Cardoso (23:00):
Yeah, yep. No, that's, that's great. So you
touch on the you also touch onthe resistance continuum as a
way to provide, you know, scaleto the level of protests against
the government. Can you talkabout that, and maybe pride some
examples, so that, you know,people can hear this,
understand. Oh, okay, yeah, Iget what he's talking about.
Dr. Rob Burrell (23:18):
Sure. Well, resistance comes in many forms.
Each resistance movement isunique. However, there are
commonalities in resistancewhich can be used to categorize
their general nature.
Additionally, the methods ofresistance movement utilize has
implications in internationallaw, so these typologies have
legal significance. JohnCosgrove and Aaron Hahn, both
(23:41):
lawyers from Johns Hopkins,first introduced these terms
about seven years ago with us,Army Special Operations Command.
So the five types of resist,resistance typologies describe
how these organizations resist,either through nonviolent but
legal means. That's one type, orthrough illegal means, but which
(24:03):
cause no harm to other humans,that's another type, or through
the use of limited violence orrebellion, or through a well
developed insurgency, or in anall out Civil War. I'll provide
some examples of each so mostpeople would recognize Martin
Luther King Jr's movement asusing non violent but primarily
(24:24):
legal means of resistance, likedemonstrations. Now, violence
could erupt from a peacefulprotest, but mlks activists were
extremely disciplined andaccepted the brutality of the
state's response withoutresponding in kind. King
expected this. This was this wasdesired for him, yeah, and
through the medium oftelevision, his move, his
(24:47):
movement, achieved empathy fromthe rest of America and the
global audience to support hisobjectives of of equal voting
rights. So using non violentlegal. Means, has some real
strengths as a typology, butit's probably more effective in
democracies than in, you know,authoritarian states.
Jim Cardoso (25:08):
Yeah, term you use in the book to refer to that,
that people have probably heardof civil disobedience. Yes,
that's, that's one, one notdoesn't capture at all, but it's
a good it's kind of that, thatarea is where the non violent
legal. There seems to resist
Dr. Rob Burrell (25:22):
a lot of terms.
Non violent action is another.
So the second resistancetypology is non violent, but
it's illegal. So Harriet Tubmanin the Underground Railroad,
which helps slaves move fromslave states to free states,
provides an excellent example.
Tubman didn't use violence, buther actions of resistance were
inherently illegal undercongressional law. The third
(25:43):
category is rebellion. Rebellionuses violence against humans,
okay, but it's normally small insize or duration. Nat Turner's
slave revolt in 1831 is a goodexample. Turner used violence.
He killed I think 55 peoplesimultaneously. Local government
rooted him out fairly quickly.
(26:05):
So rebellion is like a smallflare up of violent resistance.
Jim Cardoso (26:09):
But this is the first one. The first two really
are not designed to be violent.
Violence may occur in them, butthey're not designed to be
violence, whereas in rebellion,that's where violence is truly a
tool.
Dr. Rob Burrell (26:19):
Your target is other humans, yeah, in the in
the last three examples here. Sothe fourth category I described
as insurgency. So in this formof violence, the state cannot
deal with intensity of thecombatants, right? So it uses
its arm component. It uses itsown military to fight the
insurgency. And that's reallythe difference between rebellion
(26:43):
and insurgency, is that thestate can no longer address it
through law enforcement. It hasto use its own military against
its own population. And then thefourth or the fifth category is
belligerency or or civil war,right? And so the the best
example of that is in, you know,the US Civil War is the
(27:04):
Confederacy, right? The, in thiscase, the belligerent, the the
opposition to the state lookslike another state. You know, it
does governance, it does taxes,its armed component looks like a
uniform military. So those thoseare, that's a that's a civil war
example, that's the most evolvedform of resistance. So these
(27:27):
five typologies of resistancecan be illustrated across
continuum, non violent, legal,non violent, illegal, rebellion,
insurgency and belligerency.
These categories are useful whenyou want to examine resistance
within a state, you can identifywho the primary organizations
are resistance, and then thatreally affects your methods of
support, because each one ofthose resistance organizations
(27:49):
has different weaknesses anddifferent strengths, right? So
if you provide Gandhi, you know,some, some armed means of
resistance, like, give him some,some rifles that doesn't really
help his cause, because that'snot the type of means he would
prefer to use. Meanwhile, ifyou're, if you're supplying arms
(28:10):
to a, you know, a rebellion andit, and you don't want, like, a
long term conflict, then youprobably shouldn't be providing
a lot, right? So you really haveto look at what your outcomes
that you desire are, what kindof resistance movements are
there, and then kind of workwithin the framework of what
works best to support thatmovement, or to if you want to
(28:32):
combat the movement and you'reworking with your ally, which
are the best ways to reallycombat that moment, right? So if
you're supporting the British inIndia, and you help them to use
violence that might not helptheir cause, one thing you
Jim Cardoso (28:50):
didn't mention, which I think a lot of people
listening may say, may go, Hey,didn't talk anything about
terrorism. I would thinkterrorism would somewhere in
there. And you do talk aboutterrorism, actually, within the
model, could you kind of talk alittle bit more about that?
Dr. Rob Burrell (29:02):
Well, I put terrorism in the third category,
right, which is that you canaddress it with law enforcement,
but it's a first of all,terrorism. Terrorism doesn't
have a universal agreement, noteven in the US government. We,
every single agency in the USgovernment, has a different
(29:24):
definition for terrorism, andthat's for legal purposes.
Right? Most, most of the time,we use the word terrorism to
give us legal authorities to dothings. Right? In most places
where where you're using theterm terrorism, it allows you to
use military force. So you coulduse, you could use a domestic
(29:46):
force. It could be in the thirdcategory, or it could be in the
fourth category of insurgency.
