Decisive Point Podcast

In this episode, Thomas Bruscino argues that American military professionals must focus on war fighting in publishing about military history to bring their unique military perspectives to the study of war. Bruscino uses the historical example of American professional military writing and teaching from the American Civil War to World War II about General Ulysses S. Grant to demonstrate the value of analyses focusing on war fighting, especially relative to popular and academic histories of Grant’s military leadership. Keywords: military publishing, professional military education, Ulysses S. Grant, military leadership, military strategy  Stephanie Crider (Host)Welcome to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. Joining me today is Dr. Thomas Bruscino, a historian and professor in the Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations at the US Army War College and author of “War Fighting: The Case of Ulysses Grant,” which you can find in the Autumn 2025 issue of Parameters. Welcome to Decisive Point.  Dr. Thomas BruscinoThank you. Glad to be here.  HostSo, today we’re looking through the lens of your research to discuss how military leaders can lead the revitalization of professional military writing and institutional memory. You note that after World War II, professional military writing largely lost its influence outside the US Army, and schoolhouses then turned toward broader policy issues.Today, for a senior officer who sits at the intersection of policy and execution, how can they use professional publishing to project unique military perspectives back into broader academic and popular strategic discourse?  BruscinoWhat I was noticing, doing research on World War I and World War II, areas that I do a lot of work on (and I’m a big fan of Ulysses S. Grant—particularly the 1864 campaigns and the strategy for the last year of the [Civil] War) is that the folks writing before studying in the military schoolhouses prior to World War I, and in the interwar period prior to World War II, did a really good job of understanding Grant [and] the way that he approached the campaigns. And, the reason I think they were good at doing that is because they were able to put themselves into the positions. They didn’t think so much in terms of levels of war the way we do now, where we talk about strategy and operational art and tactics, and they focused more on what it would mean to be a field army commander or a theater commander. And in doing that, in focusing on positions, as opposed to saying, “I’m a strategic leader, I’m a field army commander, or in a field army staff,” or “I’m on a” what we now call a “Joint Task Force or a theater command.” And, since they did that, they were able to put themselves into the shoes of Grant. And in doing that, they were able to really bring that unique perspective that only military officers and military professionals really have because they’re putting themselves in that position. So, when they write from that perspective, they bring something unique and valuable to the wider discussions that are academic, popular, [and] that are out there because we have a tendency to boil it down in popular (and even a lot of academic writing) just to big arrows on maps, sort of hand-wave versions of this. But, by putting themselves in those positions, they really empathized with the subject because they have that view that they’re going to be that person someday and that they needed to understand it that way. And, I think in doing that, they bring this perspective that is missing in a lot of the stuff out there. And so, this has been a longtime thing of teaching military professionals and thinking about these issues. I’m always in this [mode] and preparing, trying to prepare, [and] help them prepare themselves for those positions. That’s always this gap when I’m looking for writings that are useful for soon-to-be senior officers or current senior officers. And, I really do think it funnels through them, that [as] these ideas funnel through them, that’ll make a huge difference in what they’re doing.  HostSo, when we’re looking at leaders who are thinking about strategic-level issues, how can they write candidly without violating operational security?  BruscinoIf they lead with the lessons learned, it will usually manifest in the form of some kind of principles, these are not to say laws. We’re good Clausewitzians here [at the US Army War college] so we don’t think of warfare as being dictated by laws but by principles, principles that, generally, when applied, are effective in helping commanders and staff sort through these types of problems at their appropriate level. If you’re leading with principles, and you’re writing to understand and to describe principles, the ones that are the most important that you found to be—senior leaders have found to be—the most important in their roles as, like I said, field army commanders, Joint Task Force commanders and staffs, theater-levels commanders and staff—then you’re pretty safe. When it comes to the specifics, like how those are applied, I think that probably the best way is to stick with—I’m a historian, so I’ll have my bias here, but I think it’s useful—the historical examples, if it’s for an open audience. In a TS, in a top-secret environment, maybe you can get into the specifics of how they apply. But, we’re talking about wider writing right now. In that case, I think you can go back and say, “Hey, this is a lot like what Grant had to deal with. It’s a lot like what (General Douglas) MacArthur had to deal with, or (Fleet Admiral Chester W.) Nimitz or (General Creighton W.) Abrams or (General H. Norman) Schwarzkopf, (David H.) Petraeus.” It doesn’t matter, any of those people. And, you can say, “Here are these principles playing out in this historical example,” and then let your audience make the connections to their current issues.  