The Bulwark Podcast - Gen. Mick Ryan: The War in Ukraine, 10 months In

Episode Date: December 21, 2022

Putin likes to say the West is weak, but he isn't even fighting NATO, and he's losing. But the war in Ukraine is at a transition point — and Russia, with a new commander, will emerge from the winter still dangerous. Gen. Mick Ryan joins guest host Ben Parker today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This message comes from BetterHelp. Can you think of a time when you didn't feel like you could be yourself? Like you were hiding behind a mask? At work, in social settings, around your family? BetterHelp Online Therapy is convenient, flexible, and can help you learn to be your authentic self, so you can stop hiding. Because masks should be for Halloween fun, not for your emotions. Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit Better Ben Parker, Bulwark Senior Editor, sitting in for the vacationing Charlie Sykes, and I am very excited to introduce our special guest joining us from the beach in Australia, General Mick Ryan, former head of the Australian Defence College,

author, Substack writer, scholar of warfare, and a very keen observer of the ongoing war in Ukraine. General Ryan, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Ben. It's great to be with you. We're going to talk about your forthcoming book at the end. I want to start off talking about your broad view of the war in Ukraine right now. What is the image that everyone should have of the way things are going at this moment from what you can tell? Well, I think at the moment we're at a transition point. We've had 10 months of war in which the Russian army has not performed very well. They have largely failed on the battlefield after their initial gains. But over the last couple of months,

they have consolidated. They've got a new unified commander that began a mobilisation of people and industry back home. So they will emerge from the winter a different organisation, one that has learned maybe not as much as the Ukrainians have, but learned from experiences this year, and they remain a very dangerous entity. The Ukrainians, on the other hand, after 10 months, have seized the initiative in this war at every level. They have demonstrated not only can they defend well, but they can go on the offensive on a couple of occasions, quite stunningly, around Kharkiv, but also in other areas, including Kherson. So they have momentum. They will not want to lose that momentum over winter. And I think we could probably expect over the winter,

if anyone was going to undertake offensives, even at small scale, it's more likely to be the Ukrainians than the Russians. Finally, at the political level, I think we still see pretty good unity in the West in supporting Ukraine. I think there's probably some interesting and an unnecessary chatter about whether Crimea is part of it or not. It is. But overall, I think the strategic patience by European

and American publics and their governments has surprised Putin and he certainly is not able to run out the clock that he'd like to, at least at this point of the war. Yeah, I'm really interested by this topic of adaptation. It's been said that war in general is a competition of adaptation. And we saw how nimble and adroit the Ukrainians were early on. You've mentioned a couple of the ways that Russia is adapting to its early failures, the mobilization, the appointment of a unified commander rather than a whole bunch of different officers trying to run little bits of the war. My question is, what do you look at to determine what are the inputs of this adaptation versus what are the outputs? So we can see that Russia is putting more into the war in terms of manpower, in terms of their mothballed old tanks and things like that, in terms of changing their

command structure. What are you looking for in terms of how we will know what the results are? You know, Russians actually have, at the start of the war, an advantage in the quantity and quality of equipment on the ground and in the air. That advantage has certainly been whittled away by the Ukrainians. Probably we might suggest, given Ukrainian gains in Western equipment and captured Russian equipment and Russian losses, that they probably somewhere need a parity on the ground. Air's a bit different. Clearly the Russian Air Force is still a very powerful entity.

When it comes to humans, I think the Ukrainians have invested far more than the Russians have for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's their ground. So they have a population of 40 million people who are invested in an existential fight. But the Ukrainians have also mobilised more of their people than the Russians have for this fight. So, you know, the imperative to adapt for the Ukrainians is far more powerful at all levels, whereas for the Russians, the imperatives are generally tactical. It's, you know, the old adapt or die imperative holds out for both sides. But for the Russians in particular, it's tactical adaptation where the greatest imperative

is because that's where they've been losing. They haven't been able to win battles in this war. For the Russians in particular, it's tactical adaptation where the greatest imperative is because that's where they've been losing. They haven't been able to win battles in this war. And if you can't win battles in a war, you can't win wars. Wars are made up of lots of different things beyond the military. But at heart, if you can't win battles, you can't win wars. Ukrainians have shown they can. The Russians are yet to demonstrate that. And the

