Conversations on Strategy Podcast – Ep 58 – Dr. C. Anthony Pfaff, COL Michael Shekleton, and COL Clayton T. Manning – The Strategic Questions Research List (SQRL)

In this episode, Major Brennan Deveraux interviews Dr. C. Anthony Pfaff, Colonel Michael Shekleton, and Colonel Clayton T. Manning on the recently published Strategic Questions Research List (SQRL). They discuss the contents of the SQRL, how it differs from previous years’ compendiums to the Annual Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment, and how it can be used by students during their research.

Keywords: Strategic Questions Research List (SQRL), research, academics, research questions, sponsors, Strategic Research Requirement

Major Brennan Deveraux

Hello, you are listening to Conversations on Strategy. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, [the] US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.

My name is Major Brennan Deveraux. I work at the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI). I will be the guest host for this podcast on our Strategic Questions Research List (SQRL) and all associated podcasts for the Strategic Estimate.

I’m joined today [by] three guests. The first is Dr. [C. Anthony] Pfaff, the director of the Strategic Studies Institute. The second is Colonel [Michael] Mike Shekleton—my boss—the director of the Strategic Research and Analysis Department (SRAD) here at SSI. And then, Colonel Clay Manning, a professor at the US Army War College’s School of Strategic Landpower (SSL), as well as the director of the Strategic Research Requirement (SRR).

Dr. Pfaff, I’m going to start with you today. The Strategic Questions Research List, also known around the War College as the squirrel (SQRL)—fun name—can you tell me a little bit about what it is, why it’s important, and why we’re having this conversation today?

Dr. C. Anthony Pfaff

It’s a great question. And I guess [I will share] a little bit about the history of the name: In the before times, we often relied on something called the Key Strategic Issues List, also known as the KSIL, that was both loved and hated by various entities, both here at the War College and abroad. Part of the problem with the KSIL was that it wasn’t well aligned in any given year with the requirements of the service and of DoD (Department of Defense) in general. So, it had gotten abandoned, and we had started using just the Strategic Estimate, but then we kind of discovered that we still weren’t properly aligned with the field. And so, the SQRL became our effort to do that, as we would reach out to major commands, agencies, and others who we would consider our stakeholders, and ask them what their resource priorities are.

We came up with the name because Research Questions List is RQL (Urkel), and that was right out. Strategic Research Questions List was SRQL (circle), and we certainly don’t want any more of those around here. Then, it was Strategic Questions Research List, which is a little awkward to say out loud, but it does form the acronym SQRL, and chasing squirrels is always fun.

That’s how we got the name. And, it’s our effort to be as aligned as possible with the national security challenges that we’re facing in ways that are interactive in using it. Unlike the KSIL, [in] which you sort of drop the [questions] on the researchers, who are the students, this is [an] interactive process where we help shape the questions so that they’re easier to use and then have a mechanism and a venue for providing the feedback from the research back to the field. That’s what we’re trying to do here.

Back over to you.

Deveraux

I like the name. I think it’s catchy. It’s easy to remember. Although, as you recall, I was very nervous the first time we said it in a big meeting and made sure I kept saying Strategic Questions Research List.

Quick follow up for you, sir, on the SQRL. Who’s it for? Is this just a War College product, a PME (professional military education) product? Who are we getting this out to? And are the sponsors, those customers, are they looking for anything specific? Are they looking for giant theses? Strategic long papers? Does that vary by command?

Pfaff

We’re trying to be as flexible as possible. So, there’s room for all the above that you just talked about. Now, in some cases, [with] these questions, there’s not a lot of research behind them, so there’s the opportunity to do some groundbreaking work. That’s going to take longer. That’s also part of the interactive process is that we help build expectations, both for the sponsor and for whoever takes on the question. There may be some things that take a while that require the full year or so to get done. However, what we got this year was a clear demand signal from the field for shorter turnaround things and responses. And so, we do have some formats—that, for those of you who take on these questions, we’ll provide you—that allow you at least to get an initial response out back to the sponsor in order to, kind of, fill that need, particularly where there is already a lot of research already done.

