So CIA has to simic, have to guide a conversation within
their respective entities about. Here's what we can do.
Here's how we can do it. Here all these different lines
of effort you've test out to us you know to make a compelling
case, this is just fundamentally unreasonable.
This can't be done with the resources at hand.
The Personnel at hand and it doesn't need to prioritize.
And that's part of the case made in the paper is that if CA
inseminate can do one or two things really, really, well you
can make an Evidence base case for more More people, more
equipment, more resources, with Tesla government's Knowledge
Management Solutions. You are adding a strategic
partner that helps unleash the full power and potential of your
institutional information. Let us unpack your data and put
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Elsie 38, brand.com the Civil Affairs Lifestyle.
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it's cool to like, your job. Welcome to the one.
See a podcast. I'm John Miguel get your host
for today's episode in. This is part two of a two-part
discussion with Lieutenant Colonel stuff on me.
Lick and dr. Nick Kroll e, we continue our
discussion and comparison of Doctrine between US military.
Civil Affairs forces, and NATO simic enjoy the show.
I want to ask Nick next within Army and Marine Corps, the, the
u.s. Civil Affairs forces.
And then turn a turn, a colonel me, talk about simic.
What are we asking? The forces to do, for example, I
know, within Army's civil Affairs, we have multiple CA
missions then. We have core competencies.
Those missions include civil Recon like your background civil
engagement, which we do a lot of civil Network development, a new
term civil information. We have to really Analyze that
information transitional military Authority.
That's really gone to transitional military
governance. So what's the scope of what US
military is telling CA forces that they have to do and of
those? Which ones do you think are the
most important as an outsider looking in here?
I think you just listed five or six full-time jobs for specially
trained individuals when you think about, you know,
governance or network development for reconnaissance.
Since or information management, these are all pretty high-end
technical skills for experienced professionals.
And we're asking the same group of folks to do it with very
limited training. We had a, I think it was a ccoet
hosted webcast or podcast recently where there was a lose
an Italian major talking about some occurs as the the eager
amateurs, right? Because they go out there and
they give it their shot and they work hard and because of again
just raw talent and perseverance there.
Good results that but none of it is systemic.
None of its reliable. It's all kind of ad hoc and made
up on the Fly. And it goes back to what I think
is that there's just way too much on the menu and it isn't
clear to me. If the Army went to see a and
said, hey we need you to do these seven things or six things
or if it was the other way, where ca stepped up and said.
All right, how do we Define a value proposition of the army?
Now, let's start thinking the stuff, let's start defining
things. That seemed important in the
Civil environment and that whole list is important, but I don't
see any possible way to reconcile that with the
resources that CA possesses it. How are you going to do all
that? And to me again, it's flatly.
It's not going to happen and trying to do too much with too
little, you know, being that jack of all trades.
Master of none is a recipe for failure.
Frankly under performance under delivery marginalization, you
know, I think there has to be Real discussion between CA and
its customers saying, what do you really want from us?
And CA has to shape that discussion because I think a lot
of the army, a lot of NATO has never really thought about what
they want from CA or simic. That's not something that keeps
them up, right? They got other problems are
focused elsewhere. So CA has consuming have to
guide a conversation within their respective entities about,
here's what we can do. Here's how we can do it here all
this. Different lines of effort you've
test out to us you know to make a compelling case.
This is just fundamentally unreasonable.
This can't be done with the resources at hand.
The Personnel at hand in this need to prioritize and that's
part of the case made in the paper is that CA inseminate can
do one or two things really? Really, well, you can make an
Evidence base case for more people, more equipment, more
resources. Hey we've done civil
reconnaissance really well for a while now.
You know, if you provide resourcing, we can also start
doing something else. You'll personally to me, again,
I'm, I guess biased, and so far as I've spent pretty much my
entire career doing this, but the development of understanding
I think is Paramount here. If we don't understand 90% of an
operational environment. How are we going to do effective
civil Network development? How are we to conduct effective?
You know, key leader engagement. How Going to provide government.
That the governance thing to me is questionable and this comes
up really well. I think in an 80 environment
where, you know, what is the demand signal for CA forces to
provide governs anywhere, you know, are the poles.
What is the process of the ukrainians right now, in the
midst of what they're in the midst of asking, u.s. civil
Affairs to help govern parts of their country?
I don't see that happen. I think it's zero.
You can look at a place like Syria you know, parts of the saw
hell maybe. Where you can get hands on and
be active there. But I think that falls way down
the list. In terms of the real value that
CA and simic can provide day in day out irrespective of conflict
competition. Kinetic, non-kinetic, Etc.
