Like you said, just incredible glad glad you were here. and safe travels busy guy headed out right away. Okay, next panel come on up. I'll introduce the next panel. We're very the second panel the day observations from the Russo Ukrainian war. I got this is going to be incredibly interesting. We have some real experts on the panel, the panel moderator, Mr. Eric Kirchner, national security policy adviser and National Security Advisory Board member. Rutgers Centre of Excellence. Eric ready to go over to you thank you
thank you, Bob. All right, this is I'm gonna go from General Flynn at the beginning today and General Brown from the beginning today. Let's I know it's mid morning as you were probably holding us all up from lunch and that kind of thing, but we got a great panel here. So everybody take a you know, take a deep breath, wake up and give me a big Aloha. Actually, that was better than I thought it was gonna be with the stars. All right, one more time. I like to do the you know, you could tell them an arm waving an arm waving New Yorker by birth. So here you go. who spent a lot of time in Hawaii. But anyway, one more one more big Aloha. And mahalo to all of you for being here. Let's see. I have spent a lot of time in Hawaii over the years for any number of reasons, including with a lot of connections to the University of Hawaii, which I know and love well, so I'm glad to be back here. Actually, the last time I was in for the second the last time I was in Hawaii was in 2017 to give a talk at a cybersecurity conference at the Haleakala hotel, and my our friend General Brown was the keynote and I gave one of the speaking sessions so it was that was a wonderful conference. This is absolutely fabulous. I love this room. So I'm glad you're all here. You'll wake up a little more when we get this panel going. Bob gave it a great intro basically on the panel moderator as you can tell, I'm going to introduce the panellists very quickly and then I'm going to throw it over to our panel chair who I'll introduce quickly right now. So we have panel chair, Major General Jared Hellwig, who's the commanding general of the a theatre Sustainment Command out here in Hawaii of the United States Army. So he certainly had his hands full and a lot of the topics we're going to be talking about awesome panel chair and he'll be taking it once I introduce the other panellists. They'll be taken over the first few minutes of the introduce the panel a little more depth. Next, I have Command Sergeant Major TJ Holland of the 18th air war for us, or Airborne Corps. US Army so he's actually Fort Bragg obviously. Interestingly, he just told us he's moving to force comm so he's going to stick around for ag love to welcome him, looking forward to hearing what he has to say. We have retired Colonel army and Dr. PHD, John Genteel. He's the associate director of the Army Research Division and Senator Rand, so please welcome him after him. We have Major General Chris Berry, who's the director of the land warfare centre, British Army and after him not last I've talked to him a bunch over the last couple of days completely not least, Dr. Jack Watling, Senior Research Fellow Land Warfare Royal United Services Institute. Please welcome the panel
thanks and appreciate this opportunity to sit on this panel. And I feel you know personally I have not been to Ukraine. So but I've read a lot about the lessons learned here and really excited to hear the thoughts of this, this panel and how we can see the results of the lessons are in there applied to the Pacific theatre. And as we look, you know, in this in the context of emerging changes to warfare as part of this land pack there's some areas I think that are kind of natural that show that that trend transcend both in the Ukraine and indo PAYCOM areas like the involvement of allies and partners with the fight in the challenges there. The the challenges and lessons learned from training and equipping the the Ukrainian forces and then strategic communications how those have played out in the environment of the conflict there. The role of technology some of which has been discussed already in panels already and then near and dear to my heart, sustainment and logistics and how the lessons we've learned both the lessons from the Russians experience and from the US experience when it comes to sustainment and logistics and how we can apply those lessons to the Indo PAYCOM theatre and so I think those are some some good kind of buckets and bins to start the conversation off and I'm just wondering if anybody wants to start off with discussing one of those areas.
So, thank you, Jerry. Let me pick up on that. So the Ukraine war is this extraordinary opportunity to learn from somebody else? And many of us from the farther east towards Ukraine, it's quite approximate because we are training many of population in the UK and as are many other European allies. So this is interested in helping them get better and there's in the interest in how do we exploit that learning, such that we are better have a data races so that we are pacing, the fret and pacing technology. So it's a kind of extraordinary opportunity that we all have to get better absent of conflict. Our history is probably similar to many others learn faster, but the periods in between can be awfully stagnant. And we need to address
that I would just add that just with general just said, so I'm finishing up a a project for the Army staff on lessons, although we're rephrasing a little bit and we're calling them a number of we have like 25 different observations like the omnipresence of UAS, criticality of sustainment hospitalisation. And then with each of those observations, we we we link to them what we think are implications for the United States Army, what it means for the States Army and I agree with the general just said that this is it's a lot it's a laboratory and for example, the US Army has done this before we looked at the 1973 Yom Kippur War very extensively, right, to glean insights to glean lessons. And it's an interesting comparison because at that point, the United States Army was coming off a long seven year stint of doing counterinsurgency operations in Vietnam. And at least for the US Army, as we have now this laboratory of the current Ukraine war, we are coming up 1520 plus years of doing counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. So I agree with general Berry 100% of this is, I think we all agree with that. This is a this is a laboratory for us to really learn we shouldn't be doing this and we should really, really be working hard, trying to get as as right as we can. To Jim's
point about the just just to reinforce the point. So we learned in non capoeira, that our anti tank guided weapon system wouldn't destroy the funding of Russian tanks. So we changed our doctrine in our training so that we put everything in template for people. And then we bought Javelin some years later, and we didn't start teaching that but that is what happens in institutions. Learn from others, this kind of hunger to find the edge over time to explore that learning right from your system to create that learning environment. I mean, that's that's the holy grail isn't.
That's a great point. Sir major, I kind of skipped right on to the questions, but you want to give us an overview of your, your experience and then what lessons
you've learned. Yeah, absolutely, sir.
Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity. You know, I get the honour to kind of pitch in for general Donohue here. So I don't take this lightly. And I really appreciate the panel for including me on this but, you know, if my boss were sitting here you would do your point about learning from other other words, you think pre World War Two, a we many thought French the French army was one of the best in the world. Right there were stuck on 1918 doctrine and tactics. Then the small upstart German army use this thing called an FM radio. And then they brought it to bear with tanks. infantryman and left off at a decisive point in time right. And they quickly overwhelmed that defeated that French army in six weeks. Right. And now you're seeing what Ukraine can do with data and in how they could speed up decision making. We use data for two different things, right people and war fighting. Right? And then three main takeaways from that really is this conflict has really highlighted the power of optimising data through adaptation and integration can have speed of decision making, that achieves operational advantage. And that's really what's helping the Ukrainian army at the operational edge of what they're doing. Very innovative and willing partner in this environment. It also the second point here the highlights value, collaboration and joint all Domain system that integrates and optimises information and a single pane of glass right and that's that really that speeds the decision making for the commander What do I mean by that right the factory for when you go in any operations centre and you look out there, the people and the systems and the process that brings it information to Commander to visualise and understand what's going on. For us. We had an integrator, right integrator was Maven spark systems, right and it was able to take all the systems of record behind all those warfighting functions. From TS secret and unclassified and put it on live layers on a single pane of glass. Right. And General Dickinson brought up a couple of great points it before is you know, all the stuff he was just talking about space and some of the some of the challenges we saw as far as you know, how to track everything has a digital fingerprint, right, whether it's an adversary or even some of our things is so good and bad with that. That live data is super important because 39 months we had 32 evolutions of that platform and our most recent deployment that we just had in less than three weeks, we had another two evolutions. What does that mean for us and for everybody out here as far as starting to understand its data as not just ammunition but using it as a weapon system for the commander to really have decision dominance. The greatest authority on the battlefield was survivability is challenging and you seeing that play out right now in Ukraine, there's a need for a greater protection of critical assets, right? It's really hard to hide right through you gotta use deception and dispersion. Right, we know that we need a land force to hold key terrain. Bottom line, you need an army. But what we've come to understand over working with a partner willing partner and even our most recent deployment, is I can touch any army that's holding that key piece of terrain from anywhere in the world. I can influence them with data, right? I don't have to be in the same hemisphere. And then within that aspect for your sustainment discussion earlier, sir, you know, using data to really have mass precision, right, massing your effects lethal, non lethal. Every time that you fail to have mass precision, you create two dilemmas for the commander right one I just expended ordinance. So you got to resupply me, right. And if you're not precise, well, guess what? You better displace. And you better displace rapidly. Right? And you better do so if you're trading in two minutes. That's how good counter battery fire so you look at Ukraine right now. And that narrative that I talked about that little discussion about where we were, what Germany did to the French in World War Two is right now in this Russian Ukraine, wars, Ukrainian armies, you know, they weren't good at the start of it. They couldn't manoeuvre. But their willingness and ability to kind of adapt and integrate and tip the scale to their advantage at the operational edge. Right. And Ukraine's are using data right now as effectively and efficiently as the Germans used FM radio, right. And they're able to Mass Effects at the most decisive point in time to achieve their operational advantage because they're making decisions faster than the Russians can because the Russians guess what, like the French, they're stuck in their way of war. Right. And that's a really great thing for the Ukraine's for survivability. So for for sustainment, I will tell you when I talked about the systems of record and all those great things, what we've discovered, really this process is, you know, it's not just not just 18th Airborne Corps rates, it's our allies and our partners. On top of that combined joint all domain Command Control Department environment, right. So when I think single pane of glass, I'm thinking everything from high and exquisite Intel. I mean, we're, we brought up Max Max our earlier we're talking sustainment every time I shoot something I need to resupply it. So I do know that there's already analysis out there for barrel life on Triple sevens. I know about expectancy for parts, and we can programme them in there using algorithms. We talked about algorithms earlier. Right. Well, that empowers AMC, because what we've done is we introduced to the sustainment ecosystem that the Ukrainians were prepared for. They nearly literally did new commit training and fielding well in contact. Right and it took a whole have a lot of of willing, as far as you know, the Alliance that is NATO and other partners to make that a success. Right. And AMC carried a lot of that burden to do that. And what we've learned a lot about ourselves is a guess what since World War Two, we really have a test of the industrial base, right? And the industrial base is going to be tested in this theatre if we had to turn it on and max output we definitely learned some other great things about with death calm right there Ukrainians one point say, Hey, your artillery sucks. It's not accurate. What we discovered is everybody's donated howitzers. Right sir, ammunition charges we discovered was hey, they're using the US howitzer with pictus countries. munition with this country's charge ports, it's not accurate. Well def calm, figured all that out. So that CJC two p when I get at that point of interest, right. And I can collect them determine so what we've discovered is that ped environment using using MDMP and do an ATO cycle and doing the target decision boards twice a day. You know, we didn't bail on anything but it's dynamic enough, where we we've gone from finding a needle in the haystack with an algorithm now introduced as finding a needle in a haystack. of needles, getting it getting up py up through two VPN ins into a cloud that US Cyber Command. Overwatch is through a cross domain solution and Ukrainian cloud that US cyber and Ukrainian cyber looks at down to a tablet which is CJC two P light so they could pick up that's on this HP to that's a point of interest. Do I want to put it on a platform with a service ammunition? No, by the way, I can now pick the charge the platform and the munition to execute and when I push and guess what I just did also communicate back to sustainment enterprise. I need new parts. I need new munitions. I need all these great things as to how fast Ukraine is and they have to write it's a war of attrition. So data is become their ammunition of choice. And that's how they've really been able to outpace a lot of what they're doing. We have smart people. And we have great partners, and we have great allies. Our partners and allies bring authorities that sometimes our army doesn't have right and we have a lot of ingenuity out there. So the ability to code and write algorithms on the edge are super important. The commander when they are getting presented with more information, they come up with more challenging questions to ask. Young Orsa writes in AI writes an algorithm because the commander wants to understand counter battery fire between Russia and Ukraine. That same algorithm showed us actually we know the Russian way of war. So now we know if they're posturing for a counter offensive, or they're pausing and reinforcing. Or they're about to do their operation based off counter battery fires. And we've learned through that and we've iterated and we've been able to write more code and more algorithms that can only happen when we have you know, we have great young men and women that wear this uniform that are on the edge could do those great things and we have commanders that are being given a tonne of information and a tonne of ammunition in the form of data. Right. So one last thing I'll touch to is into this whole process while we're doing both of those things. We ran high COMM For warfighter for three core first time we put the SIM and seajets up, learned a tonne out of that as well. So I will tell you, we can't wait for 2030 It's now right so we need smart people to innovate and whatever the system is we need we need to empower the commander to visualise and articulate and decide and outpace the enemy with a decision making process. So thanks, sir.
It's great, sir. Major, appreciate that. I've learned is there anything you wanted to add that?
