MAJ Brennan Deveraux and Dr. Richard Lacquement
In this episode of SSI Live, Major Brennan Deveraux interviews Dr. Richard Lacquement on his involvement in NATO’s Defense Education Enhancement Program as the Academic Lead for Morocco. The conversation explores how the US Army War College built its relationship with this NATO program and the varying roles the college’s professors play.
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John Deni
Hello and welcome to
SSI Live. You’ve long known the Strategic Studies Institute, or SSI, at the US Army War College, as the go-to location for issues related to national security and military strategy, with an emphasis on geostrategic analysis. SSI conducts strategic research and analysis to support the US Army War College curricula; assist and inform Army, DoD, and US government leadership; and serve as a bridge to the wider strategic community. Now, we are bringing you access to SSI analyses, scholars, and guests, through this, the
SSI Live podcast series. Thanks for joining us.
Brennan Deveraux
Hello. Welcome to SSI Live. I’m still your guest host, Brennan Deveraux, as we wait for John Deni to finish up his sabbatical and hopefully put out a pretty cool book. I am joined today by Dr. Richard Lacquement. He is a research professor of national security affairs here with me at the Strategic Studies Institute (SSI). Dr. Lacquement earned his PhD from Princeton University School of Public and International Affairs.
He’s a retired US Army colonel who served as a field artillery officer and as a strategist. He has been at the Army War College in uniform and as a civilian for over 15 years. Dr Lacquement has published on ample topics related to national security and is SSI’s resident expert on the military profession. For this conversation, we’re going to be diving into Richard’s role with the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) Defense Education [Enhancement] Program [DEEP] and his recent trips to Morocco.
Richard, thanks for coming. I’ll jump right into the questions. First, let’s just start from the beginning. What is the Defense Education Enhancement Program, sometimes referred to as NATO DEEP?
Richard Lacquement
Thanks. First off, thanks for having me. I look forward to the opportunity to share experiences and information and perspective on NATO’s Defense Education Enhancement Program. Really, it’s something I’ve been familiar with for a long time but had not participated in directly. It’s about 20 years old, a NATO initiative that kind of comes out of the Cold War, where, in the immediate wake, we were helping with former Soviet states.
And to this day, some of the countries in the DEEP program are some of those former Soviet states. [Currently] none of the programs [are] for any states that are part of NATO. Briefly, Croatia was part of it, while they were an early NATO member, but for the most part, it’s focused on countries that are partners with NATO, [to include] some remaining … former Soviet Republics like Kazakhstan and Armenia and Azerbaijan, some that are tied to what they call the Mediterranean Initiative, which is where Morocco comes in, [as well as], Mauritania, Tunisia. Some in the Middle East and then some, related to other, activities we’ve had. Iraq and Afghanistan had been a part of it before. And right now, a very active program supporting Ukraine. But the key point is sort of working [with] defense education institutions. So, helping out with professional military education, how to develop curriculum, develop faculty to teach about national security or security topics in general in these partner countries.
Deveraux
Okay. And I’m assuming that these are very much tailored not only to the country, but maybe to varying mission objectives on what that country is looking at for its threat or where it is technologically, along those lines. Is that a fair assumption?
Lacquement
That’s fair. And one of the, you know, taglines is that this is very much demand-driven by the country. Of course, it’s, you know, NATO has its interest. So, NATO is the partner [to] countries who have identified who we are working with. So, there is a US, you know, NATO national interest involved in every country [we work] with. But a lot of it is working with them to identify where we can help them.
So very much a kind of, you know, teaching, teaching folks how to fish, not fishing for them. Going to them and saying, here’s what we have in terms of, areas of expertise, curricula, model curricula that we’ve developed, as a group through this program and faculty development, English language training--because the language of instruction that we use is English.
