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One CA Podcast is here to inspire anyone interested in traveling to work with a partner nation’s people and leadership to forward U.S. foreign policy. We bring in current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences and give recommendations for working the ”last three feet” of foreign relations. The show is sponsored by the Civil Affairs Association.
Episodes
Tuesday Nov 19, 2024
Tuesday Nov 19, 2024
Welcome to One CA Podcast.
As we go into the holidays, the One CA brings on the show's founder, John McElligott, to talk with Brian Hancock and Jack Gaines about the show's beginnings, current updates and goals for the future. So, stay tuned.
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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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Past Episodes:
202 Andrew Gonzalez on Marine Civil Affairs in the Pacific (Part II)
201 Andrew Gonzalez on Marine Civil Affairs in the Pacific (Part I)
200 Jörg Grössl on the NATO Civil-Military Cooperation Centre of Excellence
199 Jeffrey Fiddler and the U.S. Gaza Relief Mission
198 David Luna, State-sponsored criminality in strategic competition
197 Scott Mann "Nobody is Coming to Save You"
196 Jeffrey Fiddler on the DOD response to COVID 19
195 Cleo Paskal on PRC operations in Guam
194 Doug Stevens on faith-based diplomacy
193 Patrick Alley on Global Influence (Part II)
192 Patrick Alley on Global Influence (Part I)
191 Drew Biemer on Energy Sector Civil Affairs
190 Pavlo Kuktha on Ukraine Reconstruction
189 Phillip Smith in discussion with Brian Hancock
188 Part II, Mickey Bergman on Diplomacy in the Shadows
187 Part I, Mickey Bergman on Diplomacy in the Shadows
186 Major Gustavo Ferreira testifies at the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission.
185 Scott Mann, Life After Afghanistan
184 Megan O’Keefe-Schlesinger on Information Operations. Part II.
183 Megan O’Keefe-Schlesinger. Leading Information Operations and Influence. Part I
182 Natacha Ciezki, from Zaire to America
181 Proxy Wars, by Pawel Bernat, Juneyt Gurer, and Cyprian Kozera
180 Sandor Fabian: Europe is Learning the wrong lessons from the conflict in Ukraine
179 Civil Affairs Innovation with Colonel Brad Hughes, part II
178 Civil Affairs Innovation with Colonel Brad Hughes, part I
177 Patrick Passewitz on the Sicilian Model
176 Part II, interview with J. David Thompson
175 Part I interview with J. David Thompson
174 Direct Commissions with Heater Cotter
173 Achieving post conflict stabilization with Prof. Beatrice Heuser (Pt.2)
172 Achieving post conflict stabilization with Prof. Beatrice Heuser (Pt.1)
171 Civil Military What?
170 Combat First Aid in Ukraine by Michael Baker
169 Part II, Bas Wouters on Influence and Persuasion
168 Part I, Bas Wouters on Influence and Persuasion
167 Electronic Warfare with Michael Gudmundson
166 On Alexei Navalny and Political Dissent
165 Part II of the Courtney Mulhern and Dan Joseph interview
164 Part I, Courtney Mulhern and Dan Joseph on the book "Backpack to Rucksack"
163 Sam Cooper on China political and Economic Warfare
162 Rob Boudreau and Joel Searls
161 Curtis Fox, Part II on Russian Hybrid Warfare
160 Curtis Fox: Part I, Russian Hybrid Warfare
159 Albert Augustine and V Corps CA
158 Introducing the 1st CAG Human Dimension Podcast
157 Part II Robert Curris on Psychological Operations integration with CA and SOF
156 Part I, Robert Curris on Psychological Operations integration with CA and SOF
155 Gen (R) David Petraeus at Carnegie
154 Angie Smith, Environmental Science and Foreign Policy
153 One CA Classic. John visits AUSA
152 Dan Blumenthal and Fred Kagan
151 Dan Blumenthal and Fred Kagan
150 The WestPoint Center for the Study of Civil-Military Operations
149 Part II. Tony Vacha on Civil Affairs in Europe and Africa
148 Part I.Tony Vacha on Civil Affairs in Europe and Africa
147 Jack’s first year hosting the One CA Podcast
146 Jess Langerud talks on medical diplomacy in Poland
145 Courtney Mulhern. Three tools to improve local public outreach
144 Garric Banfield on the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade
143 Richard Messick. Advising partner nations on Rule of Law and anti-corruption
142 Scott DeJesse and the new Monuments Men and Women
141 Paul Hutchinson on the film ”Sound of Freedom” and human trafficking
140 Brian Hancock interview Col. Rachael Sherrer discuss Army Europe and Africa
139 John Cassara on China’s Criminal Economy
138 Part II. Joseph Long on relational leadership and military diplomacy
137 Part I. Joseph Long on relational leadership and military diplomacy
136 Joe Pastorek and the 95th CA Advanced Skills Detachment
135 Jack Gaines interview with Global Integrity
134 Calvin Chrustie on conflict and hostage negotiation
133 Part II: Afghan resettlement in the U.S.
132 Part I: Afghan resettlement in the U.S.
131 Climate and Security
130 Chris Hyslop on human rights and diplomacy
129 Special Episode: Digital Civil Reconnaissance with Carrick Longley and Stephen Hunnewell
128 128 Josh Bedingfield on Shadow Governments Part II
127 Josh Bedingfield on Shadow Governments, Part I
126 Juan Quiroz on CA leading in Competition
125 Chris Hyslop: The Peace Corps
124 Special episode. Jordan Harbinger interviews H.R. McMaster on his book ”Battlegrounds”
123 Part II 38G: Agriculture and foreign policy
122 Part I 38G: Agriculture and foreign policy
121 Korea Reunification by David Maxwell
120 Special episode. IWP: The Columbia Plan
119 Discussing the USMC, 31st MEU CA Marines
118 Part II. Integrating Civil Affairs, field operations and diplomacy, by former Under-Secretary, Michael Patrick Mulroy
117 Part I. former DASD, Michael Patrick Mulroy on Integrating Civil Affairs, field operations and diplomacy
116 Assad Raza talk-back on the Frank Sobchak interview
115 Frank Sobchak on advising and training partner nation forces
114 Special Episode from the IW Podcast: Slow Burn: How Security Cooperation shapes operational environments
113 Jodi Harman and the HillVets Foundation
112 David Maxwell on grand strategy
111 Civil Affairs and Security Cooperation with Chris Stockel
110 CSM Riccio Christmas Day Concert
109 John Hutcheson on Hiring our Heroes
108 Advertisement for the CSM Riccio holiday concert
107 Operation Joint Endeavor
106 Special episode: John McElligott passes the mic
105 Major John Burns on Ghost Team at NTC
104 Stanislava Mladenova on Civ-Mil Relationships in Low-Intensity Conflict and State Fragility
103 Benjamin Ordiway and Anthony Pfaff
102 Nick Krohley and Lt Col Stefan Muehlich on Doctrinal Comparison, Part 2
101 Nick Krohley and Lt Col Stefan Muehlich on Doctrinal Comparison, Part 1
100 Episode 100 of the One CA Podcast
99 Theater Information Advantage Element
98 Brig Gen Chris Dziubek of the 351st CACOM
97 Mark Delaney on Civil Affairs Skills for Post Military Life
96 Colonel Marco Bongioanni on Emergency Preparedness Liaison Officers
95 Maj Gen Jeff Coggin of USACAPOC(A)
94 Operation Allies Refuge: Lessons on Interagency and Multinational Collaboration
93 Vish Odedra on COVID-19 Vaccinations in the UK
92 LTC Greg Banner on Training for Unconventional Warfare
91 Chris Bryant on Social Media for CA
90 CA Issue Papers 2021 - Part 3
89 CA Issue Papers 2021 - Part 2
88 CA Issue Papers 2021 - Part 1
87 USACAPOC(A) Command Strategic Initiatives
86 Civil Affairs Interagency Panel - Part 2
85 Civil Affairs Interagency Panel - Part 1
84 Zach Hyleman and Kevin Chapla on FAO and CA
83 Civil Affairs in Regional Competition for Influence - Part 2
82 Civil Affairs in Regional Competition for Influence - Part 1
81 SFC Josh Spiers on San Pedro Sula, Honduras
80 Major Lauren Holl on San Pedro Sula, Honduras
79 Josh Bedingfield on Human Network Analysis
78 Lieutenant General Eric Wesley on Civil Competition - Part 2
77 Lieutenant General Eric Wesley on Civil Competition - Part 1
76 Maj Gen Hugh Van Roosen on a Career in SF, CA, and PSYOP
75 Brig. Gen. Jeffrey Coggin of USACAPOC(A)
74 Colonel Mattia Zuzzi of the Multinational CIMIC Group
73 Jonathan Papoulidis on Country Coordination Platforms
72 Colonel Frank van Boxmeer of NATO CCOE
71 LTC Matthias Wasinger of the Austrian Armed Forces
70 Request for Capabilities Brief Guests and Show Hosts
69 Lt Col Jahn Olson and Lt Col Korvin Kraics on III Marine Expeditionary Force
68 LTC Albert Augustine on CA Missions in Africa
67 Justin Constantine
66 John Steed of Tesla Government on GIS
65 65 Digital Civil Reconnaissance with Carrick Longley and Stephen Hunnewell
64 Joe Pastorek on the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade's Advanced Skills Detachment
63 Lauren Ladenson, Lieutenant Colonel Matt Holmes, and Lieutenant Colonel Kyle Kouri on Defense Support to Stabilization (DSS)
62 CPT Al Oh and SGM Chris Melendez discuss Civil Reconnaissance
61 Dr. E. Casey Wardynski, ASA (M&RA) on Talent Management
60 LTC Scott Dickerson on the Army CA Force Modernization Assessment
59 MAJ Ashley Holzmann on the History of US Propaganda and Psychological Operations
58 Doowan Lee on Innovating Influence Intelligence
57 LTC Marco Bongioanni on the International Visitor Leadership Program
56 Paul Giannone on CA in Vietnam and his Career in Public Health
55 LTC Jeff Uherka and COL Steve Barry of Joint Task Force - Bravo
54 John Barsa, Acting Administrator of USAID
53 Dr. Ajit Maan - Narrative Warfare
52 Karen Walsh and Bron Morrison of Dexis Consulting
51 Intergrating Civil Affairs, with MAJ Brian Hancock and Dr. Timothy Darr
50 COL Steve Battle on CA Support for the COVID-19 Outbreak in Korea
49 LTC Rachel Sullivan and MAJ Mike Karlson on CA during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Korea
48 Dr. Lynn Copeland on the Future of Civil Information Management
47 Letting the CAT out of the Bag Part 2
46 Letting the CAT out of the Bag, Part 1
45 MAJ Ian Duke on the need for a Civil Knowledge Battalion
44 MAJ James Ontiveros discusses Civil Affairs and Megacities
43 Captains Chapla, Micciche, and Staron on Storyboards as the TPS Reports of the Army
42 LTC Sue Gannon on Leading the 450th CA Battalion
41 Sean McFate on the New Rules of War, Part 2
40 Sean McFate on the New Rules of War, Part 1
39 Abubakr Elnoor on Darfur and Terrorist Recruitment
38 Devin Conley on the National Training Center
37 General Anthony Zinni on a Unified, Interagency Command
36 Garric Banfield on the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade
35 Justin Richmond on the Impl. Project
34 Alexandra Lamarche on Internally Displaced People in Cameroon
33 Jamie Schwandt on Swarm Intelligence, Swarm Learning, and Red Teams
32 Jay Liddick and Scott Dickerson on the CA Force Modernization Assessment
31 Narayan Khadka on Nepal, castes, and community trauma
30 Jay Liddick and Scott Dickerson on CA in Large Scale Combat Operations
29 Giancarlo Newsome and Jesse Elmore on Military Government Specialists
28 Nicholas Krohley on Human Terrain and CA Integration
27 Dale Yeager with Travel Safety Tips
26 Cori Wegener on Cultural Heritage Preservation
25 Major General Darrell Guthrie of USACAPOC(A)
24 Kwadjo Owusu-Sarfo on Ghana and Boko Haram
23 Manya Dotson on Life in the NGO Community
22 Wyatt Hughes Trains the Central Readiness Force of Japan
21 Bonus episode with Ryan McCannell of USAID
20 Ryan McCannell of USAID on the Evolution of CA in Sub-Saharan African
19 Arnel David on Strategy in the 21st Century
18 Michael Coates and Mark Grimes, Startup Radio Network
17 Max Steiner and Mazi Markel, CA Issue Paper
16 Diana Parzik, USAID Office of Civilian-Military Cooperation
15 Will Ibrahim, S-9 of 2/1 CAV
14 What is Civil Affairs - AUSA Answers
13 Scott Fisher and Information Operations
12 Aleks Nesic and James Patrick Christian of Valka-Mir
11 Norm Cotton of the Institute for Defense Analyses
10 Kevin Melton, USAID Office of Transition Initiatives
9 Dr. Larry Hufford discusses the 20th Anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland
8 Valor Breez and Jarrett Redman on "Beyond Hearts and Minds"
7 John Stefula and PKSOI
6 Michael Schwille, Iraq and Djibouti and RAND
5 Gonul Tol, Middle East Institute, on Turkey
4 Roberto Carmack, PhD, on Russian actions
3 Sean Acosta, Instructor, USAJFKSWCS
2 Valerie Jackson, 4th CA Group, USMC
1 Jon May: Artificial Intelligence for HA/DR Operations - LORELEI
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Special thanks to Cool Jazz Hot Bassa for sampling music in their
album, Energy Jazz Playlist.
Retrieved at: https://youtu.be/bdWUj2NYDYQ?si=00ylFfJ6DhGCwPsO
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Transcript
00:00:03 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 .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 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Welcome to the 1CA podcast. I'm John McElligott, Major of the U .S. Army Reserve, and I will be your host for today's session.
00:00:47 JACK GAINES
This is Jack Gaines,and I will also be your host for this session.
BRIAN HANCOCK
I'm Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hancock, and I too will be your host for this session. Today, on the anniversary of One Civil Affairs Podcast, we have brought three hosts together to discuss where One CA Podcast has been, where we are today, and where we plan to take the show in the future. By happenstance, we're all here and here on the anniversary of One Civil Affairs Podcast. I think it's fate that we celebrate the organization and the listeners who have made One CA what it is today. Quick disclaimer before we continue. A reminder to the audience that all remarks are solely those of the presenters and do not necessarily represent the views of the United States Army or the Department of Defense. Let's start at the beginning. God, founder of 1CA Podcasts, executive extraordinaire of muckety -muck, running your business on a civil affairs board, and you come up, I guess, with this crazy idea to start 1CA Podcasts. How did that happen? Why don't you tell us a little bit about the origins of this incredible show?
00:01:55 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
I'd be glad to. So I think some of this blame probably goes back to you too. Uh -oh. So we were training together. We were going through the civil affairs qualification course, the reserve component, several years ago. And this was at a time when we had a team combined with active component and reserve component soldiers and actually soldiers from other countries. And I think that was the first time... that I had really felt this connection with the active component being reservist my whole time. And it was valuable. And so I wondered to myself, as we had a bunch of downtime waiting for the next missions, I had this thought, how do we keep this alive? And podcasting really started to grow nationally, internationally. I thought, wow, maybe I could do this. Can we get people on a show where the bar hopefully for entry is low enough? just to talk about stuff. Now, the goal for myself was, yes, to connect each other so that we can keep that discussion alive. I think the selfish goal for me was to learn. I wanted to bring people on so that I could know more about the civil affairs regiment, branch, et cetera, the whole environment, so that people could come to me and I can ask them questions in a simple format and then quickly learn.
00:03:13 BRIAN HANCOCK
That's awesome. Studies show that when people ask questions of others, the perception is that the person asking the question is more intelligent or more knowledgeable. The reality is, I know when I'm asking questions of our guests, and I suspect from what you said that the experience is similar for you, we are in receive mode. I mean, we're just learning amazing things from amazing people all the time. That is wonderful.
00:03:37 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
I need to hear from other people. And the other point of this was... understanding the value of the balance between officers and NCOs. And so there's Sergeant Sarah Kelly at the time who helped me to launch some of this idea to let that grow. And the thought early on was to have this balance between NCOs and officers. Now, historically, I think most of the guests we've had and the hosts we've had tend to be officers with some NCOs, some really standouts. But hopefully that's something we'll get to later on is How do we get more NCOs involved? Because the wealth of knowledge they bring to the table.
00:04:12 BRIAN HANCOCK
Well said on that. And actually, Sergeant Kelly, she interviewed me way back when. I think that was Rim of the Pacific where we made up some new processes for measuring progressing planetary assistance disaster relief. That was a fun episode. She did a really good job. So, yeah, I agree. We definitely need more NCOs, especially of that caliber, to come on and help with the show. Now,
00:04:18 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
of the Pacific
00:04:34 BRIAN HANCOCK
you told us a little bit about bringing her on board. What was it like running the show back then? I mean, there was extensive video editing. Our equipment wasn't as modern. What was that experience like from a technical and academic point of view?
00:04:49 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Well, gladly we had Zoom and we had ways to dial in Skype and so on, but smartphones helped out a great deal. But yeah, it's not like today. So Jack will hopefully cover artificial intelligence and programs that you're using right now to make this easier, a little bit easier. He's taking it to the next level. So some conversations were simply a recorder with batteries placed next to my phone to record a conversation. Some of them were just really winging it with a lot of editing that was required. And my dog barking. Yeah, that's the moment. That's the moment, right? Or the worst is when someone is blowing leaves. Or they've got work going on outside that you have no control over.
00:05:33 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah, that's why we have these roll -it -ins here and here. If we just close them down and they do what they don't do,
00:05:36 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
what they don't do, we're good. So, yeah, we've made huge strides over the years, in large part to what Jack has brought to the table on the quality of what you guys do.
00:05:44 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah, well said. And it sounds like we have a long history of mascots, starting with the dog, for 1CA podcast. Now we have Jabba the Cat as our current mascot. There are costs associated with doing this. This isn't free. The Civil Affairs Association is not profitable. And one of the ways that you creatively sought to close that funding gap and sought sponsors for the shows. And to this day, we often hear some of those sponsors that you brought on board, helping with the show, helping us defray the cost. How did you do that?
00:06:15 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Yeah, so we wanted this to be cost neutral as much as possible. I think for the production costs, we were the pitch to the Civil Affairs Association at the time was. If we can bring on sponsors at a decent rate, then we can cover those production costs and keep this cost neutral.
00:06:32 BRIAN HANCOCK
Jack, get right on that, on our bottom line to be tripled in the next six months. Right.
00:06:36 BRIAN HANCOCK
Sure. I would love that. But right now we're doing just like YouTubers where the YouTube inserts an advertisement and sends you, you know,
00:06:37 JACK GAINES
would love that.
00:06:44 BRIAN HANCOCK
and sends you, you know, 11 cents for the first billion downloads. Exactly. All right. Yeah.
00:06:49 JACK GAINES
All right. Yeah.
00:06:50 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Working on the first billion. Yeah. We have to monetize this,
00:06:52 BRIAN HANCOCK
We have to monetize this, guys. Let's keep that up. All right, John. So yeah,
00:06:55 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
All right, John. So yeah, but it's not a big, civil affairs is not a big industry for companies doing products and services. I don't know if we'll ever get there, but there is a short list of companies who want to advertise to this community. So those are the ones that we reached out to and we were successful in getting a few. So if you're a company out there, if you want to market to anyone listening to this show, please contact Jack, contact the team, and we can get an episode together for you.
00:07:24 BRIAN HANCOCK
And I know we can support that. We have some very interesting demographics that we get that are not common in my experience. You did this for four years. Wow, right? And you have the great hand to prove it. Yeah. It doesn't make me feel so bad and so old. But what were some of your favorite episodes in that time that you recorded?
00:07:35 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
you have the great hand to prove it. Yeah.
00:07:41 JACK GAINES
were some of your favorite episodes in that time that you recorded? And again, give the numbers because we have a running number. And I think, Jack, I don't know if you'll link the master list with all the... Look at that already. Oh, it's linked. Yeah, the numbers on the link in front of you is you guys correlated with the actual show. Go ahead.
00:07:55 BRIAN HANCOCK
the numbers on the link in front of you is you guys correlated with the actual show. Go ahead.
00:07:58 BRIAN HANCOCK
guys correlated with the actual show. Go ahead. Give us some of your favorite ones so people can look these up and relive the glory.
00:08:04 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
So I think there are three that come to mind. You guys have to help me out with the numbers here, but I think General Zinni, General Anthony Zinni from the U .S. Marine Corps, that interview was fantastic. Such a deep wealth of experience that he brought to the table. And that was just sitting at my kitchen table, talking to him and going through the network of the Civil Affairs Association to get him on the line. And I think because he spoke at one of the association meetings six months prior or whatever.
00:08:37 BRIAN HANCOCK
That was episode 37? 37.
00:08:38 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
37. Thank you. There we are.
00:08:40 JACK GAINES
Yeah, that is an early episode. We're at what, 200 and something?
00:08:44 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Yeah. Well, to put that into context, by the way, after four years, I think I... I worked down 106, 107 until turning over to Jack. Right, and then now we're at episode 200 over a much shorter period.
00:08:54 BRIAN HANCOCK
a much shorter period. Right, but we've also changed our pace. We're doing one every two weeks. We're doing one weekly, but we're actually only adding one additional show. We're splitting long -form interview in half so that we're adding one show, but we're hitting it weekly to fill in the time. That's awesome. Yeah.
00:09:14 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
That's awesome. To your question, the other two that stood out to me were the interview, I think it was two parts, with Shomnik Fate talking about the new rules of war. Yeah. What a smart guy. And I think that was really fascinating to bring his insight, somebody who's basically an academic teaching at the War College. Not just an academic.
00:09:37 JACK GAINES
just an academic. I mean, he served in special operations. He served as a mercenary. He has every type of experience on the government side, on the private side, on the secret squirrel side doing this. So that ability to have all those different perspectives, you know, as kind of an integrator to look at what that big picture is and could be. That's a book that he wrote, New Rules of War, Victory in the Age of Durable Disorder. referred to me by a Marine Corps infantry officer, probably the best military book I had written about that.
00:10:17 JACK GAINES
Nice. Yeah. And a name like McFate. Isn't it? While running around in the shadows. Yeah. It's just brilliant.
00:10:22 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. It's just brilliant. It's just built for you. Yeah. Oh, that was episode 40 and 41, by the way. So that was a good run. Yeah, that was really close to when you had General Zinni.
00:10:28 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
the way. So that was a good run. Yeah, that was really close to when you had General Zinni.
00:10:33 BRIAN HANCOCK
Well done. Oh my God.
00:10:33 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
done. Oh my God. So let me continue on this Marine Corps piece. I think she was then Colonel Valerie Jackson. Now I think she's Brigadier General. So the Marine Corps perspective on civil affairs was great for me as an Army guy to hear. The last one I'll talk about is... That was episode number two. Number two. You were hitting a hard back then.
00:10:55 BRIAN HANCOCK
a hard back then.
00:10:57 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Digital Civil Reconnaissance with Carrick Longley and Steve Huntawell. Talking about their perspective and what their company at the time was analyzing. in the civil domain and how we as civil affairs soldiers and Marines can conduct a lot of our work remotely, prep us and the commands that we support. So yeah, great tools and just the process that I think going back to that episode, we can still use today.
00:11:26 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah, that was episode 129. That was the last one we broadcast of your time as the lead host and showrunner. Nice.
00:11:35 JACK GAINES
Heard us strong, finish strong. The digital state of reconnaissance, I know that when General Zubek retired from 351, was over in Korea as the G9, they had pioneered as their information systems, different languages and different technologies, platforms, very complex. So they actually pioneered a concept. And I think there's still a paper that we might be able to link to, if I can look it up. on digital civil reconnaissance because the concept is still valid of on reserve battle assemblies, area -aligned civil affairs units and develop some of the civil picture that's needed for real -world operations in pieces over those battle assemblies and then send it forward as kind of a longer -term reachback, not a fast RFI process, but a longer -term development process to support the folks who are actually doing this operation, which is really an idea. Right. So, and that's still alive. I know some of the organizations who have been involved may not be doing it anymore, but the philosophy, the concept, and some of the actors are certainly still doing that. Well, Brian, you just recently had Andrew Gonzalez on. Yeah. He was talking about CKI TAC, which is something that has potential for more than just the Marine Corps and wider partnerships. This concept of developing civil picture, I'm not going to say cop, I think is a loaded term, but developing a civil picture that will enable maneuver is a very complicated topic. It requires a lot of information from a lot of players across the AC, right? And we haven't had a fantastic way to collect, collate, analyze, and display that. But TKI TAC... may be a piece of that puzzle. And, you know, I'm excited to see when it comes out what we do with that. So thanks for bringing it up, Jack. Appreciate it. Well,
00:13:29 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Well, gentlemen, I'd say enough about where it started. I want to turn this over to Lieutenant Colonel Hancock, Brian Hancock. At the time we were, you were captain. I think I was first lieutenant when we met. Right. How I twisted your arm to get involved with all the shenanigans with the 1CA podcast and how you got started, how it's gone so far and what you've learned.
00:13:52 JACK GAINES
To be honest with you, John, after you did four years, I just felt sorry for a year, so I felt I had to jump in as my battle brother from Saundry.
00:13:57 BRIAN HANCOCK
as my
00:13:59 JACK GAINES
No, no, that's not it. Actually, I have a far more diplomatic series of answers to give you, starting with the fact that my technical skills were becoming a little bit outdated. You mentioned how I graded from tape recordings and basic microphones to now. digital capabilities i know jack will talk more about this all the way through ai and programming and things like that and i had very similar experience to what you did in terms of when i was doing tactical work but now here we are with digital recordings podcasts ais and things like that and i recognize hey i need to get back into this if you want to be influence operations you have to understand a little bit about how to actually do that right you need to pony up at some point so there was an opportunity for me there and You know, I'm a little bit older than both of you gentlemen, and so I'm kind of at that point where I feel like I have to not only share anything I've learned with the community before my time is up, but also find people who have a lot to share and great knowledge who may not have been necessarily extensively published in other formats, right, to help preserve that intellectual property that the larger diplomatic community, including civil affairs, has developed over time. So that was kind of a foundation -type exciting project to collate some of that knowledge. And then, of course, the people involved, right? The journey matters. And who wouldn't want to work with Major John McElligot, Major Jack Gates? You guys are amazing, true professionals, fantastic, fun to be around, and really made this experience amazing for me. So I jumped on for all of those reasons. I would encourage others who are interested in doing it. It's not that hard. I know there are times. The biggest time sink in my experience is sound editing, which we don't really have to do so much anymore as guest hosts. Jack, you'll be talking more about some of the capabilities that you have to do that. But as the executive producer, you've managed a lot of that and given me the freedom to just go find amazing people with amazing stories to share. Throw on the recording. It's not live, so it's easy to do in as many retakes as you want. And then you turn it into these amazing shows that go out to the audience. And this piece of equipment we're using to record right now has about, you know, five switches and dials and is really very simple to work with. And we provide that to folks who are interested in doing it. So you put the call out to those who might be interested in sponsoring, John. I'd like to put the call out to anyone who might be interested in joining our team. We've got roughly four guest hosts and our executive producer. to build these shows and to give more content to the community as well as developing your own skills. It's a great opportunity. Thanks for asking that question, Don. I appreciate it.
00:16:43 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Yeah, welcome team. It's been a huge value added to the listeners. You bring a wealth of experience. You've seen a lot of this come together and see the place where civil affairs sits in different commands. So yeah, kudos for being on board and conducting so many fruitful interviews for the listeners.
00:17:00 JACK GAINES
Really appreciate it. It's really been a great experience for me. The people that I've met, networking, the career opportunities that it's opened, the perspectives that I've gained, the lessons I've learned, as well as managing my time and my family, it's just been super valuable.
00:17:19 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Let me ask you a question about your favorite episodes. I'm going to mention some of the... episodes that I was part of because I'm most familiar with those.
00:17:22 JACK GAINES
going to mention some of the... episodes that I was part of because I'm most familiar with those. And I think that'd be stealing someone else's thunder if I talked about some of the ones that they recorded that are very different. I want to bring to everyone's attention as you're looking for material through the holidays. We did an interview with expeditionary pastor Doug Stevens. Within information -related capabilities, of course, you've got civil affairs and PSYOP and electronic warfare and information operations. You've got all of these things. Often undersold is the value of religious engagement. So for instance, when the Australian Navy goes to any port in the world, two weeks before that ship docks, they've sent their pastor forward. And he's there opening doors, talking to people, building relationships. So when that Australian ship comes into port, they've got a million friends and the red carpet's rolled out because of religious engagement. And when we look at some of our traditional structures, like the effects cells and the theater information advantage element or theater information advantage detachment and other MDO formation, they do not contain religious engagement. I think it's a gap in exercising influence across time, and you're not going to achieve conversions and information effects if we ignore religious engagement. He goes out, he goes to the worst of the worst areas. He talks about the explosions that were happening when he was recently in Kiev. the people he's supporting, the lives that he's saving. And they don't push on anyone, but they are there to help the men, the women, the children. And it was just very inspiring. I thought he brought a lot to the table in that episode. And that was episode 194, by the way. Episodes 183 and 184, I got to interview Megan O 'Keefe Schlesinger. fantastic, soft officer who has a functional area for information operations, but also a SAMS graduate and had done a utilization tour. So for those of you who wanted to learn about the School of Advanced Military Science or for the Marines, the School of Advanced Workpoint, she just laid it all out. Here are the various schools across the joint boards that you can apply to. Here's how you apply to them. Here's what those experiences are like. Here's what it can and can't do for your career. And here's what that means. She kind of demystified all of that. I thought it was wonderful. And she shared a lot of knowledge in that process. And then finally, I want to mention for civil affairs specific flavor, episode 148 and 149 with the legendary Colonel Tony Baja, who's recently retired, saw him on a conference call with General Goddard. By the way, he's going to be grading all of your one civil affairs issue papers. He started growing a beard. It's not too long yet, so he needs to redouble his effort on that. But, you know, he's done everything from being in the trenches, being in multiple war theaters, being in command, developing and writing doctrine, working at the proponency, building and executing new programs and technology. In every area that matters for civil affairs, he has a touch point and did some seminal work at the War College, too. And just to be able to reminisce with him over his many years of civil affairs and into his retirement. Fantastic. That was episode 148. Excellent.
00:20:39 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Kudos to Coronel Baja, by the way. We called him the godfather of the IMSG, the Institute for Military Support and Governance. Team,
00:00:51 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Kudos to Cornel Baja, by the way. We called him the godfather of the IMSG, the Institute for Military Support to Governance. So in the CE community, when we talk about the 38 Gulf MOS, he had a big hand in that, as did our current association president, Major General Retired, Ben Risen. Yes. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That's great.
00:01:12 BRIAN HANCOCK
We've had some unbelievable talent involved in the 38 Gulf program, which is maturing all the time. I'd be remiss. I didn't put it on my initial list because I only picked three. The work that Carl Bradford Hughes has done managing the functional specialty teams out in the 351 Civil Affairs Command, incredible missions they've done, the value that they've brought, the opportunities that they've identified, the innovation that they've driven. I think the 38 Golf Program is probably the best and most exciting thing that's happened to civil affairs in a good decade, and it's only beginning. It's only going to be even better off from here. So transitioning from my time, Jack, you come on as the executive producer, a career, not only public affairs officer with all of the skills, interpersonal, technical, et cetera, to make this show successful, take us to the next level. But also, not necessarily well -known, but one of the few folks who has built a new community for proactive public affairs. as opposed to reactive. Public affairs is probably our most powerful information -related capability because of its established infrastructure, access to senior leadership, immediate response authorities, ability to rapidly declassify imagery, debunk mis - and disinformation. But we have not really, at least in my opinion, fully exploited that capability. You're leading a community towards helping that in the work that you did. And the test of the theater information to manage element, of course, speaks to the power of that. It was unbelievable what public affairs was able to do at that joint warfighter assessment. And you also bring in new skills with artificial intelligence and the editing. I think you produced it now for about 30 hours, which was relatively laborious to roughly eight. Yes, this does take time still. How did you get involved? When did you decide to take the plunge and join the crazies that were on the 1CA team? How much money do I owe you for doing this? Give us a check later.
00:03:15 JACK GAINES
I don't always listen to 1CA podcasts, but when I do, I hear John McElligot saying, please take over. It's been four years. Oh, God. And I just happened to listen to an episode where you were saying, hey, I'm done. It's time to pass this on. And I don't know. I'm pretty open to new experiences. And public affairs in the civil affairs trade has always been my favorite key to public affairs because being a civil affairs officer and a public affairs officer allows me to go into the field, work with civil populations, and then broadcast it globally. And it's an enormous amount of power and authority and access for any soldier. So I'd love it because it allows me to campaign. You campaign in the public, campaign over the airwaves with mass media in order to achieve foreign policy goals. So having a podcast then allowed me to, in my mindset, call anybody. Yeah. Anybody. Hey, you know, President, come on this show. And then reach out to people who have specific skills or have done amazing things. And bring them on to talk, talk about some of the things they've done, their experiences, where their goals are, where they see the future. And then to take it and have those discussions and bring back those quality answers and visions has helped me to then better connect around the world with what's going on. So it's been a great experience. And I do miss John coming on and hosting a show even once in a while. So I'm glad you're here and at least pitching on the anniversary. But it was painful at first, the 30 hours of editing, because I'm a public affairs officer. I can't have stuttering. I can't have people doing you knows every third word. I can't do it. It makes me itch.
