184: Megan O’Keefe-Schlesinger on Information Operations. Part II.

Welcome to the ONE CA Podcast. I’m LTC Brian Hancock, and I will be your host for this session. Today, we have Major Megan O’Keefe-Schlesinger with us to discuss Civil Affairs, Information Operations, and the U.S. Army School of Advanced Military Studies (SAMS). MAJ Schlesinger, welcome to the show!

 

Megan O'Keefe-Schlesinger is an Information Advantage practitioner. She has served in the Nevada National Guard medical detachment, the Pacific, Europe and the Middle East in various capacities from the Army Medical Department to civil affairs planner and leader with special operations. In her downtime she volunteered with Team Rubicon assisting with disaster relief in the Mid West and COVID vaccine events. As a student at the command and general staff officer college she studied Defense Support to Civil Authorities and Homeland Security at the University of Kansas  School of Law. She went on to study the impacts of automation on the Army and applying emerging concepts in multi-domain operations to large scale military exercises. 

 

Disclaimer: A quick reminder for the audience that all remarks are solely those of the presenters.

One CA is a product of the civil affairs association 

and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.

We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations. 

To contact the show, email us at CApodcasting@gmail.com 

or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org

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Special thanks to BluntedBeatz for the sample “Summer Breeze.” Retrieved from https://youtu.be/3P8Xz71BLes?si=r4-xvwcG21cLMWrO

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00:00:03    BRAIN HANCOCK
Welcome to One Civil Affairs Podcast. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hancock, and I will be your host for this session. Today, we have with us Jedi Knight, Major Megan O’Keefe-Schlesinger, an information advantage practitioner. She has served in the Nevada National Guard, the Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East in various capacities, from the Army Medical Department to civil affairs planner and leader with special operations. In her downtime, she volunteered with Team Rubicon, assisting with disaster relief in the Midwest. As a student, she studied defense support to civil authorities, or DISCA, and Homeland Security at the University of Kansas School of Law. She went on to study the impacts of automation on the Army and applying emerging concepts in multi -domain operations to large -scale military exercises. Quick disclaimer before we get into it, all the remarks made by the participants are solely ours. Now, I first met you when you were out here in Europe on a School of Advanced Military Studies Utilization Tour.

00:01:13    BRAIN HANCOCK
And you were here at United States Army Europe in Africa in the G35. I certainly do.

00:01:18    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
certainly do. And boy, does it feel like time has absolutely flung. But being a student and a practitioner from the Advanced Military Studies Program at Fort Leavenworth really allowed me to appreciate and understand the value that that education brings to the joint force and certainly in a complex environment like Europe, where NATO multinational operations truly are at the forefront of everything that we do.

00:01:49    BRAIN HANCOCK
I love what you said about the complexity of the environment with all these different partners. Many of us spend much of our time in the tactical arena where we really don't have to think about sovereign first world governments allowing us to do this type of training or not do this type of training or capabilities that we don't have in our army that they bring and suddenly you're working with. It's super exciting, very different than what we're normally used to. I think we'll probably talk a little bit more about that as we go through some of our questions and some of the experience that you've had out here. Let's start with your current tradecraft. You have many diverse interests and are well -versed in many different topics, but we only have about 40 minutes here, so we'll stick to just a few. Let's start with information operations. Tell the audience, why did you settle on I .O. or have you?

00:02:42    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
Oh, I don't think as a voracious learner and a curious leader, you ever really settle in the Army. I think our best leaders remain generalists. And so that is some of the appeal of the role of information operations, which we have transitioned to this phrase called maintaining an information advantage. From my early days in the National Guard onto my volunteer time, with various organizations, like you mentioned, Team Rubicon, you start to appreciate the role that crisis communication has, the role of informing and protecting an audience. But I really got interested in this field as a captain when I got to see the interplay between civil affairs, the interplay of psychological operations, electronic warfare, cyber and space. And it's amazing when you as a military planner have the ability to nest these things together, just how rewarding the art of planning becomes. And so to be interested in a field like any functional area in the Army particularly, you can't just go into it as a lieutenant. You have to come from another assessed branch. As a lieutenant, you might assess into infantry or signal or intel, certainly. And then you get the opportunity later on to say, you know, maybe I want to apply that to a new field and try to become a specialist in a unique way. And that's really the field of the FA30s. We all come from a different background. And that complexity or maybe the dynamic backgrounds of the individuals help to spark creativity, help to approach problem solving differently. And so I don't think any two IO officers are alike in that sense, because like I said before, you become more of a generalist and learning how to apply a vast array of combined arms into orders and plans. And so I came into this field almost about five years ago. I wanted to be able to mature into a field where I could take not just CA, but the combined information forces in a way where as a leader and as a manager, I got a little more toys to play with, if you will.