And so we also help them in being able to do that. So, there’s some key skill sets that we’re looking to do. But then from the menu of things that NATO has been doing, which has been expanding a bit, the countries get to decide or ask kind of where they think they need some help. And so, for Morocco, for example, to be more specific, that program started in 2019, where they did kind of an initial assessment, and the Moroccans asked specifically for assistance with their NCO (noncommissioned officer) corps.
So, there’s a big program in Morocco helping on NCO professional development. And then they also, their war college and command in General Staff College, equivalent, essentially, it’s both of those together like the other [US] services other than the [US] Army. So, they’re in one location. Their War college and Defense college. Their ILE [Intermediate Level Education] and their senior service college, so to speak.
And they said, “hey, we would like some help with some key topic areas.” The first round was logistics, cyber security, and counterinsurgency. And future rounds include operational planning, intelligence planning, use of drones, concept of doctrine development. And so, these are all topics they requested. And then, as I’m the academic lead for the Morocco program, so we can get more into detail about how that works, but just a sense that I’m helping now to join a team, which has been around since 2019 to help meet the Moroccans needs.
Deveraux
No, that’s really neat. I think about my time doing a weird mission, doing kind of the security cooperation development. I remember my unit went to Africa and we did something similar where it was what that country needed. So we sent these small two-person or four-person teams out for exactly what you’re talking about. An NCO academy, a sniper training, a little bit more tactical focus, but it was very much here’s a menu of the skill sets we have. How can we be of assistance? One thing you talked about, the “we,” used it as the “royal we,” the NATO. But as you transition to that academic planner, I think the question comes up is, where does the Army War College fit into this?
Lacquement
So I would say the Army War College sort of fits the, the broader constellation of subject matter experts across NATO. So the folks doing a lot of the subject matter expertise support come from many different NATO countries. And as an illustration, let me back up just a second too, actually there are other Army War College folks who’ve been involved.
Actually, though, one of the people who stood this program up from inception was a former Army War College professor, Dr. Al Stolberg, who still lives in the area. But he created the National Security Policy Program, which is a program I still run for the resident education program of the Army War College. So there’s been several people from the Army War College involved throughout the, as long as DEEP has existed.
At this particular moment, the provost, [Dr.] Dave Dworak is an academic lead for Azerbaijan. Dr. Nelly Lahoud in the Department [of] National Security Strategy, is the academic lead for Jordan, and I volunteered to pick up—when somebody else retired—to be the academic lead for Morocco. So that’s the Army War College, we’re kind of volunteers, of sort of external service time to this broader NATO effort, to be part of this team. And so the Army War College has been literally in since the inception in many ways, like I said, particularly the leadership role that …Dr. Al Stolberg, has had with the organization.
Deveraux
Okay. And you kind of answered my follow up there, which is, you know, how did you get roped into this? I love that you volunteered versus the voluntold. Most of my security cooperation efforts were voluntold, as the uniform wearer. But, can I ask a little bit, why you kind of jumped on the opportunity?
Lacquement
Sure. So partly I was aware of it. I’ve seen opportunities in the past when they were looking for volunteers for different countries, and really just in terms of my commitments at the time, I didn’t see it as a good fit or didn’t feel like I had the capacity to sort of do that. This particular year when the call went out. “Hey, would somebody be interested in being the academic lead for Morocco?” And it was and again, you sort of compete for the job. It’s not just, hey, volunteer. And they said, … “you’re the person.” I mean, part of it is that I am a, I’ve had a lot of experience and professional military education. So I have a lot of expertise in key topics like counterinsurgency, stability ops, just teaching strategy in general, national security approaches.
I’d been the dean of the Army War College for eight years. So the sense that I also know faculty development and curriculum development. And so I was, you know, considered to be well-suited to be the academic lead, which is to oversee the academic components of all the things going on within the Morocco program. And given that it is the Defense Education “
Education” Enhancement program, the idea that sort of education background, and it probably helps that I’m a practitioner. I am a retired Army colonel who’s done a lot of this. My professional military education experience was to put it into use, particularly by the United States, but obviously with many other partners, over the years.
