School of War - Ep 271: Geoff Ball on the Future of America’s Infantry

Episode Date: February 3, 2026

Geoff Ball, U.S. Marine Corps infantry officer, staff director for the Naval Academy’s Leadership Education and Development Division and Executive Editor of The Connecting File, joins the show to discuss the radical changes and surprising continuities in how America’s grunts will fight. ▪️ Times 02:25 The Connecting File 06:22 How is the infantry doing? 14:10 Companies of the future 23:22 Information and trust  29:57 Innovative spirit 33:30 Light Armored Recon  39:05 Drone battalions 42:24 Learning the right lessons from Ukraine Follow along on Instagram, X @schoolofwarpod, and YouTube @SchoolofWarPodcast Find more content on our School of War Substack

Today, we are going to talk about what the crazy future-is-now battlefields of the Middle East and especially of Ukraine mean for that oldest of military forms of power, the infantry. To do so, I've brought back one of the most impressive young American infantry officers I've spoken with in recent years, Jeff Ball of the U.S. Marine Corps. He also happens to be the company commander who was standing post at the Abbey Gate in Kabul in 2021 during the attack there, and he came on School of War Lerl. last year for one of the most incredible conversations we've ever recorded, episode 225. And you should check that one out if you haven't already.

But today, we're going to talk about the business of America's infantry, the grunts in the trenches, and how they are planning to adjust to this sci-fi world of drones, electronic warfare, and more. Let's get into it. It is the for war. This is the Lockheon invasion of the wave. December 7, 1921, a date which will live. In him, a bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a state. We continue to face the rain, the situation in France.

We should fight on the beaches, we're just on the landing ground, we shall fight in the fields and in those streets, which will never surrender. Hi, I'm Aaron McLean. Thanks for joining in School of War. I am delighted to welcome back to the show today. Jeff Ball, major in the United States Marine Corps.

He was the commander of Company G, 2nd Battalion First Marines. He now teaches at the Naval Academy where he is the leadership, education, and development division staff director. Jeff, thank you so much for coming back on School of War. Aaron, thanks so much for having me back. Awesome to be back on your show. So thank you. Mainly today we're going to talk about the infantry, about the sort of cutting edge of infantry practice, about this outstanding substack that you founded and helped run called The Connecting Five.

This is kind of a redo, isn't it? You were on the show last year, an amazing episode that everyone should go listen to, which we talked about your experiences being in Kabul, during the fall of Kabul there. And we won't go back through any of that now, but people should go back and check that episode out from 2025. But we had planned on having this conversation

as part of that recording, and then obviously the Afghanistan stuff kind of understandably got away from us. So I'm delighted to be able to go through it all again with you today. Yeah, I know. Obviously talking about that operation kind of sucks all the air out the room a little bit there. It's, you know, for what we were going to talk about with the, with the connecting file, I was very fortunate to have an opportunity with a close friend that I've served with my whole career in the Marine Corps. It's created something that I, that I hope,

and I think is helping the Marine Corps infantry right now at an interesting time for us, which is we're working through force design, which has been in the news over the years as we reconfigure and redesign our force for a future fight, which is never easy to do. It takes a take some courage to go down that road, but it's absolutely needed. And we've got a, we've got a platform that we've created that gives voice to the more of the tactical edge of the Marine Corps. And that was kind of our starting point is, why don't we have something that's allowing company commanders to talk to company commanders directly about the challenges they're facing, what their units are going through, and how we can learn from one another. So that was,

That was kind of the impetus for that. I was reading a book by Ian Brown called The New Conception of War. He talks about John Boyd and how him and the Marine Corps found each other, but specifically how then I think Captain John Boyd had this fighter tactics newsletter where he shared lessons learned amongst other pilots in the community as they solved, as they solved problems. It was just kind of like, why don't we have that? So what started is a newsletter in PDF version.

fairly janky emailed out once a month with some articles we collect. Captain to Captain is grown over time to be more about the rifle company, reconnaissance company, light armored reconnaissance company as a whole. And the lessons that we can share from the squad level, the platoon of the company and touch on the battalion these days as well. But it's been a lot of fun. It's been a blast to do and to hear from the community. And it's less us riding and more everyone else.

We're just this platform that we give others a voice to help solve problems we're facing. It's going to grow up with you when you guys are all generals one day. It's going to be about like the defense industrial base and grand strategy and how to survive on Capitol Hill, you know. It's, it'll be its own natural evolution. I wrote down Ian Brown. I actually have not read that book. So I'm going to check that out. That's cool.