I think I pick up on that point about you know, we used to run a lot of warfighters. And sustainment obviously was a key part of that exercise. But when you do something for real, you suddenly run into all of those things that a simulation will not generate. And when we test these capabilities or the Ukrainians employ them, we find new things things we didn't expect interactions that we hadn't considered previously. It's been my privilege to work in country with Ukrainians every other month, essentially, since the war started, and just before I got back from Ukraine 10 days ago. And many of the interactions that we discussed prior to the conflict you see play out but they play out in unexpected ways. CG spaceform mentioned denial of communications. My experience over the last year is that communications are occasionally denied in certain sectors, but that isn't really the biggest problem. The EMS is denied. It's a certainty. It's something where you can revert to a prior colour. When you have real like massive friction is the uncertainty that is generated by perpetual and continuous disruption in the EMS because I don't know whether my orders got through. I don't know what the latency is going to be between the launching a UAV and the off boarding the data from it. And therefore it's very difficult to plan synchronise coordinate. And what that brings is a requirement for you to essentially have situation of the awareness in the EMS it is a it is a persistent area of manoeuvre that creates all sorts of permutations and tactical problems. I think you also start seeing an emphasis in the problem sets that you need to solve that usually don't get replicated in exercises. So the number of exercises I've been on with NATO forces where the logisticians aren't exercising, they're operating, right if they don't do real life support for the exercise, nothing happens. And so their ability to experiment or to be the centre of attention in that exercise is quite constrained. What we're seeing in Ukraine at the moment is that if you don't win the Reki, counter Reki battle, doesn't matter whether your offence or defence, the efficiency of the enemy fires will mean that you get on the wrong side of the attrition curve. And so counter Reki becomes this continual process that you have to really actively fight proactively fight. Or the loss rate for Ukrainian UAVs at the moment is about 10,000 UAVs a month. That's the level of equipment that both sides are going through. And so when you're in that environment that frenetic activity at the front, your people get tired, you have to rotate them out of the line. But every time you rotate them back and you will push more people forward, you expose them to fire because they're now out of the protections provided by their defensive positions. And so those movements of rotating troops become combined arms activities, and you have to shape the battlefield to be able to do that so that you don't lose more people in the rotation than you do with your people in the fighting positions. Which means that you're logisticians, and now it's absolutely at the centre of a combined arms fight. That
is huge. I mean, that's the thing about this conflict is there are these, these constants, and then there are these etc. And some of the constants are new to us because we stopped thinking about it. And your point about rotating troops around the contact zone, probably that will be familiar to the first one. The requirements to do that as considered operation. So why would say that's a constant. But then there are these accelerants. So the sheer attrition of that counter Ricky battle that you just described, the importance of means of process or the ability of the advantage you get from processing millions and millions of data at a single time to affect your Jaipur Voser excellence. And I know in that's it's working out to your point about pace of change which one of those etc will have the greatest effect when it is in the immaterial, tenuous time, but
that is, I guess, part of the issue we're trying to wrestle to so quick to start major is just to highlight what Jack said about sustainment and then Reki because again, one of the things that we're trying to do with our report for Army G three, which is to look at these observations, but then to think hard about what the implications are for those of these observations for the US Army. So sustainment? Absolutely. So what is it and I agree 100% Because I've done NTC rotations and logisticians are doing their job. And one of our one of the implications for the army on sustainment is you need to get past that and you need to think about sustainment not as a form of manoeuvre but integrated into manoeuvres. Well, and just the other quick point about Reki. One of our applications for the Army is that as you do approach marches to the battle line, that has to be thought through with those because if you approach that battle line in the old ways of doing the movement of contact, and making direct fire contact is going to be too late because you're going to already be observed in your approach more moving up to that up to the battle should show that
time honoured and truly learned and laboratory right with a lot of experimentation, as you mentioned earlier, is what we watch this every 30 to 60 days, things would change, right the tactics employer changes clash which is interaction right. So how do you stay ahead of that? How do you get to the predictive sustainment, how do you do? How do you predict what the enemy's doing? To your point about us, sir, you know in the first like 90 to 120 days there was more US shut down and all infantry divisions and United States Army, right. So 32 times a day. That's the frequency that we pass the electromagnetic signature to a Ukrainian partners. Tell me a company troop and battery commander in your formation that can take that information and do something with it. Right. So the ability 86% of all Ukrainian targets are derived by UAS their own targeting. Right. So, you know, you gotta be hardened. You got to have good algorithms, right? You got to work on multiple waveforms. That's a lot of lessons were learned in that laboratory, but like, you have to be able to receive that data. And you have to react and do something with it faster and with the enemy's doing. So
that I think is one of the testament themes that we're seeing is that the requirement to to the Combined Arms battle gets over lower? Yes. So what in the past might have been a consideration for a higher headquarters is now having to be routinely done by quite junior leaders. So so that's something we can do something about, we can change the way we educate and train our junior leaders so that they are really the previous speakers, you know, space savvy. They understand how these effects matter to very particular specialty and competency over their logistician. Over their record over their communicator with their medic.
know those are, those are great points. You know, we did a lot of training with Ukraine before this conflict. Are there any things there that you that you saw that kind of bridged over into the conflict, lessons that we should take away to be able to then apply to other situations, because there was a, you know, up to 29 years of training going back and forth? And so I'm just wondering what your insights are on that.
So this is this whole thing. shovelled the requirements of activity is a single thing that they kept telling us when we see Ukrainians, training, but they do phenomenally well. Normally fast because they recognise and that will be entirely familiar to all of our predecessors at the end of World War Two, do you know that if you stop you're going to take and that is a muscle memory of a habit that we've got out of the business of doing so. So, you know, now when our soldiers are, you know, this difficult to train Ukrainians and not feel their energy and secure stimulus in our army. It is a little more important. But this idea of closeness and etc, but it's not everything is, is I'm looking to the future. There are so many things that are looking back to the past.