Deveraux
Okay. So you signed up. You’re joining a team that’s been in place. You’re going out there, as this academic lead, you actually did, finally go out. You went on ground, you went to Morocco. Can you talk a little bit about the efforts ongoing now? What that mission in particular, you mentioned a couple, of what they had done in the past, what they’re looking for. But this last trip you did or trips. Can you talk a little bit about what the objective was that you guys had going out there?
Lacquement
Sure. Really, kind of within the Morocco support, the Morocco DEEP team from NATO. I’m kind of dual-hatted. So that’s, let me just briefly describe the larger team that I fell in on. To give people an idea. There’s actually a program lead for Morocco who’s based in NATO headquarters. He happens to be a Bulgarian national who is essentially a NATO civil servant who worked in the Bulgarian government at senior levels for a while as an advisor to the prime minister at one point. And one of the program managers up there is a Hungarian national who used to be in the Hungarian foreign service but has been at NATO headquarters for a while. So, she’s been with the program since inception and then within… And so they helped oversee the, the creation of the Morocco mission, you know, like six years ago.
And they tend to check in periodically. So that’s kind of the NATO headquarters dynamic. And then within Morocco itself, there is a sergeant major from Slovenia. His name is Aleks Varga, Aleksander Varga, who is the lead for the NCO development program. And he’s been doing that since 2019. That was the first program to go into Morocco.
So he works very closely with them. But he also works, one of his partners is AFRICOM [US Africa Command], who tends to be part of NCO development in Africa. And the Moroccans are considered a security exporter and that they bring other African country representatives to Morocco frequently for NCO training, their war college, and defense college-level things. So, in general terms, they are helping the Moroccans to help others in Africa has been a fairly prominent component.
I am also the project lead academically for all of the programs in Morocco, but I’m the project lead for essentially their War College and Command and General Staff College, which is in Kenitra, Morocco, just outside of the capital, in Rabat, in an airbase that was prominent as part of one of the bases we occupied in 1942 after Operation Torch. And we went into North Africa and the French had been the protectorate at the time.
Deveraux
One of those neat things, I guess, about signing up to travel abroad, you actually get to go see some, some pretty cool places and you’re definitely, you are talking to the ‘royal we’ there, you’re including it sounds like a whole NATO effort.
Lacquement
Correct. And so in partly highlighting that it. Yes. So yes, I’m the only American on the team right now. For sort of the, the standing team, if you will, for Morocco, with the responsibility particularly for that for their war college and, and I should have it written down in front of me. It’s acronym is CREMS, which is for its French name, but it’s essentially the Royal Military College of Higher Studies.
But it is really kind of equivalent to both our War College and our Command and Staff College two separate programs, one for more junior officers of the O4-O5 level, one for more senior officers, O5-O6, which is kind of their war college, but that program teaches both of those. And that’s where I’m the project lead for those.
And then before I go into more detail about just, CREMS, they’re sort of war college equivalent. There’s also a program for essentially their Directorate of Security for Cyber Security. And again, it’s kind of their French acronym is the DGSSI. But there’s a Canadian retired Air Force Canadian colonel from the Royal Military College who helps them with their curriculum development.
Think, National Security Agency/ CYBERCOM [US Cyber Command]. That’s what that agency represents. And so, and then we’ve in addition to, so in addition to the programs at those locations, there’s also a Spanish officer who assists. And he was on the trip as part of one of the routine participants. And so if there’s, that core team. So I just think that, you know, a Canadian, an American, a Slovenian, a Spaniard, a Bulgarian, and a Hungarian who are all sort of representatives, from NATO countries, who are coming in to assist the Moroccans.
Deveraux
If I can, real quick, that’s a challenge in itself. Nonetheless, you know, working with the partners, do you guys as that team, do you have a chance to get together? Are you, before you’re hopping on a plane, and you said you’re already joining the team, but, are joining a team that’s already in place. But before you are hopping on the plane, are you guys doing TEAMS meetings?