Fantastic. Probably one of the most important books written about the Marine Corps in the last several years. I'd recommend every Marine to read that one. Let me toss a really big picture question at you, which I think then, that will allow us to zoom back in on some of the stuff that's appeared in the connecting file over the years. But in a way, it's kind of everything that we're talking about, which is here we are. It's January of 26.

We've been watching the war. The wars elsewhere in the world, obviously a lot of fighting it around Israel and other places, but from an infantry perspective, there's really no substitute to paying close attention to what's been going on in Ukraine. And the role in which, you know, we can just list things that are sort of distinctive about that fight compared to fights of the past, reading the role of electronic warfare, of unmanned systems, of software, coordinating everything,

like the future is now in Ukraine. How are we? And you, you know, Jeff, feel free to define we any way you want. It can be the infantry, the Marine Corps. Just pick your category. How are we doing in terms of learning lessons from what we can all kind of watch on YouTube and, you know, telegram and social media and everything?

and applying those lessons to our own infantry practice so that we are prepared for the next time the call comes for us. I think from my own personal perspective on this as an individual here, I think we're doing pretty well. And where I think we are doing, we're doing the strongest here is we're paying attention. We're watching, I think there are a lot of infantry officers and infantry unit leaders out there that are doing their best to experiment.

share those ideas and utilize some of the means of social media to get those across. So we obviously use substack and we share lessons learned pretty quickly. And we turn around articles at a fast clip. But there's been some junior Marines. I've done really phenomenal work on Instagram, some on substack as well, to get small lessons learned out to other Marines. And that's all just been organic to, it just kind of occurred naturally amongst these, to these infantrymen. And I think that's, that is awesome and something to pay attention to.

Like the institution, we, we've got to grind out force design at this point. We are, we are committed to the changes that are going on. There's obviously refinement that goes on through what we call the campaign of learning. But we're at a point now where we need to, we've got primarily the task organization and generally the table of equipment that we're going to use. And we now need to figure out how to how to do this appropriately. So I think a lot of units are doing this on their own well. And I think we'll probably talk about third LAR here in a bit with some of the recent articles that they've done. But for the rest of us, I'm seeing it happen. I see we've got the Marine Corps drone attack team, which is knocking down some barriers and going

about things in a creative way. The basic school is a institution that is constantly evolving, which I think is a strength. Even as we return to things we maybe have done years ago, The overall, the units out there, I think we've got a lot of young creative leaders that are pushing forward. Also highlights some midshipment at the Naval Academy. And the Naval Academy drone team is, I think, probably the most effective drone team that we have in the Department of Defense right now. And they have been going everywhere working with Socom, the Marine Corps. I believe this summer they're going to fly out to Japan demonstrating the tactics that they've developed. So eventually, and if we're doing our job at the Naval Academy,

me right of recruiting them to be Marines. We'll grab them up and we'll all be better for having them in a green uniform, not to spite our friends in blue uniforms. So I am excited about all of that. I think when it comes to where frustration shows up about the institution changing itself, we look at Ukraine and Israel and the speed of which some things have evolved there. When you have an existential threat, that is a active threat, that's obviously going to drive change faster. than otherwise, right? We're at a massive growth phase within the DOD and our industrial base, and we're talking about it, and there's awareness,

and we haven't waited to a second Pearl Harbor, if you will. We're working on now, but it's going to be hard. It's going to take some patience. But that's one of the things I'm excited about with the connecting file that started up last year going into this year is that we are riding the wave of breaking down some barriers between industry and the warfighter. And by emphasizing the company level or platoon level in the time as well, TTPs are the challenges that are being faced, that's perspective for industry to learn from.

And then we've had more family Marines who are in the industry now, write some articles at an educational level informing us about the emerging technology that we need to better appreciate. So I think we're doing pretty well. We could always, we could always do better. And I think you're going to see some stuff coming out here in the near future about how we're having some really healthy conversations about drones and what they're what they're doing to our formations and spend some experimentation this week. I won't be the one to spoil it, but that will be really interesting to watch, which is a good sign. And I should have mentioned you were an instructor at the basic school earlier in your career. So you have experience of sort of helping manage this training establishment that we have where we sort of establish in the schoolhouse the standard.

tactics or at least convey in the school or schoolhouse and experiment the standard tactics and techniques and procedures that we're going to ask our young officers to actually use that there. It's funny. I learned a lot at the basic school, Jeff, but the lesson that has actually stuck with me the most is I remember very early on going through some kind of creek during a field exercise, and that night it got really cold and I left my boots outside of my bag. And I woke up the next morning to the experience of having to put on boots that were frozen solid. and that lesson for some reason has stuck with me. That one seared, seared into my consciousness.

