Escalation, Deterrence, and Leadership

Welcome to Shield of the Republic Secret Podcast sponsored by the bulwark and the Miller Center of public affairs at the University of Virginia, and dedicated

to the proposition articulated by Walter Lipman during World War two that strong and balanced foreign policy is the indispensable shield of our Democratic Republic. I’m Eric Edelman, a counselor at the Center for Strategic and budgetary Assessment, a non resident fellow at the Miller Center and a Bulwark contributor, and I’m joined by my partner Elliott Cohen, The Robert Eazgood professor of Strategy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in the Arleigh Burke chair strategy at the Center for Strategic International Studies. Elliott, good to see you this morning.

Good good to see you. I’m actually calling in from beautiful Basin Harbor, Vermont where I’m working. I’m running a running a workshop Here on the shores of Lake Champagne, not that far from where that great and good man, Benedict Arnold, led to America’s first fleet, in the Battle of Valcore Island on October eleven seventeen seventy six, but we will go into that some other time.

I refuse to I refuse to rise to the bait of your, you know, inveterate defenses of of Benedict Arnold. We’ll we’ll have to come to that.

A much maligned and misunderstood figure.

I I know.

And also trader. Okay. Time. I

think that he’s gonna see his flaws.

And I’m glad to welcome our guest back to Shield of the Republic, Corey Shockey, who’s the director of foreign and defense policy program at the American Enterprise Institute and part of a very select fraternity and sorority of those of us who have served respectively in the Department of Defense State and the National Security Council, she was NATO desk officer on the joint staff and a special advisor in the office of the Secretary of Defense, who was deputy director of policy planning and state department, as well as a NSC staffer and colleague of mine in the White House in the Boch forty three administration, Corey, welcome back to Shield of the Republic.

It is such a joy to be in your intellectual company, my friends.

Well, it’s great to have you with her. You didn’t — argue, you didn’t mention that she’s just long standing friend of ours on top of all that.

I thought that went without saying, but anyway, Corey, you are just back from a recent visit to Ukraine. We’re kind of on the cusp of the long awaited, much anticipated, a Ukrainian counter offensive, you’ve also written in the last couple of weeks a terrific piece in the Atlantic about Biden administrations, management of the escalation dynamics in in Ukraine, and Elliott actually just published this morning a piece in the Atlantic on by the administration’s deficient rhetoric on on Ukraine. So tell us about your visit and tell us about your view of how the Biden folks have managed the escalation challenges here.

Yeah. So I was in Ukraine for the better part of the week with renewed democracy Gary Kasparov’s outfit, which is funding an enormous amount of humanitarian, Ukraine, built run humanitarian operations in Ukraine since the war started. I was really struck at a couple of things first, both the defense and foreign ministers emphasizing that escalation is the language of excuse. That that and that’s what my Atlantic piece is anchored to. This notion that the Biden administration is more concerned about escalation than anybody else, and and it seems to me the most important demonstration that that.

That is the data demonstrating the case, is that Britain, Norway, Poland, the Netherlands, and Denmark, have all volunteered either airplanes or training for f sixteens to be provided to Ukraine. That is they’re more likely to be retaliated against than the United States is, and yet the Biden administration is the one most nervous about it. And that seem they are right to be nervous about it. They are making bad policy choices about that nervous this, and I would suggest there are two. The first is the hand ringing we don’t want World War three.

Because that’s terrible deterrence. It encourages nuclear blackmail, it encourages Russian, irresponsibility, the right answer would be to reinforce deterrence against escalation. By emphasizing that the NATO article five guarantee means if Russia escalates to attack Poland or the Baltic States or another NATO member, it will bring the full weight of the NATO militaries into this war. And for vertical escalation, namely the the risk of Russia using a nuclear weapon, I think the right way to reinforce deterrence is to emphasize that our intelligence has been pretty good so far. And if we see any signs the Russians are making preparations.

We will both publicize that intelligence, provide targeting intelligence, and weapons suitable to task to the Ukrainians, if we fail to reinforce deterrence, if we fail to prevent that Russian act We will send NATO CBRN troops to Ukraine. That is there will be permanently stationed NATO military forces on the territory of Ukraine. And we will hunt down and either kill or bring to justice, anyone involved in the policy or the execution of that. Talking weak to an aggressor is terrible deterrence, and the Biden administration seems not to be able to help itself Either in what they say, absent the Secret Podcast state’s excellent speech in Helsinki a couple of days ago. Or in slowly slowly increasing the assistance we give to Ukraine, which is the second problem with how they’re thinking about deterrence.

