War on the Rocks

What about counterinsurgency? At a time when all eyes are focused on the potential outbreak of a "conventional" war in Ukraine, Doug Ollivant, David Ucko and Ryan Evans sat down to consider counterinsurgency over fine bourbon (Noah's Mill, highly recommended). We recorded this podcast to mark the publication of an important book, The New Counter-Insurgency Era in Critical Perspective (Palgrave Macmillan, 2104), edited by David Martin Jones, Celeste Ward Gventer, MLR Smith - who were kind enough to invite Doug and Ryan to Austin, Texas a couple years ago for a wide-ranging discussion aimed at re-assessing counterinsurgency. This workshop attracted the leading lights of the counterinsurgency debate alongside some fresh voices who have conducted some exciting original research. This book is the product of that workshop and it is the perfect text for any class on insurgency, counterinsurgency, and irregular warfare. Read it! And listen to the podcast! Other works referenced in this podcast include: Isaiah Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy's View of History (Princeton University Press, 2013). Doug Ollivant, Countering the New Orthodoxy: Reinterpreting Counterinsurgency in Iraq (New America Foundation, 2011). David Ucko and Robert Egnell, Counterinsurgency in Crisis: Britain and the Challenges of Modern Warfare (Columbia University Press, 2013). David Ucko, The New Counterinsurgency Era (Georgetown University Press, 2009). David Ucko, "Counterinsurgency in El Salvador: The Lessons and Limits of the Indirect Approach," Small Wars and Insurgencies,24:4 (2014).

This is the second of a two-part podcast set on the concept, and uses, of Strategic Intelligence. In this episode, Marc and Tom discuss how intelligence functions within democratic societies in an effort to look at how a theory of intelligence can emerge.  Following up on the first part of the podcast, we look at what such a theory needs to answer before it can actually operate in a democracy. In the second segment, we sit down for a long discussion with BG (Ret'd) Dr James S. Cox, Vice-President, Academic Affairs with the Canadian Military Intelligence Association. After a 35 year career in the Canadian military dealing with Intelligence in a variety of settings, Jim completed a PhD looking at developing a theory of Intelligence that is truly interdisciplinary in nature.  In this wide ranging discussion, Jim, Marc and Tom tease out how such a theory can be built from the ground up, pragmatic operations of intelligence. For the full show notes for this podcast, check out brokenmirrors.ca   Image: Jo Naylor, CC

We sat down with General Martin E. Dempsey in his office to talk strategy, the profession of arms, military compensation reform, and professional military education. Interview Transcript (courtesy Federal News Service, Washington, DC): RYAN EVANS:  Hi, this is Ryan Evans with a very special War on the Rocks podcast.  I’m here with General Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and I have Jason Fritz, one of our editors at War on the Rocks, also joining us.  And we’re going to talk about profession of arms, which is, General, a big passion of yours, or one of your central efforts, actually, ever since you were TRADOC commander.  How much has your – did your experience joining the post-Vietnam Army in the mid ’70s, which sort of went through some similar challenges that we’re about to see now, shape your approach to profession of arms? GENERAL MARTIN DEMPSEY:  Well, you know, I think you’re shaped by the accumulation of your experiences over time.  So I entered West Point in 1970, and you know what kind of climate there was in the country in 1970 – not just related to the Vietnam War but related to just a whole bunch of social issues inside the country. So, you know, in that environment, the military had kind of lost its standing with the American people, you know, simply stated.  And so even as a very young officer, it occurred to me that if we are to live up to our – and especially as we transition to an all-volunteer force, by the way – it occurred to me that this issue of professionalism would have to become more prominent.  And, in fact, in 1998, at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, I studied for a master’s degree and took as my thesis that issue. And in that particular treatise, if you will, I came to the conclusion that the single most important value in our long list of professional values was the – was the duty – was the value of duty.  By the way, I wasn’t the first one to turn that up.  You may remember that Robert E. Lee said that duty is the sublimest virtue. So that started me down a path of studying what it means to be a professional.  How is it different from simply a job?  What is it that we owe ourselves internally?  How do we hold ourselves to a higher standard?  How do we identify that standard?  What are the key leader attributes that define us?  And how do we deliver them?  And how do we make sure we know we’re delivering them? And so that’s the context in which I entered TRADOC, did some things there, did a few things as chief of staff of the Army, knowing that after 10 or 12 years of conflict we had gotten sloppy.  It’s not – I’ve said this before.  It’s not that the war caused this misstep, if you will, but rather that the tools that we had at our disposal, whether they were education, oversight, surveys, command climate assessments, fitness reports, mentoring and – you know, mentors and protégés, we had kind of broken – you know that – we had kind of broken some of those relationships because of the pace, and in some cases because of modularity, this notion in the Army, anyway, that you can kind of plug and play with units.  Well, you can, actually.  They’re very fungible.  But when you do that, you break the mentor-protégé relationship as you plug and play.  So we’re looking back now and looking forward as well.  That’s a long answer, but that’s how I came to this conclusion that it was time to take a very close look at this. RYAN EVANS:  That’s a good answer, actually.  And I know Jason, a fellow armor officer, experienced – I don’t know if, Jason, you want to comment or question based on what you saw. JASON FRITZ:  Yeah, I would agree, particularly on the issues of mentor and protégé issues.  I was in the first modularized brigade, 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, and, you know, we – going through the pains of transitioning to that model and some of the repercussion over the years with them.  I was a brigade planner during the surge,

