Is Irregular Warfare America’s Blind Spot?

In this episode of the GNSI At the Boundary podcast, USF’s Dr. Rob Burrell is joined by Colonel Dave Maxwell (Ret.), of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and the Global Peace Foundation, and Lieutenant General Charles T. Cleveland (Ret.) to examine the future of the American way of irregular warfare. From the overlooked role of the human domain to the need for a national-level capability dedicated to irregular warfare, the conversation challenges conventional thinking about U.S. defense and security.

General Cleveland highlights why the United States must move beyond a purely conventional mindset, while Colonel Maxwell revisits the Nunn-Cohen amendment to Goldwater-Nichols, advocating for a dedicated organization to address the nation’s irregular warfare challenges. Together, they argue that political warfare and irregular strategies must be fully integrated into U.S. national security policy—just as airpower became indispensable in the 20th century.

 Links from the episode:

 • Register for CyberBay Here!

• Register for.a webinar on irregular warfare with Dr. Rob Burrell and Chris Mason!

• Resilience and Resistance: Interdisciplinary Lessons in Competition, Deterrence, and Irregular Warfare

• The American Way of Irregular War

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Jim, hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of at the boundary, the podcast from the global and national security Institute at the University of South Florida. I'm Jim Cardoso, Senior Director for GNSI, and your host for at the boundary. Today on the podcast, we're kicking off the latest research initiative here at GNSI, the future of warfare. GNSI Senior Research Fellow, Dr Rob Burrell, is one of the world's leading experts on irregular warfare, resilience and resistance. He recently published his latest book titled resilience and resistance, interdisciplinary lessons in competition, deterrence and irregular warfare. Retired US Army Lieutenant General Charles Cleveland, former commanding general of US Army Special Operations Command, and previously, my deployed commander, wrote the foreword for that book. He'll be one of Rob's guests today, along with retired Colonel Dave Maxwell, a 30 year Army veteran who recently served as associate director in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown, their conversation involves educating professionals on assessing and planning for irregular warfare. We'll get to that in just a moment. On a related note, Rob will host a fireside chat with GNSI non resident fellow Dr Chris Mason, who created the study of internal conflict database. This event will be presented in person at GNSI and over zoom on September 9, at 10am Eastern at that time, they'll discuss how they can use predictive analytics to foretell the outcome of internal conflict with 100% accuracy. Needless to say, That's a bold claim, and I recommend you register to attend and check its validity for yourself. We'll post a link in the show notes. Registration will also be opening this week for the first ever GNSI Florida security forum, scheduled for November 4. We're hosting the conference in partnership with port Tampa Bay. As we examine port and maritime security risks and resilience, we'll be discussing both physical and cyber threats, potential future critical events and the national security implications. Keep an eye out for registration details. Okay, I'll turn it over to Rob Now as we begin our latest research initiative, the future of warfare here on at the boundary. So greetings from the University of South Florida, where our motto is truth and wisdom, and that's just what we're going to uncover today. Welcome to the first installment of the future of warfare series. This series was initiated following the publication of a new book entitled resilience and resistance, which was published by Joint Special Operations University Press. If you'd like to check it out, you can go to the show notes, and it's free. I'm Dr Rob Burrell, the editor of that book, and a senior research fellow at the global and national security Institute. Today we'll we will be talking to one of the authors in the book, Colonel Dave Maxwell, and also with a very prestigious gentleman who wrote the forward. Joining us today is Lieutenant General Charles T Cleveland in 2003 then Colonel Cleveland was the commander of 10th Special Forces Group, where he led a successful us unconventional warfare campaign in northern Iraq. He also served as a commanding general of US Army Special Operations Command from 2012 to 2015 Following his retirement, he was the senior mentor to the Chief of Staff the Army's Strategic Studies Group from 2015 to 2017 general Cleveland is a board member for the new National Center for narrative intelligence. Is also the author of a monograph, the American way of irregular war, as well as an article titled maximizing the potential of American irregular warfare in strategic competition. We will be discussing both of those publications in today's podcast with hyperlinks in the show notes. General Cleveland, welcome to the program, Rob. Thank you very much. It's good to be here, and congratulations on the book. And I hear it's it's success. So it's good to see I do think you're doing important work at the school. And the the heartening thing is you're part of what I think is a growing constellation of academic research that's happening in places that matter around the country. And so that's encouraging, because if we're going to solve a lot of these problems, it starts by knowing what the problem is, and then what are potential solutions. And that's got to come from places where men and women are doing deep study on the subject. So I appreciate your great work, and thanks for including me. Thank you, sir, also joining us today. Is Special Forces Colonel retired David Maxwell. Dave spent more than 30 years in Asia as a practitioner, and specializes in Northeast Asian security affairs in a regular unconventional warfare and political warfare. He is the vice president for the Center for Asia Pacific strategy and a senior fellow at the Global Peace Foundation, where he focuses on a free and unified Korea. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, and he is the editor of the small wars journal with Arizona State University. He serves on the academic boards of the nonprofit organization spirit of America Foundation and the global soft Foundation, and is one of the honorary chairs of the OSF society. In short, he's very busy, and he's joining us from Korea. Dave, welcome to USF at the boundary podcast. Thank you, Rob, and I echo the General's comments. The work you're doing is very important, and I really commend you for shepherding the book from, you know, from start to finish, and and writing some important works in that book, and and for really pushing forward on all thoughts about irregular warfare, resistance, resilience. And, as a general said, these are problems that we really need to understand, have deep understanding of, if we're going to solve them for our nation. So thank you. Thanks, Dave. I appreciate that. And so let's just get right into it. I think we all share the opinion that irregular warfare and irregular competition will pose the greatest threats to US national security over the next couple of decades, and all three of us have written extensively about it. General, you wrote the American way of irregular warfare with Rand, which is an obvious Compendium to Russell. Russell, widely American way of war. Can you briefly describe what you argue is a peculiarly American way of addressing irregular warfare? Confessions up front, right? I mean, let's widely book was a textbook at West Point. You know, it was issued to me. I think for one of my national security classes, there actually a future Sam's leader was the my instructor in that course. But I have to admit, I was not the greatest student. I skimmed it a lot, right? I i purloined things that needed to be taken out for papers that were required, but I don't. I didn't really get into the book, and didn't do that until later, when, after retiring, I say, I had to look back and say, what, you know, what did my career really consistent, because I knew was it happened, just by happenstance, to be at a very important time, I thought, in in America's history, and certainly in this development of this phenomena that is irregular warfare, right? Widely. Wrote his book in 73 was printed in 73 I entered the academy in 74 and you could say that I began my military career with, really, essentially, when the downfall of Vietnam, right in April of 75 I was still a, you know, about ready to graduate at, or move up from being a plea if I could get through my First Year. You know, it had a very visible impact on our instructors. All of them were Vietnam veterans, all of them senior captains, young majors. They were truly phenomenal warriors, and had given much of themselves in the fight in Vietnam and and obviously the fall of Saigon was had a significant impact on them, and of course, it had an impact on us. I don't know if I knew at the time just how much of an impact it had. And then scroll forward, and I have the great fortune of staying in our great army for 37 years. And it's at the end of that career that I I'm leaving with, you know, in Afghanistan, 2015 at the time I retired. Here, we're going on 15 years. It obviously goes on for more after that. You know, 20 years Iraq, I see, you know, this very unsatisfying solution and end to what we were doing in Iraq, and so that, that was my career. And so what happened between the start and the end in national security history for America was deeply rooted, in my view, in irregular warfare, and frankly, in our unsatisfying outcomes in these ventures. And I wanted to know why. I mean what you know, and could I maybe look at, you know, the history during that period, kind of through my lens, kind of refitting the. What I saw, perhaps, as a young, younger officer, as I moved up with what I knew later, and trying to, you know, put it in context. And that's what the American way of irregular warfare is about. It's not about me. It's really about irregular warfare as it was taking place in our military history and in the country's history, from the period that, you know, Vietnam fell and then Iraq and Afghanistan were coming to very unsatisfying conclusions. That was, that's the background of the book. What I what I came away with, is that we came into Vietnam with a conventional army that up to that point, and then a conventional national security structure, mainly because it was successful, primarily in War Two, and arguably semi successful in the place that you know Dave is located, right in Korea. We, I think, kept using these approaches, and increasingly those approaches became less and less effective. And it was actually the beginnings of a recognition of that problem, to some degree, when they looked at, you know this, how do we handle these Korean partisans in the war, and then this idea of, well, we ought to have something like the OSS and help maybe harness this, this power, this resistance power that's manifesting itself in possible insurgence that We can use against the North Koreans and the Chinese. And of course, from that comes Aaron bank being called back, and the branch being stood up, the Special Forces branch being stood up. So the Special Forces branch, born of the Cold War, basically becomes one of the first changes to say, hey, what we have in that in the inventory isn't working, isn't quite right, right? So, but I think primarily we were able to be successful, and Western countries, for the most part, were able to be successful using blunt force. Until we saw Diem van Phu. We saw the lesson the French learned