Now as far as who it’s for, pretty much anybody who is in the community that does research for the DoD, these are questions that they could take up, and we hope to get this promulgated out to a lot of those agencies. However, a major focus is getting [the questions] out to the student community so that they get to do two things. One is that just reading the list, you get a feel for what the DoD cares about right now, which may not only inform the [kinds] of projects you take on while you’re here but should [also] inform how you interact with your other courses.

So, a short response here to wrap it up [is], basically, it’s for anybody who can use it. If you do use it, we would just ask that we are also included in how you provide any feedback to one of the sponsors.

Deveraux

Great, thanks. I’ll transition over to Colonel Shekleton. We had questions last year—in fact, we had a bunch of questions last year. We didn’t have the catchy name. That’s not all that’s changed. Can you talk to us about the shift in how this product has grown from last year’s version to this year’s version?

Colonel Michael Shekleton

Absolutely, Brennan, Thanks for that question.

Last year we had 101 questions. This year we have 100 questions. So, at the surface level, it may look very similar. Where the big change is, is [that] last year we had 11 organizations that provided questions; this year we had 43. And so, there’s a couple of ramifications from that. First off, with having that many organizations but the same [number] of questions, it means that what we’ve got from these 43 different organizations are their top two or three or so priority questions. And so, in other words, the command was able to put their thumbprint on, “Hey, we would love if the War College and—more broadly, the research community—could look at this challenge, look at this issue.” The participation and the focus [is a big difference] that really marks this year’s SQRL [with] the KISL of years past.

The range of organizations that provided us questions include the Headquarters, Department of the Army (HQDA), and so, most of the principal officials at HQDA provided questions. We also got [questions] from the four-star Army commands, the Army service component commands, the combatant commands, as well as a handful of other Joint and Army commands. We think we have a really good range of organizations that provided questions.

What this now affords to the students and the faculty is that most of them should be able to see themselves in the SQRL, whether it’s [that] they’ve got relevant experience from previous assignments that allow them a unique window or insight into trying to address the question and provide recommendations, or, it may align with a diverse range of professional interests. We think we have a pretty good starting point to help facilitate research over the next year.

Deveraux

As we’re doing the research, whether that’s a faculty member, a student, or to the earlier point, just a[n] interested Defense Department researcher, someone who just wants to tackle one of these problems, is there any sort of feedback loop? How are we getting research back to those customers? We talked about this being an iterative process when the questions are coming in. Are we iterating continually as we’re working through this? [Are] there opportunities for that dialogue?

Shekleton

Brennan, absolutely.

Prospective researchers can reach out to either myself or to you. For those who are listening to this, if you look at the back of the Strategic Estimate, on the back cover it’s got a list of the entire team that contributed to the Estimate, whether as an author or [someone] helping to put it together, and you’ll find [Major Deveraux’s] and my name, Colonel Shekleton, on the back. And so, for those of you on the DoD network, you’re able to reach out directly using the global address list.

For those who may be at an academic institution or somewhere else where you don’t have access, there’s an ability on the Strategic Studies Institute website to write to the Institute. And, that e-mail traffic would be funneled to us, and then we can link you up with the command and, specifically, the point of contact (POC) for the command’s question.

We collected these questions over the past several months. For example, when students start taking these questions up in earnest, later in the year, the strategic context may have shifted a little bit. And so, the question that an organization asked in the springtime may be slightly different in the fall. And so, by having that conversation with the command, it allows the command to refine—“Hey, here’s what we’re looking for, and if you could shift a little bit to this”—that will provide maximum value to the command and for the student, as well as for faculty members that are able to link up with these POCs at the commands. It allows you to understand the context for why the command’s asking the question. They may be able to provide some additional details. And with that, the researcher who is trying to address the challenge, the question, will be able to provide something better in return. And so, we’re really happy that we’re able to try to facilitate this loop to where you can refine questions, and then, when the researcher’s done, to provide some of those recommendations back to the command for their use.