00:05:07 BRIAN HANCOCK
I can't
00:05:09 JACK GAINES
It makes me itch when I hear other people's podcasts. We're glad you edit me,
00:05:11 BRIAN HANCOCK
glad you
00:05:11 JACK GAINES
edit me, so thank you.
00:05:12 BRIAN HANCOCK
so thank you.
00:05:14 JACK GAINES
We all stutter. We all say you knows. It's just a part of the human condition.
00:05:19 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Some of it's normal, but yeah, you get to focus on that when it just continues over and over. You need to cut it out.
00:05:27 JACK GAINES
Yeah. And for people who want to come on and actually interview people, it teaches you better speaking skills because you realize as you're listening to yourself that you do the, the, the, the, the, the, it's a lot. And you start practicing skipping those pints and having moments of space in your breathing so that you can think before you speak. And that improves people's ability to listen and hear what you're saying. Because that's all the editing is for, is to cut out anything that distracts the listener from the message you're trying to say. That's the whole reason I do it. And I cut out tangents. I get right to the very nick of what they're trying to say, because I think that every voice that comes on here has something important that the rest of the group can hear. So I don't really have a favorite. I love all the shows that we've done. I think they're all impressive. I've tried to remaster the older ones. And what I've done is I've bought a series of AIs, one that does rough editing. It's called Clean Voice. And it does all of the stutters. It does the breathing noises. It does all the rough stuff so that I don't have to do that. And that's about eight hours of editing done digitally now. And then I've got another one, which is Adobe Podcast that does voice enhance. So it brings up the levels. It takes everyone's voice. And if it's tinny, cuts out the tinniness. If there's background noise, cuts it out. And then I've got a third one. It's from Isotope and it's called Automatic Assistant. And it's there. It gives me a little gauging on a person's voice. If they have too much reverb, I can reduce it or I can increase it. If they have mouth clicks, I can reduce or remove those mouth clips. And that takes those 30 hours down to eight. That's a week or a weekend of editing and I can get it posted and then people can hear it. which is important because sometimes we only have four or five days before the show will air. And I really like for the listeners to hear their voice, to make sure that what I included is true and it makes sense, and that they feel comfortable that it's going to go out because I believe that makes for a satisfied customer.
00:07:33 BRIAN HANCOCK
Another nice thing, and it's a large contribution, in addition to all the editing that you're doing on the public affairs clearance. to make sure that we all stay on the right side of the military as we're presenting our ideas. That is very important. Not everyone has access to a public affairs officer, depending on what echelon they sit. The fact that you have also very kindly taken your personal time to do a lot of public affairs review for folks to make sure that we're in line with DOD policy guidance is a huge asset for us. It really is. I'd like to kind of close out our time. Just talking about some things we'd like to see the future for the podcast, where we want to take this to grow the franchise. Yeah, the talent that we've brought to the table and the quality of the guests are too. They're just incredible where we're going. John, as our founder and creator, if we could do a couple more things, in your opinion, should they be?
00:08:34 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Two come to mind. One is... How do we get more NCOs on the show? So any NCO listening or any officer listening, reach out to your team sergeants. Those NCOs who are on your teams or in the CAPT or wherever in these formations, you share their knowledge. Share an experience where they may have deployed, where they went on a training experience and learned some lessons and want to share that because there's so many more NCOs out there than officers. incredibly smart, especially in the civil affairs formations, Army and Marine Corps. And there are a lot of people who are not ready to write something. Even though we want the community to be this learning community, they're not prepared and don't want to or don't know how to write something. If that's the way you want to go, the Civil Affairs Association is also set up to help you. So the issue papers is one way. But if you want to write a paper and submit it to someplace else, in the DoD community or the interagency community, then you can do that. And there's a whole network of people ready to help you to improve your writing skills. But come on the show. What I love is, Jack, you are able to form questions in a conversation and highlight the guest, right? You're the host, you're guiding the conversation, but you're trying to put a spotlight on that guest. And it can be a comfortable conversation. You want to have some questions to lead, to guide it, but then it just becomes a normal conversation. And if you're in the civil affairs community, if you got here, you should be able to have a normal conversation with somebody. The second one is grabbing topics that are ripped from the headlines. So unfortunately, there are some things that continue for many, many months or years, the conflict in Ukraine, what's happening right now with Gaza and Israel and Hezbollah. There are individuals who are in think tanks. who get paid to write and to talk. There are a lot of people in the interagency who want to share their knowledge. And so we just need to call them. I mean, Jack, you talked about this. You now got in the seat. You have an excuse to call someone and send them an email. And a lot of people surprisingly will say yes. I think it just takes more of us listening to say, oh, that's something that I care about. Okay, if you're not the person who wants to reach out, send us a message and we can do it on your behalf.
00:10:57 JACK GAINES
Right. And what I really find exciting is when we find someone like Colonel Fidler, who was out there, was out there in Cyprus working on the Gaza relief mission and getting them on because we can always get a spokesperson or a talking points person or a representative, but to get someone who actually was knee deep in it, that is a CA person, and they come in here and they're tired and they're like, man, it was rough and this is what we found. It's so much more real. It's so much more pertinent.
00:11:26 BRIAN HANCOCK
more pertinent. I'm Mary's source evidence. This is rough. This is what we found. But hey, this is what we learned. This is what we offer back to the community because this is going to happen again, right? And here's how we can feed more people. What an amazing mission.
00:11:40 JACK GAINES
Right. And I get calls from folks in the community going, hey, can I contact this person that you had on the show? And I'm like, sure. And I plug them in because one CA. It makes a difference across the community to get people connected and talking and helping each other out. It does.
00:11:55 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
So there were some things that stood out to your question about what to see going forward, skills that would help CA practitioners or operators at the tactical and operational level. I know we need to grow that awareness and our skills at the operational strategic level, but most of the questions and comments that came into me were, oh my gosh, I listened to these episodes to prepare for qualification or my first job or my second job. And so going back to the archives was incredibly helpful for them. If there are additional skills that we can help to see around the bend and what's coming and prepare soldiers and Marines for what's going to come in the future, use this as a platform to educate the community.
00:12:34 BRIAN HANCOCK
And congratulations. Your search and due diligence paid off, and you're going to be now the deputy pullout here for United States Army, Africa, and Europe. That's your next assignment. It's super exciting and probably...
00:12:49 BRIAN HANCOCK
reach back to you for an episode to interview you at some point as you learn more about that. And also, John, I really appreciate what you mentioned about the value that NCOs bring the formation. When foreign officers come to look at the U .S. Army, what they really want to see is our NCO Corps, because it's been very difficult for other militaries to replicate the quality that our NCOs bring. And I think while we want to hear from all NCOs, I have personally a particular interest in hearing from some of the NCOs who have been in the 38 Gulf formations. I think we're still evolving what value -added role will be for non -commissioned officers in the 38 call pyramid, and love to hear what their thoughts are to help shape that, because the doctrine and toes are still being laid out for that. All the way to Jack, the last say on where we go in the future, but I'll add my two cents here. Something that I'd like to do more of, everything we do in the military that truly matters is joint mind. Marine Corps has civil affairs. The Department of the Navy closed its formal civil affairs program a little time ago, but it lives on in a sense through the Marine Corps, who are part of the Department of the Navy, are brothers in the ground combine element, and what the civil affairs groups are doing, and they also have civil affairs capabilities sitting in their meth information groups, is incredible. And we need to hear more of their stories. We have Ash Sergeant Andrew Gonzalez, his story, Plank Now, some of the things that he's done on the show. I encourage you to listen to that. We need more of that content. We need to, they have a fantastic schoolhouse out at Quantico. We need to get some of the folks involved in that curriculum development and what they're doing on the show. And we need more CIMIC, right, joint combined. We need more of that CIMIC piece to it here. That's something that I would like to see in the future. And another thing I'd like to see is more user -driven, requested content. I don't know if we have a forum for that, Jack, or we will in the future. But how would our 1CA podcast listeners request specific content that they are interested in, maybe for college in non -government organization support or relief efforts or other things? How could we take requests and then build a show to help fill the interest of our listeners? So those are two things that I'd like to see. Jack, over to you.
00:15:10 JACK GAINES
Sure. A lot of people do email ideas. they send it over to the capodcasting at gmail .com, which is also on the show links and in the webpage. So that one works well. We get a lot of people asking questions. Usually I ask them who's the best person to talk about it, and then they set up the introduction, or they're like, I don't know, and I'm like, well, I guess you're it, and pull them in. So nothing like getting volunteered in or volunteering yourself accidentally. But one thing that with the SIMIC portion, I just finished the NATO CIMIC conference on the future of CIMIC, CIMIC forecasting at The Hague. It was great. Tons of smart, interesting people from throughout NATO and the world, actually. There was people from internationally there too. And what I found is that there's a real need for finding CA CIM in competition.
00:15:59 JACK GAINES
I found is that there's a real need for finding CA CIM in competition. Even though we're in it, we're fighting it every day and we're the golden children of competition and working with civil populations that are having agents from both sides coming in, trying to influence them. We're the ones on the ground, us and SOF, that are making the difference between that population shifting towards the Russians, the Chinese, or us. So I'll be pitching this year to set up a work group on competition. how we can work with our partner nations and our host nation to build up CIMIC that focuses on winning in competition. OSCE just wrote a paper called Contesting Russia. And the folks over in Vienna are throwing out everything old and they're rebuilding their programs based on that paper. And it's ramifications to the military. Because as you know, when you're working at the strategic level on civil affairs, you're... PAMISI is multinational organizations and government. So if you're looking for a political arm, you need someone like OSCE or you need the UN or you need the Hague or another organization that represents all the multiple governments in the world. For the economics, you need groups like OSCE, ASEAN, Africa Economic Forum. And those are the groups that you work with to pull into the individual nations that you're working with in order to bring the change that you want or the influence you want that builds growth, builds stability, shifts a population into the support of their own representative government and economy. So that is one that's very important to me. And actually that highlights another thing that this show does is it does advocate for civil affairs. It's a great thing because when people come on here and they talk about an issue or a solution, they're pitching it. They're advocating to the group and it builds a common voice, a common knowledge that helps CA, I think, become a sharper arrow in the quiver. That's something I see in the future is that defining the role in competition, which is why I'll be honest, I brought Patrick Alley on and I brought David Luna on because these people are fighting in. the corruption sphere, they're in the law enforcement sphere and in the political sphere. And by knowing these folks and having their words here and their connections to the group, it helps us as a community to be effective as we go downrange. That's been fantastic content.
00:18:32 BRIAN HANCOCK
We've been in the militaries around the world, including NATO, have focused on crisis and conflict for a while. They're pretty good at that. Competition is new, even though we're 99 % of the time the military will be in competition. We don't have all the doctrine yet. There's a joint concept for competing, but all programs, plans, METs, measurements, strategies, they're undiscovered frontier. And the more energy we put into that, less actual fighting with loss of love and treasure. So it's amazing to see how our doctrine is evolving and what the inherent opportunities are. And Jack, thank you for jumping into that and helping buy some guidance and direction for us to build that content.
00:19:12 JACK GAINES
Well, and people are seeing it. If we lose in competition, we lose a country's orbit and we lose access, basing, cooperation, overflight, just like the car, but also countries like Georgia, where Russian agents went in and paid for the campaigns of pro -Russian politicians and also started degrading the ability to campaign by those who are pro -Western. And now the government has become a proxy and the population is protesting. But that's what winning in competition looks like for our adversaries. Our job to win in competition looks a lot like Colombia, where soft forces, CA, went in and worked with the government to create stability, to bring the FARC to the negotiation table so that they... stabilize that region to stop becoming such a violent, conflict -ridden area, especially for the populations. We do win. We have to highlight that we win. We need to learn those lessons, and we need to apply them everywhere else.
00:20:16 BRIAN HANCOCK
else. Yeah. We had some awesome IAP programs, too, dealing with the FARC. Folks at the Able Postgraduate School Core Labs have done incredible social network analysis of the FARC, so we understand it's a very unusual organization. It has to be targeted differently. But these are things that we can do as enterprise. When we get all of our resources together and bend all aspects of national power towards achieving a positive result, more and more can be done. And as I hear you talking, Jack, I keep hearing in the back of my mind that Sun Tzu quote we all know, defeated generals go to war and then seek to win, while victorious generals win first and then go to war. I think the quote's actually in the reverse, but that's the point. It shows that you win in competition and then... The declaration of conflict and the resolution are effectively a fate accompli at them because you've already set the stage very effectively in competition. And I think as a joint combined force, there's more work for us to do there, and I'm excited to see that.
00:21:16 JOHN MCELLIGOTT
Well, gentlemen, it's clear listening to the two of you talk that, Ryan, as a guest host, it's amazing the experience you bring to the table and Jack has taken the helm of the show. perspective that you bring and the outside guests that you bring on the show. This is the right direction for the community. Congratulations for what you've done. People's Choice Award nominee. It's great to hear. Me too. I'm energized. I want to come back and guest host and bring some other guests on the show for you. Everyone listening, thank you so much. You probably don't hear this enough, but thank you for listening to the show for so many years. Please continue to support what Jack and Brian are doing. the Civil Affairs Association. If you're not yet a member, you got to join the thing. It's really cheap and you get a lot of information. In fact, I've always received more information from the association than I tend to get from my chain of command. I don't have all the time to think about what's happening on their side of the world. So I can just listen to an episode while I'm out for a run or driving my car or whatever, and I can learn about all the stuff you just mentioned. So thanks for doing it.
00:22:20 BRIAN HANCOCK
Thank you everyone for joining us today. this episode of One Civil Affairs Podcast. We'll be back in full spring after the holidays are through, and I hope you take the opportunity to go through the index that Major Gaines has put together so during the holidays that you can listen to some of your favorite content.
00:22:40 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. One CA Podcast.
Tuesday Nov 12, 2024
Tuesday Nov 12, 2024
Today, we welcome Rocco Santurri, who wrote "Spoils of the Status Quo," an article that describes the current stalemate in Korea as the best option for the international community.
Spoils of the status quo: https://divergentoptions.org/category/writers/rocco-p-santurri-iii/
Other points in the discussion
1-Beginning with the historical and current foundations of KJU’s legitimacy as Supreme Leader, how those could be degraded, and which internal groups could exploit that degradation. Given KJU needs the US “threat” to substantiate his narrative to his domestic audience, how de-escalating tensions through de-escalatory IO works against the KJU regime.
2-Expanding bilateral and trilateral relationships, and/or new relationships with NATO countries or the bloc itself to offset increased Russian influence in the region (more of a Eurasian Theatre-outlook, versus EUCOM and PACOM).
3-The rapidly expanding relationship between RUS/DPRK also presents an opening for the US; DPRK is still heavily dependent on China, especially economically, far more than any other country. China might be receptive to assisting US efforts to remind RUS/DRPK of their standing as lesser powers in the region.
4-The dream of denuclearization might need to die; it is very difficult to imagine a scenario in which KJU would voluntarily agree to any level denuclearization, and even if so, proof of compliance would be problematic. Taking that off the table could advance other foreign policy efforts, many of which it currently inhibits.
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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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Music by
Escape One
Best of Japanese Jazz Fusion and Japanese Jazz Funk with Japanese Jazz and Japanese Jazz Music
Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z64nA4F_pbQ
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Transcript
00:00:05 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. Today we welcome Roko Santuri, who wrote Spoils of the Status Quo, an article that describes the current stalemate in Korea as the best option for the international community. So let's get started.
Jack Gaines
So where'd you get the idea of Spoils of the Status Quo? I was thinking about how could I say that there's benefit from a stalemate because you don't really get too much verbiage about that.
00:00:58 ROCCO SANTURRI
was thinking about how could I say that there's benefit from a stalemate because you don't really get too much verbiage about that. You always hear spoils of war. We're used in that regard. And I thought, what about spoils of status quo? Because it definitely is providing some rewards to people. For Korea, I was looking at the four options, war, peace, reintegration, a stalemate. Looking at it and putting them all against each other for all the parties, stalemate was the one that actually had some type of significant interest for each party involved.
00:01:25 JACK GAINES
Okay. Everyone had what they wanted from it.
00:01:28 ROCCO SANTURRI
At least a strong portion of it, not ideal, was usually better than the alternatives. Yeah.
00:01:33 JACK GAINES
If the option is a fight or to get along awkwardly, most people will go for the awkward relationship. Absolutely. But people never rate you on able to keep the stability in a region. It's not as heard of, but it does make sense because if you are able to maintain a dam, So the floods don't come down and kill everybody in the town done well. So it's an interesting perspective. Can you tell me a little more about what your thinking was on the article? You mentioned this when we talked previously about Korea.
00:02:09 ROCCO SANTURRI
Korea. The idea of stalemate is definitely vastly superior compared to what the alternatives might be. And with the Korean War not being too far in the past and with politicians mentioning that as well, too, it's a thought that. Even though it's not ideal, we don't want to have a redo of what happened with the Korean War. And the previous president for the current one mentioned this specifically, saying that we cannot afford to have another catastrophic war on the peninsula and destroy all that we've built.
00:02:38 JACK GAINES
I think Kim Jong -il would use nuclear weapons if he was about to lose his regime. Absolutely.
00:02:44 ROCCO SANTURRI
I think that's the consideration of his decision -making calculus. And if KJU comes to that point, what really would prevent him from doing that? And that's what... A lot of people have been trying to get into that thought process and what that might look like. Right. Without question, an extreme threat. And now the advances in weaponry, it's just on the peninsula.
00:03:04 JACK GAINES
And the thing is, everyone's worried about Seoul, but he'd probably be just as happy blowing up forces inside his border with a nuclear weapon. The behavior of the regime seems to be fairly callous towards its own people and military.
00:03:21 ROCCO SANTURRI
It's tough to argue that the entire country isn't living in a horrible condition for the sake of one family to basically be billionaires. That argument could be made. This is not about the country. It's about the family. So you have a rare instance where a dictatorship is multiple iterations. He has a template going forward, which is good in a way because that did not involve nuclear weapons. But if it's all crashing down, one has to wonder. what his mindset would be like then and what he would be willing to do. And in that case, he might not have much to lose.
00:03:53 JACK GAINES
to lose. Could be that that template has other pages that we haven't read or seen. And that is the, what if it all comes down? What do you do? And his father has said, look, if this is what happens, this is who's in place for this reason. And you have him hit that button and you have this person do these things. and we just haven't encountered it because we haven't gotten into those phases of reality. Absolutely. And that's the great unknown,
00:04:20 ROCCO SANTURRI
great unknown, and that's something that it's really difficult to determine what that might look like, especially right now with the rhetoric, with the vitriol between the two sides. Sometimes it's difficult to separate between the two, and that might equate to actually some type of significant action. Fortunately, it seems as though it has settled somewhat. It's tit for tat. But it seems like that has sort of fallen into a pattern where it's not escalation. It's sort of a coordinated response, and it's almost expected at this point, particularly when it comes to the balloons, some of the other issues that are going on now as well.
00:04:57 JACK GAINES
Right. Shows of belligerence. No one's dying. Once people start dying, that's the peak, and then it all backs down from there.
00:05:05 ROCCO SANTURRI
I think so. There have been border issues, and soldiers have been killed, and those resonate still decades later. So I think that's very accurate. I think a lot of what happens right now in terms of balloons, I think a lot of this is for domestic audience consumption, to show that there is no backing down, to show that there is a response. But I don't think it's much beyond that at this point.
00:05:28 JACK GAINES
But you do have some thoughts about how his position and how his legitimacy can be degraded. You want to talk a little bit about those? His legitimacy with the domestic audience is extremely important.
00:05:39 ROCCO SANTURRI
the domestic audience is extremely important. And in some ways, he is facing threats that have been historic, even with his grandfather and his father. Some of those are similar threats, which include from the elites and from the military. He has purged a lot of the military, and he's, for the most part, seemed to have kept the elites relatively happy. He's a lot more secure in power than he was earlier in his ring. But there are still threats. From the younger demographic, he seems very fearful of South Korean K -pop culture influencing younger generations. And he's responded with very severe penalties against individuals who've listened or viewed bad content, including executions not long ago of two 12 -year -olds. So what he has employed is sort of an imminent threat, enemy at the gate, domestic audience narratives. So he constantly pushes that. the country is under imminent threat, and that this substantiates the difficult existence that most of the DPRK civilians endure. If that threat were to exist, the populist might question why they have to live in a state of deprivation, limited freedoms, why in some ways they couldn't live more like South Koreans, which they have access to some of what is going on here, and they probably would be pretty accurate to ask questions about why they're living the way they are. And that's where his... narrative comes into this populism.
00:07:07 JACK GAINES
But also South Korean dramas. Absolutely. I remember where popular people in North Korea seem to be bringing them in to watch TV shows, which I think is great. From a pop culture standpoint,
00:07:19 ROCCO SANTURRI
standpoint, it's important and has an effect. It casts South Korea in a very positive light. And this goes against a lot of the propaganda that you have internally against South Korea, against the United States. It's well -optimated even with the war. The history has been rewritten. The DPRK did not invade. The U .S. invaded. This museum's there, what the U .S. did during that war. So any type of ability to sort of swing the info war is definitely something that he sees as a tremendous threat.
00:07:50 JACK GAINES
So it's mostly an IO war right now. That and shows of force. Definitely shows of force.
00:07:57 ROCCO SANTURRI
force. Obviously, the nuclear program is a high priority, and they've really done everything possible to expand that and remain. completely committed to it.
00:08:06 JACK GAINES
Is there any broadcasts of North Koreans that have integrated into South Korea and are just living their lives that are going up to North Korea so people kind of know what's going on? There's a good amount of interviews with defectors and they'll talk a little bit about what their life is like here.
00:08:17 ROCCO SANTURRI
interviews with defectors and they'll talk a little bit about what their life is like here. They'll talk a lot about what their life in the DPRK and show the tremendous contrast between the two.
00:08:27 JACK GAINES
So that is promoted to a certain degree. Well, there's one thing. If you've got a person... in an interview, you've got them sat down and they're just talking about their lives. It could look scripted. Sure. But if you're doing a day in a life where they've got a funky hat on and some whatever clothes and they're going down to the tables with all the baked goods, buy a little snack and they're a little coffee and they're walking over to their job, something like that where it's not that they have a convenient moment, but it's just they're hustling to go work and have a life. A day in the life type of coverage, I think, would be really effective because it shows that But there's people who have left North Korea. They have a life. You know, here's our apartment. It's a mess. But it's probably a lot better than what they had there. And just show that. Matter of fact, actually, wasn't there just recently a movie about a South Korean girl family who crashed in North Korea and they helped her get back? And so it's kind of sparked a romance between a North Korean elite and her. And you remember that? I've seen a lot of different movies and some YouTube series as well,
00:09:30 ROCCO SANTURRI
lot of different movies and some YouTube series as well, too, and it sort of vacillates between the two. It vacillates between what you're saying, where it shows a very positive spin and it really promotes cooperation. Others will talk some about the defectors, and it actually is a little more realistic in that it shows that they are benefiting from being in South Korea, but they also expand a little bit upon some of the challenges culturally coming into a society and how there's growing division between the two. even in terms of language and somewhat with culture. So there's a lot out there that will try to sway opinion one way or the other. But I think it's encouraging that it's still going both ways. It's not all negatives. There is some positive aspects as well.
00:10:11 JACK GAINES
The last time I was at an exercise in Seoul, we were having a conversation about options that weren't explored. And I recommended that they just offer to KGU to make him emperor. Give him... $100 billion to become the emperor of all of Korea. He has no judicial powers. He has no powers at all, except for as a title. But he gets to be a hundred billionaire and all of Korea will be under his rule as emperor, but the most he can do is a parade.
00:10:42 ROCCO SANTURRI
He definitely does seem to like his parades and ceremonies. That's for sure. There's no shortage of those.
00:10:48 JACK GAINES
Everyone's happy. The family's wealthy. They're emperors, emperors of all of Korea. They won. in that aspect. And then South Korea, North Korea can then become one unified state. So you make sure he gets all the shit he wants, but the government is run by basically South Korea.
00:11:06 ROCCO SANTURRI
And there's been talk too, from the standpoint of reunification, some of the pros and cons on that, and mostly from an economic standpoint, what that might look like. And there's been polling as well too about that. The numbers have been a little interesting, especially with South Korea. It's been... actually growing in terms of not wanting to reunify. In terms of the citizenship, I think that it is looking at more from a resolution and not what seems to be this perpetual state of affairs is. That's what the sentiment might be. But when I think the sides start to look at what some of the costs might be for something like reunification, I think that's when some of the enthusiasm starts to sour a little bit.
00:11:46 JACK GAINES
Oh, yeah. It'd be a massive humanitarian effort to stabilize the country. and then start the construction. It would be huge.
00:11:55 ROCCO SANTURRI
Absolutely huge. You'd be absorbing a bit of a dead elephant on the back of a very functioning capitalist -driven autonomy. The estimate would be as much as $5 trillion, and from what we know, that could be a low number, but it would be a tremendous amount. I think that, with the younger generation of South Koreans, has started to make them look away from that a little more than their previous generations.
00:12:17 JACK GAINES
Well, do you want to talk about... working with bilateral and trilateral relationships, either to stabilize the current status quo or to elicit change? With the U .S., I think it's important to expand bilateral and trilateral relationships, and also more along the lines of a Eurasian outlook,
00:12:30 ROCCO SANTURRI
important to expand bilateral and trilateral relationships, and also more along the lines of a Eurasian outlook, supporting some relationships with the NATO countries or the bloc itself. That's been a conversation as well. contributing to more of a Eurasian theater outlook versus a traditional UCOM or PACOM division. Some of the key relationships, obviously the Trilat with Japan and Iraq is critical, especially given the historical animosities between the two states. I think it's pretty noteworthy how far that's come along. I'd also look at AUKUS as a key relationship, especially with some of the overlap with the United Nations Command and with UK and NATO as well. And Department of State talks about their latticework of variable geometric relationships, and I think this is a good example of it, in that it adds to or it solidifies the isolation of the DPRK. And the Quad also provides some additional overlap towards that effort as well. I think U .S. encouragement of greater NATO coordination and formation, more of a Eurasian outlook, and also to the arms sales. Korea has had arms sales with Australia. with Poland and Ukraine, but not direct through the United States.
00:13:43 JACK GAINES
Looking at North Korea, though, are they still considered a prior state with no relationships, or are they starting to recognize the Russian and Chinese relationships? How do you see the North Korean network of relationships and partnerships?
00:13:58 ROCCO SANTURRI
I think it's pretty fascinating, actually. And what's happened this year with Russia, probably to the surprise of many. I think that the rapidly expanding relationship between the two does present an opening in a way for the U .S. actually, in that the DPRK is still heavily dependent on the PRC, especially economically, and also coming off of COVID far more than any other country. So the PRC has made it known that it's not terribly thrilled with the increased relationship between Russia and the DPRK. And that is an area where actually the U .S. and PRC have some overlap in terms of what their interest might be. PRC has ruled out any type of trilateral to date with Moscow and the DPRK. Russia now has also said that as well, but they only seem to have said that after the PRC. So it seems that the PRC is interested in making sure that their partners there are aware of what the pecking order is in terms of the region.
00:14:52 ROCCO SANTURRI
seems that the PRC is interested in making sure that their partners there are aware of what the pecking order is in terms of the region. So I think that in some ways the PRC could use better relations with the U .S. to sort of dampen some of the enthusiasm for the DPRK. But is it realistic that we would want the PRC to have a different attitude about a nation that is deeply in its orbit and in its pocket so that they can build the type of foreign policy they want through that nation?
00:15:08 JACK GAINES
it realistic that we would want the PRC to have a different attitude about a nation that is deeply in its orbit and in its pocket so that they can build the type of foreign policy they want through that nation? Thinking that they'll shift their behavior because we want it is not going to happen. It didn't shift the behavior when the relationship between China and the U .S. was strong. So I don't know. I think that that's wishful. I think so. The DPR can't provide PRC with strategic depth,
00:15:39 ROCCO SANTURRI
can't provide PRC with strategic depth, and they certainly do not want to have a U .S. ally on their border. So I think that the geographical aspects of it are not going to be changed. I do think they could voice their displeasure. They have strong elements of economic coercion. But it was a telegram that was leaked a long time ago and made the news, but they sort of saw it. The DPRK is like a petulant child that was causing some trouble. While they might be upset, they're not going to abandon the DPRK because there's too much intertwined interest with the PRC.
00:16:10 JACK GAINES
Flipping the script here, China has grown in its relationship with South Korea. There's now Chinese businesses in South Korea. There's more population. Matter of fact, there's a very strong PRC push to eject Americans out of the peninsula. It might be that unification will require that China and the U .S. separate themselves from the peninsula in order to allow reunification.
00:16:37 ROCCO SANTURRI
I think so. And I think with the PRC, principally, they would like to avoid any type of conflict and get back to where they feel like their strengths are. And that's economic. It will always be a strong interest for them. And some of this overlapping partnerships, while it helps the U .S., it also can potentially hurt as well, too. And the PRC and the ROC is definitely a case where that might be the case, especially on an economic level.
00:17:01 JACK GAINES
You ready to talk about denuclearization and why we need to recognize North Korea as a nuclear power?
00:17:07 ROCCO SANTURRI
I'll definitely talk about it. Start with. It's just very difficult to imagine a scenario in which KJU would voluntarily agree to denuclearization. Even if so, there's compliance issues as well. There's case studies that senior North Korean military officials reference pretty regularly to Slavadan Milošević, Saddam Hussein, and Muammar Gaddafi as leaders who could have resisted U .S., quote, regime -changing tactics, end quote, if they kept their nuclear weapons. So it's difficult from that standpoint to see where they would be motivated to do so. The stalemate aspect of the peninsula, which in a way kind of forms a little bit of a Goldilocks zone or a geopolitical sweet spot for KJU, a lot of that is underpinned by his nuclear. So it just adds to another layer of why he would not be in his best interest to do so.
00:18:05 JACK GAINES
And he probably looks at what's going on in Ukraine and saying, see, that's exactly what I'm talking about. If you have nuclear weapons, Russia would have probably have stalled going in. Matter of fact, the first encroachment they did was to capture the active nuclear power plant.
00:18:21 ROCCO SANTURRI
I think that Ukraine puts it directly front and center to something that they can point to to say, this is why we would be foolish for us to do it. And obviously it would put the U .S. in a difficult spot because it's tough to debate that within reason. So again, I don't really see it. And it does seem in some of the open source articles that there is a little more talk now of... that it is more about deterrence. The official policy is going to be denuclearization, but there is more of an unofficial focus on deterrence because of how events have proceeded and the reality of the situation.
00:18:56 JACK GAINES
So what's the harm of declaring North Korea a nuclear power?
00:18:59 ROCCO SANTURRI
I would look at it a few ways. I'll actually start with some of the positives. Positives would be that you could focus on some other issues that have been held up in relations because it's been a non -starter because of the nuclear weapons issue. whether it's cybersecurity attacks, human rights abuses, overall improved relations between Iraq and DPRK. I do think from a negative standpoint, it does, in many ways, it shows that our efforts have been unsuccessful, that it simply did not work. And there's been a tremendous amount of technical effort that's been put into that. I think it also, it's a massive encouragement to other nations, especially when we're trying to stop proliferation, that it can be done and that the U .S. would agree to it. So it's a tremendously difficult position either way.
00:19:46 JACK GAINES
way. Do you think of that as a sunk cost fallacy the U .S. is holding on to?
00:19:51 ROCCO SANTURRI
There definitely is a lot of validity to that because it's something they're clinging to that they don't have. Right. So from that standpoint, and if you even reference something like the Cuban Missile Crisis, each side gave up something. And there are some articles that compare the two, usually compare the differences, but they will talk about... the missiles from cuba being removed but they also talk about the jupiter missiles that the u .s owned being removed from turkey and the pledge never to invade cuba now the the former in that was not released was more of a reputational issue where jfk did not want it to be released that the jupiter missiles would be removed but the inability to invade was known so Taking that into consideration, it's potentially giving up something we never had for movement on other issues that we deem to be very, very important, including some of the ones I mentioned previously, especially with cybersecurity attacks against the U .S. critical infrastructure.
00:20:46 JACK GAINES
There is no lever or enticement. They don't have a stick or a carrot to offer for it.
00:20:53 ROCCO SANTURRI
I don't see what would materialize where you would have something that would change the decision -making calculus. I just, I simply don't see it.
00:21:00 JACK GAINES
The denuclearization issue as white elephant, it kind of consumes up so much of the room and pushes out things that we could actually do to either make North Korea more accountable to the international community or a better partner in the South Korea -North Korea relations. Do you think of it as a balanced policy? Do you think it needs to be shifted? I think is it possible to pursue both?
00:21:28 ROCCO SANTURRI
to pursue both? It is, but by doing so, you are in a way unofficially de -emphasizing the denuclearization aspects of it. And this might also just be a product of time. It might come to a time where we realize that this has just gone on for so long that there might be a shift in the policy. But with those underlying issues, it would be extremely helpful if there was more dialogue on that. The question is the cost -benefit. Where does the U .S. government see the tipping point when overall policy shift has to be made?
00:21:59 JACK GAINES
Is there any points I'm missing?
00:22:01 ROCCO SANTURRI
The only major point that I think that adds context to this conversation beyond the DPRK and the United States is just the benefits that the stalemate has provided for a lot of the parties here. I think that aspect of it, while we would want to focus on this specifically, it's always the context of the region. And I think that's something that is extremely important to consider. that there are other interests out there that actually benefit from exactly how things are right now. And I think that sometimes we were not as regionally focused and didn't understand the effects of other states that we were attempting to engage. So I think that is an important context.
00:22:40 JACK GAINES
Can you give an example of someone or some organization that benefits from the stalemate?