HostYou highlighted that Grant and General George G. Meade didn’t just maneuver armies. They orchestrated the physical arrangement of a joint supply system and established successive waterborne bases like City Point, Virginia. So, given today’s contested logistics environments in theaters like the Indo-Pacific, how can senior leaders use these kinds of historical insights to build real physical resiliency into modern theater sustainment plans?  BruscinoSo, the theory that they studied in the past, the principles that they were talking about, the original military theory that a lot of these folks studied, some of this is (Henri, baron de) Jomini some of its (Carl von) Clausewitz, and then there’s a whole range of other people—that’s another discussion/article to work on to help explain that stuff— really tended to break up strategies. The concept of strategy tended to be focused on large units—so, those things that we’re talking about, theaters, field army to army groups, that sort of idea of it—or what we now call Joint Task Forces, which is very similar in the past to now. So, that would be the kind of focus of strategy. They had another category, and I don’t know that this was exactly right, but they also would separate out logistics and would say that warfare really consisted of strategy, tactics, logistics, engineering (they’d often put into there, too). I don’t know that that’s necessarily the best way to look at it as we move forward, but the focus on and the linking of logistics to strategy was sort of how they thought, and logistics was kept as a thing, and it was very well-understood by those guys that that’s commander’s business. Logistics is commander’s business. So, we have a tendency, now, to talk in terms of sustainment as a function, and even logistics as a function. And, that is owned by either a G-4 or a J-4, the assistant or deputy chief of staff for logistics, or it’s part of a sustainment function, which is supposed to be everyone’s business in the way that we talk about it but then tends to just get pushed to the fore. It gets pushed to the main sustainment officer. I think that when somebody like Grant, who was a quartermaster in his background (so he had a very good understanding of what was necessary for that), he had a long experience with moving large bodies of troops, with the Navy, with boats in the Western theaters of the Civil War. For him, it was all the same thing. You had to always account for your logistics. That was a massive portion of what you did, and that was his business. So, he’s the one who was doing the arranging of that with the support of quartermasters, what we now call G-4s or J-4s, that would be doing that for him. So, it really is that sort of commander’s focus on logistics. That is commander’s business.  HostIn Grant’s time, jointness meant the Army and Navy securing supply ports. What does that historical joint baseline teach us about the friction we face today in multidomain command and control?  BruscinoWhen it comes to command and control, we have the ability to communicate very broadly and almost instantaneously about all kinds of matters. So, when I say they should be focused on logistics, that doesn’t mean that they should be doing some sort of version of over control, putting themselves into the execution of this, the exec...

Education is often only examined within a single domain before, during, and after armed conflicts, limiting the use and effectiveness of civil-affairs operations. In this episode, Jason Jabbari discusses a framework of the primary mechanisms across unique domains by which education can serve as a key area of resiliency or vulnerability and addresses the costs, benefits, and potential roles military civil affairs can play in a post-conflict scenario. Keywords: education, armed conflict, human rights, civil affairs, vulnerabilities and resiliencies  Stephanie Crider (Host)Welcome to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.  Jason Jabbari is joining me today. Jabbari is an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and serves as a public education officer at the 353rd Civil Affairs Command, US Army Reserve. He holds a PhD in education from Washington University and a master of education degree in school leadership from Harvard University. Jabbari is the founding director of the Center for Education Research, Practice, and Policy Partnership at Washington University and the faculty director of community engagement at the Clark-Fox Policy Institute.  Welcome to Decisive Point, Dr. Jabbari.  Jason JabbariThanks for having me.  HostWhy should military planners look beyond human capital or economic growth when evaluating a conflict zone’s educational system?  JabbariYeah, that’s a great question. So, we know from research that human capital isn’t enough. We know that educated societies can fall to extreme ideologies. Economic growth doesn’t guarantee [and] democracy doesn’t guarantee stability. We have some examples—especially in our recent past. We could think about the suicide bombers during 9/11, [and] elite institutions, you know, in Nazi Germany. And so, we know that just post-secondary education, years of schooling, and human capital really doesn’t lead to democracy or stability. So, I think we need to adopt a much wider lens to understand how education functions pretty broadly in a society.  HostYou also document how Russia has imposed its curriculum and national identity in occupied territories. How can local civil affairs operations actively counter this specific type of political weaponization of schools?  JabbariWe have some recent evidence linking education in Ukraine to how Russia is using schools and using students to try to “Russify” different parts of Ukraine. We can think about imposed curriculum, using propaganda to kind of attempt to erase Ukrainian identity, [and] forcing students over 18 as draftees. We can view this as a weaponization of the political domain, right?  School [are] being [used as] an attempt to flip places where democratic socialization can occur into tools of extremism. And, I think that the goal here is to think about how this can be countered. How can democratic education [effect change]? Schools for democracy, youth for democracy, these are programs in Ukraine that have really adapted to wartime with online delivery. And, I think here, you know, for civil affairs, we’re thinking about commanders downrange. And, I think data like this can be used to pinpoint [the fact] that schools may be used for indoctrination or child-soldier recruitment, which might have implications for military engagements.  And so, here, it’s important to note that civil affairs is not just about post-conflict rebuilding. It’s about providing information that battlefield commanders can use, again, or not use. The point here is to provide a broad set of information, and I think the Ukraine example is a good one because it does demonstrate how education is being used, or attempted to be used, by Russia in the current war.  HostLet’s talk about how Ukraine recently guaranteed free access to preschool education, despite the ongoing war. What makes universal preschool such a powerful tool for rebuilding long-term academic and social resilience in a war-torn country?  JabbariWe know that preschool drives long-term economic gains, especially for low-income students. It’s a very strong return-on-investment mechanism, right? So, we have some evidence from [an] economist named Jim (James J.) Heckman that essentially shows that the earlier [adults] intervene, the broader and the longer and the stronger the gains are going to be. So here, we can think about early childhood education as investments that can accumulate over time. This is especially important during wars, as parents are often preoccupied.  You can imagine, you know, fathers are fighting in the war. Sometimes mothers are serving as nurses. Places for kids to learn, I think, is going to be really important. Here, quality is key. There’s a universality policy that is really important. We want to make sure that kids have a place to go and learn, which is especially important during wars. We want to make sure that that place to learn has high-quality [education and services]. And so, that was something that the Ukrainian government, you know, really tried to shore up to make sure that early childhood [education] was not only free, but [also] high quality.  Here, it can build intellectual, social-emotional, [and] psychological foundations at once. If you think about this in the long term, this could allow Ukraine to build back better. Investing early builds long-term capacity. It aligns with a strategy for building back better after a conflict.  HostYou mention that broad nation-building efforts are not synonymous with civil affairs engagements. What’s the distinct role of US Army civil affairs in restoring essential services like education?  JabbariWe kind of think of this in a few different layers and aspects. And so, we have transitional governance. We have civil knowledge integration, network development, and civil-military integration. And so, we can think about civil knowledge integration as collecting and analyzing civil data for operational relevance. You can imagine in Ukraine right now, [civil affairs experts are] thinking about some of the data that helps us understand how that country is going to function, you know, both during the war and after.  For civil network development, you know, this is really trying to engage a broad array of stakeholders. Using the Ukraine example, [civil affairs leaders are] thinking about educators, employers, [and] vocational/educational training institutes, both for the current demands of Ukraine as well as what happens after. Civil-military integration is coordinating military and civilian actors towards unified action. Again, this could involve working with NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and governments to shore up schools. And then, [there is] transitional governance. This is a period of advising civil administrations and institutions on key policies post-conflict.  Together, I think these [concepts] are really distinct. They’re targeted goals for civil affairs, which is different than broad nation-building efforts. And here, I would just say that education is really viewed as an essential service. It feeds civil security. It helps establish and maintain rule of law. It can improve cultural relations and economic growth at the same time. And so, we view this as an essential service.  HostYou also talk about how the rentier effect and foreign aid centralization hampered long-term education goals in Afghanistan. How can Ukraine and NATO avoid these same structural failures during post-conflict reconstruction?  JabbariFrom the lessons over the past 20 years, I feel that self-determination is a key lesson to take away. When we looked at some of the things that Ukraine [is] doing currently in their education system—some of their policies, some of their programs, some of their broader efforts—we see a lot of self-determination here, and I think that is going to be key. It both allows the local citizens to trust the leaders that are making these choices and these policies, and it allows them to have a say in how these things unfold over time.  And so, again, I think there’s this balance of self-determination. Also, if they’re able to get advisement, these are things that can be really helpful for a country in the rebuilding phase. But, I think it’s important that self-determination, that lesson we learned over the past 20 years, is carried forward. And so, [when] we think about what Ukraine is doing currently, I think there’s a lot of promise in being able to move that forward in a post-conflict setting.  HostYou are clearly passionate about education and education policy. What inspired you to write this article?  JabbariI have spent most of my life in education. So, I was a teacher, I was a school leader. I joined the Army Reserves because they opened up some specialty places. One of those was in education—as part of civil affairs—in their 38-Golf (38G) program. And, I think what inspired me was this idea to really think about education in a much broader way.  You know, I’m a researcher by training, especially over the past 10 years. So, I went from practice now to research. And so, I’m able to step back, look at things, and try to paint a bigger picture. What is ...

