The #BruteCast

#TeamKrulak community, thanks to the auspices of our friends at the Air Force's Tesseract office , we're pleased to welcome two of the biggest names in military adaptation and innovation to the #BruteCast! Dr. Nora Bensahel and LtGen David Barno, USA (Ret.) join us to talk about military adaptation and the future of war, including their insights on what they have seen unfold on the battle...

It's been a big week for things blowing up, from Russian oil storage depots in Crimea to flagpoles on top of the Kremlin to ranting mercenaries on Telegram. #TeamKrulak #Russia SME Dr. Yuval Weber takes us through all these things in our latest episode. All opinions expressed here are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect those of the Krulak Center, Marine Corps University, th...

Back in March, the Army Leader Exchange decided to run its own #MarchMadness tournament highlighting military media content creators, and after many intense rounds of voting, the finalists, who all joined the #BruteCast on this panel, stood poised to claim the title of Content Creator Champion. Now, while few us needed an excuse to build yet another playoff bracket during March, this contest also...

U.S. policymakers and strategists have long understood there are many more instruments involved in national security policy development and implementation than the DIME model (Diplomacy - Information - Military - Economic). Law Enforcement, often misunderstood, if not forgotten, is one of these instruments. Yet it possesses a powerful combination of hard and soft power, complements all other Instr...

"Down the Rabbit Hole on the #Russia-#Ukraine War" returns with Dr. Yuval Weber for a look at #Russia's self-bombing of Belgorod, new repressive population measures in occupied #Ukraine, the recent phone call between Chairman Xi Jinping and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and more. All opinions expressed here are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect those of the Krul...

This #BruteCast continues our look at one of the themes we’ve discussed a lot over the last several months, and that’s the many different ways entities around the Marine Corps are contributing to the Fleet-wide changes underway with Force Design 2030. We welcomed two guests from the Marine Corps Tactical Systems Support Activity (MCTSSA), Major Steve Gore and Capt Brian Atkinson, to tell us more a...

1 November, 1945, was supposed to be "X-Day" - the beginning of the largest amphibious operation in history, landing Allied forces on the Japanese island of Kyushu. This would mark the start of Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan's home islands, which Allied leaders expected would be necessary to end World War II. Ultimately, Operation Downfall was cancelled after the atomic b...

Well, this is what we get for waiting too long between episodes - Dr. Yuval Weber, #TeamKrulak's #Russia subject matter expert, had a lot of ground to cover today. We discussed the assassination of #Russian milblogger Vladlen Tatarsky via exploding statuette, Finland formally joining #NATO, what renewed violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan means about #Putin's inability to meet regional...

#TeamKrulak community, we're pleased to bring you this special #BruteCast episode with LtCol Jan Eldeblad of Swedish Defence University, who was visiting Marine Corps University this week to explore collaboration on #wargaming and other topics. We talked about #wargaming, increasing integration between military and civil authorities on national security challenges, his recent visit to #Ukraine...

Strategic competition requires persistent presence and engagement with partners and allies around the globe. And while competition with China in the INDOPACOM region garners regular attention, the US AFRICOM area of responsibility has become increasingly critical to effectively countering the pacing threat. Under AFRICOM, the Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA) conducts operation...

We welcomed author Ms. Emily Abdow to this episode of the #BruteCast to talk about her new book ⁠The Boxer Rebellion: Bluejackets and Marines in China, 1900-1901⁠ (Naval History and Heritage Command, 2023). In the summer of 1900, foreign diplomats living in Beijing’s Legation Quarter were besieged by Chinese imperial soldiers and “Boxers,” members of a secret society determined to rid China of for...

Welcome to this unique crossover event featuring two of #TeamKrulak's resident regional SMEs! Last week, Chairman Xi Jinping of #China and President Vladimir Putin of #Russia met for 3 days of talks concerning mutual cooperation, opposition to the U.S.-led global order, and Putin's ongoing invasion of #Ukraine. Our #China SME Mr. Dan Rice and #Russia SME Dr. Yuval Weber helped us understan...

This episode gets to the central topic Dr. Yuval Weber and host Maj Ian Brown planned to cover in the last episode - the bitter fight around #Bakhmut. They discuss the factors at play in why both #Russia and #Ukraine have committed forces so deeply to the battle, and note that the lenses through which Western observers view this particular piece of the war may be very different from how the bellig...