00:22:46 ROCCO SANTURRI
Running through the entities with the ROC, there's no costly conflict, but they get U .S. support. We'll potentially reduce support with peace or reunification, and that would be very costly. For the U .S., obviously, the presence on the pen to protect Iraq, but we also have a big footprint in the vicinity of our pacing track, which is an added value. The PRC, the DPRK, they don't want to go anywhere. They want that strategic depth. And I look with Russia. This is a chance to reinsert themselves here with Korea if it's a stalemate, if it persists. They can oppose U .S. interests in the region, but it's not extensive economic and military commitment, and that's paramount for them given the fact of what's going on in Ukraine. So while the stalemate might not seem as beneficial overall, if you kind of dig into some of the individual countries and their interests, there is reason why I think it's had legs, and it's not specifically because of the two Koreas.
00:23:41 JACK GAINES
Any last thoughts? Do you have any new papers coming out, or any last thoughts on this paper?
00:23:46 ROCCO SANTURRI
Yeah, it's Engine and Journal APS, and it's a friend of mine I actually was at King's College with, and we decided to write something together. So that is in the submission process and editing. So that's probably the next stop in the shoot for me. And after that, I think I might try to reach out a little more and maybe go to a different region for a little bit and change it.
00:24:07 JACK GAINES
You mean out of the Indopaycom area?
00:24:10 ROCCO SANTURRI
I think so, yes. Okay. Very cool. I'd like to explore the relationship between the two a little bit more, more of that emergence of a duration theater. Dig a little more deeper into that.
00:24:21 JACK GAINES
One thing that I see that civil affairs can do that seems like a lot of other folks need to work on, and that is the global perspective of the PRC, counter -influence, the Russian global networks, and thinking more outside the theater on how our pacing competitor. acts in South America, in North America, in Europe, all the way into the Pacific Islands to its region in the India region. And that's something that I like to encourage. If you're someone who's working in Korea and you understand what Korea is doing there and you go to Europe, you'll find that North Korea has operations. And by knowing that can help. The rest of the theater commands understand what the influence is and how it applies because we're not thinking as if we're in a global competition. We're thinking in a multi -theater competition mindset. It's not helpful.
00:25:25 ROCCO SANTURRI
That's an absolutely critical point. And it's interesting with that outlook, Western audiences, when they look at adverts or they look at products, they have a tendency to look directly at the center of the picture. And this is, of course, generally speaking, but Eastern markets have a tendency to look at the outside of the picture. They look at the totality of it. They don't just look at the center of it. So these are eye tracking for stores where they just want to see what catches your eye and what you might buy. So I try to think of that in the same way that it is easy to get very down in the weeds and to be very, very focused, especially from a civil affairs standpoint. But having that overall global outlook. At the end of the day, you need to be cognizant of that on multiple levels. I think it just involves for a better, more informed civil affairs effort.
00:26:11 JACK GAINES
Absolutely. All right, my friend. Well, you have a good night and I'll talk to you soon. Talk to you soon. Thank you. Bye. Bye.
00:26:20 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. One CA Podcast.
Tuesday Nov 05, 2024
Tuesday Nov 05, 2024
Welcome. Today, we bring Dr. Stanislava Mladenova to discuss the NATO CIMIC Foresight Conference.
Book: Rambo Meets the Red Cross. Found at: https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538187722/When-Rambo-Meets-the-Red-Cross-Civil-Military-Engagement-in-Fragile-States
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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 Ambience Lord for the sample of OKTOBERFEST Music
Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/Kb_lr32vcrk?si=_V4vM_4BBv2zNxY2
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Transcript
00:00:01 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. Today we welcome Dr. Stanislava Mildanova, author of When Rambo Meets the Red Cross. We met at the NATO Strategic Foresight Conference in The Hague this October. In this session, we reflect on our experiences at the conference and discuss some ideas for the future of civil -military relations. So let's get started.
00:00:56 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
We tend to very constantly think about civil as a human -to -human function on the ground or, you know, potentially function of the Navy when it pulls into port. And whenever I try to explain this to a civilian and what it means, I have to kind of think logistically through every function that the military could perform, which is any function potentially. And whether they join well, whether a domain joins well with another domain, or whether that domain needs to be able to understand what is in the civilian environment that it needs to better integrate with, that's where I think things can get a bit wonky, as you said. Sure. Yeah, I think at the moment, business is booming in Europe, for obvious reasons.
00:01:42 JACK GAINES
Very true. What did you think of the conference? It started off with... some panels, and then we went into some work groups, and then another panel, and then we had some social hours in between. Yeah,
00:01:56 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
I think I found that exactly as I expected to, which is trying to really be creative around the conversation of what the future means. Of course, I was with one of the groups where we looked at how the world could be in 2045 from a cognitive superiority standpoint. You know, ask a soldier to be a social scientist or ask a soldier to be an environmentalist or a techie. And that is by definition something very difficult to do. I mean, ask a civilian person to be a military person, right? And that's kind of the whole idea of putting yourself in the other's shoes. And it really gets at the heart of Sid Milne. So I think that within the constraints of how... creative and innovative, we can be within the three days. But also understanding that the military by default has this culture of, you know, creativity is not the place, right? You execute, you're kind of given orders and you just go about them. I think that I've gone to several of these conferences now with them. And I think that every time it just kicks the can a bit further down the road. And that's good. I don't think we can be too aggressive or innovative or get outside of our comfort zone, certainly whenever you're talking about the military and whenever you're talking about bureaucracies.
00:03:18 JACK GAINES
Right. The listeners should know, and that's that they did a 20 -year projection into the future. And most of the, I would say their military forecasters, projected pretty dour futures. Less freedoms, a lot more conflict, a lot more environmental challenges. Not a lot of peace, love and happiness in the future with those guys. I have to challenge it because I don't fully disagree, but I don't fully agree as well. I think there had some logic gaps because military forecasters, they look at risk and what future risk looks like.
00:03:54 JACK GAINES
look at risk and what future risk looks like. So if you're going to look at a military forecast, it's going to look like risk problems because that's what they're looking at. If you look at some of the other forecasters that are not risk -focused, you'll see there's some really positive things coming up as well. I just didn't think it was as balanced as it should have been.
00:04:15 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
Well, this is where I think trying to get a bit more in their community is very important. So let me give you a bit of the perspective of a development person. Let's say you're a development person that's working on climate.
00:04:22 JACK GAINES
let me give
00:04:22 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
a bit of the perspective of a development person. Let's say you're a development person that's working on climate. And we talk about all kinds of things get thrown around. on the climate, the seas are rising and everything's getting hot and you're going to have conflict and so on. And that's correct. And at the same time, when you're throwing the resilience conversation, it'll probably be a whole other podcast series. But essentially, you do have a lot of innovative strategies on how to leverage. the opportunity that presents itself. So are you looking at new types of horticulture? Are you looking at more exploratory ways to allow for livelihoods? Are you necessarily looking at, the assumption is always like, oh, people are going to move away from very hot areas where they can't grow food and go somewhere else and go on a huge influx. But we don't actually know that it's very hard for humans to just pick up and go elsewhere. likely they're going to try to adapt. And adaptation is part of being resilient. You don't have the shock absorbency to deal with something. So you need to come up with new ways to react to your current environment. And I think that there's also an assumption somehow that conflict will also cause people to leave. And that's also not necessarily a straightforward answer because people may be more willing to live in a place with terrible land. And more Cossack simply because they can provide for their livelihood and they don't want to leave their land and their families. So I think the more we can open up the aperture to think adaptation as opposed to shock, we're probably dealing with a more realistic scenario. And there are people outside of the military profession. Think about this. And their DNA is all about long term. How do you grow? In 30 years, how do you provide livelihoods? How do you lift people out of poverty by the end of the decade, by the end of the century?
00:06:25 JACK GAINES
Right. Matter of fact, I got to bring Gus Ferreira and Jamie Critelli back on because they are long -term economic agriculturalists. Another thing that struck me about the conference was the work groups. Did you attend any of the work groups or did you just present?
00:06:42 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
I actually facilitated one of the work groups. Really fascinating. You go and you facilitate, but you're also learning. And our groups were really very well mixed. We had someone from the police that from you, Paul, and we had also a couple of colleagues from the NGO communities. But again, I found that I think our difficulty was trying to really look to the future. We thought about the future in the construct of what we know about the presence.
00:07:14 JACK GAINES
Which is how most people project the future is what we know now and just kind of extend it out and see how things have changed.
00:07:21 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
Exactly. It's really hard to know, right? So we were kind of thinking like, well, what will NATO look like? And as some of us, is there a guarantee that there will be a NATO or there will be an EU? Which actually, if I can take us back to your question, I think it ties very neatly into really not underestimating how difficult multilateralism actually is.
00:07:44 JACK GAINES
Oh, yeah.
00:07:45 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
It's very hard politically, extremely hard operationally. And we now have 32 nations. I was with NATO, young staffer, when it was only 28, I believe. No, it was actually 26 when I joined. And it was a really interesting, up -and -close experience to see what it means to get everyone to agree and then to operationalize what a guidance means. Try to get 32 different countries whose military do things different ways. Yes, to join NATO, you need to be part of the force structure. There's a common denominator under which everyone needs to be able to operate. But these are still sovereign nations and sovereign militaries and culturally, mechanically, organizationally, technically, budgetarily, whichever way you want to spin it. There's very much a difference. So you will appreciate this. There's always kind of a bit of, you know, CA and SF and, you know, CA and something else. Well, take a small country's military where the soldier has to be all things, where there is no separation between the lethal and the diplomatic in development. And then you're just dealing with a very different mindset and a ballgame in terms of what and who you can deploy.
00:09:05 JACK GAINES
True. That reminds me of Switzerland. Even though they're not a NATO member, they're soldiers. They have to do everything. They have to know how to do disaster response. They have to know how to do offensive operations. And they have to have technical skills. It's a lot, but be diverse and be successful at it. And that's another part of it is Europe having so many wealthy countries that have good education and training. Get really quality people. I mean, and to be soldiers, the Simic teams that I met. Those people were brilliant, really capable. So it was impressive to talk with them and to work with them on different subjects. One thing that caught me, though, it seemed like a lot of people were hung up on Article 4 and 5. And they didn't really want to talk anything pre -Article 4 or 5, any kind of lead -ups, any kind of what I call zero -based planning, because that's not where the business is. They were like... Once the rockets hit and we go to Article 4 or 5, that's when we do our job. And so I found a challenge there, and it's one that I pitched at NATO, and that is to start a working group to discuss CIMIC in competition. Domestic CIMIC, where you're doing crisis response in a nation, even if it's your nation or if you're going over to a nation to support them, as well as... expeditionary civic, where you're deployed overseas or in a hostile zone, what kind of efforts can you do before the fight begins?
00:10:44 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
I think you've hit the nail on the head. Everyone says, oh, we need to be talking to each other before the crisis happens, so before Article 5. We say this, and yet it's very, very... deliberate, thoughtful, long -term, and kind of taxing to think about a worst -case scenario and essentially be able to think through every possible outcome. This is why I really enjoyed the work and the exercise that we had. As you know, I've been focusing a lot on this work and trying to mobilize the conversation as well in Washington for quite some time around research around the book. What actually very pleasantly surprised me from the conference is that signal is booming in Europe. The conversation is there, I think, for obvious reasons because of what's happening in the East. But again, it's booming because there's literally a crisis and there are boots on the ground. And I always wonder why we've not had the same type of energy and urgency. here in the US. And of course, we have it. We have it in the context of great power competition. Here it's China. In Europe, it's Russia. So you really have to bow to the moment and what people are talking about and thinking about. But it's exactly as you said, we need to be having these conversations in advance. And it's got so much other stuff to deal with. Bigger fish to fry. We'll feed people their signal vegetables when the moment comes. And I think this conversation around fragility This conversation about donor funding now increasingly going to fragile states. If we can focus on prevention, we can certainly focus the conversation more deliberately to start getting these signs to speak each other's love language. If we need to have the conversation around capacity and absorbency on the health or education side, we certainly can have the same conversation on the security side. The security relationship oftentimes is a political relationship. It's not necessarily focused around the fascism. But if you take up a multilateral organization such as the World Bank, they're now starting to operate in programming spaces that were completely off limits just 15, 20 years ago. So we have an impetus and we have plenty of terrain to see how some of this works by deliberately coming to the team.
00:13:21 JACK GAINES
When people are talking about crisis, they mostly are focusing on Ukraine. The one thing that I brought up was that Georgia is just as much a crisis as Ukraine because government is being toppled. It's just not with war. It's by political subversion. And that's where SIMIC can help a country if they were involved with Georgia in working with civil security, spotting risk, coordinating better responses so that they could work with the military on countering things like cyber incursions. or financial encouragements, while then showing the public that the military is there as part of the full -of -nation policy, it would have slowed down or even reversed the Russian attempts to subvert that government and bring in a bunch of politicians that are now rewriting all the laws in Georgia, a pro -Russian stance. And that's my challenge, is that if we lose in competition, there's not going to be a war. There won't be a need for a war. Everyone's equipment's going to be obsolete, because The governments will have changed, the financial systems have changed, and there's no one to fight because it's your own country that's been flipped by subversion.
00:14:32 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
Having grown up in Eastern Europe as a young person and coming here, being in the West for the majority of my life, there's a certain vulnerability.
00:14:43 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
Those countries that are the buffer between East and West have always been subjected and vulnerable to psychological evaporation, convincing people. And you and I talked about this in The Hague. You don't have to necessarily prove that what you're saying is true. All you have to do is just plant a bit of doubt and slow down decision -making. What is what's going to throw everything off? And now people have to have just a tiny bit of doubt whether what is being presented to them is what the information is or what the reality is.
00:15:18 JACK GAINES
But I think that younger generations are actually getting better at spotting The BS. In Eastern Bloc countries, they've always challenged what they heard. There was always the official word and then the unofficial word. And in countries like the Middle East, where you always had radical groups promoting stuff, as well as the government and civil groups telling you things, they've learned how to decipher chaff from the real stuff. In the U .S., I'm seeing the younger generations also picking that up because of the deluge of misinformation, disinformation and meaningless communication. And so I think that people are growing better at deciphering it.
00:16:03 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
This is exactly right. And remember, the more exposure there is, I think, the more kind of variety there is of people having to select whether something is real or not, be it a piece of news or be it. Just an image or be it AI allows someone to look straight into the camera and not read off screen because, you know, so many people get on screen these days and have to give a presentation.
00:16:30 JACK GAINES
Yeah, even me.
00:16:30 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
even me. Yeah, right. I mean, all of us, right? But the point is that almost on a weekly basis, something new comes out. Right. And the speed at which all of this is occurring. can sometimes outpace our ability to just kind of understand what the newest thing is, which is where I rely on my younger colleagues who are always much more up to par in things than I.
00:16:52 JACK GAINES
Sure. So do you have any takeaways from either the presentations in the end or some of the social events? Did you have any kernels that you'd like to share, something that struck you?
00:17:03 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
What really struck me was there's just a disconnection for what the military does. And I would probably... push back and say, is this a PR issue? Is it a branding? Is it a marketing issue? I mean, in the US, of course, we have a very different relationship.
00:17:20 JACK GAINES
Support our troops, yeah.
00:17:22 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
Yeah, support our troops, people coming, the high school. I don't know to what an extent that exists among allies. And I mean, we know that everyone is having a hard time with recruitment numbers. That is more of a commitment to probably identity.
00:17:37 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
to probably identity. kind of believing in the cause and ideology of your government. And it reinforces the social contract in a way that being completely removed from it may not.
00:17:52 JACK GAINES
One thing that I noticed in Poland was that civil affairs teams were going out with Polish military and they were parking their vehicles in the market centers. And that way the public could walk up, look at the vehicles, talk to them, photos. They'd let the kids wear the hats or sit on the machines and get photos. And I thought that was a really good way to build comfort between the population and the military so that they felt comfortable with the U .S. being there with the Polish military. And that might be something that the other militaries might have to do. Getting more integrated with civil society might help the militaries to build back that good perspective. But also to do outreach, similar to what was going on in Poland. So I did hear that from... folks in conversation that they don't have a strong relationship with the public. There's a little bit of distrust in some countries. That's a PR thing. It needs to get handled. It needs to get jumped on quickly because the more there's propaganda targeting you, it is harder to build that relationship. The only time that you can build it at that point is if there's a crisis or a disaster and the military comes in and helps the population. That shifts it. which is also very important, is that the military be involved in crisis management so that they can show the humanity of the military in supporting its domestic population.
00:19:16 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
That's right. And I think for us who are heavily plugged into the civilian side, we need to serve as the bridge between a civilian and a soldier, the life of a soldier, which ultimately that career comes to an end for most people. They go on to do something in a civilian capacity. And the things that the military can teach you between medical training, engineering, infrastructure, you pick a profession, there's some part of the military that deals with that profession.
00:19:49 JACK GAINES
All the way up to astronauts.
00:19:50 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
Exactly. I don't think I've ever come across an astronaut. Not that I come across so many astronauts, but I do have a big social circle. Hey. We need to tackle space. We need everybody, right? Right. But, you know, almost every one of them comes with a military background. If you talk to Médecins Sans Frontières, the one organization that will absolutely stay away from any involvement in the military because they stay neutral to the bombing operations, they will tell you some of the most impressive trauma care or medical response by military medics. One person explained it to me, said it's just absolutely fascinating to watch these guys almost like an orchestra coming together and everything is down to the T, being able to suture someone so quickly. And yeah, I get goosebumps just thinking about it because I spend so much of my time trying to explain to each side that they need each other's skills, not always, but in some capacity. So very solid skills for very important. Function is in everyday life for communities. So I always tell people, learn leadership skills, learn the training, learn the discipline, and just go out and climb into the civilian world. And I think the military needs, I think this gunslinger mentality that has left sort of a bad taste for people from the wars. Many saying that, yeah, I don't want to go in and do what the military does. And then for us to say, well, actually, there's so much more that the military does in here all the way. And this is where Koning needs to step in and really connect with the communities.
00:21:33 JACK GAINES
So what are you looking to going forward?
00:21:35 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
So I think that one of the things that would be really fascinating to see among allies is very difficult to do, but a little bit more around the wargaming and experimentation realm and trying to use existing methodologies. in the community, in the academic and practitioner community, to think about experimenting with some of these mechanisms and think about new wargaming tools and what does the future look like. So take everything that we discussed in the conference and now try to come up with the know -how and see if it changes our modus operandi. As you know, I always argue that CivMill is more of a way of being than it's an actual capability or a capacity or organization. It's really more about sort of those combination of the soft skills, the strategy and approach of the actors involved. Having more research and development around that would be great to help us think to the future.
00:22:39 JACK GAINES
You know, it would be great if they do a war game based on competition. anything leading up to conflict. And when it hits conflict, the war game is over. And so your job is all the way leading up to it to try to win without fighting, either through political means or economic means or through civil engagements or influence or messaging. That would be an interesting war game because then we're really driving to the reality that's going on now.
00:23:11 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
That's right. A low -intensity conflict war game. It wouldn't be a war game. It might be a peace game.
00:23:18 JACK GAINES
Well, it's a war game. It's avoid all -out war by winning or the war happens. Right. Okay, we only have a few more minutes left. What's coming up for you? You're going to be pitching your book when Rambo meets the Red Cross. Do you have any testimonies? Do you have any conferences coming up? What's going on with you?
00:23:37 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
Oh, gosh. Well, I will be at the Civil War Association conference. In mid -November, not only will I be there talking about the book, I will have copies of the book ready to sign. So I invite our listeners, if you have a copy of When Ramble with the Red Cross, bring it with you. I will very gladly sign it and with my gratitude for everyone supporting this very small English community. But we'll also have some copies for sale. Okay,
00:24:07 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
well... That's it? I want to say it was really great to meet you in person and thanks so much for your support. I'm very grateful. It's great to have you.
00:24:17 JACK GAINES
to have you. It's a pleasure.
00:24:18 STANISLAVA MLADENOVA
It's a pleasure.
00:24:19 JACK GAINES
Okay, great. Well, we'll talk soon. Absolutely. All right. Awesome.
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. One CA Podcast.
Tuesday Oct 29, 2024
Tuesday Oct 29, 2024
Welcome to One CA Podcast. Today, Brian Hancock talks with Master Sergeant Andrew Gonzalez about how the Marine Corps modernization is shifting Civil Affairs' roles and duties in the force and how those changes impact their work in the Pacific.
MSgt Andrew Gonzalez joined the USMC-CA community in October 2015 as an E7. CA activations of note include OCT 2017 CJTF-OIR, clear and hold Mosul after displacing ISIS, DEC 2021 in support of Operation Allies Welcome operating out of Fort Pickett, VA, a rare opportunity to support a Defense Support of Civil Authorities mission. MSgt Gonzalez was most recently activated in support of JTF-Red Hill, the safe and expedient refueling of the underground fuel storage facility on the island of Oahu. Allowed to meet with the Waianae Kupuna Council to discuss the transition from JTF-Red Hill leadership and mission to the Red Hill – Navy Closure Task Force.
MSgt Gonzalez has supported 1st Civil Affairs Group for nearly 10 years and continues to drive USA-USMC CA collaborative efforts, civil information management best practice, and USMC - Civil Military Operations training standards in direct response to OSD/INDOPACOM/MARFORPAC/IMEF demand for CA and Civic Action Team support.
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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 "Cool Jazz Hot Bossa" for the sample of Energy Jazz Music Playlist - Jazz Instrumental Upbeat - High Energy Jazz Music Mix. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/bdWUj2NYDYQ?si=_bLf2fdTw6Ba93oh
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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 .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
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 Master Sergeant Andrew Gonzalez to discuss United States Marine Corps Civil Affairs, Civil Information Management, and civil harm mitigation and response. Master Sergeant Andrew Gonzalez joined the United States Marine Corps Civil Affairs community in October 2015 as an E -7. Civil Affairs activations of note include Combined Joint Task Force, Operation Inherent Resolve, Clear and Hold Mosul after displacing ISIS, Support of Operation Allies Welcome operating out of Fort Pickett, Virginia, which was a rare opportunity to support a defense support to civil authorities mission. Master Sergeant Gonzalez has supported First Civil Affairs Group for nearly 10 years in direct response to the Secretary of Defense, INDO -PACOM, MARFOR -PAC, and IMEF. Boy, that's a lot of acronyms. Top, welcome to the show. Great to link up, Ryan. It's been a while. Far, far too long. The last time we worked together, we were lamenting the state of civil information management in both the Marine Corps and the Army because we saw the potential there to help us achieve strategic objectives that are often tied to the civil population.
00:02:03 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, I can only speak for the Marine Corps. And then, you know, because you were with McTog at the time and then you had a leg inside, I think it was 351st KCOM. So that's what always made the conversation interesting. So you could just step into both worlds and say, this is what I'm learning on the USA, CA side. Conversely, this is what McTog is doing it. And really what it came down to was the commander's perspective.
00:02:25 BRIAN HANCOCK
Absolutely. I am very grateful to the Marine Corps for the opportunity to learn, you know, both from professionals such as yourself, as well as from some of your schools, like the Civil Military Operations Planners course back in Quantica. Amazingly good. I'm really excited to have you here today because you're going to give us a much -needed additional perspective and thought on some of these challenges that we're wrestling with, frankly, all over the world.
00:02:55 ANDREW GONZALEZ
You and I had first connected, and all throughout that time, numbers are shrinking, toker shrinking, and we're like, where's value? And that came into our initial dialogues with civil information management, thinking that, hey, we could probably get some traction with this, but ultimately, it took several years, but then... I call it the great IF Sauron, right? The DOD looked west and said, hey, Indo -PACOM, this is the simple problem. But I just felt like when it came to developing relationships with the host nation, that's a given. We're going to be placed inside the host nation. But what's the commander's perception? And that's where I want to kind of pick up the conversation due to the fact that that has changed. And now it's coming down to IMF landing general saying, what I witnessed in Vallarta 1024. With respect to the civil affairs engagement in theater, I want more of it. I want more cowbell. And that's what we're going to deliver it in Balakatan 25. With the planning that's going on right now after the initial planning conference that I just got back from, I asked for it. And without hesitation, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, G7, responded with, we are going to give you civil affairs teams. So it's just a much more open, much more inclusive, much more inviting environment when it comes to the civil picture.
00:04:08 BRIAN HANCOCK
That's fantastic. In 351, a number of years ago, I was involved in Balakatan. And previously, when I was in the SIOP demand, now military information support and operations, we participated there. And it was not easy, and it was not friendly, and it was not open like that. And it was really just an opportunity to send some of our service members who spoke to Gallic to go on over there. There was some increase in capability of the Philippine Defense Force, but they were still very much struggling against Abu Sayyaf and MNLC and these other terrorist organizations that were operating at the Holo Archipelago. It was just a really rough time. So it's fantastic to hear that years later, fast forward now, and we have a much stronger relationship, a much more effective relationship, a stronger partnership. We're talking about reopening some of our military bases there. We've lost some of those bases years ago, which allows China certainly to say, OK, if you only got one major port where you can do roll on, roll off operations, boy, we know where to set up our ISR and target. Right. So the strength of that relationship and the work that you're doing out there, I think, is really important. I'm glad to hear how it's progressed.
00:05:19 ANDREW GONZALEZ
I have a couple of relationships with 351st KCOM 3Shot. So maybe sometime after the podcast, we'll reconnect and talk through. Some of the collaboration, because it's been a while since I've talked with them. But during the initial planning conference, I reached into USRPAC to say, hey, we would really, really appreciate some USACA flavor. And the response was, what do we need to do? I said, can you put me in touch with 350 first? And it happened that day.
00:05:46 BRIAN HANCOCK
While you reconnect there, make sure our 38 golf program with all of those PhD level experts and everything from medicine to engineering, that is really taking off. 38 golf, got it. Yes, that MOS within the functioning specialty team constructs that we have in the Army is delivering incredible value. For instance, in our region, they recently did the NATO 7 resiliency studies of other areas, which is things we should be working in competition, and food resiliency within Medova and other areas. These things are such quality, they're being published in Military Review. And right now, the iron is hot because they're still trying to figure out... How do you utilize those 38 golfs and functional specialty teams? So make sure as we partner with you in the ground combat element in the core that we're fully utilizing some of those capabilities I think would add a lot of value to those of you who are doing planning on the Mew and doing assessments.
00:06:43 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, it's very easy to say things like 1CA, okay? It's the people. It's individuals that see and understand that given the tyranny of distance, there's lots of things, right? Like expeditionary. advanced -based operations. And just that there's no possible way that one service couldn't cover all that distance and cover down on all of those requirements. So the bottom line is we have so much to learn from one another. And I am definitely going to discuss that with 351st S3 Shop for sure.
00:07:11 BRIAN HANCOCK
Fantastic. I really encouraged to hear that. And I know 351st will receive that well. Many of our listeners happen to be Army just because there's a little bit more civil affairs in the Army. The Marine Corps is a little bit smaller force. Let's level the table a little bit, help them understand some of the Marine Corps civil affairs structure. For instance, in the Army civil affairs, this is a non -accession branch, certainly for officers it is. But here's the thing, both officers and NCOs, once they get the MOS, can spend their entire careers in civil affairs. And the way the pyramid is built out, there's plenty of room and plenty of slots for promotion. So it's very realistic that you can be awarded. a 38 MOS in the Army, and then that's it. That's what you'll be doing for the next 15 plus years or however long you go until you choose to retire. Now, I understand the Marine Corps, it's not like that. Can you elaborate a little bit on how that process is for Marines?
00:08:11 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, you're 100 % right with respect to officers. Once you get to E -8 and E -9 in the Marine Corps, you suddenly start to see how difficult it is for the O -4 and above. to get to kernel. And it is incredibly competitive. So what's also happening is the 17XX migration. But that came out of not just consolidating MISO and Comstrat and SIOP and civil affairs all under one MOS branch. And some space operations in there too, I recall. It's what's required, right? In order for us to work through any kind of distributed operations, we're going to have to rely on space substantially. Yes. But these changes are happening at the headquarters Marine Corps level where 17XX will now give officers a career path. Nice. In 17XX. And this is where you and I were having conversations about what does that mean for Reserve CA? Are we going to be completely replaced, supplanted, marginalized?
00:09:10 BRIAN HANCOCK
Right.
00:09:10 ANDREW GONZALEZ
And in the end. From 21 to 24, we learned that even though our schoolhouse got completely consumed with consolidating the MISO, the PSYOP, the Comstrat, the CA schools, all in one building, to teaching the entire 17XX curriculum.
00:09:25 BRIAN HANCOCK
In fairness, the Marine Corps has done some massive changes, at least relative to, say, the Army, which turns a little bit slower. Look at their entire divestiture of tanks under Commandant Berger. And the standing up of these Marine littoral regiments. uh brand new formations the very new equipment that they're looking at that's tied into very specific missions the marine corps is innovating across stop gulf pp very quickly it's impressive to see i popped into third mlr in oahu when i was there from october to april 2024 and asked them about civil affairs
00:09:57 ANDREW GONZALEZ
popped into third mlr in oahu when i was there from october to april 2024 and asked them about civil affairs And their concept of civil affairs employment wasn't so much about understanding the civil population. It was really just understanding that they're there. We're going to take this into consideration. But there was no real collaboration, if you will. But what they did was, as they reached out to requisition CA specifically, because they recognized that there was a little bit of a delta there. And they wanted to make sure that civil affairs had a seat at the planning table when it came to MLR and specifically overall combat team operations.
00:10:36 BRIAN HANCOCK
Good.
00:10:36 ANDREW GONZALEZ
It's a part of their training tasks. And that's the commander's perspective that I keep coming back to. If the commander sees value, if the commander sees a necessity, then it will happen. Marine Corps, Army, Navy doesn't make any difference.
00:10:48 BRIAN HANCOCK
make any difference. So when you're referring to Marine Corps, civil affairs, I understand why we would say Navy, civil affairs. But the Navy itself organically had its own. civil affairs program. We'll talk about that later. They disbanded it. So I just want to make sure that the audience understands that when you're saying Navy civil affairs, you're still referring to United States Marine Corps civil affairs.
00:11:09 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, but let's drill down on just one specific point. When it came down to BK -25, we reached out to the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command. And this is kind of analogous to your 38Gs in the USA. It's a very specific maritime focus for that commander. that says hey before i go into this littoral region with ships etc i'm not i need a really good evaluation of what's the host nation look like are they amenable and open to us being in the area yeah and then drilling down on that so we asked because they were clamoring to get involved in bk24 and immediately they responded with one of their maritime ca units great and then ideally we're going to do that in bk25 as well so i'm just trying to bring in the one ca mindset I really have to say it's not just lip service. Speaking about BK -25, Armed Forces of the Philippine CA is going to lend six teams. I see no reason why 351st CA leadership isn't going to lend at least one team, and I'm going to ask them for 38 calls. And then the Federation Combat Command will also be lending a Navy CA team. That's beautiful. I'll follow up with you, Brian, on how we were able to implement and share information and then inform the commander and see what the commander does.
00:12:23 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah, awesome. For those Marines who are listening to our podcast right now, who might consider making that kind of a lat move, what does a typical duty day look like for you, Top? How do you spend your time? What types of activities are you engaged in? What's that quality of life look like for someone else who might consider coming on over?
00:12:46 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Let's say that this is anybody but a 17XXer. This is not somebody that's coming from the Comstrat Meso -Syop community at all. Right.
00:12:54 BRIAN HANCOCK
Infantry, sure.
00:12:56 ANDREW GONZALEZ
The beauty of Marine Corps Civil Affairs is that we take all comers because we need people that know and understand and speak logistics, know and understand infantry tactics and training, know and understand intel, and then you've got the civility component. So what it looks like is a pretty standard drill to suit one, two entirely dark months. Now, one in the summer and then one in December because most people are traveling and taking time off. And then we typically drill on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I'm just speaking about in September, it's going to be civil information management, which now we've got a very strong relationship with Marine Corps tactical support systems and software activity. Okay. So we're going to do some sim training. We're going to take a lot of the new joins and baseline them in MARSIMS, which is just like it sounds, Marine Corps civil information management. So with our Indopaycom and Southcom focused, What we're screening for is plasticity. We're screening for people that really want to take their existing skill set and apply it to the host nation. Because now we've got a really solid relationship with Indonesia and Malaysia. We're training side by side with their forces.
00:14:03 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. And look at the opportunities there. I mean, like Oceania, we're concerned about geopolitical alignments and West versus, say, China and civil affairs. They're kind of our unit of action for competition in this regard. They're wanted there. They go out, they add value, they create relationships and help remind those Pacific Island nations, many of which came into the Western purview as a result of World War II, why we're the best partners to have. So that seems to me like it's a very critical function, not just in the Philippines, but in all of these areas.
00:14:41 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Correct. No, 100%. It's one of those relationships that you and I had first kind of talked about and that I took a chance to reach out was 9th MSC, which is just a support organization, but the Oceania engagement team, that was who they were supporting principally.
00:14:57 BRIAN HANCOCK
Right.
00:14:58 ANDREW GONZALEZ
So then you fast forward because that was the 2017 timeframe for me, even though that's a very persistent task on the part of the U .S. Army. U .S. RPAC has forces in the Second Island chain and has had. since 1947 right more than ever as we work through this competition problem set 99 of the time civil affairs just has a huge role play everything that we do that matters is joint combined it's just really exciting to hear what that felt that has been since 2017 and that the future just it looks really bright now we've been talking a little bit about civil affairs operations when i went to the civil military operations school to get my
00:15:14 BRIAN HANCOCK
than ever as we work through this competition problem set 99 of the time civil affairs just has a huge role play everything that we do that matters is joint combined it's just really exciting to hear what that felt that has been since 2017 and that the future just it looks really bright now we've been talking a little bit about civil affairs operations when i went to the civil military operations school to get my credential, we were focused on civil military operations, which seems to resonate with Marines. Can you tell us a little bit about the difference between civil military operations and civil affairs operations and why the Marine Corps, CA elements, might be more focused on the latter?
