Irregular Warfare Podcast - Anytime, Anyplace: Air Force Special Operations Command in Future Irregular Warfare

Episode Date: January 14, 2022

Irregular warfare is executed across all domains. In the air, the responsibility for IW falls to Air Force Special Operations Command. Today, the command stands at an inflection point in which it must prepare to compete against great powers while continuing the fight against violent extremist organizations. How must AFSOC change in order to meet divergent demands for specialized airpower? This episode featured a conversation with two guests who address that question: Lt. Gen. James C. Slife, commander of AFSOC, and Dr. Richard Norton, a retired Air Force officer and adjunct professor at the Joint Special Operations University. Intro music: "Unsilenced" by Ketsa Outro music: "Launch" by Ketsa CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

We've had our head down working so hard to meet the requirements of the next rotation, to be ready for the next deployment. I think sometimes we don't stop and step back and try and see the forest and not just the trees a little bit. I think now is probably a good time for introspection across all of SOCOM. In those environments which are below the level of armed conflict, how do we know that we're done? The construct today is not binary. It's not we're at war or we're at peace. We're in competition with the other great powers around the world.

the other great powers around the world. Welcome to episode 44 of the Irregular Warfare podcast. Your hosts today are myself, Laura Jones, and Shauna Sinnott. In today's episode, we discuss Air Force Special Operations Command and their place within future irregular warfare. Our guests begin by explaining AFSOC's role within the irregular warfare space and how the organization can manage to adapt to new adversaries and threats in a flat resourcing environment. They then consider how AFSOC can leverage its human talent to incorporate emerging technologies and find innovative solutions to future problems. They conclude by examining the possibilities of different metrics of success

within IW and how great power challenges may need to define success along multiple time horizons. Lieutenant General Jim Slife is the Commander, Air Force Special Operations Command, Herbert Field, Florida. The Command is the Air Force component of U.S. Special Operations Command and provides Air Force Special Operations Forces for worldwide deployment and assignment to Unified Combatant Commanders. Lieutenant General Slife was commissioned through the ROTC program at Auburn University and has spent the majority of his career in special operations aviation assignments, deploying extensively. Dr. Richard Newton is an adjunct professor at the Joint Special Operations University.

He has developed and delivered special operations-focused curriculum for almost all of the U.S. War Colleges and the NATO Special Operations School. and the NATO Special Operations School. Dr. Newton graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy in 1977 and served for 22 years as a combat rescue and special operations helicopter pilot, combat aviation advisor, strategic planner, and educator. You're listening to the Irregular Warfare Podcast, a joint production of the Princeton Empirical Studies of Conflict Project and the Modern War Institute at West Point, dedicated to bridging the gap between scholars and practitioners to support the community of irregular warfare professionals.

Here's our conversation with Lieutenant General Jim Slife and Dr. Richard Newton. Lieutenant General Jim Slife, Dr. Rick Newton, thank you so much for being with the Irregular Warfare podcast today. Well, thanks very much, Laura. It's great to finally have the opportunity to join the podcast. I've been a longtime listener, first-time caller, so look forward to participating with you today. Thanks. And I also am very happy to be here today. Like the General, I also am an advocate and an enthusiast for the Irregular Warfare podcast, so thank you for the opportunity. So, Lieutenant General Slife, you've mentioned in past talks that you consider Special Operations Community to be at what you call a third inflection point. Can you explain what you mean by that and what that means for

the AFSOC for the future? Yeah, you bet, Laura. It certainly applies to AFSOC, but I think it's broader than that. I think the SOF community as a whole is at the third inflection point that we've come to in the post-Vietnam era. When I talk about an inflection point like that, I mean, it's kind of a discontinuity of sorts where the future is best understood not as a linear continuation of the past, but rather as something different. And I think the first one of those inflection points was in April of 1980, in the aftermath of the failed mission that we know as Operation Eagle Claw, the Iranian hostage rescue mission. You know, what we had in the aftermath of Vietnam was special operations forces that were not at a high state of readiness. They weren't well-funded.