In this podcast episode, Lucas Ziller contends that the current US deterrence-by-denial strategy is insufficient to deter China from attempting forcible unification with Taiwan, due to its neglect of ideological and psychological drivers in the Chinese Communist Party’s decision-making calculus. He introduces a hybrid deterrence framework that integrates denial and punishment across domains, coordinated by a Joint Interagency Organization. Keywords: deterrence, interagency, China, Taiwan, operational-level planning  Stephanie Crider (Host)Welcome to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. Joining me today is Major Lucas Ziller, author of “A Hybrid Deterrence Model for Countering China,” which you can find in the Winter 2025–26 issue of Parameters.  Ziller is an Infantry officer serving as a battalion operations officer in the 82nd Airborne Division. He has served in units within US Central Command, US Special Operations Command, and US Army Forces Command. He holds degrees from the University of Toronto, the University of Kansas, the US Army School of Advanced Military Studies, and the US Army Command and General Staff College.Welcome, Lucas.  Lucas ZillerThank you. Appreciate you having me. Appreciate the opportunity.  HostI’m glad you’re here.  Your article argues that the current US deterrence-by-denial strategy suffers from critical flaws. Why does a purely military, force-centric posture fail to resonate with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) decision-making calculus?  ZillerAppreciate that question. So, I wrote the article primarily because I felt that there was a fairly simple question that my research drove me towards. And that’s, you know, is the US trying to deter China from forced reunification with Taiwan in a way or a method that China actually makes decisions?  I think a lot of discussion about Taiwan focuses on the military capabilities of all sides. How many ships are involved? How many missiles? How many aircraft? How many troops all sides have? Those things absolutely matter. I’m not trying to argue otherwise, but deterrence isn’t just about military capability. It’s also about psychology. It’s about how a adversary perceives things like costs, risk, and opportunities at hand.  So, the more I studied both deterrence theory as well as Chinese strategic thinking, the more I felt that there was a gap between the United States deterrence approach vis-à-vis [China’s] forceful reunification with Taiwan. I think US policymakers assume Beijing will evaluate a Taiwan contingency primarily through a rational cost-benefit calculation, but Taiwan is tied to a Chinese regime, legitimacy, nationalism, [and] Chinese Communist Party identity. Because of that, military costs alone may not have the desired deterrent effect that US policymakers are looking for. So, that led me to ask whether the American approach towards deterrence is complete. And, my conclusion wasn’t that deterrence by denial is wrong, necessarily, it’s that now, by itself, [deterrence by denial] probably isn’t enough, and that kind of drove my analysis as well as my conclusion/recommendations.  HostYour article highlights how Beijing views Taiwan not just as a strategic interest but as a moral imperative central to regime legitimacy. How does this moralization of national interests alter China’s willingness to absorb immense material losses?  ZillerOne thing that stood out to me as I was researching the article is that not all interests are equal. Countries, whether it’s [the] United States or China, routinely negotiate over trade, resources, or territory, but when the leaders of those countries begin to frame the issues in moral terms, or historical terms, compromise between those countries becomes much more difficult. The CCP has routinely and repeatedly described reunification with Taiwan as part of, as they phrase it, a great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. And, that’s a very different framing than saying it’s simply in Chinese or China’s strategic interests. That terminology and other things like it is very heavy with moral and historical connotations. So, when leaders publicly make those kinds of comments over the span of many years or, in China’s case, many decades, they create expectations within their party, the Chinese Communist Party, but [also] among the broader population. And that, ultimately, narrows their room to maneuver or to negotiate with the United States, Taiwan, or any other player within the dynamic. We’ve seen this specific dynamic play out in the past. China accepted enormous costs during the Korean War because Beijing viewed the conflict as tied to their own regime security, as well as their revolutionary legitimacy. And then, more broadly, governments throughout history have often accepted severe economic or military costs because backing down carried even greater political or symbolic costs. It’s not just a tit for tat or a binary choice between costs and interests. I don’t mean to insinuate that conflict is inevitable in any way, and it doesn’t mean that deterrence can’t work. It just means that the United States has to recognize that the CCP may weigh costs differently than America would. Because Taiwan is bound up within that party’s legitimacy/identity, Beijing may be willing to accept costs that traditional deterrence models assume would be unacceptable for any other normal player. Understanding that difference doesn’t weaken deterrence, it actually makes it more realistic and, ultimately, more likely to succeed if certain measures are taken.  