00:15:59 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Beginning in October 2015, when I first joined civil affairs, I would regularly conflate civil affairs with the activity of civil military operations. civil affairs is force description. We're out there supporting civil -military relationships, civil -military planning, et cetera, et cetera. One thing is the who, and the other thing is the do. And I don't think, but I have to kind of turn the question back on you, Brian, is after I describe what we think constitutes civil -military operations, I think what you will find is there's more similar than dissimilar to civil affairs operations. I really feel like they are more analogous than not.
00:16:35 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. I think the unit of action matters. Civil affairs operations have to be conducted by civil affairs forces, but civil military operations could be conducted by an infantry command. But I think they're achieving some similar purposes, and I think a number of the tasks are probably very similar.
00:16:51 ANDREW GONZALEZ
I agree, and that's a really interesting point. I just had that brief conversation with the Sergeant Major of 3rd MLR, and I said, Sergeant Major, we're at the tail end of EK -24, and so all their forces are out there distributed, and Sergeant Major's like, hey man, I've got an hour for you. Totally understand, Sergeant Major. If I could get your CONOPS, if I could find out what your commanding officer's guidance is with respect to employment of CA, and then tell me, this is the type of thing that we could help you in 25, all throughout FI -25. And he's like, hey, man, we're already ahead of you. We already did a request for forces, right? So, but the point I'm trying to make with that is, is their understanding of civil military in the LCTs, a very critical force enabler in the Marine Corps and throughout the DOD, because again, that's your asymmetric component, right? Those are the guys that are out there alone and unafraid, walking around with a ship killer. It's no small feat. But that commander was still like, you're involved in the planning. We do have good relationships with the host nation. But our mission can't be distracted by anything other than time -sensitive targets. And I'm being very, very reductive. But that was a sergeant major that was under pressure to literally get out the door so he'd get to the Philippines. But focus on the civil military operations component from commander to commander. And it's to the point where they want so much of our bandwidth that MFR is almost kind of pushing back. 1MF just keeps asking us for civil military operations support. Civ mil, civ mil, civ mil. But the bottom line is, at no other time have we been in such need to get people up to speed, take their existing specialty, and apply it to civil military operations planning. Much like what you're doing, what does the next generation of near peer, and we don't want it to get to combat. Yeah,
00:18:32 BRIAN HANCOCK
absolutely.
00:18:33 ANDREW GONZALEZ
What does it look like for the host nation populations? within the second island chain within the first island chain yeah we're certainly getting a pretty close look at that in ukraine and it it's devastating can you elaborate on that you're talking about millions of people displaced flowing over borders now poland unbelievable the reception they'll give the ukrainians i think they have at least a million that they're looking out for right now
00:18:39 BRIAN HANCOCK
certainly getting a pretty close look at that in ukraine and it it's devastating can
00:18:43 ANDREW GONZALEZ
you elaborate on that you're
00:18:45 BRIAN HANCOCK
talking about millions of people displaced flowing over borders now poland unbelievable the reception they'll give the ukrainians i think they have at least a million that they're looking out for right now They come over and train, and they're met at the station, and they're given food, they're given water, they're given shelter. They help them find a longer -term place to be. They help them find work. It's a very, very serious situation. We understand what war crimes are. You're not supposed to blow up hospitals and schools and things like this, but Ukraine and the Russians are intentionally targeting them. They think they commit enough of these war crimes that they'll break the will of the people. You know, what we know historically, certainly when we're talking about large -scale bombing in World War II, that when you start doing these things, it actually has a reverse effect. It makes the people so angry that they double down on their commitment to fight you. So it's an ineffective strategy and blatantly immortal and unlawful. But that's the situation that is happening over there. Various elements are in talk with Ukrainian elements about... Depending on the different scenarios of how this ultimately plays out, there is going to be an enormous amount of work. There's going to be an enormous opportunity for civil military specialists to assist with the stabilization and rebuilding. And of course, through our CIMIC programs here in Europe, we are training a lot of Ukrainians and many other nations how to do these kinds of missions and to be prepared.
00:20:20 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, there's so much of what we hear and what we're hearing are, you know, tactical successes on the forward element. And whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, you typically only hear Poland or Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, all the nations that share that border, and they're all on edge, which they should be. It's actually not a bad state to be in. You just don't want to be there chronically, right? Right. But the point is, it is amazing how much work Poland and the former states of the Soviet Union are doing and continue to do to give those people safe harbor. But just pivoting over to Indopaycom, the role of civil military operations.
00:00:55 BRIAN HANCOCK
But just pivoting over to Indo -PACOM, the role of civil military operations. Once the balloon goes up, the areas where combat is actually going to be exploited to the degree that you can in northern Philippines and in the westernmost portion of Japan, because this has happened once before. The origins of Taiwan, when some of the existing peoples on the island were being displaced by Chiang Kai -shek, they headed to the westernmost portion of Japan. to these islands that had maybe 150 to 250 people on the entire island, but they're bringing in enough nourishment, enough fuel that they have homeostasis. What they have coming in and what they have going out, there's balance. And then you add 1 ,500 people that don't speak the language. That's just one tiny island in the westernmost portion of Japan's archipelago. I don't want to imagine it, but we have to. We should be forced to sit at a table and apply what we know. to people who know how to do it because nobody does HADR and nobody does complex emergency management like the Taiwanese. They do it every year, multiple times during a year. And the same goes for Japan. But who do it best are the Taiwanese. We have something to learn from them, honestly.
00:02:12 ANDREW GONZALEZ
I agree. Absolutely. And given that we have some great alliances and we work in joint combined environments, there's a lot of opportunity for cross -learning. Now, earlier we talked about Department of Navy civil affairs capabilities, and I just wanted to go back to that a little bit. Years ago, the Department of Navy had a separate and distinct civil affairs program from the Marine Corps civil affairs elements. Now, that program vested itself. It sounds like there's some emergent capability happening now. And of course, they retained their Marine Corps capability. With those forces being emergent, if the joint force needs something, say, a port assessment after a disaster, a system analysis of the economics of aquaculture in a given region, is that something Marine Corps civil affairs can provide? And if the Marine Corps civil affairs can't provide that maritime type expert level assessment, who should we be turning to for it as a force?
00:03:19 BRIAN HANCOCK
you would reach out to the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, the NEC, without a doubt. And I'm not just blowing smoke here. This is the units in peacetime that deliver by far the most value, not even relative to the amount of money spent. Let's just take the monetary component out. The people who have a forward -leaning presence into the First Island chain are the Bs.
00:03:42 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, CBs,
00:03:43 BRIAN HANCOCK
yeah. Yeah, the construction battalions. And so when it comes down to the naval, maritime -trained civil affairs, of which there's a very limited number, they're working hand -in -glove with the bees, with their Explosive Ordnance Bubbas, with their Expeditionary Security Force Bubbas, to say, hey, this is what you're going to encounter in this specific aspect of this specific island, right? Like, you're coming into this littoral region, this is what you can expect with expected depths, draft, and then the host nation population studies. They have that capability embedded in the neck. And so that's why we're really looking forward to working with them again in BK25. They love what we do and we love what they do. I can only imagine how when we did an innovative readiness training,
00:04:22 ANDREW GONZALEZ
how when we did an innovative readiness training, the native tribes in Alaska up there in Aleutians, many of the things that we found that could be done to help them, CBs could have done on the spot. Yeah. We had no capability. We had a planning and an assessment and analysis and a research capability. But that action arm that the bees offer, that would have been amazing to have. I see what you're saying. It makes perfect sense to me. It sounds like a fantastic marriage of capability moving forward. When I introduced you, you mentioned a couple of the big missions that you've been involved in. But Operation Air Resolve and Operation Allies Welcome. Can you just tell us a little bit about what those missions were? and what the role of the Corps was.
00:05:16 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yep. So it was General Votel that was head of sync at the time. The portion that I want to hit you with is a success that really should never have been allowed. And that will make sense after I explain. Operation Enhanced Resolve winter into the spring of 2017. Mosul. It was a meat grinder for the Iraqi army because they're going house to house, door to door, booby traps. just a hellscape it's just getting crushed and so what was born out of that doctors without borders says we're not leaving but we need help and we never ask the dod ever because we don't want to be aligned with the dod right so picture this right so that message gets sent to oir command as oir receives this request for a conversation we just want to have a conversation to find out what if anything can be done Because everyone's hearing about the OBGYN that's wandering Western Iraq, trying to help women deliver babies, and then he gets decapitated, right? That's what you're dealing with. Medical professionals are targets, period. So fast forward, that happens at the beginning of my turn in mid -2017. We got all the way to a sit -down with the leadership of Doctors Without Borders, who flew in from New York, Belgium, and France. So five representatives come in and say, listen, you cannot divulge the fact that we are opening up direct line of communication to FOAR headquarters and our people on the ground. We ended up opening a line of communication. We got to the point where we actually tested it and it worked. Now, no assets were ever called for. We had a quick consult in the CJ39 with CENTCOM leadership, with USAID, and a member of General Hotel staff. And the question I was asked was, Who told you to bring Doctors Without Borders into the command headquarters to talk about a real -time tactical link? And I said, I was told by, you know, my leadership in the CJ39. So the point I'm trying to make with this is, please, please, please, your senior staff, your field grades, even a sergeant who's listening, who's applying themselves, doesn't make any difference. Ask the question. does hire no one understand what's going on? Because this got all the way to linking one radio with another, with a comm check. And General Votel, to my knowledge, did not have knowledge of it. His command, his staff did not have knowledge of the fact that that relationship had been enacted, had been moved. So I'm just saying things can get traction. You're thinking, wow, I'm doing the right thing, right? Like I am the humanitarian affairs deconfliction SNCOIC for CJTFOAR in phase three operations. This is the right thing to do so that we don't lose doctors. But honestly, it wasn't done the right way. I'm just letting people know that things can get momentum and their own inertia, but that doesn't mean that CONUS knows what's going on.
00:08:12 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Actually, I think an incredible success. As you said, Medicine Salts Franciard is an amazing organization. If they are actively being targeted and destroyed, as we've seen the Russians targeting their facilities in, say, Syria, they were using the Doctors Without Borders clinics. They're supposed to be protected under the law of war. They were using them as a targeting list, right? So that is unfortunately the reality of the adversaries we face. So I think it's a success story that there was enough adaptability shown by both parties to at least explore something. And having worked at four -star commands, I can also understand how difficult it is to reach senior decision makers. their ability to move at the speed of relevance, I would argue in many cases that they're just not capable of doing that, with some exceptions. This is one of the reasons why Secretary Mattis had a process he called skip echelon to tighten kilchines and other things to flow faster. But when you have an incident of that level of seriousness happening, in an area in blunt contact, in an austere region, everyone has to think out of the box a little bit. And then you add the five of war to that, right? So I certainly don't fault anyone involved in that. I think it is a great case study that should be talked about. I see that as the win. As a leader, sometimes making the wrong decision with alacrity is better than making no decision or waiting until it's irrelevant. In hindsight, it's very easy, I think, to look back at that. But thank you for sharing that amazing experience.
00:10:00 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. One kind of final cherry on top is when individuals in the reserves think that they're not going to be confronted with gravity, real gravity, where civil affairs isn't always looked upon fondly, civil military operations support isn't always looked upon fondly, especially when you're tactical. And you have to raise your hand in a room full of meat eaters. And you say, this is the reason you don't want to hit. That ambulance that you see clearly displayed by an MQ -9 in the middle of nowhere is ISIS and their families are evacuating Mosul, right? And you're saying, yeah, you could very easily take out those 10 buses. But this is why you don't want to do that. And this is the people that you contact. That takes courage. And that's what we're looking for. That person who raises their hand on the jock floor and says, I see what your MQ -9 sees. All we need to do is contact the Red Cross. confirm that that's a legitimate Red Crescent vehicle that's going into harm's way because they have to know and understand that an armed MQ9 is circling those 10 buses. That's the kind of individual that we're looking for. And we don't care if they're NCOs or staff NCOs, a company grade or a field grade. They just have to have knowledge, confidence, the courage of their convictions. And sometimes the strength of those convictions may not just be protecting those lies,
00:11:15 ANDREW GONZALEZ
sometimes the strength of those convictions may not just be protecting those lies, but... pointing out the potential economic loss that can occur. We're talking about dropping all those bridges in Baghdad. The cost to rebuild those things is enormous. Do you really want to do strategic destruction of them and have to completely rebuild them? Or might a tactical destruction be more appropriate? And again, it was a civil affairs officer who had to stand up and point that distinction out when on the job they were just looking at demolishing. all of them to prevent retreating forces. So yes, that is a very important part. You have to have some moxie and be willing to stand in the face of power, which is a moment of truth. You have to be willing to do that to survive in this branch and thrive. So well said. I'd like to turn the conversation to something that's been on a number of minds in the civil affairs communities, a lot of debate. But a few years ago, the Department of Defense created the Office for Civil Harm Mitigation Response, or CHMR. Some of the civil affairs professionals in the communities have expressed a concern that this new body may actually be kind of taking over some of the traditional mission, as defined by General Winfried Scott, from civil affairs. What do you think?
00:12:42 BRIAN HANCOCK
I don't think. I really don't, based on not just the August 22 release of the structure. for CHMR, but then also the December 2023 OSD release, but it's saying you, component commander, right, saying commando, pick on mother, are going to have this as a lens when it comes down to your host nation relationships and also the employment of American designed, engineered, and released weapons. I don't think that this has as much to do with civil military operations as it does our prosecution of combat operations in a given combatant command. So the CHMR has less to do with civil military operations as I understand it. It has more to do with when it comes down to your concept of operations for how you are going to defend some portion of the first island chain or break and enter here or at the strategic level. that you are informing your operational commanders and your tactical execution with these as potential restraints, not constraints.
00:13:48 ANDREW GONZALEZ
And that only becomes more complicated. But look at a joint combined environment now where each individual host nation has a say on the employment of force because of ABO and other things. We saw in Bosnia that quickly became unwieldy. You couldn't do it because it started out with 50 targets on your targeting list. And by the time... every nation had pulled its picks off the list, you had about 15 targets left. So I think there's some complexity there. I am a little bit concerned in the way it's described as a lens, similar to Women, Peace, and Security, that's also kind of seen as a lens. The problem with that in a military organization is that we are action -oriented organizations. And if you do not have mission essential tasks, associated with something that then get rated, validated, and recorded in the USR process, it's probably not something you're going to do. How do you train to a lens? How do you validate a lens? How do you operationalize something like that? It has to be operational to truly be relevant to the military. Now, I know it's new. 2022 is not a long ago. I suspect they're still working through that. But I am concerned about the practical implementation of that.
00:15:12 BRIAN HANCOCK
So it is new. It's so new that when I spoke to Major Weyland, he's dual -hatted as a reserve civil affairs bubba with RG9. His real -time job in the civilian world is USAID. I said, Weyland, can you please tell me what USAID's position is? Or what are they training to? How does this change the nature of AID and the DOD? And he's like, this is just too new. It's making its way into AID. And we're looking at the primary, secondary and tertiary impacts to relationships and how this is going to be perceived within the DoD. So it's very new. I did notice that there are pilot trainings that are going to be taking place for staff associated with the component commands. Attend the training, find out what this is about, see how this is going to impact your planning cycle. So, like I said, it's probably a good year to two years before we see something precipitate out. And I'm focusing on AID and DOD because that, to me, is kind of where the rubber meets the road because you've got a civilian agency that's tasked with coordinating with U .N. agencies, World Health Organization, World Food Program, but not limited to those people, UNOCHO and others.
00:16:12 SPEAKER_00
civilian agency
00:16:19 BRIAN HANCOCK
And now you're saying, OK, take the strategic, operational and tactical, that compression that I talked about. real -time information to be fed into this so that the commander has as much time and space, and we're talking about now instead of days, we're talking about hours, to make a decision on what ordinance gets dropped where and to what effect. And I'm asking you, do you think non -kinetic was as utilized in 2017 as it could have been?
00:16:45 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Definitely not. Right. And now looking at adding competition into the continuum in the range of military operations. where we're going to be the majority of the time. What's your rounds to fire in competition? Well, they're not lethal, right? Yep. Because except for some soft action against very select targets and some denied activities, it's not going to be acceptable to go in there and killing people and breaking things. Yep. That's not how you convince folks to come to your coalition. So absolutely, there's a lot of work to be done and we didn't do enough there. What we did do got criticized by Rand and others, at least in some cases. And some of that criticism was legitimate. So there's, I think, a lot more work that can be done there.
00:17:33 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. And you, when it comes down to this multinational land component commander concept, I can't even begin to wrap my head around. My head was spinning, as you were describing, because it's just distributed operations. Right. Land -based, as opposed to maritime -based. It's the same problem set, like rail gauges. With a lot more people.
00:17:50 ANDREW GONZALEZ
With a lot more people. There aren't as many people out. With a lot more people.
00:17:51 BRIAN HANCOCK
There aren't as many people out. With a lot more people.
00:17:53 ANDREW GONZALEZ
in the ocean when you're doing distributed maritime operations, right?
00:17:56 BRIAN HANCOCK
And if the balloon goes up, we do have limited ability while the air is uncontested and while the seas are uncontested to get civilians away.
00:18:06 ANDREW GONZALEZ
We have a few minutes left. I'd kind of like to close up by returning to some of the innovation that the Marine Corps has been doing in the last several years. You've talked a bit about the 17XX MOS. Some things we haven't talked as much about are the development and utilization of the Marine Expeditionary Force Information Groups, the MIGs, and the deployment of the Tactical Assault Kit. Can you tell the audience a little bit about those developments?
00:18:35 BRIAN HANCOCK
The MIG is really focused on PSYOPs, Comstrat, and MISO. They're excellent at what they do. We do have some OneMeth integration between CA and Comstrat, obviously, for BK25 with respect to their narratives and our public affairs guidance that's going to be issued. And it's going to be very similar to BK24 from what I'm hearing. So again, we don't want to spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel on things we don't need to. Let's focus on the things that we really do need to. And that namely are the relationships and the things like tactical assault kit. So it sounds like it's an actual piece of gear, but it's not. It is a common tactical picture in the most reductive sense. But the bottom line is the reason that this is becoming so prolific throughout the DoD is because you can develop. a map support and a common tactical picture that can be fed up to feed a common operational picture very readily because it's very lightweight and it's OS agnostic. And so it's basically just taking over because it is so adaptable. And when it comes down to air component, land component, logistics component in the Marine Corps needing a specific tool set. to help manage information and get that information to the logistics commander. And then the logistics commander can inform the CJA commander. This is the way to do it. So I am asking everyone out there, go to the MCTESA website, Marine Corps Tactical Software Support Activity website. Log in, go to the Warfighter Support Division. And MCTESA has really gone to great lengths to host what's called TechTube. And what it is, is a series of YouTube videos on all of the software that the Marine Corps currently is fueling. All the systems of record and some of the systems that are not of record. Tactical Assault Kit is not currently a program of record, but we're, you know, high speed moving towards that to make it a program of record. So how civil affairs is planning to utilize this. And ideally we get our ducks in a row with respect to data because everybody and their mother wants Starlink. Right. You can only spread that so thin and reserves are not going to be at the top of any list when it comes down to. No. So we have to rely on in -country data, which is doable, but we have to just learning from BK24, we have to get enough data for a long enough period of time to support TAK. Even though it's lightweight, it's like anything else. It's a cell phone. We currently are outfitted with Galaxy S22s. That's how we conduct our KLEs. That's how we do our, you know, our engagements and do our site assessments. And it's all done on this handheld. And now ATAK, the Android version of TAK, Civ, as opposed to Mill, there's two flavors of TAK. Civilian is, you can just go to any download. You can go to the Android store, you can go to the Apple store, download your civilian variant of TAK, and immediately start using it. But if you want to know how to use it, whether it's the civilian or the military variant, just go to MCTISA, the website, you need a CAT card, log in, go to the Warfighter Support Division, and then drill down on the TechTube videos. And you can immediately see just how user -friendly this system is. And so our goal at EarthCAG is to make this an application alongside Martians. So it's already built into the image when we receive our Martians gear, our Galaxy S22s. So we're organizing some training with MCTISA. And this is one of those things where we want to be able to get the army in on this. We want to be able to get the armed forces of the Philippines. There's no constraints on using. the civilian variant of TAK with our host nation partners. So how do you want to know where your people are and what they're doing? This is how we're going to do it. That's how I plan to give our commander a common tactical picture and roll up the multinational joint civil affairs outreach and civil military operations employment in theater. That's how we're going to do it as VATAC.
00:22:23 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Well, you've convinced me. I am going to go take a look at that and I'm excited. Mictissa, here I come. I'm going to take a look at the tactical assault kit. Certainly working at the ASCC, if this looks good, I'll definitely be talking to some of my Army colleagues about that. Thank you for your time today, Top. I really appreciate it. Really appreciate everything you're doing as well as what your colleagues at First CAG have been doing. It's been a fantastic relationship and we're looking forward, I know, certainly at 351 and in other. civil affairs formation to working with you in the future.
00:22:58 BRIAN HANCOCK
Ryan, thank you for leaning into the relationship. I don't know of too many others in the civil affairs community independent of service that have gone to the lengths that you have to bring in new ideas, to take some time to listen and learn from one another and actually get this to be applied because that's the only way that we're going to skin the cat.
00:23:20 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Well said. Thank you also to the audience for joining us for this session. And we'll be putting out some more content from the United States Marine Corps in future sessions.
00:23:32 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.
Tuesday Oct 22, 2024
Tuesday Oct 22, 2024
Welcome to One CA Podcast. Today, Brian Hancock talks with Master Sergeant Andrew Gonzalez about how the Marine Corps' modernization is shifting Civil Affairs' roles and duties in the force and how those changes impact their work in the Pacific.
MSgt Andrew Gonzalez joined the USMC-CA community in October 2015 as an E7. CA activations of note include OCT 2017 CJTF-OIR, clear and hold Mosul after displacing ISIS, DEC 2021 in support of Operation Allies Welcome operating out of Fort Pickett, VA, a rare opportunity to support a Defense Support of Civil Authorities mission. MSgt Gonzalez was most recently activated in support of JTF-Red Hill, the safe and expedient refueling of the underground fuel storage facility on the island of Oahu. Allowed to meet with the Waianae Kupuna Council to discuss the transition from JTF-Red Hill leadership and mission to the Red Hill – Navy Closure Task Force.
MSgt Gonzalez has supported 1st Civil Affairs Group for nearly 10 years and continues to drive USA-USMC CA collaborative efforts, civil information management best practice, and USMC - Civil Military Operations training standards in direct response to OSD/INDOPACOM/MARFORPAC/IMEF demand for CA and Civic Action Team support.
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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 "Cool Jazz Hot Bossa" for the sample of Energy Jazz Music Playlist - Jazz Instrumental Upbeat - High Energy Jazz Music Mix. Retrieved from: https://youtu.be/bdWUj2NYDYQ?si=_bLf2fdTw6Ba93oh
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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 .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
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 Master Sergeant Andrew Gonzalez to discuss United States Marine Corps Civil Affairs, Civil Information Management, and civil harm mitigation and response. Master Sergeant Andrew Gonzalez joined the United States Marine Corps Civil Affairs community in October 2015 as an E -7. Civil Affairs activations of note include Combined Joint Task Force, Operation Inherent Resolve, Clear and Hold Mosul after displacing ISIS, Support of Operation Allies Welcome operating out of Fort Pickett, Virginia, which was a rare opportunity to support a defense support to civil authorities mission. Master Sergeant Gonzalez has supported First Civil Affairs Group for nearly 10 years in direct response to the Secretary of Defense, INDO -PACOM, MARFOR -PAC, and IMEF. Boy, that's a lot of acronyms. Top, welcome to the show. Great to link up, Ryan. It's been a while. Far, far too long. The last time we worked together, we were lamenting the state of civil information management in both the Marine Corps and the Army because we saw the potential there to help us achieve strategic objectives that are often tied to the civil population.
00:02:03 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, I can only speak for the Marine Corps. And then, you know, because you were with McTog at the time and then you had a leg inside, I think it was 351st KCOM. So that's what always made the conversation interesting. So you could just step into both worlds and say, this is what I'm learning on the USA, CA side. Conversely, this is what McTog is doing it. And really what it came down to was the commander's perspective.
00:02:25 BRIAN HANCOCK
Absolutely. I am very grateful to the Marine Corps for the opportunity to learn, you know, both from professionals such as yourself, as well as from some of your schools, like the Civil Military Operations Planners course back in Quantica. Amazingly good. I'm really excited to have you here today because you're going to give us a much -needed additional perspective and thought on some of these challenges that we're wrestling with, frankly, all over the world.
00:02:55 ANDREW GONZALEZ
You and I had first connected, and all throughout that time, numbers are shrinking, toker shrinking, and we're like, where's value? And that came into our initial dialogues with civil information management, thinking that, hey, we could probably get some traction with this, but ultimately, it took several years, but then... I call it the great IF Sauron, right? The DOD looked west and said, hey, Indo -PACOM, this is the simple problem. But I just felt like when it came to developing relationships with the host nation, that's a given. We're going to be placed inside the host nation. But what's the commander's perception? And that's where I want to kind of pick up the conversation due to the fact that that has changed. And now it's coming down to IMF landing general saying, what I witnessed in Vallarta 1024. With respect to the civil affairs engagement in theater, I want more of it. I want more cowbell. And that's what we're going to deliver it in Balakatan 25. With the planning that's going on right now after the initial planning conference that I just got back from, I asked for it. And without hesitation, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, G7, responded with, we are going to give you civil affairs teams. So it's just a much more open, much more inclusive, much more inviting environment when it comes to the civil picture.
00:04:08 BRIAN HANCOCK
That's fantastic. In 351, a number of years ago, I was involved in Balakatan. And previously, when I was in the SIOP demand, now military information support and operations, we participated there. And it was not easy, and it was not friendly, and it was not open like that. And it was really just an opportunity to send some of our service members who spoke to Gallic to go on over there. There was some increase in capability of the Philippine Defense Force, but they were still very much struggling against Abu Sayyaf and MNLC and these other terrorist organizations that were operating at the Holo Archipelago. It was just a really rough time. So it's fantastic to hear that years later, fast forward now, and we have a much stronger relationship, a much more effective relationship, a stronger partnership. We're talking about reopening some of our military bases there. We've lost some of those bases years ago, which allows China certainly to say, OK, if you only got one major port where you can do roll on, roll off operations, boy, we know where to set up our ISR and target. Right. So the strength of that relationship and the work that you're doing out there, I think, is really important. I'm glad to hear how it's progressed.
00:05:19 ANDREW GONZALEZ
I have a couple of relationships with 351st KCOM 3Shot. So maybe sometime after the podcast, we'll reconnect and talk through. Some of the collaboration, because it's been a while since I've talked with them. But during the initial planning conference, I reached into USRPAC to say, hey, we would really, really appreciate some USACA flavor. And the response was, what do we need to do? I said, can you put me in touch with 350 first? And it happened that day.
00:05:46 BRIAN HANCOCK
While you reconnect there, make sure our 38 golf program with all of those PhD level experts and everything from medicine to engineering, that is really taking off. 38 golf, got it. Yes, that MOS within the functioning specialty team constructs that we have in the Army is delivering incredible value. For instance, in our region, they recently did the NATO 7 resiliency studies of other areas, which is things we should be working in competition, and food resiliency within Medova and other areas. These things are such quality, they're being published in Military Review. And right now, the iron is hot because they're still trying to figure out... How do you utilize those 38 golfs and functional specialty teams? So make sure as we partner with you in the ground combat element in the core that we're fully utilizing some of those capabilities I think would add a lot of value to those of you who are doing planning on the Mew and doing assessments.
00:06:43 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, it's very easy to say things like 1CA, okay? It's the people. It's individuals that see and understand that given the tyranny of distance, there's lots of things, right? Like expeditionary. advanced -based operations. And just that there's no possible way that one service couldn't cover all that distance and cover down on all of those requirements. So the bottom line is we have so much to learn from one another. And I am definitely going to discuss that with 351st S3 Shop for sure.
00:07:11 BRIAN HANCOCK
Fantastic. I really encouraged to hear that. And I know 351st will receive that well. Many of our listeners happen to be Army just because there's a little bit more civil affairs in the Army. The Marine Corps is a little bit smaller force. Let's level the table a little bit, help them understand some of the Marine Corps civil affairs structure. For instance, in the Army civil affairs, this is a non -accession branch, certainly for officers it is. But here's the thing, both officers and NCOs, once they get the MOS, can spend their entire careers in civil affairs. And the way the pyramid is built out, there's plenty of room and plenty of slots for promotion. So it's very realistic that you can be awarded. a 38 MOS in the Army, and then that's it. That's what you'll be doing for the next 15 plus years or however long you go until you choose to retire. Now, I understand the Marine Corps, it's not like that. Can you elaborate a little bit on how that process is for Marines?
00:08:11 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, you're 100 % right with respect to officers. Once you get to E -8 and E -9 in the Marine Corps, you suddenly start to see how difficult it is for the O -4 and above. to get to kernel. And it is incredibly competitive. So what's also happening is the 17XX migration. But that came out of not just consolidating MISO and Comstrat and SIOP and civil affairs all under one MOS branch. And some space operations in there too, I recall. It's what's required, right? In order for us to work through any kind of distributed operations, we're going to have to rely on space substantially. Yes. But these changes are happening at the headquarters Marine Corps level where 17XX will now give officers a career path. Nice. In 17XX. And this is where you and I were having conversations about what does that mean for Reserve CA? Are we going to be completely replaced, supplanted, marginalized?
00:09:10 BRIAN HANCOCK
Right.
00:09:10 ANDREW GONZALEZ
And in the end. From 21 to 24, we learned that even though our schoolhouse got completely consumed with consolidating the MISO, the PSYOP, the Comstrat, the CA schools, all in one building, to teaching the entire 17XX curriculum.
00:09:25 BRIAN HANCOCK
In fairness, the Marine Corps has done some massive changes, at least relative to, say, the Army, which turns a little bit slower. Look at their entire divestiture of tanks under Commandant Berger. And the standing up of these Marine littoral regiments. uh brand new formations the very new equipment that they're looking at that's tied into very specific missions the marine corps is innovating across stop gulf pp very quickly it's impressive to see i popped into third mlr in oahu when i was there from october to april 2024 and asked them about civil affairs
00:09:57 ANDREW GONZALEZ
popped into third mlr in oahu when i was there from october to april 2024 and asked them about civil affairs And their concept of civil affairs employment wasn't so much about understanding the civil population. It was really just understanding that they're there. We're going to take this into consideration. But there was no real collaboration, if you will. But what they did was, as they reached out to requisition CA specifically, because they recognized that there was a little bit of a delta there. And they wanted to make sure that civil affairs had a seat at the planning table when it came to MLR and specifically overall combat team operations.
00:10:36 BRIAN HANCOCK
Good.
00:10:36 ANDREW GONZALEZ
It's a part of their training tasks. And that's the commander's perspective that I keep coming back to. If the commander sees value, if the commander sees a necessity, then it will happen. Marine Corps, Army, Navy doesn't make any difference.
00:10:48 BRIAN HANCOCK
make any difference. So when you're referring to Marine Corps, civil affairs, I understand why we would say Navy, civil affairs. But the Navy itself organically had its own. civil affairs program. We'll talk about that later. They disbanded it. So I just want to make sure that the audience understands that when you're saying Navy civil affairs, you're still referring to United States Marine Corps civil affairs.
00:11:09 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, but let's drill down on just one specific point. When it came down to BK -25, we reached out to the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command. And this is kind of analogous to your 38Gs in the USA. It's a very specific maritime focus for that commander. that says hey before i go into this littoral region with ships etc i'm not i need a really good evaluation of what's the host nation look like are they amenable and open to us being in the area yeah and then drilling down on that so we asked because they were clamoring to get involved in bk24 and immediately they responded with one of their maritime ca units great and then ideally we're going to do that in bk25 as well so i'm just trying to bring in the one ca mindset I really have to say it's not just lip service. Speaking about BK -25, Armed Forces of the Philippine CA is going to lend six teams. I see no reason why 351st CA leadership isn't going to lend at least one team, and I'm going to ask them for 38 calls. And then the Federation Combat Command will also be lending a Navy CA team. That's beautiful. I'll follow up with you, Brian, on how we were able to implement and share information and then inform the commander and see what the commander does.
00:12:23 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah, awesome. For those Marines who are listening to our podcast right now, who might consider making that kind of a lat move, what does a typical duty day look like for you, Top? How do you spend your time? What types of activities are you engaged in? What's that quality of life look like for someone else who might consider coming on over?
00:12:46 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Let's say that this is anybody but a 17XXer. This is not somebody that's coming from the Comstrat Meso -Syop community at all. Right.
00:12:54 BRIAN HANCOCK
Infantry, sure.
00:12:56 ANDREW GONZALEZ
The beauty of Marine Corps Civil Affairs is that we take all comers because we need people that know and understand and speak logistics, know and understand infantry tactics and training, know and understand intel, and then you've got the civility component. So what it looks like is a pretty standard drill to suit one, two entirely dark months. Now, one in the summer and then one in December because most people are traveling and taking time off. And then we typically drill on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. I'm just speaking about in September, it's going to be civil information management, which now we've got a very strong relationship with Marine Corps tactical support systems and software activity. Okay. So we're going to do some sim training. We're going to take a lot of the new joins and baseline them in MARSIMS, which is just like it sounds, Marine Corps civil information management. So with our Indopaycom and Southcom focused, What we're screening for is plasticity. We're screening for people that really want to take their existing skill set and apply it to the host nation. Because now we've got a really solid relationship with Indonesia and Malaysia. We're training side by side with their forces.