00:05:11    BRAIN HANCOCK
I could see from personal job satisfaction, you're a pretty bright light. I used to be a pretty bright light. I'm going to get a little older, but One of the things that I love about some of these aspects of information operations is how they rotate us every few years in the military to keep our education going. It's part of that broadening that we do. But within FA30, you have all of those things that you've mentioned. Are you interested in space? Great. You can do it. Are you interested in cyber? Great. You can do it. Are you interested in psyop? Great. You can do it. All of those things, they're all available to you. They're all open to you. All those schools, all those. training opportunities, all those career opportunities. With one functional area, you can play in any of those, which I think would keep my interest for a long time.

00:06:01    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
Well, and what's unique to functional areas, and I did not know this until later on in my career, it is unique to active duty. And there's a great value in what the reserves in the National Guard are able to apply in the realm of information operations because you may not be a branded FA -30. But that's not to say that in our theater information operations groups, we don't have quite a complex and diverse background of leaders who may come from the fields of intel or civil affairs or psychological operations. and have the chance to go through the information operations qualification course at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. So there may be a lack of awareness of these things that we call functional areas because they are slightly more unique to active duty officers who kind of track. In a way that I think the reserves have a little more flexibility to explore career fields and continue to grow and expand their knowledge base without necessarily being bound to one specific area of concentration.

00:07:05    BRAIN HANCOCK
That's true. Many of us have like three MOSs. That's not uncommon in the reserve as you move units. They'll let you go to whatever bill at MOS you are sitting in at the time. And they're happy to do that because many of these fields that you mentioned are non -accession fields. So they have to take folks from other base branches and move them over. They are used to doing that and are happy to do that. Now, I believe one of the National Guards on the East Coast has an IO qualification course that COMPO2 National Guard and COMPO III Army Reserve can go to. A friend of mine went to that. And I assume they award the FA -30 a functional area upon successful completion. But that sounds like that that is not a normal career pathing for many of our I .O. folks. So most of the folks that I know I've worked with in FA -30s are, as you said, from COMPO I, from the active duty component. And that's been wonderful. I think being a generalist also probably gives you some job security if you think about it. Now, when I was growing up, there was something called the S -curve, which would measure the acceptance of technology when a new critical tech comes out and is released in business. How long does it take for that to be adopted, to become ubiquitous, and to change the way business is done? And that used to be about a five -year period of time where some disruptive technology would come out, like the microcomputer, and it would just change the way business was done forever after. But that's now down to less than two years, where highly disruptive technologies, which at times eliminate entire job fields. So if you're a specialist and you've got a lot of education in a narrow niche, there's a lot of risk there that that field could go away when a disruptive technology is released. But as a generalist, we may not know as much about a specialist in their given field. But if one thing just isn't viable anymore, we just switch to something else. So I think there's some other auxiliary value to your generalist approach.

00:09:14    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
Sure, sure. disruptive technologies. The Army is always attempting to forecast future challenges across the world, future problems it might face. And part of the approach to preparing for those challenges is through modernization and experimentation. And the field of information operations has been around for decades. And we think about the application in the Gulf Wars was quite successful. And as we come around now to moving into the nearly the 2030s, we're still applying some of those fundamentals. The common phrase that folks are arguably relearning is called multi -domain operations. We're really layering that space and that cyber maritime air and land across dimensions, right? Whether that's human information or physical. And so how do we collectively as planners As operators, think about how we have to fight across warfighting functions, whether it's the offense, whether it's the defense, or whether it's in response to disaster. Applying information, as it were, to the spectrum of operations that we tend to get involved in, from the small conflict battles to the larger campaigns. We are not in the Civil War era where we can think without the internet. And as a result, the information operations realm really looks to maximize our ability to continue the fight, protecting the command and control,

00:10:52    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
command and control, protecting data, and really trying to maintain an advantage.

00:11:01    BRAIN HANCOCK
Would you say that's a decision advantage? Because when we look at the information advantage doctrine, I don't think it's clear what the terminal outcome is supposed to be that is battlefield significant. I think it's decision advantage. We can run our OODA loop faster than the enemy. We make better, faster decisions, which allow us to gain and maintain the initiative and put the enemy progressively into a situation which they can't cope, which hopefully leads to their... early culmination. Is that how you see information advantage?

