0:10

You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast

0:12

on strategy, defense, and foreign affairs. My

0:14

name is Ryan Evans. I'm the founder of War on

0:16

the Rocks. And in this episode, I spoke with General

0:18

Randy George, the 41st chief of staff

0:20

of the US Army. I think you're going

0:23

to enjoy this one. So

0:25

why did you join the army? Well, I

0:27

joined the army in 1982, right out of

0:29

high school. I think my big reason was

0:32

I wanted to get money to go to

0:34

college. And my parents

0:36

really couldn't help me out much with that.

0:38

My dad was a farmer.

0:41

And so I had a Korean

0:43

War vet that I worked for after

0:46

school. And he suggested that I

0:48

go in the army for a couple of years. He thought it'd

0:50

be good for me. And

0:52

so that was my plan. I was going

0:54

to come in for four years and here

0:57

I am still doing it. You've laid out a

0:59

pretty ambitious vision on lots of different things. And

1:02

we'll get to that in a minute. But

1:04

before we do, I'd like to talk

1:06

about who were your favorite bosses in

1:09

the army before you became a

1:11

general officer. I've had a bunch of

1:13

great bosses. I'll start with

1:15

kind of your first question. When I first came in the

1:18

army, I remember my very

1:20

first platoon sergeant, Sergeant

1:22

Cortez, who basically owned

1:24

me from the time I got up

1:27

until I went to bed. But

1:29

he took an interest in me and what

1:32

I was doing, making me a better soldier, a

1:34

better person. He was actually the

1:37

one that suggested that I... He

1:39

took me actually to a West Point

1:41

prep school briefing and

1:43

application process and told me that I

1:45

should consider doing it. So obviously

1:48

a lot of fond memories of him. I

1:50

had a great first company commander when I

1:52

was a lieutenant. Thinking

1:55

of all these leaders that are so

1:57

important, Captain Joe Grubich. And

2:00

I remember, you know, countless

2:02

times being in his office over a whiteboard doing

2:04

leader training. It was the thing that always stuck

2:07

into my head that you go

2:09

to the field often and soldiers are

2:11

ready to do their mission. Oftentimes

2:13

leaders are not. And he

2:15

was really focused on leader training. I

2:17

had a very good battalion commander when I was

2:19

a company commander who skinned

2:21

me up over training management and maintenance

2:24

management quite frequently. So

2:26

I've had really good leaders and,

2:28

you know, teammates as far as

2:30

first sergeants, first sergeant when

2:32

I was a company commander, Eddie J.

2:35

Martinez. I learned so much from him

2:37

really like on almost daily basis. What

2:40

are some books that have had a big impact on you professionally

2:43

or personally? I could list a

2:45

bunch of books that probably the

2:47

biggest one that I still

2:49

use over time is Man's Search for

2:51

Meaning. Victor Frankel wrote it. It was

2:53

written in, you know, 1940s I think.

2:57

He was a prisoner of war in Nazi

3:00

Germany. I think there's a lot of lessons for

3:02

that. And I've typically what I always tell everybody

3:04

to get asked this question a bunch is

3:07

to read, read, read. I think

3:09

that that's very helpful.

3:11

Right now, like over the holidays, obviously

3:13

the big thing that I've been focused on

3:15

is how are we going to

3:17

transform? What do we need to do to maintain

3:20

pace with what's happening in our world, transform

3:22

our army? So I

3:24

read Future of Arms. That's Jack Watley. That's

3:26

a fairly new book that's out. Pretty

3:29

technical, but I think

3:31

very instructive for us. I've recommended

3:33

that to other people. I read Brian

3:35

Lynn's Real Soldiering. He kind

3:37

of talks about the inner warriors and what,

3:40

you know, armies do or fail to do

3:42

as they're getting ready

3:45

for the next conflict. And then

3:47

I just started reading Andrew Kripanovich's

3:49

book Origins of Victory.