They weren't integrated jointly. And what we saw in the aftermath of that catastrophe was that what the future would require is a jointly interoperable force at a high state of readiness, poised for crisis and contingency response around the globe. And that was the force that we set about building after April of 1980. And that force performed pretty magnificently through the 80s into things like Just Cause in Panama and Desert Storm, and then the various operations in the Balkans through the 90s. SOF performed pretty magnificently with the force that we built after that discontinuity. But the second one, that second inflection point was obviously September

11, 2001. And on 9-11, what we learned in the aftermath of that was that this force that we had built to be poised for crisis and contingency response was not built for long-term sustained operations, campaigning activity that would take place over years and even decades. We didn't build that force. We built a force that was meant to go do the thing and then come home and reset and get ready for the next thing. And we had to build a force that had the capacity to sustain campaign operation over years. We had to build an ISR and strike capacity and capability inside of soft that we didn't have prior to that. And so that force, we've incrementally built it over the last 20

years. And that force, again, has performed tactically magnificently for 20 years. But now, I think in 2021, we find ourselves at a third discontinuity, a third inflection point, where the force that we have built is not the force necessarily that we're going to need for the future operating environment, which is going to be characterized by peer adversaries and contested environments and disinformation and increased cyber warfare, things of this nature. That is the future operating environment. And the exquisite counter-VEO capability we've built for the last 20 years is not necessarily the force that we need for that.

Building from that, can you elaborate on what challenges this presents to the force? There are two challenges. One is how do we transform ourselves from the AFSOC that we have needed into the AFSOC we will need in a fiscal environment that is flat or declining for SOF? I don't think we're going to see massive increases of money or manpower. And so how do we transform ourselves in a flat resourcing environment? The second challenge we have is really a cultural challenge. And that is, how do you transform in the aftermath of success? You know, there will naturally be a lot of people in the formation that have been spectacularly successful at the tactical level for the last 20 years.

And they would rightly say, why would we change a thing? We've been so successful. Why would we change? And so we have to culturally work our way through the idea that just because we've been successful with what we have today doesn't mean we will be successful. And so I think those are the two meta challenges that we have to work through in the months and years to come. So, Dr. Newton, you've written about this from an historical perspective. Can you contextualize for us where air power fits within our understanding of irregular warfare and particularly how it's historically navigated these fluctuations between a requirement to emphasize some of these IW

competencies versus strategic competition these IW competencies versus strategic competition, more conventional competencies? Absolutely, happy to. You know, I think that air power's roles, its contributions in the irregular warfare environment, they really have not changed since the First World War. But essentially, they have been ISR, air mobility, both of people and of stuff, air-land integration, broad term talking about fire support coordination, battle space control, the command and control functions of controlling airspace and battle space. It's also aerial fires or aerial attack, and it's been medevac-kazevac. The definitions of air power really haven't changed. I think what has changed, though, has been the priorities that are assigned to them. And as the General said,

they created, AFSOF created, an organic ISR capability to support special operations forces. They created new means and methodologies of air attack, all because that's what the situation required. But going forward, as we've seen in past inflections, in past cycles, is that maybe those are not the priorities that will be needed going forward. And we've seen this in the past. Ancient history examples, I mean, World War II, we can see where air mobility of people and of cargo was the priority. ISR capabilities were not so much. Going back all the way to the First World War, East Africa campaign, four years of counter-irregular warfare, counter-guerrilla, the priority was intelligence and surveillance, figuring out where the enemy was. And so these will continue.