HostProponents claim that strategic ambiguity provides vital diplomatic flexibility, but you suggest that it might incentivize incremental Chinese aggression. Why do you believe Washington’s lack of clarity is being misread by Beijing as a sign of weakness or indecision?  ZillerThank you for that question. It’s very apropos to the topic. Strategic ambiguity has served the United States and policymakers for decades now, and there are good reasons why it was adopted in the first place. It gave, and continues to give, policymakers some level of flexibility and helps to discourage unilateral actions by either Beijing or Taipei. For Beijing, it discourages forceful unification, and for Taipei, it discourages unilateral independence or unilateral announcement of independence.  My argument isn’t that the United States should abandon ambiguity overnight but, rather that policymakers should ask whether the strategy is still producing the effects and the effects of the degree that the United States wants. The strategic environment has changed very dramatically since the policy was first adopted, so I think it’s time to kind of revisit the question of strategic ambiguity’s place within the deterrence relationship. This reassessment is warranted. You know, just looking at some recent events (or relatively recent events)over the last several years, there’s been a steady increase in PLA (People’s Liberation Army) air and maritime activity around Taiwan. They’ve carried out larger exercises. They’ve participated in more coercive behavior and more gray-zone operations. To add some specifics to that, to put things in perspective, the PLA aircraft have entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (or ADIZ) roughly 1,700 times in 2023.  Just one year later, so in 2024, that number had climbed to more than 3,600. That’s not a small change. That’s a significant increase in operational tempo. If you’re sitting in Beijing [and] every year, you’re flying more and more aircraft around Taiwan, conducting larger exercises, and spending more time operating around the island, yet, nothing fundamentally changes about how the United States responds, at some point, I think it’s reasonable to ask whether you’re beginning to interpret the signals that you’re giving off differently than Washington intends. So, that’s really the question that I’m raising. Another challenge with strategic ambiguity as a central pillar of deterrence policy is that flexibility for one side can sometimes look like uncertainty to the other. And, one of the central components of deterrence is how all parties, in the case of the three-way deterrence relationship that’s prevalent in the Taiwanese straits, is how everyone perceives each other and the actions that the participants—and the terms of the relationship—are given out. If an adversary isn’t confident about your intentions or your willingness to respond, there’s a greater chance they’ll test the boundaries incrementally rather than through a single dramatic action. That’s, I think, what we’ve been seeing in the last couple [of] years, as those statistics articulate.  Just a final thought on this question. Ultimately, that’s why I think signaling deserves as much attention as the military force posture. It’s not only about what capabilities the United States has. It’s about making sure their actions, diplomatic messaging, as well as military posture reinforce one another, rather than sending any sort of mixed signals or unclear messages.  The most effective deterrent signal isn’t a single military exercise or a single diplomatic statement issued at different points. It’s all of those instruments consistently communicating the same me...

Cheap drones have transformed the character of war by creating a “mass effect” that challenges traditional principles of force concentration. Drawing on lessons from Ukraine, historical theory, and production trends, Erik A. Davis explains why the production of cheap “precision mass” is expected to accelerate.Keywords: drone, sense, strike, mass, Jevons Stephanie Crider (Host)Welcome to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. I am speaking remotely with Colonel Erik A. Davis, author of “Drones and the Changing Character of War,” which you can find in the Winter 2025–26 issue of Parameters. Davis has more than 16 years’ experience in US Army special operations. Davis has more than 16 years’ experience in US Army special operations. He is a General Wayne A. Downing scholar, whose assignments have taken him from village stability operations in Afghanistan to preparing for high-end conflict in the first island chain. He is currently in command in Japan, and he writes about data in the Army at https://www.downrange-data.com/. Welcome to Decisive Point, Colonel Davis.  Colonel Erik A. DavisThank you very much, Stephanie. Thank you for having me.  HostWhat inspired you to write this article?  DavisMostly a debate. A couple years ago, I was a senior service college student in ’24, but [I was] heavily influenced by the debate about were drones impactful or not and, if so, why?  HostIn your article, you note that “you need mass to take and to defend objectives, but on a battlefield littered with cheap drones, that same mass gets you killed.” How should commanders navigate this paradox when trying to capture a heavily fortified position?  