Decisive Point Podcast

U.S. Army War College Public Affairs
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Decisive Point, the Parameters podcast companion series, furthers the education and professional development of senior military officers and members of the government and academia who are concerned with national security affairs. Questions or feedback? E-mail usarmy.carlisle.awc.mbx.parameters@army.mil

  1. Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 6-7 – Mahdi Al-Husseini, Samuel J. Diehl, and Samuel L. Fricks – On “Bridging Sky and Sea: Joint Strategies for Medical Evacuation in the Indo-Pacific”

    6D AGO

    Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 6-7 – Mahdi Al-Husseini, Samuel J. Diehl, and Samuel L. Fricks – On “Bridging Sky and Sea: Joint Strategies for Medical Evacuation in the Indo-Pacific”

    This podcast contends that the US Army should coordinate agile and expeditious Joint medical evacuation operations in the Indo-Pacific and develop novel capabilities to do so effectively. Keywords: medical evacuation, maritime operations, novel capability, World War II, Joint health service   Host (Stephanie Crider) You are listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. I’m talking with Mahdi Al-Husseini, Samuel J. Diehl, and Samuel L. Fricks today, authors of “Bridging Sky and Sea: Joint Strategies for Medical Evacuation in the Indo-Pacific,” which was published in the Spring 2025 issue of Parameters. Al-Husseini was previously the director of the Medical Evacuation Doctrine Course for the Department of Aviation Medicine. He’s now a PhD student at Stanford University in aeronautics and astronautics, with a follow-on as an experimental test pilot. Diehl was the commander of the 3rd Battalion, 25th Aviation Regiment, and following the US Army War College, where he’s currently a student, he will be assigned as Medical Command G5. Fricks serves as the chief of the Medical Evacuation Concepts and Capabilities Division and is responsible for air and ground evacuation modernization. Welcome to Decisive Point, gentlemen. Samuel L. Fricks Thank you. Samuel J. Diehl Thanks. It’s great to be here. Host Why did you write this article, and why is now the time? Fricks The character of war is changing rapidly. Observations from the battlefield in Ukraine have shown that traditional ways of doing things don’t work, necessarily, when you’re under constant observation. Why we wrote the article was, we have to change the way that we do medical evacuation, specifically—or especially—in the Indo-Pacific, in order to really have a chance. Mahdi Al-Husseini One of the ways we open up the article is by saying what is old is new again, and what is new changes everything, and I think that’s especially true in the context of medical evacuation in the Indo-Pacific. When we look back at World War II, which I would argue is one of the best case studies that we have, in terms of this particular problem set and this particular theater, a lot of what was true and relevant then continues to be true and relevant now. And, we see that on the tactical level. We see that on the strategic level. We see that across echelons and across mission sets. And yet, despite that, I think so many things as, no doubt, Colonel Diehl and Colonel Fricks will allude to in a little bit, so many ways that our enemy operates has changed, right? And, those things need to be considered as well. And so, what we’re dealing with here is, I think, a very gnarly problem, and one that affects the lives of servicemembers. You know, I do think we’re at something of a junction point, and we need to be able to ensure we have the resources, the doctrine, the training necessary to ensure that when that next conflict comes, we are prepared for it. And, that’s another reason we really wanted to bring this article out to a larger community. Samuel J. Diehl And, I’ll give credit to Mahdi where it’s due that when I took command in May of 2023, he was already working towards a degree of experimentation and integration—both with joint partners, as well as with the Army Theater Sustainment Command—about how we tackle this problem, sort of at the micro/tactical level, more effectively from an integration standpoint, but then also how do we integrate and test new technologies? As a career MEDEVAC [medical evacuation] pilot, I thought what he was doing was really exceptional, but I also understood institutionally, you know, where Colonel Fricks is coming from [in saying] that we have, you know, something of an obligation to get this information out there. There’s a host of articles out now bemoaning the expectation that there is no more golden hour, that casualties will likely increase in a different conflict in the future, but we haven’t really taken many steps concretely to address that problem. It’s known but then, also, there are elements, where I’ve discussed with Mahdi, where we evolved in World War II, but our organizations—our authorities, in some cases—haven’t necessarily evolved to catch up to some of the capabilities that we currently have. So, capturing how do you exercise C2 [command and control] of these assets across joint and combined organizations is incredibly important. I think it’s important, probably, to just start with why is medical evacuation important? We probably lose some degree of understanding—because we’ve taken it for granted in the last 25 years—that there are strategic implications for how we preserve our combat strength. And, we’ve done it historically very well, but it has implications for how we fight, right—how commanders can exercise audacity, how they can prevent culmination, and then how our individual soldiers see themselves on the battlefield. The risk that they’re willing to take reflects, right, their understanding and appreciation for how their medical system is going to take care of them. Host Tell me a little bit more about what you all are advocating for, not only in your article, but if there’s anything beyond that that you want to touch on, I’d love to hear it. Al-Husseini One of the luxuries I have here is having folks like Colonel Fricks and Colonel Diehl, who are, legitimately, I would argue, titans of the MEDEVAC enterprise. So, I think all of us will have something of a different perspective. You know, I’ll kind of broach this from the tactical level—as somebody who was formerly, and very recently, a platoon leader and an operations officer in a MEDEVAC company—one of the challenges that we ask ourselves, we talk a lot about LSCO [large-scale combat operations], right, is to what extent do I have control, you know, in my foxhole and in my organization with the kind of impact that we want to have, given the challenges that we discuss in the article. When we talk about, you know, how do we enable medical evacuation to be effective over long distances, where the patient numbers are far beyond anything we’ve seen potentially, again, since World War II, where we have an enemy threat that is dynamic, that is evolving, whose weapon systems while, maybe known to us, we haven’t necessarily faced directly? And those are tough, right? Especially, I’ll tell you, as a captain, as a platoon leader, as a section leader in a MEDEVAC company, I don’t have control over the acquisitions pipeline, right? So, I don’t have control over materiel, but what I do have an impact on is training. And, one thing we try to advocate for in the article that is true for MEDEVAC, but also extends to other missions, is, you know, we can think critically about capability. And [that is] one of the things that the JCIDS [Joint Capabilities Integration and Development System] does very well. There’s a formal definition in there that kind of talks about capability in terms of integrating ways and means and means and ways. That’s something we also talk about in the article. And, one of the things we advocate for is—even on the tactical level—to kind of think about, given, you know, the materiel that we do have, right, given the equipment that we have, given the force structure that we currently have, how can we think creatively about challenging problems and find ways to make a difference and to demonstrate potentially new capabilities given the things we already have? So, to be a little bit more specific, you know, one of the things we talk about in the article, for example, is an exercise that we ran at the 25th Infantry Division, which we call MEDEVAC Projects Week. In that effort, what we effectively did was we demonstrated this concept of a maritime exchange point where we were able to use an Army watercraft to bridge the transport of a pace ship between two aircraft—hypothetically coming from different islands. We had an existing setup in terms of what our force structure looks like. We know, you know, our aircraft have certain capabilities. We know we have a relationship with our watercraft teams—in this case down in Honolulu. How do we bring them together? How do we network, you know, all these various pieces of the puzzle effectively and in ways that can make a difference? And so, one thing that we certainly want to bring to bear is this idea that even on the tactical level, there are ways to experiment and to consider how we use the things that sometimes we take for granted, but how do we use our existing units or our existing equipment to do new things in a way, in this case, in the case of MEDEVAC, impacts real-world patients in real-world conflicts? Fricks Yeah, just to build off what Mahdi indicated there, we also have to embrace, kind of, the new technologies, right, especially when it comes to autonomous systems. We’ve all seen the directives that are coming out, you know, unleashing drone dominance and such, and medical needs to be a part of that. The problem, though, is that we really lack the policy that addresses moving casualties on an autonomous system. You know, there’s an ethical piece to it and there’s a policy piece. But, I think we would agree that we’d like to use it just like you would have used, you know, the helicopter in Korea. Remember, if you’ve ever seen MASH, they put the casualties on the outside of the aircraft, right, with no en route carrier. If we did that today, it would be considered wrong, but at the time, it was transformative and impactful—and that’s the way we really need to look at drones. So, taking what Mahdi was talking about with what we have existed, we also need to look forward to how we can use evolving technologies to get after mo