It really depends on, on howlarge the threat is, and what,
what the what the what the what.
A government decides to use. Sosometimes, I guess it could be
in the fourth category. And evenin my in my own research, in
(30:08):
publications, I drift back andforth depending on the
situation. On it. If it's thesame as rebellion, a short term
one, or as a in the case of ainsurgency, you're using force.
ISIS is great example. Um ISISwas an insurgency, right? But in
(30:29):
many cases today, it doesn'thave the same power or
influence, so you might be ableto address it with your domestic
law law enforcement agencies,
Jim Cardoso (30:37):
yeah, you know. And so as we're starting to wind
down the podcast, you know,just, you know, for my i The
book's not out yet. I've gonethrough a little bit of it. Not,
not the whole thing, I'll admit.
But I mean, just the firstarticle on the resilience and
resistance model, I really foundfascinating. And like I said,
laying that grain, thatframework, but also, like you
said, it's not trying to createa okay, this is a separate study
(31:02):
of war that's kind of divorcedfrom the quote, unquote, you
know, I'm doing finger quotes.
Nobody can see that according tofinger quotes, real war. What
you're saying is that, no, thisis, again, along the lines with
your research study. This is thefuture of war for it's not so
much about kind of that state onstate on state action that we're
spending so much time. I know wetalked about this at the
(31:24):
beginning. You brought it up,but I think it bears repeating
that this is not a separatething. This is, is what, what
you see as framing what thefuture of all warfare is going
to look like.
Dr. Rob Burrell (31:33):
Yeah. I mean, the the Cold Wars are great, you
know, as as you know, the famoussaying goes, you know, war
doesn't repeat itself, but itdoes rhyme. The Cold War is an
example of two opponents tryingto influence the future of the
globe and never actuallyfighting each other directly,
(31:56):
right? Because the costs wouldbe so so grave that both decided
that wasn't a good idea. And Ithink with China, we're most
likely going to be in a similarexample, that there's not going
to be another world war three.
The Chinese aren't going to pushin all their chips and say,
Let's go at it. Let's go toe totoe. The Chinese Communist Party
(32:18):
hasn't really done that in itshistory, right? It doesn't like
to risk everything. It likes tochip away at you, and so I think
that's what we're going to seearound the globe. In this new
multipolar world, both with ouradversaries like Russia and
China and in Iran and NorthKorea, we're going to see this
(32:39):
fighting along the periphery.
And so the US can either stepback and lose all those fights,
or we can, we can step in andtry to shape a new new world,
New World Order. Those are alldecisions be made. But the way
to really look at all thosestruggles is to understand
what's happening within thestate, and then you have three
(33:02):
options. You can either supportthe resiliency of that state, or
you can support resistance tothe state and have some change
within the state. Or you cannotdo either one, but you should be
doing analysis so that you canmake that decision in the
future. Right? So when we havestates like Libya, which still
(33:23):
has a very this huge interstateconflict is just happening, the
Civil War ended in 2020 Yeah,those rumors aren't true, right?
So, so you still need to do theanalysis and stay engaged and do
the hard work of understandingwhat's happening within the
(33:44):
state and doing some contingencyplans so that you're able to do
something when the time isright.
Jim Cardoso (33:50):
Well, you certainly made the work easier with the
publishing of this book. So Imean, if people are looking to
do that hard work, they all theyhave to do is use the link, get
a copy of it, and they canstart, you know better,
informing themselves on thesethings moving forward. And then,
like we said, we have an entirefuture of war research campaign
coming up, and then over thenext few months and all those
(34:11):
things people will be able todownload those, watch those kind
of soak those in, so to speak,so that both policy makers,
decision makers, and just theaverage American citizen who in
a democracy needs to be have anactive role, if it's the work
right, can be well informed aswe go forward. So I think you've
done a great service, and I lookforward to seeing it come out,
(34:33):
formally published. I lookforward to seeing the other
stuff you're gonna put out aswell. So any final thoughts
before we finish the podcast?
No,
Dr. Rob Burrell (34:40):
I think I'm really excited about this. I'm
happy to contribute with thebook, but going the next step
forward, having these GNSIproductions with some really
great, talented, amazing folkswho who have, you know, great
scholars, but also some somegreat practitioners who have
done some amazing things. Yeah.
And getting getting more insightfrom them on these topics is
(35:02):
going to be great.
Jim Cardoso (35:04):
Yep, I look forward to it as well, Rob. Thanks for
being here today. Thank you.
Appreciate it many. Thanks to DrRob Burrell, senior research
fellow at GNSI, soon to bepublished author again, and the
architect of our latest researchinitiative, the future of
warfare. You'll be able to findall the future interviews and
discussions from that initiativeon our YouTube channel in the
coming weeks and months. Evenbetter, subscribe to the channel
(35:27):
and hit that alert button whileyou're there, so you'll be
notified whenever Rob has newinsights available next week on
at the boundary, our guest willbe Charles Lister, a senior
fellow at the Middle EastInstitute, and its director of
the Syria initiative. Weinterviewed Charles previously,
but with things ratcheting upover there, we wanted to bring
him back for some morediscussion. Thanks for listening
(35:47):
today. If you like the podcast,please subscribe and let your
friends and colleagues know. Youcan follow GNSI on our LinkedIn
and X accounts at USF,underscore GNSI And check out
our website as well atusf.edu/gnsi, while you're
there, don't forget to subscribeto our monthly newsletter that's
(36:14):
going to wrap up this episode ofat the boundary. Each new
episode will feature global andnational security issues we
found to be insightful,intriguing, maybe controversial,
but overall, just worth talkingabout. I'm Jim Cardoso, and
we'll see you at the boundary.
You.
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