Conversations on Strategy Podcast

About Conversations on Strategy Podcast

Conversations on Strategy features quick analyses of timely strategic issues. Topics are geared toward senior military officials, government leaders, academicians, strategists, historians, and thought leaders interested in foreign policy, strategy, history, counterinsurgency, and more. Guests include Press authors and subject matter experts from the US Army War College and other PME and academic institutions who discuss hot topics like the Russia-Ukraine War, China, Taiwan, artificial intelligence, manned-unmanned teaming, infrastructure, terrorism, urban warfare, the Middle East, and more. Questions or feedback? E-mail usarmy.carlisle.awc.mbx.parameters@army.mil

Publisher

U.S. Army War College Public Affairs

Category

education · government · history

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

7 Mar 2022

Latest episode

9 Sept 2026

Latest episodes

64 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   9 Sept 2026

   Conversations on Strategy Podcast – Ep 64 – Antulio J. Echevarria II and Caroline Kennedy-Pipe – Strategic Competition in the Arctic

   Listen to why the Arctic is becoming increasingly important from one who has been there. Keywords: Arctic, strategic competition, United Kingdom, Russia, China, Svalbard Introduction Welcome to Conversations on Strategy (https://www.army.edu/USAWC/CSL/SRAD/Media/Podcasts/Conversations-on-Strategy/), the companion podcast to the US Army War College Strategic Competition Center. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests, and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. Antulio J. Echevarria II (Host) Well, hello listeners. Today, I have a special privilege to have Professor Caroline Kennedy-Pipe from Loughborough University [United Kingdom]. She’s the professor of war studies there, and she is recently back from a trip to the Arctic. And, she’s going to talk to us a little bit about strategic competition in the Arctic. So, Caroline, why don’t you just tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became interested in the Arctic. Caroline Kennedy-Pipe So, I’ve always been interested in Russia. Many years ago, of course, it was known as the former Soviet Union. But 15 years ago, in the United Kingdom (UK), we became keenly aware of what we saw as increased Russian militarism in and around Greenland, Iceland, and what we call the Greenland–Iceland–UK Gap (GUIK). The UK is reliant on friends and allies, such as Norway, for our energy supplies, and we became concerned over what we saw as President Putin’s threats towards our security on the northern flank. This engendered or inspired in me a desire to know more about the Arctic and about security arrangements. So, we started studying the UK’s position in the Arctic. Now we are not—unlike the United States and Canada—an Arctic state, but we regard ourselves by virtue of Scotland, as a near friend and neighbor. And, of course, the north of Scotland is closer to the Arctic than it is to the powers in Westminster. We are dependent on the Arctic in terms of climate change. And, increasingly, we’re beginning to see, as I sit here today, the Arctic is melting and melting fast. That means that new sea routes are opening up, particularly the Northern Sea Route. And, although no one believes that the Arctic will be ice-free for at least two generations, increasingly ships [and] vessels are beginning to transit the Arctic with increasing ease for some parts of the year. That means that the riches of the Arctic, the oil, gas reserves, and the rare earth minerals are going to become increasingly accessible. We in the UK, also, as a member of NATO, have been increasingly concerned. It seems with climate change, with great-power ambitions, and the position of the United Kingdom, that the Arctic is no longer a place apart. It is no longer exceptional. And, let me quickly add, that of course, Siberia—Russian Siberia—has been attacked as part and parcel of the Ukraine war. Indigenous people in the Arctic have been recruited to President Putin’s war in Ukraine, and there has been a general spillover into the Arctic of the demands to meet Russian aggression. Most notably, of course, Finland and Sweden have joined the NATO alliance. So, seven of the eight Arctic states are now in NATO. More latterly, I visit Svalbard every summer. Svalbard is an archipelago just south of the North Pole, which by treaty, a treaty that is now over 100 years old, is governed by Norwegian sovereignty. But, here’s the thing: The Russians have a settlement on Svalbard (formerly used for coal mining) still in some use, and a presence that we believe the Russians are increasing. This means that the Russians have a foothold in NATO territory, and in territory, an archipelago that sits on the cusp of the Barents Sea, thus, allowing and permitting the Russians a foothold not just on the archipelago, but [on] the transit route for their submarines to cross through into the waters I described. Therefore, this is an extremely interesting place. I should add, I study the European Arctic. There is, of course, a Pacific Arctic, and so the Arctic is not one place. It is a series of different places, all connected though, across the top of the globe by water. So, we understand the water as a maritime space surrounded by land. And, the intriguing thing is that nobody owns a central Arctic Ocean. This, therefore, is a place of exploration of oil and gas and increasingly of potential military confrontation. Let me just add, before I stop, it is also, of course, a nuclear space. If there is to be a nuclear confrontation between East and West, it will be most likely in the Arctic, as the Russians have most of their capabilities on the Kola Peninsula. And President Trump has certainly signaled disquiet that Russian missiles might cross Greenland and hit the east coast of America. So, nature, climate change, and militarism all meet in the European Arctic. Host That’s well laid out. Thank you very much. Obviously, the Arctic has some special challenges, climate-wise and otherwise, perhaps. Could you elaborate on those? What makes the Arctic unique as an area of competition due to the extreme temperature potential and so on? Kennedy-Pipe Historically, certainly during the first Cold War, we understood the Arctic as frozen, a place apart. Submarine warfare could take place under the ice. It was possible to hide, and it was possible for East and West to signal, to perform to each other, that the Cold War was there, particularly in the maritime domain. But all was protected by the ice. And for Russia, the melting of the Arctic, and it’s disappearing fast, the ice, made it so Russia felt protected—or the Soviet Union as it was then. Increasingly now, the Russians know, with the Arctic disappearing, with trade routes and vessels entering what is now becoming still a place that is far away but increasingly cluttered, they are more vulnerable. Add into climate change and (as I said, the glaciers are melting, that is obvious on Svalbard) we have a new array of actors entering the Arctic because it’s now possible [to do so]. So, Russia, the United States, Canada, these are legitimate actors. They are Arctic states. They are on the Arctic Council. But China, Korea, India, Türkiye have all positioned themselves as Arctic friends and allies, or in China’s case, a near-Arctic state. This might seem a preposterous claim given where China [and] Korea sit, but China sees advantages here. By moving into the Arctic with its soft power, it has not yet militarized its presence. It seeks to create what we call a “polar Silk Road,” as opposed to its Silk Road through Central Asia. It seeks to buy up territories and influence to gain a foothold in these places, which are going to be absolutely crucial to the mining of rare earth minerals. So, it’s an extraordinary feature of the Arctic that more states than ever are moving in. Now, in the Arctic, the way a state becomes an Arctic player is through science. And so, China, Türkiye, India all claim to be engaged, and they are, with scientific endeavor on places like the Svalbard archipelago. Once in, through science, they have a presence. They have a stake in what happens in the Arctic. And, presence in the Arctic is everything. So, climate change is allowing new actors, not just states, commercial ventures, into the Arctic, to try and exploit its riches. Host I’m going to ask you at this point to look into your crystal ball, as it were, and tell us, [in] 10 to 20 years, what developments strategists should be thinking about and watching for strategic competition in the Arctic. Kennedy-Pipe I think it is fair to say that Russia cannot go away. It is the predominant Arctic power because of its northern coastline. President Putin has made it his personal endeavor to try and reinvigorate the Russian Arctic. Bases have been remilitarized, and people have been moved northwards into these extreme conditions to repopulate the Arctic. It is of crucial importance to the future of the Russian economy. More latterly, the United States, having ignored the Arctic for many years until the first Trump administration, and now more latterly Canada, can see the potential of what will happen if Russia and China take advantage in the Arctic. With the melting of the ice, what we see, therefore, is increased tonnage of shipping. Still, nothing compares to [the] Suez [Canal]. So, the great powers, if I can call them that, are reigniting the competition in the Arctic. So, with [my] crystal ball blazing away, the Arctic will melt, increasingly, and more states and actors will move in. There’s a question of what happens to the 4 million indigenous people [living there]. And here’s a prediction: As the Arctic melts, it will see urbanization. People are moving into the cities away from traditional habitats because of climate change. The terrain is being shifted. So, we’ll see a very different Arctic. The glaciers will melt, and we’ll therefore see the top of the world as exposed. I should note that the competition at the top of the world is also mirrored by competition at the south of the world. Polar politics is connected. But what we’re watching is great powers like China moving in, buying up a lot of the turf, and establishing what we might call an Asian presence in the European Arctic. That’s a concern. What I think we’ll see from the UK, and we have our troubles, as you know, we will increasingly emphasize by the northern fl...

2. 

   31 Aug 2026

   Conversations on Strategy Podcast – Ep 63 – Hew Strachan – Arms Races and the Decision to go to War

   In this episode, members of the US Army War College interview Sir Hew Strachan, British military historian. Brennan Deveraux Welcome to Conversations on Strategic Competition, the companion podcast to the US Army War College Strategic Competition Center. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. Today, we are joined by Sir Hew Strachan, a distinguished military historian and renowned strategic thinker. After a riveting lecture given to the Army War College resident class, Sir Hew has agreed to continue the conversation on this podcast with a small group of War College faculty members, who I would ask to identify themselves for our listeners before chiming in with any questions. Professor Antulio Echevarria, the College’s professor of strategic competition and our host, will moderate the conversation. Dr. Echevarria, I’ll turn it over to you. Antulio Echevarria All right. Thank you so much, Hew, for a great lecture. Lots of Q&A afterwards. So that definitely shows some interest. We would like to press you a little bit further on the thoughts you have regarding arms races and their propensity or not, to lead to wars. So, over to you if you would. Hew Strachan Tony, thank you very much and thank you for inviting me here in the first place. I could have said a few words about arms races in the lecture, but I thought it was best left to this discussion because what strikes me about arms races is they very rarely actually lead to war. We see them as inherently dangerous things that it creates a volatile rather than a stable situation. But the reality is, of course, that very often they act as deterrence in their own right and that the competition is itself dictated by the industrial competition. I think arms races are a sort of post 1850 phenomenon in the sense that it implies technological innovation and industrialized warfare. It’s hard, I think, to no doubt an ancient historian will disagree with me and say that there is there are arms races in earlier civilizations, but I don’t think that’s actually terribly helpful, quite frankly, because the pace of technological change is sufficiently slow. That although the stirrup, the move from bronze to iron or whatever may be a change, it’s not sufficient of a change. Whereas the point about arms races in the industrial age is that actually there’s a degree of direct competition, you are measuring yourself against another country in terms of your ability to generate weapons. And in the lecture, I mentioned a couple of rivalries in passing, which I think illustrate the point for me. The first is the challenge that Britain thinks it faces from France in the middle of the 19th century, the fear that with a Napoleon back on the French throne, that there will be renewed warfare within Europe. And, indeed, the manifestation of that after the Crimean War, when France and Britain have gone to war together against Russia. With the construction of La Gloire, the first essentially iron, still wooden ship but iron, one of, no, it’s fully iron, fully iron construction. Anyway, Britain responds with the Warrior, an experimental ship which takes its technological innovation in terms of the development of iron building of ships, a stage further. And that arms race is then extended right up until the Entente of 1905. You know, Britain is looking at France, France is looking at Britain in terms of their relative naval capabilities, and it is, I think, above all, at sea in the late 19th and early 20th centuries that you get arms races because the margin, relative margin of technological advantage can have devastating effect. Tsushima, in 1905, in the Russo-Japanese war, it shows that in spades that the Japanese Navy has the edge at every possible level. And at sea, that marginal difference seems to be able to have a truly decisive effect. So being one step ahead of your rival does seem to matter. But the Anglo-French naval arms race goes nowhere. It actually ends in Entente, and the Entente doesn’t come out of the arms race. It’s not that they’re so frightened of each other to do that. The Entente comes out of the need to sort out wider political issues to do with essentially who controls the Mediterranean, who has control of North Africa. How they do that is to settle colonial imperial rivalries, of which maybe the arms race is a manifestation. But it is not a solution to the arms race itself. And the other naval arms race, of course, which is much more genuinely a naval arms race, I suppose, is the Anglo-German naval rivalry from 1904, 1905 onwards, precipitated above all by the launch of the dreadnought, and by Britain