    25 min
  2. Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 6-6 – Bruce Busler and Ryan Samuelson – Deploying and Supplying the Joint Force from a Contested Homeland

    MAR 18

    Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 6-6 – Bruce Busler and Ryan Samuelson – Deploying and Supplying the Joint Force from a Contested Homeland

    In this podcast, Bruce Busler and Ryan Samuelson argue that the United States must prepare for “the fight to get to the fight,” focusing on deploying and maintaining military forces from a contested homeland amid near-peer threats. Keywords: USTRANSCOM, Transportation Command, contested homeland, conflict, Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise Stephanie Crider (Host) You are listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College or any other agency of the US government. I’m talking remotely with Mr. Bruce Busler and Mr. Ryan Samuelson today. Busler is the former director of the Joint Distribution Process Analysis Center, or JDPAC, and the US Army’s Transportation Engineering Agency, or TEA. He’s the author of “Deploying and Supplying the Joint Force from a Contested Homeland,” which was published in the Spring 2025 issue of Parameters. Samuelson is the current director of JDPAC and TEA, USTRANSCOM (US Transportation Command), at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois. Let’s start at the beginning. What do JDPAC and TEA do? Ryan Samuelson Sure. Well, Stephanie and Mr. Busler, thank you very much. You know, JDPAC is . . . it’s the analysis center for the combatant command. It’s the analysis center that allows us to fulfill our Unified Command Plan responsibilities. And so, we bring engineering and analytical work together both with JDPAC and the Transportation Engineering Agency, which TEA is focused on improving the employability and sustainment of the Joint Force by providing the Department [of War] expert engineering analysis, policy guidance, and additional analysis. And so, when you take an engineering center from the combatant command and the analysis center and combine that with the Transportation Engineering Agency, what you have is a fusion of the ability to look at engineering solutions and then also to look at how we are moving from predictive to prescriptive analytics to ensure that the Joint Force can deploy and sustain itself. Host Mr. Busler, I’m really interested in how you came to write this article, but also why it matters for the Parameters [and] Decisive Point audience. Bruce Busler About two years ago, I had the chance to speak at a conference that was hosted by the [US] Army War College that involved many of the service and Joint players that were addressing homeland defense topics and the ability to project power from the homeland. And, as an outgrowth of that conference, I was asked to write a journal article, which I was happy to do, because I really wanted to help people understand what is it that TRANSCOM and JDPAC and TEA were doing on behalf of the Joint Force to be able to operate from a contested homeland. And, that was really becoming a point of awareness of the fact that we’re [no longer] going to operate with impunity. It’s just an administrative activity to get the Joint Force to the airfields and seaports and get them into the fight. And so, what I wanted to do was kind of capture my thoughts and then help people see the great work that was being done at TRANSCOM on behalf of the broader community to ensure we could prosecute this mission. In the article, I kind of distill my thoughts into three key areas. First of all, how we understand and minimize the impact of high-consequence events, versus all the potential points of disruption, so that we can continue to operate when we are going to be disrupted—and it’s not if, but when, we’re going to be disrupted—and then, also, how that works with all of the providers we have. So, the first point was minimizing the impact of high-probability / high-consequence events. The second one was maximize how this thing called the Joint Deployment Distribution Enterprise can continue to operate with all of our providers. And, we have to maintain not only the primary capabilities but have resilient approaches for how we can use alternate ways of conducting our mission in finding other paths [that] allow us to continue to move the force forward. And lastly, I wanted to talk about optimizing those relationships we have to have with our commercial providers and with our federal, state, and local partners to be able to do this mission. We’re heavily reliant upon commercial providers and our interagency partners to do this kind of mission. So, how do we optimize and build relationships today that will sustain us when it really counts? And so, those were the key themes I wanted to build in the article and help draw people’s attention to what we’re doing today and then point out some thoughts that maybe [help people understand that], you know, it’s not a panacea. What are we doing to maybe address some areas that are continuing to be a risk to us? So, that’s kind of what I wanted to do to help people quickly see the essence of what that look[s] like. And so, one of the things I mentioned before, which maybe Ryan can help expound upon, is [introduce] this idea of what is a Joint Deployment and Distribution Enterprise? And, Ryan, maybe I’m going to give it back to you, but can you talk a little bit about how, you know, our commercial partners and our federal, state, and local, interagency partners are so critical for TRANSCOM to conduct this mission with their component commands to do this hard work we just described? Samuelson Sure. Thank you, Mr. Busler.  You know, Stephanie, one of the things I wanted to cover about the article, too, before I get into what really the Joint Deployment and Distribution [Enterprise] is, [that] it had key critical themes. And so, why am I here today? I’ll tell you why I’m here today. It’s because this article still is immensely relevant today, and it is driving an awful lot of what US Transportation Command is doing. It was a paradigm shift, right? It’s [the transition] from uncontested to contested nature of our deployment and distribution activities. It’s about engineering. The article was about engineered resiliency—how we’re doing strategic analysis and the programs we do that [with] to engineer resiliency into our ability. It’s about commercial partnerships. It’s about network redundancy and resiliency, which is in itself protection of the ability to project the forces. It’s about Reserve components and their criticality to it. And ultimately, [it’s] about mission assurance through distributed ops. And so, we find it very relevant today. And in fact, the entire JDDE (Joint Deployment Distribution Enterprise) has likely read the article because it drives an awful lot of what we talk about. So, what is the JDDE? You know, really, it’s a global network of interdependent systems of systems. It’s a blend of military, commercial, and government partnerships. If you think on the military side, it involves combatant commands, Defense Logistics Agency, Defense Health Agency, [and] the Joint Forces. On the commercial side, our transportation providers are hugely critical. They are a key backbone of this ability to deploy globally. And then [it includes] our government partners from state and local partnerships with the Department of Transportation through the Maritime Administration, [and] our Highway and Rail departments, as well. The JDDE also can include multinational partners if we are partnered with them on moving something for the Joint Force. It includes our allies and partners. And so, the way I look at it, the JDDE really is—it’s the equipment, it’s the people, the procedures, the information, the organizations, the training, [and] the facilities. All of that is required for the mobility enterprise to generate and sustain the mass at velocity across tactical and strategic distances. And that’s the key [to] this partnership. Busler And so, one of the things, you know, that I was going to kind of follow up on is [that] once you understand those entities that have to work together . . . one of the very first things I did in the article was talk about what are the potential ways they’re going to be disrupted? You know, one of the things that TRANSCOM focused on—you know, probably 15 years ago, and has grown over time—is the ability to look at the impact of cyber operations that will impact our ability to operate. And that’s a relatively new area for us, but that isn’t the only way that we could potentially be disrupted. You know, I mentioned, you know, early on, that back even in World War II, we had attacks on the homeland. They just weren’t of high impact. You know, the Japanese floated balloons over the Northwest. They actually shelled—with a submarine. The Germans actually had espionage and other activities on the East Coast. But the thing was, they were relatively minor in their impact and really had no deep consequence to how we could operate. That’s not the same today. We’re seeing that, especially in the cyber domain, which is probably the area that will be the most likely and have the, probably, most pervasive impact [on our] ability to operate. But I think you’re seeing, out of the examples that we’re looking at in Ukraine, for example, the ability to look at drones [and] other things will happen. And so, then it becomes how do you think about operating when those conditions now are going to be imposed upon us? So, that became, you know, kind of a concern. And one of the other areas that I think people are aware of, is that, you know, within the cyber domain, it’s not just the technical means of disrupting us, there will be information operations that will try to disrupt our commercial providers from supporting us, from having, you know, the American people, you know, look at disruptions to their life, potentially, when it comes to the priority of service that we may have to restrict to be able to operate. And so, how do we address the myriad of things that will be happen