there. We just said, Well, we in Vietnam, scroll forward. We had advisory efforts through 65 it was primarily a South Vietnamese fight. We were we were organizing and helping them as best we could. CIA was doing great work. Others were doing their work. We hadn't committed huge amounts of conventional force. And then, of course, we introduced in 65 after, you know, the helms turned over from an assassinated President to Johnson and and then, I think he became increasingly reliant on the traditional tools, and didn't necessarily believe in, if you will. I think what was a very indirect approach that Kennedy was proposing against this new in this new form of war. And so we went down that road, and then 74 or 75 Saigon falls, a failed experiment. In my view, important to note that the men that led us in that effort were those men of the greatest generation, right? The senior leaders there cut their teeth in World War Two, right? They were and so it was. It's it's easy to see, because even leaders today, you actually ground how you view the world, you know, it's kind of like that. I, you know, I've learned everything I need to know by the time I was in kindergarten, right? Well, it's kind of the same thing in the military. In your military career, by the time you make major you kind of, you're set in your ways. And I think that's got implications today, frankly, with some of the ways we're picking senior leaders, because this whole field of irregular warfare is way under represented at the senior ranks. So that's why I thought I'd let me, let me see if I can. Might, you know, maybe help put my finger on on the problem and then make some recommendations, you know, come to some conclusion and make some recommendations. You know, could we have done something differently? Why didn't we do something differently? And a lot of reasons for that too. And so I wrote the book, I will say, just updating the thought process as we roll into increasingly rely on AI that I worry that conventional war machinery, which is absolutely essential and needs to be the best at, you know, World at War, fighting against other armies. 90s is going to become increasingly, though ineffective in these population centric fights. And so I think I worry that, you know, the two are actually separating and getting wider and further apart. Lastly, I would say my whole one last thing, I know it's long here, but the last thing is, I do believe that we, you know, what's unique about the American way of approaching these problems is, you know, we were always the good guys, Dave and I always, you know, in our throughout our careers, when we went someplace, we didn't go there to occupy. We went there to facilitate and help a host country solve its own problems. And I think that's that's very important to note. We're not extractive, right? We're here to represent, frankly, the, you know, God's gift to mankind in terms of a way to govern itself that happens to have embodied itself in the United States of America, and we got the chance to be military ambassadors of a sort, you know, for that, that greatest approach to the way we should sort our affairs as human beings on this planet, there are others who are fighting against that approach, and it's ours. Was a noble cause. And again, I think we were always the good guys in these fights. Thank you, General. Yep, free the oppressed. Totally agree. So in your monograph, as you lay out the American way of war, you look at three options of kind of where are we going to go from here? You know, the first one is, are we going to return to the era after Vietnam, where we just say, Yeah, we're never going to do a regular warfare again? The next, the next option you lay out is that we're going to use a we're going to have a conventional force, and then we're going to modify that force for a regular conflict if it happens. And then your third option is that the US will build and mature a regular warfare capability that's professional, world class level, is what you describe it, and the same capability that we have for conventional or nuclear conflict. So where do you think we're headed? What are the possibilities here? I think if the research continues at a pace as it's going on right now, the effects of that research have to be in a re viewing and review of you know, how we approach these irregular warfare problems, these and population centric problems. What I unfortunately, think is happening is, while the first option, well, let's just wish it away, I think is what they would like to have. I mean, I think if the national if the defense department had its way, it would want to give these irregular warfare problems to others, whether it's the State Department, CIA, so that's I think, but we all know that, unfortunately, they can't do that. I mean it, those problems will intrude on us to a degree that we have to use military force, and the military is going to be a part of any of these solutions out there. I do think that the way things are going right now to include inside the SOCOM community, unfortunately, I think everybody's running headlong towards the second option, which is a conventional force. You know, these other fights will do them when we need to and and we'll just fold spindle mutilate to create something that's necessary out of the conventional force, and it's supporting SOF, right? But our focus, rightly so, for the conventional force will be on the conventional war, fight against, you know, primarily our pacing threat. And then SOF Your job is to support that fight. And I think the mistake we're making is we're way over investing in you know that what's going to be essentially secondary supporting efforts when really there's a lot of work that needs to be done. I'm not saying those aren't important, but I wouldn't make them the primary effort, unconventional warfare in places, obviously in Taiwan, others, making that ready. I think