The Convergence - The Army's Mad Scientist Podcast

[ Editor’s Note:  Army Mad Scientist is pleased to present our latest episode of  The Convergence  podcast, featuring our interview with proclaimed Mad Scientist  Jason Sherwin , CEO and Co-Founder of deCervo, discussing the science of quick decision making, how deCervo blends gaming with science to help individuals make the best decisions in high stakes and complex environments, how these technol...

The Army Mad Scientist Initiative is hosting our  Back to the Future: Using History to Forecast  conference, November 8th and 9th, at the National Museum of the United States Army.  It is our first in-person conference since 2019! The conference will feature world renowned historians, thinkers, innovators, futurists, and industry leaders. We’ll use history to set the foundation for our look into t...

Inderpal Bhandari   rejoined IBM as Global Chief Data Officer in December 2015. In this newly created role, he has leveraged his extensive experience to lead the development of IBM’s data strategy and drive IBM’s internal cognitive enterprise transformation. The work has culminated in the AI Enterprise Blueprint; a roadmap for IBM’s clients on their own journeys to AI.  Inderpal is an expert in tr...

Amy Webb  advises Chief eXperience Officers (CXOs) of the world’s most-admired companies, three-star admirals and generals, and the senior leadership of central banks and intergovernmental organizations. Founder of the  Future Today Institute , a leading foresight and strategy firm that helps leaders and their organizations prepare for complex futures, Amy pioneered a data-driven, technology-led f...

Karen Kaya  specializes in Middle Eastern affairs with a particular focus on Turkey for the  Foreign Military Studies Office  (FMSO) within the  TRADOC G-2 .  She has worked on numerous projects in national security as a defense and security policy analyst.  Ms. Kaya has a BA from Boğaziçi University (in Istanbul, Turkey), and an MA from Brandeis University. In today’s podcast, we talk with Ms. Ka...

Zach Schonbrun  is a senior editor covering business and technology at  The Week . His  work  has also appeared in  The New York Times ,  Bloomberg Businessweek ,  Fast Company , ESPN the Magazine ,  SB Nation Longform , Vice ,  The Athletic ,  and  Yahoo! Sports , among other publications.  Zach is the author of  The Performance Cortex , which explores the neuroscience of motor skills, and was pu...

Army Mad Scientist interviewed the following world-class SMEs to explore how wargaming can enhance traditional training and education methods to help build better Leaders: Ian Sullivan   serves as the Senior Advisor for Analysis and ISR to the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2, at the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command ( TRADOC G-2 ). This is a Tier One Defense Intelligence Senior Level (DISL) posit...

COL John Antal  (USA, Ret.) is a lifelong student of leadership and the art of war. His purpose in life is “to develop leaders and inspire service.” Today, he is an  Amazon   best-selling author, a defense analyst, a military correspondent, and a galvanic speaker. John has appeared on radio, podcast, and television shows and is the author of 16 books and hundreds of magazine articles on military a...

Army Mad Scientist interviewed the following world-class SMEs to address what we’ve learned about  How Russia Fights 2.0 : Ian Sullivan   serves as the Senior Advisor for Analysis and ISR to the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-2, at the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command ( TRADOC G-2 ). This is a Tier One Defense Intelligence Senior Level (DISL) position. He is responsible for the analysis that defi...

MAJ John Spencer  (USA-Ret.) is the Chair of Urban Warfare Studies with the  Madison Policy Forum . He served over twenty-five years in the U.S. Army as an infantry Soldier, with two combat tours in Iraq as both an Infantry Platoon Leader and Company Commander. He has also served as a Ranger Instructor with the Army’s Ranger School, a Joint Chief of Staff and Army Staff intern, fellow with the Chi...

While  Shubhi Mishra , founder and CEO of  Raft , is a lawyer and data scientist by training, she’s better known as an intentional government technology (GovTech) disruptor at heart.  She loves solving complex problems, even the kind that give you a headache while you’re working through them. But that process of discovery, of realization, and coming to a solution makes it all worthwhile.  Her pass...

COL Stefan Banach   (USA-Ret.) is a Distinguished Member of the 75th Ranger Regiment and served in that organization for nine years, culminating with command of the 3rd Ranger Battalion from 2001-2003. He led U.S. Army Rangers during a historic night combat parachute assault into Afghanistan on October 19, 2001, as the “spearhead” for the Global War on Terror. Steve subsequently led U.S. Army Rang...

