April 7, 2025 • 54 mins
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What role should NATO play in today’s security landscape—and how do regions like Africa factor into long-term strategy?
In this episode of the "At the Boundary" podcast, host Jim Cardoso is joined by retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant General Kirk Smith to explore evolving priorities in national security and defense cooperation. The conversation covers NATO’s post-counterterrorism role, the shifting dynamics of the transatlantic relationship, and why Africa has become a strategic focal point for issues like migration, terrorism, and global power competition.
Also discussed:
- The value of European NATO partners’ diverse perspectives
- Why security cooperation is key to long-term stability
- The continued relevance of Special Operations Forces (SOF)
- How allies maintain interoperability across missions and regions
This episode offers timely insights for anyone interested in alliance strategy, emerging global threats, and the future of military partnerships.
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Links From the Episode:
• Register for the FSP Cyber Frontier Summit Here
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
(00:12):
another 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.
Our guest today is retired USAir Force Lieutenant General
(00:33):
Kirk Smith. He's the formercommander of Special Operations
Command Europe and deputycommander of us Africa Command.
I always enjoy bringing in SOFleaders, especially one I've
known personally for a year ortwo. First a quick reminder that
next week, on April 15, we'llhold the cyber frontier Summit.
(00:53):
It's the first cyber securityconference produced and hosted
by our student organization, thefuture strategist program, FSP
has put together an amazinglineup of discussions, speakers
and research. They're alsointroducing some unique features
with this conference, includingstudent moderators and a student
ridden policy proposal for thepanel to review. Our Executive
(01:16):
Director, retired Marine CorpsGeneral Frank Mackenzie, will be
put on the proverbial Hot Seat,as he's agreed to be grilled by
two students at the conference'skeynote discussion. I could
speak for all of us at GNSI insaying that we'd really
appreciate your support forthese students by registering
and attending the conference isin the Oval theater at the
Marshall Student Center here onthe Tampa campus of USF. There's
(01:40):
no cost to attend, butregistration is required. Tell
your friends, tell your family,tell your fellow students, and
let's pack the house for FSP.
We'll drop a link in the shownotes for more information. All
right, let's bring on our guestfor today's episode. Retired Air
Force Lieutenant General KirkSmith joins us from Norway,
where he's enjoying thebeautiful April Scandinavian
(02:00):
weather, which is a lot moretemperate than I actually
thought it was when I looked itup for Norway. He's the former
deputy commander of UnitedStates Africa Command, and prior
to that, he served as commanderof Special Operations Command
Europe, the soft component of USEuropean command. He's a 1989
graduate of the Air ForceAcademy and served for 35 years
(02:21):
until retiring last year. Mostimportantly, he and I have known
each other since the 1990s whenwe both flew the mighty MH 53
Pavlo helicopter for Air ForceSpecial Operations Command, and
I got my initial night wateroperations, check ride from
(02:41):
then. Captain Smith, I thinkaround 1998 Kirk, welcome to at
the boundary,
Kirk Smith (02:49):
Jim. Thanks a lot pleasure to be here. So from
your career
Jim Cardoso (02:53):
current activities, as well as landing abroad, you
know, you have a greatperspective on national security
issues in Europe and Africa,which we'll explore today.
However, first I provided a veryquick and fairly one dimensional
biography in the intro. Tell usa little bit more about yourself
and your career. Thanks,
Kirk Smith (03:12):
Jim. So actually, probably career quite a bit like
yours. Started out as a FAPEfirst assignment instructor
pilot upon graduating fromundergraduate pilot training we
did. I think you were, I'mtrying to remember now where you
were, Jim
Jim Cardoso (03:29):
Vance, Air Force Base in Enid, Oklahoma, and the
T 38
Kirk Smith (03:33):
Yeah, it scares me, actually, that I knew that. So I
was Columbus, Mississippi. Thatgives you some idea I lost, if
you'll recall, Jim, you selectedyour location and your start
date based on your Order ofMerit. So I lost two weeks of
leave, and I ended up inColumbus, Mississippi. So that
will give you some indication ofwhat my overall order of merit
(03:55):
was. Fresh graduate, not notgreat. Anyways, completed pilot
training, stayed there inColumbus, Mississippi for three
years as an instructor. And Ihad wanted to go to
undergraduate helicoptertraining right out of the
academy. But again, as Imentioned, my order of merit was
(04:18):
not high enough to get at thetime. I think it was five slots
a year was all that they weregiven. So when I saw after about
two and a half years of being aninstructor, I saw that they were
starting to drop, as we said,helicopters into the assignments
I volunteered. They were all u hones at the time. And then about
the fourth opportunity tovolunteer, if you will. For an
(04:41):
early assignment, there was an853 and I got selected. So I
went off to pave school. As youmentioned, I think you were just
a little bit ahead of me goingthrough the schoolhouse. You
went to Herbert field, I think
Jim Cardoso (04:55):
actual to Osan. I went to the mighty 31st SOS,
Kirk Smith (04:59):
yeah. Yeah, you went to Osan Same, same time frame as
a good mutual friend of our,Sean Silverman, yeah, you and
Sean were there, yep, same timeframe. Anyways, then we ended up
meeting. I went to RAF MiltonHall for my first operational
assignment in the UK. And thenwe ended up meeting in Brindisi,
(05:20):
Italy, doing kind of operation,deny flight, amongst a couple of
other names, delivery, forge,deny
Jim Cardoso (05:29):
flight, joint guard, I think a bunch of names,
all basically
Kirk Smith (05:36):
Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, essentially the no fly
zone, and then some softmissions, as well as the
hostilities, if you will, cameto a close with i Four, s4 and
then that kind of rolled into k4and all the things that were
(05:57):
happening that that time frame,if you will, in the Balkans,
interesting to kind of see howthat has what has changed and
what hasn't changed in thatregion of Europe, if you will,
certainly different than whenyou and I were there. But it is
interesting now to kind of seehow some of those things
(06:18):
continue and remain many, manyyears after, you know, what we
would have said were thecompletions of those missions,
but then continued thatassignment with a CONUS
assignment, so Herbert field,then I would, you know, kind of
say the obligatory schools andstaffs stayed, continued to fly
to 53 You know, throughout thattime frame, whether it was, you
(06:43):
know, as a squadron pilot flyingthe line, or on a on a staff at
the group, or the wing level,the oh six command level. And
then ultimately ended up goingback to RAF Milton Hall in the
21st special operations squadronto be the commander. And that
was my last 53 flyingassignment. As they were
(07:04):
actually already in the processof deactivating. The Air Force
was in the process of, kind ofbasically recapitalizing trading
in the H 50 3s and they werebeing replaced by CV 22
squadrons. So I deactivated, orinactivated, I think is the
correct word, the 21st SOS at reMilton Hall in 2008 and then,
kind of back to obligatory, ifyou will, staff and schools
(07:27):
ended up as the vice WingCommander, following you
actually, or the wing advice, Ithink, is the right term,
Cannon, Air Force Base, COVID,New Mexico garden spot
Jim Cardoso (07:40):
and and
Kirk Smith (07:43):
yeah, and then went to SOCOM from there. So after I
was at Canon for about a year,Afghanistan the second year, and
then went off to US SpecialOperations Command, where we ran
into each other. You were on theSOCOM staff, and I was working
at the time for Admiral McRavenis as commanders Action Group
(08:03):
Director. And I was fortunateenough to get a promotion out of
that assignment, Herbert field.
So now AFSOC Air Force SpecialOperations Command Headquarters,
where I was the Director forStrategic Plans and requirements
and programming, so that a fiveslash eight back to SOCOM, back
to Afghanistan, and then specialopera, Special Operations
(08:28):
Command Europe, from there,after 14 months in Afghanistan,
as the Deputy Commanding Generalfor the subject, so that the
Special Operations Joint TaskForce, slash NATO Special
Operations element as well. AndI'll come back on that a little
bit. I think if we talk some onkind of, where does NATO see
(08:49):
itself now, in kind of a, I'llsay post CT world, not being
totally post CT, but certainlythe way NATO views things. Yeah,
we'll definitely have adifferent Yeah. And then, and
then ended up so that Stuttgartfor two years is soccer, and
then I was fortunate enough toget selected as the D com at
AFRICOM, so seven kilometersaway from patch barracks to
(09:13):
Kelly barracks. And with thatcame the promotion at three
star, and stayed as the decomthere at Africa Command for a
little less than four years,which is a little bit of an
anomaly, but some of that wasthanks to some political
activities. With respect to theSenate not confirming three and
(09:35):
four stars again, due to somepolitical agendas, had nothing
to do, absolutely nothing to dowith the individuals that had to
do with the political agenda. Somy replacement cannot get
confirmed. So my retirement wasextended about a year,
basically, while we were waitingfor those, those things to work
themselves out. And then once Iwas able to finally retire, we
(09:56):
decided. We didn't want to leaveEurope yet. Kids are grown out
of the house, sons off thepayroll. Son is at university,
or daughters at university inthe United Kingdom. And we
decided to stay in Europe alittle bit longer, so we
immigrated to Norway, and that'swhere we live now, about 45
kilometers south of Oslo. So
Jim Cardoso (10:18):
as I can, you know, obviously there's an audio only
broadcast. But we're, you know,for, for those out there
wondering, we are looking ateach other over teams, and I can
see in the background, it's,well, it's still light outside.
It looks like, but it's so whattime is it there? About seven at
night or so, or,
Kirk Smith (10:36):
yeah, 715 so right now it's getting dark. I mean,
so you know, not, not excessiveat all, but it the sun sets
about 830 and then it's kind oftotally dark, if you will, by
about nine, we're stillobviously two months, two and a
half months away from thelongest day. So it will the days
(10:57):
will stretch, but we're stillpretty far south here, quite
honestly, in Oslo. So you don'tsee the extremes that you think
about. You know, up north of theArctic Circle. So, but it can
get dark in the winter time ingray, but this time of the year,
it is magnificent. So we live,ironically, renting the home of
he was the former chief of theNorwegian Air Force. He's now
(11:19):
the senior mill rep in Brusselsfor Norway at NATO headquarters.
It's about 300 meters off of theOslo fjord. And so you're
looking at the backside, and youcan see the sun. I'm looking out
at the fjord, and it is anabsolutely gorgeous day,
Jim Cardoso (11:33):
nice. Well, enjoy it while you got it. No doubt
about that. You know, until youwent through that, I I forgot
some of the lines of, you know,of connection that you and I had
over the I knew we had him, butthen, especially when you
brought up a cannon, was when Iwas like, Oh, that's right,
you're right behind me. Acannon. Yeah, that was, I like,
(11:54):
Canon. It was very different.
Just building up into a softbase. I thought that was a neat
assignment. And then, of course,we ran across each other back at
SOCOM headquarters as well. Youknow, I've found that I asked I
had, you know, Scotty, how onthe podcast as well. You know,
you know, I both know him welland and I asked him this
question as well. I found thatmost long time soft operators,
they and leaders, they rarelyjust kind of stumble into
(12:15):
special operations by accident.
What? What kind of drew you intothe air commando world.
Kirk Smith (12:25):
I think what I would what I would say, is so the
aircraft to start with, right? Iwas just enamored with the age
53 I remember marching back fromJack's valley as a four degree,
right, that first year thatyou're at the Air Force Academy,
you spend your whatever thefield training time was, two
(12:47):
weeks, two and a half, threeweeks, whatever it was, right?
But you're marching back, and onour march back, there was a fly
by of an 853, and I just kind offell in love with the aircraft.