settling as differences with France, which means that Germany realizes that it is Germany that is in the, in Britain sites, and it is. Although Britain maintains its trying to sustain a two-part standard, it can fight the next two naval powers in the world at the same time. It doesn’t, in all intents and purposes, is focusing solely on Germany. And this is the area of greatest military technological innovation at the time. I mean, these warships are cutting edge technologies with enormous sophistication in terms of their communication systems, their firepower, their speed. These are all in combination. But where does that go? Well, of course it has practical application in the First World War. But the Anglo-German naval arms race does not cause the First World War. The argument that the world goes to war in 1914 because Britain and Germany are rivals, think of Paul Kennedy’s Anglo-German antagonism, that this is what causes the war is simply unsustainable. At the beginning of 1914, Churchill, as First Sea Lord, says, “the situation actually looks calmer in relation to Germany that any time in recent history.” He’s pretty upbeat at that point. And Beckmann Harvey, the German chancellor, when he initiates talks between Britain and Germany to limit naval building, does so thinking it will be a way of loosening the ties between Britain on the one hand and France and Russia on the other. That’s one of the reasons they don’t work, is that he’s actually trying to widen it beyond the issue of naval construction. And when the crisis breaks in July 1914, Churchill already has the reserve fleet on standby. They’ve been doing their exercises and he decides not to demobilize that, but to keep them in, in essentially “in being” so they are ready if this crisis ends in war. But at no stage is the threat of the use of the Royal Navy used in the unfolding of the crisis itself, because for Germany, that really seems immaterial. At that juncture, they’re thinking of a land war. This has begun in the Balkans. And by the same token, you know, famously, of course, there are joint exercises going on between the Royal Navy and the German Navy just as the crisis begins. The… and the last stage of the crisis is the outbreak of the war between Britain and Germany. And Britain is the one, of course, that essentially is the aggressor, because Britain actually issues the ultimatum to Germany to get out of it, to get out of Belgium. But this the Anglo-German arms race in itself has not generated this war. You know, there are other examples, the most obvious one being the Cold War itself, with the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in constant competition at every level, nuclear, conventional, over a protracted period. There is no war. And when the Soviet Union hits crisis, there is still no war. Both powers are able to negotiate their way out of this. Despite the fact that Reagan used that arms race to try, in many respects, to undermine Russia’s ability to sustain that. But even that it is saying its military capability. So, in the end, my argument will be: states go to war for more serious reasons than arms races, that actually they go to war for deep political reasons and arms races are symptomatic of that rather than causes of right. Echevarria Right, Symptomatic. Absolutely. Okay. So, Mike, you had a question. Michael Lynch Dr. Michael Lynch from the Strategic Studies Institute. I’d like to tie the answer that you just gave to the lecture that you just had. And how do you see the quote unquote arms race between allies? For instance, Britain has always been a naval power and now most recently fielded two aircraft carriers and has even sailed those aircraft carriers as independent strike groups. How do you see that challenge to remain on a par with a larger hegemonic ally like the US? Strachan It’s for Britain. I think the revolution military affairs of the 1990s is very interesting in this respect, because I remember so often British officers saying to me, “we have to be able to match the United States because we want to be interoperable with the United States.” In other words, what you’re doing is competing in order to say, “we’re still in the game and we’re still a good ally.” That may come from being a subordinate ally in that context. And certainly the fear was that the pace of technological innovation in land warfare, at any rate, in 1990s was so great that actually the United States would discount its allies rather than see them as central. So that seems to me essentially the competition. There is another dimension to it, of course, to which is arms sales. And the moment Britain is perhaps too hedged about by too many constraints in how it conducts arms sales. But to see the UK and Fran...

