Decisive Point Podcast

About Decisive Point Podcast

Decisive Point, the Parameters podcast companion series, furthers the education and professional development of senior military officers and members of the government and academia who are concerned with national security affairs. 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

28 Aug 2020

Latest episode

7 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

175 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   7 Oct 2026

   Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 7-6 – Thomas Bruscino – “War Fighting: The Case of Ulysses S. Grant”

   In this episode, Tom Bruscino argues that American military professionals must focus on war fighting in publishing about military history to bring their unique military perspectives to the study of war. Bruscino uses the historical example of American professional military writing and teaching from the American Civil War to World War II about General Ulysses S. Grant to demonstrate the value of analyses focusing on war fighting, especially relative to popular and academic histories of Grant’s military leadership. Keywords: military publishing, professional military education, Ulysses S. Grant, military leadership, military strategy Stephanie Crider (Host) Welcome to Decisive Point (https://www.army.edu/USAWC/CSL/SRAD/Media/Podcasts/Decisive-Point/). 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. Joining me today is Dr. Thomas Bruscino, a historian and professor in the Department of Military Strategy, Planning, and Operations at the US Army War College and author of “War Fighting: The Case of Ulysses Grant,” which you can find in the Autumn 2025 issue of Parameters. Welcome to Decisive Point. Dr. Thomas Bruscino Thank you. Glad to be here. Host So, today we’re looking through the lens of your research to discuss how military leaders can lead the revitalization of professional military writing and institutional memory. You note that after World War II, professional military writing largely lost its influence outside the US Army, and schoolhouses then turned toward broader policy issues. Today, for a senior officer who sits at the intersection of policy and execution, how can they use professional publishing to project unique military perspectives back into broader academic and popular strategic discourse? Bruscino What I was noticing, doing research on World War I and World War II, areas that I do a lot of work on (and I’m a big fan of Ulysses S. Grant—particularly the 1864 campaigns and the strategy for the last year of the [Civil] War) is that the folks writing before studying in the military schoolhouses prior to World War I, and in the interwar period prior to World War II, did a really good job of understanding Grant [and] the way that he approached the campaigns. And, the reason I think they were good at doing that is because they were able to put themselves into the positions. They didn’t think so much in terms of levels of war the way we do now, where we talk about strategy and operational art and tactics, and they focused more on what it would mean to be a field army commander or a theater commander. And in doing that, in focusing on positions, as opposed to saying, “I’m a strategic leader, I’m a field army commander, or in a field army staff,” or “I’m on a” what we now call a “Joint Task Force or a theater command.” And, since they did that, they were able to put themselves into the shoes of Grant. And in doing that, they were able to really bring that unique perspective that only military officers and military professionals really have because they’re putting themselves in that position. So, when they write from that perspective, they bring something unique and valuable to the wider discussions that are academic, popular, [and] that are out there because we have a tendency to boil it down in popular (and even a lot of academic writing) just to big arrows on maps, sort of hand-wave versions of this. But, by putting themselves in those positions, they really empathized with the subject because they have that view that they’re going to be that person someday and that they needed to understand it that way. And, I think in doing that, they bring this perspective that is missing in a lot of the stuff out there. And so, this has been a longtime thing of teaching military professionals and thinking about these issues. I’m always in this [mode] and preparing, trying to prepare, [and] help them prepare themselves for those positions. That’s always this gap when I’m looking for writings that are useful for soon-to-be senior officers or current senior officers. And, I really do think it funnels through them, that [as] these ideas funnel through them, that’ll make a huge difference in what they’re doing. Host So, when we’re looking at leaders who are thinking about strategic-level issues, how can they write candidly without violating operational security? Bruscino If they