And, you know, loud, ugly,
Jim Cardoso (13:05):
magnificent, snarling beast, no doubt, yeah,
and
Kirk Smith (13:09):
so that kind of drew me in, and then kind of got to
the point where the mission, andreally, I mean to be cliche, it
wasn't so much the mission as itwas, the crew, working with the
crew, any age 53 was not a hugecruise. You know, crew of six,
two officers, four, enlisted.
But it was just, it was just,what a great environment, right?
(13:31):
Dealing with people day in andday out, and making the mission
work because of the way you madeyou brought the crew together.
And then you talk about a twoship, a three ship, a four ship,
and you multiply your six times,you know, by the number of
aircraft. And it just, it wasjust fun. I just enjoyed the,
you know, the challenges, if youwill. Yeah,
Jim Cardoso (13:53):
I was sort of the same. I sort of got pulled into,
I think I thought more like softjust, I wanted to do something
after being a FAPE. Not thatdude, not that being a FAPE was
unimportant. It's a needed duty.
And I enjoyed it while I did it.
But then I was one to, you know,again, to use a kind of a
euphemism, get on the pointy endof the spear. And for me, that
(14:15):
was a draw. And then I got drawnto helicopters after that. And
but I, love to pay the samereason. Love the crew, love the
fact that and the kind ofmissions we did. I mean,
everybody had to do their job orelse you're gonna get you're
gonna get hurt or killed in alot of the missions we did. So
it was really enjoyable. I mean,collaborating with and just
(14:38):
working deeply with thesepeople, and just getting to know
them and trusting them. I mean,trust them like them, like,
like, like, brothers across thesquadron across the four. So it
was, yeah, I agree that was,that was something precious that
really can't be replicated. Youhad, okay, so over your career,
you talked a little bit aboutthat you had, you know, a lot of
(14:58):
senior positions work with.
Europe, NATO, Africa. We'regonna, we're gonna touch on all
those. So let's get into some ofthe National Security Strategy
evolutions going on there. Solet's talk about Europe, not the
native collective. Let's, we'llhit that. But let's, let's talk
about Europe in terms of, youknow, the European nations as
lateral and bilateral andmultilateral partners. You know,
as we discussed, you're livingin Norway. You still spend a lot
(15:21):
of time with their Europeanpartners. What is the sense of
the future you're, you're,you're getting from them, and
their view of the best nextsteps for national security
policy? Yeah,
Kirk Smith (15:35):
it's interesting. So you, you made an important
distinction there. The nuancebetween, if you look at the NATO
alliance as a collective andthen you talk about the
bilateral or multilateralrelationships, and that, to be
blunt, that didn't really hit mekind of the significant
difference there until I was thesoccer commander. And I'll come
(15:57):
back to your question. And youknow, obviously leading back to
that. But you know, as a soccerCommander, I was the US, as you
said, European Command, softcomponent, which allows you to
be exclusive, right? You wantto, you want to, you want to
work with all of your allies andpartners, but you don't have to
(16:18):
in the sense that it you're notin NATO. It's not part of the
Alliance. You're not, you're nota NATO entity, if you will,
official NATO entity, part ofNATO. But you know, I, as the
soccer Commander, I didn't haveto represent NATO in that way.
So I had the ability to beexclusive on who we work with,
when we worked with him, which,to be honest with you, one of
the biggest, you know,advantages to that is, quite
(16:40):
honestly, securityclassification and who you can
share intelligence with makes abig difference. You know, as
opposed to my counterpart at thetime, nshq, NATO soft
headquarters at the time, it wasAdmiral Colin kilrain. He and I
had a great relationship, but hehad to be totally inclusive.
(17:01):
Everything he did had to, had tokind of be geared towards,
including all of the NATOallies. And he and I would talk
about that often, not, yeah. Imean, there were, there were
pros and cons to each right? Imean, there's always a benefit
or a disadvantage, however youchoose to look at it. So to your
question, right now, it'sinteresting. I one of the things
I'm doing in my you know, now,retired classic, you know,
(17:24):
retired general officer, SeniorAdvisor, mentor, dude, yeah, how
you want, how you want to phraseit as I'm a senior advisor,
working with A Canadian companywho owns the contract support
agreement arrangement with jointWarfare Center. Joint Warfare
(17:45):
Center is a NATO entity inStavanger Norway, two star
headquarters that does command,command post, Computer Aided
exercises, and I am a SeniorAdvisor for their high con so
working with that Canadiancompany and helping that
Canadian company, as theyemulate and simulate what you
know, a higher command would doduring these exercises. And of
(18:07):
course, that's NATO, but as youlook at that picture and what
the conversation is, and then asI go out and do other things
with other companies orentities, and you talk
individually to our Europeanallies and partners. You can,
you can be more specific, Iguess, is probably the best way
(18:29):
to put it right. You can talkvery specifically about certain
things with Norway. So if I'mtalking to some Norwegians, it's
a little different conversationthan, if I'm you know, at the
joint Warfare Center, talking tothe alliance, or kind of giving
them perspective, the Allianceperspective, and I think
(18:51):
certainly from a you knowindividual, if you will,
multilateral, bilateral, A lotof conversation right now.
Obviously, NATO aside, is whatis the future of the
transatlantic relationship witheach one of these individual
European countries. So there'llbe a transatlantic relationship,
ie, US and NATO, and there'll bea transatlantic relationship
(19:16):
with US and the UK us and Norwayus and Sweden us, and insert
European country here. So eachone of them views it a little
bit differently. Clearly, Iwould say Germany, France and
the UK have a differentperspective on what that
(19:37):
transatlantic relationship canand will look like than, say,
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania andPoland. And it's really
interesting to kind of hear eachone of their thoughts and
perspectives and in some cases,fears on what that may look like
in the future. And again, it'sall based on kind of that
multilateral, bilateral, ViceNATO perspective. Uh, UK,
(20:01):
Germany and France. You know,much longer partners within the
NATO alliance. And you knowclearly much longer partners and
allies with the United States,because those nations, as they
are currently formed, have beenaround a lot longer than when
you talk about Estonia, Latviaand Lithuania. You know newer
nations, at least in theircurrent iteration, and that
(20:23):
relationship with the US. Soit's kind of interesting talking
to each one and understandingand then you get into, because
you're talking multilaterallyand bilaterally, if you will,
you get into some of the otherthings that are not necessarily
directly security and defenserelated, but certainly will have
impacts on what does thatrelationship look like? So,
(20:43):
yeah, really good example, andwe will not go into in any
detail that still needs
Unknown (20:48):
to be developed. Yeah, it's kind of new, but
Kirk Smith (20:52):
it's important, right? Economics and what this
looks like is going to play abig role. Who are they going to
buy weapons from? Are they goingto develop their own weapons? Do
they have the ability, if youwill, to develop their own
weapons? Some of these nationsare just simply don't have the
industrial wherewithal rightnow, really smart, great
technology, very innovative, butthey just don't have the
(21:14):
capacity, if you will, whetherit's the raw materials or the
manufacturing capacity. And eachone of them looks at it a little
bit differently. So I thinkthose are kind of important
nuances, if you will. As youtalk about our European allies
and partners, how they view thefuture the transatlantic
relationship individually, yeah,
Jim Cardoso (21:32):
it's really interesting, how you draw the
distinction between the larger,more developed, you know, larger
economically more powerfulcountries, longer partners. You
know, we've, you know, we, youknow, people talk about the
special relationship between theUS and the UK at times, and then
the newer, newer nations, noless interested in in democracy
and the national security,national stability, but just,
(21:52):
it's a different, you know, adifferent atmospheric and, you
know, the classic national, youknow, grand strategy, model of
dime, diplomatic, information,military, economic you know, as
we record this, the, you know,the President Trump's tariff
plan has just been unrolledyesterday or last night. And you
(22:16):
know, as we record this, we'rekind of still the world is sort
of absorbing it and seeing whatthe next steps are, but not
questionably, there's going tobe next steps and significant
ramifications. And I'm sure ourEuropean partners are looking
very closely at where that couldgo.
Kirk Smith (22:34):
Yeah, you know, so to add one more layer of nuance,
not that we need to go into anydepth on it, but then you throw
in the EU, right, which, as ablock, is incredibly powerful
economically. Yeah, the EU, I'mgonna, I may get my numbers a
little bit wrong, but recently,talked about 80, or, I'm sorry,
800 million euro the EU islooking to spend on defense and
(22:57):
security, right? So this is, youknow, part and parcel, if you
will, to percentage of GDP. Sowe can talk about that vis a vis
NATO, but the EU is looking at,how do they invest the economic
wealth and power that they haveinto security and defense? And
then again, to further nuanceand slice this even thinner, how
(23:18):
does that impact the UnitedKingdom and Norway, who are
Europeans, but not in the EU,and will they benefit from those
funds? It's conversations thatare happening here in Europe as
they kind of look, not dividedby any means. I mean, I
probably, I think it's probablyfair to say we've never really
seen Europe more united than wehave, I would say over the past
(23:38):
six months. You know, it really,starting with the most recent
invasion of Ukraine, from theRussian Federation invasion. But
Europe has really becomeunified. And now, kind of, as
things happen economically,we're going to see that gel even
more. But there continue to bethose, not divisions. I don't
want to use that word continuesto be those. You slice those
(24:01):
different ways on well, how doesNorway participate in that? How
does the UK participate in that,as they are not EU members? Now
Jim Cardoso (24:09):
that's that that gives, you know, listeners
hearing this can that'ssomething for them to look
forward to, and just kind of,kind of looking, you know,
consider as they're consumingtheir national security type of
news and reports. I thinkthat'll be very interesting as
it continues to evolve. But letus turn to NATO for as a whole
now. So you live in a foundingNATO country, founding NATO
(24:30):
member, but you also work veryclosely with the newest members
of NATO in Scandinavia, onSweden and Finland. So what
discussions are you hearing onthe shifts, I guess, in the
Alliance's expectations in thefuture, especially regarding US
leadership, and even anyperception that the NATO
members, the European NATOmembers, may need to quote,
(24:52):
unquote, go it alone.
Kirk Smith (24:55):
Yeah. So a recent NATO exercise that I. Is that it
was kind of, it was all said injest, and this is going on now,
probably almost eight weeks agonow. But there were kind of
conversations about, oh, so theUS is going to leave NATO, the
US is going to leave NATO. Andit was all you know as, really
the I wasn't the only Americanthere. There were a couple of
(25:20):
uniformed joint Warfare Centerfolks who are on their staff who
wear the US flag on theirshoulders, whether they were
Army or Air Force individuals.
But you have to, there's alittle bit of you gotta have a
little bit of thick skin, right,you know? And some of these
comments are made well, you
Jim Cardoso (25:39):
a long time member of the soft community. You need
to have a lot of you need tohave thick skin. The Pavel
community need to have thickskin as well. So you probably
have elephant hide at thispoint. So I think you're good to
Kirk Smith (25:49):
go. I mean, it's one of those things that you just
kind of you, you take it injest, you take it good
naturedly, and then you get theopportunity to kind of tell you
know whether it's in a NATOconstruct, or, as we talked
about earlier, a bilateral ormultilateral construct. That's a
(26:10):
little bit of, hey, look, we allunderstand that we serve elected
officials, right? That that'skind of, that's just shared
value that we have here in NATO,right? Civilian elected
leadership, civilian control ofthe military. We all understand
that elected officials haveagendas. And I don't mean that
negatively. I mean they have apolitical agenda, political
(26:31):
goals, constituents that theyhave to answer to, and they're
going to do things for thosereasons. They all have the good
of the nation in their heartsand in their minds what they
want to do, but they're going tomake decisions that are not
going to be favorable. Certainlyseen favorable by all, and
that's certainly what'shappening here in Europe now. As
(26:53):
you know, you see whether it'stariffs or whether it's previous
kind of security conversationsmade. I just read an article
just now, before we came on, Jimthat the US Secretary of Defense
will not attend the next Ukrainecontact group. This will be the
first UK Ukraine contact groupwithout a US Secretary of
Defense representation is goingto be co chaired by Germany and
(27:16):
the UK. So those decisions andthings that have been said,
Right? Are having impacts here.