Ryan Evans sat down with an august panel of gentlemen and a gentlelady to discuss issues related to contemporary nuclear strategy.  The guests: Elbridge Colby, Fellow, Center for a New American Security Thomas C. Moore, Defense Consultant and former Senior Professional Staff Member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under then-Ranking Member Dick Lugar Stanley Orman, former British Defence official, our very own nuclear Yoda, and author of An Uncivil Civil Servant. William Rosenau, Senior Analyst with CNA Strategic Studies' Center for Stability and Development Usha Sahay, Assistant Editor at War on the Rocks and Director of Digital Outreach at the Council for a Livable World They discussed everything from Iran to submarines to the recent nuclear cheating scandal.  Pour yourself a drink and have a listen.   Image: SCFiasco, Flickr, Creative Commons

Max Fisher of the Washington Post and Ryan Evans sat down recently with Peter Singer and Allan Friedman of the Brookings Institution to discuss their new book, Cyberwar and Cybersecurity: What Everyone Needs to Know.  It was a fun, wide-ranging, drink-fueled discussion at the Jefferson Hotel's Cabinet Room. Have a listen!   Image: Niklas Morberg, Flickr, CC

JM Berger, Will McCants, and Clint Watts sat down with Ryan Evans at the Jefferson Hotel to talk about a range of subjects related to counter-terrorism. What could be more appropriate for Christmas? Have a listen!   Image: Department of Defense

This is the first of a two-part podcast set on the concept, and uses, of Strategic Intelligence.  In this episode, Tom and I lay out the actual, social function of Strategic Intelligence and look at it place in the long history of divination.  Strategic surprise, or intelligence failures, often are neither: a surprise or a `failure``, at least on the part of Intelligence Agencies.  What they often are is a breakdown in communications between the players involved; a breakdown that is often facilitated by a gross misunderstanding of what Strategic Intelligence can and cannot do. In the second segment, we sit down for a long discussion with Steven Strang, Director of Research and Innovation at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.  Steven is one of the top people in Canada when it comes to understanding how certain groups, mainly terrorists, communicate to their audiences and how this communication can, and should be interpreted by Intelligence agencies.  Steven has also trained many of the analysts working in the various Canadian agencies, and has presented world wide. For the full show notes for this podcast, check out brokenmirrors.ca Image: Jef Poskanzer Flickr

Last night, I sat down to talk nuclear strategy with William Rosenau of the Center for Naval Analysis, defense analyst Elbridge Colby, Robert Zarate of the Foreign Policy Initiative, and Stanley Orman – a former nuclear arms wizard who saved the U.S. and U.K. nuclear arsenals from corrosion in the 1960s.  It was a fascinating discussion during which I learned a great deal about nuclear arms, the Cold War, and giants of strategy like Thomas Schelling, Herman Kahn, and Albert Wohlstetter. Have a listen and read Stanley’s new book, An Uncivil Civil Servant.   Ryan Evans is the assistant director of the Center for the National Interest and the editor-in-chief of War on the Rocks.    Image:  Free Grunge Textures, Flickr

Editor's Note: We are pleased to feature this talk by Sir Lawrence Freedman, which took place this week at the British Embassy in Washington, DC.  Special thanks to the King's College London Alumni Office and the British Embassy.  The event was a part of Principal Rick Trainor's final tour of the United States before he ends his 10 year tenure at King's.    Sir Lawrence Freedman has been Professor of War Studies at King’s College London since 1982. He became head of the School of Social Science and Public Policy at King’s in 2000 and was appointed Vice-Principal in 2003.   Photo Credit: Cecil Stoughton, White House, 29 December 1962. President Kennedy is presented the flag of the 2506 Cuban Invasion Brigade. Miami, Florida, Orange Bowl Stadium.

"Nil terribile nisi ipse timor" In this episode, Tom Quiggin and I take a hard, realist look at the concept, and tactic, of terrorism.  In the first segment, we look at how the tactic of terrorism is structured, and how it can, and has, been employed.  At the strategic level, terrorist attacks are both rational and embedded within a narrative that supports and justifies them. In the second segment, we look at the operational processes of a terrorist campaign.  In particular, we look at how the responses to terrorist attacks can actually serve the purposes of the group using the tactics of terrorism. In the third segment, we talk with Mubin Shaik who helped to crack one of the major domestic terrorist plots in Canada (the Toronto 18), and is now involved in studying and working in the area of deradicalization. For the full show notes for this podcast, check out brokenmirrors.ca. Marc Tyrrell is an anthropologist teaching at the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies at Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada). He is a Senior Research Fellow with the Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies.