189: Phillip Smith in discussion with Brian Hancock

Welcome to One CA Podcast.

Today, Brian Hancock talks with Phillip Smith about his experience as commander of the 451 Civil Affairs Brigade, his time as a student at the Army War College and his work designing how Civil Affairs can respond to domestic crises and disasters. 

---

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

---

Special thanks to "Traveller" for the sample of Federico Abuele's "Contigo." Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-AL7q5mDSc

---

Transcript

00:00:04    Introduction

Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA 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 ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail dot com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes.

 

00:00:40    BRIAN HANCOCK

I'm Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hancock, and I'll be your host for this session. Today we have with us Lieutenant Colonel Philip Smith. He serves on an active duty tour at the Joint Staff J -5 in the Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasian Affairs Division. In his civilian capacity, Lieutenant Colonel Smith is an Assistant Attorney General in the State of Texas. where he works on general civil litigation. Quick reminder for the audience, all remarks are solely those of myself and the prosecutors. Now, you've done many things in your 26 -year military career, and can you walk us through your journey where you started in military intelligence, then moved to psychological operations, and now are in civil affairs. Tell us a little bit about that journey.

 

00:01:29    PHILIP SMITH

Absolutely. So going all the way back to 2002, coming out of Texas Tech, I don't really know that I had a great bead on where I was going to go. And I knew that I wanted to do military intelligence. I recall at advanced camp when I went through in summer of 2001, before 9 -11, we had what you call branch orientation day and all the branches presented their best foot forward. And I recall that we had the G2 from I -Corps there. And he didn't really put on much of a presentation. It was a lot like, hey, I get 5 ,000 or however many applications. And I know that he was addressing the active component there. But I had things pretty well sewn up as far as a unit. The 413th Civil Affairs Battalion was going to take me in as their S -2. So I knew that I had everything locked in. Well, then 9 -11 happened one month almost to the day after graduating from advanced camp. And I recall that they had to rebuild the sessions packets from scratch. Normally by about Thanksgiving, you would get your branch assignments, but we didn't get ours until spring break in March of the next year. So it was a different time moving from there to OBC. I went to Fort Huachuca at a time when seeing the ground invasion in Iraq happened, OIF -1 happened while I was at OBC. And I thought, oh my God, just like everything else that had occurred prior to this time. Desert Storm, Panama. It was going to be over before I had a chance to get over there, participate in something that made history.

 

00:03:05    BRIAN HANCOCK

You're concerned that it's going to be over before you can go in and lend a hand. That's very impressive. It's what you train for. You never hoped for it,

 

00:03:12    PHILIP SMITH

for. You never hoped for it, but when it happens, you want to be part of that effort. You want to be part of that victory. And so I moved very quickly afterwards to get to deploy over there. I went with... field artillery battalion for the West Virginia National Guard, and then stayed there for another year. So I did two years back -to -back because the unit that replaced us was the Texas National Guard. And being able to then spend that year in Iraq with those folks was another opportunity that your friends that you grew up with in Iraq can be able to partake in an effort of that magnitude with them. It was just a tremendous opportunity. So I stayed there another year and then came back home, finally, And then went and took a tour after I sat for the LSATs at the Joint Analysis Center and RAF Molesworth from USUCOM, working on counterterrorism capabilities for several North African countries and leading a team that put those together and directing them and helping to guide their efforts was another great opportunity. From there, law school, three years. for 15th Civil Affairs Battalion then after that. And then got back home to Dallas after graduating, went to the 345th PSYOP in Dallas. And from there, had the opportunity to go through the PSYOP -2 course with you and then got ready to deploy to Horn of Africa. Preparing for deployment.

 

00:04:45    BRIAN HANCOCK

for deployment. Do you remember those heavy days?

 

00:04:48    PHILIP SMITH

Brian, I absolutely do. And we had a great group in that class. It does seem like a lifetime ago, and that was a great opportunity to be able to exercise those skills that we learned. I think from one of the best in the trade, Greg Cisa, I think absolutely one of the best instructors that we could have hoped for and gotten really prepared us well for deployment. And then also my experience at the SOC pack. built upon those prior experiences. But yes, it has been a while. And I look back fondly. I don't know how fondly I look back at Camp McCall. But, you know,

 

00:05:26    BRIAN HANCOCK

know, we would take the bad. Now, the coordinating assignment for successful officer careers, of course, battalion command. Now, you were the battalion commander for the 451st Civil Affairs Battalion. What was that lot?

 

00:05:40    PHILIP SMITH

Just a tremendous experience to be able to work with some of the finest in our profession. in our regiment to take the 451 battalion that was coming off of COVID and in many respects not seeing each other in at least a year. It was a very trying time because you have to have that physical face -to -face. So that was one challenge that we inherited when I took command. We went in two CTC rotations, NTC, JRTC, and then we had a warfighter just before I relinquished commands.

 

00:06:19    BRIAN HANCOCK

That's a pretty ambitious schedule just coming out of what it mattered to a year at Reset. You're getting back together and trying to establish policies, procedures, stand up training and prepare for the mission. And then the missions just fall in on you back to back. Absolutely. How did you overcome them?

 

00:06:38    PHILIP SMITH

Correct response to a situation is sometimes no response, but to let the situation transpire a bit, get you a little bit more information and not to knee jerk, I think was one of the biggest lessons that I distilled out of battalion command. Sometimes you need to let things transpire or let your subordinates make the decisions and run with things and not interject. Let them grow and develop or let the situation transpire.

 

00:07:09    PHILIP SMITH

instance, we had a lot of unsatisfactory participants. And the problem was essentially getting people to physically show up. You mentioned problem solving and everything starts with framing the problem. How do we get people back to drill? So what I did was I sat down with my sergeant major and chaplain, and we decided to develop what we called the battalion wellness working. And what we did through that was we would have the sergeant major, the chaplain. And the first sergeants from the companies sit down and just see how can we engage these soldiers? Who are the problem soldiers that we're recognizing some of these signs and that we're not seeing things that we're having contact with, but we're not able to connect with? And how can we connect and bring them in? And our chaplain was tremendous in being able to facilitate that and provide some ideas and being a conduit for our companies to be able to bring. and reconnect the soldiers. So that post -COVID world was a great challenge. The other one that I have sticking out in my mind was NTC, which was our first CTC rotation. And we had a trucker strike. Our truckers would not cross the picket line to go into California. You just can't make this stuff, right? Not one bit. So I have soldiers there at Fort Irwin with no equipment. And it's, sir, what are we going to do? And basically it was, hey, you're going to have to try to hitch a ride. You know, a lot of it was just questioning the company commander to try to lead him to the right conclusion. And together we worked on it to resolving it was basically a nut you can't crack. You can't materialize those vehicles there. But at the same time, you know, you need some transport. So you're going to have to really knuckle down on that relationship with the supported unit. You're really going to have to do something at least until the strike breaks. So a lot of what I found working with my company commanders, and I had a tremendous slate of company commanders that were great. I had Courtney Bone was my HHC commander during the warfighter. I had Matt Horschow as my Charlie company commander. Both these challenges developed into something where I think that as a commander. You are more of a shepherd insofar as you've got to work with your people and you've got to lead them to the resources. Part of development and growth is to cause them to exercise the six most important inches of real estate on the battlefield. And that's the gray matter between your ears. And I think as commanders, we have to facilitate that.

 

00:09:43    BRIAN HANCOCK

Right. Give them the estate and give them positive feedback. I think that positive feedback may be something that we don't do the best job in the military. I'm not sure we coach and mentor as effectively as we could at times. But critical to learning, it seems like we have to experience things ourselves for us to really cement that learning. Well, let's look at the flip side. We've talked about some of the challenges. We know that it's not easy to be a battalion commander. And sometimes, at least in Comp3, there have been some difficulties in getting enough people to manage this. So, curious to you for throwing your name in the hat and getting selected. In that time, I imagine it was a very valuable experience, though. Did you do anything particularly novel or anything that you found in your good time? And can you tell us a bit about it?

 

00:10:31    PHILIP SMITH

Absolutely. I think that each one of those events and the outcomes from them are something that remain a source of pride for me during my command tenure. I think that the legacies that... Sergeant Major Hardy Hay and I left for the 451. I would like to think that they echo to this day. All of them are a testament to the dedication of the soldiers of the 451. One is Resolute Sentinel, Guatemala, where we sent CA teams down there. We had an enduring presence. They're going to Southcom and supporting efforts down there. And to great aplomb to the soldiers down there, that was something I'm proud of and how we were able to achieve effects. And then finally, the three -quarter warfighter exercise, we supported 1st Cavalry Division. A great opportunity to be able to go down there, interface with our active component brothers and sisters, and support them in an exercise of tremendous magnitude. Again, achieved tremendous effects in many cases. I couldn't have been prouder to see our soldiers really shine a light and set the example. That was the capstone for my command.

 

00:11:40    BRIAN HANCOCK

command. Earlier, we'd see one of the regional groups has had such a kind of doings, filling all the battalion command positions. They did the public report for how to be studied on. I think it was a missed opportunity that many of the battalion commanders that I had talked to and said, look, this is a very demanding timeline. You're looking at, oftentimes, 20 plus hours a week doing various things, whether it's... Signing papers, drafting things, reviewing things, making decisions, building plans, political coordinations, etc. So you've got that road when you are sitting as a battalion commander. Then you've got clearly a very challenging civilian career. Do you have any advice for the audience, those folks who find themselves in a very demanding civilian job, at the same time as a very demanding military job? How do you manage your time to make sure that you stay healthy?

 

00:12:37    PHILIP SMITH

I found that really kind of prioritizing things helps and sitting down and setting the time aside for all of those aspects that you mentioned really helps. And I've found just from other leaders and mentors that I've talked to and worked with, and this is what I've adopted, is setting aside the time to give to each one of those aspects every day. Obviously, when not on orders, what am I going to do? I've got a lot more time dedicated than to the civilian job. But I always set aside at least maybe an hour every day or period of time to look at the prioritized issues, especially when in command, what's being presented to. Now, that's not to say that fires don't pop up, things don't occur that demand immediate attention. heavily empowered my subordinates. I think you've got one battle as a commander where you really knuckle down on assessing your AGR full -time staff leadership. That paramount when you take command because those are the folks you're going to be relying on and you've got to assess everything. Exactly. And those are the people that are going to become the threshold filter and you've got to assess your confidence in them and where that contours of that confidence lie. And so, I was always confident in my operations officers that I gave them signature authority. My SSA, I gave Ms. Glasgow 451, I gave her signature authority because I could trust them. And that's the thing, trust and confidence. And you've got to assess that immediately because you don't have time to wait a few months. I think the other thing is sit down and say, hey, look, for a week, I need to come in. maybe that first week after I take command. That's how you support Bolton. You just set the time aside for them, and you have to do it. Otherwise, something's going to give way. In many cases, it's like juggling.

 

00:14:43    BRIAN HANCOCK

Yeah, I know that drill. In company command, certainly my family took the short end of the stick, and I suspect command is even more demanding. Thank you for doing what you did there. Let's transition over to your current duties for a bit. Right now, you're a resident student at the Army War College. Can you walk us through the typical day for someone who is in resident Army War College?

 

00:15:12    PHILIP SMITH

Absolutely. So at Carlisle, classes started at 830 and went to 1130 on most days. You would have sometimes an optional lunch lecture on different topics. you had the rest of the day to yourself. And generally, I would spend that studying for the next day. The class was broken down into a seminar. So we had, I think, 24, 25 different seminars. And there was about 15 or so folks in there. Usually you'd have one from compo three, one from compo two. And then you'd have three or so international fellows. And then you'd have a couple in there from... either the fee services, the Air Force, Space Force. And that was great. There's 15 in my seminar. I was in seminar one. We had tremendous time and we're still very much in touch with each other and everything like that, even though we've all gone to the four quarters of the globe. But since we graduated now over a month, it's funny how time flies.

 

00:16:16    BRIAN HANCOCK

how time flies. I think that's pretty prescient. These types of schools are the book of day club, as we refer to them. And that is very real. So folks have to have, I think, a fire in their belly to want to be doing a lot of learning. I suspect the hours are pretty long here trying to get all of your material together. And the coursework you mentioned, I assume there are electives in there as well. So you have to do the core. You're going to have to do these electives. And then I understand there are opportunities to get advanced degrees on top of that. Can you tell us a little bit about that part of the experience?

 

00:16:52    PHILIP SMITH

There's the foundations course that you start with. Then you go into the core courses. You've got military strategy and campaigning was probably the biggest block of instruction. But then the electives, I took an advanced regional studies course and focused on Europe. Just a tremendous opportunity to be able to receive lectures, talk with the MILSEC at NATO. We got to sit down with former MILSEC for NATO. We had a couple of ambassadors come in. A lot of researchers from European think tanks talked about various issues that Europe was facing and really get to think about those kinds of issues. It culminated in two weeks. We went to Greece and Sweden. So in Athens, we got to meet with the Greek defense minister. We were hosted there by them. Instructors had set aside, interestingly enough. Thucydides Day. As we walked through Athens, you kind of see the wall that was built between Athens and Piraeus and how you could see from the Acropolis down to Piraeus. And you could almost see Pericles advocating for the building of the wall as the Peloponnesian War started and then moving on to the Agora and seeing how the daily life might have been in Athens at that time. And from there, we went to Stockholm, Sweden, and we were the senior most delegation to go to Sweden since it had entered fully into NATO.

 

00:18:28    BRIAN HANCOCK

That's very impressive. Based on how you described it, I know I certainly would be interested in the kind of curriculum that you experienced at work college, but the application process. Can you tell us about that? When is the application process for work college? And do you have any advice you could give perspective? attendees who want to apply to senior staff college or senior service college, how they can maximize their chance. If I'm correct, only about 2 % are picked up for residents, how could someone manage their application to increase their chance of being in that 2 %?

 

00:19:06    PHILIP SMITH

So for me, I looked and saw when the MILPR came out, and I think it generally comes out around about this time, I want to say, for Next academic year, some AY25 is starting at the War College. Probably within a few weeks, they'll start having their in -processing and everything. But there's a lot of other opportunities out there besides Carlisle Barracks. There's the Naval War College. There's the Air War College. I think there might even be sites at the Marine War College. Then there's also fellowships. You can go and be a senior service college fellow and go to... Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, but I think some folks have gone to University of Texas, Texas A &M, Stanford. You can go to, I want to say that there's also opportunities at think tanks. It runs a gamut and it's all outlined in OPR and basically rank, order your preferences. So I did that. And then I think the list came up and I was on the primary list for distance education, which. by all contentions, is much harder than the resident because that's two years of very diligent study. And then they came out with another Milper, I want to say, around about the fall period. And so I put in then on that second tranche, my preferences, Army War College was first. I just thought, well, you know, it's our senior service college, so it's a recognized element. Then that list came out. I distinctively remember it was the 23rd of December of 22 because people started congratulating me. And I thought, why are you congratulating me on War College? I already know that I got selected for distance. And they said, no. Go back and look. And I said, oh, holy smokes. I got selected for resident. Now that's a big decision point. I've got to reach the subject with my civilian employer and let them know because it's going to become inevitable that I'm going to have to depart on active duty orders. And so very exciting. I had tremendous outpouring of support from the folks that I work with in the general litigation division, the Texas attorney general's office. They were highly supportive. They still are. And so the orders were cut when I was finalizing and we were wrapping up at the warfighter. And so I had orders in hand to report in July of 23. And the rest, as they say,

 

00:21:33    BRIAN HANCOCK

they say, is history. So if you have your heart signed on going to senior state college, don't give up. First list isn't necessarily in the answer.

 

00:21:42    PHILIP SMITH

Don't expect to get it on the first go around. You put in the following year to get it. I didn't have any expectations when becoming a primary for a resident. So you did a variety of research while you were there.

 

00:21:53    BRIAN HANCOCK

variety of research while you were there. And one of those topics that you took a look at resonates with many of us was looking at domestic incidents. Now we talk about humanitarian assistance disaster relief. Defense supports civil authorities. What is the domestic incident exactly?

 

00:22:16    PHILIP SMITH

Domestic incident. DOD doesn't have a working definition. What I did was I kind of coupled together a definition relying on the Stafford Act. Basically defines a domestic incident that based on two components. And the first is a major disaster. And the second is an emergency. And so major disaster. Includes those natural catastrophes, fires, floods, explosions, basically where the president determines this event has caused damage of sufficient severity that warrants assistance under the act. And then an emergency is basically anything that you need. Federal assistance is required in those circumstances to save lives, protect property, public health, safety, and lessen the threat of a catastrophe. And you've got... A number of other subsequent statutory authorities, the Homeland Security Act of 2002 goes into terrorism. We've had global challenges like the COVID pandemic, sort of black swan type events. So that's what I took to define domestic incident. The National Defense Act of 2012, which provides a framework for the Army Reserve to respond, is another guidepost. It really deals with what we would generally think of as a natural catastrophe, terrorist event, pandemic -type events.

 

00:23:43    BRIAN HANCOCK

events. That's a pretty horrible name. It sounds like it can be both natural or man -made, conus in nature. So there's a lot of terrain there to potentially execute a variety of missions. When we take a look at the Reserve Civil Affairs formations, based upon what you learn about domestic incidents, We see this as a mission that civil affairs should be engaging in. What would we need to do to man train and equip civil affairs formations to ensure that we have success in domestic incidents?

 

00:24:20    PHILIP SMITH

Well, I've focused on a couple of things, and some of that really comes down to the training and the partnerships. Training, domestic response, emergency response, emergency management, DISCA training. North Com puts on a great program. FEMA puts on another great program. One of the training opportunities that my alpha company did was to go through and do some of the emergency management training during one of their ATs. They went out to Galveston County, got a run through the emergency operations center out there in the airport, got to meet with the county judge. County judges in Texas are generally the first light as far as being tasked with the emergency management responsibility. They're the ones issuing the local disaster declaration. And my soldiers got to sit down and talk with them, exchanged information, let him know if there was a need, who he could get in touch with as the local commander, and I would do what I could do as far as having those additional resources. Of course, the Stafford Act requires those requests from local officials in writing. we can support that in the immediate response. And also with the EPLOs, they're the FEMA liaisons, and they coordinate as a focal point between DOD and FEMA, getting to know those folks and working that liaison aspect and understanding their role and having them be more of a forward presence. As we have these changes that we're seeing in weather events and the severity and the magnitude of these events, and the frequency occur, we're going to have to have a response that includes the total force. In some respects, interstate agreements between states may not prove that you've got all the resources that you need. At least you know in the back pocket you've got the Army Reserve. And so that was originally where I was going with my research in command and control. We can help the EPLOs coordinate and work with them and augment to do their job. We can do what we would also do overseas in an OCODIS environment. We could do that in CODIS. We could help. Because I always found it ironic that we do have as one of our core tests in civil affairs is DISCA. But I don't know that we've ever really done it at home.

 

00:26:44    BRIAN HANCOCK

A little bit. For COVID, the medical staff to move around. But in terms of large -scale integration, I think that's an opportunity that we have. With force caps being what they are and demand increasing, the National Guard, who often handles many of these missions in campo too, they just may not have the resources. And there are legitimate disasters or states of emergency where they need every resource they can get. And if we were to pre -coordinate that, and as you mentioned, we have 38 golf officers now in civil affairs who specialty is disaster management. We need to be tied into these state disaster plans. They need to have a checklist, a trigger -based release, where they know Title X may not be the first resource we bring to the table, but they need to know clearly what that threshold is. And when it's crossed, how do they get us involved? And then how do we spin up to be as effective? That's exactly what I concluded.

 

00:27:42    PHILIP SMITH

what I concluded. We need to have a greater liaison because the commitments of the National Guard, they've got... The ability to make agreements with other states that their guard can fill in while the focus states guard is out on deployment. You've got the local acumen that resides right there with regard to the reserve. The APLOs report through the 76th Operational Readiness Training Command out in Utah, the Army Reserve Center for DISCA. And that's where I think that interface and that liaison really can come to a forefront. And civil affairs has just that unique skill set. Like you mentioned, it's a great opportunity to provide liaison training to our local civil affairs battalion commanders, brigade commanders, our local CA assets to be able to liaise. And in the event they're called upon, they're ready.

 

00:28:38    BRIAN HANCOCK

We're running out of time, but I always like to ask this question. For those who are interested in the things that you've talked about, and want to learn more about your mental models, what are some of your favorite books and podcasts that you listen to for your own professional development, and what do you appreciate about it?

 

00:28:59    PHILIP SMITH

Absolutely. So, of course, one of the great podcasts I listen to is 1CA. Couldn't have said it better myself. I'll put that right up front. But in addition to the 1CA podcast, I listen to a variety. podcast from Modern War Institute, Rand's Policy Currents. I listen to From the Green Notebook. Oh, that's a great one. Absolutely. And then on a daily basis, New York Times is the daily. I listen to What's News from the Wall Street Journal, The Economist's Podcast, Marketplace. So those are generally what I'm listening to. What I'm reading right now, I am reading a book called Strategic Intelligence for American World Policy by Sherman Kent. book written in the late 40s and is sort of a seminal training book for CIA officers out there. And then another book I'm reading is called Behave by Robert Sapolsky. It's the biology of humans at our best and worst. It really gets into some of the deep... biology of human behavior and motivations and oxytocin and testosterone and the interplay and the amygdala and how those brain chemicals are driving certain things.

 

00:30:18    BRIAN HANCOCK

Oh boy. It sounds like it should be a required book for parents.

 

00:30:21    SPEAKER_00

Hey, Phil,

 

00:30:21    BRIAN HANCOCK

Phil, really appreciate you coming on the show today. A lot of great material that you've presented and we look forward to catching you up on I'm a future episode of 1CA podcast. Thank you, Brian. It's been a pleasure.

 

00:30:35    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. your host. Stay tuned for more great episodes, 1CA Podcast.