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Released  23 June 2022. This podcast discusses drone swarms, which can be used at sea, on land, in the air, and even in space, are fundamentally information-dependent weapons. No study to date has examined drone swarms in the context of information warfare writ large. This article explores the dependence of these swarms on information and the resultant connections with areas of information warfare—electronic, cyber, space, and psychological—drawing on open-source research and qualitative reasoning. Overall, the article offers insights into how this important emerging technology fits into the broader defense ecosystem and outlines practical approaches to strengthening related information warfare capabilities. Click here to read the article. Keywords: information warfare, drone swarms, unmanned systems, cyberwarfare, electronic warfare Author information: Zachary Kallenborn is a policy fellow at the Schar School of Policy and Government, a research affiliate of the Unconventional Weapons and Technology program at the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism, a senior consultant at ABS Group, and the officially proclaimed US Army “mad scientist.” He is the author of publications on autonomous weapons, drone swarms, weapons of mass destruction, and terrorism involving weapons of mass destruction. Listeners, if you’d like more details about drone swarms and information warfare, you can read the article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 52, issue 2. If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or any other major podcasting platform.

Released  17 June 2022. This podcast examines faits accomplis—how states attempt to seize disputed territory using military force, hoping to avoid war in the process—and offers suggestions for how to deter them. Since 1945, faits accomplis have become the most common means by which states attempt to take over territory, even though they frequently result in armed conflict. US deterrent efforts, however, often focus on stopping invasions, not limited land grabs. This study combines the traditional literature on deterrence with Dan Altman’s recent research on faits accomplis to suggest Department of Defense leaders should frame territorial disputes as a real estate market they can both analyze and manipulate. Click here to read the article. Keywords: Russia, Ukraine, deterrence, territorial disputes, gray zone, brinkmanship, escalation Author information: Major Brandon Colas is a US Army foreign area officer currently embedded with the United Kingdom Strategic Command Defence Intelligence in London as a liaison officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency. Episode Transcript: Welcome to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production featuring distinguished authors and contributors who get to the heart of the matter in national security affairs. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the podcast guest and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. The guests in speaking order on this episode are: (Guest 1: Brandon Colas) (Host) Decisive Point welcomes Mr. Brandon Colas, author of “Defining and Deterring Faits Accomplis,” which was featured in the Summer 2022 issue of Parameters. Colas is anArmy officer [unintelligible] currently embedded with the United Kingdom Strategic Command Intelligence Center in London as a liaison officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency. Welcome to Decisive Point, Brandon. It’s great to have this chance to chat with you. Let’s talk about your article, “Defining and Deterring Faits Accomplis.” This study combines the traditional literature of deterrence with Dan Altman’s recent research on faits accomplis to suggest Department of Defense leaders should frame territorial disputes as taking part in a real-estate market that they can both analyze and manipulate to discourage our opponents from conquering without conquest. What does this look like? Please give us an outline here. (Colas) So when I started this research, I began with Tom Schelling (Thomas C. Schelling) and his 1968 classic and, in a lot of ways, Schelling—even though his book is breezy, it’s academic lectures that he’s talking about. It really has defined the US deterrence discussion ever since. And so Schelling talks about brute force and coercion. And so, brute force—we used to think like (Adolf) Hitler, Poland 1940, right? And coercion would be just building up those forces on the border until the other side caves and gives up their territory or makes those concessions that you’re wanting. So again, going back to Hitler, you think about him entering Denmark unopposed, right? So those are sort of the two classic examples. But more recent international relations research, especially led by Dan Altman, who’s at Georgia State (University), has looked at small, limited territorial seizures. He calls them faits accomplis, so there’s limited territory that’s disputed. There’s the use of military force, but the aggressor statement still attempts to avoid war in the process. And what’s interesting, Altman goes back from 1945 to present,

Released  15 June 2022. This podcast argues shortfalls in the international institutions governing the Arctic have allowed Russia and China to expand control over the region. It provides an overview of regional governance and power dynamics, outlines a three-part approach to correcting deficiencies, highlights attempts by Russia and China to circumvent international governance, examines how the Arctic’s governing institutions address Russian and Chinese growth in the region, and focuses on the institutional failures that have allowed Russia and China to expand—failures academic scholarship and US policy have not adequately addressed. Practitioners will find specific steps for rectifying issues with Arctic institutions to support the United States’ interests in the region. Click here to read the article. Keywords: geo-economics, economic statecraft, Russia, gray-zone warfare, hybrid warfare, geopolitics, Artic, Author information: Captain Mark T. Vicik, US Army, is a student at the Military Intelligence Captains Career Course at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. He holds a bachelor of arts degree in international relations and Middle East and North Africa studies from the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University. He conducts research on and writes about Arctic great-power dynamics and security issues and is the author of “The Future Arenas of Great Power Competition,” which was published in The SAIS Review of International Affairs. If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or any other major podcasting platform.  