So you know, Corey, the thing that strikes me is, I mean, first, the Russians are no position to escalate this thing conventionally. They’re they are really out of gas. You know, their fleet are actually worthless. People say, well, their air force is still there, but actually the air force has proven itself incompetent since the beginning of the war, everything we know about it in terms of pilot training and so on and so forth indicates it’s pretty weak air force. And if there’s one thing NATO does have a lot of, it’s it’s air power.

So the only thing that they have are nuclear weapons, and we don’t have to rehearse all the arguments here why oh, I’m supposed we could. Why it would be extremely foolish for them to begin throwing new weapons round, it’s clear that Chinese don’t want them to do that, so on and so forth. For me, the interesting question in this is Okay. What what does the Biden administration matter on and on about this? Usually not directly, I have to say, they usually go through cutouts, you know, journalists who will sort of share their innermost fears.

And you know, given that it’s it is so clearly counterproductive. Now, my, the villain that I have in mind in all this is American political science seminars in the 1980s, which I think permanently more the minds of a bunch of people who are otherwise highly intelligent. But I’m actually not I’m not being facetious, really. I think that what My my interpretation of it is, they do have people who are still caught up in cold war modes of thinking, And and a cold war understanding what strategy is, most of which has nothing to do with war, and I I will this is about you not me, but I will plug the one part of my Atlantic piece where I said, you know, it would have been much better if these guys had been in a couple of bar fights. So they’d, you know, they’d understand that the the conflict of this kind is a very visceral sort of thing, and you don’t You know, you don’t titrate your punches in a boxing ring or some other seriously conflictual place, but I’d be curious to know what’s what’s your view, and Eric, your view on why, like I said, highly intelligent, highly credentialed people.

In the White House, I think in the civilian side of the defense department as well. Take a view, which is, it’s pretty absurd, actually.

Before Corey kind of jumps in to answer this, Elliott, I I would like to revise and extend your remarks. I mean because I think I think it’s actually worse than you’re suggesting. In the sense that I think a lot of them have But

I always like to be moderate. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I think it’s it reflects a very imperfect appreciation and understanding of, you know, deterrence dynamics even you know, in the cold war period, for instance. And what I mean by that is and I’d be interested. I’ve made this point, I think, couple of times in the podcast before, but If you look at the pattern of Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons which began on the day he announced the military operation back in February of twenty twenty two. He has always made these threats in very vague and, you know, very abstract terms.

But when he’s been asked explicitly, about the use of nuclear weapons. As he was back in the fall, I think it was October or early November, He said, look, there’s no point in using nuclear weapons. There’s no use case in Ukraine. There’s no advantage for us to to use nuclear weapons. I don’t wanna suggest that it’s not active saber rattling.

He does do it, but it’s very vague and it’s in that sense a bluff that’s unlikely to be called, and in that sense it bears an enormous resemblance to a lot of the Soviet nuclear signaling we saw during during the Cold War, which was explicitly cast as bluffs not meant to be you know, not meant to be called. And yet, you know, to Cory’s earlier point, the constant hand wringing pro clutching on the US side about nuclear escalation in World War three, of course only invites him to argue that if the US does x or y that he doesn’t want them to do, it will lead to World War three or nuclear escalation without having to actually make good on the threat.

It also encourages countries like Iran that having nuclear weapons prevents the United states from being involved in whatever terror or mischief they wanna dream up. So it not only encourages bad behavior on part of the Russians that encourages proliferation. So two other things. I actually do see one use case for Russia crossing the nuclear threshold. And it’s the reason I feel such urgency for us to reinforce deterrence.

Because the the the one I I agree and and everybody in Kiv made the case. Every government official made the case that there’s not a sensible battlefield use for nuclear weapons by Russia. And I agree with that, but I can think of a strategic use, which is as the Russian army is defeated and driven out of Ukrainian internationally recognized territory, that they launch a nuclear strike on Kiev in order to say they achieved the regime change. They came to Ukraine to effect, and therefore can take their army home. And that’s why I think it’s really important and time urgent for us to stop acting like we’re the weak ones who need to be concerned in this equation.

