Peace keeping missions (whether peace enforcement, peace building, peace making, or conflict prevention) are very different to the formatted hierarchy and organisation of set-piece, large-scale military missions which Western allies have been accustomed to over the past decade. Even the experiences of ISAF or Iraq are outliers rather than a standardised format replicable across peace keeping tasks. This is also evident in the C2 of these missions: often more complex, ambiguous, woolly, and confusing than most military officers will be accustomed to. And that’s without bringing in a strategic HQ structure that has fewer staff and less experience than Western counterparts. Ewan Lawson, associate fellow at RUSI, talks through what characterises PK missions: his one-word answer? Fragmentation.
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40:07
Professionals Talk Logistics
The key principles of logistics might not have changed (Jomini’s principles remain as valid as ever), but we have been lulled into false sense of adequacy about logistics and war. Steve Leonard and Jon Klug delve into how protracted wars make command conversations about logistics and supply different. The honest advice from the G4 might not always be appreciated but husbanding resources for a long-war is something commanders need to hear, and probably don’t get from elsewhere. War-gaming might help but when these exercises are limited by time and training outcomes, the realities and tensions of logistics are less about the last mile and more about an ability to adapt, innovate and invent. Steve and Jon’s new book, ‘Professionals talk Logistics’, is available from Howgate Publishing now.
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41:45
Ukrainian C2: Adaptation under fire
The announcement in February 2025 of a restructuring of Ukrainian command and control went largely unnoticed in the West. It shouldn’t have: the implications are significant. Mick Ryan provides some much-needed illumination and insight into what this means, why it came about, some of the challenges and opportunities that may result, and whether lessons are immediately transferrable. Training and selecting commanders is a critical enabler to making this all work, and Mick recalls some of the syllabus from his time at the USMC School of Advanced Warfighting to give us a flavour of how different the Corps level is from Brigade operations. Mick finishes with a short update on IDF C2 as a comparator. As well as Mick’s 3 books currently available, he also has a chapter in Steve Leonard and Jon Klug’s new book, “Professionals Talk Logistics”, available from Howgate Publishing. You can also sign up for Mick’s substack so you don’t have to miss out on his weekly Big 5.
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33:47
CIMIC and C2
Everyone understands that civil agencies and institutions do not operate in the same way as military organisations. The culture, aims, objectives, and funding models are different, as is the way they run activity. So when militaries and these agencies interact, a sense of friction and misunderstanding often emerges. A small group of military staff stand between the behemoths of civil and military leaders – the CIMIC staff; it is their understanding of both sets of cultures that smooths activity in the 97% of military activity that is not combat operations. Kathleen Porath, academic advisor at the NATO CIMIC COE, talks about areas for improvement, the impact of technology, and the investments needed to improve relationships for the future.
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28:58
Nuclear Command and Control
It’s not a topic that is spoken about enough in the national security community: Nuclear Command and Control (NC2), and Communications (NC3) is a world apart from C2 for conventional forces: it underpins strategic stability between nuclear armed states. With the emergence of a ‘3-body problem’ in Great Power Competition, there is a risk that Western leaders (political and military) simply try and transpose Cold War theories onto the problems of today, and add some AI/ML to make it look pretty. Professor Andrew Reddie from the Berkeley Goldman School at the University of California, explains why this would be foolhardy in a remarkably accessible way. That’s not easy given the emotion, biases, and vitriol that surround any discussion on NC2/NC3.
The Command and Control podcast breaks new ground in taking an independent and pragmatic look at what military command and control might look like for the fight tonight and the fight tomorrow. Join us as we talk through C2 for an era of high-end war fighting. The hypothesis is this: command is human, control has become more technological pronounced. As a result, the increasing availability of dynamic control measures is centralising control away from local command. It is a noticeable trend in Western C2 since the late 1980s. Over that time, blending human decision and cutting edge technology has been evolutionary but not deliberate: how will this change? Will it become dominated by a tendency to hoard power in those with the most computing power, might these factors serve to amplify the role of commanders? Given all the hyperbole about AI in C2 (and we will tackle some of that with AI experts), it's a conversation we need to have.
Netherlands