3:51

And that's basically how technology, you

3:54

know, we're technology changed. I'm only

3:56

I think on chapter three and

3:58

kind of what that. That's what

4:00

that does, how that changes the battlefield

4:03

and what you need to do to

4:05

stay ahead of it in armies or

4:07

in militaries. As Chief of Staff, you've

4:10

taken a particular interest in professional development

4:12

and intellectual development. I'd like to

4:14

talk a bit about that. Where does

4:16

professional military education fit into this and how would

4:18

you like to see PME, the

4:20

acronym, for that change? Well, I think the

4:22

first we got to do, I mean, we

4:25

had a session this morning with TRADOC and

4:27

there's three big pieces of it. Some of it we were

4:29

just talking about with the books that you asked about. I

4:33

think a big part of it is self-development

4:35

and we need to encourage everybody to do

4:37

it. The second is I think

4:39

that you learn every time you're in a unit

4:41

and that's what you learn and you spend a

4:43

lot of your time in units with other leaders.

4:47

What are you learning at each

4:49

organization? I've learned a ton, I

4:51

would say. Then obviously, professional military

4:53

education, which we all start at

4:55

and we go to different stages in our career,

4:57

is critical. For that, I

4:59

think that really for all of it, you have

5:01

to kind of stay up with the times. That's why

5:04

you ask the question about reading. I think you have

5:06

to continue to do self-development for

5:08

our professional military education. We need to

5:10

make sure the world is changing, I

5:13

think, more rapidly than I've seen it the entire

5:15

time I've been in the

5:17

military and how things are changing.

5:20

Are we taking the lessons that we're seeing

5:22

and what's happening in the world and are

5:25

we adjusting what we're teaching

5:27

and how we're teaching it? Some of the things we're

5:29

going back to, I would mention with

5:32

larger scale combat operations, what we

5:34

talked about with cover and concealment,

5:36

electronic warfare, those kinds of

5:38

things. I think we have to

5:40

constantly adapt our professional military

5:42

education at every level. One

5:45

other quick example is we are getting ready

5:47

to start and talking about going to the

5:49

audit. To actually go look at it

5:52

is a data course. Basically

5:56

we are teaching and this is for senior

5:58

leaders. That is

6:00

literacy. That is literacy. A lot of

6:02

our junior leaders have grown up

6:04

in this environment and it's, you know,

6:06

we need to understand at the more

6:08

senior levels what is it that we

6:11

need to know and how is it going

6:13

to help us make decisions and I think

6:15

do it in a way that also doesn't

6:17

become a burden for our units and leaders

6:19

below us. How do the Army realize ambitious

6:23

changes in self-development and professional

6:25

military education when resources

6:27

for that might be constrained or stagnant? I'm

6:29

not sure. Well, I mean some

6:31

of this is not about resources. I'm going to

6:33

give you, you know, an example. One of the

6:36

things we just got started with the Harding Project

6:38

is telling people to write more and to share

6:40

their lessons and we're going to spend a little

6:42

bit of money to make sure that our journals,

6:44

like I read the Wall Street Journal, it's nice,

6:47

you know, in the morning for example this morning

6:49

and it's nice to be able to, you know,

6:51

it's got a good format. It's easy to

6:53

read, easy to follow, easy to look things

6:55

up. I grew up, you

6:58

know, reading a lot of our professional journals and

7:00

I think that that's important. So I think

7:02

that for those aren't really big investments and

7:04

I think that those will be really important to

7:07

the profession but strengthening the

7:09

profession is one of the four focus

7:11

areas that we have

7:13

out there and I do think it's the

7:15

foundation for the other three and I think

7:19

we have to continually invest in that. I'm

7:21

a big fan of the Harding Project. This

7:23

probably won't surprise you. I think

7:25

encouraging soldiers to write at every level

7:27

is tremendously important and

7:29

you've been out there talking a lot about it which I

7:31

think is an important part of it that they hear directly

7:34

from the leader of the service,

7:36

from the service chief. Imagine

7:38

you're sitting here and you're pitching this or

7:40

talking about this to a company commander and

7:43

specifically about how that commander can

7:45

empower his or her soldiers to

7:48

write more and spend that time writing Especially

7:50

in light of their other duties and responsibilities.