that's our job, working on the periphery, working around the globe, though, and trying to win a new Cold War, right? And you know, again, I think we won the last Cold War to no small degree because deterrence held. But between the interagency, you know, the State Department, the IC and special forces in particular, in our engagements around the world, and. Of we basically inflicted defeat on the Soviet Union through a death of 1000 cuts around the world. It was a long term effort. It was long campaigns. But that's the nature of these kinds of these kinds of wars. Which takes me to my third which is hopefully the research you're doing and this research that's taking place. And I would ask Dave to kind of identify the other centers out there that are actually doing, if you don't mind, you know the good work, you know the irregular warfare initiative. There are just some tremendously good things happening out there. Even the irregular Warfare Center that has stood up, I think, is starting to get his feet underneath it and looking at the problem appropriately. We never fail at the tactical level, though, and the and Dave and I have talked a lot about this is when you get when you look at it, our failure is not necessarily that we don't lack, we lack the tactical tools. There are new tactical tools that probably need to be developed or reshaped, the ones that exist. But what is really missing is irregular warfare capable, architecture, headquarters, if you will, intelligence approaches above the tactical love right now, the 911 call will again go to, if it's got to be a core level, you know, some kind of major, sort of major effort will go to headquarters that are built on conventional war. And you know, 911 for everything winds up being 18th airborne for or perhaps a meth for something else. And while they have their place, they're not necessarily the right tool. For instance, as they went into Afghanistan, you know, they brought with them their conventional war fight. When the Marines went into Vietnam, they brought in basically their conventional war fight. So I hope that, in my view, we get to a point where we recognize that the third option is required, and that is, hey, let's do what America has always done, let's build the thing that will actually dominate in this space. And I would say that you can't get there by bold spindling and mutilating the conventional force that you have for deterrence. Thank you, General. Yeah, you mentioned there was a lot of great work happening out there at joint social operations University, irregular Warfare Center, the irregular warfare initiative, Naval War College has the Center for irregular warfare and armed groups. And then Arizona State University, which Dave is intimately involved with, is also doing some great work, so it's good to see the academic emphasis, and I appreciate you bringing that up, Dave. You, you similarly have written extensively on irregular warfare for decades now. You often talk about a triad. I know you like the power of threes, but irregular warfare, unconventional warfare and political warfare. So I mean, what are those? Can you explain what those three things are and why that's important for the US to identify and perhaps build capabilities for Well, yes, thank you. And you know, first of all, you know all of these terms, obviously, words have meaning, and they have different meanings to everybody. And so I'd just like to caveat up front that we spend a lot of time on definitions. We spend a lot of time on trying to to frame everything and develop common terminology. And you know, that's important, and it has real impact, I understand, for the whole dot LPF process, you know, from doctrine through, you know, training and material and all of the things that are necessary, you know, ultimately, to funding and, you know, in in resourcing forces. And so it's important to have those definitions, but we spend a lot of time arguing about them. So I look at irregular warfare, unconventional warfare and political warfare in really three ways. One, unconventional warfare is really the foundation for Special Forces. It's what special forces was designed to do. And of course, the definition is, you know, to enable a resistance or an insurgency to coerce, disrupt or overthrow an occupying force, an occupying power or government, through or with an underground auxiliary or a guerrilla force in a denied area, and that is really a population centric focus on enabling a resistance. And like general, Cleveland said, you know, we really exist to help others. She mentioned de oppresso liber to free their press. The real way to talk about that is to help others free themselves. That's really how I like to describe to de oppresso liber to help others free themselves. So unconventional warfare is really the foundation of special forces. Irregular warfare is the broad context that we have been talking about, and it is really one of the three forms of warfare that we will always face. Nuclear Warfare, obviously the worst case, conventional warfare, large scale combat operations, theater level warfare, conventional warfare, and then irregular warfare. And of course, irregular warfare consists of many things, and we try to define it in many ways, but it really consists of, I think, unconventional warfare, political warfare. And of course, the title of your book, resistance and resilience. And it is population centric, it is the human domain. And of course, the military has decided in this time of now, all domain warfare to not have a human domain, because humans are on land, and so humans are part of the land domain. But as I think General Cleveland would argue, and and I support this, is that we really do need to focus on the human element. You know, the battlefield of human terrain, and that's six inches between our between our ears and our conventional war fighting is kinetically focused, whereas irregular