Yeah, I mean, I think training before the world was really critical and providing a backbone of people, the general solution you could turn to on the 15th of February and say, I trust you to use your own initiative to employ your weapon systems because I can guarantee that I will have comms with you to tell you the war started. Right. And that backbone of personnel meant that the Ukrainians exercise mission command. They fought the battle in front of them, they bought it very well with pretty limited enablement in the first few days. At the same time, in terms of the training that has been provided to the Ukrainians during the conflict, I think if I'm honest, we were a bit slow in realising all of the components that needed to fit together, so in the UK, we stepped up and we did individual training through into flex. It has taken a lot longer to provide cohesion, training, exercises, and also training to junior leaders. And if I look at the Ukrainian military, I was one their training grounds a couple of weeks ago, looking at them during mission rehearsals. When you go from 150,000 troops to 700,000 Troops, it is really hard to have that depth of junior leaders captains is kind of the real area and NCOs who know how to do combined arms activity at the company level at tempo. And I think we've probably been a bit slow in providing that support. But the criticality is that Echelon in making sure that if you're going to do offensive actions, you can do it fast enough. And you can do it when there's a lot of dynamic activity going around. That is really critical and so I think a key question for us is that if we were to get into a major war, and we needed to regenerate units, we need to scale and mobilise, how do we make sure that we can scale those junior leadership positions? So this I mean, this is
just a quick comment. I mean, that's one of our bigger macro findings. Is is just that. I mean, all of our armies are smaller, professional armies. But what and our armies especially I think the US Joint Force over the last 1520 years, we became very much consumed with precision, precise, exquisite weapon type systems. But there's also the element of mass that I think this war brings out, and how we as professional armies are going to be able to train and prepare for the kind of war what we're seeing right now and the number of casualties that are that are taking place. It's beyond just this is a this is a larger policy issue as well a societal issue is how you're going to be able to fight one of these wars at scale Jack as you mentioned 2014
Donbass right you look at the construct with Ukrainian army look like a lot of lessons learned from that from Ukrainian army. The Alliance stepped in after that from UK, US, Canada, you know, Joint Multinational Training Group Ukraine, but we did a huge read to help Ukraine restructure their army going from that Soviet model to more of a western model. And we sprinkled in this little thing called the noncommissioned officer, right? And we watched that grow and we trained them over years of this process and just small groups and large formations. And really, what you're seeing right now is what we all come to know in the in our armies with that have noncommissioned officers like enables the commander to to actually plan and visualise and decide what noncommissioned officers do or know the commander's intent and execute. Right. So what you've seen out there on the ground is really mission command is exactly what we intended it to. Because when I when I look at the Russian side, they have sergeants Yes, but they don't have authorities. Right? So look at the 18th Airborne Corps, you get 743 company troops and batteries inside of this, of the 18th Airborne Corps. I imagined the Corps where every time a commander a first time, make a decision, they'd had to call the corps commander for approval, and how efficient would we be? So that's how we're seeing that play out where we're having machine command on the Ukrainian side because the investment in their army and their noncommissioned officers, versus what the Russians are still doing their way of war. To to the point about their training. What have we learned? Maintenance is important is that every time Ukrainian soldiers out of the fight, they're in contact or fighting for their for their sovereignty and their life. We're pulling Ukrainians out to train cohorts on platforms. And the first thing they did when they got to a platform, broke it down to the nuts and bolts because they understand like how this is going to break when I'm back on my side of the boundary and I need to know how to put it back together. Shoot for important when you don't have bi or sustainment tail, attach that in the beginning right? So they're all over that kind of stuff when it when it comes to as far as like figuring out how things take and work and efficiency. They're fabricating your own parts, right, because they don't have a theatre Sustainment Command to help them now they kind of sort of do but they're out there doing great things on the edge because they got good noncommissioned officers and they got good officers because, you know, they relied on us their partners to help them get to where they are today. And so I think that's a great
point for salvation because because we learned those lessons from 2014 of the innovation was coming from the Russian side. So the way they were speeding up the central issue, I think particularly and we very often looking tactically, and I guess it is a very numerous credit that they have changed their military culture, such that it empowers leaders to, to to innovate and to use mission command and, and, you know, if we, many of the nations in this room had a modest part to play in that, then that's entirely a good thing. But but but it is, it is almost as important as any of the other bits of kit that we've gifted. It is that understanding of okay, I understand the Commander's Intent is more permanent than a man to be able to, to get their orders. But if I lose, I do these single critical actions. And if I'm using commercially available technology to do so to get an advantage, then you know, we'll be successful and those early periods in the response invasion and particularly the action around hostile airport is, is the validation of that culture. Really,
I mean I think it is really important, though,
that we don't adopt a narrative which says, The Ukrainians have been successful insofar as they have become more like us. Right, because we say the importance of NCOs but the reality is an NCO in the British military is a very, very different things with NCO and the US military, in terms of the career path, their experience, and actually the role they play in some ways as well. And so in the Ukrainian system, there are significant parts contrary to how their military work which we might not want to adapt. You know, when you mobilise a huge force. There are a lot of people who came back to the ranks who only had experience in the Soviet military and they reapplied that way of thinking. It's also worth noting, there are some aspects of Soviet approaches which are pretty effective. They are ruthlessly effective at combining exquisite capability to enable the Mass Effects that they can deliver. And so we shouldn't just rule it out. Right. The important thing here, given the we're discussing today about the Indo Pacific region and how partners with very different geographies and capabilities work together to make sure we understand the Ukrainian experience and the fact that they've also done things that we would not do. I think that's just a
quick that on more kind of a philosophical macro point. Because this war is a laboratory for us to to look at and to learn from. But there's plenty of cases like Sir maybe you mentioned the French were militaries, armies have looked at a previous war and have gotten a lot of things wrong. So we really as we look at this war and look at it as a laboratory, to look at it with a certain amount of humility, and be very careful to say, Okay, this is an observation this is what we think it means for the United States. Army. That doesn't mean it's going to predict how necessarily a future war will go, because there's a lot of things very contingent and specific about this war, that won't apply in the Indo PAYCOM region. So I think that's a good so
you think about the, you know, what I'm hearing is the the adaptability, you know, and then I think of logistics even in the US military, you know, as a warfighting function. That's, you know, great insight to be able to think through that but then, you know, our adaptability in some sense, we've gotten pretty used to over you know, the CENTCOM era of having kind of perfect information or you know, only being comfortable with information that has got a you know, good level of authoritative In other words, it's mostly right. And so in not really looking to do anything different unless we have some pretty good sense that it is. Straight and right and being a little risk averse if it's if we're uncomfortable with that. What I'm hearing here is there was yours kind of sensing more of a empowerment forward from a sustainment and across the board, but sustainment specifically from my perspective, and then empowering those junior leaders not only to lead but also to make decisions tied to the sustainment of their formations in a way that, you know, I think is worth looking at. The geography
for sure is different from Ukraine and the point in general made about geography mattering and land matter Absolutely. is entirely consistent. So that land is separated by lots of ocean makes the problem more difficult, but it doesn't change that doesn't change. The basic problem is that you've got to get your logistics food into a position where they can have the most accessible effectively. And to just
add to add on what your Barry said with John Flynn said this morning. It's interesting he said one of the one of the key foundational activities
for user pack
is joint interior. offerings. To me as a military historian who taught military history at West Point for a number of years, Ukrainians have had a central position from the start, and they've used interior lines superbly. And that is an example of how you can use geography in a certain way that's also applicable to indo PAYCOM. One