DavisCredit where credit is due, I really borrowed heavily from Dr. Jack Watling on that one. He’s a RUSI researcher from the UK (United Kingdom). I highly recommend anything he’s written, but he said that when I was in senior service college. I was a fellow in Australia, and he said it to the audience there, and it was a really impactful idea because he’s been arguing [this point] for a while. There’s been a talk about whether this is offense or defense [that] has the advantage right now. And he’s like, it’s not an offense/defense thing. It really comes down to the ability to sense and deliver fires on an offense or a defense. And so, we’ve kind of changed—where we used to have the mass rule, most students I think, are very familiar with the 3 to 1 for an assault. And, that’s not really the math problem anymore. It is [that] you have a time period that affects how effective that mass is. You need to mass forces. You can’t take an objective without them, but at the same time, then you have to disperse afterwards, and how do you sustain and maintain everything—logistics, the security, all of that. And so, weirdly enough, it actually brings me a little more to my SOF [special operations forces] roots, where (Admiral William H.) McRaven had what was called “relative superiority,” and the idea was why SOF works. It works because it only works for a short amount of time. I don’t think that the rest of the military has gotten to that short amount of time, but I do think the rest of the military has to start thinking about that relative superiority. If you have a mass, it’s giving you advantage. However, it’s also starting to draw in enemy and resources, and you’ve got to disperse it.  HostYou also discuss in your article how Jevons’ Paradox and the Red Queen Effect are fueling a relentless race in military innovation. For our listeners who might not know, could you explain what are Jevons’ Paradox and the Red Queen Effect and then a follow-on—given how quickly adversarial drone tactics adapt, what specific changes should the US military make to its procurement process to keep pace with competitors?  DavisTwo theories that come from eighteenth-century Englishmen. It’s very old stuff, and yet it’s not very well known. I’d like to start with the Red Queen Effect. I first heard about [the] Red Queen Effect back in grad school in 2013. I was a Downing Scholar at the London School of Economics (and Political Science), and as soon as I heard it, I thought everybody knew it. I thought it was the last guy to the table, and I’ve discovered since then that most of the military is not familiar with the Red Queen Effect, which comes from Lewis Carroll’s story [Through the Looking Glass]. It talks about the Queen having to constantly run as fast as you can just to stay where you’re at, and it really describes military tactics and military weapons development because you don’t just get to sit back and [think to yourself] I have the right tactics. I have all the things. You’re constantly having to innovate. You’re constantly having to work because the payoffs for finding a gap, finding a seam, finding a newer way to do it is so huge that every military is constantly working towards this. And, I mean, sometimes [people] forget [that] the global superpowers used to be Spain and Portugal. They’re not the global superpowers today. That is because there’s this constant Red Queen Effect. I had a friend who once described all military strategy as just trying to find a flank, and I think that that’s kind of what the Red Queen Effect is. It’s just constantly trying to find an advantage. Sometimes it’s a bigger and better [advantage], but sometimes the bigger and better actually incentivizes the cheaper and the smaller. And, I think that’s where we’re at today is you just see something where the payoff of finding a cheap way to circumvent some of the amazing military capabilities the US military has—that people could never catch up with, they could never build it [because] it is too expensive, [or] it’s too bespoke—is they found a really cheap way [to do it]. And, there’s a huge payoff if you can do that. So, I hope that helps make the Red Queen make sense. It’s a literature thing. You go to Jevons, [and] now you’ve got a standard English economist. He’s looking at coal, and everybody’s worried about whether they’re going to run out of coal, and there’s this notice that all of the engines they’re building are getting slowly more and more efficient. And so, there’s this idea of, okay, we’ll be fine. We won’t have to worry about it. Well, Jevons is the one who notices that not everything, and coal is this input where the more efficient it is, suddenly you start finding uses for it that you didn’t use to use it for. So, there’s actually an increase in demand, even though you’ve managed to make the product more useful. A dumb example I can give you is, like, your water heater. I borrowed this from a guy named Hank Green. He works on Vlog Brothers on YouTube. I’m a nerd. I apologize. But, he talks about water heaters, like, we didn’t used to have water heaters. Hot water used to be only for the richest of the rich. The royalty had hot water, and everybody else didn’t. And then eventually, we invented [the] hot water heater to do a single thing, but then, once everybody started having hot water heaters in the house, now we started making washing machines, clothes washers, all kinds of things. Next, you have electricity going to homes because of this. And so, there’s this feedback. You look at Uber today as a great example. Uber makes no sense until everybody has a GPS-enabled supercomputer in their pocket and then, Uber becomes obvious. And so, Jevons, when you look at a lot of the military hardware, has been going through that. So, I go back to GPS. If you go [to] 1980, the old GPSes were the