Deveraux

I think it’s great, yeah, the refinement—but one really important point is those recommendations going back are going back to an audience who is already looking for them. It is not an unsolicited e-mail. It’s [as if the commands are saying] “I would like to see this.” So, you’re getting research to a targeted audience, and you may be affecting a planning team. You may be affecting a command.

Shekleton

We recognize—and again, just like commands may refine the question that they would ask someone to research—researchers, as [they] start pursuing and looking at things, they may have their own refinements. And in fact, for us, answering the exact question is less important than actually helping to facilitate and establish those relationships, especially among faculty here at the War College or at other professional military education institutions to where it may have started with a SQRL question this year, but then there’s this running dialogue across a range of topics to where faculty members can bring their expertise to bear to help out commands. And so, we’re excited not just for the SQRL but for the broader ecosystem this could potentially create.

Deveraux

Yeah, I think that’s a good point, and it creates good dialogue because the questions, and we did our best to refine them, aren’t leading necessarily to an obvious answer. I like to joke, “don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.” The command might not get back the path they were necessarily looking for. They’re going to get back, potentially, a hard look at a problem set or a reframing, and that can create good dialogues moving beyond the question and research.

OK, so, it’s for everyone, and that’s great, but we’re here today at the War College. So, if I could, Colonel Manning, I’d like to turn [the conversation] over to you and talk specifically about the War College students coming in and their Strategic Research Requirement and how the SQRL fits into that.

Colonel Clay Manning

Yeah, absolutely. I appreciate that, Brennan.

One of the things that we look at with the Strategic Research Requirement is that it is truly the only research requirement that the students have here at the War College. I mean, they take a fair number of classes and courses over the course of the year, but every one of those courses gives them a topic, tells them essentially what they need to research and what they need to write about, whereas the Strategic Research Requirement is really the true research area for the student to take advantage of and to take the lead on, right? And that’s what we want them to do. We want them to come in [and] take the lead on a particular topic.

They get to identify the topic. They get to research that particular area. They get to find gaps in the research. They get to make recommendations toward that particular area. And so, what it’s really intended to do, especially the Strategic Research Requirement, it’s intended to give the students time to take a step back and think about a topic. And that’s a pretty big significant emotional event for most of our students here because they have not done that in a long time. But if they can take a step back, come up with a topic, identify a topic, think about the challenge, that is, dive into that challenge, and then, ultimately, make recommendations on that challenge, that’s what we want them to do.

The SQRL comes in and allows them that opportunity to choose a relevant topic that is of interest to them and that is a priority to the force, [which is] something that at times we have struggled with at the War College. Students come in and they want to find something that they’re intelligent on (or believe they’re intelligent on) and [believe] they can come in and just write about it, but, at times, that’s not really hitting the mark of what we really need in the force, right?

With the SQRL, we’re allowing them to come in, find something that is a priority for our commands out in the world, but also complete a requirement that’s necessary for them to graduate here at the War College. So, the SQRL itself is allowing them to pick topics that are very relevant to today to the force that they’re a part of. And that’s what we wanted to see.

Deveraux

I know that the Strategic Estimate as a whole, which is a narrative and a question list, went out to the incoming class for next year. So, I know that they’ve at least had a chance to look at it, and I know you give a great brief on the Strategic Research Requirement to the student body. If I’m a student, I’m sitting there and I’m looking through the list and I’m perusing through, and a couple questions are popping out to me, what’s that next step? Who am I talking to? What’s my timeline?

Can you just talk to me a little bit about the “OK, hey, I’m excited about question X. Where am I going from here, and am I already behind the power curve?”

Manning

We try to set aside time over the course of the year for these students to dedicate [themselves] to research. They’re going to get notified and oriented to some of the things that they’re doing over the course of the year here in just a few weeks. We’re gonna come in, [and] we’re gonna do an orientation the first week or two of the course, and that will be some of their first notifications of, “Oh my gosh, I have this research requirement due.”

