A Better Peace: The War Room Podcast

In 2013, a team of authors was commissioned by then Chief of Staff of the Army General Odierno to write a study of Operation Iraqi Freedom to glean insights for immediate practical application. The resulting two-volume report (Volume I | Volume II) was completed in 2016 but not authorized for release until early in 2019. In this presentation, A BETTER PEACE welcomes co-editor U.S. Army Colonel (Re...

In the States, we hadn't had tanks coming off the assembly line in months In 1992, as calls for the post-Cold War peace dividend grew louder, then-Chief of Staff of the Army General Gordon Sullivan wrote a provocative essay in ARMY Magazine as a clarion call for the nation to sustain vigilance and military preparedness for war. "NO MORE Task Force Smiths" presented the story of U.S. unpreparedness...

Democracy in South Africa is still fairly young. ... The people of South Africa are still not enjoying the fruits of prosperity or economic growth As South Africa faces its May 2019 Presidential elections, the nation finds itself at a crossroads. Support for the African National Congress, the party of Mandela that ushered in post-Apartheid democracy, is waning as other political parties mature and...

The common thread [in addressing key strategic problems] is the requirement to convert operational military success to political success A BETTER PEACE welcomes General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith to the studio to discuss his perspectives on strategic leadership and balancing continuity with the need for change. The British Army has a very long history, and General Carleton-Smith addresses the importa...

There is a significant percentage of Europeans ... that believe that American standards and quality of products and services ... are very low A BETTER PEACE explores the current state of trade between the U.S. and Europe as compared to U.S.-China trade. While the latter gets more attention nowadays, in reality transatlantic trade remains many times greater and much more important politically. Howe...

Russia still needs to be a part of the West. ... Our position should be to remain open and stay engaged with Russia A BETTER PEACE is pleased to welcome Ambassador John Tefft to the studio to discuss his perspectives on Russia and Russian-US relations. As former US Ambassador to Russia from 2014-2017, AMB Tefft served in the aftermath of Russia's annexation of Crimea and the most recent Presidenti...

It's natural to ask what can we gain from this 'old war'? ... You can read [history] in a book, but when you actually walk the field, it rams home into your head and stays there In an earlier episode of A BETTER PEACE, Learning Strategy by Walking the Ground, Andrew Hill and Len Fullenkamp talked about the value of staff rides. In this follow-up discussion, Christian Keller and Jacqueline E. Whitt...

'Is Remote Warfare Cheaper?' 'So that's a really hard question to answer. ... We actually have very little data' A BETTER PEACE explores the implications of NATO members' ongoing shift away from large-scale coalition operations to smaller-scale operations that rely primarily on local forces, militias, or other groups supported by Western resources, training, and small numbers of personnel (i.e., "...

At the end of the day, what Putin really wants to re-structure European relationships [from the EU's] rules-based Europe towards a [transactionally-based] Great Power Europe A BETTER PEACE presents "Russia, Great Power Competition, & Politics of Hybrid War" where Mitchell Orenstein and Darrell Driver discuss the history of great power dynamics and interests in Europe before the European Union, and...

What if we spent one day on Herodotus, one day on Thucydides, and one day on Xenophon [at the War College]? Students with a basic foundation of ancient military history are likely to know about Thucydides and his accounts of the Peloponnesian War from both strategic and operational perspectives. But it would be an oversight to stop there, as there were other important war historians in antiquity....

Armed conflict is a deadly business. We in the military profession have a moral obligation to examine what works and what doesn't work Traditional lists of prominent and successful strategic leaders are often biased toward celebrated historical figures. Of course, such figures were both heroes (to their own people) and villains (to the enemy) all at once. In the introductory essay to the Great Cap...

As the 'global' commander, he oversees all of the Army including the Army Air Corps in all of the theaters in World War II In this episode in our Great Captains series, we profile an officer whose extraordinary achievements depart slightly from those typical associated with the term 'great captains' as described by Napoleon. George Catlett Marshall Jr. was by any measure a tremendous strategic lea...