Are you getting together and having these chats? Are you getting together as a group outside of, you know, the actual operation of Morocco?
Lacquement
Yes, absolutely. Matter of fact, my first engagement with the team was when I first signed up, like back in April or May of 2025, when I volunteered. My next meeting was essentially with the NATO team members, a TEAMS meeting, a virtual meeting. We all talked through and they explained kind of what my role would be, explained where things were in Morocco and where I’d be picking up.
My very next meeting was with some Moroccan counterparts who join that same group as we talked about, you know, what would be happening. And then my first trip to Morocco ever. So I yeah, I never, never set foot in Morocco. I literally never set foot [o]n the African continent before, before I went in late September.
But I went there falling in on some workshops supporting their war college and defense college. And now, and I mentioned the workshops because there’s another layer of people supporting this who talk about subject matter experts. So we were doing a logistics workshop which included, in this case, mainly Americans from National Defense University (NDU), who are associated with National Defense University, who came over to work on logistics with the Moroccans at their war college.
So they’re just they’re kind of for a, just for a set of workshops. So they’re not part of the Morocco team, per se, but they’re subject matter experts in that area. Logistics in this case.
Deveraux
When was this?
Lacquement
This was in late September.
Deveraux
Late September 2025.
Lacquement
2025. And then there was a cyber workshop and the there was a, and again, that happened to be Americans, two other Americans. I attended to sort of oversee and learn with my first visit to their war college in September 2025. And so I was both the, the logistics and the cyber workshop, and it was an NDU professor who was kind of the lead and a Lieutenant [O-3] from the U.S. Naval Academy, who’s a cyber expert.
Who was one of the other SMEs (subject matter experts) helping them with their cyber curriculum. Now, there was supposed to be a counterinsurgency workshop, but the [US] government shut down, sort of dropped right in the middle of that. So, we’ve postponed that till February 2026. And, we had some Portuguese officers who supported that the first go round, along with, our director over at SSI, [Dr.] Tony Pfaff and Dr. John Nagl from the Department of Military Strategy, Plans, and Operations, who are counter-insurgency experts, were doing that workshop. And they’ll go back in, hopefully a few weeks here, assuming the government is open in February.
Deveraux
And then so you went back after the workshops in December, correct?
Lacquement
Oh, yeah. And so I did the workshop. One was probably my hat one to get to Morocco and meet the Moroccans face to face and also focus on the project. I’m the immediate overseer within the program. But then in December, I went back with that team I just described for the annual review. So when we kind of sat down.
So we went to the NCO Academy and met with leaders there about the NCO program. We went to the War College/ Command and Staff College, talked to the leaders there, and where I was kind of the lead for the NATO team. Then we went to the, the Directorate of Cybersecurity and met with the leaders there. And then our final meeting was with the Armed Forces General Headquarters, J-3/5 (operations), their training people there in the capital of Rabat to review where we were and what the plans are going forward.
So this is an annual review and adjustment to the plans to confirm where we’re going. And like I said, Morocco is on a pretty good path. It’s a fairly mature program. In terms of the relationship with the Moroccans, the Moroccans are very enthusiastic, very easy to work with and very, very, thoughtful in how they engage with NATO and appreciative of the sorts of things that we do.
And I can see them expanding in the future. In fact, we’re talking about adding links to their maritime education institutions and seeing if we can add that to the portfolio of education institutions that we’re working with going forward.
Deveraux
Okay. Apart from the upcoming one in February, you already talked about, any others this next year, you know, kind of worth highlighting just a couple examples that, you guys will be pursuing?
Lacquement
Sure. So we’ll wrap up, so we’re on the counterinsurgency one, for those first three. That’s really we’ve kind of done the teach them how to fish thing. The idea is that now they can teach it themselves. That was that. So we’re done. They will move forward. Well, we’re adding some other topics. So we’re doing some, we’re doing some faculty development on how to develop curriculum, which was a request they made.
