Irregular Warfare Podcast - Irregular Warfare Oversight in DC

Episode Date: July 3, 2020

What are the mechanics and politics that determine how the US government approaches irregular conflicts? That's the question at the center of this episode of the Irregular Warfare Podcast. Hosts Nick Lopez and Kyler Atwell are joined by Mark Mitchell, former acting assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, and Pete Villano, who spent a decade as a professional staff member on the House Armed Services Committee.

Our presence in Niger is not simply limited to our objectives within the borders of Niger. It's part of a broader regional strategy. But a reporter sees it and says, why are Americans dying in Niger? And it casts the question in such a way that it's difficult to answer. From the congressional perspective, I'll tell you, just the same that it's difficult to answer. From the congressional perspective, I'll tell you, just the same way it's a tough problem set to define irregular warfare in uniform and for civilians in the Pentagon, it's a very tough, you know, policy and program problem set for the defense committees to understand, for policymakers to understand.

for the defense committees to understand, for policymakers to understand. Having lived through the drafting and publication of the Irregular Warfare Annex, which was a priority for Secretary Maddox, the idea of great power competition, frankly, became kind of an empty vessel for each of the services to pour their own meaning into. vessel for each of the services to pour their own meaning into. Welcome to Episode 4 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast. Your hosts today are myself, Nick Lopez, and my co-host, Kyle Atwell. In today's episode, we begin to explore the behind-the-scenes mechanics and politics of how irregular warfare policy is made. To do so, we focus on two organizations which drive irregular warfare policy in Washington, D.C., Congress and the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations

and Low-Intensity Conflict, or ASD-SOLIC. Our guests today have an array of experiences, ranging from tactical combat deployments to influencing national strategy through various posts in D.C. Mark Mitchell served as the acting ASD SOLIC, as the Counterterrorism Director on the National Security Council, and he is a retired Army Special Forces officer. He was one of the first Americans to arrive in Afghanistan following 9-11. Pete Villano spent a decade as a professional staff member on the House Armed Services Committee. He also served in the State Department and as a former Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Officer.

You are 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 is our conversation with Mark Mitchell and Pete Folano. Gentlemen, really appreciate you both joining us today. It'd be great to dive right in and start with Mark.

As I understand that the ASD SOLIC has a broad portfolio of missions and that the position itself is the senior civilian counterpart to the SOCOM commander. Can you talk a little bit about your time in the office and some of the priorities that you had while serving? Well, it's interesting because from the time when I was a military officer, 2011 to 13, to the time that I came back as a senior civilian, 17 to 19, the office and responsibilities changed pretty dramatically. Back in 11, when I first got there, there was still a very heavy day-to-day operational focus on counterterrorism. If you remember back in the Obama administration, a lot of the high-level high value target, those decisions got pulled up to the White House level. That generated a lot of work at our level trying to get these targets approved. unworkable. At that same time, Congress passed the 2017 NDAA Section 922 to reinvigorate ASD Solick's role as a service secretary. That's the National Defense Authorization Act?

That is correct. It's the annual bill that the House and the Senate Armed Services Committees develop that provides authorization and changes to Title 10, which is the part of the U.S. Code that covers Department of Defense. Back in that 11 to 13 time, in addition to CT, we had the Benghazi attacks. So we were spending a tremendous amount of time, again, on CT, embassy security. security. And then by the time we had shifted to the 2017-19 timeframe, I was spending a lot more time on efforts to reinvigorate our service secretary responsibilities. Is engagement with Congress one of the key roles of ASD SOLIC or just one of many tasks? I mean, from my personal perspective, I saw it as one of my primary roles. ISD Solic is the senior special operations official in the Pentagon.