warfare, unconventional warfare and political warfare are really cognitively focused. You know, we think of of warfare as as politics by other means, and you know, our adversaries look at politics is warfare by other means, and warfare is politics by other means to our adversaries. It is warfare, and we shouldn't be afraid to call it that. So irregular warfare is population centric, human focused, focused on the human domain, and it encompasses political warfare. Now, political warfare is, of course, born out of George Kennan's memo in 1948 his policy planning memo on the the the beginning of political warfare, and of course, basically defined as the use of all elements of national power, short of war, to achieve your objectives. And he describes it as using overt information also black propaganda. It includes alliances, includes economic warfare, economic coercion, sanctions, and it includes support to resistance against our adversaries, creating dilemmas for our adversaries. And so political warfare was really conducted throughout the Cold War. As as a general said, deterrence held. We had deterrence. We fought limited conventional wars. But really, political warfare is what won the Cold War, and it was using all elements of national power to achieve our objectives. And so I really look at it this way, irregular warfare is the military contribution to political warfare which should be waged at the national level. Our national security apparatus should be able to conduct political warfare, particularly in this environment, against this axis of authoritarians, the so called Crink China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. And we really should focus our ability to be able to compete against their unrestricted warfare, their three warfares, their new generation warfare, their unconventional warfare, and even North Korea's unconventional warfare and political warfare with Juche idea, Juche characteristics. So I that is really how I look at these three now, irregular warfare, unconventional warfare and political warfare are really supported by another Trinity, and that Trinity is really the comparative advantage of in particular, us, Army, special operations forces. And that Trinity is, number one, influence, the ability to influence populations. Number two is governance, the ability to help shape governing functions and governance in in areas that are occupied by totalitarian regimes, and they help shape a new form of governance. And then the third, the real comparative advantage of in particular. Special Forces is support to indigenous forces and support to indigenous populations. And that's really the comparative advantage of, again, in particular Army Special Operations Forces. But really all special operations forces that have a special warfare focus, marine Special Operations Command, MARSOC, you know, some of our seals, seal platoons and have demonstrated great capabilities, but really it's built around the capabilities of Army Special Operations, in particular, as I mentioned, Special Forces, psychological operations and civil affairs. And so that's how I look at those, at the Trinity. Now I just like to say one other, one other thing on this line here, and that is, you know, as General Cleveland said, we have a very powerful conventional capability. I mean, our, you know, we're known. Our military is the best in the world. We have the nuclear capability. We have the conventional warfighting capability and the ability to solve complex military problems, but we need to solve complex political military problems, and to do that, we need irregular warfare thinking in the military and in the Department of Defense, and we need political warfare thinking in the US government. And so you ask, what is irregular warfare thinking? Well, it's thinking about the human element in the full spectrum of competition and conflict, up to and including conventional and nuclear war. It includes, but it's not limited to all aspects of lawlessness, Subversion, insurgency, terrorism, political resistance, nonviolent resistance, political violence, urban operations, stability operations, post conflict operations, cyber and, of course, operations in the information environment. And as general Cleveland said, we really have to think about the strategic level, the strategic influence through information advantage and information and influence activities that also includes public diplomacy from state psychological operations, military information support operations and Public Affairs. And all of this is done working through with and by indigenous forces and populations. Again, conducting irregular warfare, political warfare, economic warfare, through allies, through diplomacy, competitive statecraft in conflict areas around the world. So as I said, irregular warfare is the military contribution to political warfare, and political warfare is the action of the whole of government in strategic competition. Dave, you had mentioned the human human domain. I was actually at the SOCOM headquarters when we lost that fight. I was on the front line in doctrine when we we fell right on our face. That was a decade ago. And general Cleveland you, you reignited the fire in 2023 bringing up the human domain again. So, you know, can you tell us? You know, do you still believe the human domain needs to be an element? Why? And maybe, maybe have some thoughts also on what, what Dave just mentioned. Go ahead, Dave, just, just let me jump in there, as you were fighting it at SOCOM general Cleveland was really partnering with the Army and the Marine Corps, you know, as really a SOCOM guy, as a commander of USF, he was really pushing it at that point as well, and you were providing all the supporting fires for that. But, you know, we lost that battle. And I think that's to, you know, that's to our nation's loss. Over to you, General, yeah. I mean, where to begin on all that? First