So you can learn all kinds of things there in the woods of Quantica. It gets spiritual out there. You know, as we say, when you go to Landav, you're going to find yourself or you're going to find a box. Or Interstate 95, this is usually a good sign that you're not in the right place. So now we'll start to focus back in. We'll come to some of these individual articles. But you mentioned force design, you know,

alluding to this evolution and the structure of the Marine Corps itself in the way that it's task organized. And we'll try to, you know, we have a listenership that's pretty, pretty savvy about military affairs, but, you know, not all of them are infantrymen. So we'll try to keep things as general as we can here as we're describing stuff. But, you know, you read about, again, the things we were talking about earlier. So EW, electronic warfare, unmanned systems, all this stuff in Ukraine. And you see how the Ukrainians are thinking about task organization where they have like,

you know, unmanned systems battalions, you know, and things like that. How far, it seems to me. logical that all these capabilities and in a way this this article by the team at the third light armored reconnaissance battalion kind of points to this all these capabilities you're going to want them push down to a much lower level than has typically been the case in the marine corps i don't even know i guess electronic warfare traditionally has lived in the there's a it's like a battalion level that belongs to the division radio battalion i believe radio battalion that's right and so that's like a division level asset but it seems to me with the kind of disparate

version on the battlefield and just how essential this information is and capability is to living or dying these days. And we can talk a bit about why that is. I mean, I could imagine as a company commander wanting to have assets available to me, you know, at a minimum, not to speak of, you know, unmanned systems. Like one of the, one of really interesting articles that has appeared in Connecting File over the years was this article on just how hard it is to fix the enemy. I just say like to stick them in one place before we destroy them and how we don't really train to that. Stationary targets don't actually do a good job of teaching Marines, how that works when they're doing live fire training. It was really interesting,

but it sort of focused on how much this guy used 60 millimeter mortars is sort of a solution to the problem saying, well, gosh, in 2026, you know, I guess mortars, I'm sure mortars are still relevant in some ways and we can talk about that, but like what I'd really like to have are my own drones. And I would like to have, you know, at the platoon level, maybe the squad level.

Like, I want kids who can fly them, who know how to use them, who know how to be creative with them. Like, those are the tools of 2026. So how is the, what is the infantry, Let's stay with companies because this is still, this connecting file is kind of a company commanders club. Like, what is the shape of the Marine Corps company that's coming into focus right now?

What's the actual state of play and, you know, what's your commentary on it? So we've gone through a round of experimentation, infantry, battalion experiments, IVX, battalions, what we've been calling them. And that's looked at some different task organizations and tables of equipment. And depending on your deployment, and obviously some things are different if you're in going to go to a UDP or a new deployment program in Japan, vice you're going to go be the BLT on the Mew or a special purpose MACTAF. And that's going to shape your TEO and T.E a little bit. So I'm just going to, I'm just going to pause you because there was a blizzard, a blizzard of

acronyms. So basically you're saying it's, it's going to be different if you deploy versus if you go on a ship and that's going to affect what equipment you take and how you organize yourself. You know, that routine, we're like President Obama's translator. and you're like, I'm going to be the Jeff Ball translator. That's a failure. It's someone who's thought on six years of entry-level training, I should know better than be thrown out of that. So that's a fail.

So ultimately, I think the takeaway is this. Our units are still task organizing for the mission. And depending on what that mission is, is how it is that they're going to be built out, coupled with maybe some other needs of the Marine Corps and where they're going to allocate resources. So the overall look of the infantry battalion is still generally the same. It is slimmed down from where it was pre-forced design.

There's fewer vehicles. We won't go into all the details of it. But I think getting back to your point on drones is that there is flexibility amongst the divisions to field, test, and purchase drones as they see fit. They have money available to do that. So that is leading to some level of experimentation that's, you know, we're on. all going to learn from each other on there. One of the things that we've got to we've got to watch for, and I think this also goes back to your comment about learning at the basic school. The basic school

is an incredible place to go learn, but one of the most important things you have to learn walking away from there is that you have so much more to learn once you leave. One of the best parts about being the infantryman is the challenge, the physical mental moral challenge, and everything that you have to know. And even just on the technical, sign side of war fighting, from radios to weapons to fires, employment, it is a lot. So we need to keep that in mind as we look at the new capabilities that are coming out. Fully agree that a rifle platoon commander needs to understand what we've always known, circus danger zones, what are the effects of my weapon system?