Our relationships with Congress, again, whether it's the authorizers, the appropriators, I testified in front of the Foreign Affairs Committees, worked with the Intel Committees. All of those are important relationships. I go back to the soft imperatives. The soft imperative number one, know your operational environment. And when you're a senior executive in the Pentagon, a key portion of your operational environment is your relationship with Congress. I'd like to come back to ASD-SOLIC's role and the changes you mentioned in the 2017 NDAA in a couple minutes. To further dig into that relationship with Congress, Pete, is it a specific subcommittee that handles irregular warfare? And can you talk to us about the dialogue between ASD-SOLIC and Congress?

Yeah, that's exactly it. It is a specific subcommittee for special operations forces, for regular warfare, for related type issues. And they are essentially the same committee between the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee. On the House side, it's called the Intelligence Emerging Threats and Capabilities. It handles all of special operations forces, large portions of the intelligence portfolio as well as the name implies, as well as science and technology, emerging technologies, a good amount of combating weapons of mass destruction, which has a heavy SOCOM role. The Senate companion is the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, ETC, and that

portfolio over there for that subcommittee is essentially the same. So going back to the role of ASD Solick and that principal there filling that position, it's an incredibly important position to maintain a relationship with the chair and ranking of those subcommittees and to sort of have those policy service secretary-like conversations, difficult conversations that need to be had, and frank conversations. A lot of times, not just external and overseas, but can be internal inside the building in the Pentagon, as well as some of the policy debates that are happening in D.C. But in essence, what was prompting a lot of questions from policymakers on the defense committees was a lot of the gray area, a lot of the undefined space,

separate and removed from the kinetic and the direct action pieces that were really a lot harder to define from the way the Pentagon was looking at these things, but also the questions that policymakers had. It was a lot easier, as difficult as it is in the major war zones, it's a lot easier to understand the role of the military there. But outside of that, including, as Mark mentioned, Libya and Benghazi and other challenges, even first in East Africa, but spreading across the continent into West Africa as those challenges were coming about, that gray area, that was difficult to get an understanding of as far as operations and activities below the threshold. Was that difficult because there just wasn't enough time in the day to get to it or it's just difficult to access the information when you're on the Hill?

Yeah, it's a great question. And to be honest, I think it's a little bit of both from the Hill perspective. You know, you are you are spread very thin as staff and members are, you know, in essence, serving in a chief executive role. They have many, many roles and responsibilities of which their time on a defense committee is limited. And we have to, as staff, be extremely conscious of using their time very precisely. So to do and get more access to current operations and information, there was a, you know, structure that was put in place to mandate and make law on a monthly basis, first on a quarterly basis, but then on a monthly basis, counterterrorism and related activities that briefs would be given to the congressional defense committees. And the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict played a major part in that,

literally as the principal briefer, the principal advisor, frankly, to members on current operations, on operational challenges, on resources, so that members could get a continuous and have a continuous dialogue on understanding those risks that our servicemen and women were in and are in every day on a daily basis overseas. Does that mean that the ASD SOLIC has the ability to kind of also choose the priorities that he or she wants to present to Congress? Or is it kind of mandated? We want information on this and this and that? So it is a broad mandate, but frankly, it's a dialogue. These are closed briefings. They're closed for obviously the classified reasons, but they're also closed because it needs to be a frank discussion. And there generally is a loose outline, a country by country outline, if you will. But, you know, these are frank conversations and the members can ask hard questions and have frankly asked

hard questions and, you know, related to authorities, related to interagency pieces, related to risk, related to as well, even different technologies that are helping or not helping. So that as they work on other areas across the defense policy space, they can help accelerate acquisition authorities, for example. It's a constant dialogue, members and Congress, you know, Congress doesn't do current operations per se,

but they absolutely have to stay fully and currently informed as the phrase is on the ongoing risks and the challenges. And frankly, Mark played a large role in educating members on those challenges and the risks and previous SOLEX and the frameworks that were put in place for those sensitive military activities, including irregular warfare now as well, moving forward. Maybe after the conversation, you could tell us some stories about times when Mark didn't do so well under the hard questions. You might need a whole year's worth of

podcast for that. Few and far between. Mark's a modest man, as you know, and he, you know, in so many closed meetings, and I'm not kidding, advanced and looked after soft equities, but also, you know, did members right in terms of giving them honest and frank opinions and assessments. And he, as well as his staff. Thank you, Pete. I would echo what Pete said about, you know, it is a dialogue because there's really so much out there. And I don't think most Americans really appreciate how limited the time is for our elected representatives on the Hill. You know, most members have multiple committee assignments. I hesitate to say this, but I think it's even worse on the Senate side because there's so few people and their staffs are working lots of things.