One other thing I would add, you know, it turns out Mike Tyson has provided not just one, but two of the most important reflections on modern warfare. The first, quoted in the introduction to Lori Friedman’s magisterial History of Strategy, is Mike Tyson saying, Everybody’s got a plan until they get punched in the face. And I saw in my Twitter timeline somebody quoting Mike Tyson saying the problem with social media is people think they can say stuff without getting punched in the face. Again, that goes to Putin and these nuclear threats. Right?

He clearly doesn’t think he’s gonna get punched in the face. And that’s the problem. But

but but you I mean, if I may, I’d like to drag you back to my question.

And — But I was doing such a good job avoiding it.

Yeah, you were. Seriously, what is the pathology here? Because we are not dealing with stupid people, We’re not dealing with people who are in any way isolationists, right? It’s not like they they don’t think that we should be engaged, they believe that we should be gauged, so why?

So I think there’s a clear consistency by president Biden and that people most closely shaping his attitudes by whom I mean to say, Jake Sullivan and maybe Coleen Call. That that the Ukraine war isn’t worth the risk of direct American involvement. Just as Afghanistan was not worth it, and Iraq is not worth it. What I think I see the administration doing that worries me is they want to make grandiose political statements. The US will send troops to defend Taiwan.

You know, our assistance to Ukraine will do whatever it takes for however long it takes. And then they are banking on people not doing the follow-up. Right? Not saying if anything it takes as long as it takes, why not f sixteens? Or why are you not preparing the American public for the risks of a direct war with China over Taiwan?

And why aren’t you paying for a military that has a wide margin of error of success in that. So I think they want the political benefits of looking like statesmen, but they don’t wanna do the work that it takes to get the congressional votes, to that it takes to get the public support, the money that it takes to achieve it, and the risks that you run, in order to genuinely be the leader of the free world.

But you know, I think it does, and I promise I’ll leave you alone after this on the subject. I I also do think that it it goes to an understanding of strategy as a form of shadow boxing. Where it’s not just that they, you know, they’re poor on implementation, which at some level they have been, although everybody is. It’s it doesn’t really figure in the way that they think about strategy at all. You know, it is mainly We’re just

bad at thinking about the use of force.

Maybe, I guess that’s the simplest way of putting it.

I know someone wrote a book about that a couple of years ago, Elliot. I can’t think of who it was.

Who was it?

You think they’re getting any better, either of you. Your, our listeners can’t say, I’m sorry,

I’m shaking my head, no. I think it’s ideology for them. It’s an article of faith.

There’s also I think a very strong insularity in this group which You know Cory was identifying some of the people, I mean, it’s very striking to me that this national security team is made up of people all of whom as you said Elliot are they’re all extremely smart. I think they’re all patriots. They want to do what’s best for the country. But they all lack sort of independent stature of their own. They all literally come from a pod, if you will, of people who have been staffers for Joe Biden.

Almost their entire professional careers or adult lives. And I think that creates a kind of bubble mentality and you adverted to this in your Atlantic piece Elliot, you know that and I know this is true from personal experience that a lot of these folks are still absolutely convinced that, you know, the withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of in August of twenty twenty one was a a brilliant success, you know, that got a hundred twenty thousand people out and that there were no long term reputational consequences from the kind of shambolic way that this was all executed and the clear lack of preparation that they had, the clear lack of understanding of what the effects of some of their decisions would be on the battlefield in Afghanistan, you know, and nobody has forced them, for instance, to confront the very damning report of the special inspector general for Afghanistan, John Sopko, who had a brilliant piece on why it was that cutting out all the support mechanisms we provided to Afghan Army guaranteed the result that we got, and clearly they did not understand that, that we had trained an army to fight the way we fight, and then we pulled the enabling undercarriage of that out.

And I don’t mean US troops necessarily, but the contract support for vehicle and aviation maintenance, emission, command planning and of course the air close air support which was US forces, but the fact that we pulled all that out from under them guaranteed that the Afghan National Army was not gonna be able to fight. They still think this was a great success.

Yeah. And they they also in addition to everything Eric just said, I think they also believe that the only reason when when challenged about, but there were no American casualties in Afghanistan for the year before. They genuinely believe the only reason that is so was because of the Trump deal with the Taliban. That there was no way, which is, of course, also wrong.