We’re doing it on operational planning and intelligence planning this year. And then in future years, we’re also looking at some other topics that they’ve requested, like how do we integrate… teach about how to use drones is one they’ve asked for, which is, projected to be maybe a year or two down the road.
I did skip over one point that’s worth noting, too. So this NATO effort there was the actually my first travel event was to go to Germany, to the Marshall Center, where they hosted what they call the “Clearing House.” So this was the, where all of the different reps for the different countries all come together to share what they learned and also talk about best practices. And so we learn from each other. So actually, my first chance to meet with the other members of the Morocco team were in Garmisch, Germany in June of 2025.
Deveraux
Also not bad travel.
Lacquement
Yeah, not bad travel. And that moves every year. So even though the Marshall Center and the Partnership for Peace Consortium, in particular, a NATO element that the United States is very tightly tied into, at Garmisch, sponsors a lot of the work and funds a lot of the work that is done for the DEEP program. I guess they move that conference, that “Clearing House” every year.
This year, that “Clearing House” will be in the Czech Republic at a place called, I think it’s Brno [], about two hours outside of Prague. So we’ll go back and do the “Clearing House” there. Typically, somewhere… it’s NATO. Yeah, somewhere in one of the European NATO countries where they host a “Clearing House,” a 2-to-3-day meeting for the different reps. For the 15 countries we currently support.
They come together, compare notes, adjust our programs. And also, that’s one of the places where we talk about the clearing house is where we talk about, “hey, my country, the country I’m working with is looking for expertise in this, who might be able to assist?” For example, when we set operational planning last year, last summer, the Italians said, “we would be very interested in assisting with operational planning, curricular development in Morocco.”
So, I already have kind of a string that for that particular subject, for that particular issue, the subject matter expertise. I’ll turn to the Italians first, to see what, what they have and then maybe build a team around them, for that particular set of workshops.
Deveraux
Okay. Now that’s really neat. As the program potentially expands or an opportunity becomes available, like it did for you for Morocco, [any] advice for a faculty member at the War College? Is this something you wish you had jumped on earlier? Something you know, you really encourage someone to take their chance with? A little bit of extra work, sounds like some good travel, but all around pretty good experience? Rewarding experience?
Lacquement
I would say yes. I would say for, because, you know, mindful as I look forward, the topics that I mentioned, I don’t have, subject matter expert names associated with a lot of that. So there’s a part of me, you know, knows that, you know, I have a lot of networks, most of which are centered at the Army War College, as you might imagine.
So when somebody gives me a topic the first thing I tend to think of is who else at the Army War College knows these things? I’ve been cautioned by my NATO counterparts, “hey, this can’t just be an all-American thing. Don’t just fall back on your own, own school.”
Deveraux
Yeah, just bringing in a Pennsylvania thing.
Lacquement
I think that’s right. And so I, I am mindful of that. But nonetheless all these groups are looking and that’s kind of where the clearing house came in. So a lot of different faculty members from the Army War College aren’t just going to the countries where Army War College, you know, academic leads are. So the idea of, we do have Army War College faculty who helped out with Ukraine.
We’ve had, you know, other countries, Georgia, where they’ve helped out in the past. And so that what I would say to anybody else interested in there, there’s really kind of the two levels. One might be kind of the longer-term, because the other thing it was, I was asked, “could you do this for at least 2 to 3 years?”
They’re looking for some continuity in sort of program oversight. Whereas workshops tend to be a little more than 1 or 2 events on one specific subject and you’re done and move on. So there’s that level of being a workshop subject matter expert for a variety of different topics, or, potentially if the openings come, being one of the, like I am, academic lead or some other sort of project lead for one country in particular.
