The #BruteCast

For our ongoing focus on #Russia and #Ukraine, #TeamKrulak was pleased to welcome Ms. Nataliya Gumenyuk, speaking to us directly from #Ukraine. Ms. Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian journalist and author. She is a founder of the Public Interest Journalism Lab, which promotes constructive discussion around complex social topics. From 2015 to 2020 she headed the independent Ukrainian broadcaster Hromadske TV...

A significant component of #Russia's ongoing invasion of #Ukraine has been the clouding or outright denial of their military actions and intent. Russia has conducted this disinformation campaign through diplomatic, social media, and entertainment channels in an effort to convince the world, and their own public, that they are not doing what all the evidence suggests they are. Arvin Verma is a high...

Welcome to "Down the Rabbit Hole on the Russia-Ukraine War," a new (mini) series from the Brute Krulak Center for Innovation and Future Warfare at Marine Corps University. Each episode will feature a snapshot of daily events from the war, with a deeper look at one important development our audience should know about, all from the insights of #TeamKrulak Distinguished Fellow and Russia subject matt...

#Russia’s invasion of #Ukraine is now in its third week, but it only took a few days of fighting for the world to see that Vladimir Putin’s evident hope for rapid and generally bloodless victory had been shattered. Putin expected his soldiers to walk into Ukrainian cities and be welcomed with open arms. Instead, the Russian army is stalled along several fronts by stiff Ukrainian resistance, and ma...

The Krulak Center is very grateful to Ms. Anna Bulakh, currently residing in #Ukraine, for granting us the time to record this episode. All opinions expressed here are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Krulak Center, Marine Corps University, the United States Marine Corps, or any other agency of the U.S. Government. Ms. Bulakh has spent many years working in U...

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, the information domain has manifested itself as one of the preeminent theaters of conflict in this war. But how Russia and Ukraine have approached this theater is a study in contrasts. The Ukrainian government has employed a robust information strategy from the highest level of political leadership to its troops on the front lines in sharing messages and...

This episode continues #TeamKrulak's focus on #Russia’s ongoing invasion of #Ukraine and the many new dynamics we’ve been seeing on that battlefield; our guests here talked about one which has been very prominent. We were very pleased to welcome Dr. Matthew Ford and Professor Andrew Hoskins, co-authors of the forthcoming book Radical War: Data, Attention and Control in the Twenty-First Century fro...

This episode continues our special focus on #Russia and #Ukraine, and we were very pleased to be able to host this guest because he’s been providing lots of very good real-time assessment. On February 15, 2022, Maj Gen Mick Ryan published his book War Transformed: The Future of Twenty-First-Century Great Power Competition and Conflict with the Naval Institute Press. Less than 2 weeks later, the wo...

In this episode, we continued our special focus on #Russia and #Ukraine. Last time we were here, Russian President Vladimir Putin had just recognized the “People’s Republics” of Luhansk and Donetsk, delivered a speech filled with historical myths and grievances, and Belarus had announced that the Russian military units there for exercises were not, in fact leaving. Only a few days later, Russia la...

The United States is reducing its military presence in the Horn of Africa and Red Sea Zone while its main strategic competitors, China and Russia, are increasing their presence in the military, political, and economic spheres. This virtual lecture examined the ways China and Russia are using to expand their influence in Africa, consider how Chinese and Russian efforts differ, and evaluate the effe...

Continuing our focus on #Russia and #Ukraine , #TeamKrulak Distinguished Fellow Dr. Yuval Weber reviewed Russian President Vladimir Putin's actions and statements up to today (Feb. 21), and what path Putin may follow against Ukraine in the coming days and weeks.   Dr. Yuval Weber is one of our Distinguished Fellows at the Krulak Center. He is a Research Assistant Professor at Texas A&M’s...

As part of our special focus on #Russia and #Ukraine, #TeamKrulak brought you our first panel event of 2022 with a unique group of individuals focusing on a unique topic. How does wargaming help when the problem is a rapidly unfolding crisis in a fluid environment, such as the Russian build-up near Ukraine, when an off-the-shelf option, or deliberately designed wargame, isn’t readily available? Th...