So you know it’s really troubling. I mean, really troubling. This is probably as good as it gets on the Democratic side, I think. And given that on, you know, the Republican side, you know, you may get sort of Trumpian staffers, which is as or more chilling, you kind of worry about the ability of our foreign and national security establishment to execute sensible strategies, not that it won’t that people won’t have reasonable ideas, but, you know, as I think the three of us know very well in part from personal experience, you know, you really any president depends on a cadre of, you know, for any given decision a dozen twenty, top notch people at mid and sort of mid senior levels in the bureaucracy to pull together options and then to execute them. And I do worry a little bit that, you know, our that pool of people that we used to have for a very long time on both sides, of the partisan divide, may no longer be there.

Could either of you reassure me on that?

No, I can’t, because, I mean, I think a big tell was over the weekend when Viveik Ramaswamy, who is the tech entrepreneur running for the Republican presidential nomination, who’s actually polling you know, about six or seven percent. He’s polling right up there with the former vice president of the United States, was asked about Ukraine, and he went full Neville Chamberlain in his answer. You know, so I don’t know Corey, reassure me.

Not sure I can reassure you. But it is certainly true that I continue to wear the tiara of optimism. And I would not have bet many that that Biden team, who, as you said, are all Biden staffers, not independent, political, or strategic actors, I wouldn’t have bet they they would do this well. And also you know, the the speaker of the house made reckless comments on Ukraine, which he reconsidered. The governor of Florida made reckless conversation made reckless comments about Ukraine, which he has also walked back.

I think there’s no substitute for winning the public argument and and that driving things. Also, these kids these days are fine. Right? You guys are both teaching incredibly sparkly young people. Elliott, you even have some in your own family who would do incredibly well on this.

So I don’t think we should underestimate the ability to get this. Write or at least writer than we have it.

All right, you’ve cheered us up. Can we move on to civil military relations?

Yes, exactly. That’s where I was gonna go. So we have a new we have a new nominee for chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Corey, and you are one of the leading experts along with my cohost on civil military relations in the country. What do you make of general Q Brown’s nomination to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, what does it say by the way about the other serious candidate, Dave Berger, the outgoing comment onto the Marine Corps, and what can we say about his replacement in this whole kind of minuet of changing senior command positions?

Well, first of all, I think General Brown’s a terrific choice. And the good news about the American military leadership is that there were a bunch of good potential choices. I mean, I think general Macassone, the head of Cybercom and NSA, would have been an excellent choice. He is not only operationally incredibly serious, but is creative on the frontiers of the way war is changing and running a civil and military organization with finesse and without putting his foot in the kind of wolf traps that General Milli could never resist thumping his big hooves down into. General Brown, I think, is also operationally incredibly serious.

Has been a terrific leader of the United States Air Force. And I think is is a lot more sensitive than General Lilly had been to the fact that the American public wants a military good at what the military does, and to the extent the military elects to become involved in political disputes in the United States. You know, the polling on this is quite clear that the public love it when they do it and disrespect the military for doing So so we have been at a point where the American public begins to think about our military the way they think about the supreme court. Namely, when they agree with my political positions, they’re true American patriots and impartial. And when they disagree, they’re shameless politicians.

And so I think general Brown’s quite sensitive to the fact that General Milli volunteered his Princeton educated views on a bunch of things like critical race theory, where the military would really love to be left out of this conversation. And permitted to do what they do for the country. So I think that that he’s a great choice for a whole bunch of reasons, for his operational acumen, for his creative, strategic thinking, for his great leadership, but also for his ability to do as clearance, Darrow, that great defense attorney always advised his cut always advise his clients, no man was ever convicted based on testimony he did not give.

I you know, I would just let me just pile on to that a little bit. I I also I have very, very high regard for General Brown. We should talk a bit about Dave Burger too, you know, who is been leading the Marine Corps in what is the most dramatic overhaul of any of the armed services I think in a very, very long time. It’s no coincidence that they’re friends. They are, you know, quite similar in being extremely good listeners.

You know, and just on the civil military relations point, I thought if people haven’t seen it, you should go back and there was a Jerome Brown gave an address to the Air Force right after the George Floyd killing. And I thought it was superbly done, because on the one hand, you know, you don’t want service chiefs talking about every social issue that the United States faces. On the other hand, it was inescapable for him, I think, to address it both because of the intensity of the feelings, but also this is the first African American chief of staff in the air force. And I thought he did it brilliantly. I thought it was it was he he walked the narrow lines that he had to walk, he brought in his own personal experience, which I think he also had to do at some level.