You know in Stefan can speak to this and I'm sure he will.
If we had some interesting conversations in this, in the
course of writing this paper about, you know, Cas attitude
towards a transitional governance and the very delicate
He's within NATO, amongst European countries and is NATO,
welcome in various Eastern European.
NATO member states, to engage with local government.
Often the answer is no, the host government doesn't want NATO
meddling effectively and its own domestic business.
That's a very delicate line that some workers have to walk.
What is the prospect of CA coming it and walking that more
effectively or at all. So again to me the development
of Focused understanding of the playing field of that
Marketplace. That van was talking about is
the most valuable thing that see a estimate can do, all right?
And I'll fight any on that. I don't think there's an
argument against that, and I like the football metaphor in
the marketplace and you can make it worse, right?
You could be playing football in, you know, lugansk City and
the goals are at either end of the city and civilians aren't
just getting in the way, you know, they're jumping in and
making a tackle. Or committing file.
So they're part of the action, they're not just watching.
Now they have agents, they're active in this and they're
active after the match ends its massively complex.
If you don't understand that, you don't have a prayer of doing
any of the other stuff that's currently in Doctrine.
Yeah. Well, looking at all those tasks
though, Nick, and maybe break this down by tactical
operational, strategic. Because my personal view is
that, and you I think you guys talked about this in the paper
civil Affairs is On really good job historically at the Tactical
level, that's where most of our forces.
We've put a lot of resources into that.
Not so good at operational strategic.
But what do you think it should be?
Whether you've talked to any potential customers, so-called,
or Brigade, combat teams Italians and so on that, we
support at the Tactical level, is it really civil Recon, civil
engagement that we focus on and then the other stuff should
happen in a higher level. What's your view?
I again I think assessment almost has to happen there.
Recon stuff almost has to happen with tactical level, right?
Because you need access you need to be out there talking to
people or you can think of it as the ocean, you know, if your
desk-bound somewhere you're not on the front lines you can still
do some reconnaissance, you can still conduct assessments like
the Pocky part of the problem with the lack of success
trickling upward, if you will or you like the good things that
happen tactically, don't scale upward because they always
happen in different ways. It goes back to the lack of
standardization, you know, there isn't Beat a dead horse here,
maybe, but if they were a single concise actionable product that
every civil Affairs team was producing at the Tactical level,
consistently being churned out, and being pumped into the system
and filtering upwards, that's going to create that chain of
events, that we need. That's how that happens.
And yeah, there are other things that CA can do at a very high
level, you know, one of the things that came out in this
Doctrine comparison, is that, you know, you and I John talked
about the Tactical level and we think of a company Commander at
a About Outpost somewhere and Stefan and his team pointed out
in a pretty interesting way. The Tactical level for NATO is
the three-star headquarters. So in a way we're comparing
apples and oranges here. Yeah.
But still like someone somewhere has to figure out what the hell
is going on in an operational environment, and there are a
million different ways to get that accidents, but someone has
to have a robust process to figure out what's going on.
And we don't have that. We have a scope for me.
See, and we can get into that later if you want, but we don't
have an investigator framework for the Civil environment in any
meaningful sense, the term and then that process whatever it
is, is not leading to consistent, reliable quality
outputs for, which CA or some occurs are accountable to
produce time after time that I think is key to scaling Insight
upward from the Tactical level and delivering quality.
Yeah. Thank you, Carl me.
Like, you guys have a JP 3.19. What are the tasks that NATO
simic? That NATO is telling Atomic
forces that they have to be prepared to do.
And can you tell us a little more detail about what Nick just
mentioned, which is our levels at the Tactical level are very
different and then maybe a third question to that.
If we can cover it is, what do you think your personal view of
one of the most important tasks that they are systemic needs to
be able to do? Yeah.
It would probably go all in one and not really in separate
answers. So currently nato simic in the
valid ajp 319 has three core functions which is support to
the force support to the military.
Actors, non-military actors and civil environment and the third
one is civil-military relations, my team and I and I would say
the team is much bigger than only.
My subordinates within the same extent of Excellence, we have a
writing team consisting of Representatives of Nations and
NATO command structure. So, from multiple headquarters
from higher tactical, operational and strategic level.
We are convinced that these three core functions are also
part of the problem. Because they say everything and
nothing to say support to the force that is, yeah.
It's like like I said what are repeated is everything and
nothing and on one end, you put yourself next to the force.
When you say, my core task is support to the for.
So I'm not a, not a, an integral part of the force.
I put myself in between the force and the Civil world and I
make my myself and outside of from the beginning Pearl
definition and / or doctrine. So Shifting the mindset and
focusing on the real relevant contribution added value.
That we can deliver is understanding the Civil
environment. That means integrating, the
Civil factors of the operating environment into operational
planning into decision-making, processes into battle resume
events on all levels and that has to happen as Nick said
earlier that has to happen in a standardized process.
If everybody does that in a way thinks it is done, right?
You might be lucky and have a good product if you have smart
people working but you might also have the wrong product and
less relevant product. If people understand the task or
interpret that as differently and do not clearly understand
how this product grows. Bottom-up.
And yeah, reaches riches value, especially at headquarters that
don't have own sensors own elements on the ground and yeah,
collecting information and collecting Impressions.
So only with highly qualified people and with a standardized
process, you can create high standard product that Relevant.
And that's the assessment of the Civil environment throughout all
phases of any activity, operation Mission or War,
however, you want, you want to call that, but we always have to
have situational awareness. And even more a situational
understanding also of the Civil environment, that's that is the
unique selling point that Is the added value and contribution
that simek adds to this whole business, and we do that one
instrument to do that is in a so-called civil military
interaction. We enable facilitate and conduct
civil-military interaction. So, with our contacts, to civil
organizations to representatives of the population non-military
actors we The information that is required to fill the bucket
that is needed, to be seen in order to make a proper
assessment of that. And for that to transfer that
data into relevant information. And that into relevant input in
the decision-making, processes we need qualified analysts.
So this is well, we drive the doctrinal development of NATO
into and it looks good as we seem to To achieve a common
understanding in our community about that in about the
relevance. You can see that in the new
definition of simic, which for the first time includes those
expressions of integrating, the understanding of the several
factors of the operating environment.
It's still not fully authorized by the day.
By the way, I think today, the silence period for approving.
This new definition ends if nobody has broken silence.
We will have new simic definition in NATO from now on.
And now finally the levels you were talking and Nick had
already said earlier that, there is a huge difference.
If you talk about those strategic operational tactical
level in NATO or at the national level and for NATO the
operational level is the joint level.
So we're You combine the different domains and the
different services, and that's Force our headquarters with an
area of responsibility far beyond National or one nation's
borders. So including yeah, the northern
part of Europe, north eastern, part of Europe and eastern part
of Europe, or Southeastern and southern part of the
euro-atlantic area. So this is the levels that That
are applicable when you think in NATO terms and here we think
it's also here comes NATO simic into place because below that
whatever happens within the border of a country is mainly a
nationally driven thing and most probably at least a bi-national
interoperability and cooperation between that host nation.
And deploy their lies in. I would say the vast majority of
countries. It would be deployed US forces
that have to be inter operable with the domestic forces and
have to integrate and support and work together and be
successful together. And these are the challenges.
So what I wanted to state is NATO simic has to take a
perspective. Above the national level.
It has to to understand the Civil environment in several
countries in regions above the geographic, borders of
individual countries. And that's a huge Challenge and
you need you need huge capacities for that when it
comes and capabilities when it comes to handling big data when
it comes to transferring those data into it.
Nation and working with that information, transfer
transferring it into a two products that contribute to a
proper decision making processes.
And this is where we're going. And I hope I didn't forget any
of the points. You were asking sure you cover
great deal. Not.
That's really, really helpful. We'll be right back after a word
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Welcome back to the show, we're discussing Doctrine and
comparing US, military civil Affairs forces, and NATO simic.
It sounds from my perspective that both Cinema can see a
forces need to do some more market analysis to find out, as
Nick, put it. The customers what they need.
Yes, we're in military structure.
We have to do certain things that higher echelons tell us, do
we need to prepare for, but we've talked a lot about
intelligence as As comparison intelligence of 40 years ago, is
not the intelligence of today intelligence of 20 years ago.
If 10 years ago, is not the intelligence apparatus of today,
it continues to evolve and continues to churn out different
products and greater analysis. And I guess that gets me to what
I want to finish with a Section 3 in your paper, the way ahead,
the what now you break this down, gentleman into number one,
greater value, proposition centering that value,
proposition number to develop. Ink signature products and three
adopting a fit for purpose. Investigative analytical
methodologies, Nick first to you and then Chrome, you look, if
you could wrap it up, Nikki talked about a scope, how that
fill in the block tool is not sufficient.
So what are those signature products that you think could be
helpful and how do we censor that value proposition?