00:11:33    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
Oh, I think this is a topic of great debate right now. Yeah. And, you know, I'll say that the November 2023 publication of the Army Doctrine Primer 313 tells us that information advantage is offensively oriented, which is somewhat the American way of war in some debate. It is combined arms, not a new topic. perhaps with layered capabilities that are emerging and modernizing today. It is commander -driven and remains soldier -enabled. So what does that mean? That is certainly not for one random FA -30 to think about. It is a complex series of decisions, thought processes, planning frameworks that have to be applied to improve our decision -making ability. So what is information advantage? I think it is many a things. And we continue to evolve and debate what it means because at the end of the day, acronyms and terms of reference, they do matter, but that doesn't mean that they can't change.

00:12:40    BRAIN HANCOCK
Well said. You mentioned earlier warfighting functions. I think we traditionally think that way. I'm not convinced that all combat power is defined by what we call warfighting function. So one example that's close to home for both of us, information is not a warfighting function in the Army. But of course, much of our topic today is about that and why it's important. It is a joint function. And for the Marine Corps, it is a warfighting function. Do you think the Army is going to follow in that path? Or how do you think we in our branch are going to ultimately treat information?

00:13:23    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
So a warfighting function, for those that may not be familiar with these terms, we talk about intelligence, we talk about fires, we talk about these rather general terms that help bucket the way that we break down our staffs and prioritize who focuses on what. Whether as sustainment, you know, we might think of a logistics officer. Fires, we might think of a field artilleryman. But debatably, the realm of information truly does span the full warfighting functions gamut. And so to separate it out into its own might be dismissive of the integrated nature that it has across every single warfighting function. So I'm not here to debate whether it should be an army warfighting function, because I think inherently it is integrated across intelligence, across sustainment, across fires. a cross -maneuver.

00:14:22    BRAIN HANCOCK
Kind of like energy, right? Every business needs energy. Do you put that in a separate category?

00:14:26    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
If I was the future doctrine writer, would I say, oh yeah, it should be an information warfighting function? Well, okay. Does that change the nature of how we think about information? Does that overly complicate something that is inherently tied to what we're already doing? And sometimes I feel like we get wrapped around the axle on this one. And again, it's one of those healthy things to debate, like whether or not it should be information advantage, commander advantage, decision advantage. It's a little bit of buzzwordy. I hate to say it, you know? Yes.

00:14:57    BRAIN HANCOCK
Let's talk about SAF. There are many other opportunities that are available for folks at that stage of their career. The premier school for advanced military studies. In the Army, non -accession school usually attended in about the rank of major. Similar school at the Marine Corps is the School of Advanced Warfighting, which produces their MAGTAF planners. We're skilled in rare individuals. Tell us a little bit about the SAMS program.

00:15:29    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
The School of Advanced Military Studies, which is inherently... a critical thinking opportunity to just really dive into history, theory, and doctrine. So for those of you unfamiliar with Sam's planners, every year the Army has one academic peer group that typically after resident, command and general, staff officer course, you will go into what's called the second year of ILE. The School of Advanced Military Studies has three different programs. One program is the Advanced Military Studies program. That's for field grade officers. And then you can progress into a war college complement where students at the 06 level will go to their war college equivalent and then follow on utilization tour as an instructor at SAMS. And then the final peer group within School of Advanced Military Studies is for those looking to pursue a PhD who have already completed their war college. So there's a really dynamic opportunity to think very deeply about wicked problems, complex problems with folks across both the joint services and across the world.

00:16:42    BRAIN HANCOCK
I can only imagine what the talk must be like around the water cooler and in a place like this, pretty deep. You don't feel like the smartest person.

00:16:48    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
pretty deep. You don't feel like the smartest person. You're surrounded by brilliance and it's quite intimidating, but gosh, is it. rewarding when you step back and say, oh man, what did I just do for two years? Holy cow. So it is a master's degree producing course. And to get accepted, the time is approaching actually every summer, the Command and General Staff College, which is what the School of Advanced Military Studies falls under. We'll have students conduct a, you know, kind of reading, writing exam where you get to sort of test your speed reading skills and you get to determine, you know, hey, can I join the Book of Day Club? Like, am I comfortable with my comprehension? And so you get to kind of see how quickly you absorb information. And then it's no different than any other graduate school program. You kind of develop your application. You have an interview process and you're competing really against your peers to get accepted to a. What I would call kind of like the Harvard or the Army.