And you've got a group of people that have diverse interests and you're in this, you've only got maybe 90 minutes, two hours, which is a tremendous amount of time for them to discuss all of these various issues and try and get in. I would be remiss in not pointing out that we do this in conjunction with the joint staff so when we would do these monthly updates the solic rep would talk about the the big policy picture and the kind of strategic objectives and maybe the authorities and then the joint staff would give more detailed information again you're not getting into current ops you're just there's just not that much time

and i have a i have a um a saying that i got from one of my good friends kevin leahy current operations makes you stupid if all you're doing is looking at what happened in the last you know the last 24 next 24 hours you're you're never going to be prepared for what's coming down the pike. And so that's the balance and trying to assuage. And of course, in a crisis, Pete and I lived through not only the Benghazi crisis, but also the Niger crisis. I was actually going to ask about the Niger crisis. It seems like when it happened, when four American soldiers were killed in an ambush,

Congress and the media paid a lot of attention. And at the same time, some news reports made it seem like Congress had no idea U.S. Special Operations personnel were in Niger before it happened. I'm curious how this played out from your perspectives and why Niger became such a big issue for Congress when many other events do not. Yeah, I'll let you go first. Yeah, I can start, Mark, and then feel free to add on. I mean, so that was a very challenging, I mean, tragic incident, obviously,

but very challenging as well. You know, I can speak from the House Committee on Armed Services, and our members had a good understanding of the baseline authorities and missions and operations. From the vantage point of what I was saying about before, you know, these military activities are below purposely the headlines, but also below the threshold of war. So in some ways, they are also not on the forefront of policymakers' minds on a continual daily basis. So when you bring up a country in a remote area, and it doesn't necessarily trigger memories right away because, again, members of Congress are very, very busy, spread very thin, and a briefing that they received a month and a half or two months ago may not literally be on the front of their mind because of all the other issues.

ago may not literally be on the front of their mind because of all the other issues. But that said, I mean, the frameworks of the monthlies and the quarterlies had, you know, defined enough, at least for our membership, of a baseline understanding of those types of activities, not just for Niger, but in general across the continent of what our special operations forces and other forces were doing, the missions that they were actively engaged in. It held the attention for so long because it shifted to, in large part, a big policy discussion on what really are we doing there. Providing security and stability is obviously important. Special Operations Forces can do that for all the advantages that they bring to the table, namely a very small limited footprint with big strategic impact and helping secure and keep a region stabilized, let alone deny safe haven to actors that can eventually disrupt the region,

but then also potentially project into our allies through Europe, potentially disrupt CONUS issues here in the United States. The members that I worked with that focused on national security definitely understood the reason to stay, and that was across the aisle. Did it trigger a debate? Absolutely. You know, these things always do, and the loss of life does that. And that's what the tragic part of, you know, reminding everyone of how risky these operations are. Yeah, you know, I think there was also a couple other complicating factors. First of all, because this is not like widely advertised, even though our presence in Niger was at least noted in the President's War Powers Act notifications, going back to the Obama administration every six months,

saying, hey, we have forces, and this is a public unclassified notification of Congress, we have forces in these countries that are equipped for combat operations. But the media doesn't pay much attention to it. As Pete said, the members are very busy. The staff, the professional staff, they know this. But the other factor is it's not simply the defense committees.