of all, Dave, I thought that was a great rundown, honestly. And I do think that one of the problems we have right now, and Dave alludes to it, is, you know, what's our what's our objective here in and you know, you kind of say, what's our military strategy shooting for? Right? What are we trying to do? And what I hear most is this idea of integrated deterrence, right? I personally think that is way too defensive, right? We didn't win the first Cold War. You know, deterrence was a part of it, as we just went to we've talked about it, but we set out to win. We set out to win over an extended time horizon by really playing our own version of go, right? I mean, we we looked at where we got positional advantage, we invested, we and I, and I thought we did a pretty good job in that first effort, but it culminated, I think, with a president that said, No, our purpose here really is to win. And I think given what our adversaries are really trying to do globally, we ought also to be looking to. Win, and winning will take you to needing to ensure that populations recognize and understand the alternative forms of governance that are available to them right now. They can do their own versions of this, but, but I think that, to me, is important just trying to do a holding pattern inadvertently, I think, downplays the importance of these populations, these indigenous populations around the world. And I think we do that to our basically to our disadvantage long term. You know, what we can suffer then is the death of 1000 cuts by their efforts, right? And so I do think it's important to one of the things is that we nationally, have to reframe what we're trying to accomplish here and say, you know, no, our objective is, in fact, to win in this fight. Now, what you can say is, what is when looking like? What does winning look like? And that's a fair question. I have my own thoughts on that, and it certainly doesn't involve the CCP running China, or, you know, a corrupt oligarchy running Russia. But that's for the Russian and Chinese people to decide. On the human domain front. The idea, and I will say, I think I will say, I think I was the first one to actually, you know, kind of said, Okay, well, what the heck's going on was in 2011 I was in that in between period where I was not in command at USF sock, and I was at the tail end of my time at at soccer. And I was invited to be because the Saxon commander gets invited to speak at this big weapons bazaar that they have over in Jordan every year. And so I went over to do my, you know, fulfill my obligation to speak at this very tech centric sort of confab that they hold. It's very impressive. I'm, you know, the king, he does he they did it right. But I'm not a tech guy. And so I, I basically said in my talk that I thought what we were witnessing, and because we were struggling so much with these population centric fights, what we were witnessing was the emergence of what we called, before Human Terrain, and to actually a domain. And I The analogy I used was the air domain. You know where you know, until the Wright brothers flew an airplane the air domain. I mean air it always existed. It just wasn't consequential to the success of our military campaigns. You know, Billy Mitchell sinks a Navy ship from the air in the interwar period. And then we end world war two with the dropping of two very big bombs on Japan and air power couple years later, what emerges as its own service, and in the process, basically that's a declaration that isn't it is, in fact, its own domain. Why? Because if we don't dominate there, or at least control it, to to the manner, to the to the level we need to for our campaign to be successful, our campaigns are at risk. So this is not out of, we're not doing this out of, you know, some desire to just apply technology. We're doing this because you have to do it in order to win. And I would submit to you, that's the same problem that you have with the human domain. The domain model, as it sits right now does not adequately address what Dave was talking about, which is, you know, this human desire to oppose oppression and tyranny, this human, very human desire to have a future that's better For your kids than their current situation, this human desire to be able to, you know, feel free to actually pursue the things that they want to pursue. Those are very basic, and they are at the core of how we actually engage and can use, you know, I used to manipulate the human and my very good friend from Notre Dame University, who's a said, No, you know, we really can you just use influence, not manipulate? I said, Okay, well, sometimes we influence, sometimes we manipulate, but the bottom line is that's a whole different set of skills. And I would say that, you know, the human domain, then, has gone through various forms here when I got to USA, sock very early on, thanks to the great work by Bennett Sakala at SWIC, where he got the army to actually say, we will let you write at p3 05, which. Like all the doctrine guys will tell them, you know, they'll, they'll cuss at me here for saying this. But up to that point, we really, we were authorized to write field manuals about how we did our business, right? And so in the process, you could read about how I did my business and hit with and how, then it could be applied, maybe in your business, if you're a division commander or so forth. What ATP 305 actually allowed us to do is write about the the the phenomena that is special operations and how it contributes to national security. And in the process of doing that. That's where you saw us take apart the business of special operations and say, well, it really consists of two parts, right? It really is the hyper conventional raid, right? Which is where you and I, I talk about is treating, how you treat uncertainty. And these two, these two types of soft one is you basically try to remove as much uncertainty as