Battle of Bakhmut is yet another example of really confounding Russian approaches to warfare at time, almost World War II suicide mass tactics. So the inputs, I think, are pretty clear for the Ukrainians, national survival. For the Russians, it's not as clear, but I think for them it's tactical. When it comes to outputs, it's also, I think, very clear. There's no mystery about what successful adaptation is. You win. You can't put it any clearer than that. That's why you adapt, because you want to win. Now, sometimes you win messy, sometimes you win through stunning maneuverist approaches. But at the end of the day, the outcome of good adaptation is you win battles, you win campaigns, and you win wars. So is that what you say you're looking for over the next, say, three to six months?

You're looking for who wins in Bakhmut, you're looking for sort of who wins along the line, along the river by Kherson or along the Donetsk and Luhansk? Or are there other developments that you're looking for to see what the direction of the war is going to be as we get through the winter and immersion to spring? I think, you know, winning is important and we're always looking for that. But there are other elements as well. I mean, I think forced generation is a very important strategic approach to sustaining warfare. I mean, how quickly can you recruit, train both individually and the collective level

people, equip them and then deploy them in units and then employ them? So the forced generation approach from both sides will be very important to watch. And beyond that, you know, the industrial support that the two belligerents are receiving will have a major impact on the outcome of this war. I mean, this is a battle of industrial systems to produce equipment, to produce munitions, including artillery ammunition, to produce more precision munitions of different types, and also to produce the autonomous and counter-autonomy systems that are appearing more and more in this war. Finally, you know, I think the political and economic dimensions will get more and more in this war. Finally, I think the political and economic dimensions

will get more and more attention. I mean, you need money to fight wars and for Ukraine to generate income needs to be able to export things like energy and grain, but it also needs Western assistance and support and that will take a lot of political interactions between them and others. So what's your assessment of the level of that Western support, both in terms of making up Ukraine's budget deficit, in terms of military support, and in terms of force generation, as you just said? I know that there are several European and other countries that are training Ukrainian troops outside of Ukraine and sending them back to be the new instructors for the Ukrainian military. How is that going, if you know? Is it enough? Should we be doing more? Where? How? Yeah, I think that is an effort that probably kicked in several months too late. I

give kudos to those nations that are doing it. I think a NATO-wide training approach to train more people is required. And I think there's a few levels of training. I mean, it's not just about training Ukrainian recruits. It's also training junior leaders, but also training planners who can plan complex campaigns that are going to be needed next year for Ukraine to secure the east and south of its country, including Crimea. I think a wider training mission across NATO is probably required. I mean, the Ukrainians need to train a couple of hundred thousand more soldiers to win this war. They've lost a lot. They will lose more in the future. And mass still matters in modern warfare. It's not just about high tech, mass still matters. So I think, you know, that will be an area of growth. But I also think that,

you know, we need to give the Ukrainians more weapon systems for offensive operations beyond just artillery. I think Western armoured systems beyond the M113s that we've given them so far will be required. I think M1s are the solution. You mean the American main battle tank, the Abrams? Absolutely. It is the only solution, frankly. The Leopards have not been produced in the quantity that's required.

And frankly, I don't buy into all this logistic expertise. And a lot of it's not from experts who say they're very difficult logistically. I know that. I commanded a brigade with them in Australia, and Australia's strategic logistic plan for M1s was almost non-existent, but we were still able to run them. So, you know, it is possible. You can get multi-fuel engines for these things. There are thousands and thousands of them existing right now that just don't exist in any other kind of tank inventory. And they are a superb tank, absolutely superb tank. So, you know, the Ukrainians have demonstrated the ability to absorb advanced technologies quickly.