one component, that I would kind of be a failure to not mention in this discussion because we're looking at the Indo Pacific area and all our partners that are in the audience's not just a tyranny of distance but the trust. Right this debt will have to span the Indo Pacific region. Right. We, you know, I'm an I'm a US Army NCO. But I know I also fight as a member of a joint force and wherever I go, I'm not going without my allies and my partners, right. So how do I reinforce that trust? I will tell you there was a point where we broke our trust with the Ukrainians it was in the beginning when that happened, and we pulled everybody out of Ukraine. And then we went back to the border and we had to reestablish that trust, right. We had to build back on those bonds. Right. That's important as we fast forward and we and we go to the process of all their major counter offences when they when their leadership came out, and they were doing the tabletop exercises run the Nicholson's looking at what they're there. They knew as a commander's assessment with the composition, disposition, and the will to fight when their force was that we had no idea when this thing kicked off that was was important to them, but we had to establish that trust, to help enable their success. Right. And that was a slow process in the beginning towards develop now, I look out here and there's a lot of people in this room and you're here because there's a lot of trust that already exists, right and we're there with you. Right and that for us to succeed in this region. We have to keep building upon that and become stronger in our partnerships. So I guess I guess one
of the things that we haven't really talked about yet is so most of the learning from Ukraine is about the defence where where we where they have been able to exploit their advantages. Technology probably offers the defender an advantage at the moment. There has been offence it has been in broken play and relatively limited offence is still an integral part of the of any we'll have to see a new offence you've got to mass and as soon as you mess, you're really vulnerable. So I think the next year, God forbid, goes unsold for your facility to work out how to use technology to enable the offence is
probably the area. That's a great point, John Barry for bringing bringing that up and I think we're talking about laboratories. I mean, I've been bullish on Ukrainian possibilities from the start of this war. And I'm very bullish on what I think competition with this upcoming counter offensive but this is going to end what they did in Kharkiv in the fall was superb, but we're talking about a major armoured mechanised motorised counter offensive force, and how the technologies play in the defence like use of UAS and is going to be very, very different in these upcoming offensive operations. So just another part of this laboratory to learn from Sure. You mentioned earlier about growing
on the insert. I mean, you mentioned about growing their army. You know, what we saw really what you see is like when you talk about bringing old soldiers back, really when you look at the the attrition rates on both sides, they're probably on their third or fourth army to Detroit as far as like, you know, piling people in literally the 60 year old man that's driving the tank again. Right. And then when you look at like, why are they why are they just chewing up terrain right now? They can't manoeuvre, right you're you're piecing things together. You're throwing things in the slog. Right? So when you look at these iterations of how this army has grown and developed, you're bringing all this stuff in piecemeal, to really be seen as regiment artillery groups formed again and you're just using mash fires to chew up terrain and then you're moving into it, a little bit of it. But when you talk about like the future of offensive warfare, sort of like, how many operations have you seen at night like offensive operations? Right, we say we can fight and win at night. No one's fighting and winning at night and Ukraine, Russia and more right now. Right? So blocking and tackling still wins. During the fundamentals at the squad and lowest Echelon still wins, right? You just have to be really good about it. So think about what I mentioned is like bringing everybody together. How do you how do you make 10 crew survive when you bring in this six year old driver with a 15 year old loader? And then you know, in the sergeant who's been in that crew, as the as the commander for a while, that you're building that and as we fight, so I don't know if you've seen anything else on that as far as your study, sir. I mean, I think when
it comes to offensive operations, one of the things we've seen is that if you want to translate tactical successes in moving the front, in open terrain, into operational success, you're really talking about seizing cities. And you might be able to do that by making the enemy's position and occupying that city untenable, like an instance that they withdraw. That's a function of shaping or you might have to assault it. And so the ability to conduct dedicated assaults into complex terrain is, I think, a critical capability. And the other thing in terms of setting the expectations correctly for this is that the Russians have been running to and adapting and the complexity of the operations that the Ukrainians are going to have to undertake can't be understated. You know, the minefields are extensive and they are complex, and they are made up of anti tank and anti personnel mines with multiple initiation mechanisms and they are covered by very accurate, responsive fires. That is a major challenge for any army to consider. And so we really shouldn't put too much pressure on the Ukrainians to you know, need some sort of manufactured set of expectations in terms of how they go about this. They need the maximum amount of freedom to be able to shape and deliver surprise at the point in time where the conditions are right. But to the could the Ukrainians like
if I could. I agree. 100% and the Russian certainly have adopted in a lot of ways, what the Ukrainians I think, going for them in trying this upcoming offensive, which they haven't done anything like this is what sort of major is getting at is that they, they I mean they have the will, I mean they're fighting for their country's existence. And then looking at the Russia right they've been there digging all these trenches putting in all these mines. But the Russians have not done what the Ukrainians have done, which is take, at least figure out a way to build a true operational reserve. They have not done that yet, nor have they shown the ability because we all know it's hard to attack successfully. It's really hard to retrogaming successfully under fire. And that's what the Russians are going to be presented with, with with this upcoming counter offensive. But nonetheless, this and
constantly, just pointed out for for families is probably the kind of fourth major theme that many of us should, and particularly for medium and small sized families is, you know, don't lose don't lose the muscle memory of of how to do math. Just just because you can't now because you're at a scale and of course the image, you know, all of us as military professionals want to make our army as optimised as possible. But don't forget it in what actually grows and what needs to grow. They want you to grow several times, and so retaining the ability to do things that at the moment seem inconceivable to access points about taking a major city, I think is a extremely important lesson. For many of us, particularly at the smaller end of the scale. It's not just just really quickly
that no judges. This is one of our findings for the army. I mean, our Army prior to this war for last 21 last 10 years, became consumed with cities. I mean how many times I've written chapters on mega cities, where at least from from our view of looking at this war, it's certainly urban areas, but small urban areas matter a whole hell of a lot. smaller villages, towns that link roads and everything else. Those matter a lot and we need to be able to fight through those kinds of smaller urban areas as well. Because if you think
about training, you know, some of our partners have some very sophisticated urban villages in Europe, but then they replicate the reality of the urban to rural interface and the way that you approach an urban area through a series of urban areas. Should be like the first month
that I had too much. You watch the watch everything come in Kharkiv have fed to you know, you look at the see John Keith, you know that was the grassa mouth model right when they crossed hidden cross a border of in the union. They had police escort driving in the you know, Zelinsky survived a basically a coup because he because they had the things in place, but Russia failed to understand was the will the fight of Ukraine's right so they had all those those forces stacked up there and when they finally backed out, Russia finally abandoned that aggressive mama aggressive model right when they moved back around and they kind of went back east that suddenly reformed back in the original Russian artillery groups, because the Russians did learn, right, they were employing what they learned in in combat, right that that interaction I talked about but we also know that, you know, Ukrainians learned the Russians learned we are learning from this experience. But we also very well know that there are other nations out there learning right now from the same laboratory and that's that's the PRC, right? They're absolutely learning. So what are we doing right now? Right to ensure that the Indo Pacific Region isn't threatened in a similar manner, manner in a home prevent provoked aggression on another country's sovereignty? Right. So what are we doing right now to set the furniture so to speak, put the sustainment in place, but the forces in place right in this competition environment, because we're all learning in his laboratory.
That's the best outcome we could ever inversion decision is is to is to set that what I would call centre furniture sir.