lead with the lessons learned, it will usually manifest in the form of some kind of principles, these are not to say laws. We’re good Clausewitzians here [at the US Army War college] so we don’t think of warfare as being dictated by laws but by principles, principles that, generally, when applied, are effective in helping commanders and staff sort through these types of problems at their appropriate level. If you’re leading with principles, and you’re writing to understand and to describe principles, the ones that are the most important that you found to be—senior leaders have found to be—the most important in their roles as, like I said, field army commanders, Joint Task Force commanders and staffs, theater-levels commanders and staff—then you’re pretty safe. When it comes to the specifics, like how those are applied, I think that probably the best way is to stick with—I’m a historian, so I’ll have my bias here, but I think it’s useful—the historical examples, if it’s for an open audience. In a TS, in a top-secret environment, maybe you can get into the specifics of how they apply. But, we’re talking about wider writing right now. In that case, I think you can go back and say, “Hey, this is a lot like what Grant had to deal with. It’s a lot like what (General Douglas) MacArthur had to deal with, or (Fleet Admiral Chester W.) Nimitz or (General Creighton W.) Abrams or (General H. Norman) Schwarzkopf, (David H.)  Petraeus.” It doesn’t matter, any of those people. And, you can say, “Here are these principles playing out in this historical example,” and then let your audience make the connections to their current issues. Host You highlighted that Grant and General George G. Meade didn’t just maneuver armies. They orchestrated the physical arrangement of a joint supply system and established successive waterborne bases like City Point, Virginia. So, given today’s contested logistics environments in theaters like the Indo-Pacific, how can senior leaders use these kinds of historical insights to build real physical resiliency into modern theater sustainment plans? Bruscino So, the theory that they studied in the past, the principles that they were talking about, the original military theory that a lot of these folks studied, some of this is (Henri, baron de) Jomini some of its (Carl von) Clausewitz, and then there’s a whole range of other people—that’s another discussion/article to work on to help explain that stuff— really tended to break up strategies. The concept of strategy tended to be focused on large units—so, those things that we’re talking about, theaters, field army to army groups, that sort of idea of it—or what we now call Joint Task Forces, which is very similar in the past to now. So, that would be the kind of focus of strategy. They had another category, and I don’t know that this was exactly right, but they also would separate out logistics and would say that warfare really consisted of strategy, tactics, logistics, engineering (they’d often put into there, too). I don’t know that that’s necessarily the best way to look at it as we move forward, but the focus on and the linking of logistics to strategy was sort of how they thought, and logistics was kept as a thing, and it was very well-understood by those guys that that’s commander’s business. Logistics is commander’s business. So, we have a tendency, now, to talk in terms of sustainment as a function, and even logistics as a function. And, that is owned by either a G-4 or a J-4, the assistant or deputy chief of staff for logistics, or it’s part of a sustainment function, which is supposed to be everyone’s business in the way that we talk about it but then tends to just get pushed to the fore. It gets pushed to the main sustainment officer. I think that when somebody like Grant, who was a quartermaster in his background (so he had a very good understanding of what was necessary for that), he had a long experience with moving large bodies of troops, with the Navy, with boats in the Western theaters of the Civil War. For him, it was all the same thing. You had to always account for your logistics. That was a massive portion of what you did, and that was his business. So, he’s the one who was doing the arranging of that with the support of quartermasters, what we now call G-4s or J-4s, that would be doing that for him. So, it really is that sort of commander’s focus on logistics. That is commander’s business. Host In Grant’s time, jointness meant the Army and Navy securing supply ports. What does that historical joint baseline teach us about the friction we face today in multidomain command and control? Bruscino When it comes to command and control, we have the ability to communicate very broadly and almost instantaneously about all kinds of matters. So, when I say they should be focused on logistics, that doesn’t mean that they should be doing some sort of version of over control, putting themselves into the execution of this, t...