You also have the appropriation committees on defense and also a certain involvement of the intelligence committees. And they may not be as well aware. Members see stuff in the media, and it's not put in context. For example, the fact that our presence in Niger is not simply limited to our objectives within the borders of Niger. It's part of a broader regional strategy. it says, why are Americans dying in Niger? And it casts the question in such a way that it's difficult to answer. I think the other piece too, is that what for most people would seem arcane, but inside the beltway is tremendously important. And that's the issue of authorities. What does the law say that we can do and who is actually doing it. And sometimes in a country like Niger, you've got people there that are operating under different authorities. Some are fiscal authorities, some are operational authorities. They come with different guidance restrictions. And in the case

of this tragic deaths in Niger, there was a lot of confusion over exactly what authorities and also how organizations operating under different authorities can interact. Is the AST Solic kind of one of the point people when lobbying for changes in authorities with Congress, or is that coming through another organization in the government? Yeah, for SOF, for authorities that affect SOF, absolutely. ASD SULIC is involved, putting in legislative proposals, working with our counterparts on the Hill to craft appropriate language that's going to get through the NDA process and get written into law. It'd be great to gain an understanding of how either authorities are expanded or even created. In terms of expansion, one of the things that I've been

thinking about is the expansion of global training and equip authorities 1206 to build partner nation capacity authorities under section 333. How does that all happen? You want me to start, Mark, and then... Sure, sure. Something like it's completely wazoo for us at the tactical and operational level. Nick, you brought up 333 and that unique authority that's been in place now for probably the better part of two or three years, at least, if not a little bit longer. I mean, that really, what that was all about was consolidating the proliferation of building partner capacity authorities that really happened, frankly, post-2002 timeframe all the way up through 2015, 2016, when that was being considered. You had a proliferation of upwards of a dozen or more different authorities that

not just special operations forces, but other servicemen and women were using in conjunction with the State Department, as Mark said, to build partner capacity in Iraq, Afghanistan, elsewhere as programs expanded, as authorities morphed. There was a whole menu of different authorities, a patchwork of confusion that really was ripe for consolidation, but also simplification. And you had 333 discussed in a multi-year effort really between DOD and Capitol Hill, not just the defense committees, but also, I should say, not just the authorizing committees, but also with the appropriators and the foreign affairs committees as well, because the State Department with their role and these so-called dual key authorities where you needed Secretary of Defense

and Secretary of State approval to spend dollars for stability, reconstruction, stabilization, a whole slew of different things at that state and at that local level. 333 was really about consolidating the U.S. code and the authorities so that it would simplify practitioners. Whether or not it's worked, it's debatable. There are still some slow impediments. Obviously, you are still having to work through bureaucracies. I remember it from, you know, wearing the uniform, but also even serving in the State Department as a civilian where I had budgets and people and was trying to execute overseas on the challenges associated with all of that. I think the Excel spreadsheet has 50 tabs. 49, 51. There you go. Pete touched on a

really important piece of like these dual key authorities. And what I think it's important for a lot of your listeners to realize is that none of the departments or agencies are monoliths. And there could be just like in DOD, you can have a great deal of difference between the opinions at the tactical level and those in the you know the pentagon and the e-ring same thing at the state department one of the big fights that we had on several of these authorities was do we need to get the secretary of state's approval or will the ambassador's approval do and of course main state wants wants a secretary to say it. And the interplay at a couple points, I know there was discussion of the foreign affairs committees of preventing the ambassadors from approving it, which would kind of force it down to foggy bottom.

Yeah. So Nick and I talk about this all the time where I think there's a perception at the tactical levels that there's not a lot of flexibility when trying to design programs with partner forces or in specific countries. And we wonder, we have honest debates, is that a good thing or a bad thing? We see kind of pros for it taking a long time and we see also cons for it taking a long time for the process. So I wonder if you have kind of insight on that. I think there should be some room for some, what I would like to call entrepreneurship at the lower levels, but it has to translate into some sort of institutionalization. One of our former USOC commanders, SOC 10 commander Charlie Cleveland, used to refer to some of our BPC efforts as random acts of touching. There was no real coherent approach