Released  7 June 2022. This podcast assesses the American-Russian economic relationship, identifying how Russia exploits strategic asymmetries to gain advantage in the space below armed conflict and how the United States can modernize its economic statecraft. It draws upon a wide range of comparative research, from US-Russian military thought to the American-Eurasian economic interrelationship, to evaluate the full range of economic statecraft within a single dyad of countries in the context of coercion theory. This analysis will assist American policymakers in reforming priorities and processes according to principles of economic statecraft to sustain ongoing American coercion and set conditions for advantage upon the return to bilateral competition. Click here to read the article. Keywords: geo-economics, economic statecraft, Russia, gray-zone warfare, hybrid warfare, geopolitics Author information: Major Ryan J. Orsini, US Army, is an infantry officer assigned as a student at the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He holds a master of public policy degree from Georgetown University. If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or any other major podcasting platform.

Released  1 June 2022. In this podcast, Colonel George Shatzer, director of the Strategy Research and Analysis Department of the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College, discusses books of relevance to US Joint planners and strategists, as well as those of allies and strategic partners. He applies his experience and education as a US Army senior strategist to extract insights useful to anyone contemplating how to confront the challenges of today’s strategic environment. Click here to read the article. Keywords: Russia, Ukraine, Russian military theory, integrated warfare, NATO Episode Transcript  Stephanie Crider (Host) Welcome to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production featuring distinguished authors and contributors who get to the heart of the matter in national security affairs. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the podcast guest, and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. The guests in speaking order on this episode are: (Guest 1: George Shatzer)  (Host) Decisive Point welcomes Colonel George Shatzer, director of the Strategic Research and Analysis Division in the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College. Colonel Shatzer authors the (Strategic Research and Analysis Division or) SRAD Director’s Corner in Parameters. In the 2022 summer issue, he covers Russia and Ukraine.  SRAD Director’s Corner is relatively new to Parameters. In it, you review books of possible interest to contemporary military strategists—especially, those serving in US Army and Joint positions. The summer issue contains the second installment of this section, and the focus is on Russia and Ukraine. Thanks for being here. (Shatzer) Well, thanks for the opportunity to discuss the article and this important issue. (Host) This conflict has not unfolded the way many people thought it would. Your piece emphasizes the value of knowing your enemy, and how it’s a pathway to understanding oneself and the kind of war on which we’re embarking. It’s through this lens that your reviews are written. (Shatzer) That’s right. As I mentioned in the article, the day-to-day demands of commanders, leaders, and strategists to ensure our nation’s security can be all-consuming. There are endless demands on time when you are preparing to deter war or to be ready for it, and those demands are mostly internal or focused on ourselves. Even with the assistance of very dedicated intelligence professionals, it can be easy for decisionmakers and strategists to lose sight of the adversary’s views or motivations. So, taking the time to read works such as those that I profile in the review series can help us build insight on what the adversary is thinking. (Host) How does Oscar Jonsson’s The Russian Understanding of War: Blurring the Lines between War and Peace inform this topic? (Shatzer) Jonsson’s book was fascinating. I really appreciated how thoroughly he built a case through his review of pre-Soviet, Soviet, and modern Russian military writings and doctrine. He argues that the current Russian view of the very nature of war, not just its character, has fundamentally changed. In brief, Jonsson asserts that Russian leaders and security professionals believe that the US and the West have become so expert in information and psychological warfare that the nature of war is no longer defined by armed violence. Instead, they believe that the nature of modern warfare is defined by poli...