So that was quite remarkable. But simply as a leader of the Air Force, he’s been very sort of leaning forward into particularly technological change and so on. So I think he’s very good. At the end of the day, President has to pick a chairman, and the secretary of defense has to pick a chairman that they really feel very, very comfortable working with. I suspect it was pretty close choice at the end of the day because Berg is outstanding as well.

At the end of the day, I think one of the big things that a future chairman have to face is these these may very well be people who you know, have to lead the armed forces in war. And that hasn’t really been the case. I think for a while. I mean, even during the Iraq and Afghan wars, I mean, obviously, those respective chiefs were chairman, rather, we’re deeply engaged in that. But, you know, they preside over a bunch of service chiefs who are mainly concerned with, you know, training, equipping, you know, manning force.

And so, you know, you naturally kind of gravitate to those issues rather than how do we actually win this thing, which I think and I think that helps again for some of the end runs that President Bush did, while we were in office to people like Jack Keene and others, because I’m not sure he always felt he was simply getting advice about how do we win this war. I think that’s gonna be part of our future.

Let me ask a question, two questions to both of you. So one, I think it’s a great choice as well and I share both of your views of General Brown. And particularly agree Elliott with the point you just made, which I was going to make if you didn’t, which was the very extraordinary statement he made to the service to the air force after the George Floyd killing. I guess the thing I would say or I would ask the two of you is number one, given that experience. How well do you think he will do dealing with those members of the congress who seem intent on trying to score political points by accusing the US military of becoming too woke and you know slamming our military for its emphasis on diversity inclusion and equality, etcetera.

And the second is do you agree with me, I think one of the most more important elements of this changeover is the fact that not through anybody’s fault, and this is not meant to cast personal aspersions on any of the leaders involved. But you need, I think some diversity of service experience in senior leadership in the department and the fact that you had a Secret Podcast defense who came from the army, a chief of staff who came from the army, a director of the joint staff who came from the army just creates some, you know, unintentional distortions in in, you know, how the building works in normal processes, which was a similar problem that you had in the Trump administration where you had a marine secretary of state, a marine chairman. And marine director of the Joint Stat. Not that anything was wrong with any of those individuals, but but that collectively It’s the natural instinct of people to reach all of these jobs are impossible, you know, having had one of them. And everybody reaches out to people in their circle of trust and of experience to help them manage these jobs and if you have spent thirty or forty years in one of the uniformed services, the people who you’re likely to be calling on are those from your own service rather than necessarily others even if you’ve had joint tours of one sort or another.

And I think that was one very important part of this I’m curious if the two of you agree.

So on the first question about how to avoid getting pulled into politics, you know I feel like it’s the defensive side of the coin of Napoleon saying if you wanna take Vienna, take Vienna. If you don’t wanna get drawn into politics, don’t get drawn into politics. Seems to me that the answer or the military should be giving which Again, I wish General Millie hadn’t opened everybody up to having to have an opinion on this, but but I think the answer to the military should be giving to all this nonsense from Congress about willingness in the military is Congress establishes by law who we admit to the military, it’s our job to create cohesive fighting units out of it. And this is the best way we know how to do it, inclusivity, and everybody being respected. If you’ve got better ways to do that, the military should be open to hearing them, but but they shouldn’t.

The second thing is, you know, General Milli actually after that testimony where he volunteered views on CRT, had to give testimony and was subjected to genuinely disgraceful behavior. By a number of Republican members of the house calling him a traitor and other completely outrageous assertions, and General Milli did exactly the right thing, which was he sat there, dignified, and said nothing. And the members of congress doing that looked like idiots, and I would be willing to bet respect for the military went up As to whether the military can and should military leadership can and should be smart enough to stay out of that, I just offer the evidence provided by Elmo Zumwalt, who was the chief of the navy during the Vietnam War, and he promoted the first female admiral in the navy. And when he put her epaulets on her shoulder, he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. And he writes in his memoir that he got more outraged correspondence about that than anything else he did as the chief of naval operations, and his response to it was, you have no idea how many cheeks I had to kiss to become the chief of naval operations, and this was the first time it was a pleasure.

So pretending that they don’t have political skills or interpersonal skills that can be advantageous, is just not true. You don’t get to lead in any kind of organization without some political skill.