to it. And we want to be good stewards of the taxpayer's money. So you want to ensure that whatever you're building is going to last. So it's a double-edged sword. You want some flexibility, but you also don't want people wasting taxpayers' money, or in some cases, enabling parts of a host nation security or defense apparatus that may have ulterior motives. And that's why the vote and the input from the Hill and from the State Department and from, you know, the intelligence community can be really important. So a large part of it from that congressional piece, like Mark said, you know, as these things would come to Capitol Hill for approval, literally, I mean, a lot of the questions from the defense committees would be,

how is this aligned with the country team's objectives? How is this sustainable? What does this look like three to five years from now? If we're developing this host nation's capability, how is that advancing our national interests, including even potentially us having to provide less U.S. forces, less resources, because now we've helped them solve their problem. And those seed program dollars, those other capabilities that we've helped them solve their problem and those seed program dollars those other capabilities that we've given them have empowered them to handle their issues and their problems on their own and that's aligned with with our interests even if it includes making them potentially a more lethal force and if that's the case then how are we ensuring they're going to

use that in a judgment you know and use that with judgment and use it in accordance with with our rules and our, you know, agreed law of armed conflict and everything else associated with that as you get closer? Yeah, I wonder if based on what you're describing, the fundamental tension between some of our tactical level people who are engaging with partner forces and Congress and other levels of oversight is at the tactical level, you're just focused on how you can get access to the partner and build rapport. But based on what you described, Pete, at the congressional level, you're looking three to five years down the road and being a steward of both taxpayer dollars and then an actual sustainable partnership. At least three to five years. That doesn't make it any less frustrating for the guys at the tactical level. But I'll tell you though, understanding, to be very honest, Kyle, understanding those challenges at that tactical level is a large part of what professional staff does and travels out and about to see and to hear about those headaches. Best programs are those implemented by people closest to the problem,

you know, and you want to make sure as that goes through and it's crafted and as, you know, the no sayers along the way are still sort of blocked off. You still want to make sure that that is a problem. I always thought it was just tourism. That's what I thought too.

Sponsored tourism. I got to hand it to our to our congressional staffers because for some of your military listeners who may have been through one of the training center rotations, the observer controllers, they always seem to be able to find the one guy that doesn't know what the mission was. guy that doesn't know what the mission was. Yeah, the congressional staffers, when they go out, always find that one guy who tells them something that nobody else wanted them to know. But it's good, because sometimes the only way to understand

is by being there in person. And you guys, we all know that from a military perspective, the longer you're on the ground, the greater your appreciation is for all the nuances of what you're doing. Just to take a step back and highlight Section 922 of the 2017 NDAA. As I understand it, that was to empower the ASD SOLIC and sort of, I guess, restructure the interactions between Special Operations Command and ASD SOLIC. Is that right? Am I sort of characterizing that properly? Yeah. I mean, Nick, that's a great summary. I mean, that's a large part of it. It really was to take the codified, that is the law, of how the ASD was described and to make it administratively stronger, to strengthen the administrative chain of command, if you will, and provide that ASD with service secretary-like authorities, not just for inside the building, but also to strengthen and enhance, frankly, the relationship with the SOCOM commander as well. And so much of that was really geared towards providing a more robust civilian oversight framework to match and to complement the larger force that was there.

You had essentially pre-9-11 SOCOM budgets that were hovering about a billion dollars, expanding upwards between 17 and 2018 timeframes upwards of $13 billion, and the explosion of the size of the force plus the continued employment of the force. And 922 is really all about updating, modernizing, and restructuring the statutory authorities for that sole position to, as I said, really empower that position, serve as secretary like authorities, and complement as well other aspects of what that position is all about as well. A lot changed since 1987 when SOCOM and SOLIC were created. Over the intervening now 33 years, but really since 9-11, SOCOM has grown tremendously, not only in terms of budget and personnel, but in terms of its importance and its role in our nation's security.