We also need to understand signal danger zone of like when I key my radio, what does that, what does that mean? When the enemy keys their radio, what does that mean? And we need to be just as savvy as both. So when it comes to signals intelligence and electronic warfare, SIEW, that is not necessarily something that we need to become experts in. That is something, that's a capability that we need to understand how to employ, but we need a specific MOS out there doing that. Now, the challenge that then happens that I think some of the IBX units that run into is you've given me this capability, but I actually, do I actually have the authorities and the permissions to now use that technology? And just like we have problems with classification and working with partners, we have some

problems internal to our own forces of when can I use this capability that I have? It's just because the new commander or the Marine Expeditioner unit commander has a cyber capability, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they can conduct certain actions without the approval of three, four star head of the NSA. So that's one part of the experimentation is where does the level of trust really extend to on some of these capabilities. Coupling that with I can't overload my Marines with tasks that I expect them to be on a range of proficient to mastery of.

I think kind of what we expect squad leaders to do today probably isn't too far off what we expected a rifle company commander to do in Vietnam. We really expect a lot of them and their technical capabilities and expertise on top of being young leaders trying to figure out how to manage and direct really. motivated well in tension, but sometimes with some questionable judgment, 18-year-olds like that in itself is a journey. So how it is that we find the balance with all that is going to be important. And I'm not someone who subscribes to every Marine, a drone operator. And that is going to be thrown out there by a lot of folks that I see where they're coming from. They're working really hard on

trying to solve this. But just because I messed with a drone for two weeks doesn't mean I'm relatively proficient or even useful with this, and nor can I even maintain that level of capability. And if so, I'm training on that and now not something else. A rifleman needs to do rifleman things. They need to be aware of how to integrate all arms, like combined arms for the infantry. I think especially when I came in and really up until recently, you get away with understanding 40 mic-mic grenades, small grenade launchers, and media machine guns, and like, that'll get you a lot. But now we like Ukraine and go just focusing on Ukraine here like we really need to do combined arms needs to be all arms. Like we need to employ all supporting arms and understand how those work across multiple domains, potentially simultaneously.

And that is how we're going to achieve what we call maneuver corridors for the infantry to go move and take ground, which we always have and probably always will. So that is today's challenge for for young lieutenants and captains that are out. out there and it's a fun well like that's that's a lot going on and that's why we got to keep our eyes open to what's happening around us yeah that's really interesting there's a lot of different directions we could go following that answer and of course i was just reading this long piece in the times of london about fighting the ukrainians have been doing up in the carqueve area and about essentially how they you know cut off this Russian infiltration into a city and and sort of been infiltrating themselves back in and bumping the russians off almost one by one it seems over

the course of several weeks and it's just to make the point striking you you you're You talked about how the Marine Corps, understandably being the Marine Corps, is still focused on how are we going to create the conditions for maneuver on a battlefield where it looks like maneuver is really, really hard. I mean, you got the Ukrainians and the Russians moving in one z's and twosies and two zes, you know, squad level may as well be like, you know, going over the top at the Somme. I mean, that's like a big deal, apparently. We wouldn't necessarily fight.

They have different capabilities and limitations than we do. So, you know, it's not like a one-to-one thing that everything that happens there is going to be what happens should Americans fight. But it is striking how hard maneuver it is. And it's kind of fascinating just how your answer immediately goes to the fact that you guys are just laser focused on how to restore maneuver. One question I want to ask based on everything you just said is this idea of the level of trust and where, you know, decision authority actually rests to, you know, use a cyber tool or whatever it is. And it's funny. I was looking at this cool new andrew old tech where it's like the fancy VR headset that the special operators can wear.

and I can see all this. It's kind of like what I take, you know, the F-35 helmet to kind of operate like where it's this cool integration of all kinds of sensor information and other kinds of information, but also, you know,

broadcast your own stuff out. So that theoretically the commander, I think it was Palmer Lucky was on a different podcast. It's always welcome on this one, if you'd like to come, but describing how cool this was and how all this stuff integrates

so the commander can kind of see everything. Like all that stuff is then integrated for the commander. And I thought, Jeff, you'll laugh at this. I think it's still the, is it still the same MCDP6, Marine Corps Dactrinal publication 6 on command and control? When I was a young officer, this publication started with this long vignette of basically how had a commander basically trying to over control his units and sort of dictate individual tactical actions from his perch in the headquarters and, you know, disaster and frustration ensued essentially.