    30 min
  3. Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 6-5 – Frank G. Hoffman and Antulio J. Echevarria II– The 2026 National Defense Strategy

    MAR 17

    Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 6-5 – Frank G. Hoffman and Antulio J. Echevarria II– The 2026 National Defense Strategy

    Military strategists Dr. Frank G. Hoffman (retired) and Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II analyze the 2026 National Defense Strategy.  Host (Stephanie Crider) You are listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. I’m talking with Dr. Frank G. Hoffman and Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II today. Hoffman is the author of “The Next National Defense Strategy: Mission-Based Force Planning,” which was published in the Summer 2025 issue of Parameters. He recently retired from the federal government after more than 46 years of service as a Marine, civil servant, and senior Pentagon official. His last post was at the Institute for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University. Echevarria is currently a professor of strategy at the US Army War College. He’s held the General Douglas MacArthur Chair of Research and the Elihu Root Chair of Military Studies and is the author of six books on military strategy. So, Dr. Hoffman, a lot has happened since we published your article. I’m really looking forward to this conversation today. My first question, in fact, did you get what you were hoping for from the new National Defense Strategy [NDS]? Dr. Frank G. Hoffman Yes, [I am] satisfied. I have a certain sympathy for folks who write strategy documents, and so, I know how difficult it is, and I know that these documents have to talk to many audiences. And, you know, you could chop up the 10, 12 pages of actual texts of the summary that’s out there and see that it’s talking to the White House, that it’s talking to allies, it’s talking to adversaries, it’s talking to commercial vendors. I mean, it has a lot of audiences, and I’ve seen a lot of criticisms, and I’m sympathetic because I’ve been in the shoes of [those] trying to edit or craft a couple of these in my prior life. But, I was pleased with the framework. It has some clarity to it. I think like Dr. E. [Echevarria], I took out all the op [operations] art terminology from the 2018 Strategy, things like lines of effort and things that aren’t as strategic, and I tried to, you know, visualize a theory of success for our strategy. And, I don’t get that necessarily out of these four elements, but the way they are clearly stated and prioritized, I agree with that, and it’s largely in sync with my article—with some improvements. Host I feel very fortunate to have two such esteemed strategists in the studio with me today, and I'm curious how each of you see theory informing the recently published NDS. And also, where do theory and force planning realities collide most sharply? Hoffman On the theoretical part, dealing with strategy per se, you know, one of the things I’ve written about, I think Dr. E’s written about [it], too, is the importance of a theory of success, which I think deals with the ways of a strategy. Of course, it’s also important to have coherence between the ends, ways, and the means. One of the reasons I was writing my article over a year ago was the insolvency problem, which really deals with the means gap. So, I don’t see an overarching integrated theory of success for the four elements, but I do see—particularly for the China component of the strategy—a clear theory of success expressed. The foundation for that was in the 2018 Strategy. It’s [from] some of Mr. [Elbridge A.] Colby’s writings in his book in the past. So, I see that imprinted in there, and that’s the part of theory that I see practically employed in the Strategy. But I do think that the NDS Summary, as I understand it—I understand it’s just a shell and the budget hasn’t been submitted, but I don’t see the Strategy as written for closing the insolvency gap very much. It’s not a compelling or persuasive story for Congress to fund the gaps that I’ve seen in the past, which are mentioned in the Strategy. The president has talked about a very large increase in the means, but I haven’t seen that submitted to the Hill. And this Strategy won’t lift up the attention of Congress on what to do with that money. It’s sort of written as a strategy that makes trade-offs that are pretty clear about Europe for Asia and the Middle East and things. It’s a strategy that’s largely trying to make [the most of] the harsh, constrained resources, which is applaudable, but it’s not a compelling story for a change if that’s what the president really wants. Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II From my standpoint, the theory and strategy mix has to do with our basic assumptions and how those are informed by a theory as a foundation. Even if we aren’t consciously thinking about a particular kind of theory as we’re trying to write a strategy, I think we are informed by the assumptions that are built into a theoretical approach and so on. But I think Frank is right that one of the things that I did not see in this NDS was closing the gap. The $36 trillion, I think, is what you cited in your article last year, and the last number I saw was $38 trillion in debt. Hoffman It goes up $7 million an hour. Echevarria Yeah, so some serious effort is needed there, but maybe that will be forthcoming, and a plan to get there will be forthcoming in the upcoming months or something. I don’t know. We’ll see, I suppose. Host I’d love to hear about your thoughts on the two-war framework. Is it obsolete? Is it misapplied? And if it is, what should replace it? Hoffman I spent a lot of time [on this topic]. In fact, that was largely the motivation for writing that particular article. I’d have to go back to an article that Dr. Echevarria edited, I think in the 2016 time period, where I wrote my first two MTW [two major theater wars] article, and I’m in favor of giving a president options. Presidents don’t want to be constrained if they can afford it. And so, you know, most of my time in the Pentagon, we’ve dealt with a two MRC [major regional conflict] or some version where we’re trying to give the presidents, you know, optionality. And so, my offer, because I was trying to close the gap in defense spending, was to say we’re gonna do one MRC, or war, unilaterally, and we’re going to do one with allies. And [I] published that article and actually got called to see the Secretary of Defense to talk about that article in 2017, and he totally disagreed with me because, historically, we’ve always gone to war with allies. So, saying we’re going to do something unilaterally doesn’t do much strategically or historically. And in fact, it lets allies off, which for the last 10 years we’ve been trying to get allies to do more for themselves—and ourselves—for our collective aim. So, that was my motivation for writing that. I’ve dealt with the debate inside the Pentagon about all the things we’re trying to pay for and trying to prioritize. And so, I was trying to come up with constructs. I’m very conscious, as Yogi Berra said, you know, “In theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice, but in practice there is.” And, the same thing is [true] with the two-war theory. Strategically, it makes sense. I have very, very great friends who have written on behalf of this in various think tanks and people with great government experience. They’re very smart. They’re for that, but they’re also for a grand strategy that is different than what this administration is pursuing. We’re not pursuing global dominance, hegemony. We’re not underwriting an international rule-based order anymore. So, that’s where I [sense] that it’s obsolete. But in theory, it’s useful. But what I was worried about was the advocacy of this particular construct, externally with Congress, is about trying to get a military that’s the military we want to have—large, robust, forward-deployed, deterring. It’s about the bureaucratic interest of the machine to want to have this robustness and risk reduction. But in the practice of it, what I find is we end up with a very conventional legacy-focused capability, and we buy what we have today, and the production lines are open on the Hill that the Congress wants to keep producing. And so, we’ll end up with tanks and rifles and airplanes and helicopters. We don’t invest in some of the things that either represent broader threats, new threats, [or] new domains that we need to be investing in. And so, I think it expands the gap and increases the risk involved in both the first and the second conflict. I’ve called this the lose-lose strategy because I don’t think that Congress is going to give us 100 percent of the force structure for two wars, 100 percent of the recruiting money, the readiness money, and the equipment modernization money that you need. So, you end up with something like 80 percent of what you need for either of the two wars and, if you go to war, you could end up losing both of them. And so, you know, that’s the difference between the theory and the practice. You know, we don’t get that kind of money, and we end up accepting readiness shortfalls. We ended up not investing in our people and MILCON [military construction]. We end up not investing in munitions inventories [and] all the things that are the places the service chiefs have to go to, to scrape up the resources to pay for a very large force structure. And we end up accepting—unconsciously—a lot of risk in areas that I thought were disadvantageous for the future. Strategic deterrence and nuclear modernization’s a shortfall. Missile defense has been a shortfall, both national and theater. Capacity for protracted conflict with munitions we’ve seen since the Ukraine [invasion] were far shorter than we need. So, we’ve been accepting risk in all these buckets, unconsciously, with this desire to go out and fight and win foreign wars. And we’v