00:14:03 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. And look at the opportunities there. I mean, like Oceania, we're concerned about geopolitical alignments and West versus, say, China and civil affairs. They're kind of our unit of action for competition in this regard. They're wanted there. They go out, they add value, they create relationships and help remind those Pacific Island nations, many of which came into the Western purview as a result of World War II, why we're the best partners to have. So that seems to me like it's a very critical function, not just in the Philippines, but in all of these areas.
00:14:41 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Correct. No, 100%. It's one of those relationships that you and I had first kind of talked about and that I took a chance to reach out was 9th MSC, which is just a support organization, but the Oceania engagement team, that was who they were supporting principally.
00:14:57 BRIAN HANCOCK
Right.
00:14:58 ANDREW GONZALEZ
So then you fast forward because that was the 2017 timeframe for me, even though that's a very persistent task on the part of the U .S. Army. U .S. RPAC has forces in the Second Island chain and has had. since 1947 right more than ever as we work through this competition problem set 99 of the time civil affairs just has a huge role play everything that we do that matters is joint combined it's just really exciting to hear what that felt that has been since 2017 and that the future just it looks really bright now we've been talking a little bit about civil affairs operations when i went to the civil military operations school to get my
00:15:14 BRIAN HANCOCK
than ever as we work through this competition problem set 99 of the time civil affairs just has a huge role play everything that we do that matters is joint combined it's just really exciting to hear what that felt that has been since 2017 and that the future just it looks really bright now we've been talking a little bit about civil affairs operations when i went to the civil military operations school to get my credential, we were focused on civil military operations, which seems to resonate with Marines. Can you tell us a little bit about the difference between civil military operations and civil affairs operations and why the Marine Corps, CA elements, might be more focused on the latter?
00:15:59 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Beginning in October 2015, when I first joined civil affairs, I would regularly conflate civil affairs with the activity of civil military operations. civil affairs is force description. We're out there supporting civil -military relationships, civil -military planning, et cetera, et cetera. One thing is the who, and the other thing is the do. And I don't think, but I have to kind of turn the question back on you, Brian, is after I describe what we think constitutes civil -military operations, I think what you will find is there's more similar than dissimilar to civil affairs operations. I really feel like they are more analogous than not.
00:16:35 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. I think the unit of action matters. Civil affairs operations have to be conducted by civil affairs forces, but civil military operations could be conducted by an infantry command. But I think they're achieving some similar purposes, and I think a number of the tasks are probably very similar.
00:16:51 ANDREW GONZALEZ
I agree, and that's a really interesting point. I just had that brief conversation with the Sergeant Major of 3rd MLR, and I said, Sergeant Major, we're at the tail end of EK -24, and so all their forces are out there distributed, and Sergeant Major's like, hey man, I've got an hour for you. Totally understand, Sergeant Major. If I could get your CONOPS, if I could find out what your commanding officer's guidance is with respect to employment of CA, and then tell me, this is the type of thing that we could help you in 25, all throughout FI -25. And he's like, hey, man, we're already ahead of you. We already did a request for forces, right? So, but the point I'm trying to make with that is, is their understanding of civil military in the LCTs, a very critical force enabler in the Marine Corps and throughout the DOD, because again, that's your asymmetric component, right? Those are the guys that are out there alone and unafraid, walking around with a ship killer. It's no small feat. But that commander was still like, you're involved in the planning. We do have good relationships with the host nation. But our mission can't be distracted by anything other than time -sensitive targets. And I'm being very, very reductive. But that was a sergeant major that was under pressure to literally get out the door so he'd get to the Philippines. But focus on the civil military operations component from commander to commander. And it's to the point where they want so much of our bandwidth that MFR is almost kind of pushing back. 1MF just keeps asking us for civil military operations support. Civ mil, civ mil, civ mil. But the bottom line is, at no other time have we been in such need to get people up to speed, take their existing specialty, and apply it to civil military operations planning. Much like what you're doing, what does the next generation of near peer, and we don't want it to get to combat. Yeah,
00:18:32 BRIAN HANCOCK
absolutely.
00:18:33 ANDREW GONZALEZ
What does it look like for the host nation populations? within the second island chain within the first island chain yeah we're certainly getting a pretty close look at that in ukraine and it it's devastating can you elaborate on that you're talking about millions of people displaced flowing over borders now poland unbelievable the reception they'll give the ukrainians i think they have at least a million that they're looking out for right now
00:18:39 BRIAN HANCOCK
certainly getting a pretty close look at that in ukraine and it it's devastating can
00:18:43 ANDREW GONZALEZ
you elaborate on that you're
00:18:45 BRIAN HANCOCK
talking about millions of people displaced flowing over borders now poland unbelievable the reception they'll give the ukrainians i think they have at least a million that they're looking out for right now They come over and train, and they're met at the station, and they're given food, they're given water, they're given shelter. They help them find a longer -term place to be. They help them find work. It's a very, very serious situation. We understand what war crimes are. You're not supposed to blow up hospitals and schools and things like this, but Ukraine and the Russians are intentionally targeting them. They think they commit enough of these war crimes that they'll break the will of the people. You know, what we know historically, certainly when we're talking about large -scale bombing in World War II, that when you start doing these things, it actually has a reverse effect. It makes the people so angry that they double down on their commitment to fight you. So it's an ineffective strategy and blatantly immortal and unlawful. But that's the situation that is happening over there. Various elements are in talk with Ukrainian elements about... Depending on the different scenarios of how this ultimately plays out, there is going to be an enormous amount of work. There's going to be an enormous opportunity for civil military specialists to assist with the stabilization and rebuilding. And of course, through our CIMIC programs here in Europe, we are training a lot of Ukrainians and many other nations how to do these kinds of missions and to be prepared.
00:20:20 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, there's so much of what we hear and what we're hearing are, you know, tactical successes on the forward element. And whether it's a good thing or a bad thing, you typically only hear Poland or Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, all the nations that share that border, and they're all on edge, which they should be. It's actually not a bad state to be in. You just don't want to be there chronically, right? Right. But the point is, it is amazing how much work Poland and the former states of the Soviet Union are doing and continue to do to give those people safe harbor. But just pivoting over to Indopaycom, the role of civil military operations.
00:00:55 BRIAN HANCOCK
But just pivoting over to Indo -PACOM, the role of civil military operations. Once the balloon goes up, the areas where combat is actually going to be exploited to the degree that you can in northern Philippines and in the westernmost portion of Japan, because this has happened once before. The origins of Taiwan, when some of the existing peoples on the island were being displaced by Chiang Kai -shek, they headed to the westernmost portion of Japan. to these islands that had maybe 150 to 250 people on the entire island, but they're bringing in enough nourishment, enough fuel that they have homeostasis. What they have coming in and what they have going out, there's balance. And then you add 1 ,500 people that don't speak the language. That's just one tiny island in the westernmost portion of Japan's archipelago. I don't want to imagine it, but we have to. We should be forced to sit at a table and apply what we know. to people who know how to do it because nobody does HADR and nobody does complex emergency management like the Taiwanese. They do it every year, multiple times during a year. And the same goes for Japan. But who do it best are the Taiwanese. We have something to learn from them, honestly.
00:02:12 ANDREW GONZALEZ
I agree. Absolutely. And given that we have some great alliances and we work in joint combined environments, there's a lot of opportunity for cross -learning. Now, earlier we talked about Department of Navy civil affairs capabilities, and I just wanted to go back to that a little bit. Years ago, the Department of Navy had a separate and distinct civil affairs program from the Marine Corps civil affairs elements. Now, that program vested itself. It sounds like there's some emergent capability happening now. And of course, they retained their Marine Corps capability. With those forces being emergent, if the joint force needs something, say, a port assessment after a disaster, a system analysis of the economics of aquaculture in a given region, is that something Marine Corps civil affairs can provide? And if the Marine Corps civil affairs can't provide that maritime type expert level assessment, who should we be turning to for it as a force?
00:03:19 BRIAN HANCOCK
you would reach out to the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command, the NEC, without a doubt. And I'm not just blowing smoke here. This is the units in peacetime that deliver by far the most value, not even relative to the amount of money spent. Let's just take the monetary component out. The people who have a forward -leaning presence into the First Island chain are the Bs.
00:03:42 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Yeah, CBs,
00:03:43 BRIAN HANCOCK
yeah. Yeah, the construction battalions. And so when it comes down to the naval, maritime -trained civil affairs, of which there's a very limited number, they're working hand -in -glove with the bees, with their Explosive Ordnance Bubbas, with their Expeditionary Security Force Bubbas, to say, hey, this is what you're going to encounter in this specific aspect of this specific island, right? Like, you're coming into this littoral region, this is what you can expect with expected depths, draft, and then the host nation population studies. They have that capability embedded in the neck. And so that's why we're really looking forward to working with them again in BK25. They love what we do and we love what they do. I can only imagine how when we did an innovative readiness training,
00:04:22 ANDREW GONZALEZ
how when we did an innovative readiness training, the native tribes in Alaska up there in Aleutians, many of the things that we found that could be done to help them, CBs could have done on the spot. Yeah. We had no capability. We had a planning and an assessment and analysis and a research capability. But that action arm that the bees offer, that would have been amazing to have. I see what you're saying. It makes perfect sense to me. It sounds like a fantastic marriage of capability moving forward. When I introduced you, you mentioned a couple of the big missions that you've been involved in. But Operation Air Resolve and Operation Allies Welcome. Can you just tell us a little bit about what those missions were? and what the role of the Corps was.
00:05:16 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yep. So it was General Votel that was head of sync at the time. The portion that I want to hit you with is a success that really should never have been allowed. And that will make sense after I explain. Operation Enhanced Resolve winter into the spring of 2017. Mosul. It was a meat grinder for the Iraqi army because they're going house to house, door to door, booby traps. just a hellscape it's just getting crushed and so what was born out of that doctors without borders says we're not leaving but we need help and we never ask the dod ever because we don't want to be aligned with the dod right so picture this right so that message gets sent to oir command as oir receives this request for a conversation we just want to have a conversation to find out what if anything can be done Because everyone's hearing about the OBGYN that's wandering Western Iraq, trying to help women deliver babies, and then he gets decapitated, right? That's what you're dealing with. Medical professionals are targets, period. So fast forward, that happens at the beginning of my turn in mid -2017. We got all the way to a sit -down with the leadership of Doctors Without Borders, who flew in from New York, Belgium, and France. So five representatives come in and say, listen, you cannot divulge the fact that we are opening up direct line of communication to FOAR headquarters and our people on the ground. We ended up opening a line of communication. We got to the point where we actually tested it and it worked. Now, no assets were ever called for. We had a quick consult in the CJ39 with CENTCOM leadership, with USAID, and a member of General Hotel staff. And the question I was asked was, Who told you to bring Doctors Without Borders into the command headquarters to talk about a real -time tactical link? And I said, I was told by, you know, my leadership in the CJ39. So the point I'm trying to make with this is, please, please, please, your senior staff, your field grades, even a sergeant who's listening, who's applying themselves, doesn't make any difference. Ask the question. does hire no one understand what's going on? Because this got all the way to linking one radio with another, with a comm check. And General Votel, to my knowledge, did not have knowledge of it. His command, his staff did not have knowledge of the fact that that relationship had been enacted, had been moved. So I'm just saying things can get traction. You're thinking, wow, I'm doing the right thing, right? Like I am the humanitarian affairs deconfliction SNCOIC for CJTFOAR in phase three operations. This is the right thing to do so that we don't lose doctors. But honestly, it wasn't done the right way. I'm just letting people know that things can get momentum and their own inertia, but that doesn't mean that CONUS knows what's going on.
00:08:12 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Actually, I think an incredible success. As you said, Medicine Salts Franciard is an amazing organization. If they are actively being targeted and destroyed, as we've seen the Russians targeting their facilities in, say, Syria, they were using the Doctors Without Borders clinics. They're supposed to be protected under the law of war. They were using them as a targeting list, right? So that is unfortunately the reality of the adversaries we face. So I think it's a success story that there was enough adaptability shown by both parties to at least explore something. And having worked at four -star commands, I can also understand how difficult it is to reach senior decision makers. their ability to move at the speed of relevance, I would argue in many cases that they're just not capable of doing that, with some exceptions. This is one of the reasons why Secretary Mattis had a process he called skip echelon to tighten kilchines and other things to flow faster. But when you have an incident of that level of seriousness happening, in an area in blunt contact, in an austere region, everyone has to think out of the box a little bit. And then you add the five of war to that, right? So I certainly don't fault anyone involved in that. I think it is a great case study that should be talked about. I see that as the win. As a leader, sometimes making the wrong decision with alacrity is better than making no decision or waiting until it's irrelevant. In hindsight, it's very easy, I think, to look back at that. But thank you for sharing that amazing experience.
00:10:00 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. One kind of final cherry on top is when individuals in the reserves think that they're not going to be confronted with gravity, real gravity, where civil affairs isn't always looked upon fondly, civil military operations support isn't always looked upon fondly, especially when you're tactical. And you have to raise your hand in a room full of meat eaters. And you say, this is the reason you don't want to hit. That ambulance that you see clearly displayed by an MQ -9 in the middle of nowhere is ISIS and their families are evacuating Mosul, right? And you're saying, yeah, you could very easily take out those 10 buses. But this is why you don't want to do that. And this is the people that you contact. That takes courage. And that's what we're looking for. That person who raises their hand on the jock floor and says, I see what your MQ -9 sees. All we need to do is contact the Red Cross. confirm that that's a legitimate Red Crescent vehicle that's going into harm's way because they have to know and understand that an armed MQ9 is circling those 10 buses. That's the kind of individual that we're looking for. And we don't care if they're NCOs or staff NCOs, a company grade or a field grade. They just have to have knowledge, confidence, the courage of their convictions. And sometimes the strength of those convictions may not just be protecting those lies,
00:11:15 ANDREW GONZALEZ
sometimes the strength of those convictions may not just be protecting those lies, but... pointing out the potential economic loss that can occur. We're talking about dropping all those bridges in Baghdad. The cost to rebuild those things is enormous. Do you really want to do strategic destruction of them and have to completely rebuild them? Or might a tactical destruction be more appropriate? And again, it was a civil affairs officer who had to stand up and point that distinction out when on the job they were just looking at demolishing. all of them to prevent retreating forces. So yes, that is a very important part. You have to have some moxie and be willing to stand in the face of power, which is a moment of truth. You have to be willing to do that to survive in this branch and thrive. So well said. I'd like to turn the conversation to something that's been on a number of minds in the civil affairs communities, a lot of debate. But a few years ago, the Department of Defense created the Office for Civil Harm Mitigation Response, or CHMR. Some of the civil affairs professionals in the communities have expressed a concern that this new body may actually be kind of taking over some of the traditional mission, as defined by General Winfried Scott, from civil affairs. What do you think?
00:12:42 BRIAN HANCOCK
I don't think. I really don't, based on not just the August 22 release of the structure. for CHMR, but then also the December 2023 OSD release, but it's saying you, component commander, right, saying commando, pick on mother, are going to have this as a lens when it comes down to your host nation relationships and also the employment of American designed, engineered, and released weapons. I don't think that this has as much to do with civil military operations as it does our prosecution of combat operations in a given combatant command. So the CHMR has less to do with civil military operations as I understand it. It has more to do with when it comes down to your concept of operations for how you are going to defend some portion of the first island chain or break and enter here or at the strategic level. that you are informing your operational commanders and your tactical execution with these as potential restraints, not constraints.
00:13:48 ANDREW GONZALEZ
And that only becomes more complicated. But look at a joint combined environment now where each individual host nation has a say on the employment of force because of ABO and other things. We saw in Bosnia that quickly became unwieldy. You couldn't do it because it started out with 50 targets on your targeting list. And by the time... every nation had pulled its picks off the list, you had about 15 targets left. So I think there's some complexity there. I am a little bit concerned in the way it's described as a lens, similar to Women, Peace, and Security, that's also kind of seen as a lens. The problem with that in a military organization is that we are action -oriented organizations. And if you do not have mission essential tasks, associated with something that then get rated, validated, and recorded in the USR process, it's probably not something you're going to do. How do you train to a lens? How do you validate a lens? How do you operationalize something like that? It has to be operational to truly be relevant to the military. Now, I know it's new. 2022 is not a long ago. I suspect they're still working through that. But I am concerned about the practical implementation of that.
00:15:12 BRIAN HANCOCK
So it is new. It's so new that when I spoke to Major Weyland, he's dual -hatted as a reserve civil affairs bubba with RG9. His real -time job in the civilian world is USAID. I said, Weyland, can you please tell me what USAID's position is? Or what are they training to? How does this change the nature of AID and the DOD? And he's like, this is just too new. It's making its way into AID. And we're looking at the primary, secondary and tertiary impacts to relationships and how this is going to be perceived within the DoD. So it's very new. I did notice that there are pilot trainings that are going to be taking place for staff associated with the component commands. Attend the training, find out what this is about, see how this is going to impact your planning cycle. So, like I said, it's probably a good year to two years before we see something precipitate out. And I'm focusing on AID and DOD because that, to me, is kind of where the rubber meets the road because you've got a civilian agency that's tasked with coordinating with U .N. agencies, World Health Organization, World Food Program, but not limited to those people, UNOCHO and others.
00:16:12 SPEAKER_00
civilian agency
00:16:19 BRIAN HANCOCK
And now you're saying, OK, take the strategic, operational and tactical, that compression that I talked about. real -time information to be fed into this so that the commander has as much time and space, and we're talking about now instead of days, we're talking about hours, to make a decision on what ordinance gets dropped where and to what effect. And I'm asking you, do you think non -kinetic was as utilized in 2017 as it could have been?
00:16:45 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Definitely not. Right. And now looking at adding competition into the continuum in the range of military operations. where we're going to be the majority of the time. What's your rounds to fire in competition? Well, they're not lethal, right? Yep. Because except for some soft action against very select targets and some denied activities, it's not going to be acceptable to go in there and killing people and breaking things. Yep. That's not how you convince folks to come to your coalition. So absolutely, there's a lot of work to be done and we didn't do enough there. What we did do got criticized by Rand and others, at least in some cases. And some of that criticism was legitimate. So there's, I think, a lot more work that can be done there.
00:17:33 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. And you, when it comes down to this multinational land component commander concept, I can't even begin to wrap my head around. My head was spinning, as you were describing, because it's just distributed operations. Right. Land -based, as opposed to maritime -based. It's the same problem set, like rail gauges. With a lot more people.
00:17:50 ANDREW GONZALEZ
With a lot more people. There aren't as many people out. With a lot more people.
00:17:51 BRIAN HANCOCK
There aren't as many people out. With a lot more people.
00:17:53 ANDREW GONZALEZ
in the ocean when you're doing distributed maritime operations, right?
00:17:56 BRIAN HANCOCK
And if the balloon goes up, we do have limited ability while the air is uncontested and while the seas are uncontested to get civilians away.
00:18:06 ANDREW GONZALEZ
We have a few minutes left. I'd kind of like to close up by returning to some of the innovation that the Marine Corps has been doing in the last several years. You've talked a bit about the 17XX MOS. Some things we haven't talked as much about are the development and utilization of the Marine Expeditionary Force Information Groups, the MIGs, and the deployment of the Tactical Assault Kit. Can you tell the audience a little bit about those developments?
00:18:35 BRIAN HANCOCK
The MIG is really focused on PSYOPs, Comstrat, and MISO. They're excellent at what they do. We do have some OneMeth integration between CA and Comstrat, obviously, for BK25 with respect to their narratives and our public affairs guidance that's going to be issued. And it's going to be very similar to BK24 from what I'm hearing. So again, we don't want to spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel on things we don't need to. Let's focus on the things that we really do need to. And that namely are the relationships and the things like tactical assault kit. So it sounds like it's an actual piece of gear, but it's not. It is a common tactical picture in the most reductive sense. But the bottom line is the reason that this is becoming so prolific throughout the DoD is because you can develop. a map support and a common tactical picture that can be fed up to feed a common operational picture very readily because it's very lightweight and it's OS agnostic. And so it's basically just taking over because it is so adaptable. And when it comes down to air component, land component, logistics component in the Marine Corps needing a specific tool set. to help manage information and get that information to the logistics commander. And then the logistics commander can inform the CJA commander. This is the way to do it. So I am asking everyone out there, go to the MCTESA website, Marine Corps Tactical Software Support Activity website. Log in, go to the Warfighter Support Division. And MCTESA has really gone to great lengths to host what's called TechTube. And what it is, is a series of YouTube videos on all of the software that the Marine Corps currently is fueling. All the systems of record and some of the systems that are not of record. Tactical Assault Kit is not currently a program of record, but we're, you know, high speed moving towards that to make it a program of record. So how civil affairs is planning to utilize this. And ideally we get our ducks in a row with respect to data because everybody and their mother wants Starlink. Right. You can only spread that so thin and reserves are not going to be at the top of any list when it comes down to. No. So we have to rely on in -country data, which is doable, but we have to just learning from BK24, we have to get enough data for a long enough period of time to support TAK. Even though it's lightweight, it's like anything else. It's a cell phone. We currently are outfitted with Galaxy S22s. That's how we conduct our KLEs. That's how we do our, you know, our engagements and do our site assessments. And it's all done on this handheld. And now ATAK, the Android version of TAK, Civ, as opposed to Mill, there's two flavors of TAK. Civilian is, you can just go to any download. You can go to the Android store, you can go to the Apple store, download your civilian variant of TAK, and immediately start using it. But if you want to know how to use it, whether it's the civilian or the military variant, just go to MCTISA, the website, you need a CAT card, log in, go to the Warfighter Support Division, and then drill down on the TechTube videos. And you can immediately see just how user -friendly this system is. And so our goal at EarthCAG is to make this an application alongside Martians. So it's already built into the image when we receive our Martians gear, our Galaxy S22s. So we're organizing some training with MCTISA. And this is one of those things where we want to be able to get the army in on this. We want to be able to get the armed forces of the Philippines. There's no constraints on using. the civilian variant of TAK with our host nation partners. So how do you want to know where your people are and what they're doing? This is how we're going to do it. That's how I plan to give our commander a common tactical picture and roll up the multinational joint civil affairs outreach and civil military operations employment in theater. That's how we're going to do it as VATAC.
00:22:23 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Well, you've convinced me. I am going to go take a look at that and I'm excited. Mictissa, here I come. I'm going to take a look at the tactical assault kit. Certainly working at the ASCC, if this looks good, I'll definitely be talking to some of my Army colleagues about that. Thank you for your time today, Top. I really appreciate it. Really appreciate everything you're doing as well as what your colleagues at First CAG have been doing. It's been a fantastic relationship and we're looking forward, I know, certainly at 351 and in other. civil affairs formation to working with you in the future.
00:22:58 BRIAN HANCOCK
Ryan, thank you for leaning into the relationship. I don't know of too many others in the civil affairs community independent of service that have gone to the lengths that you have to bring in new ideas, to take some time to listen and learn from one another and actually get this to be applied because that's the only way that we're going to skin the cat.
00:23:20 ANDREW GONZALEZ
Well said. Thank you also to the audience for joining us for this session. And we'll be putting out some more content from the United States Marine Corps in future sessions.
00:23:32 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.
Sunday Oct 13, 2024
Sunday Oct 13, 2024
Welcome to the One CA Podcast. Today, Commander Jörg Grössl from the NATO Civil-Military Cooperation Centre of Excellence will discuss the center’s contribution to the maritime domain.
From research, I found that 80 percent of the world’s population lives near a coast, and 90 percent of world’s trade is carried by ships.
So, we are bringing in Commander Grössl to discuss the CIMIC role in the maritime environment and cooperation with Government and Non-Governmental Organizations to build awareness and mitigate the potential impact of military operations at sea or in the littoral regions.
---
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
Music
Afternoon Lounge Jazz - Relaxing Jazz Music for Work & Study
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRyJe-0Uie0
---
Transcript
00:00:01 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. Today we have Commander George Grossel from the NATO Civil -Military Cooperation Center of Excellence, who will discuss the center's contribution to the maritime domain.
00:00:46 JACK GAINES
From research, I found that 80 % of the world's population lives near a seacoast, and 90 % of the world's trade is carried by ships. So it makes sense that we would have a maritime simic type of operation. So Commander Grossel, welcome to the show.
00:01:02 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, thank you. And to add some figures to what you said, we had in 2024, the crisis and the Red Sea, in addition to the Panama Canal drought and the Baltimore Bridge incident, a reduction of container traffic of 80%. We had... 3 ,400 ships in the Suez Canal less than the year before. So that is what we are talking about. It's how the CIMIC can support that and what does that mean for us as a society. That must be a pretty good size impact on the global economy to have that much slowdown in shipping.
00:01:32 JACK GAINES
must be a pretty good size impact on the global economy to have that much slowdown in shipping.
00:01:38 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, true. And approximately 500 ,000 containers waiting in Singapore to be transported because of all those interruptions in sea traffic are causing a delay.
00:01:49 JACK GAINES
Right, because the production doesn't stop just because the sea lanes have slowed down from shipping.
00:01:54 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, true.
00:01:55 JACK GAINES
I remember back at the end of COVID how the Port of Los Angeles had 100, 200 ships in harbor waiting, lined up for unloading, and it was just an enormous mess until everyone finally was able to get back to work and catch up with that delay. Yeah,
00:02:12 JÖRG GRÖSSL
we were never given that motor as that big container vessel. Grounded in the Suez Canal for six days in 2021, that resulted in a backlog of 400 ships and trade loss of almost $60 billion. So that is a mess what we are talking about.
00:02:45 JACK GAINES
defending themselves or prosecuting a conflict.
00:02:49 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, that is the one thing. And a good example was the blockage in Ukraine in 2022 -23 that caused effects even in Africa with the shortage of grains being transported there.
00:03:04 JACK GAINES
I remember North Africa and the Middle East were struggling to get enough grain for the simple breads that they use every day. And it was a real concern here in the United States. Did NATO have concerns about the wheat blockage?
00:03:18 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Well, it was more a UN or a nation's initiative, especially then when we had the agreement arranged by Turkey. But NATO as an organization was not involved in that.
00:03:30 JACK GAINES
Okay. And plus, Ukraine's got a border with Poland, so it could export grain that way into Europe. And Europe has a pretty robust grain agricultural system too, so it probably wasn't as big of an impact.
00:03:44 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, well, it developed to a bigger impact. They compensated it now, but especially at the beginning, it was all based on sea transport. And land transport was basically possible, but not in the same capacity as the sea transport. And they had to make that running via land. They went through Romania to the Mediterranean, things like that. But that was not established at the beginning. And so NATO had to be involved in?
00:04:09 JACK GAINES
so NATO had to be involved in? Deconflicting military and commercial maritime operations and also collaborating?
00:04:16 JÖRG GRÖSSL
NATO nations like Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey, they had their ships there, but NATO as an organization was at the beginning not involved. That developed then later. But in fact, NATO was not involved into protecting transport or things like that. So it was just putting the picture together and minimized the impacts. With all of the issues with commercial shipping,
00:04:41 JACK GAINES
issues with commercial shipping, grain shortage, how did you work with NATO to deconflict gray hole operations with commercial shipping and ensuring that they didn't get drawn into the conflict between Russia and Ukraine?
00:04:58 JÖRG GRÖSSL
They were basically, they were in the conflict. They were a kind of a bargain. from the Russian side to allow or deny the flow of goods. And that was a clear bargain that they used against Ukraine. And at that time, NATO was not involved because they didn't want to be thrown into the conflict and get into an active part. So it was more like the NATO nation, Turkey as such, who played a role. But the NATO as an organization observed that, but we didn't play an active role in it. Okay.
00:05:33 JACK GAINES
Now, with Turkey being effectively the arbiter between Russia and Ukraine on shipments and security, did what they learned help NATO out with their maritime summit programs?
00:05:47 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Turkey not just played a moderator role, of course. With them owning the choke point of the Boxboroughs and the Marmara Sea, they were also a nation that allowed or denied traffic going through. And so the key message that NATO learned from that was who owns the choke points as the joker in his hands. He who holds the choke points makes the rules. Yeah, exactly. You see that on the other side at the Bob Elman Depp,
00:06:14 JÖRG GRÖSSL
exactly.
00:06:16 JÖRG GRÖSSL
see that on the other side at the Bob Elman Depp, you see that at some other choke points like the Panama Canal, who has control, writes the rules.
00:06:32 JACK GAINES
stop policy or promote policy, and those who run it have enormous power over the lives of the rest of the nations in that region. And we've seen some use by countries to influence that. Iran has used mines in the Straits.
00:06:50 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, absolutely. And we see that at the Bob Ellman debt, the moment where a rather short number of foodies have a severe impact to world economy. Right.
00:07:02 JACK GAINES
And that's been a real struggle on trying not to get sucked into a full conflict with the Houthis in the Red Sea.
00:07:08 JÖRG GRÖSSL
We all know who the Houthis are, that they're a proxy for Iran against Saudi Arabia, Israel -Gaza war, and the Israel -Lebanon conflict that we have at the moment will add some more oil to that fire. Well,
00:07:24 JACK GAINES
and that's the challenge that NATO faces. It's always been a networked organization with multiple nations that can forward foreign policy. And now other countries are starting to become regional powers and are using similar tools and techniques to influence policy in those areas. And so we have to start thinking of Iran, Russia, China as networked organizations. They're not just one country anymore because they've got partners, they've got proxies. Some of them have criminal groups that work as operators on behalf of them, and some have paramilitary groups. So it's a more complex environment for NATO. to work on international rule of law and stability and security.
00:08:06 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yes, absolutely true. But to make that clear, at the moment, NATO is not involved, for example, in operations in the Red Sea. It is only run by NATO Nations or the European Union. The NATO as an organization at the moment is not involved. We are doing other things that have the same importance, for example, in the Baltics, in the Mediterranean. but not in the Red Sea at the moment. Well, tell me about the Baltics. We usually call the Baltics Sea a kind of a swamped field. And sometimes you can walk with dry feet from Germany to Denmark or to Sweden because of that amount of shipping. And of course, you have basically the only ice -free Russian access to the north in the Baltics, but they have to go to the narrow of the Femont Belt and the Catechart in Denmark. You have Kaliningrad in the Baltic. You have St. Petersburg in the Baltic. And of course, in that rather small area, you have a high density of gray ships. You have a high density of white ships. And to have a picture on that is quite challenging. And NATO nations are working together to get a picture of what is going on above the sea.
00:09:25 JACK GAINES
Is that what the NATO Shipping Center does? picture and help coordinate between gray holes and commercial shipping?
00:09:32 JÖRG GRÖSSL
shipping? To some extent, the NATO shipping center is adding to that. But the NATO shipping center has no tools. They have no radar stations. They have no electronic devices. So they just use the picture that they get from the bordering nations. They use the information that they get from the ships that are in the Baltics, for example. condensed that to a picture that they can use to support the merchant shipping. Okay.
00:10:04 JACK GAINES
Explain to me how they support merchant shipping.
00:10:06 JÖRG GRÖSSL
The NATO Shipping Center, it is meant to be the link between the organization of NATO and the merchant shipping community. And basically, they are the point of contact to exchange and to get information, to propagate warnings to the shipping, and to interact with the wide shipping. The NATO Shipping Center as such is a rather small organization, but they have a quite extensive network of reservists that are captains of merchant shipping in their civil life and participate in the NATO Shipping Center when they do their reserve missions. And so they are the connection between the military part and the civil part, like passing information. passing warnings, and try to filter the information that are coming from the civil life and put them into the military.
00:11:01 JACK GAINES
They cover the Baltics. Do they cover the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean as well, or does it go further than that?
00:11:08 JÖRG GRÖSSL
They're covering the Baltics. They're covering the North Sea, the Atlantic to some extent. It always depends on what nations are available if you have them. Like in the Baltics with Germany, Denmark, now Sweden, Finland, and Poland. For example, in the Mediterranean, only the northern part of the Mediterranean is covered by NATO nations and the southern part is not. So your picture that you have there is different than, for example, in the Baltic or in the North Sea.
00:11:37 JACK GAINES
That makes sense. And then, of course, whenever there's a crisis, like that ship grounding in the Suez, then they also probably put some type of focus on that because it's going to impact. shipping coming out of the Baltics in the North Sea?
00:11:50 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Not to that extent, because if there is an incident like that, then there is still the International Maritime Organization with their center in Kuala Lumpur. And they are basically responsible for the civil side of it. So it is not a NATO task to inform the merchant shipping about the civil incidents that took place somewhere. So they have their own organization to some extent. Okay.
00:12:19 JACK GAINES
What was it called again? The International Shipping?
00:12:22 JÖRG GRÖSSL
IMO, India Mike, the International Maritime Organization.
00:12:22 JACK GAINES
IMO,
00:12:26 JACK GAINES
Okay. Do you guys ever partner with them or work with them?
00:12:30 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, we cooperate with them when needed. Let's say it like that. Sure. Because you don't want to get too deep into their business and they don't want to get too deep in yours.
00:12:36 JACK GAINES
into their business and they don't want to get too deep in yours.
00:12:38 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah. And they're acting globally and we are not that much interested in about what is going on off the coast of Chile.
00:12:46 JACK GAINES
But sometimes, I mean, NATO gets pulled into, I mean, they got pulled into Korea. Yeah. Pulled into Iraq. So sometimes it's outside the borders and I'm sure there has to be some cooperation when NATO extends itself beyond.
00:12:59 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah. But that is a case by case basis.