So going forward, we just don't know. I would like to add what is essentially for air power, though, there's a new role in this environment. And I think it doesn't really emerge until we get to the 60s and 70s. And this notion of building partner nations aviation forces. The general has often said that this is a double-edged sword, that one, you got to be careful of what you build when you work with partner nations forces. Many of the places, at least on the peripheries of the major theaters of war, those are nations that cannot sustain or even purchase modern aircraft. That's really interesting to me because I think we have this constant conversation of in strategic competition, are we just preparing for that conflict with the great power or are we

doing these things in other contexts that are facilitating our competitive edge, but they're with third countries or other environments? Where does that training other militaries fit into the future of where air power needs to go? I think that going forward, this building partner capacity is going to be an important capability as we look at the future operating environment, whatever that is going to become. Now, where we build those partner nation capabilities and their capacities, that will be the tough part. And I think it's going to depend on where Russia, China, Iran, other nations that choose to confront the United States and our Western partners, where they want to compete. And then I think that going forward, I think this is

a unique contribution that SOF makes and Air Force SOF can also make. then I think that going forward, I think this is a unique contribution that SOF makes and Air Force SOF can also make. Because I believe that going forward, the likelihood of open conflict between the great powers, whether it's maritime in the Pacific with China or a land conflict with Russia on the plains of Europe, I think that's highly unlikely. It is absolutely the most dangerous, and it's something that our nation must prepare for. But I think that the most prevalent, the most likely conflict regions where military forces may be employed will be somewhere on the peripheries of those major theaters of operation. The thing that I would turn around and ask of you is, how do we

think about the means and the ends? And what I mean by that is, why are we engaged in security force assistance? Are we engaged in security force assistance because we intend to help a partner build their aviation capacity? Or are we engaged in it because that partner is located in a part of the world where the United States wishes to gain and leverage access and influence as part of a broader competition? And I would tell you that I think that there's some of both, but I think it's actually more the latter than the former. And so we ought to be applying that really, really valuable security force assistance capacity we have in places where it can make the biggest impact and generate advantage for the United States through access and influence. So if we're building the AFSOC we need, what is that need? Is that equipment driven? Is it air commando and human centric?

human-centric. And can you touch on a little bit of how do you engage that organizational change when, as you said, there's flat budgets, there's no driving crisis that's pushing a unified mission? I'll tell you from the AFSOC perspective, our airmen are the competitive advantage. That is the most important thing we have. It's not the airplanes. It's not the 105 millimeter cannon on the side of a gunship. It's not the transformational CV-22 tilt rotor capability. our airmen in order to innovate and develop capabilities that will be advantageous to the U.S. in vexing to our pacing competitors. That's really the central proposition. And, you know, you asked about new platforms and that kind of stuff. The analogy that I would use, Laura, is, you know, sometimes when we know what we want for dinner, we create a menu and then we create a grocery list and then we go to the commissary and we buy all the groceries that we need. We create a menu and then we create a grocery list and then we go to the commissary and we buy all the groceries that we need. We come home and we make the dinner that we want.

Other times, we know we're hungry. We don't know exactly what we want. So we go home, we open the refrigerator and we stand there and stare at it. And then we maybe open the cabinet and stare at that for a little bit. And based on the ingredients that we have available, we go, well, you know what, it looks like macaroni and cheese tonight. And so the analogy here is that I don't believe we are at a moment in time where we can kind of think unconstrained about the future and create a whole new shopping list for completely different platforms and capabilities. I think we have a great inventory of equipment and hardware and so forth inside of AFSOC. What we have to do is bureaucratically free, creatively free the imaginations of our airmen to mix those ingredients in different ways to create advantage. And so

I just need to maybe take the airplanes we've got and give them a capability they don't have. We're going to be shooting a live, long-range, precision-guided cruise missile out of the ramp end of one of our C-130s. And so, you know, what would you do if you had C-130s that could provide long-range precision fires? That creates dilemmas for our adversaries and opens up options to the joint force. So it's really more about using the things we have in different ways and empowering our airmen to do that. I think that's the key to the future, Laura. When we're shifting to strategic competition and we're trying to build influence within regions