7:52

So Obviously, always the struggle. I tell when

7:55

I go talk to leaders, I tell them

7:57

two things and one is it's great if

7:59

they can. It about things and I'd

8:01

have joked a little bit when I

8:03

talk to break man course and say

8:05

i'm I look forward to seeing your

8:07

article on this or that but I

8:09

think what's equally important as if people

8:12

are really sharing you know, across or

8:14

formations getting people together. I think that

8:16

mean have been a profession is the

8:18

example that I just that I've given

8:20

recently was a Wall Pyatt who just

8:22

retired. I remember having a conversation with

8:24

him about hate. These are the things

8:26

that I didn't do well and that

8:28

I messed up and. I don't want

8:30

you to. You know you're getting ready to

8:33

go through some of that. So I think

8:35

that's important as well. So I think we've

8:37

seen an increase to talking about it. We've

8:39

got in Ceos and that are writing. I

8:42

just met a major today just asked me

8:44

know, had him come and he wrote an

8:46

article about. How leaders should ask

8:48

better questions. So eat. We've got a

8:50

lot of great ideas out there and

8:53

I think to our history, a lot

8:55

of the best ideas have come from

8:57

the bottom up and so we certainly

8:59

want to hear their you know what's.

9:02

What? They're thinking were even if they disagree with

9:04

the official line, as long as it's done, Professionally

9:06

citing facts are think that Magnificent comes

9:08

off as the difference between a stagnant

9:10

For some the up for slick can

9:13

actually win worse. Your. Other major

9:15

priority Salander were fighting Combat

9:17

ready for nations continues transformation.

9:19

I'm. Not gonna ask you about every element of

9:22

all of these years and people that are

9:24

interested if spoke about this especially your your

9:26

eyes Maryland speech I think lays these out

9:28

very succinctly. One. Of the

9:30

and this relates something I was ask me earlier is

9:32

that. You're. Asking soldiers to do all

9:34

this stuff. But. You've also identified that

9:36

Time and Resources is an extremely yeah. That's

9:38

a real constraints. and there is the studied. I'm

9:41

sure you're familiar with the came out several

9:43

years ago called lying To Ourselves and it's about

9:45

basically. Ah, the Army has all these standards

9:47

and requirements. That. Are actually literally

9:49

require are impossible. For. Anyone

9:51

commander soldier to always consistently meet

9:54

with excellence. And. Winnowing down

9:56

those requirements to something that's actually.

9:58

Acceptable and. The ball. What? Are

10:01

your thoughts on how your tangling with that?

10:03

Yeah so I've been. As I said this

10:05

in we I had. Company.

10:07

Commanders for sergeants on worn officers that were

10:09

up during a Usa and you know the

10:12

question I asked him as said you know

10:14

the question. What is it that you're doing

10:16

that is not making your formation either more

10:18

lethal or not helping you build as a

10:21

more cohesive team? Those are the two most

10:23

important things were the we do. I think

10:25

it's gonna be different depending on what formation

10:27

that you go to. What I think in

10:30

this you know gets back to have in

10:32

the professional dialogue and tell everybody these are

10:34

the kinds of things that should happen in

10:36

every training meeting. Should happen in every

10:39

quarterly training brief that we're having a

10:41

discussion about what it is we're not

10:43

gonna do. That's always the hard thing

10:45

to decide what we're not gonna do.

10:47

I have reinforced to commanders done that

10:49

it force com commanders conference the just

10:51

did it with all the Jos and

10:53

I think we have to be really

10:56

honest with ourselves in them communicating up

10:58

to me and not in our sit

11:00

reps x about that work and we

11:02

in a what are we doing that

11:04

we shouldn't be doing or where are

11:06

we doing. Too much so that we

11:08

can focus on the things that we

11:11

need to do and we have cut

11:13

some things out. So and me a

11:15

One of the things that I was

11:18

frustrated as an example was maintenance is

11:20

certainly important, but I felt like we

11:22

were over maintaining our vehicles. We got

11:24

a bunch of mourn officers together. they

11:27

came back and said we agree and

11:29

so in a week significantly reduced how

11:31

we were in a would the time

11:34

that we were spent doing that and

11:36

that's that's an example. We got rid

11:38

of. Excess is another thing that we're trying

11:40

to get rid of inside a formations. Because

11:43

you're spending too much time taking care of

11:45

equipment, it isn't going to help you with

11:47

your mission. so I think it it spans

11:49

a lot of different things. It's not just

11:52

what you're asked specifically to do with nothing.