00:17:47    BRAIN HANCOCK
How many slots do they have roughly in those peer groups? So it has gone up and down throughout the years.

00:17:49    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
it has gone up and down throughout the years. My class had roughly 120 students in it. So you'll have typically one lieutenant colonel per class and one to two international students per class. And then across the services to include the Coast Guard representation within each peer group. That cohort then goes through a Socratic method.

00:18:14    BRAIN HANCOCK
Of that cohort, as you've described, rough numbers, how much of that is compo one versus say compo two and three?

00:18:21    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
and three? I can't speak to that. I'm not sure if it is intentional. The preponderance of students from my peer group were active duty with the follow on utilization tour being designed for division and core staff because, you know, division and core staffs, they really drive the army. Many SAMS students will immediately go on to a staff where they will be expected to lead the division staff or the core staff in warfighters, which is really the Mission Command Training Program's premier command post exercise every year to drive staffs to solve tough problems in a large -scale combat training environment.

00:19:00    BRAIN HANCOCK
Let's give a quick shout out to some of our National Guardsmen who listen to the show because you've been a National Guardsman. We are often doing very meaningful work in humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and other areas, typically abroad, though. But I tell you, as a reservist, I've always been a little bit jealous of the National Guardsmen because they get to do disaster relief for our own American citizens. I understand that you've done that. Can you talk a little bit about your time in the National Guard and some of the things you got to do there? and maybe the similarities with the Federal Disc Commission.

00:19:42    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
Sure. So when I was in college, I had the opportunity to go through the simultaneous membership program.

00:00:01    SPEAKER_00
Welcome back. This is part two of Brian Hancock's interview with Megan O 'Keefe Schlesinger. Enjoy.

00:00:08    BRIAN HANCOCK
Welcome to One Civil Affairs Podcast. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hancock, and I will be your host for this session. Today, we have with us Jedi Knight Major Megan O 'Keefe Schlesinger, an information advantage practitioner. She has served in the Nevada National Guard, the Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East in various capacities. from the Army Medical Department to civil affairs planner and leader with special operations. Megan, can you talk a little bit about your time in the National Guard and some of the things you got to do there and maybe the similarities with the Federal Disc Commission?

00:00:46    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
Sure. So when I was in college, I had the opportunity to go through the simultaneous membership program. So that facilitated my ability to both be a Guardsman and progress. through ROTC. And so it provided me exposure to how the National Guard functions. You know, it is quite different than active duty. You have a very cohesive team, typically, who spend their entire career in the same state. And the unique opportunities that the Guard has tend to be more focused on disaster relief and or the needs of their governor. And that may apply to Homeland Security, Homeland Defense, or Defense Support Civil Authorities, which tend to uniquely be a National Guard mission set, which makes our guardsmen and women quite skilled when we talk about stability operations, security operations.

00:01:38    BRIAN HANCOCK
Yes, surprisingly skilled. I've met a number of them. Yeah.

00:01:41    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
Right, right. Opportunity when you're at the Command General Staff College is to take some electives. And one of the electives that I was able to take when I was a student in ILE was called DISCA Level 2. So you have the opportunity to study what would it take to defend a large city, or perhaps if a major disaster happened, what is the relationship, especially with things like Posse Comitatus? The National Guard will come to support the needs of that local community when that community's resources and capabilities have become overwhelmed.

00:02:17    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
Because what you learn in Disco Level 2 is the military is never the first option. It should be the last option deliberately because, especially in the United States, we have very robust institutions, quite capable emergency medical response, things like that, to where when you're calling in the National Guard, it's really because there may be unique resources that are needed. C -130 aircraft under the Air Guard or Rotary Wing. Rotary Wing aircraft. When it comes to wildland fire or Operation Lone Star on the border, where you have state resources are potentially not. sufficient for whatever the mission of the governor might be. And then, or when you're involved in any kind of disaster relief with FEMA, there may be relationships between neighboring states where another state's resources are needed for a state that may not have the same capability. There may be sharing agreements regionally across the United States. So you get to really explore the role that DISCA plays, especially for those who ever serve on Army North or Northcom staff, understanding the homeland security law and policies become very important because there are limits on what the military can do. But the great value of understanding DISCA, especially for civil affairs officers, it's sort of an opportunity to mature our understanding of what we are all taught about, like Pamecies. So when I can understand my community and when I can understand my state, it helps me to appreciate when I go overseas, that community and maybe its differences or its strengths, and then the role that its military plays in its resiliency, its ability to respond to disaster, and then the role that its military plays in the strength, security, and stability of that local community. So the value that the National Guard brings, especially to things like the state partnership program, I think is in many ways anchored in like 3 -28 about DISCA operations.