00:13:02 JACK GAINES
Sure. But can you give me your perspective of NATO civil -military cooperation in the maritime domain? What is your role? How do you apply it?
00:13:13 JÖRG GRÖSSL
CIMIC functioning in any domain, but especially counts for the maritime domain. What are the civil factors in my environment? How does this impact my operation? How might I impact the operation of the civil traffic? And we try to de -conflict that or to coordinate that, and if possible, even to cooperate. Do you have an example? If we go to the top, for example, to establish an alliance network to GUT. But you could establish an alliance network to the International Maritime Organization, to other organizations that operate there. There is a number of... civil support given to the Yemen. And this traffic also needs to be de -conflicted with the military operations. And if I go now to the latest version of the AJP 3 .19, which is the NATO publication for CIMIC, it says the maintenance of the freedom of navigation, sea lines of communication, key infrastructure, energy flow, protection of marine resources and environmental safety. all in the interests of national and international security. And it's not just about what is above the water, it's also to some extent what is below the water. For example, who is responsible for protecting an underwater sea cable that is transferring information from the US to Europe and back, but that is owned by a civil company? And that is maybe outside any territorial water, so meaning outside the responsibility of any nation, but is of high importance for commercial, for information sharing and so on. This is yet unsolved because everybody is thinking about it because it has been recognized, especially with the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline or the attack on the telecommunication cable between Estonia, Finland and Sweden. So we discovered that there is an issue, but we're working on that, but do not have a situation so far.
00:15:29 JACK GAINES
And it does help that Russia puts out a story, usually on social media about twice a year, about how the cables are under risk. And boy, we sure could clip them at any time, pal.
00:15:40 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, but we're talking about thousands of cables. So clipping one or even 10 or even 100 will not have a severe impact. It's not that easy to clip them. We are not talking about cutting a wire or something like that. But I think there are possibilities to disrupt this disconnection.
00:16:00 JACK GAINES
Well, it's good that they're thinking about it because the only thing that ships more than maritime is probably information across those lines.
00:16:07 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Definitely. And when we're thinking about that, sometimes information are even more important than solid goods. And it's easier. to fake information or to disrupt the flow of information, then to do that is solid goods. That has been one of the learning factors that we draw from the Ukraine war at the moment. Right. You're a sailor, right? Yeah, that's true. I had some experience on ships, well, for about 15 years or so, and I started in the early 90s. And basically had my first deployment in the early 90s to the Adriatic Sea when we did the blockade and the embargo against the former Yugoslavia. I think the word SIMIC was not even existing at that time. But if you consider it, what we did there by checking the traffic that has gone into the Adriatic Sea, by cooperating with mostly Italian. governmental institutions like the police or the financial police and also passing warnings to the shipping. That was to some extent what we do now under the umbrella of SIMIC, but we did that under a different umbrella. So basically it's ever been there. It was just differently named. I started there. I had some deployments to the Persian Gulf, to the Gulf of Aden. I was deployed often to the Mediterranean. I have been in Djibouti. Sometimes I've stood with my ship in the Gulf of Aden doing anti -piracy operations. And at that time, we have to cooperate with the partnering nations, with the surrounding nations and the institutions there. So basically what we do now when we talk about SIMIC.
00:17:58 JACK GAINES
Right. Here, Ed. Deutschland Naval Officer. That is correct, yes.
00:18:01 JÖRG GRÖSSL
yes. But I started to sail on American ships, so I joined Navy after school, and I was on one of our civil man ship, but that was still a Navy ship, but only there were no soldiers on board of it.
00:18:18 JACK GAINES
Oh, okay. And as a sailor, how did you get interested in airtime Simic?
00:18:25 JÖRG GRÖSSL
That developed over the years. What CIMIC is doing is something that we basically did the whole time. When I was deployed to the Gulf of Aden with my ship, we cooperated, for example, protecting civil shipping, protecting canal in the Gulf of Aden to avoid piracy. We were cooperating with the World Food Programme when they conducted their transports to Somalia ports and avoided. piracy attacks so basically we cooperated with the civil environment of course we integrated the civil picture in our picture that we had and then transferred that to the bigger picture for the whole area so we had the civil factor integration and we also had some civil military integration not under the umbrella of the mic at that time but that made me get interested in that topic and that was then The trigger to say, okay, that could be something that is interesting as well. And basically, in the German Navy, your career ends at your mid -40s because then your chance to be on ships again is rather small. And so you have to look for something different. And for me, that was Simic.
00:19:41 JACK GAINES
That makes sense. Do you have any stories from when you were working operations and you had to deal with piracy or with a shipping issue? something else of that nature.
00:19:53 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, when we were deployed, the Operation Enduring Freedom to the Gulf of Aden. And Enduring Freedom was not at all an anti -piracy operation. It was more the fight against terrorism. And we were employed at the sea part to disrupt drugs, to disrupt traffic of weapons in the Gulf of Aden. But obviously, due to the... The civil situation in Somalia with all the political circumstances, having no government around there, and also the situation due to some overfishing off the coast of Somalia, basically they lost their basis for living. And so they reoriented and found out that piracy could be a good job and they could earn some money with that. And so piracy in that area increased dramatically. And so one of the side effects of the warships being employed there for Operation Enduring Freedom was that they were there as a kind of international call to ships in distress, were also involved in anti -piracy. And for us, that meant we were there. And as soon as a ship called for distress because they were approached by those pirate skiffs. We were there and when the next ship in the vicinity, we tried to help them. Usually that meant that we launched our helicopter and that we tried at high speed to approach those ships. And being a warship as such in the area already had an effect on them. So, of course, they tried to avoid being too close to a warship. And that led to thinking about how can you organize it? that the shipping is not that much affected by piracy. And we were involved in organizing that and we were involved in executing that, that there was a safe corridor established with gray ships being positioned there. And so you had your picture of the civil environment and you had always knew where they are and you were able to have them travel to a corridor. With gray ships protecting them every 20, 30 nautical miles, that dramatically reduced the number of pirate attacks.
00:22:17 JACK GAINES
As the warships were protecting the sea lanes, there was probably people engaging with the populations of the surrounding nations to cooperate with security and presence and transportation.
00:22:30 JÖRG GRÖSSL
In the south, there was Amalia. In the north, there was Yemen. In the northwest, there was Eritrea. The only nation that you could cooperate with was Djibouti. And that led to the point that Djibouti became more and more an interesting point for many nations. And I think it's the only nation where you have a French military base there, an American military base, a Japanese, Chinese, and military from all those nations being there and to have an eye on the shipping that is going on.
00:23:05 JACK GAINES
And you bring that perspective into NATO so that as they write AGP 319 or as they prepare exercises or outreach or training, you bring that in to help color that training so that it has a more personal tone.
00:23:22 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, definitely. And if you exercise as an army unit, you're usually on a military training area and this area is free. But if you're exercising in a naval environment, You're usually exercising in open seas and you have always civil traffic around and you have always air traffic in the area. So you have to live with it or to incorporate that into the exercise. We are in this area and we have that density of shipping. So how do we handle that situation? Because in real life, you have to handle that as well.
00:24:01 JACK GAINES
Well, that's a good thing because in a lot of exercises, people make grand assumptions that they'll have access to ports, access to rail, freedom of the seas. But by actually working exercises in places with sea traffic, you actually have to think about it. You have to actually deal with the reality on the ground. And I think that probably helps commanders better assess logistics and how they can get things from here to there. and apply military strength.
00:24:32 JÖRG GRÖSSL
And it also helps to have, at the joint level, to have the Navy guys think about what impact their operations have ashore, and also for the land commanders, how they have to rely on traffic that is coming overseas. Absolutely. So, do you want to talk a little bit about the NATO school? Yeah. We're the Civic Center of Excellence based in The Hague in the Netherlands, which is good because The Hague is also known as one of the cities where you have a lot of international organizations. So it is an interesting place to be and it's an interesting place to cooperate with the civil environment. We are one of around 30 centers of excellence that exist now. We're basically working for NATO. having two framework nations, which is the Netherlands and Germany. We have some additional nations like Poland, Hungary, Italy. We have three pillars, interoperability and capability, training and education branch, and we have the lessons learned and analysis branch. So we're trying to get information from exercises, from missions, identify lessons learned. try to integrate them in our concept, in our publications, and to train that to the people that are new in the CIMIC world and to integrate that in our training. Overall, we are around 50 people here. And yeah, that's the CIMIC Center of Excellence.
00:26:10 JACK GAINES
Okay. So it sounds like it's a touch operational and academic. How would different forces sign in to get involved?
00:26:19 JÖRG GRÖSSL
I think we have six or seven courses. The staff worker course, where you learn how to work in a multinational or joint environment. We have the higher command course, which is basically the highest level. But we're having courses for the tactical level, for the operational level, and for the strategic level. I don't have the exact number, but yeah, we're quite busy with that.
00:26:46 JACK GAINES
Okay. Well, make sure to send me a link and I'll put it in the show notes in case people are interested in taking a course. Yeah. Do you bring in non -NATO members to attend classes as well?
00:26:56 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yes, we do. We are having people from various nations, non -NATO nations. Of course, at the moment, we have some focus on the Ukraine. We frequently have Ukrainian officers training for us. We had some cooperation. with Jordanian officers, also officers from Austria, for example.
00:27:19 JACK GAINES
That makes a lot of sense.
00:27:20 JÖRG GRÖSSL
So all that putting together under the umbrella of the ACO, the Allied Command of Operations. And on the civil side, we have frequently courses here that are run by, for example, UN OCHA, UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. that are using our capabilities to run a course here. And that, of course, gives us the opportunity to cooperate with them, to coordinate our efforts.
00:27:52 JACK GAINES
I was talking to the military liaison to India out here in D .C., and he was really interested in civil affairs and what we do, and I offered... Hey, you can always come on down to Fort Liberty and we'll give you a tour of what civil affairs training is, what our active duty forces are. But I also mentioned NATO. You guys have a center of excellence if he's ever interested in learning what civil affairs or CIMIC does at the NATO level.
00:28:20 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, and one of our projects that we are constantly running to enhance the interoperability between civil affairs and CIMIC by... exchanging personnel, having CA officers here at the CIMIC Center of Excellence, having people from us be at SWICC for liberty. We are running, for example, three times a year as EMPC, which is the European Mission Preparations Course, where people from our CIMIC Center of Excellence are going to the U .S. and train U .S. Army Reserve officers before they deploy to Europe.
00:28:58 JACK GAINES
Oh, cool. Yeah, that's super important. And the nice thing is, even in working with non -NATO members, is that if they ever have to engage NATO, whether they're European or South American, African, Asian, that gives a sense of commonality so that they have a place to start. So it's not so random that you're getting a call from a payphone saying, hey, by the way, we're doing this and it might impact guys or we need training. It gives interoperability to the external partners or people who just may end up getting involved because of an issue. So that's very helpful.
00:29:37 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, absolutely. And in addition, you may have to look into your register and already have an email address where you can talk to. Okay, cool.
00:29:47 JACK GAINES
Well, that's all I have. Do you have any last comments that you want to throw out there or any last thoughts?
00:29:51 JÖRG GRÖSSL
last thoughts? Just get your still. continuously working on expanding our network. For example, this year we had one of our officers in South Korea and contribute a civil military operation tabletop exercise with the Korean armed forces and the US forces over there. So we have the connection over the Atlantic. I'm frequently part of the NATO shipping working group. That is basically organized by the NATO shipping center and they're expanding their network also to South America. The last time we had personnel from Brazil and Argentina with us. Of course, we are not just working within the CIMIC environment, but we're also cooperating with other centers of excellence like the crisis management and disaster response exercise. The Maritime Security Center of Excellence, the Military Police Center of Excellence, and Military Medicine. There are a lot of them that we are cooperating on on various levels to put that all together in one piece. And let me come to the example of the Ukraine now. We have recently published our study on simic factors to be drawn from the Ukraine war. Of course, other centers of excellence did that as well. In addition, what we also do is try to develop CIMIC. For example, we establish CIMIC analysis and assessment capabilities to improve the understanding of the civil environment and to integrate them in the military picture.
00:31:33 JACK GAINES
Oh, yeah. You guys stay busy.
00:31:36 JÖRG GRÖSSL
Yeah, definitely. Definitely.
00:31:38 JACK GAINES
That's a good thing. It means that your work's important and... You guys have to stay on top of it in order to keep things flowing and the military not having issues. So that's fantastic. Okay, now I'm done. Okay, I'm done too. You have recorded all my thoughts. Oh, good. You can go home for the rest of the day.
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. One CA Podcast.
Tuesday Oct 08, 2024
Tuesday Oct 08, 2024
Today, Brian Hancock hosts Col. Jeffrey Fiddler to discuss his work helping manage the DOD response to the Gaza relief mission.
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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 Natalia Lafourcade for the sample of Tú Sí Sabes Quererme (En Manos de Los Macorinos). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABLT6hdgEek
---
Transcript
00:00:01 Introduction
Welcome to the 1CA podcast. 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 a 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 .com or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website. at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes.
00:00:34 BRIAN HANCOCK
I'm Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hancock and I will be your host for this session. Colonel Jeffrey Fidler is a civil affairs officer with 34 years, thank you sir, of combined enlisted and commissioned service. He has a master's degree in strategic studies and a master's and bachelor's degrees in criminal justice. On the civilian side, he is a career law enforcement officer. currently employed as a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security. Colonel Fidler, welcome to the show. Great to be here, Brian. Thanks for having me. So let's talk about Gaza. It's a man -made disaster. Of course, natural disasters are on the rise as well. This one happens to be a man -made disaster, and the toll is high. At present, 96 % of the population of the Gaza Strip, which is an estimated 2 .15 million people, are food insecure. Now, you went to that region. You're back. You probably have a view of this from multiple angles. Can you tell us a little bit about the U .S. response to this crisis?
00:01:38 JEFFREY FIDDLER
This was a complex operation. Yeah, no doubt. It involved a joint force across two different combatant commands. So you have Cyprus, which belongs to UCOM, AOR, and then you have Gaza, Israel, which falls under CENTCOM. And you have... IGOs out there, United Nations, UKAID, USAID, Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance, which is the most important one for us when it comes to HA, bringing all those actors, so to speak, together to form a coherent response. Like anything we do in civil affairs, it can be challenging at first.
00:02:15 BRIAN HANCOCK
But it's extra challenging because we're military. Many of these actors you just described... have a little bit of baggage when it comes to military, or they have neutrality requirements like the Red Cross that limits their ability to work with the military. If they don't understand civil affairs and what our role is and the heart we have for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and our sincere willingness to help, I mean, if we are mistaken for folks who want to take a, you know, shoot them up kind of approach, then that... would not make that an easy group to bring together as a coalition of the willing. There is definitely some baggage from the wars, right? Yeah. There is.
00:02:55 JEFFREY FIDDLER
There is. And we had the constraints. President made a decision. We're not going to have any boots on the ground. We follow orders of soldiers, right? So now you need partners on the back end. One thing the Army's always great at is logistic. So we can get a bunch of aid over there. And there'll be some friction getting it. Because you're dealing with civilian entities and organizations. There's always friction, but that's too easy. Really, the hardest part is once we get it on the beach, who's going to take it from there to deliver it to the people that are hungry? It's not going to be the U .S. military. And it's certainly not going to be really any military because you're dealing with organizations that can't necessarily work with a military organization. So it has to be civilian -led.
00:03:35 BRIAN HANCOCK
-led. And there can be mistakes if military forces of any branch are rolling in there. They may be seen as aggressors or a party to the conflict under the law of war. Very complicated. But getting supplies through there, tough. You're talking, you know, everyone with a gun is going to shake down an aid convoy coming through because that stuff is just worth its weight in gold right now. So you've got that complexity once it hits the beach. And obviously we want the humanitarian assistance to get to the needy who requires that sustenance to continue living. You've got a logistics hub, as I understood it, sitting there in Cyprus that was put together to do all of the loading and preparation. Then you're going out to CENTCOM, crossing a geographic combatant commander's boundary to set up this giant man -made dock amidst threats from some folks to attack this structure in what's kind of amounting to the Wild West. And then we have ARSEN, formerly Third Army in World War II. who's in charge of this mission. And then we have all these partners in the mix. You're being very humble, I think, but this sounds like a tough coalition to put together and get them all to work into a common purpose.
00:04:52 JEFFREY FIDDLER
It's not easy. Yeah. And I'll touch on that. I'm going to geek out for a second for all of our real civil affairs people. I'm going to talk about the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance. Yeah, BHA.
00:04:58 BRIAN HANCOCK
I'm going to talk
00:05:00 SPEAKER_00
Yeah, BHA.
00:05:02 JEFFREY FIDDLER
So you need a MITAM to get the HA. You need a consignee. in Cyprus to receive the goods. And that's easy.
00:05:10 BRIAN HANCOCK
The MITAB is a mission tasking matrix, kind of like a request from the host nation that you're providing support to saying, we need this type of thing here, there, which gets validated and vetted by the military.
00:05:23 JEFFREY FIDDLER
Yeah. And it allows the DOD to respond, to actually use a piece of equipment to bring non -DOD articles or something to somewhere else. So the DOD doesn't get the bill. So you need a consignee from my team on both ends. The hard part was, who's that consignee going to be? It's a clear chain of custody. It's a requirement. Absolutely. So the World Food Program stepped up to the plate. But back to one of your earlier points of not working with the military, and look, that's their charter. Us and the military might hate it, but that's just the way it is. And WFP made it quite clear there's not going to be a military flavor to this when they receive the goods over there. And that's important to understand. So really bringing in everybody so that we could all get on the same shoot of music.
00:05:43 BRIAN HANCOCK
a clear chain of custody. It's a requirement.
00:06:06 JEFFREY FIDDLER
bringing in everybody so that we could all get on the same shoot of music. One of the things that I'm proudest of, what we did for civil affairs is helping set up a multinational coordination center with the Cypriots. So when we first started it, there might've been 10 people at the table, Brian. By the time we left her at the height of the operation, it was about 50 people in a room from all these various organizations. And we made sure that the Cypriots were in the lead. It's their nation. Yeah, yeah. Sovereign nation. Yeah. Sovereign nation, which is a whole other point. And we could do a whole other podcast on that about how civil affairs operates over in Yukon. But Cypriots are in the lead. We're there to support them and their efforts. And it was something as simple as, you know, Major Alan Diggertullo, my CPI chief, he was down there with me. One of the things we did with Alan was he would liaison with the Cypriots,
00:06:34 BRIAN HANCOCK
Sovereign nation.
00:06:56 JEFFREY FIDDLER
create a PowerPoint slide of... talking points that we were going to discuss during the MNCC. And that might not seem like a big deal to members of the audience out there that are Army. But other militaries, they don't necessarily do that. We weren't trying to insert ourselves. We were just trying to come to a middle ground where everybody could have a common understanding of where we were going. Trying to help facilitate. Yeah, exactly. So a lot of the friction points were wicked out during the MNCC. And then once a week, we would host a multinational decision board. where we would bring in senior leaders. So I'm talking one -star admirals all the way up to four -star generals in the army, plus the ambassadors. So you have ambassador level ranked from the Cypriots, other countries that are visiting, and the United States there, where if we hit a roadblock where we couldn't get something done during the MNCC, which is really like a working group, then you bring in the senior leaders for them to make a decision or something for them to action. So I think that's what kind of lessened some of the friction that we had.
00:07:56 BRIAN HANCOCK
that we had. Yeah. Sometimes that can increase, too, when you have different equities, different political equities, different concerns coming together. And, of course, for the military, it's usually pretty short -term involvement in HADR. So you hit a couple of good roadblocks, and that could really derail the mission. And it's awesome to hear that you guys had to figure out a process and that apparently it largely worked to keep that moving forward and get that aid to the people who desperately needed it.
00:08:22 JEFFREY FIDDLER
needed it. It wasn't easy, but there was mistakes made along the way,
00:08:26 BRIAN HANCOCK
the way, for sure. Right. Mistakes don't define us. What we learn from them and how we pick up and carry on maybe does, but mistakes don't necessarily define us. Within the context of that, for the audience, we've kind of talked a lot about the Gaza mission. What was your specific role that you were assigned to?
00:08:44 JEFFREY FIDDLER
Sure. And this goes back to, like we talked about a little while ago. You got to be aggressive, figure it out. Like I talked about, Hilda Fernandez, you know, came down to the Pentagon to do a job. She didn't necessarily end up doing that job, but she did what was required to do as a civil affairs officer. So my job was to go down there and to be the U .S. Army, Europe, and Africa, Army element, OIC, and just strictly focus on Army -related issues to support the mission. That completely morphed as soon as I got there, and we fell under a joint task force. And there was a need for a strong civil affairs presence in the MNCC and operations in general and civil knowledge integration. So we immediately shifted gears. I ended up becoming the de facto XO of the JTF. So I was dual -hatted as the senior civil affairs officer for the operation and the XO. And Major DeGratulo was the CKI chief and one of the operations officers for the JTF. So it just turned into that and it worked for us. Okay.
00:09:46 BRIAN HANCOCK
Well, you brought some handpicked team members there, so I'm not surprised that they were able to adapt. I think that's one thing that really defines us as civil affairs professionals is that we're very adaptable in different environments. We don't bring just like one tool to the fight.
00:09:59 JEFFREY FIDDLER
Absolutely. I sometimes see that culture out there where it's like, hey, we're going to find a way to know. And one of the things that I appreciate about civil affairs, most of us have a mindset of let's find a way to yes and figure out the problem. For one example, both Alan and I went out to sea with the French Navy. That's not something I ever saw myself doing in civil affairs, but they wanted a liaison officer on the French warship to deliver aid. So we actually went within four miles of the shore of Gaza. And that was just to make sure the French Navy was comfortable, that they were able to talk to the U .S. Navy. They had an American officer on board. And, you know, we'd pull in, deliver the aid, and then leave. Did you do that under a French flag or were you international?
00:10:39 BRIAN HANCOCK
under a French flag or were you international? French flag. Sometimes they re -flag depending on the mission. So that's interesting. But you know, others in our community who might be involved in defense support to civil authorities, DISCA or humanitarian assistance disaster reef, HADR, what were some of the obstacles that you encountered in your mission in Gaza and how did you overcome them? Sure.
00:11:02 JEFFREY FIDDLER
Like I said earlier, the friction points, that was difficult at times. And you said it earlier, Brian, there are folks that have been doing this for 20, 30 years in the civilian world. I think baggage is the wrong word. I'm going to say scar tissue. And you need to recognize that. If you see that, you know, you as the civil affairs officers, you're going to take part in this and kind of, if you're going to take a leading role to make this thing work, you need to recognize that and allay their fears that you're going to do everything you can to protect the process that they use. They're not showing up to be difficult. They have a process like BHA. They have a process for MITAM. You don't want to go to the left or right of that because that's the way that they do their business. And I think it's one of our jobs as civil affairs to make sure that our military understands that process so that eventually the two can come to a way to yes of how we're going to get something across the finish line.
00:11:56 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah, that's awesome. In civil affairs, we get access to some specialty training like the Jayhawk, the Joint Humanitarian Assistance Operations Course. the hard course. And I'm not sure that the larger force, especially in the combat arms, that they necessarily broaden with these kinds of things. But it's really important when we're working for BHA, that's always in a support role. And if we're doing DISCA, again, always in a support role, we may feel we're large and in charge, but one, we're not because of the nature of the mission. And two, we're operating either the U .S. or abroad. And in this case, in a well -developed nation, that's sovereign. We also have some subordination to the host nation that we have to follow. And there are extra steps and things that we have to do here. But if we don't want to generate an international incident, you know, we have to take that seriously. And I think we're fortunate that we have some additional training, but I'm not sure everyone in DOD does. No, I don't think so.
00:12:50 JEFFREY FIDDLER
don't think so. I think there's, like you mentioned, the Jayhawk course, right? I mean, and then, Brian, if we really want to go down a rabbit hole, we could talk about NATO when it comes to CEMEC as a joint function. So we understand it, but we train in the G5s of the world or the G35s. People need to understand that. It's not like operating in Kuwait or Iraq as civil affairs operations. The way I look at it, we do CEMIC over here. And they should. And we have to work by with them through our CEMIC partners. But back to Cyprus, I would say the country, they get the ultimate vote. It's their country, their sovereign nation. And then you also have... People sometimes forget, you know, the U .S. ambassador has a huge vote. Yeah, he's a four -star. Yeah. For Cyprus, Ambassador Fisher worked with the ambassador. We had meetings with her a couple of times. She has a huge vote on what goes on and how it does go on. And we get it, right, as civil affairs. But if you don't operate in that kind of environment a lot, it can be challenging. And again, I go back to the Multinational Coordination Center, Multinational Decision Board. where you get all those stakeholders in the same room, that's where you can really make some money on that. And I'd be remiss of saying this. We had civil affairs folks from CENTCOM that actually came out from Kuwait. So Lieutenant Colonel Jeff Goulet, he showed up with his team and we worked very close together, Jeff and I. Great officer, worked really hard. So he was a big factor in our success out there. And I know everybody's read stuff in the paper. They can see the stats of what was delivered. When we talked about the challenges, one thing that we haven't mentioned is the weather. Right. So the weather gets a vote. Sea state. Yep. The sea state. Yep. It gets a vote. So, I mean, how many briefings have we been to, you and I, where the G2 gets up and speaks weather and everybody's half asleep, right? I've been the G2 delivering it and half asleep. So you know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah. So now finally the G2 can deliver a weather of what that actually matters. It's like right then and there. But in seriousness, you know, I'm not going to get into the particulars of what the Trident Pier can handle.
00:14:34 BRIAN HANCOCK
you know what I'm talking about, right? Yeah. So now finally
00:14:49 JEFFREY FIDDLER
But if you go over a certain sea state, it's not going to work. Right. It's like the Mulberry bases that we built as temporary ports after the Normandy landing,
00:14:53 BRIAN HANCOCK
Mulberry bases that we built as temporary ports after the Normandy landing, right? And one of them was sunk. Mulberry 8 is completely sunk. You saw the stuff in open source.
00:15:02 JEFFREY FIDDLER
saw the stuff in open source. We lost part of the Trident Pier. It's going to happen. You know, and commanders take risk, right? They're going to decide how they're going to push it and things happen. But we did get some HA across the pier. It just wasn't as much as we'd all like. A very tough problem set.
00:15:18 BRIAN HANCOCK
We hope that that resolves, you know, with minimal loss of life as soon as this is practicable. We've talked about some of the challenges, and what are some of the successes that you had in that mission, other than overcoming sunk peers and things like that?
00:15:32 JEFFREY FIDDLER
I think the big success for civil affairs was really the Multinational Coordination Center. And the relationships that we built with the Cypriots, they were just fabulous. So we had a full bird colonel out there, Colonel Sangridis. He's a lead for the Cypriots for this problem set. So we talked every morning. A good success that we had with that was he didn't have an aide. So we took a Marine Corps lieutenant, because this is all a joint, and he sat right next to the colonel from Cyprus, and he did all of his updates on the slide forum. He invited that Marine over his house to have dinner. They became very close, and it really helped move things along.
00:16:11 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. Relationships matter. Relationships do matter. And that was a sustained issue. You can't be issuing a demarche every time you want something done.
00:16:18 JEFFREY FIDDLER
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And he was the center of gravity. So he had access to emails from other countries that are coming in regarding HA that we were never going to be privy to. Again, this isn't a US -led operation. Cypriots are in the lead. We're in a supporting role. USAID was the ported. So those relationship building, the LNOs, things like that, that was successful. But the multinational center, that was really where we made our money.
00:16:44 BRIAN HANCOCK
All right. I'm going to ask you from the position of hindsight, what are some of the potential lessons learned from what we did? And in your opinion, the conflict continues and the need is still there. What do you think our next step should be?
00:16:59 JEFFREY FIDDLER
That's a tough one because we know the tried and peer doesn't exist anymore. I could see it transitioning into civilian. And I know that there was some talk about that, where you still bring in the humanitarian assistance to Cyprus, and then you put on civilian ships and you deliver it, whether it's to the port of Ashdod, or they build a temporary pier. I don't know if you remember this central kitchen. I do. They lost some people to fire. That was tough. That was a - Good people. You know, loss of life, good people, but a setback as well. That slowed down the whole process, and rightfully so, I get it. But they had built a temporary pier. near where we were before we even put in the Trident Pier. So that's how they were delivering food. So I think something like that might be a way. And I think really it's more political than military. I mean, I think the numbers wouldn't lie, Brian, that you can get more aid across the land border than could on a Trident Pier or whether you're doing airdrops. And what the DOD did between coming across the land border, airdrops, and we had the Trident Pier up and running, that was the most that we can physically do at the time.
00:17:24 BRIAN HANCOCK
was tough. That was a - Good people. You know, loss of life, good people, but a
00:18:04 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. And we don't have the math fully in front of us, but it is highly probable from a statistics point of view that there are some people who are now alive who may not have been alive if you and your team hadn't done this mission with the other partners. And yeah, a good news mission overall, of course, a tough topic.
00:18:22 JEFFREY FIDDLER
Yeah. And I think history repeats itself. So all those young CAO officers and NCOs that might be listening, this is something that you might see in your career.
00:18:30 BRIAN HANCOCK
And there'll be tough decisions that had to be made. By seeing some of the quality of some of the folks we have coming through the CA pipeline, I think they're going to be ready to make them. Yeah, absolutely. You finished the Gaza mission. Your tour to USARAF is coming to an end. What is next in the life of Colonel Jeffrey Fidler?
00:18:49 JEFFREY FIDDLER
So I was hired to be the J -9 for Security Assistance Group Ukraine. Great main effort here. So that's one piece of the puzzle. To take the tour, it's a mobilization. I'll need an MRD extension. So that paperwork is going to go in. If not, maybe I'll be the J9. Get an age extension. You're younger than me.
00:19:08 BRIAN HANCOCK
younger than me. I don't know. No, no, no. You're younger than me. If you can't get an age extension. Oh, it's a MRD, years of service. I'm going to have to wonder. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. But still, you're healthy. You're young.
00:19:16 JEFFREY FIDDLER
going to have to
00:19:21 JEFFREY FIDDLER
We'll see what happens. But we've been working with Ukraine Simic for some time now. We've also had our 38 golfs involved in the past on that. So I think we're on our fifth iteration of helping train Ukrainian Simic. And that's in conjunction with CJ Soda, your soft CA, so to speak. They're in the lead on that, but there is some expertise that we have in Compo 3.
00:19:47 BRIAN HANCOCK
You know, when we look at their functional specialty teams, not the same. We have different expertise with our golfs and our other capabilities. And soft are amazing, but there's only so many of them. So if you have a sustained function, and SIMIC as a joint function is something you have to always be doing, whether you're in conflict, crisis, or competition, right? So I would think that there would be a steady demand signal to augment them.
00:20:12 JEFFREY FIDDLER
There is. 38 golfs, like I said, Brian, we already sent some of those over. We also support one of their other programs is their medical training. So this gets into the whole trimmer piece. Ukrainian Simic, we teach them on first aid. We actually sent a full bird doctor from the KCOM. It was like one of the lead surgeons in New York City. So Ukraine Simic folks were just floored that this level of expertise is coming. But so were our soft folks. They were like, we want more like that. Just keep on sending more. They can't grow that.
00:20:42 BRIAN HANCOCK
that. They can't grow that.
00:20:42 JEFFREY FIDDLER
that. They can't grow that. And then with the 38 Golfs coming in with their background, whether it's infrastructure, governance. Skill rich. Super skill rich. And they came out. It's gotten so much to the point where they're actually paying for our travel, for Compo 3 to travel from the United States to wherever the training area is because they see value in what Compo 3 brings to the table. And I got to give a shout out to Colonel Tony Baja, retired. That's how he envisioned it. We executed it. Didn't take the foot off the gas pedal. Tony's like, hey, I think this is kind of the way we should go. And I said, yeah, that makes sense to me. And then we just drove it home for him. Awesome.
00:21:18 BRIAN HANCOCK
That worked out really well. And I myself might someday support one of your CIMIC trainings and some of the other folks out there. Great opportunity to work with some amazing people doing good things. So thank you so much. I appreciate it. Do you have any final remarks for the audience you want to pass on?
00:21:35 JEFFREY FIDDLER
No, it was great to be here. Stay on top of your PME. I'm going to throw my old Brigade Commander hat on for a minute. Oh, yeah. There's never a good time to do ILE, ever. So as soon as you get promoted, yeah, you just got to get it done.
00:21:49 BRIAN HANCOCK
Bite the bullet and go. High grade won't get you promoted in ILE, but if you don't do it, you will definitely not be promoted. So it's important.
00:21:57 JEFFREY FIDDLER
I have an old saying, no major left behind, but there are lieutenant colonels left behind if you don't get ILE done. That's for sure.
00:22:04 BRIAN HANCOCK
for sure. All right. Thank you for your time, sir. Really appreciate it. And that's a wrap. All right. Great. Thanks, Brian.
00:22:12 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. Stay tuned for more great episodes. 1CA Podcast.
Tuesday Oct 01, 2024
Tuesday Oct 01, 2024
In this episode, Mariah Yager is interviewing David Luna and Jack Gaines as they discuss how adversaries use criminality to achieve their foreign policy goals while removing U.S. influence and capability.
The interview is based on a presentation at SMA (Strategic Multilayer Assessment), an online Pentagon forum. Link to the show and resources: https://nsiteam.com/smaspeakerseries_22august2024/
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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 the Epidemic Blues channel for the sample of Peter Crosby - Jailhouse Blues. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuyc-bIjQ10
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Transcript
00:00:06 Introduction
Welcome to the 1CA Podcast, 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 .com or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website. at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes.