It may be hard for a lot of people to see, but all these additional authorities that the Special Operations Committee has been granted. And the reality is that ASD Solic was kind of frozen in time and actually maybe even going backwards. As I mentioned earlier, during parts of the Obama administration, there was such a focus on actual daily CT high value target operations that the part of Solic dedicated to working working on the SOCOM budget had gone from like 26 people in 2001 down to two people in like 2016. The reality is DOD is a different place. The bureaucracy is different. ASDs don't have access to the secretary typically, whereas the four-star combatant commanders do. So we have an imbalance between the civilian and military leadership. And the truth of the matter is, is that the SOCOM commander rarely, if ever, is actually fulfilling a combatant commander

role in terms of operations. And about 90 plus percent of the stuff they do on a daily basis is banter and equip organized. So if I understand correctly, then your concern is that there's not enough civilian oversight over SOCOM right now and that's having negative implications for the force. I think that's true. And we go to a lot of detail about other areas, but the simplest one is the budget. For the last 19 years, the SOCOM budget's been going up. SOCOM has gotten

unprecedented for structure growth and authorities. They've been the bell of the ball for the last 20 years, but that's not always going to be the case. And SOCOM's looking at budget decreases, and I think it's only going to get worse next year post-COVID-19, irrespective of who wins the presidential election or anything else, I think all of our elected representatives are going to have to grapple with the aftermath of that. And SOCOM's going to have to make, there's going to have to be tough decisions made for the soft enterprise. And to paraphrase somebody, those decisions are too important to be left to the generals. From the congressional perspective, you know, a large part of this was also ensuring a voice for the national strategy and a civilian voice. When you think about what we talked a little bit about earlier, but what the next 10 to 15 to 20 years look like. The way I have always looked at this,

you know, as we strengthened the ASD SOLIC and 922, none of this was ever, you know, designed to be zero sum with the SOCOM commander or anything else. These are strong partnerships when you have four stars and strong civilian leadership being and, you know, driving conversations of strategic national importance out decades ahead. Given your experiences in Congress and the Department of Defense, I'd love to hear your thoughts on how irregular warfare is viewed today in the context of other potentially competing national security priorities. Yeah, I mean, from the congressional perspective, I'll tell you, it is not necessarily an afterthought, but it is not on everyone's

minds front and center. It is a misunderstood challenge to a certain extent, number one. I think part of that is the department hasn't necessarily defined what they want irregular warfare to be for the next five to 10 years. You can make slim connections to the national defense strategies, and you can talk about 1202 unconventional irregular warfare authorities that allow special operations to partner with irregulars and surrogates, you know, to counter Russia threats, to counter other nation state specific threats. But just the same way, it's a tough problem set to define in uniform and for civilians in the Pentagon. It's a very tough, you know, policy and program problem set for the defense committees to understand, for policymakers to understand, even the intelligence committees, they play a big role in this because again, below the threshold of war, there are other things happening that need to be understood and coordinated. And they get a say in that. Yeah. You know, having lived through the drafting and publication of the Irregular Warfare Annex, which was a priority for Secretary Mattis,

the idea of great power competition, frankly, became kind of an empty vessel for each of the services to pour their own meaning into. You know, for the Air Force, it meant more F-35 squadrons. For the Navy, it meant more ships and carriers. For the Army, more BCTs and long range missiles. So I would even take it a step larger. You know, Pete said that the definition of irregular warfare, I would even go a step further to say we really haven't fully understood what the role of the Department of Defense is within great power competition. In some ways, we are prisoners of our Cold War experience and the 1947 National Security Act that created our current structure.

For better or worse, I think for better, the United States government doesn't have the same authorities as the Communist Chinese Party. And we're a democracy and we live by different standards, but there's a threat that's posed by that. And we need to figure out, are we organized properly? Are authorities divvied up? Who's the best? Which is the best organization? Or are there hybrids or new visions? Because China is a serious threat.

because China is a serious threat. You know, there could be disagreement about the timeline and whether they can achieve it or not, but I don't think there can be any real disagreement about their intentions. And that's what we need to focus on. I will tell you, when we first drafted the Irregular Warfare Annex, the response of a senior official who won't be named, and it wasn't Secretary Mattis because he told us to do it, was, why do we need this? We're not doing irregular warfare anymore. That's Iraq and Afghanistan. We're focusing on China now.