00:04:08    SPEAKER_00
So the

00:04:16    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
like 3 -28 about DISCA operations. And it's just a fun place that a warfighter doesn't necessarily give you the opportunity to deep dive into. So, yeah.

00:04:26    BRIAN HANCOCK
I'm glad you mentioned the state partnership program, too. I suspect a lot of folks, when they think about the National Guard, think about largely operations within that state. But through the state partner program, pretty much every major country in Europe has a stateside National Guard partner, and they conduct joint operations and training at varying degrees of sophistication. So that small National Guard unit in Kansas may be the definitive expert within DOD of what Bulgaria looks like and their armed forces and their operating environment. Not something that you would necessarily intuit from COMPLA -2, but that is absolutely there. And it makes a huge difference for us over here in Europe. One of the reasons that the Ukrainians were so well prepared is because they had such a strong partnership with their National Guard. back here in the United States, and it made a huge difference for them. Let's hop back to the SAMS topic for a minute. Looking at the contemporary operating environment, modern warfare is absolutely more complex than it's ever been. Not just with the number of domains, the number of dimensions, the number of environments. You mentioned earlier spectrum. Spectrum by doctrine is classified as an environment, a subset of the electromagnetic environment. And we still have to worry about that, which is ubiquitous like air for us at this time. You have nations executing operations at all phases of conflict in strategic integrated ways, particularly with countries like China. operating environment for us to understand, for us to assess, for us to inject carefully thought out interventions that benefit everyone involved. And navigating that complexity can be very hard for anyone. I think particularly for some folks. But as we look at that, one of the ways that complexity manifests in a strategic challenge is in our ability to convert our well -proven capability to achieve tactical success on battlefields.

00:06:23    SPEAKER_00
as we

00:06:28    BRIAN HANCOCK
strategic challenge is in our ability to convert our well -proven capability to achieve tactical success on battlefields. But converting that to achieving strategic objectives so that there's some stability, so that we don't have to keep coming back to that location, so that they don't threaten their neighbors, that has been somewhat elusive. If SAM's graduates are supposed to help fill that role in the Army to navigate that complexity, based on your experience, do you see that happening? Are they having that level of impact as I think the program originally intended? And why or why not?

00:07:08    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
So that's a lot. And to peel it back a little bit and kind of anchor on your comment about complexity. So I believe that Fort Leavenworth is truly the think tank of the Army. students who are either part of the Art of Wars Scholar Program or the MMAS programs, the Information Advantage Scholars Program, or those who come out of the School of Advanced Military Studies, all of those students are charged with the responsibility of drafting either a thesis or a shorter version of a thesis called a monograph. And that forces the students over the course of a year Works for some, too, because those who go to ILE and get an MMAS and then continue to get an additional master's degree at SAMS, they're really honing in those research skills. And so the think tank of Fort Leavenworth has an incredible library with gifted researchers to help students improve. their own ability to think critically and dive into information that in your day -to -day job you just don't have time to do. But as a student, that is your responsibility to help solve the hard problems of the military. You know, I encourage your listeners to go on to the Carl Library website and really dive into decades of monographs from students who are brilliant in their own regard. And many of these monographs will trickle into doctrine and students might develop their own theories that we will then test and eventually turn into practice. So, you know, we talk about in Sam's history, theory, doctrine practice. And so it isn't. a cyclical thing where the students have a historian on staff. Every month, they'll go through a different block of instruction throughout a historical era of warfare. And then they'll have a full bird colonel who will help guide the discussion. But it's really a Socratic method of peer -to -peer education guided by true experts in either military history or emerging field, like mine being information operations. And then with both American instructors and international instructors. So going into your comment about critical thinking, one of the things I loved about SAMS, we had different blocks. And so those blocks included design methodology, futures, looking at systems, and then diving into history as we discover. Okay, how do we think about this in a historical perspective? Or how do we think about a problem in a future's perspective? And then how do we look at it systematically? And then ultimately, how do we develop the framework for a problem? And then as you can hear, you could take a problem in many different directions, like problem X could have a preposterous outcome, or a very muted outcome. And how do we guide our decision making to enable an end state that is desirable.