I think we give it a go, send them the first 250 M1s and then promise them another 500 after that if they seem to work it out. I think that's an excellent point. The M1 was designed in the 70s and 80s to do battle with the Russian army in Europe. This is exactly what it's intended to do. And it just so happens that the United States Marine Corps decided to get rid of all of theirs recently. I don't know exactly what they did with all of those tanks they had, but I know someone who could use them. In the Marine Corps tank, one of the things the Marines did and we did was put back the old tank infantry telephone on the back of the tank. You still need those kind of simple coordination measures between infantry on the ground and tanks if you're doing dismounted, mounted,

combined arms activities. And it's not just tanks. You need IFEs. You need under-armor breaching capability. They're going to have to do large scale obstacle breaches, unfortunately, but that's just the reality of warfare. So I think, you know, there's a lot more that we can do. And frankly, you know, people talk about the cost, the cost is, for the West is almost nothing here, you're talking about a few 10s of billions of dollars, you're not spending the lives of Western soldiers or civilians in this war. So the reality is the West has still got off pretty cheaply in this war compared to the huge sacrifices of the Ukrainian people. Amen. You wrote a whole book called War Transformed about the technological, demographic, and climatic trends that are transformed warfare in the 21st century.

I highly recommend it to anyone who's interested in the topic. What trends are you seeing in the war in Ukraine that are interesting? You talked about some high-tech, you talked about autonomous systems, you talked about drones and remotely piloted, remotely controlled systems. What are you seeing that is a new innovation? I think there's a couple of areas that are really interesting out of this war. The first one is the interplay of civilian and military intelligence collection, analysis, dissemination, and usage. I mean, we've seen social media ever since the Israelis went into Lebanon. We've seen it a bit in Iraq and Afghanistan, but I think we're seeing what I call a Cambrian explosion in the use of social media and civilian intelligence capacity to monitor, to analyse, to disseminate information about the war,

whether it's mapping, whether it's providing targeting information on apps for the Ukrainian military. I think this is a fascinating area, the open source approach that we call officially. And I think military and other government intelligence agencies are really going to have to think carefully about how they mesh military and government intelligence with open source intelligence in a way that we just haven't done before. I think that's a real area that we need to look at moving forward. I think a second one is the next generation of cheap precision. There's a lot of precision munitions out there. A lot have been used in this war. I think something like 40% of all javelins ever made were used in the first few months

of this war. I don't think that is a sustainable approach. I think we need to collectively invest in developing the next generation of precision munitions that are cheaper to make, easier to make for unskilled workforces, and able to be held in large stocks without degradation. That, I think, is a really important lesson, and that'll obviously need expansion of Western industrial systems. A third area that I find really interesting is civil-military interaction, whether it is civil-military relations between a civilian president and a very powerful commander-in-chief in Ukraine, or whether it's the interplay of civil defence authorities in Ukraine and

the military in the response to drone and missile attacks, or the interplay of military and civilians in protecting their cyber and telecommunications industry, which has been, you know, fundamental to both the defence and strategic influence campaigns that the Ukrainians have undertaken. So there are three areas that really interest me. A final one, I guess, that overlays all this is the Ukrainians as a learning system. I mean, someone colloquially described to me the Russians as a top-down culture and the Ukrainians as a bottom-up culture. There are a lot more people out there who understand anthropology better than me, but it appears to me that while both the Russians and the Ukrainians are learning in this

war, the Ukrainians are doing it across more endeavours and doing it better and quicker than the Russians are. I mean, we really need to look at how learning systems are nurtured before war, so when we go into war, we can utilise them better and adapt better and quicker than the adversary. I mean, the adaptation battle, as I discuss in the book and have in other fora, is a really important and core military capacity. And do you think that comes from some of the work that the Ukrainian military has done with the American military and others since 2014, you know, training their non-commissioned officer corps and things like that? I mean, there's been a lot of discussion about this notion that, you know, the Ukrainians have a non-commissioned officer corps and things like that? I mean, there's been a lot of discussion about this notion that, you know, the Ukrainians have

a non-commissioned officer corps and the Russians don't. That's not quite accurate. I mean, some Ukrainian organizations have non-commissioned officers. I mean, they're an organization that's kind of transitioning from a Soviet to a kind of Western approach. But the reality is seniority in the vast majority of Ukrainian units is based on seniority, not so much whether they have rank. If you're a more senior soldier, you have seniority. So there's still a military that's in transition. I mean, they did learn a lot from countries.