You have to kind of just kind ofroll with it a little bit. But
what I do kind of try to preach,if you will, to whether it's a
NATO audience or a multilateral,bilateral list. Hey, look, we're
going to get through thepolitical machinations. Right?
These things will happen.
Decisions are going to be madethat are not popular, whether
(27:39):
it's in each individual nation,as seen by the Alliance writ
large, but at the militarylevel, there will continue to be
trust fellowship, if you will,to use that term, and
interoperability, it will not goaway. We know that, and we've
learned too much over the past80 years. Coming up on 80 years
(28:00):
now for the history of NATO tolet that slip away. And as
evidenced by, I mean, great, Ijust made that comment at that
NATO exercise I was at. And thatFriday, as I was returning,
there was a combinedinteroperable flyby of Oslo
(28:21):
city, center of A, B, 52 and newand two Norwegian F, 30 fives.
And I kind of highlighted thatto my Norwegian friends when I
got back and I said, I told you,right, this is not going to end,
guys, the military to militaryinteroperability, trust,
friendship is not going to end.
We will let the other thingshappen as they will, and we will
continue to move on.
Jim Cardoso (28:43):
That's a great viewpoint. And you know, I would
agree with you, you know, I'mhere in Tampa, as you well know,
splits and comments so calm arehere, and both of those
combatant commands have largeinternational, you know,
presence, and I was actually ata conference a couple months ago
with with that had some of our,some of the partners that are
(29:05):
also in NATO, they're the seniornational reps for their
countries, and they said prettymuch the same thing. You said, I
don't say which countries,because then people will start
saying, you know, narrow it downto names and stuff like that.
But two or three of them saidpretty much same thing. You
said, Yep, there's, you know,we're family. Sometimes family
squabbles. Sometimes familydoesn't always agree on where
you need to get to, but therelationships and the shared
(29:26):
experience is just it's just toodeep and so and the military
professionals will continuedoing what they do. The
professional politicians willcontinue doing what they do for
all the right reasons. I mean,and like you said, having
agendas, it's not said in a, ina in a in a bad way, it's just,
it's just the reality. So Ithink that most military
(29:49):
professionals and mostprofessionals who deal in this
world at a high level understandthat that the core of NATO, the
relationships and the partneringand the. Shared sense of what's
best for the Alliance willcontinue.
Kirk Smith (30:04):
Yeah, and you know, to, you know, as a counter, if
you will, to the comment thatthe SEC death may, may not
participate in the Ukrainecontact group today. You know,
Secretary Rubio, Secretary ofState, was in Brussels, meeting
with SEC Gen at theministerials, and basically his
his comment was, we are asinvolved in NATO as we have
(30:27):
always been, and we willcontinue to be involved in NATO,
right? So, you know, themessages will be heard the way
they want to be heard. They'llbe said the way they're told to
be said, and the Alliance willcontinue on. Is my personal
belief, right? We will getthrough this. I think I heard it
best, and this was several yearsago now, and I think it was
(30:47):
whether it was President Macronor or another, you know, French
foreign minister, a Frenchforeign the French foreign
minister. Just because we'reallies doesn't mean we're always
aligned, right? And the allianceis incredibly has proven itself
to be incredibly effective.
Yeah, it may not always be themost efficient, and that's on
purpose. That's why it wasdesigned that way, but it is
(31:09):
incredibly effective, bothpolitically, as a political
alliance and as a militaryalliance.
Jim Cardoso (31:16):
Yeah, so that's, that's, that's, I think that's
spot on and look, and we'llwatch this evolve going forward.
It's going to be, it's going tobe an interesting time. There's
no question about that, adynamic time. I like to, I like
to say your final position. Solet's pivot a little bit. Your
final position on active duty.
You're the deputy commander ofus Africa Command Now, unlike
Europe and NATO, Africa has, youknow, been vastly underreported
(31:40):
in the media. First of all,AFRICOM set up a little
differently than other combatantcommands, especially other
geographic combatant commands,right? I think it was designed
to be slightly different. Couldyou talk briefly about the
design of AFRICOM so peopleunderstand that, and then we'll
talk a bit about the kind of thethe current policy
(32:00):
considerations? Yeah,
Kirk Smith (32:04):
absolutely. So, you know, AFRICOM as it was
originally set up, obviously,while it is called a combatant
command at the time, certainlyas it was established. You know,
Somalia aside, not a lot ofcombat, if you will, going on,
especially, you know, with usboots on the ground, in and
around, if you will, at thetime, there's conflict.
Jim Cardoso (32:27):
There's always conflict in Africa, right? But
as far as combat, like war time,combat, it's different, yeah,
Kirk Smith (32:37):
yeah, no. I mean, so it was, it was really kind of
meant to be, how can a combatantcommand, if you will, a
geographic combatant command, tolook at the opportunities on the
continent of Africa with respectto, how do you how do you take
advantage of, and again, in agood way. I don't mean take
advantage of African partners. Imean take advantage of the
(32:57):
opportunities that are there inin Africa, whether it was
literally an incredible wealthof natural resources, whether it
be oil and gas, whether it berare earth minerals, whether it
be, you know, precious metals, Imean, all of those types of
(33:17):
things, whether it was thepopulation, which is a, you
know, a plus and and a minus,right? I mean, it's a, you know,
average age. I think when Ileft, the numbers that we were
using were the kind of theaverage age in the continent of
Africa is 19 years old. Thinkabout, think about what that
means for, you know, thequintessential youth bulge
(33:38):
opportunity there, in terms ofworkforce, right? And what you
can do with that, some certainare certainly challenges there,
with respect to, withoutopportunity, education,
medicine, social structure,what? What does that youth bulge
turn into? And certainly theconcern was, as we saw, you
(34:00):
know, really, from, notcertainly, the inception of
AFRICOM, but as you as AFRICOMgrew, we saw the spread of the
violent extremist organizations,organized, if you will, the
organizations, the Veos, as anentity, not individual bad
actors, but kind of that, that,you know, franchised, if you
will, uh, movement from, youknow, the Middle East, whether
(34:22):
it was Afghanistan, Syria, youknow, the Arabian Peninsula. Saw
those, those movements onto thecontinent of Africa. And what
does that mean? There was a lotof emphasis put on defense,
diplomacy and development waskind of, in fact, AFRICOM used
(34:43):
to, and I can't speak now, sothat, you know, don't take this
Jim Cardoso (34:48):
itself. May have changed. There's no question
about that. It may have changed.
That's
Kirk Smith (34:52):
right. They called themselves the 3d command
defense, diplomacy anddevelopment. That has changed.
Yeah, significantly. You. With,you know what? What has become
of USA ID, yeah, which is by andlarge at the time when I was
serving. They're still thebiggest contributor money wise,
(35:12):
funds wise, into what happenedon the continent of Africa.
Their budget was much, much,much greater than AFRICOM
budget, if you will, to dothings now they probably had a
fairly
Jim Cardoso (35:21):
senior person in AFRICOM from USF, probably in a
fairly senior USA ID personassigned AFRICOM, I would think,
right as kind of an oversightrole. I would guess, yes, that's
right.
Kirk Smith (35:34):
So, I mean, every combatant command has a has a
policy advisor, right? You know,typically a former ambassador
that sits alongside, if youwill, the commander certainly
has a seat at the table with thecommander to talk about foreign
policy. But there was also asenior USAID rep there at
AFRICOM as well to kind ofprovide that perspective, but
(35:56):
from a defense perspective,really, again, as we even, as we
go back and talk about combat,right? Absolutely, troops on the
ground in combat, day in and dayout, whether it was Somalia or
certainly what we saw in WestAfrica in the time that I was
there in the Sahel, securitycooperation was really where was
kind of the bread and butter, ifyou will. How do you think about
(36:18):
security cooperation? And again,I'll go back to kind of the
opportunities and thechallenges. If you don't take
advantage of the opportunitieswith some well placed security
cooperation to help manage whatcould be significant conflict
and instability, you're you'remissing the boat, essentially,
(36:38):
right? So a lot of effort onAFRICOM the time that I was
there, on, how do you thinkabout security cooperation to
help strengthen, buildresilience, if you will, within
some of those societies, withinthe governments to help them
deal with the challenges thatthey knew were going to be
coming, whether it was a violentextremist organization, whether
it was a global competitor thatwas going to try to take
(37:01):
advantage of the space, orwhether it was famine or
drought, right? Kind of thinkabout any one of those. How do
you, how do you think aboutthat? And that's where a lot of
effort from AFRICOM was placedtowards thinking about, how do
you do security cooperation in asmart way? So
Jim Cardoso (37:18):
you can't, you know, you kept mentioning when I
was there, when I was there,which, which, you know, is not
that, not that long ago, but Iwould say, um, so going forward
now, now we've already talkedabout USA ID obviously is not
going to have as large a role,because there really is no USA
ID anymore. Um, but do you thinkthat the threats and
(37:41):
opportunities in Africa havechanged that much? Or what would
you kind of see as the mainthreat? Let's concentrate on the
threats going forward that thethe Trump administration is is
going to need to face.
Kirk Smith (37:54):
Yeah, so I think you'll continue to see, you
know, terrorism, so the violentextremist organizations as as a
challenge there, you know,without getting into the
philosophy of, why do the EOSdo? What the EOS do? Are they
really external threats, or, youknow, threats to the US,
(38:14):
homeland. You know, kind ofwords matter, ways you talk
about ex ops, externaloperations. Are those
organizations capable ofexternal operations. Do they
have aspirations? Do they havecapabilities? Those are all
things that clearly, the commandAFRICOM has to continue to pay
attention to, and ourintelligence apparatus has to
continue to pay attention to andunderstand, I would say, one of
(38:36):
the bigger challenges, you know,so certainly I'm going to come
back and touch on the Europeanpiece is migration, and what
that means to the to theEuropean continent, not just the
European continent, as you see,you know, migration to the US is
also being something, whether itwas, you know, directly from the
African continent to the US, orthrough South America, South and
(38:58):
Central America, which we didsee some of so again, migration,
immigration, depending on kindof where you are, you know the
term of art in Europe team tendsto be migration, Vice
immigration, as they talk about,especially across the
Mediterranean Sea and intosouthern Europe. So certainly
(39:18):
what Europe was concerned about,and then also both the US, if
you will, a shared concern,again, to caveat, the time I was
there, was, how were our globalcompetitors taking advantage of
the opportunities on thecontinent of Africa to gain a
foot up, if you will, Soprincipally the Russian
(39:40):
Federation and People's Republicof China certainly concerns and
they each approached itdifferently. China much more
long view. I'm not sayinganything here that you know
people aren't, yeah, wouldn't,wouldn't, don't, already know,
right? China has a very longview. They think about things
very strategically, much, much,much less militaristic on the.