11:54

All that adds up and I was gives

11:56

the example of on the maintenance side of

11:58

it. gave a game. That it's a

12:00

hundred hours, Know you know. Back to

12:02

a formation. You know that twenty five

12:05

more hours on the range. It's twenty

12:07

five more hours doing some mouse. And

12:09

that's fifty more hours at home, You

12:11

know, however, that is. But that time

12:13

better spent and do and things you

12:15

don't need to be doing related li

12:17

you draw a distinction in your eyes

12:19

and Maryland speech between tech net income

12:21

birds an attack that facilitates. Could.

12:23

You give some real world examples. Another draw your out

12:25

on that. I'll. Give one that I've

12:28

oh and I've been very frustrated

12:30

with the nets d Tms and

12:32

on his name know what? It's

12:34

Ten defense Serve training management. It's

12:36

tech that supposed to help the

12:38

company commanders and for sergeants, putin

12:40

leaders and Purdue insurgents and you

12:42

know help them with their training,

12:44

management and in managed things but

12:46

oftentimes it did. It causes.

12:48

And more challenges than a dozen.

12:50

So you know we have to.

12:53

Worry. Looking at that end and what

12:55

we need to do, I can give

12:57

me a lot of examples on the

12:59

network side where I think that we

13:01

have tech. there's really no reason. And

13:03

I talked about this Turner Eisenhower speech

13:06

where you the technology exists We would.

13:08

Basically. Has. Phones.

13:11

Tablets in a be very be digitally

13:13

connected that we could be physically disperse

13:15

just like we are when we we're

13:17

you know operate in our daily lives

13:19

and and we can certainly do that

13:21

so we should use in Have to

13:23

go to a two week course to

13:26

learn how to. Put

13:28

together a common operating picture and we

13:30

have things like that. So wherever that

13:33

I'm I am going after all of

13:35

those things cause I I just don't

13:37

Again Tech said help us not slow

13:39

us down. Your. stock about the value of

13:42

simulations and would be army can learn from

13:44

the gaming industry would love to hear more

13:46

what you mean about that i assume you

13:48

don't mean more gaming necessarily you mean other

13:50

kinds a gaming as a division commander i

13:52

did a warfighter and they came out and

13:54

i had to has a bunch of my

13:56

units below me you know reporting in you

13:58

know as part of it it and what

14:00

I talked about is props or help. I

14:06

think the leaders, we tried to get the most out of

14:08

that training event, but I

14:10

know that to get better at something,

14:12

you need what we call sets and

14:14

reps and you need to continue to

14:16

do that. I know that technology

14:18

exists that could – where

14:20

divisions, brigades, divisions and corps

14:23

could get repetitions on all

14:25

of the war fighting missions

14:28

without requiring the overhead that's

14:30

below them. I know that that technology

14:33

exists as well and I think we have to invest

14:35

in that. I'd like

14:37

to take a quick break from my chat with General George

14:39

to tell you about an important role we're hiring for at

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you the job description. Thank you so

15:49

much and back to my conversation with General George. When

15:52

it comes to these investments, whether it's in

15:55

simulations or, you know, I know

15:57

AI is also a priority of yours. I

15:59

think that tech. is out there. In fact, I know that tech is

16:01

out there. But one of the enduring

16:03

problems that the entire department has in all of

16:05

the services individually as well is it's still very

16:08

hard to do business with the Department of Defense

16:10

if you're an innovative company, particularly if you're a

16:12

small innovative company. Not all of

16:14

this can be solved at the service level. In fact, most of

16:16

it can't. But what's your message to

16:18

companies that are ... I might have this great

16:20

tech with commercial applications that could have defense applications.

16:24

Why should they try to work with the Army, given

16:27

how hard it is and long the sales

16:29

cycles can be? Well, hopefully we're going to

16:31

show them that we're going to do things

16:33

a little bit differently. One of the things

16:35

we're focused on is exactly that with the

16:38

network. As you stated,

16:40

Ryan, the technology is out there

16:42

to be exponentially better right now,

16:44

and we have to be better.