2. 

   24 Sept 2026

   Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 7-5 – Jason Jabbari – “What the Russia-Ukraine Conflict Tells Us About Educational Resilience”

   Education is often only examined within a single domain before, during, and after armed conflicts, limiting the use and effectiveness of civil-affairs operations. In this episode, Jason Jabbari discusses a framework of the primary mechanisms across unique domains by which education can serve as a key area of resiliency or vulnerability and addresses the costs, benefits, and potential roles military civil affairs can play in a post-conflict scenario. Keywords: education, armed conflict, human rights, civil affairs, vulnerabilities and resiliencies Stephanie Crider (Host) Welcome to Decisive Point (https://www.army.edu/USAWC/CSL/SRAD/Media/Podcasts/Decisive-Point/). 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. Jason Jabbari is joining me today. Jabbari is an assistant professor at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and serves as a public education officer at the 353rd Civil Affairs Command, US Army Reserve. He holds a PhD in education from Washington University and a master of education degree in school leadership from Harvard University. Jabbari is the founding director of the Center for Education Research, Practice, and Policy Partnership at Washington University and the faculty director of community engagement at the Clark-Fox Policy Institute. Welcome to Decisive Point, Dr. Jabbari. Jason Jabbari Thanks for having me. Host Why should military planners look beyond human capital or economic growth when evaluating a conflict zone’s educational system? Jabbari Yeah, that’s a great question. So, we know from research that human capital isn’t enough. We know that educated societies can fall to extreme ideologies. Economic growth doesn’t guarantee [and] democracy doesn’t guarantee stability. We have some examples—especially in our recent past. We could think about the suicide bombers during 9/11, [and] elite institutions, you know, in Nazi Germany. And so, we know that just post-secondary education, years of schooling, and human capital really doesn’t lead to democracy or stability. So, I think we need to adopt a much wider lens to understand how education functions pretty broadly in a society. Host You also document how Russia has imposed its curriculum and national identity in occupied territories. How can local civil affairs operations actively counter this specific type of political weaponization of schools? Jabbari We have some recent evidence linking education in Ukraine to how Russia is using schools and using students to try to “Russify” different parts of Ukraine. We can think about imposed curriculum, using propaganda to kind of attempt to erase Ukrainian identity, [and] forcing students over 18 as draftees. We can view this as a weaponization of the political domain, right? School [are] being [used as] an attempt to flip places where democratic socialization can occur into tools of extremism. And, I think that the goal here is to think about how this can be countered. How can democratic education [effect change]? Schools for democracy, youth for democracy, these are programs in Ukraine that have really adapted to wartime with online delivery. And, I think here, you know, for civil affairs, we’re thinking about commanders downrange. And, I think data like this can be used to pinpoint [the fact] that schools may be used for indoctrination or child-soldier recruitment, which might have implications for military engagements. And so, here, it’s important to note that civil affairs is not just about post-conflict rebuilding. It’s about providing information that battlefield commanders can use, again, or not use. The point here is to provide a broad set of information, and I think the Ukraine example is a good one because it does demonstrate how education is being used, or attempted to be used, by Russia in the current war. Host Let’s talk about how Ukraine recently guaranteed free access to preschool education, despite the ongoing war. What makes universal preschool such a powerful tool for rebuilding long-term academic and social resilience in a war-torn country? Jabbari We know that preschool drives long-term economic gains, especially for low-income students. It’s a very strong return-on-investment mechanism, right? So, we have some evidence from [an] economist named Jim (James J.) Heckman that essentially shows that the earlier [adults] intervene, the broader and the longer and the stronger the gains are going to be. So here, we can think about early childhood education as investments that can accumulate over time. This is especially important during wars, as parents are often preoccupied. You can imagine, you know, fathers are fighting in the war. Sometimes mothers are serving as nurses. Places for kids to learn, I think, is going to be really important. Here, quality is key. There’s a universality policy that is really important. We want to make sure that kids have a place to go and learn, which is especially important during wars. We want to make sure that that place to learn has high-quality [education and services]. And so, that was something that the Ukrainian government, you know, really tried to shore up to make sure that early childhood [education] was not only free, but [also] high quality. Here, it can build intellectual, social-emotional, [and] psychological foundations at once. If you think about this in the long term, this could allow Ukraine to build back better. Investing early builds long-term capacity. It aligns with a strategy for building back better after a conflict. Host You mention that broad nation-building efforts are not synonymous with civil affairs engagements. What’s the distinct role of US Army civil affairs in restoring essential services like education? Jabbari We kind of think of this in a few different layers and aspects. And so, we have transitional governance. We have civil knowledge integration, network development, and civil-military integration. And so, we can think about civil knowledge integration as collecting and analyzing civil data for operational relevance. You can imagine in Ukraine right now, [civil affairs experts are] thinking about some of the data that helps us understand how that country is going to function, you know, both during the war and after. For civil network development, you know, this is really trying to engage a broad array of stakeholders. Using the Ukraine example, [civil affairs leaders are] thinking about educators, employers, [and] vocational/educational training institutes, both for the current demands of Ukraine as well as what happens after. Civil-military integration is coordinating military and civilian actors towards unified action. Again, this could involve working with NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] and governments to shore up schools. And then, [there is] transitional governance. This is a period of advising civil administrations and institutions on key policies post-conflict. Together, I think these [concepts] are really distinct. They’re targeted goals for civil affairs, which is different than broad nation-building efforts. And here, I would just say that education is really viewed as an essential service. It feeds civil security. It helps establish and maintain rule of law. It can improve cultural relations and economic growth at the same time. And so, we view this as an essential service. Host You also talk about how the rentier effect and foreign aid centralization hampered long-term education goals in Afghanistan. How can Ukraine and NATO avoid these same structural failures during post-conflict reconstruction? Jabbari From the lessons over the past 20 years, I feel that self-determination is a key lesson to take away. When we looked at some of the things that Ukraine [is] doing currently in their education system—some of their policies, some of their programs, some of their broader efforts—we see a lot of self-determination here, and I think that is going to be key. It both allows the local citizens to trust the leaders that are making these choices and these policies, and it allows them to have a say in how these things unfold over time. And so, again, I think there’s this balance of self-determination. Also, if they’re able to get advisement, these are things that can be really helpful for a country in the rebuilding phase. But, I think it’s important that self-determination, that lesson we learned over the past 20 years, is carried forward. And so, [when] we think about what Ukraine is doing currently, I think there’s a lot of promise in being able to move that forward in a post-conflict setting. Host You are clearly passionate about education and education policy. What inspired you to write this article? Jabbari I have spent most of my life in education. So, I was a teacher, I was a school leader. I joined the Army Reserves because they opened up some specialty places. One of those was in education—as part of civil affairs—in their 38-Golf (38G) program. And, I think what inspired me was this idea to really think about education in a much broader way. You know, I’m a researcher by training, especially over the past 10 years. So, I went from practice now to research. And so, I’m able to step back, look at things, and try to paint a bigger picture. What is ...