Released  26 May 2022. This podcast examines critical issues for the field of strategic studies raised by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including the waning of major war, strategic coercion, and “War Amongst the People.” Drawing on previous scholarship and current events, this commentary considers the questions raised by the first major war of the twenty-first century. It provides recommendations for scholars and senior leaders on how to work together to address the questions of strategy and policy that have and continue to arise as the war progresses. Click here to read the article. Keywords: Russia, Ukraine, strategic coercion, gray zone, compellence Author information: Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II had a distinguished career in the US Army and is currently the editor-in-chief of the US Army War College Press, which includes Parameters. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, the US Army Command and General Staff College, and the US Army War College. He holds a doctorate in modern history from Princeton University and is the author of six books, including War’s Logic: Strategic Thought and the American Way of War (2021), Military Strategy: A Very Short Introduction (2017), Reconsidering the American Way of War (2014), Clausewitz and Contemporary War (2007), Imagining Future War (2007), and After Clausewitz (2001), and more than 100 articles and monographs on strategic thinking, military theory, and military history. Episode Transcript [Putin’s Invasion Of Ukraine in 2022] Stephanie Crider (Host) (Prerecorded Decisive Point intro) Welcome to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production featuring distinguished authors and contributors who get to the heart of the matter in national security affairs. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the podcast 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. The guests in speaking order on this episode are: (Guest 1: Antulio J. Echevarria II) (Host) Decisive Point welcomes Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria, author of “Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine in 2022: Implications for Strategic Studies,” which was featured in the Parameters summer 2022 issue. Echevarria had a distinguished career in the US Army and is currently the editor-in-chief of the US Army War College Press, which includes Parameters. He is a graduate of the United States Military Academy, the US Army Command and General Staff College, and the US Army War College. He holds a doctorate in modern history from Princeton University and is the author of six books, including his most recent, War's Logic: Strategic Thought and the American Way of War, published in 2021. He’s also authored more than 100 articles and monographs on strategic thinking, military theory, and military history. (Host) Your article notes Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has the potential to shape the defense policies of the United States, its strategic partners, and their rivals in decisive ways. I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this. But first, thanks for being here. (Echevarria) Oh, thank you so much. My pleasure. (Host) Some pundits have argued the declining occurrence of major wars since World War II is evidence that armed conflict is disappearing altogether. What are the six principal explanations for what appears to be a decline in large-scale conflict? (Echevarria) It’s a very interesting set of explanations. The first of these is the proliferation of weapons of mass destructio...

Released  23 May 2022. While propaganda and disinformation have been used to destabilize opposing forces throughout history, the US military remains unprepared for the way these methods have been adapted to the Internet era. This article explores the modern history of disinformation campaigns and the current state of US military readiness in the face of campaigns from near-peer competitors and proposes education as the best way to prepare US servicemembers to defend against such campaigns. Click here to read the article. Keywords: propaganda, disinformation, media literacy, military education, inoculation Author information: Dr. Meghan Fitzpatrick, a strategic analyst with Defence Research and   Canada (DRDC) Centre for Operational Research and Analysis (CORA), is a widely published author on trauma and resilience. Her current work looks at how militaries are navigating the increasing importance of the information environment. Since joining DRDC, she has received recognition for her research, including the CORA Award for Outstanding Achievement in Defence Analysis. Dr. Ritu Gill has a PhD in social psychology from Carleton University and is currently a section head with DRDC. Her research examines online influence activities, specifically, how the Internet and social media influence the information environment, including the analysis of online audiences, and how deception techniques employed by adversaries, such as disinformation, impact audiences. She has been part of international defence research collaborations and was co-lead for the NATO Human Factors and Medicine Research Task Group “Digital and Social Media Assessment for Effective Communication and Cyber Diplomacy.” Major Jennifer F. Giles, US Marine Corps, is currently a communication strategy and operations officer, a foreign area officer who advises commanders’ strategic and cultural engagement plans in the Pacific theater, and an instructor at the Marine Air-Ground Task Force Staff Training Program. She wrote Disrupting Disinformation: Force Protection through Media Literacy Training and recently spoke on media literacy and adversary disinformation for the Defense Information School “DINFOS Live.” If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or any other major podcasting platform.

Released 16 May 2022. The root cause for the defeat of the Armenian forces in the second Nagorno-Karabakh War was flawed military doctrine inherited from the Soviet Union. This article analyzes the major problems faced by Armenia, uncovers the main reasons for unsuccessful innovation, tests empirical findings against some of the most authoritative theories in the field, and outlines current research on the conflict, while substantiating the analysis with established scholarship in the field of military innovation. Click here to read the article. Keywords: Nagorno-Karabakh War, Armenia, Turkey, Thomas Kuhn, military innovation Author information: Colonel Zhirayr Amirkhanyan is currently a PhD candidate at the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. He was the head of defense policy planning branch of the Defense Policy Department at the Ministry of Defence of Armenia.