Elections in Nigeria are not about issues. They are about personality and personal and ethnic alliances A BETTER PEACE welcomes Ambassador John Campbell to the studio to discuss the upcoming Nigerian elections and describe the very complex political and social landscape in Nigeria. Contrary to the mythical 'north-south' divide, Nigeria comprises about 350 different ethnic groups and languages such...

If Moldova is never in the news, I doubt policy makers are ever really thinking about Moldova If you were a news editor, which story would you run first -- a moderate earthquake in Italy or a larger earthquake in Sri Lanka? In the U.S., the Italian earthquake would be more likely due to the connections between the U.S. and Italy at both national and societal levels. According to Amanda Cronkhite,...

Don't love the military too much, and don't love the other institutions too little It is well-known that poll after poll shows the military ranks as the most trusted institution in the U.S. And, it is equally known that the opposite was true a mere few decades ago. The numbers belie the persistent tensions that exist between U.S. society and its military, tensions that have been tempered through l...

The approach that the government often takes to acquisition of [intellectual property] rights is something that's completely anathema to working with tech companies Managing and regulating intellectual property (IP) rights is central to the functioning of a working economy. The intellectual work behind the development of new products, publications, or innovative ideas is vital and must be protecte...

It was the largest battle in the [Vietnam] war in terms of numbers of casualties, and politically it was the most important On the Anniversary of the start of the Tet Offensive of 1968, A BETTER PEACE welcomes retired U.S. Ambassador Jim Bullington to recount the story of the Battle of Huế in Vietnam which began on January 31, 1968 and lasted nearly a month. In contrast to the Viet Cong's previous...

The relationship is complex because journalists and politicians depend on each other A free and independent media is a hallmark of freedom and provides an important check against government power. Meanwhile, government leaders are invested in pursuing their agenda. This brings about natural tensions between political objectives and the objective truth, and therefore between governments and media....

As the Campaigns of 1862 move forward, Lee turns to Jackson more and more for counsel A BETTER PEACE continues its Great Captains series with a look at a leadership team, rather than an individual. In this episode, U.S. Army War College Professor of History Christian Keller argues that the strategic teaming of Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson enabled the success of the Confede...

The great benefit of looking at John Warden's system is that it [employed] effects-based objectives [for] attacking an enemy A BETTER PEACE continues the Great Strategists series with a look at the systems-based theory of John Warden III, Colonel, U.S. Air Force retired. Out of the emerging theories of airpower and his own experiences in Vietnam, Warden developed the five-ring system model of an e...

[Kotter's] first step is to establish a sense of urgency. ... But then the question I ask the students is, 'What's the step that leads to figuring out what's urgent?' Why is change hard in military organizations? There's no question that militaries need to change routinely to sustain the ability to fight and win its nation's wars against current and emerging threats. But large, complex organizatio...

We don't have a sophisticated genre about what do militaries do in the wake of victory What is the role of the military in consolidating victory? This has been a difficult question at least since World War II and is very salient now. A BETTER PEACE explores this topic with the help of Dr. Wayne Lee, the Dowd Distinguished Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and...

Fundamentally in asymmetric conflicts, the struggle is over information that comes from the [local] population. This is different from the traditional 'hearts and minds' view A BETTER PEACE welcomes Jacob Shapiro from Princeton U., co-author of Small Wars, Big Data: The Information Revolution in Modern Conflict. Conventional wisdom in conflict has been that those combatants bringing greater power,...

The OODA loop kinda represents how ... humans and organizations learn, grow, and survive A BETTER PEACE continues its series on Great Strategists with a look at airpower theorist John Boyd, who conceived of the "OODA" (Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act) Loop. Originally expressing an approach to tactical engagement, Boyd later expanded the idea to incorporate broad strategic action. How can individ...

You cannot help but approach your sources from your own experiences and backgrounds Our three-part roundtable on the "Lessons" of History concludes as Con Crane, Jacqueline E. Whitt, and Andrew A. Hill discuss the importance of critical thinking for developing historical mindedness. From the subjectivity of first-person accounts to the modern phenomenon of so-called "fake news," what is presented...