    25 min
  4. Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 6-4 – Ilmari Käihkö, Jan Willem Honig, and Antulio J. Echevarria II – Ukraine’s Not-So-Whole-of-Society at War: Force Generation in Modern Developed Societies

    MAR 11

    Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 6-4 – Ilmari Käihkö, Jan Willem Honig, and Antulio J. Echevarria II – Ukraine’s Not-So-Whole-of-Society at War: Force Generation in Modern Developed Societies

    This podcast argues that Ukraine offers a cautionary tale regarding the two main modern models of force generation. Neither the professional high-tech war model, favored by Western militaries, nor the whole-of-society war approach, said to have saved Ukraine in 2014 and 2022, proved successful formulas for Ukraine. Considering that Ukraine is fighting for survival, with Russian forces inside the country, the failure of both models in action has serious implications for NATO member states as they deliberate their choices regarding future force generation. Stephanie Crider (Host) You are listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. I’m in the studio with Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria today. Joining us remotely are Dr. Ilmari Käihkö and Jan Willem Honig. Käihkö and Honig are the authors of “Ukraine's Not-So-Whole-of-Society at War: Force Generation in Modern Developed Societies,” which was published in the Spring 2025 issue of Parameters. Käihkö is an associate professor of war studies, guest researcher at the Swedish Defense University, and a guest researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He’s also a veteran of the Finnish Defence Forces. Honig is professor of international security studies, emeritus, at the Netherlands Defence Academy and a visiting professor in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. Echevarria is currently a professor of strategy at the US Army War College. He has held the General Douglas MacArthur Chair of Research and the Elihu Root Chair of Military Studies and is the author of six books on military strategy. Welcome to Decisive Point. Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II For the benefit of our listeners, would you two please summarize your article for us? It’s been a while, just to refocus everyone. Jan Willem Honig What we tried to explain was that, where as we all expected and thought that initially Ukraine, as a society, mobilized and resisted the Russian attack in 2022, it very quickly turned out that it was a very partial mobilization of Ukrainian society [and] that very limited parts of the population, largely volunteers with a regular element, managed to stop and resist and turn back some of the invasion. And that was something that seemed to be very important because not only was it the case that Ukraine struggled to mobilize all of society in a case of a war that should be the most clear-cut that you could imagine [as] it is a war of aggression. You would expect the population to rise up against this invading force. [It] didn’t quite happen, but it provides us with warnings and potentially lessons [about] whether we can mobilize as a population when we need to. But also, it reflects on Russia, where people don’t tend to realize maybe [the] extent to which the Russians also struggle to mobilize their population [and] that the numbers of forces on the Russian side that fight on the frontline is also very limited. And the result of that is a very particular type of war, not the high-technology professional type of war that we tended to project on what the Russians would do but also how we have prepared—and are still preparing—to fight warfare. It turned out that in the case of Ukraine, neither side could fight this high-intensity, militarily decisive, high-technology, professional type of war. That holds a second major sort of warning lesson for the West, in our view, that not only can’t we rely, in all likelihood, on all of society to mobilize and fight, but we probably can’t also rely on our professional high-technology forces to successfully fight war. Echevarria Ilmari, did you want to add to that? Ilmari Käihkö Yeah, I think this was a very good summary of the article. And also, theoretically, what we did was go back to a column on Clausewitz and one of his trinities of the army, the government, and the people and to look at the relationships between these three. And more generally, one can, of course, say that there are always tensions and suspicion between these three elements. They are more general than only [the] Ukrainian phenomenon, and this is one reason why we should be mindful about Ukrainian examples and lessons from this war. I don’t think we have looked at the sociological aspects of this war closely enough. There are many things that we don’t yet understand. And when it comes to the Ukrainian society’s role in the war, in 2014, when the war in Donbas started, when Russia invaded Crimea and then got involved in Eastern Ukraine, there was this limited societal participation in the war in the form of so-called volunteer battalions. The assumption of even the volunteers, who re-mobilized in 2022, was that now, when this war is existential, then surely everyone will get involved in it, all the Ukrainian people. But nevertheless, it has been a limited war in this sense. And, there is something here that I think we should pay more attention to. Echevarria I wonder if I could draw either or both of you out a little bit more and talk about some of the factors that caused the whole-of-society concept to fail or to be only partially implemented. Some factors, like [the] political implementation of it, came very late in the game, according to some of the interviews that we were able to do earlier. Zelensky did not want to put that policy completely into effect because he was afraid it might antagonize the Russians and maybe provoke an attack. So, that was one thing. And the other thing might be the fact that Russian and Ukrainian populations along the border, leaving aside the Donbas, for instance, have shared commerce, shared interactions, and shared relationships [and have] relatives on either side of the border. The line between the two states might be clear on a map, but socially and culturally, [things are] much more intermixed. And so, it is difficult sometimes, perhaps, to get the whole society involved when you’re living next door to someone and [they don’t] really appear to be a threat to you. The third thing I was going to ask about [is] the issues of corruption throughout Ukrainian government, all the way down and in the military and so on. [I am] not saying Russia, has not also had that problem. It certainly does. But getting any kind of policy implemented when you face a bureaucracy, leaders, and so on who are supposed to implement these policies but are taking money from the other side or somewhere else other than from their own government and so forth [is difficult]. Honig I would say three things. [The] first one is something optimistic about this conflict that you can conclude, I think. We’ve always wondered how big the proclivity for war of populations of people was. What I think the war in Ukraine illustrates is that certainly, in developed societies, the populations on the whole—and massively, more massively than ever before, it seems—don’t like war [and] don’t want to get involved. That is true for Ukraine, even in an existential conflict. It’s true in Russia as well, despite the fact that it isn’t a democracy but an autocratic regime. And it’s also likely to be true, or it is true, because Western armed forces can’t really recruit very well. It’s also true in the rest of Europe. So, in a way, this is a very positive thing that people don’t like war [and] don’t want to get involved. Now, [the] problem with that is that it opens the door to people who do manage to mobilize significant forces and do dastardly things, but still, it’s a positive thing. I would want to emphasize that. And the other two points are that what you, Tony, bring out is the gulf between government and population, where on the one hand, it ties into Ilmari’s earlier point about the trinity of Clausewitz with government, people, [and] armed forces, is that government—or the government in Ukraine—did not really trust its population to be loyal and to get mobilized. And, that is a fairly, as we tried to explain very briefly in the article, a historically common phenomenon. Regimes tend to be, on the whole, always unsure. Look, before the First World War. Regimes, whether they’re democratic, totalitarian, [or] autocratic, don’t know to what extent they can trust their peoples to come to their aid in a war. But on the other hand, what you also see in Ukraine is that the population as a whole not only didn’t like to go to war, didn’t want to really to fight, it also very much distrusted the regime. It distrusted the state. And that reinforced [the low] degree of mobilization and made it very difficult for the state to create massive armed forces. If you then look at Western Europe, the regimes, their trust of populations, it’s a bit of an open question. Do people overwhelmingly trust their states? I hope it is higher than Ukraine. We’ve got less corruption. But again, I think that certainly the absurdly incertitude of the governments as to their reliability to the population is just as strong in the West as it is in Ukraine. Echevarria Ilmari, anything to add? Käihkö Yeah, there’s an interesting puzzle here because the 2014, the Donbas war, we got this notion that it was the society that saved Ukraine through these volunteer battalions. But we don’t see the society being harnessed militarily before 2022. If now the society was so successful in 2014, why wasn’t this done during the eight years after, before the large-scale invasion? And there are, of course, several reasons for this. One is, obviously, that the military in 2014 was very hollow, and this kind of massive reform would be very difficult. There was also not that much money reserved for this kind of project. So, Ukraine lost half of its GDP (gross domestic product) in 2014. So, even by doubling the defense expenditure they actually did not h