or build out relationships with different actors or partner forces. How then do we measure success? Is it measured in the ability to forward deploy capabilities? Is it measured in the ability to field new capabilities and present dilemmas to our adversaries? Or do we have to find a new measure for actually defining success in relationships and influence itself? You know, our challenge in many of these areas is that when you can't measure what's important, you tend to ascribe importance to the things that you can measure. And so we tend to measure things like the number of countries that we're in on any given day or the number of engagements we had in a given year or the number of rounds that we fired

or the number of pallets of equipment that we moved. These are things that are very easy to measure. I'm not sure that they're measures of effectiveness. They may be measures of performance, but they're probably not measures of effectiveness. They may be measures of performance, but they're probably not measures of effectiveness. And when you talk about things like access and influence, if we're engaging in security force assistance in order to generate and leverage access and influence, how do you measure the effectiveness of that? I can tell you how many hours of flight instruction that we've provided to some partner nation, Air Force. I can tell you how many days that we've provided to, you know, some partner nation Air Force.

I can tell you how many days that we were deployed there. I can, you know, I can tell you things of that nature, but I'm not sure that those are useful measures of how much access and influence we've measured. And so I think this is something that, frankly, we struggle to get our arms around, Laura. And this is an area of just crying out for a little bit of academic research. So I don't know, Dr. Newton may be more familiar than me with what work that's been done in this area, but I'd love to hear it if there are any good ideas out there. Right. Is this a new dilemma? This is not a new dilemma. And I think what you've identified is the challenges, especially

if we're talking about competition below the levels of armed conflict. And so those tend to be a wicked problem. Wicked problems are defined as those situations that actually have no definable stopping point, which don't lend themselves to quantitative measures of performance. And so I think what General Suleikis pointed out here is the fact that if we're going to compete in those environments which are below the level of armed conflict, how do we know that we're done? I mean, the construct today is not binary. It's not we're at war or we're at peace. We're in competition with the other great powers around the world to different levels, and it's different in every situation. around the world to different levels, and it's different in every situation. If the situation doesn't lend itself to quantitative metrics or measures of performance, we've got to struggle

with figuring out the qualitative aspects of that. And, you know, there was a recent series of articles in the Air Commando Journal, and it was talking about humanitarian assistance disaster relief case studies that AFSOC had participated in over a number of years. And it actually reinforces what Journalist Life just said, that in that one article, they were talking about the hurricane relief in the Philippines. And at the end of it, the author measured success by the number of pallets that they had moved, the tons of cargo, the flying hours flown, the number of airports the combat controllers were able to open up. But nothing was said in there about the quality of

life that was restored to the Filipino population, which is hard to measure and doesn't lend itself to a fitness report. So I think as you're going forward, we've got to figure out in these wicked problems, you know, so as we go through and try and think of qualitative ones, that's hard to sell to a lot of decision makers who are used to binary decisive decision making, you know, we won, we lost, it's peace or it's war. This new competitive environment is very challenging if you think in binary terms. I guess that begs the question of, do we need to have different types of time horizons when we consider what our metrics of success should be? If they're qualitative metrics, does it take longer? It absolutely does.

Forces your view to go long-term, which is, again, doesn't lend itself to our environment of military decision-making or even political decision-making. I mean, we're on a four-year political cycle in our nation. We need to generate results quickly. And so those are the kind of things that our leadership, very real concerns for them. Yeah, I would sometimes say that our time horizons are much shorter than that. We're on a 24-hour news cycle. We're on a seven-day Sunday talk show cycle. We're on a one-year budgeting cycle. We're on a two-year election cycle. And what you're talking about, Laura, are questions of years and even decades. And there is nothing in the American system that operates on those time horizons. And so the challenge here is given our system of government and given our,

you know, the oversight and resourcing mechanisms that we have inside the United States, is there room for something that takes a longer term view? I mean, I think in the future, it'll be interesting to go back and assess what subsequent commanders in Afghanistan had to say about how things were going and how does that play out over two decades worth of involvement? I think that'll be interesting because I think a lot of times those assessments are informed by the fact that we're living in a 24-hour news cycle, a seven-day Sunday talk show cycle, a one-year budgeting cycle, and a two-year election cycle. So it's an interesting question.