And we as Marines always sort of value this notion that we were going to push trust down to the lowest level. Meanwhile, we have a battlefield where one of the upshots of all this technology, assuming you can actually use it because it's not going to get you blown up the moment you key it, is that the commander's going to have a better and better picture of what's going on out there in theory. And I remember watching Lucky talk about how cool that was. I sort of went. So I was like, gosh, I don't know if I really want the general to like see all of this. I think that's going to give the general some ideas. And sometimes it's good to let the captain have some ideas or the sergeant for that matter and not be micromanaged from hundreds of miles away. And I feel like

the temptation is going to be, going to be strong. So say more, if you would, about this ongoing negotiation of trust and where authority levels lies and this tension of all of a sudden there's all this information available to all sorts of people about stuff that, you know, previously you just get verbal reports and that's all you would know it higher about what's going on. How are we managing in the Marine Corps infantry that tension? Well, so, I mean, I think it's, that's always been kind of the question of leadership from when we move to close order tactics to open order tactics, right? like leadership books would have in the past been titled discipline books and how do I get my

rectangle to be better than your rectangles as we move on the on the battlefield right and then we get this thing called a rifle and now we can shoot further and we spread on out and now commanders are asking themselves who can I trust when can I trust them and how much can I trust them and that's that's really the question you're asking yourself is whether a lieutenant or a captain or general with all these questions of you know do I trust my squad leader or team leader or whoever. to go do this thing or do I need to do it. But what I think the, and then really the next, there's going to be a fourth question now for future leaders here.

Do I trust a human being or the machine more? And where does that relationship work with, you know, in the loop, on the loop, out of the loop? That's a whole other, you know, hour long conversation in itself. So with that, in terms of information, I think that's one component of the balancing act that has, to go on here. You know, as you as you brought up, I now have all of this information from all the sensors on a transparent battlefield. And, you know, now it's the question of how do I integrate all that

information and then do so in a way that's useful without like overloading my cognitive bandwidth as a human being. Like, it's awesome to have all this stuff. But can I really, like my brain hasn't really advanced. So depending on the limits of your working memory and cognitive bandwidth, you know, working between seven to 13 pieces of information. And so you can only take in so much. And that is, again, now am I going to outsource some of that to machines? Because the solution I don't think is to have bigger staffs to manage even more sensors and more information. Now you're an even larger target. And when the staff gets bigger than the unit actually doing the thing, well, there's problems with that as well as we've seen in the past. So that's,

that's a part of it is what information is actually useful for me as a commander in prioritizing that and then driving the information requirements. So the questions I'm asking my units to solve for me in order to make decisions. So I think good commit commanders are still going to be using information requirements appropriately. I need to answer this. I need to answer this. And if so, I think I can defeat the enemy. I think I know what I'll do. So go go figure this out. And that right there is, I don't know if it's that different from the things that we've had to deal with in the past. But good commanders are solving that one right there. But I think the other challenge is going to be just like we found our way into Venezuela.

Like we weren't actually invisible. Yeah. But we were able to influence a pretty strong maneuver corridor there across multiple domains at once. And as we look at pacing threats and capable adversaries and their abilities, we're also increasingly at risk of losing connection amongst units as we're spread out. In the past, we'd be able to maybe send a runner. Maybe they had to move a long way or drive to a higher headquarters. If we're fighting the Pacific Cross Islands, maybe I can row, row my boat over somewhere. But besides that, like, I'm probably going to need to be able to fight independently and potentially without a lot of information until, All of a squelch on the radio and I hear from someone.

And that is going to be very uncomfortable regardless of what level of leadership that you're at, that we are going to need to develop. Let's go back to the word trust again. Trust in ourselves to be able to handle that and have the determination we need to find a way to win when the lights are turned off or the con goes down or I can't talk for a long time. I was in an exercise as a company commander in 29 Palms. It's now integrated training exercise ITX. Used to be Mojavei Viper, KACs, depending on when you did it.