You know, Canadians are massive unsung heroes in this 2014 to 2022 training period, deserve a lot more recognition for the efforts they've made. But, you know, the Brits and the Americans and others have played a role. The NATO training schools have played a role in exposing Ukrainian middle and senior ranking officers to different ideas around air land integration,

which clearly the Russians don't do well, and other ideas that we've become used to in the West. So I don't think we can describe the Ukrainians as a Western-style military, but we can't describe them as a Soviet-style one. I think they have their own unique Ukrainian mix of both. And, you know, it works for them. You know, the best system for a military organization is one that's based on your own national culture. And I think the Ukrainians have done that extraordinarily well. So I really want to ask you about what I think is a startling innovation in the war for several reasons. And that is the partnership between Russia and Iran that we've seen develop over the last few months. Not only the widespread use of these Shahed drones, these remotely piloted munitions, which are exactly the kind of sort of precision, but very cheap, very simple kinds of weapons that can be mass produced, even in a not wealthy country like Iran. And I also, it seems to me that this is a political adaptation

from the Russians. They've gone from having basically no allies apart from Belarus, even, you know, a cold reception from China to having a pretty significant partnership with Iran that is supplying them with the weapons they need. Am I being too apocalyptic about this? Is there more to expect? I don't think we have to be apocalyptic about this? Is there more to expect? I don't think we have to be apocalyptic about it. It's certainly an interesting development, although if you have to partner with a repulsive regime like the Iranians, it just is an indication of how desperate you are, is what I take away from this. The Iranians have mastered a large scale production of cheap weapons. I mean, clearly, most of them are designed to use to attack Israel. I mean, you know, this is a country that, you know, wants to extinguish Israel and has designed a lot of its weapons systems around it.

These drones aren't defensive in any way. They are offensive weapons. You know, I think it's a measure of Russian desperation and possibly the lack of industrial innovation in Russia for them to go to Iran. Be that as it may, it's the first time in the war we have seen the massed use of autonomous system. I mean, we've seen the widespread use of them. We've seen lots and lots of different kinds of drones used by lots of different kinds of units in a wide variety of missions. But until these Iranian drones arrived, we didn't see large-scale use for single mission of mass autonomous systems. So I think there's a lot we can learn here. They're not swarms. They don't behave like swarms. They're just mass drones. So I think there's a lot we can learn here about they're not swarms. They don't behave like swarms. They're just mass drones. So I think

there's a lot we can learn here about countering mass use of autonomous systems. And if there's an area that's kind of lagged in this fight is counter autonomy. I mean, there's been a lot of work done in autonomous systems, particularly aerial ones in the last 30 years. Counter autonomy has lagged. That is going to be an area that requires a lot more work in the future. And, you know, my proposition on this is that the next generation of counter-autonomy systems must be cheaper to buy and use than the autonomous systems they're countering. And we should be using counter autonomy as a cost imposition strategy against those who want to use mass autonomous systems across all the domains.

Okay, yeah, I want to dwell on this point for just a second. First, could you explain for our listeners what you mean by mass versus swarms and what the difference is there? Yeah, sure. Mass is just a whole bunch of things being thrown at a single objective in large quantities. And that's what the Russians have done targeting Ukrainian infrastructure, right? It's just, they're all a whole bunch of drones. That's pretty much what they do. Swarms are different. Swarms are semi-intelligent machines that are able to collaborate with each other in the achievement of a single mission or multiple missions to which a swarm is assigned,

and they're able to adapt how they do that. So, you know, we're not seeing those kind of semi-intelligent behaviours from these drones and missiles. We're seeing them programmed to take different routes and make lots of turns and avoid air defences and stuff, but they don't collaborate to cover for strengths and weaknesses of each other. And they're not interacting in a way that a semi-intelligent swarm might. Okay. Yeah. That would be a whole other development. You've been watching the war. You have, correct me if I'm wrong, you have traveled to Ukraine, right? In the fall you were there?