16:46

So we're inviting them in. I think they need

16:48

to be part of ... They need to understand

16:50

what problems we're trying to solve. I

16:53

think what's different about today is, especially

16:55

if you look at what's going on

16:57

with the network or what's going on with

16:59

unmanned systems, is commercial

17:02

industry is leading the

17:04

way in a lot of these areas

17:07

because it's selling on the commercial market

17:09

as well. So it's advancing

17:11

real quick. So wherever we

17:13

have those overlaps, I

17:16

think bringing them in, having a discussion with them,

17:18

showing what we need to do. I know

17:21

Army Futures Command is really proud of the work that

17:23

they're doing. They're having people in and talking about ...

17:26

General Rainey's been doing

17:28

the thinking sessions. I was down for

17:30

one that they did on robotics. We

17:32

do need to change how we're

17:35

buying models to get

17:37

after making sure that there's nothing better than

17:39

American industry, and we just have to

17:41

harness that. I'd like to ask you

17:43

about ... You have this great line on

17:45

your speeches about lessons observed versus lessons learned.

17:47

It's something that I remember

17:50

talking about back when I was an Army Civil

17:52

Service in Afghanistan, and something we talk about a

17:54

lot because it was frustrating to see what we

17:56

were getting wrong and how you institutionalize those lessons

17:58

is always a challenge. And I don't think

18:00

there's any simple or elegant answer

18:03

to it. How do you think about that?

18:06

We spend a lot of energy talking

18:08

about this and making

18:10

sure that we have the right leaders kind

18:13

of applied to this. Over

18:16

in US Army Europe, for example, I've been

18:19

on with, we were just over

18:21

in the Middle East in Army Central

18:23

and CENTCOM. So I think we're learning

18:25

the same thing out in Nindo Peikom

18:27

with General Flynn. So we're a global

18:30

army. We're

18:32

going to have to deploy. We need to be

18:34

prepared to deploy almost anywhere. And there's a lot

18:36

of lessons. So I think we're doing a good

18:39

job of extracting those as you, your

18:41

comment though is then what do you do with

18:43

them? So that's one thing to have. This

18:46

is what we've observed. What

18:48

does that do to change how you're training? What

18:51

does that do to how do you adjust professional

18:54

military education? What

18:56

are you doing differently to

18:58

acquire different equipment? And UAS

19:01

is the perfect example

19:03

of things that we need to adjust

19:05

from our current systems and what we

19:07

need to bring into our, inside

19:10

of our formations. So that

19:12

is obviously the harder part. And

19:14

I think the other thing you have to

19:16

figure out for lessons is which, what are

19:18

these are going to be enduring? And that's

19:21

where I think you got to really focus on. But we're

19:23

doing that at every level. A lot of the stuff you

19:25

can see in open source, obviously there's

19:28

classified lesson learned, but we're

19:30

heavily focused on that. It seems like the

19:32

army and the Marine Corps are both grappling

19:35

with the same problem set when it comes

19:37

to multi-domain task forces for the army and

19:39

the Marine Literal Regiment with

19:41

the Marine Corps. What do you think about that

19:43

in terms of the Venn overlap there? What

19:46

do the services have to learn from each other in those efforts?

19:48

Obviously that's the other aspect. We're

19:51

going to go as a joint force anytime we're

19:53

doing anything. And so we're going to be working

19:55

with our joint partners. We're getting ready to do

19:57

project convergence, which is going to be

19:59

out at both Pendleton. and then the National

20:01

Training Center where we're operating together. I

20:03

would argue, you know, there's some

20:06

of similar capability. You

20:09

probably can't have it. It's like you can't bring

20:11

too many rifles to a fight. That is kind

20:13

of what I would say on that. I think

20:15

that they're both capabilities that the Joint Force needs.

20:18

We're going to need that capability. I think whatever we can

20:20

do to learn from each other and

20:22

make our formations better, we're going to continue to

20:24

do that. And like I said, we're getting ready

20:26

to do that in March. Obviously,

20:29

with the caveat that the

20:31

U.S. Armed Forces would fight very differently for a lot

20:33

of different reasons than how Ukraine

20:35

is able to fight against Russia. But

20:38

for the U.S. Army's purposes, what do you think are

20:40

the big lessons, at least so far

20:42

observed, from the war in

20:44

Ukraine? I'll start with logistics just because

20:46

we haven't talked about that yet. But

20:49

I see what, you know, typically before,

20:51

let's say, something was

20:53

wrong with an artillery piece. You

20:55

would drag it all back 100 miles, you know, go

20:57

back all the way to the depot. And I look

20:59

at what people maintenance is doing and,

21:01

you know, our ability to fix things forward.