I'm just not sure that there's anything we can do about it given the structure of the system that we live in. So as AFSOC moves into this AFSOC that's needed, this AFSOC of the future, and new capabilities like AI and increased automation that are inherently not human-centric are brought into the force, how do you protect a human-centric organization, keep the focus on the airmen when you have technology that may take some control away from the operator? All of those things require human involvement. There's some human involvement required to build the algorithm. There's some human involvement required to produce the training data. There's some human involvement frequently required to validate the decision that some automated tool or piece of AI is presuming to make.

And so the question is, do we have the right developmental model for our airmen that allow them to effectively build and employ those tools of automation and artificial intelligence? Do we need different education, training, and experiences for our airmen to allow them to harness and leverage the advantages that those technologies provide? And that's why, you know, in the AFSOC strategic guidance that has kind of been our roadmap for how we're going to go about this transformation that we're involved in. Each of the three major lines of effort deal with airmen at the center. Each line of effort is about the human capital.

It's not about the technology. And the first line of effort, Laura, is a line of effort that deals with developing our human capital, developing our airmen to succeed in that future operating environment. So some of that is a much greater degree of technology literacy than perhaps what we have grown up with. And so I think as long as we keep the human at the center of our kind of focus as we transform ourselves. I think, you know, the character that may change here and there, but the central idea that the humans have to be in the middle of this is the main idea. I think as long as we keep that at the forefront, I think we'll be fine. So as the strategic landscape shifts, is there a tension between AFSOC's role as part of the

broader Air Force and its place as a component of Special Operations Command? You know, I think that it's a good question in the sense that what AFSOC is meant to be is not the totality of what AFSOC has been for the last 20 years. You know, one of the things that I talk about inside the formation here is we've spent 20 years being the Air Force component of U.S. SOCOM. But there is another part of who we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be the soft component of the United States Air Force. And what we have spent 20 years doing is a subset of the totality of who we're supposed to be. So I think part of this is kind of refreshing the connective tissue with our parent service and remembering what it means to be airmen in SOF and not just SOF people who are in the Air Force. So I think there is a broader context of who we have to be than what we have seen broadly over the last 20 years or so. And so some of this is cultural. We're going

to have to work our way culturally through the what we have been to what we need to become. What Air Force Special Operations offers to our Air Force is a very unique capability. I mean, obviously, our airmen, our air commandos have got to be experts in air power, but they are also experts in special operations. And to abuse the analogy from old Star Trek episodes, I think what air commandos offer our Air Force is that they become that universal translator. They're the experts in both special operations, but also experts in air power and the employment of air power in those areas and regions

where we are competing with the other great powers. And that's platform agnostic. And I think it goes to what Laura was talking about, where it does emphasize, and it's a way to keep the human dimension at the center while also ensuring that our air commandos are technically, tactically the experts in air power. Can I give you a historical example that kind of illustrates the point?

In the opening hours of Desert Storm, the first shots fired in Desert Storm were Hellfire missiles off of Apache helicopters that disabled the Iraqi early warning radar system and blinded their integrated air defense system and allowed large packages of joint force air power to go and destroy their targets on that very opening night. That mission was conceived of and executed by Air Force Special Operations folks. And so it was an air commando who thought of the idea of using the very precise navigational capabilities of soft helicopters to lead conventional army helicopters to a position where they could destroy those early warning radar sites. That had nothing to do with SOF air power supporting SOF. That was SOF as part of the broader joint force bringing a different way of problem solving to

bear. Those are the types of things that I think are going to be more characteristic of the future operating environment. And I think historically, you can find lots of those kinds of examples. And it really does come down to a cadre of airmen, in this case, air commandos, who look at the problem and think about it differently, using the equipment and the tools that they've already got to apply them in ways that are unexpected by the adversary they are facing. So you have a lot of airmen with these really exquisite skill sets, technical skills, competencies. Historically, maybe those were more oriented just towards the air power component. But today, where we have competition in cyber and space and