Yeah. And I'm hoping to go back again in the near future. That would be great. And we'd love to hear your thoughts about that. So you've been following this very closely. For those who don't follow you on Twitter, at War in the Future, you post really interesting threads about the war and how to understand what's going on. If President Biden were to call you into his office and say, based on not only your observations of this war, but on your whole career, and your research, what are three things I should do, either for the United States or for this war, three things I should change about procurement or policy, or anything? What were the three things you would give him? I think the first one would be the possession of a national

standing mobilization system that's able to be stood up very quickly, which involves not just military force and the production of weapons, but also, you know, an expansion of civil defensive cyber and telecommunications and all those kind of things. I think, you know, a standing mobilisation approach and capacity is a really important part of conventional deterrence. It ups the cost of an adversary's thinking around aggression. So I think that would be the first one. I think a second one would be the capacity for governments to better communicate with their people about future threats. I don't think that is done very well. A lot of it is either hysterical,

China did this, or it's subsumed in the day-to-day of politics. So I think a better internal strategic communications capability of governments being able to have honest, plain English conversations with their people, by the way, who are paying their taxes and paying their wages, is a really important capability to have. And third, strategic influence. The US in particular has a whole lot of latent influence capability beyond its military power that I don't know that it always uses well. I mean, the power of Hollywood is just, there's nothing else like it on the planet. The power of McDonald's and Blue Jeans and things like this that Americans forget the whole world wants, you know, should be sold as something that can only emerge

out of a nation that nurtures freedom of speech, freedom of religion, protection of intellectual rights, and these kind of things. So, you know, the strategic influence capacity, the United States protect the idea of democracy in whatever form it is. There's lots of different forms of it, and we need to remember that. But I think that would be the third capability that is really important. Yeah, this is an idea that I find very interesting. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on what relationship there is, if any, between that kind of soft power of the golden arches and blue jeans, and the requirements or lack of requirements for using military force. Because you consistently hear from people who are, some for very good reasons, critics of the size of

the American defense budget or of American interventions abroad, that we should rely more on soft power. But it's hard to say what that means. What does it mean to use soft power when it's in the hands of the board of directors and CEO of McDonald's or of the movie studios or of the Levi Strauss company? Yeah, unfortunately, you know, a lot of people characterize this as either either. I mean, you've got to have both. You can't exercise soft power as a superpower without the stick. I mean, that just doesn't make sense. You need the capacity that if soft power doesn't work,

you can follow through on your threats. I mean, at the end of the day, that's what soft power is about, right? It's about convincing somebody to either do something or not do something with the carrot, whilst they also understand that if the carrot doesn't work, there's a pretty big stick that might come after them as well. You know, I don't think this is an either either. Violence and influence are two sides of the same coin when it comes to military or national security operations. You have to invest in both. And frankly, the percentage of

the US GDP that's spent on defence at the moment is low compared to what it was all the way through the Cold War. So, you know, the American taxpayers are not asked to, you know, shell out a huge amount, percentage of their taxes for defence. It's low historically, as it is in many other countries. But the reality is it's probably going to have to increase if we're going to deter China from making what might be some very catastrophic mistakes in the Western Pacific. Okay, so you've anticipated my next question, which is an even more unlikely hypothetical. And it is that same question you get brought into the office and asked, what are the three things I should learn from the war in Ukraine and from your experience? But instead of Joe Biden asking, it's Xi Jinping. What's your answer?

Firstly, don't make assumptions about the West's incapacity to fight or sustain long wars. That would be a terrible mistake. You know, we've seen these great inventive rants from Putin about the West is weak because it has, you know, a dozen genders and is so woke that, you know, it's weakened and stuff. When the evidence of the last 10 months shows, well, is it weak? I mean, you haven't even had to fight NATO yet and you're losing. Xi Jinping should keep in mind that the West's economy and its military power is very, very significant. And if he was to give them cause to mobilize, I think it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for China to overcome that. So firstly, don't underestimate Western resolve. Secondly, I think he needs to ensure that he doesn't overestimate his own capacity. Clearly, this was a trap that Putin fell into, whether it's because of his own arrogance or

because he was given wrong information, it's probably a bit of both. But, you know, Xi Jinping has to be very careful that he doesn't start believing his own propaganda. You know, Xi Jinping thought and all these books and publications, you know, can, you know, a decade or two of that can lead you to places where you think you're almost invincible. I mean, look at some social media entrepreneurs at the moment doing crazy things. So, you know, I think that would be the second thing is don't believe your own hype. The third piece would be, you know, I think that would be the second thing is don't believe your own hype. The third piece would be, you know, maybe you've got some profound societal problems at the moment that you need to fix because China is not looking good for the future. I mean, demographically, it is facing a catastrophe.