Released  5 May 2022. Current events warrant a review of US civil-military relations doctrine. This article examines eight principles of military subordination to elected civilian officials and addresses the fundamental question at the heart of civil-military relations theory and practice—what options, if any, does the military have when civilian leadership disregards military advice? Examples drawn from US history provide an important framework to understand the complex interrelational dynamics at play. Click here to read the article. Keywords: civil-military, apolitical, civilian, defense policy, US Constitution, professionalism Episode Transcript  Stephanie Crider (Host) Welcome to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production featuring distinguished authors and contributors who get to the heart of the matter in national security affairs. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the podcast guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. The guests in speaking order on this episode are: (Guest 1: Patrick Paterson)  (Host) Decisive Point welcomes Dr. Patrick Paterson, author of “Civil-Military Relations: Guidelines in Politically Charged Societies,” featured in the spring 2022 issue of Parameters. Paterson is a professor of practice of national security studies in the William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. He completed his PhD in conflict resolution at Nova Southeastern University. His latest book, The Blurred Battlefield, published in 2021, addresses the need for hybrid doctrines on the use of force for Latin American militaries combating violent crime groups. Thank you so much for joining me today, Dr. Paterson. Your article lays out eight standard practices for military officers regarding civil-military relations in a politically charged society. Please, briefly walk us through them.  (Paterson) Sure, I'd be happy. Thanks for the opportunity to speak about it. I've studied civil-military relations here at National Defense University very, very closely, both in foreign countries as well as in the United States. And what I realized is that there's lots of material available, and you could look at Samuel Huntington or Thomas Bruno and Peter Feaver and Eliot Cohen and all the top scholars on civil-military relations. But what we're missing, in my opinion, is clear guidance, practical rules that military officers should follow when they're trying to adhere to the expectations of civil-military relations. And so what I tried to do was provide a succinct description—what I believe are the eight practices that are the most important for senior military officers as they interact with their civilian counterparts. The first key principle is perhaps the most important characteristic of a professional armed force. It's to remain apolitical. Take, for example, the posture of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the president's annual State of the Union address. The chairman, the vice chairman, and the chiefs of staff of each of the armed forces sit near the front row of Congress, but they don't respond. They don't applaud. They don't react in any way, sitting unemotionally in their chairs, because any sort of reaction would be construed as political advocacy. Number two is to provide candid military advice. Senior military officers are required to provide the objective truth about military policy. It should be nonpartisan, nondeliberative,

Released  5 May 2022. Does it matter if more countries have nuclear weapons? Will the weaponization of space make nuclear weapons less of a threat or even obsolete?  In this podcast, author Henry D. Sokolski gives an overview of his monograph, Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future, and explores potential future nuclear trends. Click here to read the monograph. Keywords: strategy, nuclear energy, drones, nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles Episode Transcript  Stephanie Crider (Host) (Prerecorded Decisive Point intro) Welcome to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production featuring distinguished authors and contributors who get to the heart of the matter in national security affairs. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. The guests in speaking order on this episode are: (Guest 1: Henry D. Sokolski)  (Host) Decisive Point welcomes Mr. Henry D. Sokolski, author of Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future, published by the US Army War College Press in 2018. Sokolski is the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington, DC. He previously served in the Senate as a nuclear military legislative aide, in the Pentagon as deputy for nonproliferation policy, and as a full-time consultant on proliferation issues in the secretary of defense’s Office of Net Assessment. Welcome, Henry. Let’s dive right in. In your 2018 book Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future (Second Edition), you cover a lot of ground. Please give our listeners a brief overview of the book. (Sokolski) The reason I wrote the book was, you know, any serious social scientific field—economics, demographics, political science—they all use what they know about the past to give you a bird's-eye view of what they think the future will be. And I noticed that there was really no book that took the matter of nuclear weapons and projected into the future. The military science, if you will, of nuclear proliferation was a blank sheet. I took it upon myself to try to take a look at maybe, you know, a half-century, a little more than a half-century, and asked, you know, “What trends do we see?” And based on those trends, and assuming they continue, where are we going to be, you know, in 10 or 20 years? So, I focused on, detailed, four trends. And the trends that I found that were interesting is that the difference between the largest and smallest nuclear weapons arsenals has gotten much, much smaller. It used to be that what we had, which was at one point, during the Cuban missile crisis, 25,000 nuclear weapons, was easily an order of magnitude more than what the Russians had, which was 2,500, and what they had was again another order of magnitude more than the British had—actually two orders of magnitude. So there was, like, a thousandfold difference between the largest arsenal and the smallest at the time. Now the difference is about one order of magnitude. Russia and the United States have thousands. The smallest arsenals that we know of now are about 100 or thereabouts. Another trend is that the amount of surplus weapons and civilian materials that could be quickly converted into bombs—that's highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium—there used to be almost zero. Everything that we had and the Russians had went immediately into weapons. There was very little civilian activity in the way of power reactors. And so, there wasn't a civilian stockpile or any surpluses.