some of these new domains that are maybe part of this third inflection point, how do you see AFSOC's force able to compete beyond just with the use of air power? Well, I think because we're a human-centric organization, one of the most important aspects of that is the relationships that we have, the relationships we build, the relationships we leverage. And so, you know, AFSOC is part of the Department of the Air Force. There is a service in the Department of the Air Force called the United States Space Force. We have close, close connections with the U.S. Space Force. In fact, we have for several years, we've had AFSOC general officers fill in key roles in U.S. Space Command and U.S. Space Force

billets because we're airmen that, you know, kind of think in an air-minded kind of fashion, but we also are adept at joint warfighting in a way that the U.S. Space Force, by matter of policy, has not been asked to be for many, many years. And so, you know, we bring something useful to the Space Force. We bring a different way of thinking. We bring a different set of experiences. And so those relationships we've built with the Space Force and the U.S. Space Command are, I think, going to be really, really valuable to us going forward as we integrate and leverage those capabilities. And then with respect to cyber, you know, we have an enduring relationship with the part of the Air Force that deals with signals intelligence and cyber capabilities. We have an enduring relationship.

We have organizations that routinely partner to execute our missions that bring these things together. And so we've already got the relationships, got the organizational structures. We just need to apply them in different kinds of ways against the problem sets of the future rather than the problem sets of the past. But I think we're actually really well positioned in that respect because of the very human-centric relationships that we've built over decades. I think that's the other thing that picking up on the theme of the intelligence platforms, I mean, this notion of space and overhead platforms, it's very hard to get a subjective assessment of what is happening on the ground. And it has been typically a very key

characteristic or capability of SOF, of all the different services, of being able to provide that human perspective of what's happening on the ground, and then as an adjunct to the technical intelligence capabilities that the U.S. fields that are pretty amazing. There's been lots and lots of examples over the years, going all the way back to the interwar years between the two world wars, where airmen have been on the ground providing those perspectives in a special reconnaissance mode that augment and enhance the technical intelligence collection capabilities. And so I think going forward, this is something that AFSOC can and does do that would be of value in the future operating environments. Gentlemen, as we begin to conclude the conversation here, what are the implications for policymakers, practitioners and academics in regards to the AFSOC of the future within a regular warfare? in regards to the AFSOC of the future within irregular warfare?

So in terms of the implications for the future, I think there are a couple of things that we've touched on that might be worth thinking about. One would be this issue of measurement of metrics. How do you measure access, influence, those types of things in a way that is not completely divorced of the realities of the American system. I'm not sure it does us a lot of practical good to be able to measure things over a 10-year time horizon when legislators make major decisions on an annual basis, for example. But at the same time, I don't think we should be ignorant to those kind of 10-year time horizons. But at the same time, I don't think we should be ignorant to those kind of 10-year time horizons. And so I think that's an area crying out for more thought about how we think about measures of effectiveness in the irregular warfare context.

I think another place that would be useful is maybe a more fulsome discussion about the relationship between ends, ways, and means in the aviation context. We talked earlier about security force assistance. And so I guess the question would be, is security force assistance the means or the ends? Are we doing security force assistance because somebody needs to have increased capacity of aviation? In other words, the means are airplanes and pilots and mechanics and those types of things, and the ends are increased aviation capacity in country X. Is that the relationship between ends and means, or is the relationship between ends and means that

we are doing security force assistance activities in order to generate access and influence. And I think we could use a little more precision and clarity about why we are undertaking the actions that we undertake. It's not always clear to me that we've thought that all the way through. And so I think, you know, if there was some kind of rubric or model that academic world could help us think our way through, I think that would be an important development for us. So those would be two that I would offer to you, Laura.