It's probably going to lose half its population before the end of this century. It has profound economic and pollution challenges. So as he looks out when he stands on the beach, maybe he needs to turn around and look into his own country and fix some of the problems that might cause him issues down the track. Yeah, I think that's right. General Ryan, I think that's right. General Ryan, I'm going to ask you if I can to respond to some breaking news here. It hasn't been confirmed yet, but it looks like Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be visiting Congress on Wednesday.

I think this is the first time he's left Ukraine since the full-scale Russian invasion in February. What does this say to you? For me, that says he is very keen to get reassurance from the United States as it transitions to a Republican-controlled Congress that it will continue supporting Ukraine. I think, you know, that would concern him, given some of the narratives that have come out of some parts of the Republican Party in the last 12 months. But also he will be saying, listen,

we need to step up support. I think, you know, his request is what you've done so far has been great to defend our nation and preserve it as it is. But we need to step up to the next level of support, which is, you know, more armoured vehicles, you know, greater munitions production, those kind of things, so we can actually take it back. That is a different phase of the war and it needs a different kind and a different quantity of support. So I guess they would be the kinds of things that he would be having

talks about openly and behind closed doors. You know, his inclination to travel overseas has to be kind of moderated with the requirement to be at home. And, you know, he can influence publics around the world from home. Yeah, I agree. It seems to me like this is a statement of tremendous confidence that he does feel like he can afford to leave the country for a few days and come to visit with allies and supporters. I think that demonstrates that for the first time since February, things are manageable to the degree that they don't require his presence every day. No, I think you're right. I mean, that is an important takeaway. You know, Putin's just

traveled to Belarus. You know, maybe Zelensky's realized just needs to loosen step back half a step from the reins for a little bit and frankly even someone like Zelensky needs a break and maybe it might give him that physical and mental break for a few days that will reinvigorate him although to be quite frank when I saw him in September, he was looking pretty healthy. He looked fit. He was energetic and all those things. So he clearly has a good management regime for his own sleep and health, which shows, once again, what a good leader he is. Yeah, that's excellent to hear. And I hope it's still the case. So I want to ask you now, what the view of the war in Ukraine is from Australia? We're used to thinking about it in terms of Europe and certainly in terms of the United States and our relationships, our ongoing competitions with

near peer competitors like Russia and China. But from Australia, what are the implications of this war? What does it mean for those of you who have spent your careers dealing with Australian national security? I mean, it's being watched here. You know, there's a couple of strands here. There's those who are watching it very closely and think there's a lot of relevant lessons. And then there's the strand, mainly Air Force and Navy, who think, well, it's not very relevant because it's just a land war and that won't happen in the future in our region, which I think is ahistorical and ignorant.

But, you know, at the end of the day, there are a lot of people watching it. Our Army has produced some series of reports on it which are available. I've just tweeted about them. So people are watching it. But, you know, when you observe these wars from afar, you know, you really need to make an assessment of what lessons are relevant only to that war and what lessons are more broadly relevant about future warfare. I think that's the really important conversation. And, you know, they're the kind of comments that, you know, you and I have been talking about in this discussion. And in terms of sort of at the political level

of what the conflict between NATO and Russia means and what that it can mean for the balance of the United States to Europe versus the Pacific and what that could mean for Australia's national security. Are there those kinds of conversations going on as well? Oh, no, absolutely. You know, AUKUS, part of the context of the most recent discussions that occurred in the, you know, first week of December in Washington, D.C., just after the Osmin discussions was, you know, the outcomes of Ukraine. Australia is part of the group of nation that meets in Germany every few months to talk about supporting Ukraine. So, you know, this is a war that has attention at the highest levels.