00:00:39 MARIAH YAGER
Hi, everyone. I'm Mariah Yeager, and welcome to today's guest, David Luna, the founder of International Coalition Against Illicit Economies. Prior to ICAIE, David Luna was the Senior Director for International Security and Diplomacy at the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement. He focused on strengthening international cooperation and fighting threat to illicit networks. And David also helped launch the Organization for Economic Coordination and Development Task Force on Countering Illicit Trade. But with that, Mr. Luna, I'd like to hand the floor over to you.
00:01:11 DAVID LUNA
Thank you very much Mariah and Jack. It is great to be here to participate about the radar warfare in grey zones related to China and Russia, manipulating instability through co -option and coercive economics, including by weaponizing corruption. including election interference, as Secretary Blinken has underscored in recent months, elicit financial flows to support pro -authoritarian candidates that advance malign influence and that exploit governance gaps to secure friendly policies, while harming our U .S. national interests. This also includes the leveraging of criminal networks, proxies, and professional enablers. to advance policies to construct a multipolar world, exploiting grey zones in the process from small islands in the Asia -Pacific region to fragile democracies in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Europe. The United States remains unprepared for irregular warfare. China, Iran, and Russia continue to seek to undercut U .S. influence. They degrade American relationships with key allies and partners. and to exploit the global environment to their advantage, including by exploiting instruments of competition, strategic corruption, blind influence operations, terrorism, sabotage, and subversion through asymmetrical and clandestine efforts. And so we can dictate the costs related to these hostile actions by effectively prosecuting the strategic use of corruption. and predatory criminality by adversaries across race zones to ensure that democracy reigns over authoritarianism. Greaterly the rule of law and international -based systems must outlive targeted chaos, abversion, and malign influence. I think that we must use such current and horizontal threats to repressive threat convergence so that we can develop actional responses to counter illegality. that is corroding the rule of law and interconnected with the threats networks. Through this framework, I firmly believe that we can better help DOD, the intelligence community, the interagency community, our combatant commanders, and our warfighters to understand the threat and to equip them with pragmatic resource sustain, irregular warfare tools, and anti -crime capabilities. The Department of Defense and our interagency partners to develop more dynamic NASA security military strategies and to get ahead of the game in planning for future irregular warfare campaigns, using these innovative capabilities to expand the competitive space to the U .S. advantage of their allies. A few months ago, I had the distinct pleasure of delivering the keynote address at a meeting hosted by the Department of Defense. Office for Special Operations, as well as the Cali Narcotics and Cali Transnational Organized Crime Program. At that time, I focused more on criminal networks, and I would like to expand on that discussion. I've been focusing more on the policy actions that I believe are needed and that must be integrated into greater warfare strategies. Last month, the Office of the Director for National Intelligence released a brief report. entitled Conflict and the Gray Zones, highlighting non -relations, will increasingly feature an array of hostile gray zones activities. As China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia seek to challenge the United States and to gain advantage over other countries through deliberate campaigns while also trying to avoid war. These gray zones are more often than unexploited in places where corruption thrives. Criminals finance chaos, impunity, and insecurity. So I will focus again on some of these reasons to give you a better understanding how some of these adversaries are leveraging illicit criminal activities, using climate grids, using organized criminals, and other proxies to promote authoritarianism and weaken democracies. erode institutions and undermine the rule of law and global order. Russia and Iran and China continually work to gain access and gain control over strategic locations, critical minerals, ports, and other infrastructure, with the aim of becoming board operating bases for their military forces and intelligence agencies. The islands in the Pacific Rim have become a challenge in recent years that has corroded American influence in these countries and, of course, more globally. We continue to work across sectors with cutting edge research to help map these threat networks, to help the United States and its allies to really understand today's threat environment, to see the interconnections of illicit vectors. to pinpoint nodes of crime convergence, identify those gray zones that are being exploited by some of these malign state actors, and to track illicit rude supply chains and illicit financial flows that enable authoritarians to weaken democracies. So we hope that these challenges or relays will drive further analyses and investigations to disrupt illicit threat networks and their...
00:07:10 MARIAH YAGER
Hey, David, thank you so much. The Criminality Index, how were those calculated? How did that data come together?
00:07:19 DAVID LUNA
This is the Organized Crime Index that was developed by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. Without getting too much in the weeds of their methodology, they do look at various baskets of data sets from different international organizations. different governments to share more of their methodology.
00:07:41 MARIAH YAGER
And on that, I did post your white paper that you mentioned, and then these slides and your remarks, so everyone can look through the different sources. I mean, there's just some great resources there, from ACLED to some of the track stuff, so I will get those available.
00:07:57 DAVID LUNA
And we also emphasize that despite many successes within the law enforcement community, Global criminality and corruption has expanded greatly today compared to even a decade ago. Illicit entrepreneurial networks collectively continue to exploit the lucrative illicit economies, which, according to some estimates, are between 7 % to 15 % of the world's economy, or up to $20 trillion a year. They really go towards criminal networks. and they contribute to expanding these illicit economies. $20 trillion a year, that is staggering. Equally concerning, adversaries such as Russia, China, Iran, underwrite armed conflicts and malign operations against Western democracies and free markets. Among the reason local conflicts no longer end is that they are supported by illicit threat networks. For example, paramilitary groups supported by criminal opportunists, profit -driven, illicit companies who exploit conflict, and instability to expand criminal economies. In fact, rampant corruption and the violence wrought by organized criminals and terrorist networks help to soften the conditions for insecurity that are exploited to weaken other fragile governments. The state capture aided by criminality and strategic use of corruption results in democracies sliding into optocracies and through proxies helped to start and expand conflicts of regional insecurity. For example, if we look at Russia's Wagner group, who had assisted in a series of coups in Africa that had brought some lundas to power or enabled further optocracies to raid. In exchange, Proxies now rod global high -value commodities in those countries and allow for autocrats to remain in power. In the Central African Republic, Wagner's successors continue to employ active measures to disrupt African efforts to move their countries from violent conflict to stability by moving money and weapons around the continent through an intricate web of shell companies and through criminal networks that specialize in illicit trafficking and legal trading. and sanctions busting. What results is chaos, furthering the corruptive influence of extremist insurgencies in many cases, or regime protection of authoritarians who have faced sanctions and condemnations, including for their human rights abuses. Some of the dirty money that is derived by Russian mercenaries in Africa have helped Russia bypass global sanctions to fund its war in Ukraine, or to support political upheavals. paramilitary misadventures in the Middle East, the Balkans, and forward Soviet republics. Inland America, Russian proxies are selling some of the more advanced surveillance technologies to state and non -state actors across the hemisphere, greatly enhancing their ability to monitor and attack political enemies, law enforcement, officials, anyone else that they perceive as a threat. And as many experts correctly pointed out, Russia remains a criminalized state, led by a ruthless and thugish godfather. In fact, the Russian mafia is an extension of the Putin regime in advancing Russia's national interests overseas, and as an instrument of power operating in the shadows, elicit facilitators, super -fixers to other criminal networks. Russian cybercriminals not only penetrate businesses, it steals. trade secrets and bonds, but also to launch cyberattacks against enemies of the Gremlin. The Siloviki, too, may be asked to engage in kidnappings or assassinations on behalf of their masters in Moscow. Finally, one last point related to Russia. While annexation of Crimea and the recent invasion of Ukraine have significantly affected regionalized economies, Russian criminal networks continue to aid Russian intelligence and special forces in smuggling needed weapons and technology. Obviously, this undermines Western sanctions and transport bans for highly sought consumer goods and helps to londer the assets of Russian countergrants and oligarchs in places like Dubai, London, New York, and Western capitals. Now let me focus for a few minutes on the bigger threat. China. According to FBI Director Christopher Wray, China has become the biggest threat to our national security and to the homeland. This is not because of the global ambitions and active involvement of transnational crimes, but also through political interference operations. China's involvement in expanding illicit economies around the world has a triple whammy effect. Yet, first of all, it increases tremendous illicit wealth. hurts U .S. national security, American competitiveness, and innovation. Finances showing this ambition to become the predominant superpower by 2049. President Xi has openly stated, he would like China to become that predominant power. Through our research and through other institutions like the Terrorism Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, the CCP has leveraged corruption, illicit markets, Predatory crime to become the world's largest player in almost every sector of transnational crime, including counterfeits, trafficking of weapons, humans, wildlife, illegally harvest timber, fish, natural resources, the theft of IP, and trade secrets, illicit tobacco, organ harvesting, and other crimes. Several trillion U .S. dollars in the list of proceeds every year are generated from productive fences for money laundering that touch China's jurisdictions and markets and are often used to finance China's authoritarian regime. According to our ICAO research, China may very well be the biggest money laundering hub in the world. So, on so many fronts, China poses a serious geopolitical and organized criminal threat. Given its proximity to make money on crime and laundering dirty monies for drug cartels or other counterparts, terrorists, sanctioned rogue states, and other pariahs, China has also helped Russia, Iran, and others evade international sanctions, including on oil exports. threats will continue to garner more attention across different illicit industries driven by China as they continue to expand across the developing world. In Latin America and in Panama, for example, China is leveraging bribery of government officials to win concessions to control the port and other critical infrastructure along the Panama Canal. Alarmingly, China already controls or operates in more than 40 ports across Latin America. In many of these ports, the Chinese triads are also quite active. As the former Salcom commander testified a few years ago, China continues to be the number one underwriter for the Mexican drug cartels and other criminal networks. In Venezuela, China is firmly supported to corrupt the Jura regime. not only because of its access and investment in the oil sector, but because it truly is a strategic partner to counter American influence. If we look at Canada in recent years, it has become a crime convergence zone, a foreign operation pump for some of the most notorious criminal networks, including for the Mexican cartels, the Chinese syndicates, and for Hezbollah financial. If we were to look at the so -called CCP police stations in North America, as certain investigative journalists have done in recent months, we have a nexus of PRC intelligence services operators converging with local Chinese triads, often with syndicates. Such police stations are physically and mentally projecting Beijing's political power. They are connected to... underground, casinos, human trafficking, and other illicit trade. And again, find the uses of triads to foment insecurity and illegality of democracies, including through diasporic communities. Through economic coercion, China is also buying highlands across the Caribbean, for example, in Antigua and Barbuda, building special economic zones, and likely planning to use these commercial outposts for military purposes. As we know, in the U .S. Indo -Pacific Command Theater, BRC efforts have destabilized, for example, the Solomon Islands, undermined democracy in the northern Mariana Islands and other Pacific Rim Islands. As democracy weakens across the Pacific Rim Islands, China pounces and expands its influence through strategic corruption to advance their multi -polar agenda. We see the Chinese with a lot of influence as well in Myanmar as they work with the junta to build fentanyl factories, which again helps to fund more global online influence for CCP Inc. And China continues to build military bases on several islands, for example in the spread of the islands in the south, which contravene international law. These opposed bases and airfields continue to expand the offensive capability of China beyond their continental shores to gain control over disputed territories. In fact, one can argue that China's Belt and Road Initiative, the BRI, is intended to finance economic, trade, and military expansion all around the world, and as a result of the BRI. No -ling sectocrats continue to just simply align their pockets and continue to provide China with the global footprint to again expand their multi -polar agenda. If you were to overlay the BRI with some of these jurisdictions with high corruption, with democracy, as well as organized crime, you see that the Chinese tribes are always behind the expansion policies of China. So it's this confluence of social security interests. We're ensuring that Russia and Iran continue to strengthen intelligence, military ties to weak and democratic institutions, expand illicit economies, and bolster autocratic governance around the world.
00:19:05 MARIAH YAGER
What do you see as the most promising way forward? Specifically, do you see as a significant part of the solution, implementation of the 2023? DoD's strategy for operations in the information environment, which argues for a whole of government's integrated campaign across the competition continuum, which includes the gray zone.
00:19:25 DAVID LUNA
Yeah, I think it's all of that, frankly. I do think we need our intelligence community needs to really look more closely these overlays as well. To be able to articulate the interconnections, corruption, money, laundry, crime. We got to understand a panorama to be able to breathe the U .S. Congress to have more resources, right? It is about more resources to build capacities as well. Economic development, you know, and again, I mentioned the G7 initiative, but I don't think it's been funded. I could be wrong, but not more than 10, 15%. Whereas China is investing hundreds of billions of dollars all over the world. Not only through the strategic use of corruption and bribing collective grads, but in developing some of their critical infrastructure, which, again, they're able to have access and control not only for themselves, but other aligned authoritarian guard guards and their criminal network proxies. So resources, I think, is very important. But we need to get Congress to really see these interconnections a little bit more strategically. So what do we do about this? We must innovate, no doubt. We must ensure a more anticipatory approach. So we need to really underscore the importance of sharing threat intelligence in a timely manner to mitigate these harms. We must also make sure that we devote the requisite investments necessary to counter these collective transnational security networks. We might want to consider... Developing an interagency or even a Department of Defense of regular warfare special action teams to counter malign influence and strategic transnational threats so that we can stabilize and countering such malign influence. These could be rapid response strike forces. Again, there will be developed to investigate and prosecute these webs of foreign bribery, strategic corruption, and cross -border criminality to ensure that we reinforce the rule of law in our partner nations. In closing these data sets and overlaying, we do begin to see the interconnections of various threats. I think it does become very important. to develop these more innovative irregular warfare frameworks to counter strategic corruption and criminality.
00:22:02 MARIAH YAGER
Assuming that local and national level law enforcement and regulatory agencies are the first line of detection and defense against these gray zone illicit activities, how might we better integrate those to get a better picture of the totality of the methods to disrupt those activities?
00:22:19 DAVID LUNA
Our U .S. embassies, a lot of them have law enforcement working groups. I mentioned the need for these special action teams to counter malign influence and strategic use of corruption as well by helping our partners in some of these nations to be able to investigate not only corruption, but to prosecute, to be able to track the corrupt payments that they receive to enable China, for example, to have more access and control. And then Jack gave this a good opportunity to talk a little bit more about an idea that we had been brainstorming with others on these special action teams. Jack?
00:23:00 JACK GAINES
I'm here. The white paper describes a minimum viable product for how the National Guard and the service reserves can further help U .S. and partner nation law enforcement counter adversaries and malign competitors to work to diminish U .S. and international rule of law and advance their nation's foreign policy goals. builds off of current Title 10 and 32 operations to support law enforcement. It just expands their reach and capability. The paper highlights areas where the Guard and Reserve could bring in professional specialties to expand law enforcement operations. Everything from investigations to prosecutions by creating special action teams that work directly for a law enforcement lead. It's very similar to a law enforcement special supervisory agent working at an agency, having teams of investigators and agents working on different cases. But in this scenario, the law enforcement lead would have guard and reserve teams built to support the investigations. And that would be in helping our partners and allies in the U .S. territories defend against state -sponsored criminality. For example, if an agent needs a financial fraud investigator or multiple investigators, The Guard and Reserve have them. An agent needs building evidence packets. Same thing. We have specialists that do that. These skills are available all the way after bringing in federal judges and attorney generals who can consult on judicial processes or even coordinate outreach to support a case. And these skills are available because the Guard and Reserves bring in people with these skills from their civilian careers. And I get it. Once they're in uniform, they're soldiers. More often than not, the military takes people with specialized civilian skills and asks them to use those skills for supporting a mission. In my civil affairs command, an assistant district attorney, he is working in Europe, working on special legal matters that only his civilian skills could have brought to the fight. And the paper recommends using those types of skills to help law enforcement because they're overwhelmed right now by adversaries using criminality. to expand their work, and to better counter the current threat.
00:25:13 MARIAH YAGER
So regarding the proposed framework, how does this differ from the existing organized crime drug enforcement task forces that are multi -agency, investigator -led, intel -driven efforts?
00:25:25 DAVID LUNA
This would reinforce some of these other mechanisms, some of the other testers, but it's an opportunity to leverage the great expertise and skills of the reserve, as Jack was talking about. but to specifically focus on malign influence networks. It means strategic hotspots. But the Pacific Islands, for example, I think we need to be expanding more resources and having these more strategic teams that includes law enforcement. But again, this whole government approach, whole society, leveraging State Department, leveraging USA. and others to be able to strengthen the capacities, to be able to resist the economic coercion by China, Russia, Iran, and others.
00:26:17 JACK GAINES
Hey, David, can I jump in for a second? Yes, of course. Okay. The special action teams are different than what we already have at the Jayad of Sinjiktik because they would be able to work on ground as their military. So they could go to the embassies, they could go into the field. They could do narcotics monitoring or reporting. They could do intelligence sharing with partner nations. They could go work with the foreign security officers. They can work with the military liaison on actually working with partner nations law enforcement on building prosecution packets, investigative efforts, international law issues. For Title 32 example, the Marianas right now, the governor is asking for help with investigations and prosecutions against the PRC. as well as by the locals who are enabling folks from China coming in and slipping over to Guam. He does not have the resources. He is asking for help. And by bringing him National Guard members who are everything from agents to special agents to financial fraud, criminal investigators, and maritime security, it would build up his ability to slow or even stop criminal encroachment into the Marianas and then make it harder for China to then forward its goals of causing the Marianas to vote out people like the governor, bringing people that are PRC -friendly, and then shifting the whole region away from the United States over to the PRC orbit.
00:27:43 MARIAH YAGER
To add on that, does your concept for the special action teams include follow -up stability activities to actually replace what we seek to disrupt or eliminate?
00:27:52 JACK GAINES
A few years ago, I'd sent a recommendation for CJTF Horn of Africa to build a law enforcement task force. And it was a combination of military and law enforcement leads coming into the Order of Africa, specifically focused on that issue of once we pull out an illicit network, how do we build in reforms so that those actors cannot come back? Or if a nation had a coup and they threw out a dictator that was also an oligarch or an autocrat that was stealing all the resources, how do we bring in teams that can support? building in reforms and legal checks and balances so that nation can represent the people and the economy. There are forms of doing that. By civil affairs background, I usually defer to the people who do stability operations and transition operations.
00:28:42 MARIAH YAGER
Thank you. This idea of corruption being one of the center issues just resonates so much about China and their activities in South and Central America, their roles. And how are they exacerbating and taking advantage of the situation? And a lot of it tends to come back to corruption. And so if you were to want some of these anti -corruption measures, what specifically you might recommend?
00:29:12 DAVID LUNA
Yeah, we have to be doing more investigations. We've got to be tracking more of the cryptocratic assets, especially since this is where Russia or China are providing. Some of these fragile democracies are even more, you know, top scenes, right? Given the scale of DOD and its resources, working across the interagency to make anti -corruption a higher priority in this very complex environment and not only DOD, but the intelligence community and encourage the intelligence community to look at the strategic overlays of corruption money laundering.
00:29:48 JACK GAINES
Here's a very specific. Example, this came from Cleo Pascal, who writes for Freedom for Democracies and submitted a paper to the Air University on the Marianas. And basically, her investigation found that the Chinese citizens enjoy visa -free travel to the Marianas, which is a U .S. territory. So they take direct flights from Hong Kong, come into the Marianas without a visa, and then they disappear. Some of them show up in the Solomons. Some of them show up in Guam. Some of them disappear into the casinos, and then they are later arrested for walking on the military base, found in criminal networks, working drug shipments through U .S. postal systems, or working in political influence and using money to bribe people or support pro -PRC political parties. A lot of them get into Cuba trafficking. A lot of them get into casinos for money laundering. They're using that poorest border to gain access. And then they're going into the southern islands and they're using drugs and gambling and money laundering and human trafficking to build cash that they give to politicians that support the PRC or don't necessarily have a position at all. They groom them. They use propaganda and campaigns to get them elected. And then, like in the Solomons, suddenly they start shifting away from the U .S. orbit into more PRC -favorable ones, which, as a result, Solomons no longer allows Coast Guard to port. They don't even allow the Peace Corps to come in. So that's what we're talking about, is that flow of people that becomes criminality, and then that supports the political regime change from within.
00:31:31 DAVID LUNA
Canada is being decimated by Chinese law firm, not only by the Chinese state. by the triads just harassing, doing hostile actions to corrupt and destabilize Canada, to divide Canada from the U .S. So this is happening in other places as well, but we should be looking more closely at what China and other authoritarian states are doing in Canada.
00:32:00 MARIAH YAGER
All right. I wanted to get into lawfare. How are we looking at the use of lawfare? as part of this and maybe where does that fit within DOD?
00:32:10 JACK GAINES
Most of what we're promoting here is what's considered defense lawfare. Investigating, prosecuting, adversarial actions through criminality. There are offensive lawfare techniques. Say we want to target South Sudan because the leader is a criminal. All he does is create chaos and conflict and steal the resource to make money. An offensive lawfare option would be to map his illicit money that's hidden in Western banks in case he ever gets a coup against him and loses his power. To map that money and then go in and start negotiating with him for either him to have a peaceful, free, fair election and then transition out. Or we take the money and we stop him from doing any future types of banking with the Western nations. So it's that type of reverse extortion, as I call it. the types of lawfare operations that can happen. I can't tell you if they have or not. I know that Angola's former dictator, when he left power, there were agreements that part of the money that he had stolen would go back towards NGOs to build up a more representative democracy and check some balances in that country. So there are ways to go at it. We can discuss that at another time.
00:33:25 DAVID LUNA
If you look at the website of the U .S. Chamber of Commerce, These sovereign wealth funds, who are often associated with some of these authoritarian states, are abusing American courts to be able to harass our corporations, to use discovery as well, to obtain IP and sensitive trade information as well.
00:33:48 MARIAH YAGER
All right. Thank you for addressing those last couple of points. I really appreciate that. So to our audience, thank you so much for joining us today. And I posted the white paper, the slides. So, Ms. Julina, thank you so much for joining us today. And thank you.
00:34:05 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. Stay tuned for more great episodes. One CA Podcast.
Tuesday Sep 24, 2024
Tuesday Sep 24, 2024
Today, we welcome back the author, actor, public speaker, Ret. Lt Colonel Scott Mann to discuss his new book "Nobody is Coming to Save You" https://scottmann.com/
The website Nobody is Coming to Save You is a practical guide for leaders who want to make a bigger impact in the world now. It distills what I’ve learned over my three-decade career as a Green Beret into strategies you can use to lead others through hard change. These are the same tactics Green Berets use to get vital stuff done when stakes are high and conditions impossible. You’ll also learn about human behavior, strategic influence and dynamic storytelling because relationships are rocket fuel for getting big sh*t done.
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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 Ahimsaz for the sample of “Shahamat." Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wmoH-fHhwQ
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Transcript
00:00:01 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 .com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes. Please welcome retired Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann.
00:00:39 JACK GAINES
As a Green Beret, Scott designed and led the local village stability operations program in Afghanistan. After leaving the military, he began to focus on using his experience with the struggle of transition from a fast -paced, high -risk lifestyle to civilian world of work and family. As a result, he launched Hero's Journey to help other service members, first responders, and their families cope with post -crisis trauma through storytelling. Scott also wrote and featured in the play and film Last Man Out, which portrays the impacts of war on our veterans and their families. Additionally, after Kabul fell to the Taliban, Scott and others launched Task Force Pineapple Express to help Afghan partners leave the country. Scott has made three appearances on TEDx to discuss his work with veterans and first responders and is now announcing his new book, No One is Coming to Save You, which will be released in October. So enjoy. Your book is coming out. It is. In October, right? October 1. October 1. It's a great book. I really liked how you took the turn. This is a lot of different things that the ESM would diagnose as issues with. adaptability, with coping skills, general anxiety, you were able to successfully build them down into a thing you call the churn. And that's really, really helpful because if I told somebody they have a bipolar and anxiety complexity disorder, they'd be like, what in the hell are you talking about? But if you say you're stuck in the churn, which is a culmination of all these different types of things they're struggling with. you created an object, you gave it a name, and it gave them a way for people's minds to focus on that and identify it. And then by doing that, preying on how to separate themselves from the churn and give themselves a break, give themselves some air so that they can recover a little bit. Because with any kind of condition that people are struggling with, they have to learn how to separate themselves from it in order to grow, to heal.
00:02:45 SCOTT MANN
Yeah, it's well said. And the thing is, I've been working on the book for years, and most of the books I've written have been either about Afghanistan or they've been about veteran transition. And a lot of folks have been after me to write a nonfiction, story -based, narrative -based book on how did we do Pineapple? How did we do Last Out? Because I don't have a title. I don't have authority. I don't have a lot of resources. Yet those were strategically impactful things, just like DSO. How did I do that? And so I decided to write a book, a very quick read, called Nobody's Coming to Save You. which was the rally cry in most SFA camps throughout history, but you can still get big shit done. And this is what this is. It's kind of a guide to getting big shit done. And to your point about the churn, the thing is, and this is Ivan Tyrrell again, he says that the brain is a metaphorical pattern matching organ and it has a mandate to make sense of the world. So metaphor and story is how the brain makes sense, right? And this is another reason that we want to be storytellers. And what I found is, for example, The Democrat or Republican sitting across from you at the holiday dinner table is not the enemy. The person that cuts you off in traffic is not the enemy. The person who wears a mask or doesn't wear a mask and points their finger at you is not the enemy. The person on LinkedIn that disagrees with your political opinion is not the enemy. The churn is the enemy. And I characterize the churn as the antagonist in this book. It is both an external and internal condition within our civil society that is novel and new. And it's something that we just have not faced as a country until the last five, 10 years. And we see versions of the churn over in Afghanistan, in Iraq, where tribal dynamics at play in groups and out groups. And you've also got your own internal resistance that you're dealing with. And that's just the nature of being in that roiling, churning environment. But it's weird to see it here in the United States, where we are supposed to be a society of abundance and rule of law. And out of many come one. And much of that has fallen away. And it was in that dark period of my transition that I saw, wow, there's a churn right here at home. And as Sebastian Younger says, most combat veterans are willing to die for their country, but they have no idea how to live for it because it's hard to know how to live for a country that's tearing itself apart along every imaginable line from race to economics to religion. And that is my assessment, the churn and that division, that distrust, that disengagement. As humans, we have an obsession for imitation. Back in the traditional world, we imitated animals when we thought animal pelts. Well, now we're obsessed with imitating machines. And the left hemisphere of our brain is obsessed with control while the right hemisphere is obsessed with the connection to the natural world. And the left has always worked for the right. But according to a lot of neuroscientists, it's flipped because of these things. We've become so obsessed with this represented reality that we've lost our connection to the natural world. And so my book starts off by framing the enemy. That's the first special ops imperative. Always understand your operational environment. Well, our operational environment has changed. What got us here is not going to get us there. So I take about one third of the book to lay out, look, your operating environment is different. And it's not just about transitioning from military to civilian. The civil society we live in. is different externally and internally. And if you don't know that, then you are at risk of being lured into shadow tribalism and a range of other things. If you do know it, the antibody to it is an understanding and appreciation of the human operating system. Another metaphor I use is the iceberg, right? So you've got the iceberg versus the churn and getting below the waterline of that iceberg part you can't see. That's where the innate human realities reside that we can leverage.
00:06:32 SCOTT MANN
storytelling, empathy, active listening, breath, a range of things that are available to us. They're innate. They're already in us. Our ancestors knew, but we need to access them in a new way with an improved understanding of how our environment has changed so that we can lead with those things. And the cool thing is, and I'll end on this for this question, is that that's available to all of us, whether you're working in diplomacy right now, whether you're working in civil affairs right now, or whether you are transitioned and you're trying to just lead your family, most people are victims of the churn. And if you have a language and a grammar for it, and if you have an understanding of the human operating system and a practicality and how you can engage using old school or personal skills, you can lead your way pretty much out of anything without a time.
00:07:20 JACK GAINES
One brilliant point you had in there was that the person on the social media that's Leaving comments is not your enemy. A person who cuts you off is not your enemy. Because if you are stuck in a churn, it triggers that they are the enemy because it's your natural instinct that they've wronged you and you have to defend yourself. So by separating the person from that sense, you can back away from potential fights, road rage, getting arrested. It does. Yeah.
00:07:50 SCOTT MANN
And all of that could happen. Think about how we're trained in these rough places around the world to respond, and the responses that have been ingrained in us are not necessarily appropriate for responses in our civil society here at home. Yet, the way in which our body physiologically responds, it goes into a trance state. We enter a sympathetic state of fight, flight, or freeze. Our bodies have been preconditioned to fight. Our bodies have been preconditioned to lean into the problem in a very aggressive way, for example. And that's a primal response that has been infused with training. Okay. Well, here, if you're watching your 401k erode over six months, kind of response that we were trained to do is not appropriate. Is to go burn down the hedge fund. Yeah. The reality is, so what's actually happening there is that trance state that Ivan Terrell talks about. We all go into it. A trance state is just a state of hyper -focus. And the churn has created these conditions all around us where people are in it all the time. And when you go into a trance state and get a secondary emotion of anger, anger makes you stupid. Anger reduces your higher intelligence functions. You can't look with a shared perspective. You're trying to survive. And so what are we going to do for those of us who have trained a certain way? It's not good. And so we have to manage our energy. We have to manage the energy in the room. And it starts, I believe, when emotions are low by reading about and learning about the charm that's out there and this human operating system that's old and primal within us and is going to act on us one way or the other. And the more that we can appreciate the human operating system and reconnect to it, the more we can manage our own energy in a possible way within this new context that we live in. and be the most relevant, relatable person in the room. Those skills that we learned in the military all of a sudden truly then become very relevant. But if we can't manage the churn or read it for what it is and then manage our energy and those around us, we will be a pawn for the divisionist leaders that are out there just like everybody else.
00:10:09 JACK GAINES
That's a great point. That churn of feeling like it's coming at you from every angle. allows people who do work in information and influence to then say, okay, you're all wound up. Here's the bad guy. And then have them lunge at that person or that issue and explode all that energy that they've been building up on a problem. It goes after what I want them to do versus them thinking through an issue and actually coming up with their own position, either agreeing or dissenting on what I want.
00:10:37 SCOTT MANN
It's a very good definition of what I call divisionist leaders in the book. It's at a basic level that the civil society we live in here in the West is based on the individual. The individual is above the group. Well, in most places of the world and where we all come from, the group is above the individual. Status society is where we all come from. Just like any other mammal, it's for the good of the group because it's the only way you can acquire resources, maintain resources, find a mate. It's all within your circle, your tribe, your quam. And the group is above the individual. Well, in America and other places, we put the individual above the group. That's not a natural state of affairs. Which is why cults are so popular. Yes. And it's also why leadership is so essential and why a lot of social scientists say that you need for a democracy or a republic to survive that way. You need social capital where you have faith in each other and trust as neighbors. You need institutions that you can. have trust in and then you need stories that you tell each other and the outside world that you believe in right how are we doing on that we are really struggling with all of those so as a result they've abandoned that stewardship of bridging and then instead they practice this divisionist approach where they foment instability from the president all the way down both parties to meet their own narrow agenda social media engineers Instagram and Facebook create algorithms that are designed to encourage us to share negative fear -based information about outgroups because they've done the studies and they know that we will share information faster if it's negative information about an outgroup. So in other words, you have engineers that have done deep research on in -group, out -group, tribal dynamics, and then they're using it. You orchestrate algorithms that will leverage in -group, out -group behavior. Now, that to me is insidious. That is a divisionist approach that is practiced in 24 -7 news. It's practiced in politics. It's practiced in social media. And if we're not careful as humans who are just moving along our day, we will enter into this represented world. It's not reality. It's a represented reality. It's not the natural world. And that world is their world. 24 -7 news is the world of the divisionist. It's not an even plank. And so it's so easy to just get sucked into that trance state where the primal condition visits you, and all of a sudden, you're just as tribal as anybody, and you are dealing with contempt and moral superiority. That's the two things you always want to use as an indicator. Am I demonstrating contempt that I would normally reserve for enemies, and am I demonstrating rigidity and moral superiority? If you are, you are likely in a trance state and you've likely been mobilized. And so the book takes some time in the beginning to equip us with this grammar, with this framework, so that then you can step into that arena reconfigured for how you lead yourself and how you lead other people in these times that we live in and still get big shit done.
00:13:55 JACK GAINES
The second half of the book is more of how to use the tools. to then go out and battle those issues. Simple things like how to do introductions, how to tell a story. One of the real gems of this book is the seven -act storytelling guide that you built because it goes down every step of how to tell a story from the beginning to drawing people in and how you use details, how you set up the issue, how you set up the solutions and what the future looks like. And it's something that's not often written about. Here people say storytelling is very important and they go to a story, but they don't really break down how you do that. Right. Well,
00:14:36 SCOTT MANN
let me ask you this, Jack. Been around the game a long time, right? Yes, I am that old. But how would you characterize introductions in the world of the audience that you speak to on this podcast? Typically, when people introduce people from the stage, when they introduce them at mixers, I've been very underwhelmed by how we introduce humans to humans. But I'm curious on your thoughts on it. Yes.
00:15:01 JACK GAINES
I learned from Jordan Harbinger. He has a guide on how to present yourself in a room, how to make introductions, how to build connections and network. And I follow his introduction system because it's all about getting the background of the people that you're going to introduce, making sure that both of them want to be introduced, and then writing. an introduction that promotes and builds both of them up so they feel like a hero meeting the other person. I'll be honest, whenever I give someone an introduction, I am selling them as the coolest person on the planet and has helped people connect and make better relations. It's a sacred act because we're social creatures.