    29 min
  5. Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 6-3 – Troy J. Bouffard and Lester W. Grau – Russian Arctic Land Forces and Defense Trends Redefined by NATO and Ukraine

    MAR 9

    Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 6-3 – Troy J. Bouffard and Lester W. Grau – Russian Arctic Land Forces and Defense Trends Redefined by NATO and Ukraine

    This podcast argues that Russia’s Arctic land forces have been weakened by the Russia-Ukraine War and NATO’s northern expansion, creating a strategic window for Western militaries to bolster their Arctic capabilities. Unlike existing studies that focus on maritime operations and the Northern Sea Route, it integrates technical assessments of ground-based Arctic platforms with analysis of military-district reforms. Using a mixed methodology that incorporates equipment specifications, Russian government documents, media reports, and NATO strategic-response evaluations, this podcast constructs a comprehensive baseline understanding of Russia’s Arctic land-force potential and readiness. Policy and military practitioners will benefit from actionable insights into Arctic force-design shifts, equipment vulnerabilities, and strategic recommendations to exploit the temporary imbalance between NATO and Russian readiness. Stephanie Crider (Host) Welcome to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. I’m talking remotely with Troy J. Bouffard and Lester W. Grau, coauthors with Charles K. Bartles and Mathieu Boulègue of “Russian Arctic Land Forces and Defense Trends Redefined by NATO and Ukraine,” which was published in the Autumn 2025 issue of Parameters. Bouffard (US Army, retired) has a master’s degree in Arctic policy and a PhD in Arctic defense and security from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he’s an assistant professor of Arctic security. He is the director of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Center for Arctic Security and Resilience and a research fellow with [the] United States Military Academy’s Modern War Institute. Grau, lieutenant colonel (US Army, retired) specializes in Russian military studies and is a senior analyst for the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He has a PhD from the University of Kansas in Russian and Central Asian history. He’s written numerous books and articles on tactical, operational, and geopolitical subjects. I’m happy you’re here. Thank you for joining me, Troy and Les. Lester W. Grau Thank you. Troy J. Bouffard Thank you. Host Please give our listeners a brief recap of your article. Bouffard Well, we wrote this because there were significant baseline circumstances involving Russia’s Arctic interest in the defense side, especially with land forces. When Sweden and Finland joined NATO, it had a profound effect, I think, on the Kremlin, and we saw immediate reactions that were significant strategically. One of those was the fact that Russia, in previous years, had established a new military district for the Arctic. It was the Northern Fleet District. It was a joint Arctic-type military district, which is strategically significant. They did this in 2014, and it remained provisional until 2021, when it became full equal status to the other four military districts. Then in 2024, they dissolved it immediately—right after Sweden and Finland joined NATO. Grau The indications are, however, they’re not giving up on the Arctic. As a matter of fact, since the article was written, the 200th Motorized Rifle Brigade has disappeared and been replaced by the 71st [Guard] Motorized Rifle Order of Kutuzov Division in Pechenga, [Murmansk Oblast]. A division is larger than a brigade. [Russia is] not as constrained as we would be in developing a new division in that the logistics structure of the brigade and the division are the same. It’s the [ground-combat] folks [being added]. However, what they already had [was] three brigades in a corps when this whole Ukrainian thing started and now, it looks like they’re going to have at least two divisions—the naval infantry division and this division up in the Arctic. So, when Ukraine comes to a halt, the emphasis on the Arctic is going [to] spring back quite [impressively]. Furthermore, they develop their kit specifically for the Arctic, and the Arctic conditions are so different than the rest of the world that you really need to purpose-build your equipment for the Arctic, rather than taking a piece that’s in existence and saying, “Well, let’s see how many things we can strap on this without increasing it by three tons.” It’s a very different thing. And, of course, the Navy is the major player in Arctic development / Arctic policy. The Northern Sea Route is [has] certainly proven viable. The Chinese are [sailing] it all the time. The Russians are running oil and LNG (liquified natural gas) on it all the time. And, South Korea is going to have a test run in July on the Northern Sea Route to see if it’s viably convenient because if you’re China or South Korea and you’re trying to get stuff to your European customers, the Northern Sea Route cuts two weeks off of transit time, and you avoid the problems of piracy and getting through the Suez Canal and drone attacks out of Yemen and all the other problems that they’re having in that region. So, the Arctic is important. It’s at least 10 percent of the national annual wealth of Russia and is going to be more so. So, it’s viable, it’s there, and it’s only going to get bigger. Bouffard We had to write the article because there was such a decided shift from the direction Russia was going in the Arctic. They’re kind of flatlined in the Arctic right now because of Ukraine, but we know what they were doing before, where they were at, and we know when they do come back full steam, they’re going to make these, I think, developments that Les talked about. But for now, with Sweden and Finland having joined NATO, Russia had a decided reaction to that by dissolving the military district and putting even more emphasis on the Baltics, which is the epicenter of strategic importance to Russia, for one fact—and I think it’s good for the listeners to just have a reminder—the Baltics are so important to Russia, more than anything else, because of St. Petersburg as a maritime port. This is their most important maritime access point in the entire planet. Out of all of their vast and major coastline, that is the most important place on the planet for them. And, if Russia lost maritime access just from that point around St. Petersburg, the effects are unimaginable. So, this is why it is the epicenter of importance to Russia. So, when Finland and Sweden joined NATO, it had an obvious effect on Russia, and they pulled a lot of the development from the Arctic, in terms of strategic command and emphasis, to the Leningrad and Moscow Military District that was reestablished. And, we have yet to see how that’s all going to work out, but it was clear that something was changing and it wasn’t too difficult to understand how. Host Russia not being as focused on the Arctic—what did that create as far as opportunities go for America? Bouffard Russia has shown us that they are serious about their development of the new threat that’s going to consume us for the next many decades, which are hypersonic cruise missiles. They’ve already operationalized this. And these are air, land, and sea launched. They’ve done this in the Arctic not once, but twice—with two different missile systems. So, this is going to replace ballistic missiles that we’ve lived with for decades as the primary threat to North America with, you know, a new threat. We have to redo everything in order to deal with hypersonic cruise missiles because they behave completely different than ballistic missiles. This is what has us really, I think, interested in what we need to do for future threats. The Arctic is part of that in those ways that Russia has demonstrated its development of hypersonic cruise missiles. This is going to grip the world for decades. Host Les, do you want to chime in? Grau Well, I was just thinking, if we are involved in the Arctic, all of the services have to be involved in the Arctic, including the Navy—especially the Navy—and the Navy is stretched right now. China has more ships than the US Navy, and the US Navy has no ice-class vessels. If you’re going to sail in the Arctic waters, you need ice-class vessels. Russia has over 40 icebreakers. We have three—one permanently in the Great Lakes. Two of them are ancient; one of them we just bought—a used one—from Norway. You need to be able to function in that area. The Coast Guard is now buying icebreakers. They’re going to take a while to get out there. China has three icebreakers. One of them in development is an atomic-powered icebreaker. And, they also have what they call research vessels, which are mini-icebreakers that are zipping all over the area. They’re not an Arctic power, although they like to claim that they’re going to be. It’s not just an Army problem. It’s not just an Air Force problem. It’s a Navy problem, as well. And, it’s all three of them working together. There are some major challenges out there, and all of the services are trying to manage their budgets for where they consider their customer base is. And the Navy says, well, most of the [world’s] ships right now are down going through the Suez Canal or around the Horn of Africa. The Northern Sea Route is viable. That’s proven, and it’s going to become increasingly so. And, I think we’re going to have to be involved by [having] all services in there in the region. Host The Northern Sea Route. As it becomes more viable for international shipping, how do you see the tension between Russia’s claims and the principle of freedom of navigation playing out, especially with interest from non-Arctic nations like China, and, I think, was it Les, you mentioned also South Korea? Grau We’ve had one freedom of navigation [test] sailing on the Northern Sea Route, and that was what—10 years ago? 14 years ago?—[when] a French n