3. 

   9 Apr 2026

   Conversations on Strategy Podcast – Ep 62 – Robert L. Caslen Jr., DBA, and Katelyn K. Tietzen-Wisdom, PhD – On The Impossible Mission: The Office of Security Cooperation and the U.S. Forces Drawdown in Iraq

   In this episode of Conversations on Strategy, retired Lieutenant General Robert L. Caslen Jr. and historian Dr. Katelyn K. Tietzen-Wisdom discuss Caslen’s 2025 book, The Impossible Mission: The Office of Security Cooperation and the US Forces Drawdown in Iraq. The conversation explores the strategic challenges of the 2011 US drawdown in Iraq. The discussion highlights the complexities of war termination, highlighting the need to learn from the gap between policy expectations and on-the-ground reality. Keywords: War Termination, Iraq Drawdown, Military Strategy, Security Cooperation, Robert Caslen Stephanie Crider (Host) You are listening to Conversations on Strategy (https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/SSI-Media/Podcasts/Conversations-on-Strategy/). The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. I’m talking remotely with Lieutenant General Robert L. Caslen Jr. (US Army, retired) and Dr. Katelyn K. Tietzen-Wisdom. Caslen is a United States Military Academy honor graduate, a veteran of 43 years, and the author of The Impossible Mission: The Office of Security Cooperation and the U.S. Forces Drawdown in Iraq, published by Outskirts Press Incorporated in 2025. Tietzen-Wisdom is a historian at the US Army Center of Military History in Washington, DC. She wrote a Parameters book review (https://press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters_bookshelf/143/) about The Impossible Mission. Welcome to Conversations on Strategy, General Caslen and Dr. Tietzen-Wisdom. Robert L. Caslen Jr. Alright. Thank you. Katelyn K. Tietzen-Wisdom Thanks for having us. Host General Caslen, what inspired you to write this book? Caslen Well, you know, first of all, for the over 8,000 men and women from the United States military that gave their life for the country of Iraq and for its development and for what it potentially can be in the middle of a very hostile area in the Middle East, you know, we owe it to their service and their sacrifice. That’s number one. Number two, I think there’s just tremendous opportunity for what Iraq can become and its impact, not only in its own country, but also for the Middle East. And it’s a very rocky road to get there. And, we talk about going to war, and there’s a lot of books written about going to war and more, but there’s not that much written about terminating a war, and the challenges—not only the policy decisions, but the challenges to develop the right strategies based on what the policies are and how to get congruence across different United States government departments, you know, because everybody has their own vision. So, who’s got the responsibility to bring it together to get a unified vision of how that drawdown proceeds? And then, it just doesn’t happen by leaving. People think that leaving a war terminates a war, and there’s so much complication. And, those that remain to kind of pick up the tasks that are still outstanding—like foreign military sales—they rely on authorities to be there and immunities to be there that come from Congress and from elsewhere. And, all of that has got to be put together. Someone’s got to put that strategy together across departments of the United States government, and it didn’t happen. So, we were the ones that experienced it during the drawdown and the aftermath. I ended up staying there for 22 months. So, it was a huge challenge, but there were so many significant lessons, strategic lessons, that needed to be learned so that when we go to the next war termination, we can do it properly. Afghanistan was the next one, and you can just look back on recent history [and assess] whether we learned anything from Iraq or not, but there’s still a lot to be learned. So, that’s why the book was written. Tietzen-Wisdom And, if I can jump in, as a historian, I’m eternally grateful that General Caslen wrote this book because, like he said, this time period is kind of overlooked. There’s the invasion, the insurgency, civil war, and then it’s “boop!”