same size as the radios we had. They were 20 pounds, they were giant bricks, and they cost as much as a house. So, nobody got them. Only a couple of units got them. They were really expensive, really hard to maintain, and they took up a lot of space. Now, a GPS, it’s less than a pair of cards. It’s less than $50. We put them in everything. We put them in things that don’t really even need them just because they’re so cheap. That’s not the only technology—cameras. I remember agonizing after my second combat deployment. I was going to buy my first real camera, a DSLR (digital single-lens reflex), and I spent forever reading reviews and all those things. Now, I have a phone that has seven cameras in it, and I don’t even pay attention because they’re so cheap and they’re so light and they’re so small. [It is similar with] thermal imaging, night vision, [and] storage. Data storage used to cost more. So, for the technology in the military side [and] that Jevons’ thing, what has happened is [that] now, on top of the Red Queen Effect of all of us trying to rapidly innovate, there’s a way to do innovation now that’s so much cheaper that it really upends a lot of it, which, to bring it back to the original point, how do we need to change our acquisitions? Well, we kind of got to do both. Like, we’re still going to need to build submarines. We’re still going to need to build amazing jets and things that can intercept ballistic missiles and tanks. And, those are hard and complicated and big things, but at the same time, we’re also going to be building these very cheap and simple toys and tools that we’re going to be able to give to everybody. How c...

What is the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor and why does it matter to the United States? What does it mean for global trade? Troy J. Bouffard and Les Grau explain.Keywords: Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor, Russia, China, Northern Sea Route, global economy Stephanie Crider (Host)Welcome to Decisive Point. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.I’m talking remotely with Troy J. Bouffard and Lester W. Grau, coauthors with Charles K. Bartles and Mathieu Boulègue of “Russian Arctic Land Forces and Defense Trends Redefined by NATO and Ukraine,” which was published in the Autumn 2025 issue of Parameters.Bouffard (US Army, retired) has a master’s degree in Arctic policy and a PhD in arctic defense and security from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where he’s an assistant professor of Arctic Security. He is the director of the University of Alaska Fairbanks Center for Arctic Security and Resilience and a research fellow with the United States Military Academy’s Modern War Institute.Grau (lieutenant colonel, US Army, retired) specializes in Russian military studies and is a senior analyst for the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He has a PhD from the University of Kansas in Russian and Central Asian history. He has written numerous books and articles on tactical, operational, and geopolitical subjects.The last time we were here, we were talking about your Parameters article.For listeners, if you’re interested, the podcast about the article is episode 6-3.For decades, Russia treated the Northern Sea Route as its national transport artery. Now, it’s talking about the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor. What exactly is this corridor, and why does it matter to the United States and countries like Russia, Europe, and China?Troy J. BouffardYeah, the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor is quite significant. This is a major shift in Russian policy from the Kremlin. Since last century on, and formally, more recent decades, the Northern Sea Route was mentioned by [then–Soviet Union PresidentMikhail] Gorbachev on October 1, 1987, as part of what he called the “zone of peace” for the Arctic region. But, [he] planted that seed that the Northern Sea Route was gonna be the epicenter of how that worked.And then, with time, it became part of federal law exactly what the Northern Sea Route was, according to Russia. And then, it built its international case legally, and otherwise, on how it would manage the Northern Sea Route and—just as important—access to it. And, this has frustrated the West because it deviated from the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and freedom of navigation rules. But Russia had a very strong case because they were consistent.Changes to that definition, though, were a bit of a challenge. Several years ago, Putin had mandated that 80 million tonnes [of cargo] needed to be shipped through the Northern Sea Route by a certain date. And, up to that point, the record had been only about 10 million tonnes. And, that caused a lot of problems for Russian officials who scrambled, knowing that there’s no way, by the due date, that 80 million tonnes could possibly be shipped through the Northern Sea Route, which was largely symbolic, but a strategic move by Putin to show how important the Northern Sea Route was.They got busy and got clever on trying to change the definition of the Northern Sea Route to extend it because it only goes from the Kara Gate[s] to the Bering Strait and doesn’t include, formally, the part of the Barents Sea—where most maritime activity actually happens.So, they tried to extend the definition, and Putin would have none of it because he knows, in accordance with international law, if you change the definition of something like that, you reset everything that was part of building up that case. And, now we see this new