And my company had to go hide in the rocks. And I told them like, you're not coming down here until I call for you because there's all these things trying to find us right now. And I would send a runner and pass out word and eventually I had to pass orders that, hey, we're going to move to a different set of rocks and sit there. And that was obviously not well liked because it's, it's very warm. There's like snakes all around us. Like it just like this is a classic infantry.

job and it sucks. Sure enough, like my staff sergeants and platoon commanders, like got together, were upset about this, like march down to my CPE, I saw what was going on, I had some patience, didn't yell at them for disobeying the order. But this was a great discussion point afterwards. Hey, I told you to do something. You didn't do it. You didn't trust me in that moment. Well, we need to talk about this and figure out how do we get to that level of trust. Because we've talked about before at some point, I'm going to ask you to do something without a why. and I just need you to do it. So I think all those factors come on in of where commanders got to figure out between technology

and the absence of technology. How do they discern what information is important? What do they need to know? And then what do they need to push on down to their supporting leaders? One of the pieces in the connecting file that really caught my eye was this account by these Marines. You'll maybe say their names. I don't have them right in front of me here, unfortunately, but who built using stuff they got off Amazon, a grunt spectrum box, which is to say a,

tool by which they could monitor their own friendly emissions. So just at the other end of this, as you're pointing out, you know, the story of the future battlefield or today's battlefield is not necessarily one that's like completely saturated with signals because, of course, signals can get you killed. So you might also look at as a world in which it's a battlefield. It's actually very light on signals because you have to be very careful in the moment. It's like the old, you know, like accidentally lighting your cigarette at night on the ship going across North Atlantic. Well, that's all a U-boat needs to see you and sink you, right? So it's the same kind of idea. Talk a bit about this piece. And I just liked it because it had the sort of, it was very marine,

very American, you know, that you have these officers out. Clearly there's a, they see a real tactical need for this, for this capability. There's no off-the-shelf Marine Corps product providing it apparently. And so off they go and they just kind of figure it out and it costs a few hundred bucks. And they've got this thing that, or options at least, that sort of answer the mail. Talk about what, what this is and why it might be useful to the infantry and about the piece. Yeah. And that's, I think, one of my favorite articles. that we've we've ever done. And I think that emphasis, like, I think that just kind of represents the, the young officer entrepreneurial spirit and beyond just officer, like NCO officer, just

young Marie entrepreneurial, innovative spirit that we've, we've always had. Here's a couple lieutenants. They're tasked with figuring out counter UAS, if I remember correctly, counter UAS curriculum at the first Marine Division schoolhouse. Like, we just got to figure out solutions for all these problems we're seeing in Ukraine and elsewhere. And they go on Amazon and they start figuring out how they can analyze their own spectrum and do it in a box that can be taken to the field. And it's grunt proof because we're a little rough with our things. And they put it together and it's cheap. And most units would be able to afford this for a few hundred bucks.

It's understandable. Like you don't need to have much formal education to do this. And it kind of proliferate. And I think a bunch of units did it. And actually just this week I heard. from a former Marine who's working in Ukraine that the Ukrainians were passing around this article. This was being used over there by some by some folks, which I think is pretty cool. And probably a rare moment they're using our stuff and we're not just trying to steal their

ideas. And then an army unit picked it up as well. So that's that sort of innovation is awesome to see. And we run a platform where you can you can shoot us that with the instructions. and we turn it into something very practical and useful and they push it on out. We don't have word limits. You know, we just look for max effectiveness of your article. And sometimes it's just a series of detailed instructions and photos and something that lieutenant or sergeant can pick up somewhere and go use it tomorrow is kind of at the core of what it is that we do.

Another piece that caught my eye, we've referenced it a couple times now, is this LAR, light armored reconnaissance battalion, went out and did a bunch of, playing around with different kinds of drones and wrote up their experiences and, I mean, to really oversimplify what was a long and interesting piece, basically said, yeah, you need a mix of this stuff and you need to have the flexibility to use different things for different occasions and to have access to different kinds of unmanned tech because no one item kind of does everything that you wanted to do, which is kind of a non-marine corps, but certainly non-military way. You know, we like to buy a lot of the same thing and make sure everyone's, you know,

got one. And that doesn't seem to be, per the outcome of this piece and also sort of what we see again on Ukraine, that doesn't seem to actually be what's needed, like some diversity. And then obviously, as we know, once the fighting starts, some adaptability and some ability to turn through and try different kinds of things, because the battlefield's going to change literally week to week. How did that, why is that article appearing, you know, in a sort of, you know, startup, entrepreneurial substack? It's super cool. How did it, how did it come your way? it's sort of like an, it has the character almost of an official report that I would think almost every officer would want to read given, in the Marines, given the importance of the

experimentation they were doing. I think one of the reasons that some folks choose to, so agree, it is the work that LAR has, has published and very, very grateful they've chosen to write with us is stuff that I think should be wildly read in the Marine Corps. Summarize it real quick. It does a few things. One, they decided that they were going to build kind of their own organic FPV strike cell, like their own ability to fly drones, put warheads on them, and then go strike targets.