Deveraux
Yeah, well, it sounds like the workshop might also be a good way to kind of dip your toe in the water, go out, experience it, and then similar to your situation a couple years down the road and you feel you’re in a better spot. You know, a really neat opportunity to jump on. I’m actually curious, as we look at the students who come to the War College, I know we get students probably from all these countries, or at least a good portion of them.
I don’t know about you personally long-term, but I, I would think this would be a great opportunity for, how you’re engaging that international fellow as well. Having a personal relationship with the training they’re getting over in their country. If you’d have a chance to then, you know, sit down with, and maybe it’s the next, you know, academic year now that you’ve gone through this to sit down with the Moroccan.
If we get a, you know, a colonel from Morocco to come in and talk about DEEP and maybe get some of that unfiltered feedback, you know, back from them as they’re getting down, like, “oh, yeah, our War College is changing” or, “oh, yeah, you know, our, our institution has as developed these things.”
Lacquement
Yeah, that’s a great point, because I had actually before I went to Morocco for the first time, one of the people I spoke to is this year’s, meaning class of academic year 2026, Moroccan student in the Army War College class. There’s typically, there is one Moroccan officer. It typically it’s a lieutenant colonel from the Moroccan army, who is in in the Army War College.
So I talked to him, and I, I had a list of others who have been there. I didn’t encounter any of them when I was in Morocco. However, among the other workshop participants from like NDU they did encounter some of the former students that they had had and in fact my main interlocutor at their war college, or he’s really the faculty of the War College at the Command Staff College, are really, overlap a fair amount.
He’s actually a graduate of the US Army Command General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth. So partly his English is fluent. He’s very familiar with American approaches, and he’s been our main liaison with the leadership at the school for higher, higher military studies. So that there is a lot of, there are connections with the international fellows who were coming to American programs, and, again, not just the Army War College, but with the other ones as well.
So being mindful of that, as far as feedback on that, we haven’t been working with CREMS that long. So none of our graduates have been there after these things have after some of the curriculum changes. But that’s a, it’s an excellent point and I’m sure something we’ll pay attention to.
Deveraux
Yeah. My, my time here at the War College, one of my big takeaways has actually been the, the importance and the value of the international fellows’ network. Not just because they’re going to become, you know, seniors in their force, but they’re, I mean, they’re a great insight into their country, their great insight into, just different perspectives.
So we recently got a talk from, you know, an Australian, someone from the Philippines, and it’s like, “oh, you’re thinking about problems differently than me.” But then expanding that out for programs like this, for access, getting in. It seems like a, a huge asset, but I know the DoD (Department of Defense) has been leveraging for years. I’m just now, as I’ve been in long enough, really starting to kind of see that firsthand and see, you know, that investment, come to be.
So if we can make a shift, I think the DEEP program’s really neat. I’m going to study up on it a little bit. This was actually, you joked you had heard about it for years but never jumped on. I didn’t hear about it until you told me you were taking a trip to Morocco. So one thing I need to get smarter on.
But let’s shift over to you, in general. What’s next for you here at the school? I know you have a program you run. I know now you’re committed for at least 2 to 3 years, in NATO DEEP, any other big projects on the plate, things you’re working on?
Lacquement
So, just to describe it briefly, because it is good connective tissue, so I kind of have been working on a project on how to think about the future of the US military profession. And.
Deveraux
And you’ve published on that before. I know I came across a monograph from just a couple of years ago.
Lacquement
I have and really kind of, if I’d highlight two things. One, when I was part of a project focused on the Army back in the early 2000s, 2004 or [200]5, we did, we published some volumes on the future of the Army profession. Which I kind of picked up again, taking a broader look in 2022, Tom Galvin and I published a monograph on
Framing the Future of the US Military Profession and looking at some of the challenges in this era.
And if I were to boil it down to that, you know, key challenges, what people will be familiar with is sort of the changing character of war. If you put it in sort of professional terms. What professions do is usually provide a particular body of expert knowledge addressed at certain sets of problems that society can’t solve for itself. And that may sound a little abstract, but if you think of, you know, people will say, “what does the military do?”