21:04

3D printing is another aspect of

21:07

that. And whatever, you know,

21:09

you can not have to move around on

21:11

the battlefield. I think about how that would

21:13

reduce the supply convoys, which you were

21:15

in Afghanistan. You know, you can know

21:18

the challenges with that.

21:20

I think we're learning a ton

21:22

about unmanned systems. A

21:24

lot of it has been unmanned air

21:26

systems or UAS. And

21:29

just they're going to be ubiquitous. I think they're

21:31

going to be everywhere. I think almost every formation

21:33

in the Army is

21:35

going to have some type of

21:37

unmanned system as a part of

21:40

it, either to detect first and foremost, find

21:42

out what's out there, potentially attack

21:44

that, you know, a lot of our different formations

21:46

are going to do that. So we're going to

21:48

have to be probably structured a little bit different

21:50

to make sure that we have that capability. I

21:53

think we've learned lessons about cyber.

21:55

We've learned a lot of lessons

21:58

about the EW. spectrum

22:00

and how that's operating that was very different from

22:02

you know we didn't deal with that in

22:05

Iraq and. Afghanistan

22:08

so there's a lot

22:10

a lot of lessons to be learned

22:12

in our cross functional teams are

22:15

focused on that and then we're

22:17

bringing that appear in the building and you

22:19

know our our. Big piece of

22:21

this is deciding how we're gonna prioritize things

22:24

and get after it and i could talk to you a

22:26

little bit one of the things that we want to start

22:28

doing is. Is transforming in

22:31

contact so that we can start getting

22:33

after some of these changes almost

22:36

immediately. What do you mean transforming

22:38

we have a work in this right

22:40

now with with our with our leaders

22:42

but. We can

22:44

send a unit over and you know

22:47

the say unit that goes over to

22:50

Europe and is is over

22:52

there for Atlantic resolve what

22:54

can we do to adjust their network

22:57

and to swim their network down. Make

22:59

it more lean make them more low you

23:01

know lower signature make them

23:04

more mobile same thing with providing

23:06

them you know the ability to have

23:08

small uas off the shelf this gets

23:10

back to working with. Companies

23:12

give you additional

23:14

ew capability provide them

23:16

loitering munitions let them

23:19

work with these formations and see how

23:21

things need to adjust. And

23:23

we're going to do that in in Europe we're

23:25

going to do that out in the Pacific inlet

23:27

units adjust and make some of

23:29

those adjustments we get bottom up refinements and then

23:31

we're going to do that here stateside

23:34

in konos inside forces command. That's

23:36

great that's really interesting i know

23:38

you worked on this in your

23:40

last job a lot. What

23:42

i'd love to hear your thoughts on future of

23:44

army talent management and some of the things you

23:46

have in the pipeline there one of the things

23:49

in my predecessor you got this going with cap.

23:52

Command assessment program and we made you

23:55

know little bit of tweaks it's a

23:57

great program and we're getting a lot

23:59

of really positive. of feedback on

24:01

that and how we're evaluating, making

24:03

sure, obviously, having the right commanders

24:05

and command sergeant majors inside of

24:07

our formations is critically

24:10

important. And I think what we're looking to do

24:12

is how do we build all

24:14

that that we're learning and making sure

24:16

that that's starting all along the way.

24:19

And this gets, again, back to your

24:21

earlier question about professional military education. This

24:24

is about teaching the tests from the beginning and

24:26

making sure that you're developing leaders

24:29

all along the way. So

24:31

I would say most of this, and General

24:33

McConville did a great job across this, and

24:35

he was a former – is a former

24:37

G1, is what we're really

24:39

doing is just making adjustments. They're

24:41

fairly new and trying

24:43

to make them better. There was a new study that came

24:46

out. I'm not sure if you had a chance to read

24:48

it. It literally just came out by the RAND Corporation about

24:50

professional military education. And one of the interesting things that they

24:52

found – and it won't be a surprise to you, of

24:54

course, but it was an interesting point – is

24:57

that the accomplishments and knowledge, skills, and

24:59

abilities learned in PME don't

25:02

necessarily feed into assignments

25:04

and opportunities that soldier then gets later on.