Continuing our focus on #Russia and #Ukraine, we were pleased to welcome back on short notice #TeamKrulak Non-Resident Fellow Col Sönke Marahrens. In this episode, Col Marahrens discussed how the Western approach to “shaping the battlefield” fails to keep pace with the authoritarian regime's approach to hybrid war, and offers some expanded models for grappling with this problem.  Colonel Mara...

This episode continues our special focus on #Russia and #Ukraine, and we were very happy to welcome back for his third appearance on the BruteCast the very first guest we had on the series: Dr. Christopher C. Harmon. In this discussion, Dr. Harmon looks at the similarities - and differences - between the activities and intentions of Adolf Hitler's Germany in the late 1930s, and Vladimir Putin's Ru...

In this special #BruteCast episode, we were joined #TeamKrulak Non-Resident Fellow Dr. James Holmes as part of our focus on #Russia and #Ukraine. He is a professor of strategy, the inaugural holder of the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy, and a two-time visiting professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College. Dr. Holmes is also a prolific author, with hundreds of book chapte...

In this episode, we welcome back for an encore #TeamKrulak Non-Resident Fellow Col Sönke Marahrens. Colonel Marahrens is the Director Community of Interest - Strategy and Defense Hybrid Center of Excellence - The European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats. He is a trained Air Defense Officer and held various positions including Battalion Command, Defense Planning Office and Minist...

We’re in to a new year, and #TeamKrulak is very excited to kick off the 2022 #BruteCast season with this special episode. It features Col Andy Milburn, USMC (Ret.), who spent a couple of days here at Marine Corps University in support of several academic programs, and was gracious enough to carve some time out of his schedule to visit us at the Center. Col Milburn retired from the Marine Corps in...

(NOTE: there were microphone feedback issues on our side that we were not able to completely eliminate in post-production, but Col Wood's audio is loud and clear throughout.) The end of 2021 is almost here, and #TeamKrulak was grateful and excited to have a fantastic guest on its final #BruteCast of the year. We were joined by Col Anthony A. Wood, United States Marine Corps (retired), whose servic...

This episode is adapted from a lecture recently given to our Women, Peace, and Security Scholars program, and the feedback from that lecture was so strong that we knew we had to get it into the #BruteCast line-up.   Presenting on today’s topic – “Gender Integration and Citizenship: A Civil-Military Perspective" we pleased to welcome Dr. Bradford Wineman. Dr. Wineman is a professor military hi...

This episode is exciting for a couple of reasons. First, we got a chance to talk to one of the authors whose books was selected for the most recent iteration of the Commandant’s Professional Reading Program. And second, we were joined by a ‘guest host’ from one of the entities inside EDCOM that helps develop that Reading Program. Starting with the author: a third generation naval aviator, Dan Shee...

For those of you who joined us for the historical case study that looked at the Tentative Manual for the Defense of Advanced Bases, this epiusode brings something in the same line, except this time in execution. Mr. Timothy “Skip” Crawley will take us through the defense of Wake Island. Skip Crawley is a former Infantry Officer who lived “Expeditionary Force-in-Readiness”. On 31 July 1990, 1st Bat...

Welcome to another installment of the MES Research Talk series! In this lecture, Ms. Yun Sun focused on China's strategic vision for Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal, including its planned political, economic, military, and diplomatic engagement and planning, which is happening on several levels: unilateral, bilateral, multilateral, regional, and global. Ms. Sun also discussed China's conting...

We’re excited to wrap up our focus on wargaming by welcoming #TeamKrulak Non-Resident Fellow Sebastian J. Bae back to the #BruteCast. Sebastian is a research analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), where works in wargaming, emerging technologies, the future of warfare, and strategy and doctrine for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. He also serves as an adjunct assistant professor at the Cent...

This episode continues our recent wargaming theme, and hones in on one of the most challenging topics to effectively wargame: cyber operations. To help us better understand how we can the realms of cyber and wargaming to work with each other, we were excited to welcome two faculty members from the Naval War College. Our first guest was Professor Benjamin Schechter, who is an instructor in the Stra...

We talk a lot at the Krulak Center about educational wargaming and wargaming mechanics; but there are other games, and thus other game mechanics, that the educator can use to enhance the learning experience from a vanilla wargame. To lay this out for us, this episode features #TeamKrulak Non-Resident Fellow and #BruteCast alum Dr. James “Pigeon” Fielder!   Dr. James "Pigeon" Fielder joined Co...