00:10:14    BRIAN HANCOCK
I love how you mentioned that because I think we focus on the kind of the first order effects oftentimes, you know, certainly in our cultural damage estimates and other things we do when we're executing military operations. But it's often those second and third order effects that are tied to the strategic outcomes that we need to be able to manage and to tackle. So you're getting some reps and sets and kind of taking it beyond just the tactical level to start. tying that up and fitting it back to Diamond Pimisi beyond just the initial battlefield?

00:10:45    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
Well, certainly. And then ultimately, it is creating a framework that helps a commander visualize, understand, and direct action. And then the staff continue to assess. God, we talk about these buzzwords in the army, but they are truly important. If our commanders don't understand the problem that we're presenting to them, then we have to reframe in a way that helps to make sure that we're, A, having the same conversation. You know, are we in the same story here? But then ensuring that our commanders, who are ultimately the decision makers and organizations, can absorb the information that we're presenting in a way that helps him or her to make the best decisions. complementary aspects between the field of IO and the education that you get to become a better planner.

00:11:34    BRIAN HANCOCK
I want to follow up for one second on what you're talking about, problem framing. Sure. When we look at some of our areas where our strategy didn't work out, taking a look at the ultimate outcome in the Iraq conflicts, a lot of studies by Rand and others say, hey, look, we tried to solve the wrong problem. So the critical breakdown was very early in the process. Doctrinally, that's at the mission analysis phase for the Army. But the Marine Corps recognizes that problems are so critical to get right. Their mission analysis is called problem framing to be able to get specifically after that. Because everything else follows. We're very problem -fixing focused in the military. And if we get the problem statement wrong, then we're applying the... wrong ends, ways, and means to deliver the strategic effects that we need. So what I'm hearing is that the SAMs and the cohorts and some of the programs there are actually critical thinking kind of incubators to help get after not just a superficial categorization based upon, say, a political objective, but what does that really mean and then how we would really go about being able to do it? Yeah,

00:12:49    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
to do it? Yeah, you know, it's kind of like, building a house. If you're building a house in the wrong environment, you may forget to have the insulated windows in an extremely cold environment. Or maybe you forgot that you built it on a slab in a place prone to earthquakes. That may not be the right analogy. It's a great analogy.

00:13:11    BRIAN HANCOCK
a great analogy. Monty Python, they built the castle in the swamp and it sunk three times. Great analogy.

00:13:17    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
So problem framing, it's a useful tool because we really shouldn't start the military decision -making process unless we understand the problem that we're trying to solve and acknowledging, is it a military problem to solve? It's not always, like I said earlier with discuss. Sometimes the military is the last resort. It is how we bound what we are trying to accomplish with the means that we have available to us. And if we apply the wrong construction material to a beautiful home, it doesn't matter how pretty it was. If it falls apart in two years, we made a bad investment, right? So we want to be very careful to ensure that we're aware of our operating environment and trying to apply critical thinking to assess the true problems. To inform our civilian leaders that the military decision -making process that ultimately will come out of Army design methodology develops options that are best suited for the situation at hand. And sometimes that can be frustrating. You know, we often don't appreciate the phrase tactical patience, but sometimes tactical patience is necessary to give our planners time to think. And we don't always have the luxury of time. You know, certainly like when we talk about natural disasters, we don't always have the luxury of time. Sometimes you just have to go with your best military advice with what you know at hand. That's right. And history can be a helpful playbook, but certainly must take into account the current operating environment. And so the value that you get from SAMS is really just, I think, being a better planner, better officer, a better leader, a better individual. You know, the conversations both in and out of the office at SAMS. Or you could call it fellowship. You could call it friendship. You could call it just lifelong mentorship.

00:15:03    BRIAN HANCOCK
And hopefully you have a good playbook, professional network building.

00:15:06    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
Right. We have to acknowledge that we don't all have the answers. There's not always a perfect solution. And something that Sam teaches you, it's okay to ask for help. And not only does that speed up our decision making, but it leverages ideas and thought processes that may be internal to our staffs we didn't have before.

00:15:26    BRIAN HANCOCK
And it raises the N. So we have more samples for better statistic validity of our conclusions. Yeah. Now, if somebody doesn't want to challenge SAMs, but still wants to have this type of rigorous broadening opportunity, what are some of the other options that are available?