And LAR's mission for those unfamiliar is they're at the edge of the battle space, collecting information for the division or the Meph commander and figuring out what's going on. And they also have the capability because they're so far forward to identify and strike the enemy. They're not necessarily a force that is intended to directly engage with the enemy by screen and reconnoiter. So with them and the ability of the range that we can launch some of these drones now, it really extends our ability to sense on the battlefield with some organic capabilities. And they went about doing this in a really painstaking way, and they really cut new ground or cut a new path for the Marine Corps on this.

I've got a lot of support from different places, but engaged industry partners and worked with the Marine Corps drone attack team, some as well, but paved away on how do I actually go and procure these items, work contracts to work with the vendor to not only get the stuff that I need, but then train the forces that I've got to be able to employ them and build these reconnaissance and surveillance teams that can go out and use them. And then there's other things that come in with it too is the necessarily concealment items that you've got to buy to make sure your controllers are hidden. And they walk us through not only how you build the team to actually do the thing, but then the ecosystem, I think is the phrase they use also to fund, equip, repair,

replace for all the stuff that comes with us. And they've organized it over a series of articles. And in their final article, what they're kind of advocating for in this case is that, you know, not every drone does the exact same thing, depending on what it is you need it for and what it can do for you, we might want the ability to employ three to five, maybe more different types of FPV drones to conduct certain strikes depending on the environment and the adversary that we're facing. I think at this point, the Marine Corps purchased around 9,000 Nero's archers. And that's one of the drones that they've used extensively and they have a lot of wonderful things to say about it. But they're also bringing up that, well, these other,

these other drones work pretty well, too. We shouldn't lose sight of them. as well. And how do we, how do we now have multiple, I mean, I think put it, put it this way in the sense. Artillery doesn't just fire one type of ramp. Mortars don't just fire one type of rent. Is a drone piece of equipment? Is it an air platform or is it a piece of ordinance? I think we can debate that a little bit there. And so having the right piece of ordinance for what it is you're trying to do is the point that they're trying to make. So, you know, I think that, you know, I think back to your first question of, of why publish it with this substack. Well, and they've done all the formal, more restricted reports with the Marine Corps.

So that has been done. But we can turn things around pretty fast. We can get things going where I think some other publications take a little bit more time all the way up to several months. And that's just the nature of their business and how they do it. And we're trying to maintain the speed of learning that matches the current pace on the battlefield. And if anything, of what the Israelis and Ukrainians have shown us in the Russians, too, you have to have a learning ecosystem to go back to that phrase that matches that that meets the moment

and and it's kind of our hope at the connect we file that we assist the Marine Corps with that to a to a degree for our sector we cover down on. Yeah, it's it's really cool. And just to just to linger for a moment on this issue of like, well, what is what is a drone? Is it, you know, is it a munition? Is it a sensor platform? Like obviously on some level, the answer to the question is yes, right? And so you just need different stuff at different times. And I have this list in front of me from the series, which is a little in the weeds, but it was just striking how they designed the exercises they were going through or the event. So you have a mobility event where the, you know, the goal is to see, you know, what drones are good at moving stuff around the battlefield for you and also moving them around the battlefield,

you know, unmanned systems obviously have wildly different capabilities in those categories. You know, there's strike, which speaks for itself, which is just blowing stuff up. That's where you sort of see all those heroin FPV videos from Ukraine. But then, you know, ISR, so, you know, acting as a sensor, how they, how survivable are they in contested environments where, you know, your signature, your electronic signature matters a lot. And the list goes on. I mean, it's just all these different ways. It's fascinating to me to see this sort of, you know, virtually everyone at this point

is sort of seeing the videos of the FPV strike drones. But actually just how when you, when you analyze the capability of this new technology, just just how many pieces can be unspooled from it. Because it really is, it's a, it's a thing that flies or drives or swims without a human on it. And what that can mean is just this whole, not infinity exactly, but it's a wide range of things. How do you, it's, I think one of the challenges we have is we have this, this capability,

it's a rare capability. And we've had things like this before that either enhances or enables every warfighting function. And that is, that's a lot to conceptualize right there. I can use it as a retrans. and I can increase the range of how I communicate to my friendly forces. I can use it to collect intelligence. I can strike in kinetic and non-kinetic ways.

