[Editor’s Note:Last week’sMad Scientist Laboratoryblog postfeatured a timely “what if?” nightmare scenario byCOL John Antal (USA-Ret.), set in a not-too-distant-future — imagining an Operational Environment where today’s National Defense Strategy threat members, colluding as a coalition of autocracies, launched simultaneous surprise strikes against United States’ Joint forces around the globe.
In today’s100thepisode ofThe Convergence Podcast, Army Mad Scientist welcomes back COL Antal to read his scenario for our listeners and discuss its associated implications for the U.S. Army — Enjoy!]
COL John Antal (USA-Ret.)is a Soldier, military historian, and leadership expert. He served 30 years in the U.S. Army as a combat arms officer, senior staff officer, and commander. He is the author of two recent books on modern warfare: Next War: Reimagining How We Fight (September 2023) and7 Seconds to Die: A Military Analysis of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and the Future of Warfighting(February 2022).
In our latest episode ofThe Convergencepodcast, Army Mad Scientist sat down with COL Antal to review and discuss his troubling scenario and the associated implications for the U.S. Army. The following bullet points highlight key takeaways from our conversation:
- The Dictator’s Dreamis a fictional story written as a wakeup call for Army Leaders to focus on a worst-case scenario.“Useful fiction” presents possible scenarios intended to develop creativity and strengthen foresight — solving problems in the short term and creating solutions for the long-run.The U.S. could end up in a war for national survival — something most people cannot imagine. This scenario helps our Leaders to imagine and think about how to respond to such an existential threat.
- The increasing speed of battlefield adaptationrequires the U.S. Army to innovate and develop courses of action very rapidly.We can uselessons from history,specifically recent history, to help inform our decisions on how to adapt our forces.Wargamesand thought experiments are also essential, enabling our Leaders to engage in productive dialogues on creative, timely solutions.
- We are living in a precarious time – possibly more dangerous than at any other time in the 21stcentury.American deterrence has been dramatically affected by events in the past several years,providing our adversaries with opportunities to exploit. These threatsare now colluding in ways we have not previously seen –becoming allies.
- Training rotations at our Combat Training Centers are capstone training events for our maneuver brigade combat teams. They must accuratelydepict theOperational Environment(OE), specifically regarding theUnmanned Aerial Vehicle/Counter-Unmanned Aerial System (UAV/C-UAS) fightand the dispersed battlefield.You do not rise to the level of your expectations; you fall to the level of your training.
Stay tuned to theMad Scientist Laboratoryfor our next episode ofThe Convergenceon 01 August 2024, as we continue to explore theFuture Dynamics of Warfareproject with Army War College studentLTC Kristine Hinds— addressing5th Generation Warfare, the6th Domain, and how we might need to adapt to defend ourselves and our Nation from these evolutions to the OE.
If you enjoyed this post, check out the following previously publishedArmy Mad Scientistcontent featuringCOL Antal:The Dictator’s Dream,Top Attack: Lessons Learned from the Second Nagorno-Karabakh Warand associatedpodcast, andSooner Than We Think: Command Post Survivability and Future Threatsand associatedpodcast.
Explore theTRADOC G-2‘sOperational Environment Enterpriseweb page, brimming with information on the OE and how our adversaries fight, including:
OurChina Landing Zone, full of information regarding our pacing challenge, includingATP 7-100.3, Chinese Tactics,BiteSize Chinaweekly topics,People’s Liberation Army Ground Forces Quick Reference Guide, and ourthirty-plus snapshotscaptured to date addressing what China is learning about the Operational Environment from Russia’s war against Ukraine (note that a DoD Common Access Card [CAC] is required to access this last link).
OurRussia Landing Zone, including theBiteSize Russiaweekly topics. If you have a CAC, you’ll be especially interested in reviewing our weeklyRUS-UKR ConflictRunning Estimatesand associatedNarratives, capturing what we learned about the contemporary Russian way of war in Ukraine over the past two years and the ramifications for U.S. Army modernization across DOTMLPF-P.
OurRunning EstimatesSharePoint site (also requires a CAC to access), containing our monthlyOE Running Estimates, associatedNarratives, and the2QFY24and3QFY24OE Assessment TRADOC Intelligence Posts(TIPs).
Read the followingArmyMad ScientistOE and threat content:
Realer than Real: Useful Fictionand associatedpodcast, with proclaimed Mad ScientistsP.W. SingerandAugust Cole
Other People’s Wars: The US Military and the Challenge of Learning from Foreign Conflictsand associatedpodcast, withBrent L. Sterling
Live from D.C., it’s Fight Night(PartsOneandTwo) and associatedpodcasts(PartsOneandTwo)
Revolutionizing 21st Century Warfighting: UAVs and C-UAS
Unmanned Capabilities in Today’s Battlespace
The Operational Environment’s Increased Lethality
WMD Threat: Now and in the Future
The Hard Part of Fighting a War: Contested Logistics
Disclaimer:The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).