    21 min
  6. Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 6-2 – Neil N. Snyder and Charles “Chuck” Allen – The Consequences of Declining Patriotism in the United States

    FEB 2

    Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 6-2 – Neil N. Snyder and Charles “Chuck” Allen – The Consequences of Declining Patriotism in the United States

    In this episode, Colonel Neil Snyder and Charles “Chuck” Allen discuss declining patriotism in the United States, highlighting generational and veteran–nonveteran gaps revealed in Snyder’s research. They explore how patriotism influences trust in the military, the challenges of building that trust, and the roles of leadership, communication, and shared values in bridging divides. Both emphasize that leaders must make people feel valued, engage authentically across generations, and anchor service and purpose in the Constitution and the American people. Host (Stephanie Crider) You are listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. I’m in the studio with Colonel Neil Snyder, and Charles “Chuck” Allen is joining us remotely. Snyder is the author of “The Consequences of Declining Patriotism in the United States,” which was published in the Autumn 2025 issue of Parameters. Allen culminated a 30-year Army career as [a] director [in] leader development, and retired as the professor of leadership and cultural studies in the Department of Command, Leadership, and Management at the United States Army War College. We are exploring today what shifting attitudes toward patriotism mean for trust, service, and leadership and how leaders can respond constructively. Neil, Chuck, what’s the one insight you hope leaders take away from the podcast today? Colonel Neil Snyder Well, first off, I want to thank you for having me on, and for Chuck Allen for doing this. It’s an honor to be with you, sir. I would just say for me, I’m a social scientist. People fascinate me, and I suspect that for a lot of the listeners, they’re super interested to know what makes other people tick. And, that’s what I’m interested in. Today, we seem to be living in fairly divisive times. And so, I’m interested to know what are the things that are dividing Americans. And so, my research in this article is about Americans’ values. And candidly, what I was hoping to find were sources of unity—the ties that bind us all together. And in many ways, that’s what I did. However, I also found that our values may be dividing us in some fundamental ways, the old from the young and the veterans from nonveterans, over a key issue that is truly important to national identity [and] to our national security. And that’s the value [of] patriotism. And so, if there’s one thing that I would hope listeners would take away, [it] is [that] I hope to inspire some curiosity. I hope that we can have conversations in an open, respectful way about values, to find those things that unite us and to find ways to bridge those things that divide us. Host Love that. Charles “Chuck” Allen I’m glad to be with you, Stephanie and Neil. It’s a great day to talk about this idea of patriotism and also our national values. My primary insight would be the importance of understanding that civil-military relations in the United States includes the connection of our military institution to society and to our nation. The US military, we must remember, exists to protect and serve the American people and its government as a first principle, and that requires trust, a trust which is grounded in the United States Constitution. So, that’s the one takeaway I think we want to focus on—trust in the Constitution and our responsibilities as a protective force for our nation. Host Neil, your article shows patriotism is declining among some groups. What surprised you most about these trends? Snyder Yeah. This is a . . . it’s a good question. And like I said, this article is really about curiosity, and the article itself is about values. And so, [we will benefit] if we operationalize or conceptualize values as our beliefs about ideals, but also ideals that can motivate our behavior, how we act. And a key insight is that traditionally, Americans have had two kinds of values that are at tension. We seem to simultaneously value our individuality and our autonomy, the things that make us unique as people but, we also are fiercely American. We are proud of being American, [so much so] that even going back to the early period of our country before the Constitution, you know, there was this observation that Americans were united as a people—even before we were a country. And so, it’s this interesting thing that patriotism, or a common love for the country, is something that should unite us, and that value has traditionally been a key source of motivation for military service. Like Chuck talked about, Americans’ trust in the military as a key aspect of the bond between the people and their military servants, and part of the glue that makes that work is patriotism, a common love for country. And so, I was curious about patriotism. And there had been data out of Pew Research [Center] and some other places that suggests that the share of Americans that feel strongly patriotic seems to be in decline, and that that share seems to be in particular decline among young Americans. It’s this riddle. We’ve always had patriotism as a source of unity. But in fact, it may be a dividing value right now in separating young from old or veterans from nonveterans. And so, in the article, I look specifically at patriotism to see if it correlates [or] if valuing and showing importance for patriotism or love for country, if that correlates with either trusting the military or for young people, for Generation Z—so at the time of the article, [for] 18-to-28-year-old adults—whether patriotism correlates with having considered military service, being open to serving in our military. And my idea was that for Gen Z, low patriotism might be part of an explanation for why there appears to be less service interest among young people, which, for the reasons that Chuck talked about, has some profound implications. Low patriotism could also be, in an interesting way, a source of less trust in the military. And my logic kind of goes like this: If most people see the military as a symbol of our country, as a bastion of the country, a key part of our democracy . . . well, if you’re feeling less love for the country overall, that might result in less trust in this thing that people conflate with the country. And so, Americans’ trust could be, in the military, could be somewhat of a victim of generally less identification with the trust, with the country overall. And so, I wanted to see if that was true. I worried that there would be a veteran’s gap, which is to say that people who feel particularly patriotic may be more likely to join and, also, serving in uniform can cause people to feel more patriotic. And the net result of those two forces, selection and socialization, would result in veterans appearing way more patriotic than their nonveteran fellow citizens. Plus [we must consider] the generational gap between Gen Z and their elders. And so, we fielded this very large national survey to test the ideas, along with some others, and I was really surprised by the degree of unity over values that we saw among the respondents. And so, you asked what surprised me. And we looked at a really large battery of different kinds of values, and for the most part, Americans agree. It doesn’t matter whether you’re young or old, veteran, nonveteran, minority, white, male, female, political left, political right, there’s strong agreement on all kinds of values. But, patriotism was one that really stood out, and there was really this huge gap. And what we see is that far fewer young people and nonveterans value patriotism than older elders and veterans. And that really, really surprised me. I mean, I think the data showed something like 76 percent of Gen Z nonveterans think patriotism [is] important, [which] contrasts with 92 percent of older nonveterans and 96 percent of veterans. So, virtually every veteran feels patriotic, but if you ask a young person or a young nonveteran, you’re going to get a very different answer in the percentages. And, the percentages, you know, in the abstract, don’t mean anything, but when you extrapolate those percentages across 260 million adult Americans, those are huge social divides about a value, a fundamental idea about what is ideal and which should motivate people’s behavior. And so, those gaps were surprising. The size of the gaps were surprising to me. Host What happens when the younger generation, less than 50 percent, has patriotism? Is there a tipping point? Snyder It’s a great question, and we should be thinking about two things. What are the consequences of declining patriotism? Does it mean that fewer young people will serve? While the data seem to bear that out. It could be a threat to the viability of the all-volunteer force if we can’t bring enough young people in [to the military] out of the spirit of volunteerism. The other thing is, and I really would like to hear Chuck Allen’s wisdom on this, is what do we do about it? We have leadership intuitions about how to build trust in small organizations, but I don’t know how we scale that up across the country. I don’t know what kind of policy interventions can lead to higher levels of patriotism and higher levels of trust. That’s a really wicked problem that national security leaders should be dealing with. Host What are your thoughts, Chuck? Allen Well, my first thought is that Neil wrote a great paper, which provides a lot of fodder for discussion and, I think, exploration. When I think about military service, why people come into the military, [I think about my personal experience]. Many years ago, I was a garrison commander over in Germany, and every two weeks or so, I would give the intake briefing to new members of the community. And, I would ask the same question, “Why did you join the mil