Well, we fight wars, but there’s a lot about what wars and security that the military provide that vary, certainly not just at the margins, but at its core level. Okay, what is war? What is combat? Is cyber activity war or not war? Should you have a military component? What about space? Should we have a separate service for it? What makes that military, versus NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)? So there’s a lot of things where we try, we and most others in the world, and this includes the Moroccans. So, a lot of interesting overlaps when you try to say, “what is it that your armed forces, your military, provides to your society at this moment in time?” And some of it’s about the changing technology and character of war.
I’ve mentioned drones already. I’ve mentioned cybersecurity, things that really do sort of challenge all of us trying to figure out “how do we address that,” and “what’s the military part of that,” or “is there somebody else who should be dealing with it?” And so my project, my research project, has kind of looked at where we should be going with that.
And I’m kind of trying to put together sort of a summary on kind of where we are after a couple of years of study based, after we did the framing monograph that I mentioned and may put together kind of a, and again, not a final answer, it’s never final. It’s kind of a sense of what are some of the challenges for the US military profession now, as it looks at the changing character of war, the high technology challenges, which include, which also run over to things like and who can actually perform well in addressing these challenges.
And if there are, you know, conceptions of, you know, how much, how much does muscle power matter in the current era? If you look through most of millennia of warfare its horses that mattered until we get to the Industrial Revolution, we figure out how to substitute a lot of things for horsepower. We can sever a lot of, you can…
Deveraux
And I can tell you, doing some historical work on artillery, I know you have that same artillery background. There was a whole lot of people in that community, and in others that were very resistant to moving away from that horsepower.
Lacquement
Yeah, that sense of, so there [are] ways we’ve done things that certainly in a lot of cases in particular, if you get to the core of warfare, really hasn’t changed much in millennia. I really, human beings trying to kill other human beings on behalf of, you know, goals that their collectives are after. But if that has been defined by, you know, human and animal muscle power for many millennia, that sort of gave way to, you know, machines. They think gunpowder, the reason artillery became so important is gunpowder, sort of to change one of the dynamics in terms of how you could, you know, put force behind a projectile to hurt somebody as opposed to a longbow being, you know, you know, all human, you know, muscle power. Versus now, the things that you can do with machines and, and long-range weaponry, and what, you know, like in things like cyber war and drones and who’s actually operating those to deliver lethal effects.
Deveraux
Well, and I’m thinking not even just the battlefield, although as soon as you, you turn the conversation pretty dark. I thought about the, the T-shirt that says, “I just hope both teams have fun.” No one’s out there doing that, right? It’s a very dark conversation. But as we talk about what technology can do, it’s not even necessarily just this escalation of ‘my bomb is bigger. My bomb is more accurate. My bomb’s even bigger.’ It’s maybe I’m able to undermine your nuclear plan with ones and zeros. Right? I know there was something. You know, I’m going to turn off the dam, using a computer. And so, to your point, who is the player in that, is very different, from, you know, 40 years ago it’s a plane who drops a giant bomb, to, you know, it’s a someone in a basement who’s very tech, you know, who’s…
Lacquement
Well, that gives you sort of a point of view for, for example, in a lot of discussions about what is artificial intelligence going to do for us? And sort of where the human[] in this thing is? Part of it is, you know, artificial intelligence tends to be really good at pattern recognition. And coming up with answers based on looking at all the data that if things that have happened in the past, but it’s not good at novel situations or really creative answers.
So the question is “what humans do that well?” And so, but if it were to go to a different point, is that if we’ve learned, found a way for machines to do a lot of the routine literal heavy lifting and all. What it has done is put a premium on people with the right minds who can think through these things.