25:06

Do you think there's a way to change that?

25:08

I guess it would depend. I don't know

25:11

what the – I'm familiar with this study

25:13

in broad terms. This is back again to

25:15

our earlier conversation. I think it's what you

25:17

learned over time. We're obviously

25:20

building leaders to be able

25:22

to operate. I've had a lot of

25:24

jobs where I've been learning, we'll say, when I'm on

25:26

the joint staff or I've been down in CENTCOM or

25:29

wherever it is. And I think that the

25:31

professional military education, all of that kind of

25:33

grows on itself. You do that at –

25:36

you spend a year at Leavenworth and then you have

25:38

certain jobs and you go to

25:41

pre-command courses. You go to the War College. I

25:43

mean, I think it's the same thing on

25:46

the NCO side. I think if somebody has

25:48

a very specific talent and you're going to

25:50

send them out – I've had this conversation

25:52

here recently about I'm going to

25:54

send somebody up to do a fellowship and they're

25:56

going to work specifically. And I am talking to

25:59

Lieutenant – of Colonel and she's getting

26:01

her PhD in recruiting. I'm trying

26:04

to use, you know, and she's writing

26:06

a thesis on it. Yes, I'm trying

26:09

to use her, you know, her expertise

26:12

in what we're doing. So I

26:14

think wherever it's applicable, you know, we

26:17

certainly need to do that. But what

26:19

we're also building is well-rounded leaders who

26:22

can operate in, you know, in ambiguous

26:25

environments and, you know, understand a

26:28

lot of things. And I think that that's

26:30

what's important. Some of the specific

26:33

MOSs that are, you know,

26:35

very technically, you know,

26:37

focused might be some room there. You have

26:39

a very ambitious vision, which I admire, but

26:42

it's also, you know, it's a time-limited job. I

26:45

had all of the leaders together for the Army

26:47

Professional Forum. And, you know, what I've told everybody

26:50

is that we have to be better. This was

26:52

in mid-December. Is it a year from now, I

26:54

want to be better. And

26:56

I want us to all know, you

26:58

know, that we're better, you know, a

27:00

year from now. And that kind of

27:03

gets after the continuous transformation and continual

27:05

improvement. I think most of these things

27:07

I went out and interviewed from squad

27:09

leader up to Corps commander. A lot

27:12

of the things that I think we're approaching, in my

27:15

view, are very common sense things

27:17

that I think that we have to get after. That

27:19

we have to, you know, that doesn't mean they're easy

27:22

at whatever level it is that we need to do it. And

27:24

I think that we have to solve some

27:27

of those problems. You know, it's like bringing

27:29

up DTMS, or what we're

27:31

doing with services, or, you know, how too

27:33

much stuff in an arms room, or whatever

27:36

it is, that I think that we just

27:38

have to get after it. So I'm gonna,

27:40

you know, I'm early. I'm six months in.

27:42

So I'm gonna get as much, you know,

27:45

accomplished, but in a way that I think

27:47

that is common sense, and makes

27:49

sense. I'm a big believer in the chain

27:51

of command and talking to leaders and making

27:53

sure they understand what we're doing and why

27:56

we're doing it. We always

27:58

talk about the why that everything's different nowadays. I'm

28:00

like, I've always wanted to know why. I

28:02

think that's an important conversation to have and

28:05

just make sure we're giving way together. And when we're

28:07

doing that, I think we can get a lot done.