That reminds me of Bob Gates saying that he had overthrown, you know, several small governments as director of CIA with less pushback than he got when he tried to replace the football coach at Texas A and

I I I agree with Corey. I think, you know, first, he he has more discretion than Millie he’ll know when to just, as you say, be silent and dignified. I also think, you know, most of the people who rant, rave about this are cowards, and to be the optics of browbeating an African American who is a fighter pilot with combat time and and all that will make them look very, very bad, and I think some of them will not all of them, because some are genuinely idiots, in borderline or not borderline racist, but I I think most of them will shy away from that. They they know that it really won’t look all that good. If you begin badgering the chairman.

That said, he’ll end up getting some of that. No no question about that. I completely agree with you, by the way, on the importance of having a diverse, a service, diverse team at the top. And I I’m quite sure that SECU will be very sensitive to that. And I think he’ll also be Shrewden is handling of the OSD staff and and OSD civilians, which is also important.

You know, as you know better than the rest of us, there’s an intrinsic imbalance of resources between the joint staff and the policy staff, and different people handle that Different ways. You handled it brilliantly. I have to say, although I do remember certain eruptions of frustration, usually occurring around like four thirty in the afternoon, most days, when my secure video teleconference terminal would light up and

Yeah. Let’s not go there. Yes. I I know I know exactly what you’re talking about, but yes. Yes.

Yes. That’s look, that’s an inevitable frustration. Wanna close out this segment by saying that, you know, Professor Edwin Corwin once famously said that the constitution was an invitation to struggle between the legislative and executive branches over the control of foreign policy, and my view is the National Security Act of nineteen forty seven is an invitation to civilians and and uniform military to struggle over the direction of US military policy. So I I bear the scars proudly.

Before we drop this, I did want to just say a little bit about Dave Burger and this Force Design in two thousand and thirty. They actually have a website, you can see the basic briefing that they give on it, then there’s an annual update that they’ve been doing, which is quite informative. His successor, Eric Smith, who’s been the number two, will very much continue this on. It’s a dramatic remodeling of the marine corps, getting rid of the tanks, more long range missiles, overwhelming focus. I think on China, a whole bunch of other things as well.

And and I’m sure, you know, on technical grounds, people can argue about it and and and argue reasonably about it. The things that strike there are two things that strike me about it. One is, I mean, it is bold and it is it is dramatic change. And, you know, military organizations, as we well know, are quite resistant to that sort of organizational change in in in many ways. But the other thing, of course, that’s been interesting, has been the fury, sometimes orchestrated from the retired four star community.

And I think one of the things people may not realize about the Department of Defense, actually particularly in the Marine Corps, but really in all the services. The retired four stars have a lot of influence, and I think that’s usually pernicious. I mean, they, you know, they’re there in all the mentoring programs for new generals, I suppose that makes sense. But but it is not recipe for saying, you know what, what got us here, won’t get us there. We need to change things dramatically, and it’s a piece of military culture that frankly has always made me somewhat twitchy.

I don’t know if either the two of you share my twitchiness on this one.

I do and you know, I I I think it’s striking actually that among the retired four stars who have been very sympathetic to what Burger has done has been his immediate predecessor, General Neller. Who who has not joined in the kinda auto defay that has gone on. In sort of retired marine circles about what Dave Berker has done. Bob Gates when I worked for him when he was sector used to talk about the problem of focusing on what we really are about in the Department of Defense. And I think Dave Burger has done a great job of actually focusing on the challenges the marine corps is likely to face and you know what you get back is, well, because it’s so specialized into the Indo Pacific that it’s diminishing the marine corps role as the nation’s first response force globally but I think actually given the very challenging circumstances we face and the resource limitations that we are inevitably gonna be bumping up against, what he’s doing makes a lot of sense.

So I am more supportive of the back and forth that’s been going on because he is General Burger is instituting revolutionary changes. And I actually think this kind of disputatiousness. I agree this kind of disputatiousness is incredibly rare, but I also think it’s how you prevent big mistakes. And while I am personally quite sympathetic to what general Berder’s trying to do, You know, there are there are good rebuttals to some of the some of that challenges that have been raised, Eric just gave several of them. And I think where general Burger might deserve some criticism is is not encouraging a more open conversation about good reasons why we’re doing this and and why you know, the the previous structure is unsustainable or unsuited to the challenges at hand.