    36 min
  7. Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 6-1 – Neil N. Snyder – Tyranny of the Inbox: Managing the US National Security Agenda

    JAN 6

    Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 6-1 – Neil N. Snyder – Tyranny of the Inbox: Managing the US National Security Agenda

    Presidential management style, foreign policy preferences, and domestic political interests all affect the national security agenda. International crises, however, are particularly likely to garner the attention of the National Security Council. This podcast analyzes a novel data set of all the issues raised at National Security Council meetings from 1947 to 1993 and finds that contemporaneous crises are very likely to be discussed, but that crisis management attenuates the Council’s attention to noncrisis national security matters. The results suggest presidents focus on crises at the expense of other strategic matters, and they do so when political conditions favor crisis management. Keywords: national security, presidency, international crises, political science, strategic studies Stephanie Crider (Host) You are listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. I’m in the studio with Colonel Neil Snyder, author of “Tyranny of the Inbox: Managing the US National Security Agenda,” which was published in the Spring 2025 issue of Parameters. Snyder is an assistant professor in the Department of National Security Strategy at the US Army War College. Let’s just go ahead and get started. You describe in your article how international crises dominate presidential attention, often at the expense of broader strategic issues. What are the long-term risks of this crisis-driven focus for US national security planning? Colonel Neil Snyder  If I could, maybe I’ll back up and just kind of start with my intuition and my curiosity and why I was doing this research at all. And, it’s something that my guess is that many of the Parameters readers and [Decisive Point] listeners will relate to, which is the simple intuition that crises can dominate your life. When you are attending to crises, it seems to crowd out all of your other priorities, and I think leaders have this natural intuition whereby when you’re stating priorities, you’re actually talking about the things that . . . It’s a choice. You’re stating which you’re not going to do, what you’re going to defer or just table completely. And, I had this abiding curiosity of whether or not that was happening to us in the national security and strategy realm, too. It’s kind of like this tyranny of the inbox where, maybe how you and I might manage our e-mail, where if you just answer every e-mail that comes in, in the order in which it comes in, it’s not exactly a dominant strategy for managing your e-mail, right? You’re not choosing to spend your time on those important messages—the ones from family or the ones about your bank accounts or something that might matter the most. You’re just sort of managing the flow that comes in. That tyranny of the inbox can happen two ways—[by] attending to the things that are unimportant or, alternatively, focusing on only the most urgent thing that popped into your inbox at the expense of everything else that might matter to you. Eisenhower had this concept of Eisenhower’s window [The Eisenhower Matrix]. I’m sure many of the readers have seen it, where it’s this matrix, a two by two of the urgent versus the important. And, I kind of had this intuition that, in the national security world, we focus almost exclusively on the things that are urgent and important to the expense of those things that are important but not urgent. And, I wondered whether that was actually true or not. So, my curiosity started [not] with a question of whether or not [but] how the US relates to the world. And how we manage national security is affected by a kind of crisis myopia by which we are exclusively attentive to national security [issues] that are urgent. And so, it’s a matter of almost strategic discipline, which is a phrase, a term of art, that we hear a lot now, which is to say, do we have the discipline to attend to a broad range of topics, to have a breadth of our national security agenda, or do we sacrifice that breadth to attend to crises? And it’s a dilemma—like, we can’t not deal with crises—that’s the nature of a crisis. It’s urgent. It’s a high stakes, [and includes] high risk of use of military force. How do you not deal with that? And that, I see, as a kind of persistent problem. And so, my research is on the presidency. I look at all the presidential national security meetings from 1947 to 1993, the entirety of the Cold War, using primary-source records. And I looked at the post–National Security Council (NSC) meeting accounts of what topics they looked at—so, issues or topics that actually got [a] president’s attention in formal meetings of the NSC. And I looked for patterns, and I used a kind of algorithmic, computational text analysis to figure out whether or not those topics dealt with contemporaneous crises—things that were happening at that time—or other national security issues. And, I had a few expectations. One is, I thought style would matter, that presidents would vary. You know, Johnson did his Tuesday lunch clubs, whereas Eisenhower had large numbers of very formal NSC meetings. And Nixon was different. He chose to centralize things with Kissinger. And Reagan was certainly different. So, style matters. Every president would likely have different policy views and preferences and preference for either formal meetings or not, and that would determine whether or not they held meetings at all and whether or not they were attending to crises a lot when they did so. The second expectation I had was that conditions kind of matter. So, I had previously written a piece, in an academic journal called Presidential Studies Quarterly, which basically showed that NSC meetings become more likely during crisis periods. And so, not only do crises drive attention to national security, generally, because of linked threats, [for example] a crisis in the East might have impacts on security interests elsewhere because of forced trade-offs and these kinds of things. You know, the conditions themselves could drive interest in national security, but the problem with it is that those conditions that cause presidents to pay attention to things can invoke the threat of opportunity costs that, just by taking on an issue, it may trigger public opposition, congressional opposition, Congress may have partisan differences or policy differences with the president over an issue, or perhaps, alternatively, may simply use the opportunity of a president taking on an issue to take the opposite position for horse trading. And so, you know, when presidents are choosing whether to answer that e-mail in the inbox or not, what they’re actually doing is choosing whether to take resources on or to use resources to take on an issue and potentially overcome congressional opposition. And so, what are the risks, you ask, like, what are the long-term risks of a crisis-driven focus for US national security planning? Well, if we come back to [a] president’s logic about why they would take things on, they have incentives to deal with crises because it’s a chance for policy gains or political gains, potentially, but also, it comes with a cost. And so, that calculus in my data seems to suggest that presidents are particularly likely to take on crises, and that when they do so, they pay less attention to all other topics. The president is the most powerful person in the world [and] has a massive range of national security issues that presidents deal with. The challenge of that is that when you focus on one thing, the Ukraine today, the Taiwan today, the Gaza today, you’re not doing the other things. And so, the risk is agenda breadth. The long view tends to suffer. We tend to get crisis myopia, and it’s a question of how this gets extrapolated over time. In an era when crises are particularly prevalent, what we likely see is that attention to all other things drops off, and that compounds over time as crises last longer and become more frequent, which really reduces our strategic breadth. That’s concerning. It’s concerning for me when I can’t manage my e-mail, and it should be concerning for everybody else who would want our national security system to have a really broad view—because Americans have lots of interests. Host How do domestic political dynamics shape the way presidents prioritize national security issues? How about an example for the audience? Snyder I’m a social scientist by training. My work isn’t commentary. It’s certainly not a commentary on partisan positions or polarization or anything like that in a contemporary environment. And I’m speaking to data from the Cold War. So, it’s largely retrospective. But what my take is, is that I focus on institutions and incentives. Kind of the way I was describing it earlier is that when presidents make a choice to chart an agenda, they’re taking on issues, and the simple choice of taking on issues is also the choice to take on opposition or to take on the resource costs necessary to either drum up public support for an issue or drum up elite support for an issue or overcome elite opposition to an issue. You ask, like, what is the domestic political dimension that’s affecting this? Well, my view is that the domestic and the foreign are not separate [and] that [a] president’s decision making is conditional both on international conditions (like crises) and also on the array of partisan forces through our institutions—be that in Congress, in the House and Senate, or [in] the potential for bureaucratic opposition within the executive branch agencies, which has its own kind of bureaucratic domestic politics. The institutions, the separation of power system, the shared power system between Congress and the presidency for certain national security instr

    23 min
  8. Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 5-35 – Shang-Su Wu and Collin Koh – The Philippines’ Security in the Face of China’s Rising Threats

    11/14/2025

    Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 5-35 – Shang-Su Wu and Collin Koh – The Philippines’ Security in the Face of China’s Rising Threats