And I was like, not this person in general. You're not mentally equipped to fight this war. You know, they don't understand. Definitely appreciate you sharing that perspective. I think we have time for one more question. And in light of mentally equipping for the next fight, since both of you have experience in the military as a practitioner and also this extensive policymaking experience, what type of advice would you give yourself if you could go back as you were a practitioner?

It's hard, but it goes back to my statement earlier about current operations make you stupid. And if you don't find time to step back from your daily grind, and this is hard, I know it's hard, particularly in the special operations community where people are, you know, you go on a deployment, you come back, you recover, and you go again. To the degree that you can learn about, educate yourself, develop relationships with mentors who served in that environment, you got to understand the operational environment within the beltway. There's a, you know, we have a, we have a real significant cultural bias again, in the special operations community against service inside the beltway.

You know, there's a perception that you're just kind of screwing off and you're, you're leading the easy life. But the reality is, is it's tough environment and you're engaged every day. So I would encourage your listeners, whether civilians, military personnel, seek an opportunity to serve in DC, whether it's in the Pentagon,

especially on the Hill as like a military legislative assistant or in a legislative affairs shop or in the interagency. So you begin to understand the complexity of the environment that we operate in up here because it will help you not only understand the tactical level better, but explain it to your soldiers, sailors, airmen, marine, and identify potential obstacles and solutions. Yeah, I mean, that's a great answer, Mark. Looking back on those days, I thought I understood things in terms of the larger picture, but I really didn't. And it made me understand how important it was now, looking back, to really understand how decisions are made laterally in terms of what you're doing and who is contributing to the larger mission, because you will impact them as those waves circle outward, but then also understand and learn about how decisions are made further upstream from you up to literally that sec def

or beyond level, because that will help you understand the pressures that they're under and then how you can contribute to accomplishing the mission or equally as important, avoiding failure in so many different ways. And that's hard. It's hard to, you know, especially if you are working in ambiguous environments with limited guidance. In some ways, those are good challenges, but it's also as you try to learn and understand second, third order effects of what you're doing in an ambiguous environment, it's difficult. And then, of course, the most important thing that one of my earlier commanders and mentors always said was always have fun. Don't forget to have fun as you're doing it, because that'll keep you smart and sharp as you're going through the different. Appreciate it, gentlemen. This has been a fantastic discussion. It's my pleasure. These are great discussions, and I thank you guys for a wonderful podcast. Really, thank you, Noam, for the invitation.

Thanks for letting us participate. Great dialogue, great conversation. I think podcasting the initiative and what you're doing, specifically for practitioners as well, I think it's an important platform. So congratulations to the both of you for doing this. Thanks again for listening to episode four of the Irregular Warfare podcast. On the Modern War Institute's Irregular Warfare website, you can find a link to an article Mark co-authored with Zach Griffiths and Cole Livieratos at War on the Rocks, where they argue for increased civilian oversight of SOCOM. We release a new episode every two weeks.

Up next, Nick and I discuss how armed rebel groups manage human resources in Syria with Dr. Daniel Milton from West Point's Combating Terrorism Center and Dr. Vera Miranova, who interviewed over 600 Syrian fighters and civilians on the front line in the Syrian civil war. After that, Shauna and I have a conversation with Ambassador Alexander Lascaris and Dr. Ellie Berman about whether the U.S. and its allies can influence proxies in North and West Africa. Please be sure to subscribe to the Irregular Warfare podcast so you don't miss an episode. You can also connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn to start a conversation about past or future episodes that we have lined up.

And one last note. What you heard in this episode are the views of the participants and don't represent those of West Point, the Army, or any other agency of the U.S. government. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time. you