COVID of Africa, very economic,politically, culturally, if you
(40:05):
will, influencing the RussianFederation. Much more
militaristic. Certainly go backseveral years ago and the
prevalence of the privatemilitary corporations, Wagner in
particular, and what they weredoing so in some instability, to
then make a case for why theyneed to be there to help protect
and uphold some of the moreautocratic African nations, or
(40:30):
take advantage of unstablesituation to make it an
autocratic African nation thatthey could then take advantage
of, whether it was to extractgold from, you know where where
that nation laid, or where thatcountry sat, or just simply get
paid to protect the government.
So each one of them approachedit a little bit differently, and
both, I think, the United Statesand Europe recognized the
(40:51):
challenges that came with bothRussia and China having
increased influence on thecontinent of Africa. It will be
interesting now going forward tosee if the US withdraws
interests and activities on thecontinent of Africa, how much
leeway does that give China andRussia to take advantage of that
(41:13):
space? That vacuum is going toget filled by someone. It'll get
filled by an ISIS affiliate,it'll get filled by an al Qaeda
affiliate, it'll get filled byChina. It'll get filled by
Russia. Someone is going to fillthat Hezbollah even, right? We
even saw, you know, hints ofthat. So it'll be interesting to
see where the US goes as itthinks about the continent of
(41:38):
Africa. Europe is veryinterested in that. So kind of
playing it back now to Europe,right? They're very interested.
I oftentimes get questions hereas I engage even on the private
sector side, if you will, onHey, what do you think about
Africa from your experiences inAfrica? What should we be
thinking about? Should we investmore in Africa? You know, those
types of questions Europe ispaying a lot of attention.
(42:01):
Beyond the migration aspect ofit. They're paying attention to,
what is China gaining? Are theymonopolizing the rare earth
minerals there, cobalt, lithium,etc. So really, really
interesting to kind of see wherethat goes, Yeah,
Jim Cardoso (42:15):
and that's, that's, you know, and really, like I
said, there's really not muchattention paid to, at least from
the media perspective, but it'shard to see where the current
administration is paying muchfor attention, either except
beyond the migration orimmigration piece. So at I think
you're spot on with some of thethe concerns there. So let's,
let's, let's do one last pivot,and we're going to pivot so you
(42:36):
are the you you know you werethe Sauer Commander. You were
the deputy commander forAFRICOM. But for most of your
career, you're a SOF guy, so andyou spend a lot of time not just
in SOF, but with and not justeven joint SOF, like joint, you
know, Army, Air Force, Navy, butalso partner nation SOF. And in
(42:57):
fact, you spent time as a DeputyCommanding General for NATO SOF
in Afghanistan. So talk to usabout just your experiences
working with our partner nation,SOF, some of the capabilities,
some of their methodologies,kind of how they how they
operate, and how theyinteroperate with the US and
(43:19):
with other partners as well. Ithink, you know, I've talked
about soft on this podcastbefore. We, like I said, I
talked about a lot of that withScotty Howe, but you have a
unique perspective with the NATOSOF piece as well.
Kirk Smith (43:31):
Yeah, so, yeah, if you go back, you mentioned and
SOC alpha so the NATO SpecialOperations Component Command
Afghanistan, right? The numberof NATO allies that we had
contributing troops to thatmission, of course, that was a
different mission, if you will,than the US mission in
(43:53):
Afghanistan. So you had ResoluteSupport, and then you had, you
know, kind of enduring freedom.
And there was a nuance betweenthe two, obviously with
different Roe, different goals,different end states. What was
interesting, though, isregardless, the NATO allies, the
European NATO allies thatcontributed to endoc, each had a
(44:13):
unique role to fill. A lot of itwas based on, obviously, what
the NATO mission was, but alsowhat each individual nation's
parliament allowed them to do.
So they had they had caveats,they had limitations. They had
things that they couldn't,couldn't do had, you know, they
could go do certain things, butthey had to be enabled by X, Y
(44:36):
and Z, for example, many of ourpartners, if they were to go do
specific missions. They had tohave a, basically a US JTAC
along with them, for example. Orthey had to have, you know,
particular j
Jim Cardoso (44:51):
tech being a Joint Terminal air, air controller for
some, some folks, J tech, Whatin the world's at? Sorry, yeah.
Kirk Smith (45:00):
Sorry, or they had to have a US medic, for example,
with them, you know, trained toa certain level. And that was
all just, if you will, riskmanagement, right? I mean,
there's nothing wrong with that.
That was just the way theymanage the risk to kind of get
approvals, if you will. So, butyou saw as I left that position
in Afghanistan, and wentdirectly to soccer. It was
(45:22):
really interesting. Then comingback to Europe, if you will,
from, you know, kind of a pureCTE, if you will, thought
process, back to Europe, whereit really was about, and this is
now, you know, roll back thetime 2018 so right? Russia had
already done its Georgiaincursion in 2008 done the
(45:44):
Crimea and Don boss incursion inUkraine. 2014 and now it's 2018
and pretty much every partner onthe Eastern Front was aware of
what Russia's intention wasgoing to be, which was to
continue to press the limitsright. How can we, how can we
continue to press NATO, if youwill, to kind of see how much
(46:09):
resolve they have. We could goalong and in depth about, you
know, why Russia did its mostrecent invasion of Ukraine, if
you will, another podcast did,yeah, that's right, was that
invited, if you will, because ofthe stance that Ukraine was
taking towards whether it be theEU or NATO, or the stance that
(46:29):
the EU and NATO was takingtowards Ukraine, all those
conversations, but what I wantto get to, really, is talk about
How the perspective wascompletely different when I got
dealing with European allies andpartners, and I'll say partners,
because at the time, as youmentioned earlier, Sweden and
Finland were not NATO Alliesyet. So they were partners, but
(46:51):
they were not allies. And man,do you want to talk about some
cagey nations, Finland andSweden, in the way that they
manage their relationship rightwith NATO, with the US all under
the shadow of Russia, reallyinteresting to watch and deal
with them. And now all in thebest way possible, some
(47:14):
incredibly savvy operators, softoperators, incredible
capabilities, incredible accessand understanding of an
adversary that we simply didn'thave, and to do things with
those two nations at the SOFlevel, was incredible to get
insight into how they operated,how they how they thought, how
(47:35):
they approach problems, and,most importantly, How they saw
the enemy, if you will, right?
The Russian Federation differentperspective than we had. Then
you talk about the Baltics,right? And, and, you know,
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Iwent and did a resistance
Operating Concept workshop inRiga, Latvia, and my I was the
(47:58):
keynote speaker, and I remembergetting up on stage and saying,
I feel so unbelievablyhypocritical as a US general
officer standing here talking toyou, Latvia, Lithuania and
Estonia about resistance. Thisis in your DNA. This is what
your nation has done fordecades, and last time we
(48:19):
resisted in the US was 1776,right? Who am I to come tell you
about resistance and resilience?
They really got it. They do getit. They continue to get it. And
we learned, I think we learnedan incredible amount leading up
to, unfortunately, what was theinvasion of Ukraine, then, from
our your Ukrainian partners aswell, that we're working with
(48:39):
and doing, you know, I would saywe would go there and help them
build a schoolhouse. But thereality was, is our Green Berets
were coming back having learnedmore than they taught them,
bluntly put. So I don't knowwhat that kind of gifts to what
you what you were looking for,Jim, but I mean that to see that
difference from what we weredoing in Afghanistan to what our
European allies and partners aredoing, you know, kind of pre
(49:01):
most recent invasion of Ukraine,and now currently through that,
and I don't mean at thatstrategic level. I really mean
at the operational and tacticallevel to see kind of what those
capabilities were. And boy,nothing made us better
interoperable partners, honestlythan Afghanistan right to learn
how to communicate with eachother, to learn how to plan with
(49:24):
each other, to learn how tosupport each other. It was, you
know, it was blood and treasurelost. I did it for everybody
that was involved. But thelessons learned were incredible,
and I have not seen them falterat all since then, every one of
my the allies that I dealt withwhen I was at Africa Command.
Now we had moving on from SOChere. Was like, hey, we want to
(49:47):
continue to work with you hereon the continent of Africa,
because what we learned inAfghanistan we have to retain,
because we're going to need itin the future. And it's been
incredible to watch, yeah,
Jim Cardoso (49:59):
yeah. And I think.
First of all, combat. It's goingto reveal the seams and reveal
the weaknesses, and we revealthe things that need to be
improved upon. And no question,it did that. Like you said, it
was, it was tragically sosometimes, but and then, but
then, then real tragedies, notlearning those lessons, and then
just become lessons observed.
And that does no, nobody anygood. So I'm glad to see that's
(50:21):
happened. I mean, you know whenus, when you ask somebody, an
American, you say, okay, when Isay special for special
operations, what you thinkyou're gonna hear? You know,
Green Berets, Navy SEALs,Rangers, hopefully, air
commandos, which is what you andI did, but our partner nations,
they have, I mean, not justincredible capability, but I
love how you brought out justtheir their insight they have
(50:43):
too, and how they apply uniquecapability and reduce budget for
capability, using their insightto that specific thing they need
to do well. And then you can mixthose together, as you said, for
that combined effect, that was athat I mean that that's that's a
great lesson learned, andhopefully we continue to learn
(51:04):
it and get better because of it.
Um, so we're kind of wrapping upnow, you know, we've been at it
for I could look, I could, Icould do this all day. I mean,
I'm enjoying the conversation.
And like, you know, I said,before we got on, you said
you're going to be in Tampa forsoft week, right? So I would say
anyone who's listening,especially if you're in Tampa,
(51:25):
and if you can get over to softweek, that's not till the first
week of May, but you'll seeJanice, I over there. You'll see
myself over there, and you'llsee Lieutenant General Smith
walking around there as well.
It's a pretty, pretty greatprogram, but any final thoughts
on what we've talked abouttoday, or anything else that you
may have missed before we wrapit up.
Kirk Smith (51:45):
Jim, it was a pleasure. These types of things
are great, I think, to keep usthinking and keep people
thinking collectively about, youknow what? It's not all doom and
gloom, right? It may not alwaysLook sunny, but there's always
great opportunity out there, aslong as you don't have your
eyes, you know, if you willblinded or shuttered to the
(52:07):
point that you're not looking,you know, for the opportunity
that's there. I think thesetypes of conversations kind of
keep people thinking and keepyou moving down the right the
right path. I thinkcollectively, as an interested
observer, as a activeparticipant, as someone
providing advice or guidance, Ithink it's valuable.
Jim Cardoso (52:30):
Well, I appreciate that, and I know you're doing
another conversation later ontonight, and I'm sure a lot of
people are picking your brain,and rightfully so. And I've
always enjoyed our conversationsfrom the time it was Captain
Cardoso and Captain Smith, uptill the up till the current
day, you always have, I alwayslearned some from you, Kirk so
thank you for your time today.
Thanks, Jim. It was a pleasure.
(52:51):
A special thanks to our guesttoday, retired Air Force
Lieutenant General Kirk Smith.
He served as the commander ofSpecial Operations Command
Europe, as well as deputycommander of United States
Africa Command. It's been aterrific conversation today, and
the only thing better would havebeen to have it over a beverage.
I hope you enjoyed it as much asI did next week on at the
boundary, our guest will be DrZachary Selden. He's an
(53:14):
associate professor at theUniversity of Florida, and was
previously the director of thedefense and security committee
of the NATO ParliamentaryAssembly. He also authored the
book economic sanctions asinstruments of American foreign
policy. We'll be talking withhim about that book and the
ideals and realities ofsanctions for our next episode
(53:36):
of the podcast. Thanks forlistening today. If you like
what we're doing, please sharethis podcast with your
colleagues and network. You canalso follow GNSI on our LinkedIn
and X accounts at USF,underscore GNSI, and check out
our website as well atusf.edu/gnsi, or you can also
subscribe to our monthlynewsletter. You music that's
(53:57):
going to wrap up this episode ofat the boundary. Each new
episode will feature global andnational security issues we
found to be insightful,intriguing, fascinating, maybe
controversial, but overall, justworth talking about. I'm Jim
(54:17):
Cardoso, and we'll see you atthe boundary. You.