—the US Army is out of Iraq, and we’re back into Afghanistan. And this book, for historians, is just [a] treasure. Having this primary source from somebody who is not only there—multiple times in Iraq—but there at a pretty decisive point, it’ll help advance the scholarship of the Iraq War and not only honor those veterans and the servicemembers, but [it] will help inform future policy and strategy. Host Let’s start by talking about where things went wrong. Where do you think the mission truly became impossible and were the obstacles structural, political, or self-inflicted by the system? Caslen Well, interestingly enough, General Lloyd Austin was the MNF (Multi-National Force) commander on termination, and he’s the one that departed. He hired RAND Corporation to come in to try to capture some of the historical narratives of the war termination of what took place within MNF-I (National Force-Iraq). As RAND was thinking about what was going to happen next with the OSCI (Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq) coming in, which I was the commander of, they knew that there were so many areas that still had to be resourced that were not. And, their comment of it, not mine—I didn’t come up with the name or anything like that—their comment in their book was, “What Caslen inherited, it was impossible. And he has an impossible mission.” And that was a perfect title for the book, I thought. So, not Mission Impossible or whatever. It’s The Impossible Mission, and it’s not something I came up with but something I felt very closely, you know, trying to bang my head against the wall because there were some impossible things that were going on out there. But RAND Corporation was the one that came up with that name, and having lived it and experienced it, it really was, if not impossible, about as close as you can get to being impossible. Tietzen-Wisdom I think, important for this time period, too, is that the US is facing a deadline that was imposed three years earlier, if we’re talking about towards the end of 2011 with the Status (of Forces Agreement), the SOFA agreement, as it was colloquially referred to as a security agreement and a cooperation agreement. But, the US has to withdraw all forces no later than 31 December 2011. And there was questions of whether the US would be able to stay or not. Whether this was an impossible mission, I think there’s multiple layers to it, but one of the driving factors for why General Caslen was facing all of these headaches was, in my opinion, I think the United States underestimated the Iraqi political sphere that, for many Iraqis, US forces, no matter [their] intentions after, were seen as occupiers, and there was a US occupation. And so, any Iraqi politician that was willing to sign off on an extension that would have allowed US forces to stay beyond 2011, that was pretty politically fraught to contend with. I also would argue that a lot of Americans, both in Iraq and in the Pentagon or in [the] State Department, believed that the Iraqis would ask for an extension, and there was this kind of complacency [implying,] “Oh, well, this will happen.” And General Caslen talks about in his book, he arrives in Iraq in September 2011, and he’s told by some pretty powerful policymakers on the ground that “Oh, yeah, this will work.” And I think, too, that Iraq, in general, kind of gets caught up in this new change. There’s a new administration in [Washington,] DC. They’re shifting priorities to Afghanistan, and it’s almost like Iraq kind of became on the back burner. And General Caslen and his team are left trying to put these pieces together as there’s changing personnel, [changing] focus, there’s Iraqi politics [that] is becoming more and more independent and assertive. And so, I don’t know if there’s one specific issue that made it impossible, but there was just a lot that General Caslen’s team had to contend with. Caslen You know, as I was doing my research getting ready to deploy to try to find what my mission and my responsibilities were going to be, the national security objectives that General Austin had in MNF-I (Multi-National Forces-Iraq) were the exact same national security objectives that I inherited. General Austin had 50,000 soldiers. I had 157. So, when you just stop and look at the math based on your national security objectives that were given to you, how in the heck are you going to accomplish the same national security objectives that 50,000 soldiers had a hard time accomplishing, and now you’re going to do it for 157? And, that’s when RAND (Corporation) looked at that thing and said, “This is impossible,” you know? But, there was a there was a lot of thinking in Washington, DC, that there was going to be a significant residual force—similar to what took place in Korea after the 1953 [armistice] out there in South Korea. You know, they had a couple divisions that stayed there, and they still have a division headquarters over there, you know, even to this day, some 60 some years later. So, a lot of people thought that if you’re going to secure those national objectives and continue them that you’re going to have to have some sort of residual force. But, there were some people that were arguing in support of it. There were even people in Iraq that were arguing in support of it, but the conditions that were set by the United States government was that you had to have a security agreement and a SOFA agreement—two separate agreements—where the security agreement allows you to be there, and the SOFA agreement gives you immunities. And both of them exp...

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