So
it is a single challenge
in our theatre let's call it a further NATO Russia facing different industry or different potential friends. But the the the architecture there are some similarities so so the importance of having a lessons engine that is joy and collaborative and bright and brings us this is the type of some of the most interesting lessons we get into our army come from smaller friends, Estonia, Finns post burger checks you know, they they have an insight into what they're seeing which is which is really beautiful. So, creating a lessons architecture across a fielder. That's a good idea. Second thing is a way of replicating the fret at every single part of all of your training. So of course, training has to get to a competency standard and then and then you want to go beyond that competency standard. And that's the time to introduce a kind of free thinking enemy who is being drawn by the lessons that we assume models. So learning about us, let's say we, because I work at
the RAND Corporation. We ran a number of war games prior to this war. And we fought the Russians the way they said they were going to fight. We read their doctrine or at least our Russia's, we read their doctrine in the I mean, this is one of the one of the observations just talking about this, this deeply flawed Russian invasion and Jack's one of his latest works from from Rusi on the unconventional how all that came to be what do you do as a professional military when you're told to go to war, and your policy puts you into a war? That violates that fundamental principle of Clausewitz is don't go into war unless you have a pretty damn clear idea what it's going to look like. But thinking through that, I think when we watch that first month and a half and those attacks on urban and we've already where the column was coming through and they didn't even do basic graphic contact correctly, you attack into an ambush, I think rather than away from it. Then I think it got to okay, it was a deeply flawed policy decision that put that military plan into place. But I think Jack what we've also seen from the rush performance, especially those first couple of months, is they didn't have the guts the wherewithal to recover from that. And it took them a really, really long time to even start to adapt because I don't think it's happened until spring or senator. So that's a tough one for a military to deal with is that pesky whole issue of policy. I mean, the Russians have started to learn, I think foster
voting from around November, we've seen a number of areas where they're being much quicker. That's really a product
of the fact that when they threw their best units, and
there was a really limited portion of the Russian military that was highly competent, and they lost because they put them in positions where they were overexposed. Their losses in junior leadership were extremely high. And then what they did to try and recover that Echelon when they went into the Donbass was they mobilise that trainers, essentially the people that they had been using to teach people, and they push those, and they lost those over the summer. And between those two things, they suddenly found that they didn't have anyone with the expertise to lead at the front or to generate new leaders. What we've seen over the autumn is that they have started to get on top of that problem. And so there's been a process of adaptation. I just know one of the examples of where our views on what might have happened before the conflict started versus what actually happened where there was a real divergence was the application of long range precision fires, right. Watching those missiles go
in in the first few days,
I could not fathom the logic of what they were hitting or how many why they were assigning how many missiles against which which target. One I think we are we have to be very careful of is not under appreciating the effectiveness of those systems. If they go off to targets that the force behind them can exploit the effect of the strikes. And given the number of long range precision effects that are available in this desert. You know, that is definitely something that I suspect, potential adversaries have really looked at the data on and learned a lot about. And so we have to be very careful about making sure that what was done to the Russian army in July last year, doesn't happen to our armies. If we end up in a fight, you know, our headquarters have to be dispersed and you know, eating cause been experimenting a lot with how you might go about that. medical systems have to be disposed because they are very, very vulnerable to this.
Because as armies hardened up historically incomplete, they learn to to cope. With indirect fire. And so what's the butson in year one of them is not speaking them three years later. But if those fires are precise, doesn't really matter at this point or not. They die unless a really significant change actually so so Jack's point about getting ahead of that learning. So that we we have it in training systems to do that repeatedly because they otherwise they will be punished. That I think is a pretty important thing, too. One of the one of the
things you mentioned earlier about you know, the training environment, right. Our combat training centres in the US Army there kind of firewall, you know, you put the operation the the the rotational Training Unit in there and get set up for free thinking up for and you get this really dynamic training environment. But there's nothing else in that training centre that commanders have to be concerned about. Whereas when you look at Ukraine, the
cellphone networks are still
being utilised by both armies, right. It's a cluttered battlefield with people on it, right. Every person has a sensor, right Ukrainians build an app that any any any citizen can use this app, if they see a UAV fly over, they use the app and they take a picture of it, and it feeds the ads, what type of UAV and where it was found. So they can action against it. Right? For CPS, if you're a brigade or larger CPE and you can't move and like to listen to our even minutes. Good luck, right? You better find a very urbanised environment and hide and subterranean or you better find a very densely that could thickly wooded terrain, to clutter yourself and you better work in a disaggregated environment, right nodes to survive. And you have to be able to read displace quickly, right? That thing I talked about as far as a point of interest, get into that in those instances and back down to a platform two minutes. Two minutes to pass that information to handle the Fire Direction centre. Right in our CTCs we're not very good at the brigades yet right now it's digital call for fire but I know what the core level right now, we could process that information on IMRs platform in two minutes. Right just like a Russian artillery group can do counter battery fire in two minutes from preposition when they're already positioned in a right location. Right so our our training environments have to rely
on commanders on soldiers,
right to be able to fight in this three dimensional battlefield. But that really if I didn't just
that really because I've been through NTC rotations and that's what compared to I think what the Russians had as far as training can even come close. So it's not perfect. But that point really struck home with me. This is back in the summer, last summer and I was I was just looking at one of those many Twitter, Twitter video feeds, it was a Ukrainian small UAS, and it was up flying and, and it had pinpointed a Russian tank, maybe a BMP and all kinds of foreign complex. And I was looking at it I'm like, you know if you're only looking out that way, that's not a bad position. I mean, it's got good good, good, really good concealment. They can also turn out look around, but then now it's like you got to be looking up. And it's not only looking up at us, small unit commanders, platoon leaders, company commanders. Versus they need to be thinking about the electromagnetic spectrum too, as well. So I think that's exactly right. There's very multi dimensional aspects to ground fighting. That is not just seeing what's in front of your face or on your flanks anymore. About both those things is that
they are quite cheap to do. In training. So you can put Uasf and you can measure signature, and you can show people exactly what they're like Bozo spectrum, and they will do something about it. It is a very powerful etc to just check the content you anticipate the internet still running when we're thinking about future conflict, you know, in 2014, it was not a surprise to and if so, as you tell it, because I could see a lot of armies probably thinking Internet will be around in conflict. So they're going to buy very hard and exquisite systems that allow them to pass unlimited amounts of data around, sir
I mean, so to the dilemmas I talked about when when you decided to do mass precision, right? How do you know you have mass precision? It's very easy to train an algorithm to pick out a tell you in a chip of imagery, right? You know how hard it is to train an algorithm pick a destroyed tail out of a chip of imagery very hard. So how do you get BDA? How do you know you are precise, right? Twitter is amazingly precise that given us PDA, right? The Russian soldiers that use Twitter and literally like there goes, there goes our ammunition dump as he's like tweeting in the background and explosion. Hey, that's about the geotag location that we thought that point of interest was right? Real BDA. Obviously you still need to confirm it. In other means, but that environment is real, sir. Sure.