And then towards the end of the month of August, I’ll jump in there. I’ll talk to them about the Strategic Research Requirement [and] talk to them about key milestones within the year. And that will be their jumping off point. Candidly, they’ve got a lot of things that they’ve got going on the first month or so of class. We’re not gonna ask them to really jump in and dive into the Strategic Research Requirement until after that first month. So, right into early September is when these guys will start looking at these topics and spending that time identifying the topic and [identifying] those advisers that they want to work with over the course of time. And that’ll run us right up to one of the major milestones that we have for the Strategic Research Requirements, which is right around our first week in October. And that’s that first milestone. And that’s when they've really identified a topic. They’ve identified a topic [and] they’ve identified the project adviser who’s going to help them through the course of the year on that particular topic.

That’s a key milestone. That’s where I really want them in that month of September: diving into the SQRL, looking at those topics, looking at those ideas, coming up with potential topics or branches or sequels to that topic that they’ve looked at so they can start running that to ground over the course of the next year.

We’ll have a few other milestones that come up through the year. That’s fine. That keeps them on track, but, ultimately, that gets us to the end, which is milestone four, right at end of March. So, 31 March we’ll be jumping in and completing that research requirement. Most of the time, they’ll be diving [into] the SQRL here in early- to mid-September.

Deveraux

Great. And whether it’s at the beginning of the process, throughout, or at the end of the process, whether it’s the student or their project adviser, if they want to tie into that command and they don’t already have that built-in relationship, we’re definitely here to support to do that dialogue we talked about.

I’m going to transition us to the SQRL itself—as we look at the questions—because if you’re not holding this in front of you, it’s a little ambiguous. I put my hands on all 100 of these questions this year, really dove in. And a couple stood out for various reasons. One in particular I’d like to highlight that popped for me was out of SOUTHCOM (United States Southern Command), and it was question number 62, “China’s Military Projection in Latin America.” I don’t have any experience at all with that area. I’ve never done any research there, and it wasn’t that it was South America or Latin America. It was the idea to me that China’s not a regional problem. And we talk about that, but we don’t really apply it well, and I’ve been talking with the China Landpower [Studies] Center here about looking at China a little bit differently and might pursue a project next year, looking not to answer specifically SOUTHCOM’s question, but to take that question, more broadly, to a couple other regions and say, “Hey, what is China doing?” or “What does a conflict with China mean for these different regions?”

I’m curious if, as you guys looked through—because I know you’ve had a chance to look through the SQRL as well—if any questions really popped to you and, if they did, why?

And I’ll start over here with Dr. Pfaff.

Pfaff

Thanks Brennan. Yeah, actually a number popped out. I’m gonna, kind of, talk about two. I tend to focus [on and am] interested in a lot of the emerging technology questions. There’s a number of them in the SQRL that should suit anyone’s tastes, however, the first one I kind of focused on was number 72 [73], “Risks [Associated with] AI.”

I like the way it was framed because there’s a lot of urgency in adopting AI technologies on a very wide range of things as fast as possible. At the same time, there certainly is an awareness, a justifiable awareness, regarding the ethical implications of use of those technologies. There’s also a lot of conversations about trust and on what basis do we trust these technologies? But, what you see less of is an understanding of how the integration of these technologies exposes the vulnerabilities that, if we don’t examine that, we may not otherwise see. One that’s known deals with prompt injects. [If] somebody can get access to your system, they can inject prompts that cause the system to do things that you don’t want it to do, like divulge information. Or, if this is [a] supply [chain] management kind of system, it could end up corrupting output. Little things like that can expose us to bigger vulnerabilities that I think [are] kind of important.