28:09

Yeah, I think you're right. And something you said earlier

28:11

in that answer struck me is that, and it's like

28:14

that Clausewitz quote is that war is actually very simple,

28:16

but the simplest things can be very difficult. And I

28:18

think a lot of people outside defense and outside the

28:20

armed forces would be surprised about how

28:22

some of the most limiting and big problems we

28:25

have seem very straightforward, but are

28:27

still very sticky and hard to solve. And

28:30

everybody has a job to do. And

28:32

so, one of my favorite things to do

28:34

is to be out. We were

28:37

out in the Middle East and we're out there

28:39

with 210 Mountain, they're doing great work over

28:42

in Iraq and Syria and love spending

28:44

time with them. But I have my

28:46

own work that I have to do

28:48

here that everybody is relying on

28:50

us to do. Everybody's got a job to

28:53

do at every level. And I

28:55

think we just all gotta be really laser focused on

28:57

what it is that we need to

28:59

do at our level. I'd certainly have

29:01

pieces to keep us moving

29:03

forward. Whenever I sit down with a senior

29:05

leader, these days anyway, I tend

29:07

to ask about a book written

29:10

by a military historian in Catholic Nolan called

29:12

The Allure of Battle. And the

29:14

argument basically is, it's a

29:16

great book, it's long worth reading. But

29:18

the argument basically is, is that in major

29:20

wars between large powers, victory tends

29:22

to go to the power that can stick it out the

29:25

longest. And that is a

29:27

matter of financial resources, will, logistics, maintaining

29:30

a political coalition back home. Sometimes

29:32

I worry that the armed forces are

29:34

too focused on the first few weeks

29:36

of a war. Whereas Nolan

29:39

would argue that wars are not decided by the

29:41

outcome of these battles, these culminating

29:43

points in a war, but by these longer

29:45

term issues and factors. What are your thoughts

29:47

on that? Well, I think it's

29:49

much broader what you're bringing up. I know

29:52

I threw a lot out there. Much broader

29:54

than just the military aspect of that with

29:56

the economy and the whole thing. And

29:58

one of the things specific. our piece of

30:01

that that I talk about a lot and

30:03

this gets to delivering ready combat formations is

30:05

magazine depth for us and making

30:07

sure that we have, you know,

30:09

the Army is responsible for a lot

30:11

of the arsenals and depots and stuff

30:14

throughout the country that really support the

30:16

Joint Force and making

30:18

sure that we have the munitions stocks

30:20

that we need, that we have the

30:22

parts that we need and so that's

30:24

a big focus of ours obviously

30:26

happens up here and I'm really

30:29

proud of what the ASOLT team,

30:31

Mr. Bush and everybody's doing up here along

30:33

with Army Material Command to make sure that

30:36

we that we have that so that's

30:39

kind of insurance policy making sure

30:41

that you have all of that parts,

30:43

munitions, all of those things to sustain

30:46

long combat. Yeah for these older systems as well as the

30:48

neuro ones I mean it's that

30:50

old line the future is here it's

30:52

just unevenly distributed you look at Ukraine

30:54

and you see these drones alongside flying

30:57

through the skies alongside 155 munitions it's

30:59

pretty terrifying but

31:01

remarkable how that has unfolded. One

31:04

of the things you've done is encourage soldiers

31:06

to be more candid including to

31:08

their superiors and commanding officers. Could you

31:10

talk about what animated that guidance and

31:12

what that means to you? Well I

31:14

think I've really felt blessed I think

31:17

to the years I've always felt like

31:19

I give my candid feedback on

31:21

it kind of gets to deciding what you're gonna

31:23

cancel and you know what you're gonna keep and

31:25

giving feedback and and what I

31:27

want to make sure that we're not doing

31:29

and I talk specifically to commanders is that

31:31

sit reps don't become you know that we're

31:34

messaging each other. Let's have

31:36

a real candid conversation about you know

31:38

how you're building lethality how you're you

31:40

know making your team more cohesive but

31:42

what challenges you're having where you need

31:44

help. I encourage leaders you

31:47

know the our Army service component

31:49

commanders to pass up hey what's

31:52

happening here in the building that's keeping you

31:54

from getting your job done you know what

31:56

is what is a problem we have to

31:58

have those kind of candid conversations I

32:00

think up and down the chain. So

32:04

I also think sometimes too, getting

32:06

back to cutting things out is, I'm gonna

32:09

cut down the frequency of the number

32:11

of the sit-reps we have.

32:13

And I've also told people, you

32:15

don't have to wait till you get a normal

32:17

report to tell me you're having an issue with

32:19

something. You should come up on the net immediately

32:23

and we should have that conversation. We don't have

32:25

to wait for a meeting or wait for a

32:28

special report to be sent. That's

32:30

great. Well, General George, thanks so much for making

32:32

the time to do this. Really appreciate it. Thanks

32:34

Ryan, appreciate it. Thank

32:37

you so much for listening to this episode

32:39

of the Wannarocks podcast. Stay safe and

32:41

stay healthy. You