Did I think 20 foot well, I was one year retired in 2014. I think in 2014, for the US Army at least thinking back then I think what I was still Well, I mean, I was coming off my angry Colonel days when I just thought of writing critically counterinsurgency doctrine and the surge and everything else was, I think what we gather would be an internet that I didn't think it would be as all encompassing, because remember, in 2014, we're still feeling the effects of the late 90s You know, and perfect knowledge of the enemy, all those kinds of things. And so in some ways, I think this war has proven that that yeah, information is really super powerful, but it ain't gonna be there all the time. I think this show shows that there's going to be, it's not going to be all singles feeds aren't going to be coming in. Sometimes you got to get used to having no information at all. And then acting and being able to act and fight and move and then coming back to a point when you do have information.
I think I was fairly confident that the Internet would be around basically by looking at how the adversary says they want to fight and the kinds of systems they want to employ. Right. So on the one hand, the Russians invented lots of the uni W and they use it on the other hand, they talk about reconnaissance fires complexes and trying to get two minutes of latency you can't do that if you completely deny the spectrum. You jam or your own capabilities. And so there was always going to be a window. And you know, on the internet side of things, the Russians have effectively decoupled the occupied territories from access to our internet. You know, they're all quite good at disconnecting and rewiring things. But if you look at something like spectrum, which is the counter intelligence database, essentially for the FSB, who are occupied managing the occupied territories, it's an app based system that relies on internet connectivity, so they're not going to cut it off. Right? Because they need it. And we have to prove that might not apply for other adversaries. There may be other adversaries who say, Look, I'm so overmatched. I am better off trying to deny everything than I am trying to access these systems. So we have to answer that question. I think not by saying what's possible, that by saying Where does our adversary seek advantage and then how are they going to behave based on that? So
the lesson withdrawal from that is, you know, procurement systems, there's got to be space to adapt. So the idea that you might replicate the airline battle with a series of very simple systems. And at that point, groundbreaking systems seem to be able to fit together in a perfect battle winning formula, but really my idea in the way that technology offers all of these off ramps and choices that will be is quite certain in the future. Now, if you are a US and you can do both and great. Most of us in this room can't. And so So, so creating the conditions in our training engines and our development engines that allow people to explore the possibilities of commercially available technology, I think is one of the suits in the way that young Ukrainians and indeed, the Russians are doing I think is pretty important.
You talk about the
potential like shut it off, if you're being you're being dominated. So you look at what we're able to do. We were not in Ukraine, right. And we already explained like how many UAVs are being shut down or denied because Russia is actually pretty good about battened down UAVs that are hardened. We also we kind of failed to mention air dominance. There's not neither side is dominating that domain. Right now. Right? Whether it's for you know, airstrikes or UAVs or whatever and in Ukrainians are pretty good with their short range air defence, right. So there's a pretty good standoff right there. So how do we sense how do we find points of interest right in a completely denied or semi denied environment, whether internet is there or not? Right? That's some of the things that we're kind of working through right now. As you get to code. Start visualising what the future is with the capabilities regardless of you're using hypersonics and you're a continent away, or you're in a theatre and you're in a high Mars or a good old tube howitzer. It's like some point you got to find the point of interest and you got to determine what the target is there and it might just add onto that just
really quickly. I think for the for the, for the let's just start the Ice Age sorry, but for ours, but Allied and partner armies, but especially for the US Army that I came up in air superiority was kind of a done deal is guaranteed. I mean, when I was in lieutenant in the 80s, and and even the 90s, even early 2000s We're gonna have air superiority. So therefore, we don't really we worry too much about air defence. We don't need to worry too. much about long range strikers guy things I think this was telling us and just looking at potential fight with China over Taiwan that air support in their superiority for ground forces, not a done deal anymore. It's great, great comments. We've got
a host of questions. We got some great actually all the questions in the audience are fantastic. As I'm looking through them, I think a bunch of them you've probably seen in the last 20 minutes. A bunch of these have answered some of the questions that you guys have asked but we have some great questions. Here for this. These are both I've been to all the panels so keep the conversation going. But these are two that are kind of related. The Army War College is also conducting a deep dive into findings recommendations from the Ukraine war. One of several findings we've found is the requirement for comprehensive protection in all its forms can the army do better in protecting formations and capabilities against all domain friends? And should we have a protection Centre of Excellence? So that's a question we're coming to had a second question that kind of relates as it's kind of forced protection and health related. So the question is, what are the been some of the limitations of medical capabilities on the ground so like medical logistics, evacuation route that kind of back capacity capability, so cetera, et cetera, et cetera? It says Army Medicine is focusing on Poland casualty care. So battle of attrition. How is the prolonged Casualty Care contributing on the frontlines? Ukraine took on the first one,
you know the conversation about protection is what everybody else says to learn. So we did our unified Pacific war game about a month and a half ago. And when we started that was going to be really just logistics focused. That was the main point that the General Flynn had asked us to do a deep dive into into logistics for many of the reasons we've discussed today. But as we kind of work through it, we came to the fact that you really can't talk logistics without talking protection. And so the importance of paying logistics and protection and then ultimately, when we did that war game it was logistics, protection and medical, as all three key components of what the Army provides the joint force, when it comes to being able to provide options to you know, the entire joint force in this theatre, so I think they are all inherently connected. And I think that they, you can't do one without the other. I'm just interested to see what else one quick thing, sir,
is you can't over rotate back to our original point, right? You can't over rotate. But I will tell you is our Training and Doctrine Command. They're responsible for a lot of things and we have an army futures command out there that's got his eye on the future and about integrating all these great technologies. But the foundational building block of the new moon manoeuvre force in the US Army is an infantry rifle squad. So it's great if you're out there and you work on electronic there's not a tank crew now. It will take crew for an armour formation, right. Okay, but I'm thinking about that dismissal squad that's out there in the mud right on the front. So if I want to give you a dismounted ew jammer, I want to put that in a rifle squad away. I want to put give you a short range air defence system and put it in the infantry rifle squad. I want to give you home blood containers. I'm going to want you to carry that in an infantry rifle squad. You see the theme I have here. We have a proponent and trading Doctor command mover Centre of Excellence. Their proponent Infantry School is the infantry rifle squad. So what we've we've gone is is our lessons learned going back to training Dr. commands like hey, that's great all these other entities think it's good idea what we're learning to dump this in a rifle squad. But why does the proponent take the lead on that because something's got to come out if we're going to put more things into it. So that's that would be my cautionary tale to this is let's not over rotate. They're still proponent to what's got to go out there and fight on the leading edge of the front. I just want to comment
because that's where our greatest patients is. Looking, the way we've looked at it before, size is just do nothing. You can make an argument we make forms, needs must do our own rounds. And the last comment on this something really have to confront because let's many of us in this room served our background. You know, we took casualties. My cattle whenever I got a fight till the 15th wounds that was hard, but the number of leaders in this war is much higher I think we have to accept that we're
not going to have the golden hour
in the course and you have to pay China we need to start
really looking at that heart and addressing it because it's just it's just not gonna happen. So
two great questions. All of us need to
understand the impact of logistics and casualty
on our operations. And there is a colour knowledge to that. That is that is absolutely. militaries and beyond,
but also, every part of the military is going to have to fight for their right to operate. But the idea that
just because you're trying to take on
the fever, you can do your business
very, very much under threat and wherever that is further electromagnetics French reviewer, a
medic as a communicator, a driver a welder, understanding your signature and how you
want the message to operate.