This past Friday, unexpected news broke that #Iran and #Saudi Arabia - after seven years of confrontational relations - had agreed to reestablish diplomatic ties and re-open their respective embassies in the coming months. And standing prominently in the background as Iranian and Saudi diplomats shook hands was #China's own top diplomat. Dr. Amin Tarzi, director of Middle East Studies at the Krula...

This "Rabbit Hole" episode was supposed to be about the fighting around #Bakhmut, but breaking news today got our team's attention. With reports that #Russian fighter aircraft had intercepted an American MQ-9 Reaper drone and subsequently caused the drone to crash because of "reckless, environmentally unsound, and unprofessional" flight maneuvers that also "demonstrat[ed] a lack of competence," Dr...

For this episode of the #BruteCast, we were thrilled to welcome back one of our very first guests! #TeamKrulak Non-Resident Fellow Chris Elles, and Alex Gallo of the Common Mission Project, joined us to talk about the "Hacking 4 Defense" innovation methodology. "Hacking 4 Defense" is a rapidly growing Lean Start Up-based methodology and has grown into the de facto standard for defense innovation e...

Thanks to the generosity of the College of Distance Education and Training, in this very special episode  we got to hear from Lieutenant Colonel Pavlo Budaievskyi, who currently serves as Chief of Section of International Partners, Cooperation, and Development in the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine. He has served in uniform for 17 years, and also represented Ukraine in the 2017 Invictus Games...

#TeamKrulak's #China SME Mr. Dan Rice returned to the #BruteCast for his third episode, and this time around it was all about taking your questions. We discussed the recent shootdown of a Chinese surveillance balloon, diplomatic exchanges between Beijing and #Russia and #Belarus, fishing fleets, and more! Mr. Rice touched on Chinese influence in #Africa, which he covered in more detail in the late...

As promised, #TeamKrulak offers our second "Rabbit Hole" episode this week on the 1-year mark of #Russia's latest invasion of #Ukraine. In the last few episodes, among other things we've reviewed developments in Western military assistance provided to #Ukraine. Here, #Russia SME Dr. Yuval Weber lays out #Putin's ability to keep the Russian war machine going for another year. Putin has mortgaged Ru...

In the latest "Down The Rabbit Hole," #Russia SME Dr. Yuval Weber notes that if you blinked and thought you missed the Russian winter offensive, you're not alone; covers U.S. President Biden's visit to #Kyiv in #Ukraine with the math to confirm that Biden has spent more time in #Ukraine since the war started than Putin; previews a likely "corner turned" speech Putin is preparing to give to the Rus...

In this episode, we welcomed back two guests who we interviewed almost exactly a year ago. In the early days of #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine, we invited Dr. Matthew Ford and Professor Andrew Hoskins onto the #BruteCast to discuss their book Radical War: Data, Attention and Control in the Twenty-First Century , which back then was slated for publication later in 2022. The book focused on "how con...

The Marine Corps has always been energetic in capturing and telling its own story, and one medium for doing so has always been visual art. In this episode, we welcomed members of the Combat Art Program, in which talented active duty Marines, Reservists, and civilian artists document Marine Corps life on the battlefield and while training for battle, during humanitarian missions, and on the home f...

#TeamKrulak community, you've joined us for past #BruteCast discussions on Force Design 2030, wargaming future concepts, and Talent Management 2030 - now the last piece of the vision laid out in the 2019 Commandant's Planning Guidance has dropped into place. On January 24, "Training and Education 2030" was released, and we were excited to welcome two Marines from Training and Education Command to...

Our latest episode merges two areas #TeamKrulak has extensively focused on: #wargaming and #China. Earlier this month, the Center for Strategic and International Studies presented a report on a series of wargames they ran which simulated an attempted Chinese amphibious assault on #Taiwan. The results of these games generated much discussion about deterrence, defense against amphibious assault, and...

The "Rabbit Hole" returns to grapple with the 70-ton, 120mm smoothbore gun elephant in the room - tanks. Dr. Yuval Weber and #TeamKrulak operations officer Maj Ian Brown discuss the varying types, challenges, and possible employment of the tanks now being made available to #Ukraine, along with the context of tanks in the pending offensives by both #Ukraine and #Russia. Other promised or potential...