And so the human capital of bringing intelligent solutions and knowing how to take advantage of that, and that’s been a forte for the United States for its whole history. We’ve been a very independent, individual-minded sort of society that tends to validate, you know, the individual instincts and views of the people within our formation. So, our NCOs and enlisted soldiers tend to have a lot more latitude than in many other militaries. And it’s something that others prize. They look at us and say how do we replicate that?
Deveraux
Yeah, I remember there’s a quote, I’m going to totally butcher it. But to paraphrase, it was, the challenge of fighting the Americans is they just don’t follow their doctrine. Right? So we, we have this innovative culture to do that. And I think 100%, and it’s definitely, it’s a good time, to explore the profession.
I think we’re in transition, and the Army is very open to this conversation. I don’t think anyone has the answers. And it’s probably good to be in a field where, to your point, there isn’t a correct answer. It’s, it’s one we could keep working on for a few years.
Lacquement
Yeah, but it’s been interesting. I watch this with the Moroccans, too, because I think that when one of these ways these things connect is I’m watching them go through professional challenges in some ways that we’ve already dealt with. Their NCO corps, for example, is not nearly as extensive and as empowered as ours. And that, you know, that that’s true in many other societies.
Many have remarked that our noncommissioned officer corps really is fairly unique. It’s a very American creation that goes back to the Revolution in terms of, you know, how you deal with an army of citizens who have agency and feel very invested in… you want to be taken seriously, and in any context. And so, figure out how to convey that to others, that’s actually a military effectiveness boon.
It’s not a, it’s not a threat to discipline and control. It’s actually an incredible, you know, value-added element of how our institution operates. And so being open to finding out where the talent is and being able to tap into it. And, you know, and I suggested some of these things that you’re watching the issues that sort of ‘what merit counts?’ in the current era, a forte of a meritocracy, which we’ve been pretty good, it’s really the US Army’s been a pretty good equalizer because ultimately it’s about performing some fairly discrete tasks well in incredibly dangerous situations. And it’s not about who you are, what you look like, what your identity is: [It’s] “can you do the job?” And we’ve been really good at that. And I think that’s, that’s an advantage over the Chinese and the Russians in particular.
But many, many others, when we think of, and NATO more broadly, how well we can tap into the members of our society. And one example, I think, you know, the in the Western world, you see, we actually have done a much better job of tapping into women to be part of our formations. And if you look at the Ukrainians versus Russians, there’s some fascinating things going on with how many, with the percentage of Ukrainian combat or at least combat-oriented ones, you talk about drone operators and others who are out there, or cyber operators who are, who are very active there, you know that.
So, Ukrainians may be smaller by, you know, like one-third the size, population wise, of the Russians, but they’re tapping into a broader percentage of their population than the Russians are, and that the intellectual capital seems to be a bit of a mismatch. Don’t get me wrong. The Russians have tremendous advantages of mass and weight and industrial power.
But the human capital/talent side is a little more even when you realize what the Ukrainians are doing. There’s some, I think, lessons there about what modern warfare looks like and who can actually provide real value to warfighting capabilities in this era that the, like I said, we’re watching the Ukrainians. We’re learning from the Ukrainians that it had been a, it’s a, they’re teaching us things that I think, for us and others are paying attention to.
Deveraux
Yeah. No, that’s a great point. And it’s changing so fast. It’ll be interesting to see really what comes out of looking at, at some of these ongoing conflicts and getting our hands around what future war looks like. You know what is valuable on it? What kind of traits are we looking for in people or systems? You know, who is the purveyor of violence? All right. Is it the person with the drone? You know, is it the guy with the bayonet? Or is it both, on a crazy battlefield?
But we’re going to have to call it. I think we could probably go on for a while, and I’m sure we will later today in the hallway, over at SSI. I look forward to the project. I hope to see it in the near future. And I know our listeners out there feel the same.
As we transition out, listeners, for more Army War College podcasts, check out
Decisive Point,
Conversations on Strategy,
CLSC Dialogues, and
A Better Peace.
Deni
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