That is something that a lot of those passwords, all our militaries are gonna have to really get
out to acknowledge that there is a leadership component
of one G lock to get back then when we went under continuous assault that would get more ammunition you get overrun. Then and you combined on the shoulders of those elements getting smashed without to you might well make the company the president and then you have maybe some dead soldier may bleed out.
Soldier may bleed out right
and so the expectation Right and so the
expectation.
Question of our soldiers in terms of what what they deem to be the sensible judgments of their commanders. And having confidence in those decisions is really important, which means we have to talk about this on the point about protection, and I think this is related noting that the Russians have struck hospitals with fairly significant regularity. It is possible today just using commercial satellites to get synthetic aperture radar image of anywhere on the planet with about 20 minutes of latency. Now, if you ask yourself, how long does it take to in place a bridge I can find that bridge and I have the missiles that can reach it. Actually protection in depth becomes critical. So a lot of functions not just bridging but medical functions and others. And so yes, I do think it is something that has to be baked in to how we think about whether our capabilities are suitable for the future operating environment.
One of the questions which,
which one of the audience members threw in which is certainly a lot of what the conference is about and what the panel is about, but let's let's really talk specifically about which lessons of the Ukraine were applicable to the to China Taiwan conflict scenarios, which are not in your
documents start?
Well, as somebody who really doesn't have expertise in this theatre, I'm going first, I think the fact that there is no sanctuary is one that we have to confront, because the long range precision fires threat is fairly pervasive. I think the issue of situational awareness and the EMS and command and control so that you don't deliver fratricide. If you're operating if you have aw assets that are held at much lower echelon, and you're operating in mission command. How do you avoid fratricide in the EMS is a real challenge. I think the position of disaggregated command control and then the other one is the ability to conduct offensive operations without their support. And the reason that I highlight that is that even if you have superiority in this data, you just have to do the time distance calculations with the number of assets to work out that it's not going to be over your head all the time. It's not going to be on call, because it will take time to get to you even if you are the priority. And so, ground forces need to be comfortable operating without that overhead protection in this theatre and they may be being asked to conduct offensive action against complex terrain. I think those are challenges which have emerged in Ukraine which are absolutely applicable to operations that might be required in the Indo Pacific
region, everybody will have to fight for their rights with everybody. And secondly, don't assume that the adversary whoever they are, isn't learning as well and will continue to learn so. So a perfect theory of victory is not possible in the in the rate of change the receipt. So you're gonna have to iterate your way forward.
I would just add to and I think this has been implicit in a lot of things that we've talked about is the point I made about the importance of maintaining precision capabilities, but also the importance of mass defence industrial base. But what we're living in this war is that it hasn't been a short war, and that potentially toward the future and indo PAYCOM I mean, I can't tell you how many unclassified WarGames I've done, you know, with China invading Taiwan and you gave it out to about two weeks, and then it just kind of fizzles. You make some assumptions about how things are gonna end up but I think one of the things we're learning from this war is that more likely wars are going to be wrong, potentially very violent and, and protracted.
Not just the air because really, it's not we're not limited by the aeroplanes, just the tankers, right? It's also we can't rely on on on our great navy counterpart is being directly in that first or second island chain. That's weapon Engagement Zone. You still need a landing page to hold key terrain. So that's, that's still there. So what is that land force bring to bear that those capabilities? Those things that you see are the short range air defence, robotics, other types of things? Those are types of things that would help you sustain the warfighter on the edge, because you can't rely on all the other stuff. That's going to come as party as a joint force until after you maintain that first island chain. If that was the case, we were supposed to go on there with we're not going to have the comfort of owning interior lines of communication that the Ukrainians have right. They could quickly manoeuvre, reposition and do all those great things as far as sustainment. So that that's you we can't count on that. So what are those types of things that is going to be that land force, that initial foot on the ground that's going to sustain the fight, right, to get all the other members of the Joint Force and the partners involved to kind of carry the day kind of aspect? of it.
From my perspective, you have to have, you have to train and we've talked about a little bit you have to train, logistics and sustainment as a warfighting function. You have to get officers and noncommissioned officers familiar with what the joint force has, what it has to offer and empower them to operate disaggregated in sustainment just like you wouldn't any other warfighting function which is not, you know, I can't tell you how many times you know, it's been like a walk down the street. The Air Force has got something similar. You know, let's try to work this together. And so I think we have to continue to grow that that capability that understanding and train that during exercises, because it's not a natural happenstance at this point to include co our coalition partners as well and what they bring to some of those insights that have already been mentioned. And then having material, you know, in position before the joint firepower strikes, because if it's not there, it's not going to be there. And so, where do we position that? You know, understanding all of the other complexities with the vulnerabilities there but having an understanding and putting it in places where we can use it, I think is equally important.
Just one thing as well, which is this definitely translates over and that is the criticality of the moral dimension. The morale of your troops the experience of Ukrainian units was that they were at points in this war, coming under 6000 rounds of artillery fire per company position per day when they were on the main axis for three days, and then they were being assaulted, and they stood, and that had nothing to do with the capabilities they had. You know, technology, right? That was about mindset, and we'll, that's very difficult to replicate and wargames. But actually, it is, in many instances going to be the decisive factor as to whether the vital ground can be held for long periods of time. So how do we make sure that our troops believe in why they're being asked to do what they do? And why do they have that bond and the connection if we're working with partners and allies to make sure that they stand?
It's a powerful thing. It's like the volumes of the moral is different as to the physical areas or even one three to one. And it's, we're seeing that in spades in Ukraine.
So we're gonna hit closing comments and we're in the we're in the final stretch here. I want to thank you all for for putting up with us. I hope you've learned a lot. We're going to have closing comments. We'll start with Jack and then we'll come on down this way.
Very briefly, I think this war, it shows the value. We talked about partnerships and frost of not institutional relationships, but personal relationships. If you want institutional relationships, you have to have people together. forums like this are vital for that reason, right? It's about individuals knowing and trusting each other.
There's a Gallic quote is friends of girls. That's what that's what this research study gives us. Much better than
think for the United States Army. This war shows that you aren't the United States Army, just like all of our professional armies are going to be asked to do a lot of different things. But the thing that we need to be able to do and if we can do basic combat tasks, from all levels, small to large, if we can do those things in combat, we can do the other things that were assigned. if we focus on the other things was on basic combat capabilities, then we're potentially in trouble.
To pick things or
to train together for lifetime relationships outside of our nation's, I'm good.