I can move myself and others around the battlefield. I can operate this in multiple domains. And there was a great article in the Gazette that just came out and one that we've kicked around the Naval Academy a little bit informally. I think at some point, the Marine Corps will have a drone battalion or an unmanned battalion. I think that is inevitable. One way it is we get the funding, purchase the manpower. are necessary for that, I think one day we will get there. And that unburdens the infantry from

having to pick up second, third, MOS, and all these skills. And we leave it to other Marines who are experts in this. And then we can bolt them on, much like we do many other capabilities to make the Magtaft fight. And a drone platoon that can then go deploy along a Marine Expeditionary Unit and attach under a battalion landing team commander or the commander of the logistics combat element that then gets missions done in support of maneuver or in support of sustainment or you name the warfighting function is probably the way of the future. How long it takes us for us to get there, we'll see. You know, I don't think we'll really have arrived as an institution until there's a story of a young Marine beating an enemy to death with a drone. I think that will be that will be

when the Marine Corps has finally successfully integrated this technology. And I'm just going to go out here on a limb here on School of War in 2026 and say that that moment is inevitable. That moment will come at some point in the future. Will you replace the rifle in your emblem with a drone? That's to be the question. I just think of that. Was it E-Tool Smith, General E-Tool Smith, nickname for the entrenching tool, which he got that nickname, of course, not for using that E-Tol to dig holes really well, but doing some other stuff with it in Vietnam. Last question for you, because you seem to have very strong feeling about this question of these are not your words. So feel free to quibble with them, but sort of keeping the infantry, or keeping the infantry man, the infantry man, and having some of these more

specialized skills split off into different occupational specialties that can then come out and be deployed with the infantry potentially at a very low level, but not asking every rifleman to have, you know, expertise in drone operation or, you know, signals, signals, you know, electronic warfare, signals, intelligence, et cetera. In a way, it's sort of obvious why, I mean, I think you've made your point a couple times about why your preference is, but there's obviously the counter argument, which is that the battlefield is just changing so dramatically that if you can't hang with these sorts of ways of fighting, that the capabilities you do bring to bear are the old fashion, you know, the hiking, the shooting, the fighting part, that that's getting a little less

relevant and more obsolete. I think that's the claim would run something like that. What's your response to the claim? I think there's a lot of lessons we can learn from the battlefields that are going on, but I think one of the things we have to be very careful about are the lessons we're choosing to learn and how it is that we that we apply those and when you look at the topography of ukraine and the stalemate i mean kind of stalemate kind of not as you see what's going on over there there's there's it's it can be easy to draw i think the wrong conclusions and i think you have to look very deeply into that conflict to understand the doctrine of both sides the resources on a grand strategic level of both sides and you know the geography itself is is to like why the

that fight looks the way that it does and how it may look different in other places. So I think, you know, is for me to sit here and say, you know, the infantry will go on for another thousand years. Like I can't, I can't really do that. In some ways, you know, if we replace some infantry with something else and it means less Americans dying, like I'm not going to argue against that either. But I'm pretty slow to say that we're going to see a reduced need to hold terrain because terrain knowing that you've held this town. Look at some of the fights that they picked in Ukraine and Russia, like Buka, or not Buga. It begins with a be.

It's, I'm spacing at the worst time. But they both sides committed extreme amount of resources and manpower to this fight to the city that had really very limited tactical value. Bakhmut, right? Bakhmut, yeah. But it had a significant strategic value in the eyes and hearts of Ukrainians, Russians, or at least the ones making the decisions. So within that, that's still a clear sign that like people are going to have to go in and hold ground.

And you're going to need that. Just because robots are showing up either, it doesn't mean you need less people. In fact, in some ways you need more to operate, sustain. You know, you're looking at three or four people that takes to fly a robot in one of those strike cells. So will the infantry pick up some of those tasks? Yes, I'm sure. Absolutely. Do we need to be careful about that and not just saddle the 60-millimeter?

mortar section with now you're also doing drone employments while degrading in your other capability. We've got to watch that. But yeah, time will tell. We'll have to figure it out. But until directed, I do think we need to keep the main thing, the main thing. And core infantry skills will continue to dominate in importance for the near future. Jeff Ball of the United States Marine Corps, U.S. Naval Academy's faculty. It's wonderful to have you back.

Super interesting. Thanks for coming on in school war. Aaron, thanks for having me.