00:15:40 SCOTT MANN
sacred act because we're social creatures. We're wired to interact. But my assessment, and I'm glad to hear that you do that, my read on most of our community, and the more senior you get, the more we suck at introductions. to the point of it almost being insulting. The way some people introduce others from the stage, guest speakers, they read their bios word for word instead of talking to the audience about, hey, here's why I think this person that I've taken your time with today to have you be here, why I think they will serve what you are about in your life and why I think you should listen to them. The point here is that there are a range of innate interpersonal skills that are available to us as humans. that our great -grandparents understood and knew. But now that we have advancements in neuroscience, we can actually study brain activity when storytelling, active listening, introductions, when you're honoring somebody for an award or their departure from their organization. We can actually measure that. For example, David Phillips did a study called Death by PowerPoint, and he hooked audiences up to a machine. And he measured their brain activity during PowerPoint presentations where he learned that 90 % of the content that you present in a PowerPoint presentation, after you say thank you for your time, within 30 seconds, 90 % of it's forgotten because you're engaging working memory. You're not engaging long -term memory. Storytelling engages long -term memory, and it has for 70 ,000 years. That's why we remember the stories our grandparents tell us with vivid detail. or a story that a mentor from the Vietnam War told us with vivid detail. It's how we've survived and actually socially evolved as a species. We're wired as story animals. But yet, everything that we've created in the modern world is the opposite of that. It's short form communications. It's robot -like. And my hope with the book is to get back to the old school interpersonal skills and become very proficient in those and then... Let them inform all the stuff you do at the tip of the iceberg. And I'm not telling you to abandon PowerPoint. I'm saying inform PowerPoint with a narrative competency that holds your listener's attention with a story in the beginning and then you wrap the story up at the end of the presentation or populate the presentation with small stories throughout because the brain is a metaphorical pattern matching organ. If you don't know that as a senior leader. That the brain A has a mandate to make sense of the world and that the brain B does it through metaphor and narratives. You are at a competitive disadvantage and frankly, irrelevant to the people that you lead and engage with.
00:18:23 JACK GAINES
Storytelling. It's a great segue to your points about you struggle, we struggle. But if you don't add that struggle into your story and it's not authentic, people don't really believe you. And we've seen that. We've seen the sales pitch style of storytelling.
00:18:39 SCOTT MANN
Here's the thing, and I hear exactly what you're saying, and this is where I think our tip of the iceberg modern world unwittingly has conditioned us to the wrong approach to storytelling. Everywhere you look, and senior leaders are really bad about this, and I hope that if there's any listening, you'll hear me on this. If what you do is get up there and talk about three ways to be great, it's just unwatchable. We are inundated with it everywhere we turn. And part of that reason is because we've been conditioned. in this modern, high -tech, mass media world. And it becomes performative. And storytelling can be performative, but storytelling in its oldest form, honestly. If I staggered into the campfire 10 ,000 years ago and I'm like, let me tell you guys why Saber 2 Tigers make shitty pets, you're going to lean in and you're going to listen. Sure. And when I get into the detail of my struggle and why I'm all scuffed up and cut up. then you listen autobiographically. You locate yourself in that story, and it is as if you went through that lived experience without going through it. I'm doing it now with the saber -tooth timer. Right, and that's called narrative transportation. Narrative transportation creates reciprocity. It creates meaning. It creates long -term memory. It accelerates the trust between the audience and the listener. But here's the thing. If you leave struggle out, and you go right to the three ways to be great like me, your audience will not only dismiss you, according to Dr. Kendall Haven, they will turn on you.
00:19:28 JACK GAINES
to lean
00:20:11 SCOTT MANN
will turn on you. They will become a narrative insurgent to your story, to your keynote, to your vision, right? And so struggle is not only something that is necessary for storytelling, it's a biological necessity. And so the smart leader is going to find ways to integrate struggle. into their personal and their organizational narratives. And that's why I took a whole chapter to talk about it because it is that important. Well, it feels like you're giving people ammunition to shoot you with. Now, it feels awful, Jack. And a lot of people, that's when they go, well, I don't want to talk about me. I don't want to make it about me. A lot of veterans struggle with this. But what I tell them is, listen, this has nothing to do with you. Stories are told in the service of the listener. But if you don't invoke... your own personal struggle so that they can achieve a level of relatability of what she's been through, where that young soldier goes, oh, wow, she's just like me. She's been through what I've been through. Then that emotional breach happens and they open up. So there are so many different reasons. And I think the chapter really hits it hard. But suffice it to say that for this podcast, if you are going to engage people and move in a strategic way, struggle is a biological necessity to that process. Nice.
00:21:33 JACK GAINES
You created a whole TED Talk around being generous with your scars. I really enjoyed the TED Talk, by the way. One, because it did show how challenges and struggles do build towards a better future, but also in how you treated the other actors. Because every time you cut scenes, you guys kind of like fist bumped or handshaked or some type of good job thing. And that showed me that it's more than just scene break. It's actually people. in as a team performing it to succeed.
00:22:04 SCOTT MANN
You're the first person that's ever picked up on that. I really appreciate that. And you're right. And they were all veterans, except for one, and she was a military family member. That was my third TED Talk that I had done, and I wanted them to be in that one. Because it was tough to talk about my mental health, and they had been essential in me dealing with it and getting the play on its feet. And we had toured at that point all over the country. So we all have this very deep bond. And you're right to pick up on that because the generosity of scars is what I characterize as the integration struggle. It is the repurposing of one's struggle in the service of others by telling your story. That's what I mean by being generous with your scars. If you are generous with your struggle. and you share it with the idea that someone else can locate themselves in their story and make meaning out of your suffering, out of your struggle, how can it get more generous than that? And that's what I had to realize with my mental health and with my challenges that I had gone through. If I could repurpose those struggles, and with the TED Talk, we had already done it with the play, but I wanted people to see it in a TED environment on full display, that even our darkest scars, the ones that are most embarrassing. can be repurposed in the service of others. Because our Gold Star families, our combat veterans, civilians who've been through things in their life, whether it's divorce or bankruptcy, all of those things hold immense value to the people that are out there trying to make sense of a very difficult world of churn. And if you're willing to repurpose, to be generous with your struggles, man, there's no limit, no ceiling to the impact you can have in this world.
00:23:46 JACK GAINES
Well, that gets to why I spotted a certain sentence in your book. Nowadays, we need to move large numbers of people rough times. Let's make it personal in order to make it universal. And I kind of called that your calling because you seem like you've gone to that dark spot. You've even teased with suicide. You worked through it. And like a good leader, now you're saying, hey, I'm there. I'm moving forward. I'll rally here. Let's all get together and do this. And it seems like you're trying to find and build a path for others to relieve the struggle of coping with their transition, with their challenges of life. And for people that weren't in the military, with all of the churn and the problems coming in so that they can see that, hey, there are alternatives. There are things that you can do better yourself, your community, and get past what people are trying to drive you towards anger and conflict.
00:24:42 SCOTT MANN
Yeah, I appreciate that. I go back to one of the first chapters in the book after we get past the churn and I talk about what my dad taught me and still teaches me with leaving tracks. And, you know, as meaning -seeking, meaning -assigning creatures, we are on this earth, I believe, to leave tracks, as my dad calls it. In other words, to leave a legacy that lasts well beyond our time. And maybe it's manifested in how we, as our kids, maybe it's the capacity that we build in our job. Maybe it's just the relationships that we build. in friendships and things like that. But however it manifests, those tracks, the metric that I always kind of use for them is that they don't just serve the people around you. They serve the people you've never even seen. And so for me, that's really helped me in terms of my journey that I'm on for the rest of the years that I have on this earth. I'm here to lead my track. And I work very diligently on getting clear on my tracks and continue to do that. And also recognize that I know I'm on the patrol just like anybody else. I don't feel like I'm done. I still am very much in the arena as an advocate, as a artist, as a leader, and in some regards. And my vision of my tracks is to pour myself into as many people as I can through a range of modalities from books to plays to workshops that we run live and help leaders who are really looking to make that larger impact get people up on the rooftop. and move in ways that they otherwise wouldn't go. And I do believe that I've found not the way, but a way to help folks do that and love it. I just love it so much. And I think the reason I love it is because I'm still making tons of mistakes. I'm still getting out there and learning new skills, like acting at age 51. I mean, you talk about the ultimate midlife crisis. Good Lord. But it's allowed me, Jack, to really get in there and mix it up with a range of industry performers who are just trying to do the same thing and to be able to just say, look, here's what I found along the way. What do you see? And just approach it like team guys after a mission or during a training exercise where you kind of pull each other aside and say, here's what I'm seeing. What do you think? And let's try this. I love it gives me such purpose. It gives me such fulfillment. And I'm just blessed, honestly, to be able to do that in transition and maybe help a few folks have not as dark a transition as I did and maybe get to fulfillment faster, whether that transitions from the military or the next job or whatever. We're all trying to make an impact. And if I can play a role in that, man, it's good stuff. I think you do.
00:27:27 JACK GAINES
you do. And think about from the rooftop. It's a guide to self -agency. Because you were talking about getting big shit done. It's easy if you have a star or you have a colonel's eagle on your chest because you've been given the authority. But when you don't, the society has to choose you to lead. That make sense? Yes. Because if you were somebody else and they just didn't have that stuff, that X that makes a person attracting the crowd, then you'd be out there doing plays and it would have been a community hitter and it would have gone away because it didn't stick. So population is choosing you to lead. It does. Which is a much harder gig than coming in with an eagle. Yeah.
00:28:09 SCOTT MANN
Or a star. Yeah. Yeah, it is. But I do think it's what's warranted and needed today more than ever. And that's why it's such good news for people in the churn because most of us don't have stars. Most of us don't have eagles. And then even those who do or C -suites. I don't necessarily know that they're appreciating it and leveraging it to the way that they could. They're writing it too much. And so even if you do have those formal titles, you can still apply this methodology in a way that it moves people to want to go to the rooftop for you. Again, another metaphor that in Afghanistan, I saw time and time again, these teen guys and girls that would move and inspire through social capital. and vision and old school interpersonal skills when risk was low, these individuals to go up on a rooftop and fight when they were terrified and reluctant when risk was high. And that to me is the ultimate endeavor for a leader in any situation is building social capital infused with purpose when risk is low is so strong that people go up to a rooftop and take action when risk is high, not because they have to, but because they choose to. And if you can do that over and over again, whether it's a play, whether it's Pineapple Express, whether it's starting your business, whether it is putting that piece of music out there that you've always wanted, or just helping your child move through addiction, all of these things are something bigger than ourselves. All of these things are ways of leaving tracks. And the good news is, in my assessment, There is both an art and a science available to us in these unprecedented times of churn that we live in to do it. But we've got to train. It's not just instinct. What got us here is not going to get us there. Even the most high -performing, I think we've got to re -evaluate our operational environment. We've got to get a new grammar and a new lexicon for what we're dealing with. And we need to reconnect to this human operating system that's primal and is struggling to make sense of this churn. And once we can start to do that, then we can start to implement storytelling, active listening, nonverbal physicality, breath work, empathy. And by the way, this is not a Pollyanna thing. You know, I don't believe that what's in this book or my methodology is all about, you know, I'm okay, you're okay stuff. It is based on human connection, but it's infused with red lines and always standing your ground on what you believe in. I think that what we did with Pineapple Express and some other things demonstrates that. That it's not about just rolling over and going along to get along. Willingness to pick the lead and thrive, be successful. When it's hard. When it's hard. Right. And nobody else is coming. Because that's the ultimate time, honestly, to lead. When nobody else is coming. And to me, that's the point in which you step into the arena when everybody else steps back. When that tap on the shoulder comes and you're like, you've got to be kidding. You've got to be kidding me. Right now. You know, like that dude is way better than me or this girl over here should be doing this. Well, guess what? She's not. It's your turn now. It's your turn.
00:31:20 JACK GAINES
your turn. All right. I've spoken everything I wanted to discuss. Is there anything else you want to pitch or bring up? Is there anything we missed?
00:31:29 SCOTT MANN
I appreciate the thoroughness in the work you did ahead of time. I think that's always evidenced. So I appreciate it. As a fellow podcast host, I know what that takes to do that. And so it's not lost on me. I do hope that people will back out the book when it comes out on October 1st. The easiest way to do it is scottman .com. All of my body of work is there. And I hope people stay connected. And if we could ever serve in any way on Open with Human Connection, the human operating system, the churn, we've got a range of things out there on it. A lot of them are free. As you go forward, if you remember anything from this interview is when all else fails, make a human connection. Make a human connection before anything. It could be eye contact. It could be a handshake. It could just be taking a breath and taking in the person in front of you. It could be asking how their kids are. You'll know. You get in there. But if we could just put human connections before everything else, that could have a massive impact in your ability to influence hard jobs. Because no one does. Everybody's so busy on their agenda and transactions that they forget to make a human connection first. And I think those are the people that follow in the times that are coming. Absolutely. Social capital is the oldest form of capital in the world. And it always will be. Well, thank you. This was terrific,
00:32:47 JACK GAINES
was terrific, Scott. I'm glad you took all this time.
00:32:49 SCOTT MANN
Yeah, for sure, man. Thank you so much. This is like the first book interview I've done. And so I appreciate everything you're doing to get it out there. And again, I hope folks will pick it up because I do think it's a very, very practical guide to getting big shit done. All right. Well, thank you very much. Absolutely. Thanks, pal. We'll talk to you soon.
00:33:08 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.
Tuesday Sep 17, 2024
Tuesday Sep 17, 2024
Today, Brain Hancock hosts Col. Jeffrey Fiddler to discuss his career and his experience at the Pentagon helping manage the DOD response to the COVID 19 outbreak.
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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 Natalia Lafourcade for the sample of Tú Sí Sabes Quererme (En Manos de Los Macorinos). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABLT6hdgEek
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Transcript
00:00:01 Introduction
Welcome to the 1CA podcast. 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 .com or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website. at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes.
00:00:34 BRIAN HANCOCK
I'm Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hancock, and I will be your host for this session. Colonel Jeffrey Fiddler is a civil affairs officer with 34 years, thank you, sir, of combined enlisted and commissioned service. He has a master's degree in strategic studies and a master's and bachelor's degrees in criminal justice. On the civilian side, he is a special agent with the Department of Homeland Security. Colonel Fidler, welcome to the show. Great to be here, Brian. Thanks for having me. I tell you, sir, with all of that experience you have in both infantry and military police, who actually rolls with more firepower than an infantry company, I'm making you think you just like to fire guns. Oh, yeah. Love shooting guns. Fair enough. So I'm going to ask you a little bit about your civil affairs journey in a moment, but let me give out the quick disclaimer here. A reminder to the audience, all of the remarks of the participants are solely ours. Now, sir, I met you here in Europe when you replaced the legendary Tony Vaja as chief of the civil affairs division at U .S. Army Europe and Africa. Boy, a lot has happened since then. It has.
00:01:41 JEFFREY FIDDLER
has. A lot has changed. First of all, Colonel Vaja is great. Tough guy to replace. As you know, Brian, he was the DCO of the 353KCOM when I was in brigade command. So I got to know Tony for two years. We would talk at least a couple of times a week. The institutional knowledge that he has is just amazing. It's unbelievable. It really is. So I still talk to Tony to this day.
00:02:03 BRIAN HANCOCK
Tony to this day. And there's so many rich reasons why you join civil affairs. But the quality of the people you meet on that journey, I think, is one of the things that keeps us in this field. Absolutely. Yeah. So when I first got here,
00:02:16 JEFFREY FIDDLER
we were G39. We had SEMA, Space, IO, Civil Affairs, PSYOP, Brigadier General Ellis, who's... Selected for major general, our old boss, our old boss's boss, he wanted to separate all those divisions out. So we're now fully functional G3 civil affairs division, which is interesting for USRAF because the 06 lead is going to be a comp of three person going forward, which is a little different from some of the other directorates and divisions that you see here in USRAF. Yeah.
00:02:48 BRIAN HANCOCK
Well, given the breakout, I wonder if they're just going to add a G9 shop at some point. I thought about that. The two -star level, certainly we have a G9 shop. Yeah. I'm currently filling a G9 billet for the 79 Theater Support Command. So that would not surprise me, especially given the importance that civil affairs plays in CIMIC and in competition and in all of the setting, the theater and shaping operations that we're doing right now. Absolutely. I went back and forth on that because I had talked to General Ellis about that.
00:03:12 JEFFREY FIDDLER
and forth on that because I had talked to General Ellis about that. The reason why I like being in the G3 is that we have all the integrating cells, the G33, G35. Right. And for long -term planning, we do have an officer, Major George Warren. He's embedded with the G5 downstairs. And the reason why I like being in the G3 is that any organization that you go to, the three shop is the center of gravity. Always. So when those emergent missions come up, like Cyprus or the Greek floods, anything even remotely related to civil affairs, even in an infantry mindset or whatever, they look over to us and then we get the tap on the shoulder, which is pretty cool for the soldiers in the division.
00:03:52 BRIAN HANCOCK
in the division. Well, you must be doing something right to have that kind of demand signal. So well done. It's just luck. I'd rather be lucky than good in the final analysis. So I appreciate that. Yeah. Now, one of the things that I personally love about civil affairs is that since we are a non -accessions branch and Of course, in the Marine Corps, it's a B -billet for the officers. So while they're non -commissioned officers can be a civil affairs officer for their career, they cannot on the officer side. So there's a lot of rotation and change in both the Army and the Marine Corps on the officer side, which basically means almost every civil affairs officer that you meet is different, has different skill sets, has a different career path, a lot of awesome diversity, I think, that we have in the branch. And so let me turn to your story. You commissioned as an infantry officer in the 90s. And now you're a civil affairs officer. How did you get here?
00:04:50 JEFFREY FIDDLER
So I think it was right after the surge in Iraq. And that was when they took a lot of the chemical folks because I was at the time. Made a mayor defense artillery. Yeah.
00:04:57 BRIAN HANCOCK
at the time.
00:05:00 JEFFREY FIDDLER
So I was voluntold like, hey, you're going to go down to Fort Liberty. You're going to go to CA school. And then all started before that, I was in the Massachusetts Army National Guard and very tough to get promoted. Yeah, a few slots. Yeah, a few slots. So after Operation Noble Eagle, when we did all the defense of the bases, I transferred over to the Army Reserve,
00:05:12 BRIAN HANCOCK
a few slots.
00:05:21 JEFFREY FIDDLER
had to pick up a basic branch that the Army Reserve had, which is an infantry. People out in the audience might know there is one infantry battalion in the Army Reserve. I didn't know that. I was thinking the Guard,
00:05:31 BRIAN HANCOCK
didn't know that. I was thinking the Guard, but I didn't realize we had it in the Compo 3.
00:05:33 JEFFREY FIDDLER
but I didn't realize we had it in the Compo 3. Yeah, no, there's one infantry battalion in the Army Reserve, and it's out in Hawaii. A good friend of mine, Alan Perkins, Lieutenant Colonel Alan Perkins, just commanded that, but that's a whole separate story. So you want to talk about IDT travel, he had to fly from Boston to Hawaii for drill weekend. He probably hated that. Yeah, he probably did. But it's the only infantry battalion in the Army Reserve. All right. So we needed those influx of CA officers. So I got orders to go down there and went to school and the rest is history.
00:05:35 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah,
00:05:51 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah, he probably
00:06:01 BRIAN HANCOCK
history. You've spent most of your career in infantry law enforcement and the chemical corps. How do those fields assist you in your civil affairs work?
00:06:14 JEFFREY FIDDLER
Well, two things come to mind. In the infantry, you have those type A personalities. And I'm not saying I am one, but you have to be aggressive in the infantry. For us as civil affairs to show our relevancy, you have to be aggressive. Agreed. If you sit back and wait for something to happen, you're going to be marginalized. Right. You're going to watch your budget go,
00:06:32 BRIAN HANCOCK
You're going to watch your budget go, dude.
00:06:34 JEFFREY FIDDLER
Yeah. Exactly. So you've got to show some type of relevancy to that maneuver commander. So you don't necessarily have to be infantry to start up, but I think you need to be an aggressive officer. Like we say in the civil affairs division, we're not taking the foot off the gas pedal.
00:06:47 BRIAN HANCOCK
Right. We're just going to keep on pushing forward. You know, that's one of the things I also I've noticed about civil affairs formation, even at the civil affairs. action team cat level foreman and army doctrine. These folks are always volunteering for missions. They're always making suggestions. They're not waiting to be tasked to solve a problem that they think they can help and add value. They're speaking up. They're going to the three. They're going to the fire's chief. They're going to whoever and saying, hey, you know, I think we can help you with that problem. And they're very aggressive. And that makes them one of the hardest working and highest op tempo groups as a slice enabler. to combat arms in combat operations. But that's about a return on investment and earning your pay. So I agree. I think now more than ever, with some civil affairs battalions going away, there's force reduction in the army in general. It's not just civil affairs. I think now more than ever, we have to beat those folks who ship up and add value at every level of war to make sure that we're not only achieving tactical battlefield success, but we're also... achieving operational and ultimately strategic success so we don't keep going back and repeating crisis after crisis. Yes.
00:06:47 JEFFREY FIDDLER
We're just going to
00:07:57 JEFFREY FIDDLER
And I think on the law enforcement side, one of the things that they're looking for for training is negotiation training. Yeah. How do you do that? And I think in law enforcement, if you're a decent law enforcement officer, you've got to know how to negotiate with people. And I think for civil affairs, that's a huge thing for us because we're really that connective tissue between the civilian populace and the military. We saw that just recently down in Cyprus, that you dealt with a pretty big problem set getting humanitarian assistance into Gaza, and you have a lot of international players everywhere. IGOs that are over there that want to do something, NGOs, different militaries from other countries. How do you pull all that together? You have to have some kind of negotiation training, or have done that in the past, and I think a lot of us have in civil affairs.
00:08:03 SPEAKER_00
Yeah. How
00:08:43 BRIAN HANCOCK
I think so too. Many of the most important problem sets, there are ways to solve them other than bullets. And bullets may be expedient, but again, that tends to generate a lot of long -term animosity, which leads to that crisis after crisis, right? So critical skill definitely need more of that. And if we're not going to plus up civil affairs, maybe we need to start training some other people to understand that, or at least how... to utilize the civil affairs assets they have properly. And I think we're going to talk a little bit more about that later. Now, not long ago, the psychological operations groups of the United States Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command, known as USACAPOC, they did that reorganization. They took their separate psychological operations groups, their POGs, and which, by the way, had a broken officer pyramid. They had about 100 captain positions, which would go to 33 major positions. and then go to 505 lieutenant colonel positions, four of which were battalion command.
00:08:57 SPEAKER_00
right?
00:09:45 BRIAN HANCOCK
So it really became hard to have a career in PSYOP. Those are now moved under the KCOM, theoretically integrated within the KCOM. So we have civil affairs and psychological operations not only working together, but actually coexisting the same unit together. KPOC started with some experiments in that, and there's more of that occurring now. You commanded a civil affairs and psychological operations combined battalion. What was that experience like for you? And do you have any opinions on whether combining those two elements is a good long -term strategy for the command? Sure. Well,
00:10:21 JEFFREY FIDDLER
I'm not going to say any psyop jokes because I put my foot in my mouth in the past on that. There's a lot of CA officers that are dual -headed. I am. I'm one of them. Exactly. See? So I didn't do it. It's not going to be there in perpetuity. All right. But I had a CA PSYOP training battalion, Brian. So really, we're training NCOES, wasn't an operational battalion. Still counts as battalion command time for anybody that's out there that's looking for a battalion command. And those CA PSYOP training battalions are, in my opinion, you're not only getting your command time done, but it's also a good broadening assignment because you're running a schoolhouse. Right on. How often do you get that opportunity other than going into one of the more traditional training commands? Yeah,
00:10:28 SPEAKER_00
Exactly. See? So I didn't do it. It's not going to be there in perpetuity.
00:11:00 BRIAN HANCOCK
you don't. You either work for TRADOC or you become a defense contractor for somebody's school, right? Yeah.
00:11:06 JEFFREY FIDDLER
It's a really different experience. I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot about running a schoolhouse. So that was, it was interesting. For example, so my S3 at the battalion was PSYOP. So, you know, you can't do anything without your S3. He didn't work too much with CA. I haven't worked too much with PSYOP, but at the end of the day, we're all wearing a uniform. We're going to figure out a way to make it happen. When I look at 353KCOM, I think they have 2POG underneath them. So now you have three brigade -size commands under there. So I think I understand why KPOC did it. I think we'd have to ask the folks down there, but they were direct reporting, right, to use KPOC before. Yes, or DRU.
00:11:45 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yes, or DRU.
00:11:46 JEFFREY FIDDLER
I think right now, I mean, for exercise support, I think we have some of those folks coming out from 2POG. And I think the fact that we had folks on the ground out here, like our division, were all from the 353KCOM. kind of help massage that so that we can get more psyop folks over here in Europe.
00:12:03 BRIAN HANCOCK
I think from the doctrine point of view, and perhaps from the demands of modern warfare point of view, it does make sense. We look at FM3 Taco talking about multi -domain operations, moving these things together and synchronizing them in time and space for the Gestalt principle, kind of greater effect than you have if you were doing them individually. It goes a step further with information advantage. experimental doctrine, it's not official, where they say we not only need multi -domain operations, but we have things like the electromagnetic spectrum, which is an environment, not a domain. You've got the information, which in Army doctrine is a dimension. In Marine Corps, it's a co -equal war fighting function. And at the joint level, it's a joint function. But we need all of those things. Battlefield relevant, as you said earlier, we have to show that return on investment to a maneuver commander who's going to be a combat arms guard. And we have to show him that what we did made him more survivable, more lethal, more effective in a measurable way. So it has to be a fairly significant change to hit the detection of threshold and be measurable. And as we start adding all of these information -related capabilities together, And CAs is an information -related capability, perhaps not its primary role by doctrine, but is an IRC. Together, we can potentially get after that. So it makes sense to me why we'd want to put a PSYOP and CA together. I think we need to do a lot more than that. Probably need lawfare there and religious engagement there and public affairs there. We're doing things like theater information -advantaged elements, theater information -advantaged attachments, which add... many of those things, but still don't bring in the lawfare or the religious outreach. But it seems to me like KPOC is making a step in that direction. I think so.
00:13:47 JEFFREY FIDDLER
think so. And first time I ever worked with IO was at a CPX functional. Oh, really?
00:13:52 BRIAN HANCOCK
really?
00:13:52 JEFFREY FIDDLER
2022. So my brigade had CPX functional. We had a PSYOP battalion there and we had a IO battalion. Nice. I can't remember his name. I apologize for that. But the IO tenant colonel, he really put everything together. Integrator. He really was. Nice. He did it very well. And he's like, we're going to have information dominance from all the different sensors that we have out there.
00:14:17 BRIAN HANCOCK
So I've seen it work. Nice. I'm not sure we're going to have information dominance against a near -peer threat, maybe windows of superiority to execute missions. Sure. And I think that's a reality that we have to do a little mindset change as we look at large -scale combat operations against near -peer adversary. But absolutely. A good IA officer who can synchronize all of these strong personalities in different subfields towards throw in the same direction is a great asset. It is.
00:14:44 JEFFREY FIDDLER
is. You even saw that here, Brian, right? We had the former G39. To understand all those equities, to find that one person, it's not easy. No, not at all.
00:14:53 BRIAN HANCOCK
all. You worked at the Pentagon for a while, in the Joint Chiefs of Staff office, no less, including at a very excited time during the COVID -19 crisis. What was that experience like? I imagine it was probably a pretty chaotic time to be there.
00:15:09 JEFFREY FIDDLER
It was, but I'm going to circle back pre -COVID. So when I left battalion command, for all the TPU officers out there, I'd never even heard of a TPU unit that supported the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Right. A troop program unit supporting joint chiefs? I didn't hear it either. So I was just Googling around one day. I'm like, all right, where am I going to go next for battalion command? And I called down to the unit. It was one of the first units in the Army Reserve where I actually interviewed for a job. Nice. Once I got hired, I saw their interview process and it was pretty picky. I was surprised by that. Well, the list is long to get in there. So for any of those officers out there looking to get war college done or to get AOC done, or if you're a major above, because you don't want to go down there as a captain because your joint time doesn't start until you hit major. Right. I don't want to say it's a place to take a knee because it's a very busy unit, but it's not like being part of an operational brigade or battalion where you're on a phone call. four or five nights out of the month, or even more if you're in an operational CA, brigade, or battalion. We know that that's how it is. Yeah, daily, probably. Really unique place. I started out in the J35, which is part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but it's stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. Right. And that was doing CA, PSYOP, force rotation. Somebody said, hey, we need a CA battalion.
00:16:11 BRIAN HANCOCK
daily, probably.
00:16:27 JEFFREY FIDDLER
We'd take a look and see if that's exactly what they needed. Wasn't my cup of tea. But then I went over to J7, which is the interagency lead over there, and I worked in the training section as well, which was a fabulous assignment. And then COVID kicked off, and they needed folks to work down in the basement where all the cave dwellers are. Yeah, the Morlocks from H .G. Wells. Yeah, and you know, what's funny, I mean, we're trained to do everything in the Army. Nobody ever trained us on how to be on a crisis management team. Yeah. Right. Well,
00:16:56 BRIAN HANCOCK
we, well, I mean, we've got crisis action planning and doctrine. Yeah. Right. But that doesn't, we, yeah, no, that's different.
00:17:02 JEFFREY FIDDLER
I showed up there on active duty and I was the senior ranking Lieutenant Colonel. So they said, oh, congratulations. You're in charge. You're in charge of the overnight shift. Oh God. And oh, by the way, you're going to have the SecDef's book ready in the morning, Vice President Pence's book ready and Dr. Burke's. No pressure. Right. And then all the Jaders. Right. And no, but it was great. We had a couple of civil affairs officers there, and the colonel that I was working with, he said, wow, he's like, those folks are really sharp. One of them is Hilda Fernandez. You could put her in any spot somewhere, and she's not going to look for a lot of direction. She's just going to figure it out. And this is what we talked about, right, with being aggressive and those kind of folks. Those are the kind of officers that you want in your battalion and brigade. And she was great down there, and we had a lot of good civil affairs folks down there.
00:17:47 BRIAN HANCOCK
I know it couldn't have been an easy assignment and there were tough questions that Department of Defense had to deal with. We look at all those folks, say, on an aircraft carrier in close proximity who get COVID. We get an experimental vaccine and there are perhaps some concerns about it and tough decisions have to be made to make it mandatory to do immunizations with a brand new vaccine. Were you part of that? I imagine that there were some long nights as that policy was being developed.
00:18:18 JEFFREY FIDDLER
Yeah, I was actually down there when they were leaving. The commander, I think it was the Roosevelt. Yeah, it was difficult. We weren't part of any policy. It was really just making sure there was any GFM actions. That was one of the big things that we did. So as you can imagine, a lot of medical folks were being activated to support the hospital. There were disc commissions for CA. Yeah. Absolutely. Some of my friends went on those. Yeah. So there was a lot of that. And of course, the logistician piece, right? Getting supplies from point A to point B. So we had a little touch in that as well. You had to move some toilet paper. Did you have an opportunity to do that? Because I never could get enough in the store. Never did that. But you want to talk about influence. I had noticed in New York City, the death toll was outrageous there.
00:18:38 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah. Absolutely. Some of my
00:19:00 JEFFREY FIDDLER
And we had mortuary affairs companies out there. And you could see the amount of bodies that they're processing. And that was one of the things that we would put on the placemat. The president's placemat? It was for the vice president. I don't know who did the president's book, but I know he did the vice president's, but be brief to General Milley because he was the chairman at the time. And we could affect that in a way of saying, hey, look, this company processed this many bodies. And actually somebody went out and saw that commander on the ground saying, hey, you guys are doing a great job. It was a tough business.
00:19:33 BRIAN HANCOCK
An assignment like that sounds like. a little bit of choose your own adventure. But if you use your time wisely, you can attack some of those serious projects that require a lot of intellectual rigor, which are very challenging when you have a lot of tactical elements that you're in charge of maneuvering in time and space. It seems like in those kinds of environments, we're always just kind of putting out fires. And then when we look at some of the larger institutional questions that have to be solved as we do acquisitions and force management and some of those other things, it's kind of hard to find that headspace. to do that. But it sounds like this is an opportunity. As soon as I started the war college with,
00:20:08 JEFFREY FIDDLER
I started the war college with, I think, three months left of battalion command. Right. And then when I went to the Joint Chiefs, that's where I finished up my war college time. And it allowed me to do it. Nice. It was more reasonable than being in command. All right. Awesome. And let me just cover real quick. If anybody is interested in going down to the Joint Chiefs, if you want to become joint qualified, you need 36 points a year in a J -Doll billet. And you can accomplish that just through drills and a couple of weeks of AT. So, of course, if you have JPME -2, whether you get that through Joint Combined Warfighting School or Resident War College, then you can get your 3LEMA identifier for the health. Yeah, your ASI for joint qualified.
00:20:46 BRIAN HANCOCK
the health. Yeah, your ASI for joint qualified. Yes. It really interests me when HQDA showed the number of joint qualified generals, it was actually a very low number. It surprised me because everything we do that matters is joint combined. And many of our points of friction are when we're working in these federated environments with partners. It would seem to me that this is something that as a force, we just should be getting better at.
00:21:10 JEFFREY FIDDLER
Yeah. Well, the thing is for the COMPO3, right? It's not a requirement to become joint qualified. Totally optional. So I think we're at 5%. Yeah, very low. Joint qualification. But again, it's a good experience. Even though we don't need the joint qualification, it's a good experience to have. It's a small DOD in a way. So when I worked at the J7, Rare Admiral Foster, who I worked for in Cyprus, was one of the bosses down there as a captain. And at the J7, it was Vice Admiral Munch, who's Admiral Munch now, was my boss's boss. So we all ended up working again together on the HA mission in Cyprus and Gaza.
00:21:48 BRIAN HANCOCK
You know, that's the way things happen. Yeah. Relationships of trust. Exactly. All right. Thank you for your time, sir. Really appreciate it. And that's a wrap. Thanks, Brian.
00:21:57 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. Stay tuned for more great episodes of 1CA Podcast.