Gen. Flynn is a native of Middletown, Rhode Island and Distinguished Military Graduate from the University of Rhode Island with a BS in Business Management. General Flynn is a graduate of the Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced Courses at Fort Benning, GA. He holds two master’s degrees, one in National Security and Strategic Studies from the United States Naval War College in Newport, RI, and one...

Gen. Paul E. Funk II , CG, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. (U.S. Army photo) General Paul E. Funk II  assumed duties as the 17th Commanding General, United States Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC), on June 21, 2019. As TRADOC commander, Gen. Funk is responsible for 32 Army schools organized under 10 Centers of Excellence that recruit, train, and educate more than 750,000 Soldier...

To Boldy Go , edited by  COL Jonathan Klug  and  Steven Leonard , and published by  Casemate Publishers  in 2021, is subtitled “ Leadership, Strategy, and Conflict in the 21st Century and Beyond .” Army Mad Scientist’s The Convergence podcasters  Luke Shabro  and  Matthew Santaspirt  explore how science fiction can inform the Army about the Operational Environment and the changing character of war...

In today’s interview, Senior Leaders and Soldiers discuss how the Army is successfully harnessing its disruptive thinkers to cultivate innovation at the tactical level. The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview: The 3rd Infantry Division’s  The Marne Think Tank , the 101st Airborne Division’s  EAGLEWERX , and the 18 th  Airborne Corps’  Dragon’s Lair  are  leading the U...

MAJ John Spencer  (USA-Ret.) is the  Chair of Urban Warfare Studies  with the  Madison Policy Forum .  He served over twenty-five years in the U.S. Army as an infantry Soldier, with two combat tours in Iraq as both an Infantry Platoon Leader and Company Commander.  He has also served as a Ranger Instructor with the Army’s Ranger School, a Joint Chief of Staff and Army Staff intern, fellow with the...

Paul Barnes  is a serving Warrant Officer in the British Army, employed as a Doctrine Writer at the  Land Warfare Centre . He is uniquely a Chief of the Air Staff’s Fellow, a Chief of the General Staff’s Fellow, and a former MWI  fellow at West Point in 2021. In today’s interview,  Warrant Officer Class 2 Paul Barnes , British Army, discusses his article  Learning the Wrong Lessons:  Biases, the R...

MAJ Joe Littell  is a U.S. Army officer and researcher assigned to the  Army Cyber Institute  at the United States Military Academy. He has been an instructor in the Math and History departments, teaching statistics and intelligence history. His research includes computational propaganda, open source intelligence, narrative warfare, de-platforming, and generative media (such as  deepfakes ).   CPT...

Elizabeth L. Chalecki  is an Associate Professor of International Relations and Environmental Sustainability at the University of Nebraska Omaha, a Research Fellow in the Environmental Change and Security Program at the Woodrow Wilson Center, and a Research Chair with Fulbright Canada. Her expertise lies in the areas of climate change and security, international environmental policy, and the inter...

The  character of warfare  has consistently changed over time, with technology evolving from edged weapons, bows and arrows, gunpowder, and battlefield mechanization, to more advanced technologies today, including long-range precision weapons, robotics, and autonomy.  However, warfare remains an intrinsic human endeavor, with varied and profound effects felt by Soldiers on the ground.  To explore...

Over the past two decades, China has transformed its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) through a holistic approach — modernizing its weaponry, force structure, and approaches to warfare, to include operations in the cyber and space domains, while improving its professional military education. Although Russia remains a near-peer threat, China has ascended to become the United States’ lone  pacing thre...

Russia is a formidable adversary that is currently undergoing transformative modernization.  Its combat proficient force has inculcated lessons learned from recent combat operations in Syria, Crimea, and eastern Ukraine; selectively invested in niche capabilities (e.g.,  autonomy, robotics , and  artificial intelligence ) to add precision strike to its already formidable fires, enhance decision ma...

Brent L. Sterling  has been an adjunct lecturer at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University for the past twenty years, teaching courses on security studies, military strategy, and operations. He is the author of  Other People’s Wars: The US Military and the Challenge of Learning for Foreign Conflicts  and  Do Good Fences Make Good Neighbors? What History Teaches Us ab...

Jennifer McArdle is an Adjunct Senior Fellow with the Defense Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and a Product Strategist at Improbable LLC , an emerging global leader in distributed simulation technology for military planning, training, and decision support. Her research focuses on military innovation, readiness, and synthetic training. She currently serves as an expert memb...