Released 27 April 2022. This Canadian contribution to Parameters’ Strategic Lieutenant series shows how domestic context creates the conditions for professional military education reform to a greater extent than the global strategic context. The podcast assesses the junior officer education delivered by Canada’s military colleges and analyzes interviews with key stakeholders responsible for the formulation and implementation of reform at the military colleges. Click here to read the article. Keywords: education reform, strategic context, leadership, professional military education Episode Transcript  Stephanie Crider (Host) Welcome to Decisive Point, a US Army War College Press production featuring distinguished authors and contributors who get to the heart of the matter in national security affairs. The views and opinions expressed on this podcast are those of the podcast guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. The guests in speaking order on this episode are: (Guest 1: James R. McKay) (Guest 2: Ali Dizboni) (Host) Decisive Point welcomes Dr. James R. McKay and Dr. Ali Dizboni, who coauthored “Developing Strategic Lieutenants in the Canadian Army” with H. Christian Breede and Pierre Jolicoeur. The article was published in the spring 2022 issue of Parameters. McKay is the current chair of war studies at the Royal Military College of Canada and was educated at Bishop’s University, the Royal Military College of Canada, and King’s College London. Dizboni is an associate professor and the current chair of the Military and Strategic Studies program at the Royal Military College of Canada. He received his master of science degree and PhD from the Université de Montréal in the fields of political science and international relations. He’s fluent in Arabic, English, French, and Persian. Breede is an associate professor of political science at the Royal Military College of Canada and the deputy director of the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s University as well as the associate chair of the Royal Military College’s public administration program. He holds a PhD in war studies from the Royal Military College of Canada and has published on the topics of foreign and security policy, with a research focus on societal cohesion and technology. Jolicoeur is a professor of political science at the Royal Military College of Canada. A specialist of the conflicts in the former Soviet republics, he is currently writing a book on Russian foreign policy. Thank you both for your contribution to Parameters and for joining me on this podcast today. The Parameters Strategic Lieutenant series asks what leads governments to reform entry-level officer professional military education: the global, strategic environment or the domestic, political environment? Your article says the Canadian answer tends toward the latter. So, let’s unpack this. Please tell us a little bit about the Canadian military education system. (McKay) The Canadian military education system for junior officers is oriented on a couple of sources. You have those that enter the officer corps through the Canadian military colleges, which (like American military colleges) are degree-granting institutions. We have two of them, but they are ”triservice.” So what that means is, at the Canadian Armed Forces level, we’re primarily educating them and socializing them into the profession of arms. The services handle the lion’s share of the training.

Released 26 April 2022. Early in academic year 2018, a group of US Army War College faculty and students came together in pursuit of an integrated research project devoted to an examination of contested deployment and the growing realization the US homeland can no longer be considered an inviolable zone in preparing for war. Expecting free movement of forces in mobilization, movement to ports of embarkation, and deployment against the nation’s adversaries is beneath reason. Two oceans and benevolent neighbors to the north and south can no longer be considered a significant buffer against internal and external enemies. Adversaries of the United States will seek to disrupt or disable the movement of its forces long before they can be placed in combat against foes overseas, and the nation must be prepared for this opposition. Click here to read the IRP. Keywords: infrastructure, cyber, transportation, Contested Deployment If you enjoyed this episode of Decisive Point and would like to hear more, look for us on Amazon Music, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or any other major podcasting platform.