Yeah, I guess, you know, I maybe, but I I think with the community that’s been most vocal, I don’t think you could argue them out of it. I mean, these are if you look at the appeals, they’re essentially appeals to tradition, and the way we’ve always done it. There was a robust internal development effort where there was a lot of back and forth. And I do think, you know, four stars, and this may be a way of out of this wraps are the civil military relations conversation. They really have a unique status in our system.

More than other they never really retire. I mean, they really don’t. And they do have a lot of influence within the services because of their networks of people would work for them and so on. And they can be end up being subversive of good order and discipline when you get right down to it. And I think some of some of the rhetoric that came out of some of these people really approaches that.

I mean, it’s not, you know, I have a concern about you know, how does the marine corps fulfill its missions with this kind of force, you know, what what you would expect in sort of the logical operational level analysis. Instead, someone’s been very nasty, very ad hominem. And like I said, it’s really you know, wrapping yourself in a couple hundred years of military tradition. And, you know, it just it it brings to mind, you know, failed British military reform efforts at the end of the nineteenth century. And, you know, that took you straight to the sum.

So

you know, I know you wanna wrap this section up and I wanna move on as well to the next section of the podcast on Strategic Excellence, which I want Corey to talk to us about. But it, you know, it really the point you make about four stars never retiring, highlight something we talked about in an earlier conversation with Corey, which is it’s the reason why they should never get involved in politics after they leave command and retire because they still are actively engaged in kind of the shaping of the military. And therefore, there are appearances at the quadrennial appearances on both both sides of team red and team blue military officers is so corrosive and undermines military professionalism and confidence, I think public confidence in the military as well. And opens up by the way people to these charges of being Bush generals or Clinton generals or Obama generals or Obama generals or woke generals etcetera. With that, let us turn to strategic excellence and Corey you have written an absolutely fascinating essay in new makers of modern strategy, the most recent third version of a classic work on a strategy that first appeared in in the midst of World War two and second edition appeared in the mid nineteen eighties at the height of the Cold War and you and I are both contributors to the current version, and Elliot and I will be discussing it in probably a couple of weeks time with some of the other authors, but yours is really a unique contribution because you write about strategic cellence and the and the example you have chosen to focus on is the role of tecumseh and the Shawnee Confederacy And I I wish you would tell our listeners a little bit about how you came to that and and what your conclusions were from studying that experience.

Sure. Yeah, I was so grateful that how brands the editor of this installment of makers of modern strategy indulge me on this one because we so much of our study of strategy is European focused when in fact most of far and away, most of the wars, the United States Army, United States military has fought, have been the conquest and consolidation of American control of North America. You know, nine hundred something separate campaigns in order to to make it safe for others to argue that we’re a maritime power. And I So probably fifteen years ago, Jim Mattis and I were having an argument about something, and he asked me when the last time I thought Native Americans might have prevented European conquest of North America. And my answer then and now is TakumSA and the Shani confederacy because tecumseh was so unique a leader and had such a fabulous strategic vision that he carried out so effectively, the Shani confederacy very nearly produced a fifteen hundred mile barricade to Westward expansion running from Lake Erie to the Gulf of Mexico.

It had a domestic political line of operations, an economic line of operations, a military line of operations, a foreign policy line of operations, a religious line of operations, and they all worked together to reinforce each other. So for example, where leaders of other tribes wouldn’t agree to join the confederacy, to come so would undercut their legitimacy as leaders by calling into question treaties that they had signed with the United States. Government. He had an extraordinarily, a droid political sensibility. For example, William Henry Harrison, the the governor of the Northwest territory, what is now, Indiana, and several other states.

Would get together all the all of the tribal leaders in the region. And He comes and would use it as recruiting opportunities, and he would talk at great length for example, about how untrustworthy the American government was because you know these people are Christians and yet they crucify their God. What makes you think they can be trustworthy? He he was just an extraordinary leader and pulls together the only serious challenge to the ability of the United States to continue to control the Mississippi as a major artery of both transportation and economic development to exploit not just the farmland but the resources silver, gold, everything else at Westward expansion. Had they succeeded, it would have reshaped the evolution of American history.

And so I think it’s a wonderful story with a very sad conclusion. Which is that even the most elegant strategy well executed can be overwhelmed by resourcing. And the resources that the United States government has at its disposal for the destruction of the Shawnee Confederacy and every other Native American tribe is the sheer number of settlers willing to move into Indian country and run those risks. What you see with Westward expansion is very often the American military taking the side of Native American tribes in the argument and getting dragged into the defense of settlers who move in violation of the American government’s commitments into Indian territory.

