Command and Control

Command and control in war is very different to peacetime plans: and then C2 that works well for defensive operations will not necessarily be optimised for offense. The Western experiences of Afghanistan and Iraq threw up a host of lessons which HQs have been implementing: yet the observations of C2 in Ukraine provide a different lens for the problem. Peer and near-peer conflict requires a different C2 strategy, one that is determined by those who are able to exploit control tools available now – not those promised at some date in the future. From multiple visits to the Ukrainian military over the past 15 months – and built on experience of numerous other conflict zone - Dr Jack Watling, Senior Research Fellow for Land Warfare at RUSI in London, has a unique view on what it takes to deliver control on a modern battlefield: Whilst command seems to be more culturally specific than we think, control measures need a good deal more flexibility and imagination than we, perhaps, train for.

Martin van Creveld talked about command being about the ‘Quest for Certainty’, in order to make the right decisions. But there is, according to Mick Ryan, also a fallacy in certainty. It is a myth that certainty on a battlefield can ever be achieved – whether the delivery of a real time common operating picture, or exact knowledge of enemy disposition and intent. How do we train and prepare commanders for a battlespace that has no certainly, but also where time is compressed for decisions, where delegation is forced down to new levels, and a command footprint is – in and of itself – a high value target for the enemy? The conversation starts with the context and culture of command in the US, UK and Australia, but also touches on Russia, China and Iran. It moves on to talk about developing people (political leaders as well as military ones), and then addresses the future C2 environment and ideas about preparing leaders, commanders and the role of industry in delivering effective C2 systems for the future. A rip roaring opener for this new podcast series.

The show is about military command and control - sometimes considered the panacea of battles and campaigns - and what it might look like for the fight tonight and the fight tomorrow, whether for irregular warfare or for high end warfighting. The hypothesis is that command is human and control has become increasingly technical/technological. In that, much has been written about command but little enough about control. Blending human decision-making with cutting edge technology in military headquarters has been an evolutionary process over the past 20 years, but the advent of data science, big data, machine learning and AI have given rise to a sereis of promises about machine control at the speed of data exchange: it sounds like an end to human command. How much truth sits within these statements by political masters and AI evangelists? Can AI substitute for the creativity, wit and guile of human commanders? How will dynamic control measures shape military command in the future?  Join us as we talk through C2 for an era of high-end war fighting at a moment when the increasing availability of dynamic control measures is centralising control away from local command. It has been a noticeable trend in Western C2 since the late 1980s. Given the growth of C2 systems in HQs, I think we need to consider how we effectively synchronise between the key functions of command and control. We aim is to open the conversation up – since we haven’t had a serious debate about what the ‘control’ element of C2 since the 1980s.