Jim, hello everyone. Welcome to
(00:12):
another 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.
Our guest today is retired USAir Force Lieutenant General
(00:33):
Kirk Smith. He's the formercommander of Special Operations
Command Europe and deputycommander of us Africa Command.
I always enjoy bringing in SOFleaders, especially one I've
known personally for a year ortwo. First a quick reminder that
next week, on April 15, we'llhold the cyber frontier Summit.
(00:53):
It's the first cyber securityconference produced and hosted
by our student organization, thefuture strategist program, FSP
has put together an amazinglineup of discussions, speakers
and research. They're alsointroducing some unique features
with this conference, includingstudent moderators and a student
ridden policy proposal for thepanel to review. Our Executive
(01:16):
Director, retired Marine CorpsGeneral Frank Mackenzie, will be
put on the proverbial Hot Seat,as he's agreed to be grilled by
two students at the conference'skeynote discussion. I could
speak for all of us at GNSI insaying that we'd really
appreciate your support forthese students by registering
and attending the conference isin the Oval theater at the
Marshall Student Center here onthe Tampa campus of USF. There's
(01:40):
no cost to attend, butregistration is required. Tell
your friends, tell your family,tell your fellow students, and
let's pack the house for FSP.
We'll drop a link in the shownotes for more information. All
right, let's bring on our guestfor today's episode. Retired Air
Force Lieutenant General KirkSmith joins us from Norway,
where he's enjoying thebeautiful April Scandinavian
(02:00):
weather, which is a lot moretemperate than I actually
thought it was when I looked itup for Norway. He's the former
deputy commander of UnitedStates Africa Command, and prior
to that, he served as commanderof Special Operations Command
Europe, the soft component of USEuropean command. He's a 1989
graduate of the Air ForceAcademy and served for 35 years
(02:21):
until retiring last year. Mostimportantly, he and I have known
each other since the 1990s whenwe both flew the mighty MH 53
Pavlo helicopter for Air ForceSpecial Operations Command, and
I got my initial night wateroperations, check ride from
(02:41):
then. Captain Smith, I thinkaround 1998 Kirk, welcome to at
the boundary,
Kirk Smith (02:49):
Jim. Thanks a lot pleasure to be here. So from
your career
Jim Cardoso (02:53):
current activities, as well as landing abroad, you
know, you have a greatperspective on national security
issues in Europe and Africa,which we'll explore today.
However, first I provided a veryquick and fairly one dimensional
biography in the intro. Tell usa little bit more about yourself
and your career. Thanks,
Kirk Smith (03:12):
Jim. So actually, probably career quite a bit like
yours. Started out as a FAPEfirst assignment instructor
pilot upon graduating fromundergraduate pilot training we
did. I think you were, I'mtrying to remember now where you
were, Jim
Jim Cardoso (03:29):
Vance, Air Force Base in Enid, Oklahoma, and the
T 38
Kirk Smith (03:33):
Yeah, it scares me, actually, that I knew that. So I
was Columbus, Mississippi. Thatgives you some idea I lost, if
you'll recall, Jim, you selectedyour location and your start
date based on your Order ofMerit. So I lost two weeks of
leave, and I ended up inColumbus, Mississippi. So that
will give you some indication ofwhat my overall order of merit
(03:55):
was. Fresh graduate, not notgreat. Anyways, completed pilot
training, stayed there inColumbus, Mississippi for three
years as an instructor. And Ihad wanted to go to
undergraduate helicoptertraining right out of the
academy. But again, as Imentioned, my order of merit was
(04:18):
not high enough to get at thetime. I think it was five slots
a year was all that they weregiven. So when I saw after about
two and a half years of being aninstructor, I saw that they were
starting to drop, as we said,helicopters into the assignments
I volunteered. They were all u hones at the time. And then about
the fourth opportunity tovolunteer, if you will. For an
(04:41):
early assignment, there was an853 and I got selected. So I
went off to pave school. As youmentioned, I think you were just
a little bit ahead of me goingthrough the schoolhouse. You
went to Herbert field, I think
Jim Cardoso (04:55):
actual to Osan. I went to the mighty 31st SOS,
Kirk Smith (04:59):
yeah. Yeah, you went to Osan Same, same time frame as
a good mutual friend of our,Sean Silverman, yeah, you and
Sean were there, yep, same timeframe. Anyways, then we ended up
meeting. I went to RAF MiltonHall for my first operational
assignment in the UK. And thenwe ended up meeting in Brindisi,
(05:20):
Italy, doing kind of operation,deny flight, amongst a couple of
other names, delivery, forge,deny
Jim Cardoso (05:29):
flight, joint guard, I think a bunch of names,
all basically
Kirk Smith (05:36):
Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, essentially the no fly
zone, and then some softmissions, as well as the
hostilities, if you will, cameto a close with i Four, s4 and
then that kind of rolled into k4and all the things that were
(05:57):
happening that that time frame,if you will, in the Balkans,
interesting to kind of see howthat has what has changed and
what hasn't changed in thatregion of Europe, if you will,
certainly different than whenyou and I were there. But it is
interesting now to kind of seehow some of those things
(06:18):
continue and remain many, manyyears after, you know, what we
would have said were thecompletions of those missions,
but then continued thatassignment with a CONUS
assignment, so Herbert field,then I would, you know, kind of
say the obligatory schools andstaffs stayed, continued to fly
to 53 You know, throughout thattime frame, whether it was, you
(06:43):
know, as a squadron pilot flyingthe line, or on a on a staff at
the group, or the wing level,the oh six command level. And
then ultimately ended up goingback to RAF Milton Hall in the
21st special operations squadronto be the commander. And that
was my last 53 flyingassignment. As they were
(07:04):
actually already in the processof deactivating. The Air Force
was in the process of, kind ofbasically recapitalizing trading
in the H 50 3s and they werebeing replaced by CV 22
squadrons. So I deactivated, orinactivated, I think is the
correct word, the 21st SOS at reMilton Hall in 2008 and then,
kind of back to obligatory, ifyou will, staff and schools
(07:27):
ended up as the vice WingCommander, following you
actually, or the wing advice, Ithink, is the right term,
Cannon, Air Force Base, COVID,New Mexico garden spot
Jim Cardoso (07:40):
and and
Kirk Smith (07:43):
yeah, and then went to SOCOM from there. So after I
was at Canon for about a year,Afghanistan the second year, and
then went off to US SpecialOperations Command, where we ran
into each other. You were on theSOCOM staff, and I was working
at the time for Admiral McRavenis as commanders Action Group
(08:03):
Director. And I was fortunateenough to get a promotion out of
that assignment, Herbert field.
So now AFSOC Air Force SpecialOperations Command Headquarters,
where I was the Director forStrategic Plans and requirements
and programming, so that a fiveslash eight back to SOCOM, back
to Afghanistan, and then specialopera, Special Operations
(08:28):
Command Europe, from there,after 14 months in Afghanistan,
as the Deputy Commanding Generalfor the subject, so that the
Special Operations Joint TaskForce, slash NATO Special
Operations element as well. AndI'll come back on that a little
bit. I think if we talk some onkind of, where does NATO see
(08:49):
itself now, in kind of a, I'llsay post CT world, not being
totally post CT, but certainlythe way NATO views things. Yeah,
we'll definitely have adifferent Yeah. And then, and
then ended up so that Stuttgartfor two years is soccer, and
then I was fortunate enough toget selected as the D com at
AFRICOM, so seven kilometersaway from patch barracks to
(09:13):
Kelly barracks. And with thatcame the promotion at three
star, and stayed as the decomthere at Africa Command for a
little less than four years,which is a little bit of an
anomaly, but some of that wasthanks to some political
activities. With respect to theSenate not confirming three and
(09:35):
four stars again, due to somepolitical agendas, had nothing
to do, absolutely nothing to dowith the individuals that had to
do with the political agenda. Somy replacement cannot get
confirmed. So my retirement wasextended about a year,
basically, while we were waitingfor those, those things to work
themselves out. And then once Iwas able to finally retire, we
(09:56):
decided. We didn't want to leaveEurope yet. Kids are grown out
of the house, sons off thepayroll. Son is at university,
or daughters at university inthe United Kingdom. And we
decided to stay in Europe alittle bit longer, so we
immigrated to Norway, and that'swhere we live now, about 45
kilometers south of Oslo. So
Jim Cardoso (10:18):
as I can, you know, obviously there's an audio only
broadcast. But we're, you know,for, for those out there
wondering, we are looking ateach other over teams, and I can
see in the background, it's,well, it's still light outside.
It looks like, but it's so whattime is it there? About seven at
night or so, or,
Kirk Smith (10:36):
yeah, 715 so right now it's getting dark. I mean,
so you know, not, not excessiveat all, but it the sun sets
about 830 and then it's kind oftotally dark, if you will, by
about nine, we're stillobviously two months, two and a
half months away from thelongest day. So it will the days
(10:57):
will stretch, but we're stillpretty far south here, quite
honestly, in Oslo. So you don'tsee the extremes that you think
about. You know, up north of theArctic Circle. So, but it can
get dark in the winter time ingray, but this time of the year,
it is magnificent. So we live,ironically, renting the home of
he was the former chief of theNorwegian Air Force. He's now
(11:19):
the senior mill rep in Brusselsfor Norway at NATO headquarters.
It's about 300 meters off of theOslo fjord. And so you're
looking at the backside, and youcan see the sun. I'm looking out
at the fjord, and it is anabsolutely gorgeous day,
Jim Cardoso (11:33):
nice. Well, enjoy it while you got it. No doubt
about that. You know, until youwent through that, I I forgot
some of the lines of, you know,of connection that you and I had
over the I knew we had him, butthen, especially when you
brought up a cannon, was when Iwas like, Oh, that's right,
you're right behind me. Acannon. Yeah, that was, I like,
(11:54):
Canon. It was very different.
Just building up into a softbase. I thought that was a neat
assignment. And then, of course,we ran across each other back at
SOCOM headquarters as well. Youknow, I've found that I asked I
had, you know, Scotty, how onthe podcast as well. You know,
you know, I both know him welland and I asked him this
question as well. I found thatmost long time soft operators,
they and leaders, they rarelyjust kind of stumble into
(12:15):
special operations by accident.
What? What kind of drew you intothe air commando world.
Kirk Smith (12:25):
I think what I would what I would say, is so the
aircraft to start with, right? Iwas just enamored with the age
53 I remember marching back fromJack's valley as a four degree,
right, that first year thatyou're at the Air Force Academy,
you spend your whatever thefield training time was, two
(12:47):
weeks, two and a half, threeweeks, whatever it was, right?
But you're marching back, and onour march back, there was a fly
by of an 853, and I just kind offell in love with the aircraft.
And, you know, loud, ugly,
Jim Cardoso (13:05):
magnificent, snarling beast, no doubt, yeah,
and
Kirk Smith (13:09):
so that kind of drew me in, and then kind of got to
the point where the mission, andreally, I mean to be cliche, it
wasn't so much the mission as itwas, the crew, working with the
crew, any age 53 was not a hugecruise. You know, crew of six,
two officers, four, enlisted.
But it was just, it was just,what a great environment, right?
(13:31):
Dealing with people day in andday out, and making the mission
work because of the way you madeyou brought the crew together.
And then you talk about a twoship, a three ship, a four ship,
and you multiply your six times,you know, by the number of
aircraft. And it just, it wasjust fun. I just enjoyed the,
you know, the challenges, if youwill. Yeah,
Jim Cardoso (13:53):
I was sort of the same. I sort of got pulled into,
I think I thought more like softjust, I wanted to do something
after being a FAPE. Not thatdude, not that being a FAPE was
unimportant. It's a needed duty.
And I enjoyed it while I did it.
But then I was one to, you know,again, to use a kind of a
euphemism, get on the pointy endof the spear. And for me, that
(14:15):
was a draw. And then I got drawnto helicopters after that. And
but I, love to pay the samereason. Love the crew, love the
fact that and the kind ofmissions we did. I mean,
everybody had to do their job orelse you're gonna get you're
gonna get hurt or killed in alot of the missions we did. So
it was really enjoyable. I mean,collaborating with and just
(14:38):
working deeply with thesepeople, and just getting to know
them and trusting them. I mean,trust them like them, like,
like, like, brothers across thesquadron across the four. So it
was, yeah, I agree that was,that was something precious that
really can't be replicated. Youhad, okay, so over your career,
you talked a little bit aboutthat you had, you know, a lot of
(14:58):
senior positions work with.
Europe, NATO, Africa. We'regonna, we're gonna touch on all
those. So let's get into some ofthe National Security Strategy
evolutions going on there. Solet's talk about Europe, not the
native collective. Let's, we'llhit that. But let's, let's talk
about Europe in terms of, youknow, the European nations as
lateral and bilateral andmultilateral partners. You know,
as we discussed, you're livingin Norway. You still spend a lot
(15:21):
of time with their Europeanpartners. What is the sense of
the future you're, you're,you're getting from them, and
their view of the best nextsteps for national security
policy? Yeah,
Kirk Smith (15:35):
it's interesting. So you, you made an important
distinction there. The nuancebetween, if you look at the NATO
alliance as a collective andthen you talk about the
bilateral or multilateralrelationships, and that, to be
blunt, that didn't really hit mekind of the significant
difference there until I was thesoccer commander. And I'll come
(15:57):
back to your question. And youknow, obviously leading back to
that. But you know, as a soccerCommander, I was the US, as you
said, European Command, softcomponent, which allows you to
be exclusive, right? You wantto, you want to, you want to
work with all of your allies andpartners, but you don't have to
(16:18):
in the sense that it you're notin NATO. It's not part of the
Alliance. You're not, you're nota NATO entity, if you will,
official NATO entity, part ofNATO. But you know, I, as the
soccer Commander, I didn't haveto represent NATO in that way.
So I had the ability to beexclusive on who we work with,
when we worked with him, which,to be honest with you, one of
the biggest, you know,advantages to that is, quite
(16:40):
honestly, securityclassification and who you can
share intelligence with makes abig difference. You know, as
opposed to my counterpart at thetime, nshq, NATO soft
headquarters at the time, it wasAdmiral Colin kilrain. He and I
had a great relationship, but hehad to be totally inclusive.
(17:01):
Everything he did had to, had tokind of be geared towards,
including all of the NATOallies. And he and I would talk
about that often, not, yeah. Imean, there were, there were
pros and cons to each right? Imean, there's always a benefit
or a disadvantage, however youchoose to look at it. So to your
question, right now, it'sinteresting. I one of the things
I'm doing in my you know, now,retired classic, you know,
(17:24):
retired general officer, SeniorAdvisor, mentor, dude, yeah, how
you want, how you want to phraseit as I'm a senior advisor,
working with A Canadian companywho owns the contract support
agreement arrangement with jointWarfare Center. Joint Warfare
(17:45):
Center is a NATO entity inStavanger Norway, two star
headquarters that does command,command post, Computer Aided
exercises, and I am a SeniorAdvisor for their high con so
working with that Canadiancompany and helping that
Canadian company, as theyemulate and simulate what you
know, a higher command would doduring these exercises. And of
(18:07):
course, that's NATO, but as youlook at that picture and what
the conversation is, and then asI go out and do other things
with other companies orentities, and you talk
individually to our Europeanallies and partners. You can,
you can be more specific, Iguess, is probably the best way
(18:29):
to put it right. You can talkvery specifically about certain
things with Norway. So if I'mtalking to some Norwegians, it's
a little different conversationthan, if I'm you know, at the
joint Warfare Center, talking tothe alliance, or kind of giving
them perspective, the Allianceperspective, and I think
(18:51):
certainly from a you knowindividual, if you will,
multilateral, bilateral, A lotof conversation right now.
Obviously, NATO aside, is whatis the future of the
transatlantic relationship witheach one of these individual
European countries. So there'llbe a transatlantic relationship,
ie, US and NATO, and there'll bea transatlantic relationship
(19:16):
with US and the UK us and Norwayus and Sweden us, and insert
European country here. So eachone of them views it a little
bit differently. Clearly, Iwould say Germany, France and
the UK have a differentperspective on what that
(19:37):
transatlantic relationship canand will look like than, say,
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania andPoland. And it's really
interesting to kind of hear eachone of their thoughts and
perspectives and in some cases,fears on what that may look like
in the future. And again, it'sall based on kind of that
multilateral, bilateral, ViceNATO perspective. Uh, UK,
(20:01):
Germany and France. You know,much longer partners within the
NATO alliance. And you knowclearly much longer partners and
allies with the United States,because those nations, as they
are currently formed, have beenaround a lot longer than when
you talk about Estonia, Latviaand Lithuania. You know newer
nations, at least in theircurrent iteration, and that
(20:23):
relationship with the US. Soit's kind of interesting talking
to each one and understandingand then you get into, because
you're talking multilaterallyand bilaterally, if you will,
you get into some of the otherthings that are not necessarily
directly security and defenserelated, but certainly will have
impacts on what does thatrelationship look like? So,
(20:43):
yeah, really good example, andwe will not go into in any
detail that still needs
Unknown (20:48):
to be developed. Yeah, it's kind of new, but
Kirk Smith (20:52):
it's important, right? Economics and what this
looks like is going to play abig role. Who are they going to
buy weapons from? Are they goingto develop their own weapons? Do
they have the ability, if youwill, to develop their own
weapons? Some of these nationsare just simply don't have the
industrial wherewithal rightnow, really smart, great
technology, very innovative, butthey just don't have the
(21:14):
capacity, if you will, whetherit's the raw materials or the
manufacturing capacity. And eachone of them looks at it a little
bit differently. So I thinkthose are kind of important
nuances, if you will. As youtalk about our European allies
and partners, how they view thefuture the transatlantic
relationship individually, yeah,
Jim Cardoso (21:32):
it's really interesting, how you draw the
distinction between the larger,more developed, you know, larger
economically more powerfulcountries, longer partners. You
know, we've, you know, we, youknow, people talk about the
special relationship between theUS and the UK at times, and then
the newer, newer nations, noless interested in in democracy
and the national security,national stability, but just,
(21:52):
it's a different, you know, adifferent atmospheric and, you
know, the classic national, youknow, grand strategy, model of
dime, diplomatic, information,military, economic you know, as
we record this, the, you know,the President Trump's tariff
plan has just been unrolledyesterday or last night. And you
(22:16):
know, as we record this, we'rekind of still the world is sort
of absorbing it and seeing whatthe next steps are, but not
questionably, there's going tobe next steps and significant
ramifications. And I'm sure ourEuropean partners are looking
very closely at where that couldgo.
Kirk Smith (22:34):
Yeah, you know, so to add one more layer of nuance,
not that we need to go into anydepth on it, but then you throw
in the EU, right, which, as ablock, is incredibly powerful
economically. Yeah, the EU, I'mgonna, I may get my numbers a
little bit wrong, but recently,talked about 80, or, I'm sorry,
800 million euro the EU islooking to spend on defense and
(22:57):
security, right? So this is, youknow, part and parcel, if you
will, to percentage of GDP. Sowe can talk about that vis a vis
NATO, but the EU is looking at,how do they invest the economic
wealth and power that they haveinto security and defense? And
then again, to further nuanceand slice this even thinner, how
(23:18):
does that impact the UnitedKingdom and Norway, who are
Europeans, but not in the EU,and will they benefit from those
funds? It's conversations thatare happening here in Europe as
they kind of look, not dividedby any means. I mean, I
probably, I think it's probablyfair to say we've never really
seen Europe more united than wehave, I would say over the past
(23:38):
six months. You know, it really,starting with the most recent
invasion of Ukraine, from theRussian Federation invasion. But
Europe has really becomeunified. And now, kind of, as
things happen economically,we're going to see that gel even
more. But there continue to bethose, not divisions. I don't
want to use that word continuesto be those. You slice those
(24:01):
different ways on well, how doesNorway participate in that? How
does the UK participate in that,as they are not EU members? Now
Jim Cardoso (24:09):
that's that that gives, you know, listeners
hearing this can that'ssomething for them to look
forward to, and just kind of,kind of looking, you know,
consider as they're consumingtheir national security type of
news and reports. I thinkthat'll be very interesting as
it continues to evolve. But letus turn to NATO for as a whole
now. So you live in a foundingNATO country, founding NATO
(24:30):
member, but you also work veryclosely with the newest members
of NATO in Scandinavia, onSweden and Finland. So what
discussions are you hearing onthe shifts, I guess, in the
Alliance's expectations in thefuture, especially regarding US
leadership, and even anyperception that the NATO
members, the European NATOmembers, may need to quote,
(24:52):
unquote, go it alone.
Kirk Smith (24:55):
Yeah. So a recent NATO exercise that I. Is that it
was kind of, it was all said injest, and this is going on now,
probably almost eight weeks agonow. But there were kind of
conversations about, oh, so theUS is going to leave NATO, the
US is going to leave NATO. Andit was all you know as, really
the I wasn't the only Americanthere. There were a couple of
(25:20):
uniformed joint Warfare Centerfolks who are on their staff who
wear the US flag on theirshoulders, whether they were
Army or Air Force individuals.
But you have to, there's alittle bit of you gotta have a
little bit of thick skin, right,you know? And some of these
comments are made well, you
Jim Cardoso (25:39):
a long time member of the soft community. You need
to have a lot of you need tohave thick skin. The Pavel
community need to have thickskin as well. So you probably
have elephant hide at thispoint. So I think you're good to
Kirk Smith (25:49):
go. I mean, it's one of those things that you just
kind of you, you take it injest, you take it good
naturedly, and then you get theopportunity to kind of tell you
know whether it's in a NATOconstruct, or, as we talked
about earlier, a bilateral ormultilateral construct. That's a
(26:10):
little bit of, hey, look, we allunderstand that we serve elected
officials, right? That that'skind of, that's just shared
value that we have here in NATO,right? Civilian elected
leadership, civilian control ofthe military. We all understand
that elected officials haveagendas. And I don't mean that
negatively. I mean they have apolitical agenda, political
(26:31):
goals, constituents that theyhave to answer to, and they're
going to do things for thosereasons. They all have the good
of the nation in their heartsand in their minds what they
want to do, but they're going tomake decisions that are not
going to be favorable. Certainlyseen favorable by all, and
that's certainly what'shappening here in Europe now. As
(26:53):
you know, you see whether it'stariffs or whether it's previous
kind of security conversationsmade. I just read an article
just now, before we came on, Jimthat the US Secretary of Defense
will not attend the next Ukrainecontact group. This will be the
first UK Ukraine contact groupwithout a US Secretary of
Defense representation is goingto be co chaired by Germany and
(27:16):
the UK. So those decisions andthings that have been said,
Right? Are having impacts here.
You have to kind of just kind ofroll with it a little bit. But
what I do kind of try to preach,if you will, to whether it's a
NATO audience or a multilateral,bilateral list. Hey, look, we're
going to get through thepolitical machinations. Right?
These things will happen.
Decisions are going to be madethat are not popular, whether
(27:39):
it's in each individual nation,as seen by the Alliance writ
large, but at the militarylevel, there will continue to be
trust fellowship, if you will,to use that term, and
interoperability, it will not goaway. We know that, and we've
learned too much over the past80 years. Coming up on 80 years
(28:00):
now for the history of NATO tolet that slip away. And as
evidenced by, I mean, great, Ijust made that comment at that
NATO exercise I was at. And thatFriday, as I was returning,
there was a combinedinteroperable flyby of Oslo
(28:21):
city, center of A, B, 52 and newand two Norwegian F, 30 fives.
And I kind of highlighted thatto my Norwegian friends when I
got back and I said, I told you,right, this is not going to end,
guys, the military to militaryinteroperability, trust,
friendship is not going to end.
We will let the other thingshappen as they will, and we will
continue to move on.
Jim Cardoso (28:43):
That's a great viewpoint. And you know, I would
agree with you, you know, I'mhere in Tampa, as you well know,
splits and comments so calm arehere, and both of those
combatant commands have largeinternational, you know,
presence, and I was actually ata conference a couple months ago
with with that had some of our,some of the partners that are
(29:05):
also in NATO, they're the seniornational reps for their
countries, and they said prettymuch the same thing. You said, I
don't say which countries,because then people will start
saying, you know, narrow it downto names and stuff like that.
But two or three of them saidpretty much same thing. You
said, Yep, there's, you know,we're family. Sometimes family
squabbles. Sometimes familydoesn't always agree on where
you need to get to, but therelationships and the shared
(29:26):
experience is just it's just toodeep and so and the military
professionals will continuedoing what they do. The
professional politicians willcontinue doing what they do for
all the right reasons. I mean,and like you said, having
agendas, it's not said in a, ina in a in a bad way, it's just,
it's just the reality. So Ithink that most military
(29:49):
professionals and mostprofessionals who deal in this
world at a high level understandthat that the core of NATO, the
relationships and the partneringand the. Shared sense of what's
best for the Alliance willcontinue.
Kirk Smith (30:04):
Yeah, and you know, to, you know, as a counter, if
you will, to the comment thatthe SEC death may, may not
participate in the Ukrainecontact group today. You know,
Secretary Rubio, Secretary ofState, was in Brussels, meeting
with SEC Gen at theministerials, and basically his
his comment was, we are asinvolved in NATO as we have
(30:27):
always been, and we willcontinue to be involved in NATO,
right? So, you know, themessages will be heard the way
they want to be heard. They'llbe said the way they're told to
be said, and the Alliance willcontinue on. Is my personal
belief, right? We will getthrough this. I think I heard it
best, and this was several yearsago now, and I think it was
(30:47):
whether it was President Macronor or another, you know, French
foreign minister, a Frenchforeign the French foreign
minister. Just because we'reallies doesn't mean we're always
aligned, right? And the allianceis incredibly has proven itself
to be incredibly effective.
Yeah, it may not always be themost efficient, and that's on
purpose. That's why it wasdesigned that way, but it is
(31:09):
incredibly effective, bothpolitically, as a political
alliance and as a militaryalliance.
Jim Cardoso (31:16):
Yeah, so that's, that's, that's, I think that's
spot on and look, and we'llwatch this evolve going forward.
It's going to be, it's going tobe an interesting time. There's
no question about that, adynamic time. I like to, I like
to say your final position. Solet's pivot a little bit. Your
final position on active duty.
You're the deputy commander ofus Africa Command Now, unlike
Europe and NATO, Africa has, youknow, been vastly underreported
(31:40):
in the media. First of all,AFRICOM set up a little
differently than other combatantcommands, especially other
geographic combatant commands,right? I think it was designed
to be slightly different. Couldyou talk briefly about the
design of AFRICOM so peopleunderstand that, and then we'll
talk a bit about the kind of thethe current policy
(32:00):
considerations? Yeah,
Kirk Smith (32:04):
absolutely. So, you know, AFRICOM as it was
originally set up, obviously,while it is called a combatant
command at the time, certainlyas it was established. You know,
Somalia aside, not a lot ofcombat, if you will, going on,
especially, you know, with usboots on the ground, in and
around, if you will, at thetime, there's conflict.
Jim Cardoso (32:27):
There's always conflict in Africa, right? But
as far as combat, like war time,combat, it's different, yeah,
Kirk Smith (32:37):
yeah, no. I mean, so it was, it was really kind of
meant to be, how can a combatantcommand, if you will, a
geographic combatant command, tolook at the opportunities on the
continent of Africa with respectto, how do you how do you take
advantage of, and again, in agood way. I don't mean take
advantage of African partners. Imean take advantage of the
(32:57):
opportunities that are there inin Africa, whether it was
literally an incredible wealthof natural resources, whether it
be oil and gas, whether it berare earth minerals, whether it
be, you know, precious metals, Imean, all of those types of
(33:17):
things, whether it was thepopulation, which is a, you
know, a plus and and a minus,right? I mean, it's a, you know,
average age. I think when Ileft, the numbers that we were
using were the kind of theaverage age in the continent of
Africa is 19 years old. Thinkabout, think about what that
means for, you know, thequintessential youth bulge
(33:38):
opportunity there, in terms ofworkforce, right? And what you
can do with that, some certainare certainly challenges there,
with respect to, withoutopportunity, education,
medicine, social structure,what? What does that youth bulge
turn into? And certainly theconcern was, as we saw, you
(34:00):
know, really, from, notcertainly, the inception of
AFRICOM, but as you as AFRICOMgrew, we saw the spread of the
violent extremist organizations,organized, if you will, the
organizations, the Veos, as anentity, not individual bad
actors, but kind of that, that,you know, franchised, if you
will, uh, movement from, youknow, the Middle East, whether
(34:22):
it was Afghanistan, Syria, youknow, the Arabian Peninsula. Saw
those, those movements onto thecontinent of Africa. And what
does that mean? There was a lotof emphasis put on defense,
diplomacy and development waskind of, in fact, AFRICOM used
(34:43):
to, and I can't speak now, sothat, you know, don't take this
Jim Cardoso (34:48):
itself. May have changed. There's no question
about that. It may have changed.
That's
Kirk Smith (34:52):
right. They called themselves the 3d command
defense, diplomacy anddevelopment. That has changed.
Yeah, significantly. You. With,you know what? What has become
of USA ID, yeah, which is by andlarge at the time when I was
serving. They're still thebiggest contributor money wise,
(35:12):
funds wise, into what happenedon the continent of Africa.
Their budget was much, much,much greater than AFRICOM
budget, if you will, to dothings now they probably had a
fairly
Jim Cardoso (35:21):
senior person in AFRICOM from USF, probably in a
fairly senior USA ID personassigned AFRICOM, I would think,
right as kind of an oversightrole. I would guess, yes, that's
right.
Kirk Smith (35:34):
So, I mean, every combatant command has a has a
policy advisor, right? You know,typically a former ambassador
that sits alongside, if youwill, the commander certainly
has a seat at the table with thecommander to talk about foreign
policy. But there was also asenior USAID rep there at
AFRICOM as well to kind ofprovide that perspective, but
(35:56):
from a defense perspective,really, again, as we even, as we
go back and talk about combat,right? Absolutely, troops on the
ground in combat, day in and dayout, whether it was Somalia or
certainly what we saw in WestAfrica in the time that I was
there in the Sahel, securitycooperation was really where was
kind of the bread and butter, ifyou will. How do you think about
(36:18):
security cooperation? And again,I'll go back to kind of the
opportunities and thechallenges. If you don't take
advantage of the opportunitieswith some well placed security
cooperation to help manage whatcould be significant conflict
and instability, you're you'remissing the boat, essentially,
(36:38):
right? So a lot of effort onAFRICOM the time that I was
there, on, how do you thinkabout security cooperation to
help strengthen, buildresilience, if you will, within
some of those societies, withinthe governments to help them
deal with the challenges thatthey knew were going to be
coming, whether it was a violentextremist organization, whether
it was a global competitor thatwas going to try to take
(37:01):
advantage of the space, orwhether it was famine or
drought, right? Kind of thinkabout any one of those. How do
you, how do you think aboutthat? And that's where a lot of
effort from AFRICOM was placedtowards thinking about, how do
you do security cooperation in asmart way? So
Jim Cardoso (37:18):
you can't, you know, you kept mentioning when I
was there, when I was there,which, which, you know, is not
that, not that long ago, but Iwould say, um, so going forward
now, now we've already talkedabout USA ID obviously is not
going to have as large a role,because there really is no USA
ID anymore. Um, but do you thinkthat the threats and
(37:41):
opportunities in Africa havechanged that much? Or what would
you kind of see as the mainthreat? Let's concentrate on the
threats going forward that thethe Trump administration is is
going to need to face.
Kirk Smith (37:54):
Yeah, so I think you'll continue to see, you
know, terrorism, so the violentextremist organizations as as a
challenge there, you know,without getting into the
philosophy of, why do the EOSdo? What the EOS do? Are they
really external threats, or, youknow, threats to the US,
(38:14):
homeland. You know, kind ofwords matter, ways you talk
about ex ops, externaloperations. Are those
organizations capable ofexternal operations. Do they
have aspirations? Do they havecapabilities? Those are all
things that clearly, the commandAFRICOM has to continue to pay
attention to, and ourintelligence apparatus has to
continue to pay attention to andunderstand, I would say, one of
(38:36):
the bigger challenges, you know,so certainly I'm going to come
back and touch on the Europeanpiece is migration, and what
that means to the to theEuropean continent, not just the
European continent, as you see,you know, migration to the US is
also being something, whether itwas, you know, directly from the
African continent to the US, orthrough South America, South and
(38:58):
Central America, which we didsee some of so again, migration,
immigration, depending on kindof where you are, you know the
term of art in Europe team tendsto be migration, Vice
immigration, as they talk about,especially across the
Mediterranean Sea and intosouthern Europe. So certainly
(39:18):
what Europe was concerned about,and then also both the US, if
you will, a shared concern,again, to caveat, the time I was
there, was, how were our globalcompetitors taking advantage of
the opportunities on thecontinent of Africa to gain a
foot up, if you will, Soprincipally the Russian
(39:40):
Federation and People's Republicof China certainly concerns and
they each approached itdifferently. China much more
long view. I'm not sayinganything here that you know
people aren't, yeah, wouldn't,wouldn't, don't, already know,
right? China has a very longview. They think about things
very strategically, much, much,much less militaristic on the.
COVID of Africa, very economic,politically, culturally, if you
(40:05):
will, influencing the RussianFederation. Much more
militaristic. Certainly go backseveral years ago and the
prevalence of the privatemilitary corporations, Wagner in
particular, and what they weredoing so in some instability, to
then make a case for why theyneed to be there to help protect
and uphold some of the moreautocratic African nations, or
(40:30):
take advantage of unstablesituation to make it an
autocratic African nation thatthey could then take advantage
of, whether it was to extractgold from, you know where where
that nation laid, or where thatcountry sat, or just simply get
paid to protect the government.