And I also thought that question 99, “Emerging Disruptive Technologies,” was also an interesting one. And one thing I’d highlight there is in doing that kind of research, often the most disruptive technologies are not the most advanced. The paradigm example [is] portable hard drives. Back in the [1980s], all the hard-drive manufacturers made big, fast hard drives. Somebody came [up] with a small, slower [hard drive] with limited memory. But because it was portable, it revolutionized the market, and if you weren’t making those, you weren’t making the other ones either. What’s that look like for military technologies? And that’s where things like directed energy weapons might serve as an example where—and I do think we talk about this a little bit in the Estimate—you may not need a directed energy weapon (a fully capable one) of, say, knocking out an aircraft or destroying a vehicle or something like that. It just needs to be good enough that it affects some attribute within the combat operating environment that gives you an advantage, and that can be done often with lower technologies, lower costs, and figuring out what those are and how to take advantage—and also not be vulnerable to them, I think—are kind of useful and very interesting questions to take up.

Shekleton

What I’d like to do is jump in and offer two questions. And the first one that I would highlight ties into what Dr. Pfaff was just talking about, and that’s question number 3, the “High-Low Capability Mix.” It’s from the Secretary of the Army. That one is looking at how do we continue to leverage exquisite American technology—so in other words, quality—while at the same time folding in lessons from Ukraine and elsewhere around the globe to where quantity is once again providing a unique quality on the battlefield. That one I think is a really cool one that is kind of a crux that: Is warfare changing? And how do we make sure that we stay with it and hopefully stay ahead of that? That one, while I’m super excited about it, I may not have the requisite expertise, so I’ll let someone else jump on that one.

The one that I will jump on and actually do research to help answer the question is number 16, titled “Military Personnel Exchange Program.” And in this case, my last assignment was as the chief of an Office of Defense Cooperation in Italy, where we had almost two dozen exchange officers from the various services that were in Italy, working alongside our Italian allies. And, in this case, what I learned from that assignment is what a combat multiplier these individuals can be as we look at how do we partner and ally with other countries as we look towards great-power war. [British Prime Minister Winston Churchill] once said that the only thing worse than fighting with allies is fighting without allies. And so, I think this is something that, as we move forward thinking about ourselves, we also need to think about how we can harness this coalition of capabilities and capacities by working with our allies and partners. And so, I’m looking forward to providing some recommendations back to the Army staff on that question. First, as a very, kind of, short paper that’s a little bit more digestible, and then maybe going a little bit deeper so that way those who really need to go into that kind of depth can look at some of the more granular recommendations.

Manning

As I looked at the list, I was really taken aback by just the breadth of questions that were being brought up by most of the commands. Now, I’ll be candid, I actually don’t have a specific question. I am a medical guy by training, so I did appreciate the OTSG (Office of the Surgeon General) questions on the medical operations in LSCO (Large-Scale Combat Operations), specifically, question 22. I spent a number of years working on that particular problem of how do we look at medical operations in LSCO fights, especially as we’re looking at significant [increase] in casualty estimates and evacuations and that sort, but what I most appreciate about this list is the list itself. I [would] probably estimate every year we have about 40 percent of the students here that have a difficult time coming up with a topic. It is an overwhelming and anxious time for them to try to think of this idea, and what the beauty of the SQRL does is that [it] comes in and it provides that framework for these students to really start with. And I will tell you that that pays dividends over the course of their experience here at the War College, and, candidly, the quality of the written work that they produce because they are invested in that process. So, the framework of the SQRL with the 100 questions this year, I think it’s gonna be next to a game changer for some of the things we’ll get out of students this year.

Deveraux

All right, well, gentlemen, I appreciate the time. I won’t hold you any longer than we need to. The SQRL, as part of the annual Strategic Estimate, which is actually officially called the Annual Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment, is online. It’s published. [A] link will be included in the podcast description (https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/979/).

Thank you for your time today. I’d like to tell our listeners and readers—read the SQRL and the Estimate—we will be pursuing some more podcasts and conversations specifically about the Estimate. We’ll be pulling in some of the authors here at the War College to discuss the narrative, now that we’ve discussed the questions. So, stay tuned for those.

Listeners, for more Army War College podcasts, check out Decisive Point, SSI Live, CLSC (China Landpower Studies Center) Dialogues, and A Better Peace.