position from the Kremlin—not changing the definition of the Northern Sea Route but elevating it to this level that connects Vladivostok all the way to St. Petersburg.Lester W. GrauBasically, these are the two major ports of Russia, and theyhave been very important to Russia for centuries. So, by incorporating these ports as part of a greater route, they’re also kicking other things into being—and it’s called the “transportation corridor.” It’s not just about ships. It’s also very much about railroads. And, to a certain degree, it’s about roads.And, if this is carried through, this could be an extremely major program in Russia, depending how much effort they put into this. If you look at our own history in 1956, we had the National Highways Act [Federal Aid Highway Act], where we built the interstate highway system in the United States. It was expensive, but the results were that it moved a lot of industry to the West Coast and moved a lot of the populace westward.It also moved a lot of people from these city cores out into the suburbs and, basically, has had a fantastic impact on the growth of the United States, as well as giving us the ability to move goods in a hurry in any direction. So, I expect that the railroads are going to be the main beneficiaries. There’s already a good rail system that goes to St. Petersburg from the North Sea, but I expect to see that expanded and extended. Rivers and canals have always been a major part of Russian transport. We’re going to see some more of that as well. One of the things I think the corridor will do is to tie Russia together better. The connection and ties between the eastern part and the western part of Russia is rather tenuous, but this corridor can do major things toward strengthening the unification of the country.HostRosatom is Russia’s state nuclear energy giant, and it now oversees this entire corridor. What will change? And if so, how?Bouffard[I don’t] think anything’s gonna change. Rosatom is one of two state corporations for Russia, the other being Roscosmos. And, this civilian agency was put in charge of the Northern Sea Route administration in operational conduct for many years now. And, it was a surprise to many, but it’s been fairly efficient. The scope and importance of the Northern Sea Route took a while for others to understand how important it was—Russia’s position, Putin maneuvering for international purposes, and all the things involved. Rosatom, [it] turns out, they were actually in a good position to administer. And, they understand how to expand the importance of the Russian Arctic in ways probably no other agency could actually manage.I’m not sure there would be another agency that can handle it like Rosatom. They get it. They understand that the importance of connecting Vladivostok to St. Petersburg formally with a corridor like this is just part of connecting Asia to Europe, and that’s the big picture that Russia sees. This is ultimately what they want, which is [for] China and Southeast Asia to use the Northern Sea Route as much as possible and justify all of the investments, all of the positions that Russia has—the safety, the maritime coordination, the infrastructure development, everything. This has been their ultimate goal for quite a while.And, this particular move, you know, establishing this idea of the Trans-Arctic Transport Corridor is really notable. There’s been nothing like this for over a century, where Russia now has a definitive goal of going beyond the Northern Sea Route, which tells me they feel that that position is firmly established well enough to defend internationally, legally, and militarily—if needed. And now, they feel like they’re in a position now to expand. And, the connection is obvious. It’s China and Southeast Asia. They want everyone using the Northern Sea Route as much as possible. And, this is how it’s gonna happen.GrauThe expansion of the Northern Sea route has already started with Chinese transit. Russia moves a lot of fuel, liquid natural gas (LNG), and oil on the Northern Sea Route to China. This last year China had 17 container ships use the Northern Sea Route to get their goods to Europe. The route saves China about two weeks of transit time. This is quite considerable. South Korea is going to make a test run on the Northern Sea Route this summer or fall. Of course, South Korea has long been an ally of ours. But this is trade, this is commerce. And, for South Korea, this makes a lot more sense and saves a lot more money by being able to move, particularly container ships, on the route. It’s a major step.BouffardThat’s a bit of a challenge, too. Container ships that are used throughout global maritime shipping enterprise have become so huge. And that’s in an effort to reduce shipping costs. They’re now named things like Chinamax and Suezmax and Panamamax. And, what that means is these are ships that are just small enough, or just big enough, to get through those canals in those areas. Those will not fit in the Arctic. They may fit, someday, through the Trans-Arctic Corridor when sea ice, perhaps, allows, but through the Northern Sea Route, the max-size container ship, [will not], right? This is the kind of ship that really moves the goods and [carries out] commerce that Les mentioned, [and it] is limited to what’s called an Arcticmax ship, which is about half the size of a Panamamax.For many years now, as we debated the viability of the North being part of shipping, a lot of myths popped up. A lot of studies happened, and it’s pretty clear. Obviously, for keel and depth, Arcticmax is about your limit, f...