Our capacity to learn from it remains to be seen. We have a big defense strategic review that's underway at the moment. It's due to go to the government in February and hopefully be at least some elements of it be publicly released in March that will look at our posture, our force structure, technology, and a whole range of things to deal with China in the Western Pacific. Well, I hope they're asking you for your input into all of that, because as I said earlier, your book from 2021, I believe, War Transformed, was really an excellent look into the future, not trying to predict individual events, but looking at broad trends in technology, demographics, climate, other things like that, and explaining what would change about future warfare, and also, perhaps more importantly,

what would stay the same. Just briefly for our listeners who might want to check out the book, what are the top things that people should be aware of in terms of what war might look like in the 21st century? Yeah, I mean, the book was actually published nine days before the Russians invaded Ukraine. We released it in Washington, DC on 15 February. We had some events there. So I guess there's a couple of important themes in the book. The first one is that don't get distracted by all the technological change because war in the future has just as many continuities as it does change. I mean, we see changes in the kind of organizations and technologies that are used in war, but there's a lot of continuities, things like surprise,

regardless of our technological advancement, surprise will be an enduring theme and that has a whole lot of implications. There's still going to be wars. The decline of violence theories that we've seen put out there in the last decade aren't really useful and they've lulled us into a sense of security. There will always be people out there in the last decade aren't really useful and they've lulled us into a sense of security. There will always be people out there who think wars are the best ways of getting what they want and we can't forget that. And I guess another, you know, finally important continuity is good

leadership. It matters. You know, it really, really matters and I think Zelensky has shown that this year. Although, you know, the leadership of people like Boris Johnson and President Biden have also been really important. But Zelensky, you know, we haven't seen a leader like him in many decades. So continuity is really important. Clearly, technology is an important part of future warfare. But, you know, the theme here is that without clever people coming up with new ideas and different organisational constructs, technology will never be an optimal solution.

So, you know, this other trinity of technology ideas and organisations is very important for military organisations to get right. And I guess the third big theme is it's people. People are the heart of every military capability doesn't matter what domain doesn't matter what war or competition you're in developing your people with the right skills the right knowledges the right linkages the right leaders is a very important part of modern war. It always has been and it always will be. Technology won't replace good leadership and the provision of purpose to people. Yeah, that's the part of the book that I thought was most generally applicable to any organization,

to any field. You do a great job of explaining that the technology will change certain things, but the real business is people and getting the right people to harness the technology or to invent the technology. And I think if your business is the profession of arms or any other, that is a great lesson to keep in mind. So you also have another book coming out, The White Sun War. What's that about? Okay. So White Sun War is a fictional account of a future war over Taiwan. I've kind of done it, if you've ever read The Killer Angels, it's in that style. It's from the perspective of a future historian looking back on the war.

And it looks at a war over Taiwan through the eyes of several different protagonists. There's, you know, a US Marine colonel in charge of one of the new Marine Littoral Regiments. There's a young US Army Cavalry Troop leader. She's in charge of a human machine teaming organisation. There's a Space Command person who leads a orbital warfare organisation. There's a Chinese Marine colonel, a young Taiwanese soldier.

And it looks at a campaign through their eyes. And, you know, there's technology, but, you know, there's some climate change stuff in there as well. And if anything, this is designed to make people think about just how difficult and probably how catastrophic a war over Taiwan would be. Is it being translated into Chinese by any chance? Well, I'm not sure. I'm sure someone will. It probably won't be done legally from what I understand of Chinese intellectual property rights. But no, it's being published by Casamate in April next year. All right. Well, we will look forward to that coming out. Major General McRyan at War in the Future on Twitter, also on Substack. Thank you so much for joining us. This has been a

great conversation. And if you do make it to Ukraine again in the future, please on Substack. Thank you so much for joining us. This has been a great conversation. And if you do make it to Ukraine again in the future, please let us know. We'd love to have you back. Yeah, thanks, Ben. I'm also on Post and Mastodon for those who've become Twitter refugees, just to ensure that people can read my stuff wherever they are on social media. Okay, well, I'm also on Post and I'll follow you there. In the meantime, for the vacationing Charlie Sykes, I'm Ben Parker. Come back next time and Charlie will do it all over again.