So, I have to say, first, I agree with Eric. Not only is it a fascinating tale, but you tell it in a wonderful way. And it’s

—

Oh, thank you.

It’s really a wonderful piece. Two thoughts, one is I’ve always found it fascinating that we we fight these horrible, bloody, sometimes genocidal wars with the American Indians or Native Americans. And yet so much of their prestige as fighters remains with us. You know, what’s the most effective attack helicopter in the world? It’s the Apache.

You know? What’s William Sherman’s middle name? Tacumpza.

In some side.

You know, I’ve actually was one of the first monitors, I think, in the Union Navy, was the Tacumpza. Right? And you can go on and on, what’s the helicopter that they flew in Vietnam, the Iroquois, otherwise known as the Huey. So there’s you know, that part of our of our military heritage in a very peculiarly American way. We And

we were gonna replace the Apache with the comanche.

Come answer yet. Commandions, by the way, were really bad news. I mean, that’s And that’s a separate story. I guess on the substance of it, I guess for me, although I completely agree with everything you say, and I’ve you know, it’s a period that I’ve actually spent a bit of time on my own. For me, I think one of the critical decisions, it’s the British decision not to continue to support them.

Because at the end of the day, the Indians look, the Indians can’t manufacture firearms. They can’t even manufacture gunpowder. That’s not to say they don’t have settled lives is, you know, the people I think by now know, you know, tribes like the Cherokee is actually very settled, very productive farmers, charcoal were even slave owners even. But at the end of the day, they have no industrial base whatsoever, so they are completely dependent, above all for firearms on external sources, either through trade or its supply from the British. And for me, I think there’s you know, that was the critical weakness in the strategy.

They could only sustain this for as long as the British were willing to pour in resources. And once the British become convinced that they can’t successfully project power into the American heartland. They abandoned them. And the Americans are the big losers of the war of eighteen twelve. Everybody else, the Americans, the Canadians, and the British, can plausibly consider themselves winners.

I think I agree with you that we may disagree a little bit on the finer points of the timeline. Because I think the British decision gets precipitated by the American Navy interdicting the British supply lines during the war of eighteen twelve and the British decision to abandon, Native Americans comes at roughly the same time to come to himself, gets killed. And so you have an overdetermined problem of the British not so that part of the genius of tecumseh strategy is the agreement with the British that they will supply food and to native American families freeing up the men to fight. And and you you don’t see they that confederacy disengaging from the fight until the battle of the thames when to comes as killed and when the interdiction occurs. But then you see, you know, fighters going home to hunt.

And so So I agree with you that the fundamental weakness of their strategy was economic because they didn’t required external supplies, not just of weapons, but also of fundamental economics So, yes, it was probably inevitable, but inevitable is a very long time.

I just would, you know, to wrap us up, I would say one of the and take us back to where we began this conversation. One of the things that I found so compelling about your essay, Corey, in terms of the issue you and Elliot have just been debating is the old saw that, you know, amateurs talk about strategy and professionals talk about logistics. I mean, you you end your essay by basically saying that was the ultimate flaw the weakness in tecumseh strategy was this dependence on on, you know, foreign outside source of food to sustain the domestic population Ron DeSantis the Americans cut that, it’s, you know, it’s it’s impossible for the strategy to succeed no matter how brilliantly conceived. And I mean, I think we’ve seen that lesson about the importance of logistics and, you know, versus strategy being played out again in Ukraine in in our own time.

You know, I I I guess, I’ll just make this my final comment. I think the essay also like the book. Makers of modern strategy, it really does illuminate how a wide and deep reading of military history, even military history from a couple of centuries back, you know, it helps you think about the world as it is, helps you think about military challenges as they are. So, you know, there’s absolutely no reason to shun the late eighteenth century, which is why Actually, I would like to have a two hour session on the finer points. Military genius.

I’ll take that as a yes, Eric.

We’ll have to come back to Benedict Arnold on another day. But that’s that’s all the time we have. I’m afraid for shield of the Republic today. I want to thank our guest, Corey Shockey, for joining us. Corey, it’s great to have you.

It has been such a joy to have this conversation with you two sparkly intellectuals.

And with that, we’ll say goodbye for for this week. If you enjoyed this episode of Shilda Republic, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you get Secret Podcast from. And that’ll be it for now.