Yeah, so if you mean, you just talked about sort of the
intelligence and how intelligent Have been evolving.
And we can talk this sort of idea of intelligence
architecture and of CA and civil assessment and simic, not really
being a part of that. And the capabilities, I think,
right now we need to further evolution of where ca and
stomach fit into all this, where civil reconnaissance civil
assessment, you know, all things civil fit because right now
we're doing them separately, you know, off to the side where, you
know, J2 does. What it does over somewhere else
and see. Day and Seneca doing all the
Civil stuff and other place. And in theory, it all gets fused
together somewhere down the line.
If that doesn't work fundamentally.
Like that's one of the big issues that I think CA and simic
has to take on quite vocally at a leadership level because, you
know, CA can get better, send it can get better, they can produce
better products, we adopted her methods, but if we're not
integrated into, you know, the the broader view of an
operational environment, you're always going to be marginalized,
you're always gonna be Afterthought and you're not
necessarily going to know where and how to look at the Civil
environment because suddenly there's too much there to look
at like this is one of the problems with a scope amazing.
You know you want to do an ace copa me see grid for
Northeastern Europe. I don't even see the point of
trying that. How are you possibly going to
convey anything meaningful. And something that broad or at a
country level, or even at a village level, or a neighborhood
level? There's so much clutter in that
up. There's so much there that has
no obvious value. No obvious purpose, Is that it
just does work. And so, you know, one of the key
things that we've looked at, and we suggest in the paper is this
need to integrate, you know, contextual investigation civil
reconnaissance. All things civil, as we
investigate them into that. Jay to view now, into our
intelligence intelligence architecture and that happens
methodologically, right? But fundamentally, it happens
because there's a product, you have to produce.
And the product we put forward, is this idea of the route map.
That The way to build a bridge between j2's view of the enemy
and all the other stuff happening in an operational
environment because you have to start somewhere, you have to
have a frame of reference. You have to have an
investigative framework, is to look at the roots of that
adversary your enemy that's brought us there.
So, you know, the roots of Russian influence in Eastern
Europe. You know, the roots of Chinese
influence and operations across Africa.
The roots of the Islamic State in the Sahel At that Bridges,
the gap or connecting our view of the enemy or adversary
competitor. Whatever you want to talk about
their doesn't matter if we're kinetic non-kinetic, you know,
whatever phase of of conflict or in the works across the
competition continue. You know, we follow those roots
out and civil environment and figure out, you know, how have
they grown, why? If they groan where they grow or
have they not grown, right? We have a structured framework
Time After Time After Time through which civil Affairs and
simic. Can produce a product with
unquestionable value, you know? Find me the hardest Edge.
Infantry officer. Who's going to tell you that the
roots of the enemy don't matter. All right, they definitely
matter your, that's an easy case for CA and stomach to make, you
know, the people we take on the battlefield or a par, they're an
integral feature of an operational environment.
You know, you have to view them as such, you know, way to look
at all this whereby your contextualizing, a view of an
enemy or We're centered. This is enormous value could see
a and send that can provide and that is that that product, that
one obvious, easy key, you know, cheap and cheerful.
When you can come up with saying, all right, we're going
to produce this, you know, and everyone's going to get one of
these products. Whatever.
A, oh we're in. There's an adversary there.
There's a competitor there or else.
Why are we there, right? What are their roots in the
operational environment? Where are they?
How they grow? We map that As a standardized
deliverable that everyone produces every single deployment
that you can produce from the rear, frankly you can produce it
a tactical, very granular level. You can produce it at a higher
operational, strategic level. Okay, depending on your frame of
reference and how deep you're digging.
All right, they're readily scalable, they can be fused
together, you can take a whole bunch of different tactical
views and synthesize that at a higher level, really easy stuff
to do. And then once you've developed
that route map, what do you have?
All right. Have a framework for onward
civil reconnaissance. Let's really dig into some
particular aspect of the roots of Russian influence in Libya,
right? We have our hook in those roots.
Now we know what to follow. We know where to dig, if you
will and that's something that's developed a bit in the paper
that, you know, we think is something readily doable
compelling across the force. That gives your doesn't give it
its a way out. I guess about why are you here
and what do you do for me? Ation that CA and simic
elements, keep having to have people expect this product,
they'll want it now. Have obvious value for it.
So that's what that's the key thing.
We want that. I'd like to put forward here.
Nick. Thank you so much, girl music.
What's your take on the way ahead?
And given your position as branch chief, they're focusing
in part on interoperability. How CA and simic forces could
become more interoperable with something like a route map or
some other tool or Or rather some other product that you have
in mind for civic forces. Yeah, thank you.