00:15:47    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
So each service has a equivalent to SAMs. However, the Army's is the largest. And then you have more joint -oriented venues like the Joint Special Operations University. And then you have Naval Postgraduate School down in Monterey, California, where there's an Information Warfare Studies program. And across these venues, the value that you get is different ways of thinking, slightly different venues, slightly different outcomes, where much like you have ROTC, OCS, West Point. Think about the collective value that the Navy brings or that the Army brings. And then when you bring that all together, it's quite brilliant. So if either you're not in the Army and you're listening to this, or you're in the Army and you're looking to grow within your sister service skill set, I encourage students to go online and look at the application windows. Certainly, they're all going to have their own unique requirements. more challenging than others. And most of them will have some sort of staff ride that you get to go on. I'm pretty jealous. I believe the Marine Corps gets to go to Europe for a couple days for their staff ride.

00:17:03    BRIAN HANCOCK
They do.

00:17:04    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
And the School of Advanced Military Studies takes their students on a staff ride to Mississippi to study the Battle of Vicksburg, which is a wonderful opportunity to appreciate the complexities of joint warfare in the Civil War, the unique geography of the southern states of the United States, and the role that both the Navy and the Army played in the Vicksburg campaign. So it's not Europe, but it's still a great cultural perspective of looking at warfare on the homeland.

00:17:35    BRIAN HANCOCK
That's outstanding. And you don't have to go to Europe or Asia to learn valuable lessons. They're all over the world. And every one of these sites has something to teach us if we are open -minded and approach it with some humility. So let me ask you, What advice could you give to folks?

00:17:53    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
So read broadly. You don't have to necessarily go to a year -long school to become a true gifted officer, gifted professional. And if you're not looking at Audible or you're not checking books out from the library or you're not having... some debates with friends and colleagues. I got to say, you might not be the right fit for Sam's because I tell you, the Book of Day Club is real. And the importance behind being a self -motivated, self -driven individual when it comes to learning is sometimes the folks to our left and right are leaning on us to think about things and to provide input. And if... you know,

00:18:37    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
know, you're not reading the news and you're not diversifying your thought processes through reading widely and deeply, you may miss some details. And so I love looking at books, whether it's fiction or nonfiction. Military history is always obviously important, but then beyond just military history, there's great courses series out there where you can look at fun topics like the history of spycraft, right? Or The ethics of military warfare or the August Cole and Peter Singer series like Ghost Fleet or Burn In or Like War are really good starting points to think through I .O. stuff. Those authors have had the effect of taking emerging technology and applying it to fiction in a way that helps to tell the story of, talked about earlier, possible futures. And so why do I say read a lot? To be a good professional, we also have to give back, kind of like today with you. And so whether you're passionate about writing articles for professional outlets or contributing to leadership development programs in your own home unit, looking at what other folks are reading, thinking about, and writing on can help really deepen the intellectual value of your staff. No one wants a boring staff. I love when I can walk into the office and have a healthy debate about something. It keeps us on our toes. It keeps us young.

00:20:07    BRIAN HANCOCK
That's one of the things I love about the Marine Corps. They have a fantastic culture of intellectual exchange where you could take any position, but you have to bring the facts to back that up. So everyone walks away learning something from that exchange, whatever point of view you have. So I appreciate the value of an opportunity like that.

00:20:25    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
But here's the thing too. Army libraries, they're free. And you can check out a book. Yeah, you can check out a book from across the nation. Army and DOD library program is pretty phenomenal because it turns out military appreciates education.

00:20:39    BRIAN HANCOCK
Outstanding. Relative to the value it brings, not only for your career, but just for your personal life enrichment. Sure. Pennies on the dollar. The return on investment is amazing. Thank you for all of those recommendations for the audience. Really appreciate you coming on the show today.

00:20:56    MEGAN O’KEEFE-SCHLESINGER
Thanks, Brian. Appreciate your time today and the opportunity to be on your show.

00:21:01    Close
Thanks for listening. If you get a chance, please like and subscribe and rate the show on your favorite podcast platform. Also, if you're interested in coming on the show or hosting an episode, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. I'll have the email and CA Association website in the show notes. And now, most importantly, to those currently out in the field, working with a partner nation's people or leadership to forward U .S. relations, thank you all for what you're doing. This is Jack, your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes. 1CA Podcast.