So each one of them approachedit a little bit differently, and
both, I think, the United Statesand Europe recognized the
(40:51):
challenges that came with bothRussia and China having
increased influence on thecontinent of Africa. It will be
interesting now going forward tosee if the US withdraws
interests and activities on thecontinent of Africa, how much
leeway does that give China andRussia to take advantage of that
(41:13):
space? That vacuum is going toget filled by someone. It'll get
filled by an ISIS affiliate,it'll get filled by an al Qaeda
affiliate, it'll get filled byChina. It'll get filled by
Russia. Someone is going to fillthat Hezbollah even, right? We
even saw, you know, hints ofthat. So it'll be interesting to
see where the US goes as itthinks about the continent of
(41:38):
Africa. Europe is veryinterested in that. So kind of
playing it back now to Europe,right? They're very interested.
I oftentimes get questions hereas I engage even on the private
sector side, if you will, onHey, what do you think about
Africa from your experiences inAfrica? What should we be
thinking about? Should we investmore in Africa? You know, those
types of questions Europe ispaying a lot of attention.
(42:01):
Beyond the migration aspect ofit. They're paying attention to,
what is China gaining? Are theymonopolizing the rare earth
minerals there, cobalt, lithium,etc. So really, really
interesting to kind of see wherethat goes, Yeah,
Jim Cardoso (42:15):
and that's, that's, you know, and really, like I
said, there's really not muchattention paid to, at least from
the media perspective, but it'shard to see where the current
administration is paying muchfor attention, either except
beyond the migration orimmigration piece. So at I think
you're spot on with some of thethe concerns there. So let's,
let's, let's do one last pivot,and we're going to pivot so you
(42:36):
are the you you know you werethe Sauer Commander. You were
the deputy commander forAFRICOM. But for most of your
career, you're a SOF guy, so andyou spend a lot of time not just
in SOF, but with and not justeven joint SOF, like joint, you
know, Army, Air Force, Navy, butalso partner nation SOF. And in
(42:57):
fact, you spent time as a DeputyCommanding General for NATO SOF
in Afghanistan. So talk to usabout just your experiences
working with our partner nation,SOF, some of the capabilities,
some of their methodologies,kind of how they how they
operate, and how theyinteroperate with the US and
(43:19):
with other partners as well. Ithink, you know, I've talked
about soft on this podcastbefore. We, like I said, I
talked about a lot of that withScotty Howe, but you have a
unique perspective with the NATOSOF piece as well.
Kirk Smith (43:31):
Yeah, so, yeah, if you go back, you mentioned and
SOC alpha so the NATO SpecialOperations Component Command
Afghanistan, right? The numberof NATO allies that we had
contributing troops to thatmission, of course, that was a
different mission, if you will,than the US mission in
(43:53):
Afghanistan. So you had ResoluteSupport, and then you had, you
know, kind of enduring freedom.
And there was a nuance betweenthe two, obviously with
different Roe, different goals,different end states. What was
interesting, though, isregardless, the NATO allies, the
European NATO allies thatcontributed to endoc, each had a
(44:13):
unique role to fill. A lot of itwas based on, obviously, what
the NATO mission was, but alsowhat each individual nation's
parliament allowed them to do.
So they had they had caveats,they had limitations. They had
things that they couldn't,couldn't do had, you know, they
could go do certain things, butthey had to be enabled by X, Y
(44:36):
and Z, for example, many of ourpartners, if they were to go do
specific missions. They had tohave a, basically a US JTAC
along with them, for example. Orthey had to have, you know,
particular j
Jim Cardoso (44:51):
tech being a Joint Terminal air, air controller for
some, some folks, J tech, Whatin the world's at? Sorry, yeah.
Kirk Smith (45:00):
Sorry, or they had to have a US medic, for example,
with them, you know, trained toa certain level. And that was
all just, if you will, riskmanagement, right? I mean,
there's nothing wrong with that.
That was just the way theymanage the risk to kind of get
approvals, if you will. So, butyou saw as I left that position
in Afghanistan, and wentdirectly to soccer. It was
(45:22):
really interesting. Then comingback to Europe, if you will,
from, you know, kind of a pureCTE, if you will, thought
process, back to Europe, whereit really was about, and this is
now, you know, roll back thetime 2018 so right? Russia had
already done its Georgiaincursion in 2008 done the
(45:44):
Crimea and Don boss incursion inUkraine. 2014 and now it's 2018
and pretty much every partner onthe Eastern Front was aware of
what Russia's intention wasgoing to be, which was to
continue to press the limitsright. How can we, how can we
continue to press NATO, if youwill, to kind of see how much
(46:09):
resolve they have. We could goalong and in depth about, you
know, why Russia did its mostrecent invasion of Ukraine, if
you will, another podcast did,yeah, that's right, was that
invited, if you will, because ofthe stance that Ukraine was
taking towards whether it be theEU or NATO, or the stance that
(46:29):
the EU and NATO was takingtowards Ukraine, all those
conversations, but what I wantto get to, really, is talk about
How the perspective wascompletely different when I got
dealing with European allies andpartners, and I'll say partners,
because at the time, as youmentioned earlier, Sweden and
Finland were not NATO Alliesyet. So they were partners, but
(46:51):
they were not allies. And man,do you want to talk about some
cagey nations, Finland andSweden, in the way that they
manage their relationship rightwith NATO, with the US all under
the shadow of Russia, reallyinteresting to watch and deal
with them. And now all in thebest way possible, some
(47:14):
incredibly savvy operators, softoperators, incredible
capabilities, incredible accessand understanding of an
adversary that we simply didn'thave, and to do things with
those two nations at the SOFlevel, was incredible to get
insight into how they operated,how they how they thought, how
(47:35):
they approach problems, and,most importantly, How they saw
the enemy, if you will, right?
The Russian Federation differentperspective than we had. Then
you talk about the Baltics,right? And, and, you know,
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Iwent and did a resistance
Operating Concept workshop inRiga, Latvia, and my I was the
(47:58):
keynote speaker, and I remembergetting up on stage and saying,
I feel so unbelievablyhypocritical as a US general
officer standing here talking toyou, Latvia, Lithuania and
Estonia about resistance. Thisis in your DNA. This is what
your nation has done fordecades, and last time we
(48:19):
resisted in the US was 1776,right? Who am I to come tell you
about resistance and resilience?
They really got it. They do getit. They continue to get it. And
we learned, I think we learnedan incredible amount leading up
to, unfortunately, what was theinvasion of Ukraine, then, from
our your Ukrainian partners aswell, that we're working with
(48:39):
and doing, you know, I would saywe would go there and help them
build a schoolhouse. But thereality was, is our Green Berets
were coming back having learnedmore than they taught them,
bluntly put. So I don't knowwhat that kind of gifts to what
you what you were looking for,Jim, but I mean that to see that
difference from what we weredoing in Afghanistan to what our
European allies and partners aredoing, you know, kind of pre
(49:01):
most recent invasion of Ukraine,and now currently through that,
and I don't mean at thatstrategic level. I really mean
at the operational and tacticallevel to see kind of what those
capabilities were. And boy,nothing made us better
interoperable partners, honestlythan Afghanistan right to learn
how to communicate with eachother, to learn how to plan with
(49:24):
each other, to learn how tosupport each other. It was, you
know, it was blood and treasurelost. I did it for everybody
that was involved. But thelessons learned were incredible,
and I have not seen them falterat all since then, every one of
my the allies that I dealt withwhen I was at Africa Command.
Now we had moving on from SOChere. Was like, hey, we want to
(49:47):
continue to work with you hereon the continent of Africa,
because what we learned inAfghanistan we have to retain,
because we're going to need itin the future. And it's been
incredible to watch, yeah,
Jim Cardoso (49:59):
yeah. And I think.
First of all, combat. It's goingto reveal the seams and reveal
the weaknesses, and we revealthe things that need to be
improved upon. And no question,it did that. Like you said, it
was, it was tragically sosometimes, but and then, but
then, then real tragedies, notlearning those lessons, and then
just become lessons observed.
And that does no, nobody anygood. So I'm glad to see that's
(50:21):
happened. I mean, you know whenus, when you ask somebody, an
American, you say, okay, when Isay special for special
operations, what you thinkyou're gonna hear? You know,
Green Berets, Navy SEALs,Rangers, hopefully, air
commandos, which is what you andI did, but our partner nations,
they have, I mean, not justincredible capability, but I
love how you brought out justtheir their insight they have
(50:43):
too, and how they apply uniquecapability and reduce budget for
capability, using their insightto that specific thing they need
to do well. And then you can mixthose together, as you said, for
that combined effect, that was athat I mean that that's that's a
great lesson learned, andhopefully we continue to learn
(51:04):
it and get better because of it.
Um, so we're kind of wrapping upnow, you know, we've been at it
for I could look, I could, Icould do this all day. I mean,
I'm enjoying the conversation.
And like, you know, I said,before we got on, you said
you're going to be in Tampa forsoft week, right? So I would say
anyone who's listening,especially if you're in Tampa,
(51:25):
and if you can get over to softweek, that's not till the first
week of May, but you'll seeJanice, I over there. You'll see
myself over there, and you'llsee Lieutenant General Smith
walking around there as well.
It's a pretty, pretty greatprogram, but any final thoughts
on what we've talked abouttoday, or anything else that you
may have missed before we wrapit up.
Kirk Smith (51:45):
Jim, it was a pleasure. These types of things
are great, I think, to keep usthinking and keep people
thinking collectively about, youknow what? It's not all doom and
gloom, right? It may not alwaysLook sunny, but there's always
great opportunity out there, aslong as you don't have your
eyes, you know, if you willblinded or shuttered to the
(52:07):
point that you're not looking,you know, for the opportunity
that's there. I think thesetypes of conversations kind of
keep people thinking and keepyou moving down the right the
right path. I thinkcollectively, as an interested
observer, as a activeparticipant, as someone
providing advice or guidance, Ithink it's valuable.
Jim Cardoso (52:30):
Well, I appreciate that, and I know you're doing
another conversation later ontonight, and I'm sure a lot of
people are picking your brain,and rightfully so. And I've
always enjoyed our conversationsfrom the time it was Captain
Cardoso and Captain Smith, uptill the up till the current
day, you always have, I alwayslearned some from you, Kirk so
thank you for your time today.
Thanks, Jim. It was a pleasure.
(52:51):
A special thanks to our guesttoday, retired Air Force
Lieutenant General Kirk Smith.
He served as the commander ofSpecial Operations Command
Europe, as well as deputycommander of United States
Africa Command. It's been aterrific conversation today, and
the only thing better would havebeen to have it over a beverage.
I hope you enjoyed it as much asI did next week on at the
boundary, our guest will be DrZachary Selden. He's an
(53:14):
associate professor at theUniversity of Florida, and was
previously the director of thedefense and security committee
of the NATO ParliamentaryAssembly. He also authored the
book economic sanctions asinstruments of American foreign
policy. We'll be talking withhim about that book and the
ideals and realities ofsanctions for our next episode
(53:36):
of the podcast. Thanks forlistening today. If you like
what we're doing, please sharethis podcast with your
colleagues and network. You canalso follow GNSI on our LinkedIn
and X accounts at USF,underscore GNSI, and check out
our website as well atusf.edu/gnsi, or you can also
subscribe to our monthlynewsletter. You music that's
(53:57):
going to wrap up this episode ofat the boundary. Each new
episode will feature global andnational security issues we
found to be insightful,intriguing, fascinating, maybe
controversial, but overall, justworth talking about. I'm Jim
(54:17):
Cardoso, and we'll see you atthe boundary. You.
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