And let me, let me just pick up exactly where Nick ended with
his words and say one thing is the route map to go deeper into
the roots of our opponents. The other thing that is really
relevant is that we we understand those civil factors
that are neutral or Or potentially friendly or friendly
and supportive to us so that we also understand our own
population when we are under attack or under threat of an
attack. Well, do we have vulnerabilities
weak points that we need to defend and protect with
preventive actions or somehow? Covering actions.
So it is not super easy to say J to intelligence Community will
focus on the adversary and say, make will focus on the neutral
and friendly because those interconnections are super deep
and absolutely complex. So it is important that we break
up those stovepipes and really work together.
Gether and all with all our capabilities, contribute to all
the Fulfillment and execution of all joint functions.
So, this is something where I say, yeah, break up the stove by
being and be well, that the world is not binary, but super
complex. And the more complex our
operating environment gets with trance trance Border
interdependencies, we will have a much harder job to properly
analyze and assess and this is exactly what I'm what we're
trying to do. Also how can we increase
interoperability by better synchronize seeing our Doctrine
as a as the foundation for training and education before we
go on deployments. And then as The Next Step better
synchronize the training and education by teaching each
other, about the specifics of. What does it mean?
If I deploy to Central or Eastern Europe into a fully
Sovereign Nation to support, fully functional Armed, Forces
to defend their Homeland, having a population, which is the
obvious, 100% supportive, but Somehow targeted directly
targeted by the opponent with misinformation and
disinformation in order to weaken the the cohesion within
the society. So, and after those trainings
and causes we need to, we need to conduct.
Yeah, combine exercises. We already do.
And then we will, we will reach the level of interoperability
that we need to successfully guarantee.
T ensure the freedom of our countries in the euro-atlantic
area. From you look, thank you so
much. The one to The Parting words
that share would be the I think both CA and simic need a real
sense of urgency around their near-term.
Future, if you look at the trend of budget cuts and
prioritization and you know where the US military in
particular is headed, you know, I don't see a is in the room.
Your mirror but they're definitely not near the driver's
seat and they could be looking at considerable Cuts in the
not-too-distant future. If they can't really articulate,
why they're there, why they matter.
And in the interactions I have in the sea a community II, don't
get a sense of urgency. I don't feel real concern about.
You know, hey you know, we're fighting for our life here.
We really need to get this done right?
Right now we need to take Hard. Look at who we are what we're
offering but I kind of get a more.
All right, you know, business as usual keep it up, you know,
maybe through a few tweaks here and there.
And that worries? Yeah, I saw the human terrain
system fall apart for a lot of reasons, some operational some
institutional but the operational stuff is visible for
a while. And people kept talking about
and the performance wasn't there.
And, you know, if you have enough, unhappy customers, you
know, You go out of business eventually so I would just
really push, you know, a sense of urgency, you know, shit about
a call to arms if you will within see a about you know,
where we going, what are we doing?
You know, take this paper, give it a look, agree with it,
disagree with it, you know, but but have a conversation, you
know, let's, let's figure this out and figure out what we want
here. Otherwise, I think, you know,
the next three to five years could be pretty bleak.
Thank you. I see that from my view across
the pond That this interoperability the partnership
the relationships continue to evolve and improve.
So I think we're heading in that direction but I really value
what you do gentlemen have put together with this paper this
analysis, you provide some cold hard, truths.
Some things that we need to face head-on and Doctrine matters.
So for everyone who doesn't think, I don't need to read that
thing or somebody else can worry about it.
You know, the senior NCO, the officers can tell me what to do.
It does really matter and if people have time to Look at
this, I would say We'll add a link to the show notes here but
it's only 31 Pages. This is the NATO simek and u.s.
civil Affairs, doctrinal review and comparative assessment just
came out in June of 2022 by Lieutenant Colonel, Stephon
music of NATO simic CCE and dr. Nick really genuine.
Thanks so much for your time. Preciate you coming on the show.
Thanks Joe. Thank you for spending some time
with us. Please subscribe, and come back
for another installment of 1ca, until then be safe and secure
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Affairs Lifestyle. Brand a little bit of something
for everybody t, shirts, polos shorts, hats flags, and posters
for your walls and stickers for everything else.
Celebrating the heritage of civil affairs, from the Civil
reconnaissance of Lewis and Clark Through The Monuments Men
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We have items for citizen soldiers of use of kapok and
Warrior diplomats at Fort, Bragg alike, Elsie.
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