possible, and then you act for speed and for surprise, right? Mcravens formula, right? Very, it's brilliant. It's exactly what that form of Special Operations is about. It is it makes it special because of the, you know, the technologies, the the operators, the level of training, the planning, so forth, right? But that's solving and reducing risk from out, from without this other form of Special Operations has to actually go into the middle of the problem to even know what the problem really is, right? Because you don't know in this human situation. You know you have to be there to solve it, and primarily solve it at the local level, from the inside out. And so you handle risk by saying, I'm building an element, an element that can actually survive and not distort the environment that I put them in and out of that comes a 12 man eight attachment that's got a medic and a combo guy and an engineer and so forth. Brilliant concept, right? I know you know, making it a 16 man element, or whatever I think you're I think you're tinkering with the Bible, if you ask me, when you ask me, when you start doing that, right? So, but that was and so when I came into USF sock and we took apart special operations, and we tried to describe how then we support national security through that which is in the documents are soft 2022 and our soft 2220 22 part two and our soft next. Those documents basically lay out, really, the intellectual work by a very talented group of officers that cycled into USF headquarters from all of the tribes to try to describe intellectually what it was we were doing, and we captured that in ADP, 305, and in there we said, we're about the human domain. Psycholic pushed the button on getting that thing staffed. And I would say, within two days, the Marine Corps came up with a hard non concur. Why? Because in one sentence in the document in lowercase letters, we said human domain and and they were not coming off of that position. Now, in the meantime, we're working to try to get them off that position, Admiral McRaven and General Odierno. They get General Amos to sign a letter that I think is still unique in the annals of military history, which is this clash of wills document. And again, I would say people should take a look at that. And in there they talk about this human domain, this idea. Scroll forward. I'm near the end of my time. The multi domain operations, businesses coming on board. We've, you know, we're, we've lost the fight with the Marine Corps. They're not going to recognize the domain and and so we, we basically are left with, okay, you know, what's the best of a bad situation here? And they come up with the joint concept for integrated campaigning, after a joint comps concept for military or for human activities, impact to human activities on military affairs. I don't know, jehaimo, I think was the name of it anyway. That was basically a compromise to the strategic land power task force was stood up to try to say, Hey, what is this about? You know, this, this human thing, and how it fits. They came up with these artful ways to get around the fact that we didn't want to do, do a domain, but at the at the end of the day, there will be a human domain, right? Because I go back to why a human why a domain exists. It exists because you have to build capability for it in order to be successful. And as I said, AI and the way technology is pushing conventional forces, it is, it is be creating a larger and larger gap with what's required for the military irregular warfare, as Dave said, the military's contribution to political warfare. And so that's a long way around the barn, but that's, you know, the human domain is as a concept, you know, the you know, again, it hit at the wrong time, right? We had the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs saying, Hey, we're going to make cyber a domain. So cyber came on as a domain. There was a great article, I think it's small wars journal, or, I don't know, Dave might remember this, where somebody had said, you know, I predict was when one of the prediction articles, I predict that next year, they're going to merge the human domain and the cyber domain. That that was, I think, somewhat prescient. That may be where some of this is going, I don't know. And then we, of course, shortly after that, we get a new president, and he says, okay, space is important. Space becomes its own domain. Space Force is created. And of course, the services are contributing to stand up all these things. And to them, it's a zero sum game. So any mention from a lowly three star down there that a, you know, we ought to have a human domain, was met with some pretty stiff resistance, right? So, you know, again, I stand by the whole idea. I think that, you know, it's Dave often quotes the Trotsky thing. You know, you may not be interested in the human domain, but the human domain is going to be interested in you, right? So my prediction is that all this good work that you guys are doing with research, I hope, brings about, you know, the right kind of change. And you don't have to call it human domain. You can call it whatever, but it's just recognition, as Dave said about population centric combat, war, manipulation of them and influencing and get putting people on side, and frankly, doing it, as I said at the very beginning, from a position where we have the superior message, you know, on what we represent. So anyway, that's a great explanation. I really loved your analogy with with air power. It really, really makes it visible. I think to most listeners, this has really been a great and insightful conversation on irregular warfare and competition as well. One last chance to advocate for how the United States can best prepare for the future of warfare. What is the number one priority Congress and the DoD could address over the next five years? I'll give a chance to both of you to answer that. Dave, you