    Dr. Shang-Su Wu and Dr. Collin Koh discuss the ties between the Philippines and Taiwan and how the Philippines would be affected in a conflict between Taiwan and China. Their discussion also delves into topics such as military modernization in the Philippines and US involvement in the Philippines. Keywords: Philippines, Taiwan, China, Philippine-Taiwan relations, security, military modernization   Disclaimer: This transcript has been edited for clarity. Stephanie Crider (Host) You are listening to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. Joining me virtually today are Dr. Shang-Su Wu and Dr. Collin Koh. Wu is the author of “The Philippines’ Security in the Face of China's Rising Threats,” which was published in the Winter 2024–25 issue of Parameters. He's an assistant professor and research coordinator in the Homeland Security Program at Rabdan Academy in Abu Dhabi. Koh is [a] senior fellow at the Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies, a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) based in Nanyang Technological University. He primarily researches maritime security and naval affairs in the Indo-Pacific region, focusing on Southeast Asia. Welcome to Decisive Point. Dr. Shang-Su Wu Thank you Dr. Collin Koh Thank you Host Tell me about the security connection between the Philippines and Taiwan. What are the likely scenarios that might play out in Taiwan, and how would these different scenarios impact the Philippines? Wu Generally, if China wants to use force against Taiwan, there's probably two most likely scenarios. The one is a blockade, then another—of course, after a blockade or certain fire projection—[is to] try to eventually do the invasion. So, deployment of the US military near to Taiwan, no matter in Okinawa or in the Philippines, they [are a] dilemma [for] China because China, on the one hand, if they want to constrain the conflict [bilaterally], just go straight. Yes, they would not like to attack, but on the other hand, that means their flanks are opened for the intervention for the attack. On the other hand, if you want to extend the conflict, then, of course, the scale will be much bigger, the outcome will be much worse, or the risk much higher. In that case, they have to pay very [close] attention on military deployments. And, in the past, of course, the Philippines remained less relevant because most invasion [scenarios] remain focused on Taipei, the northern part of Taiwan. So, Japan’s side will be important, but nowadays, if they are doing a blockade (of course, if they are surrounding the island), they would also [employ] the longer range of the weapon systems for the munitions. So, even the northern part [of Taiwan] would be under the firepower [deployed from] the Philippines. That’s why the US military deployment in the Philippine would matter a lot. But, on the other hand, the Philippines have various weakness. The one weakness is their armed forces haven’t been modernized since, generally, between the 1980s to the 2000s or early 2010s. So nowadays, their capability is still weak, especially compared to China. And, you know, they have the maritime disputes over various islands, and China may use that to press the Philippines. Another issue is [that] the Philippines likes to export the labor force for their economy. And in Taiwan, they [have] at least 154,000 Filipino workers. China may use these people as a kind of hostage to threaten the Philippines. And in 2003, the Philippines quit Operation Iraqi Freedom [because] al-Qaeda threatened the Filipino workers overseas, and there could be a similar situation [in Taiwan someday]. So, that makes the US deployment in the Philippines, and overall, the security connection with Taiwan, significant. Koh Yes, thank you. I think, first of all, allow me to first comment [compliment], Shang-Su, on the new publication. Congratulations. And, it's a great honor to be here to share about what I feel to be the security connection between the Philippines and Taiwan. This is a very timely discussion we are having because the PLA [People’s Liberation Army] Eastern Theater Command started a whole new series of [exercises], and one of the itineraries that was being exercised was the blockade [in] some parts of the waters around Taiwan. As Shang-Su has rightly pointed out, in the past, it used to be that the invasion would have focused on the northern part of Taiwan—and particularly around Taipei. I do understand that there is still an emphasis on the defense around the Tan-shui River area, but now, given that the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) has been maneuvering more frequently around Taiwan, it's not [an] “around Taiwan” issue. So, the conception has all changed. The south of Taiwan, which is right close to the doorstep of the northern Philippines, has become increasingly more saliant. The Bashi Channel, which is the channel—the waterway—just in between southern Taiwan and northern Philippines, is a key waterway for the transit of various forces, not just for the PLA, but also for US and Allied forces. So, it will be a contested waterway in times of conflict, and the Philippines will find it rather difficult to stay out of it completely. So that's one. Second is with the [Ferdinand] Marcos Jr. administration, in recent times, there has been a boost to the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) between the two countries. Under this agreement [signed in 2014], which is, in fact, dated all the way back to the late [Benigno Aquino III] administration, there [have] been moves to reinvigorate the bases and other access arrangements centering around [the] northern Philippines. Those exercises that we see, for example, [in the] exercise Balikatan, they actually have a focus on the northern area of the Philippines in mind, and that actually has Taiwan right in the crosshairs without being them actually naming Taiwan as the area of focus. But, clearly, the intent is to boost the forces—both the American forces and the Philippine forces—to deal with a Taiwan contingency. So, whether or not the Philippines like it or otherwise, being involved in some way or another in a Taiwan Strait conflict might be a higher possibility these days. I remember Marcos Jr. did mention that it will be inevitable for the Philippines to be involved in one way or another. The question here is: If the US has to be involved in direct combat operations around Taiwan, and if the Philippines would opt to stay out of direct combat operations around Taiwan, then it would mean that the Philippine forces will have to take on the primary mantle of safeguarding its waters in the South China Sea. And that, in itself, is going to be a tall order for the Philippines, as Shang-Su rightly pointed out. The armed forces of the Philippines is still currently in the midst of modernization, and there is much to be done before they become a more credible deterrent force going forward. Host Regarding the balance of forces, what impact does America’s involvement in the Philippines and Taiwan have vis-à-vis China’s threat? Wu Because [of] the Philippines very limited capability—there’s just one squadron of fighter jets and, and maybe it will expand to four very soon, this year—[it] has a very limited capability to defend itself. So, if the armed conflict happened—and in the Philippines—then US detachments would have to shoulder most [of the] responsibility of the missions because the Philippines itself only can protect very key locations, very few—even [in] most of [its] territory. Regarding this imbalance, of course, we have to mention [the] Philippines since 2012, because the Scarborough Shoal incident, they indeed put the effort into modernization, but unfortunately, they face China, the quickest expanding (or military increasing), the rising power. So, [the] Philippines’ effort compared to China is very limited. It’s very insufficient. So, if anything, the US will play a very key factor [in bringing] balance. But, on the other hand, it also means the US knows [it has] to handle different locations—so, how [many forces the US can provide to the] Philippine regarding defense—and that will be challenging. Koh If I could chime in quickly on that. Shang-Su, you rightly pointed out the current modernizational challenges faced by the AFP—the Armed Forces of the Philippines—and, I think one thing to also point out is that the Philippines, as an archipelagic state, has multiple maritime areas of interest. And, given that it doesn’t just have the West Philippine Sea, which is the area within the South China Sea that they claim under their sovereignty and jurisdiction, other than the West Philippine Sea, we have also the eastern seaboard of the Philippines, which, of course, [centers] around what they call the Philippine Rise, which is an underwater submerged feature that is considered resource rich. And not to mention that there are key waterways that run through the Philippine archipelago that actually allow access right into the open western Pacific Ocean. Now, one example would be that in recent times we have seen PLA Navy ships actually transiting some of those waterways, for example, the Basilan Strait, which is in the southern part of the Philippines. And, it also could mean that in wartime, those waterways could be contested, largely because the Philippine armed forces on its own might be unable to, in fact, police effectively those waterways, much less to even think about defending them in times of war. So, it will really depend on the US, but what I do tend to see is that the war in Ukraine might actually offer some very important lessons. For example, Ukraine was derided as having no Navy to talk about. But Ukraine—with

    21 min
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Decisive Point, the Parameters podcast companion series, furthers the education and professional development of senior military officers and members of the government and academia who are concerned with national security affairs. Questions or feedback? E-mail usarmy.carlisle.awc.mbx.parameters@army.mil

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