From my perspective, I think that the ends, ways, and means discussion is probably the most important thing we could do. I like the model that Simon Sinek proposed of starting with why. And I think we become engaged in campaigns where we choose a desired end state without really thinking through the why we're engaging in whatever country. So if the desired end state is something along the lines of they need an aviation capability, that doesn't really answer the why. We need to go back and say, why does this nation need some sort of aviation capability? And if it's to counter VEOs in their region that may or may not be threatening

the United States, well, then we need to be assisting them to create an air force that they can sustain, whether it's resource-wise, educationally, technically, but also it needs to be that host nation solution to their problem. We don't want to create another U.S. Air Force in a country that doesn't have the resources that we do. And so if we start with why, then we figure out what the acceptable level and some sort of measurement, some sort of definition of what a successful outcome will be, whether that's an acceptable level of inconvenience or something more black and white that we can point to. So I would come back to fruitful for academics to help influence politicians is changing the mindset as we go into the planning process, the campaigning process,

where we're really truly asking, why are we doing this and what is the expected outcome? And I think that if we go back and the people who come after us go back and look at why we went to Afghanistan and why we went to Iraq and why we went to Syria, I think 20-20 hindsight would say that maybe we went in for reasons we weren't fully cognizant of. And I think that's the kind of academic and policy help going forward that we as air commandos can assist with in the future. I think my follow-up would be, given this discussion and the direction that seems like the best direction for AFCSAC, what are the implications for the broader SOCOM enterprise and then for the broader community of those who are focused on irregular warfare? For the broader SOCOM enterprise, I think we all have to ask ourselves whether our particular commands, our components, our pieces of the larger soft enterprise, are these assertions that I've made about AFSOC valid in other contexts?

On April of 1980, we didn't have the force that we needed for the future operating environment, so we had to build it. On 9-11, we didn't have the force that we need for the future operating environment, so we had to build it. In 2021, I don't think we have the force we need for the future operating environment, so we have to build it. Is that also valid for somebody else, other commands, other components? And I don't know. I expect that AFSOC is not the only one that finds itself in a position needing to change for the future. But I can't answer that for somebody else. So I think the implication, Shana, would be that we all have to be a little bit introspective. I think now is the time for us, you know, we've had our head down, working so hard to meet the requirements of the next rotation, to be ready for the next deployment, etc., etc.

I think sometimes we don't stop and step back and try and see the forest and not just the trees a little bit. I think now is probably a good time for introspection across all of SOCOM. Lieutenant General Jim Slife, Dr. Rick Newton, thank you so much for being with the Regular Warfare podcast today. Shauna and Laura, thanks. It's been a pleasure to have the opportunity to talk to you. It's really encouraging to see the interest in these kinds of topics across your listening audience. And I appreciate you all being willing to facilitate the conversation. I especially appreciate the

opportunity to join Dr. Newton on today's podcast. Dr. Newton's well-known in soft aviation circles as among the foremost thinkers in our field. And so the opportunity to be on a podcast with him is really a highlight. So thanks to all three of you for the opportunity to join you today. General Sly, thank you for the kind words. I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be able to contribute to this podcast on future roles of AFSTOC in irregular warfare context. Thanks again for listening to Episode 44 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast. We release a new episode every two weeks. In our next episode, Andy and I discuss compliance through advise and assist operations with Dr. Barbara Elias and Lieutenant General Larry Nicholson. After that, Andy and I will discuss the role of the U.S. Marine Corps in irregular warfare with the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General David Berger, and author Christian Brose.

Please be sure to subscribe to the Irregular Warfare podcast so you do not miss an episode. The Irregular Warfare podcast is a product of the Irregular Warfare Initiative. The Regular Warfare podcast is a product of the Regular Warfare Initiative. We generate written and audio content, coordinate events for the community, and host critical thinkers in the field of irregular warfare as fellows. You can follow and engage with us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn, and make sure to subscribe to our monthly newsletter. One last note, what you hear in this episode are the views of the participants and do not represent those of Princeton, West Point, or any agency of the U.S. government. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.