first. Well, I would like to see a realization of the nun Cohen amendment to Goldwater Nichols and what we, you know, we got it half right. We established us SOCOM, a unified command, which has done tremendous things for for special operations, you know, particularly in the organized train and equip title 10 functions. And it was, it was on a path, I think, to really develop, and it has developed a world class special operations capability. But up until 911 it was really doing some, some great things with its service, like functions. But what none Senator Nunn and Senator Cohen envisioned was somebody to own low intensity conflict. We've had many names for it at the time, and low intensity conflict still exists. You know, later we called it military operations other than war. We've had all of these things. And of course, today, we're really talking about irregular warfare. And so we need a capability for irregular warfare. And I would like to see the evolution of nun Cohen and Goldwater Nichols to where we give responsibility to irregular warfare to someone or some organization. Now I always ask, Who is the champion for irregular warfare today. Who? Where is that champion? You know, in World War Two, where we come from, our heritage, OSS the champion was General Donovan and President Roosevelt. You know, the champions for for special operations after desert, one, you know, became Senator Nunn and Senator Cohen. And they gave us, you know, us SOCOM, but we never really pinned the rose on irregular warfare. And nobody has really picked up the mantle for irregular warfare. And so Congress, I think, would do well. And they, I think they've tried. That's why we have an irregular Warfare Center. They, you know, there's been. Fits and starts. We have an irregular Warfare Center, really, at the behest of Congress, but we really need a national level capability, really that general Cleveland outlined in his monograph on the American way of irregular war. And we have to have that national capability to prosecute irregular warfare on behalf of us, national security objectives. Thank you, Dave. Appreciate that. General you get the last word here. What's, what's the number one priority Congress in the DoD need to address over the next five years? Well, first of all, I think Dave is 100% right. We got it. I think the intent was right, but execution was half right. You know, I think that Congress should look at creating an organization that can provide that national level, world class capability in this space, it resides in a whole bunch of different places. Again, the failings are largely not at the tactical level, although you know, accruing the right kind of tactical assets for these what would be the irregular warfare or political warfare campaigns that you have that you would execute and and put together around the world, would require tapping into that. It's really this ability above them, above the tactical to actually develop and prosecute literate irregular warfare campaigns, literate political warfare strategies. And I think Congress needs to set about doing that, recognizing that none Cohen is only going to be partially right. I mean, it addressed the DoD part. We all know that irregular warfare has large civilian pieces to it. I'm an advocate for a new OSS, if you will, a rebirth of that. But again, I think that the objective should be standing up a world class capability to dominate in the human domain. Excellent, excellent. Well, you and Dave agree on that, and me too. So as a world war two historian, I really love the OSS and its legacy, and I think we could still know some great lessons. So okay, listeners, that's all the time we have today. Unfortunately, thank you so much for joining us. For those who would like to see the resilience and resistance book or general Cleveland's publications, please take a look at the show notes. Also stay tuned for the rest of our series on the future of warfare. Our next event will take place on nine September as I conduct a live interview with Dr Chris Mason and discuss the study of internal conflict, there are research opportunities on irregular warfare, and we are bringing those to the University of South Florida. There will be a link in to this special event on nine September in the show notes as well, mark your calendars and Go Bulls. Today's episode went a little longer than usual, but we thought kicking off the future of warfare research initiative with these three exceptional leaders was worth the extra time. Special thanks to our guest, retired US Army Lieutenant General Charles Cleveland, retired Army Colonel Dave Maxwell, and, of course, our own Dr Rob Burrell. Look for new episodes of his research initiative in the coming weeks on our YouTube channel. You don't want to miss any of these, so go to the channel and click on that subscribe button next week on at the boundary, our special guest will be Dr Randall Gentry. He's a principal researcher with the CNA Corporation, which operates the US Navy's Research and Development Center. He'll be discussing an upcoming GNSI decision brief on the actions needed to revitalize the current state of shipbuilding in the US. We'll publish that decision brief later this week. Gentry will also be speaking at our upcoming Florida security forum at Port Tampa Bay in November. Thanks for listening today. If you like the podcast, please subscribe and let your friends and colleagues know. Follow along with GNSI and our LinkedIn and X accounts at USF, underscore GNSI And check out our website as well at USF, debt, EDU slash, GNSI. While you're there, don't forget to subscribe to our monthly newsletter that's going to wrap up this episode of at the boundary. Each new episode will feature global and national security issues we found to be insightful, intriguing, maybe controversial, but overall, just worth talking about. I'm Jim Cardoso, and we'll see you at the boundary. You.