3. 

   23 Sept 2026

   Decisive Point Podcast – Ep 7-4 – Lucas Ziller – “A Hybrid Deterrence Model for Countering China”

   In this podcast episode, Lucas Ziller contends that the current US deterrence-by-denial strategy is insufficient to deter China from attempting forcible unification with Taiwan, due to its neglect of ideological and psychological drivers in the Chinese Communist Party’s decision-making calculus. He introduces a hybrid deterrence framework that integrates denial and punishment across domains, coordinated by a Joint Interagency Organization. Keywords: deterrence, interagency, China, Taiwan, operational-level planning Stephanie Crider (Host) Welcome to Decisive Point (https://www.army.edu/USAWC/CSL/SRAD/Media/Podcasts/Decisive-Point/). 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. Joining me today is Major Lucas Ziller, author of “A Hybrid Deterrence Model for Countering China,” which you can find in the Winter 2025–26 issue of Parameters. Ziller is an Infantry officer serving as a battalion operations officer in the 82nd Airborne Division. He has served in units within US Central Command, US Special Operations Command, and US Army Forces Command. He holds degrees from the University of Toronto, the University of Kansas, the US Army School of Advanced Military Studies, and the US Army Command and General Staff College. Welcome, Lucas. Lucas Ziller Thank you. Appreciate you having me. Appreciate the opportunity. Host I’m glad you’re here. Your article argues that the current US deterrence-by-denial strategy suffers from critical flaws. Why does a purely military, force-centric posture fail to resonate with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) decision-making calculus? Ziller Appreciate that question. So, I wrote the article primarily because I felt that there was a fairly simple question that my research drove me towards. And that’s, you know, is the US trying to deter China from forced reunification with Taiwan in a way or a method that China actually makes decisions? I think a lot of discussion about Taiwan focuses on the military capabilities of all sides. How many ships are involved? How many missiles? How many aircraft? How many troops all sides have? Those things absolutely matter. I’m not trying to argue otherwise, but deterrence isn’t just about military capability. It’s also about psychology. It’s about how a adversary perceives things like costs, risk, and opportunities at hand. So, the more I studied both deterrence theory as well as Chinese strategic thinking, the more I felt that there was a gap between the United States deterrence approach vis-à-vis [China’s] forceful reunification with Taiwan. I think US policymakers assume Beijing will evaluate a Taiwan contingency primarily through a rational cost-benefit calculation, but Taiwan is tied to a Chinese regime, legitimacy, nationalism, [and] Chinese Communist Party identity. Because of that, military costs alone may not have the desired deterrent effect that US policymakers are looking for. So, that led me to ask whether the American approach towards deterrence is complete. And, my conclusion wasn’t that deterrence by denial is wrong, necessarily, it’s that now, by itself, [deterrence by denial] probably isn’t enough, and that kind of drove my analysis as well as my conclusion/recommendations. Host Your article highlights how Beijing views Taiwan not just as a strategic interest but as a moral imperative central to regime legitimacy. How does this moralization of national interests alter China’s willingness to absorb immense material losses? Ziller One thing that stood out to me as I was researching the article is that not all interests are equal. Countries, whether it’s [the] United States or China, routinely negotiate over trade, resources, or territory, but when the leaders of those countries begin to frame the issues in moral terms, or historical terms, compromise between those countries becomes much more difficult. The CCP has routinely and repeatedly described reunification with Taiwan as part of, as they phrase it, a great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. And, that’s a very different framing than saying it’s simply in Chinese or China’s strategic interests. That terminology and other things like it is very heavy with moral and historical connotations. So, when leaders publicly make those kinds of comments over the span of many years or, in China’s case, many decades, they create expectations within their party, the Chinese Communist Party, but [also] among the broader population. And that, ultimately, narrows their room to maneuver or to negotiate with the United States, Taiwan, or any other player within the dynamic. We’ve seen this specific dynamic play out in the past. China accepted enormous costs during the Korean War because Beijing viewed the conflict as tied to their own regime security, as well as their revolutionary legitimacy. And then, more broadly, governments throughout history have often accepted severe economic or military costs because backing down carried even greater political or symbolic costs. It’s not just a tit for tat or a binary choice between costs and interests. I don’t mean to insinuate that conflict is inevitable in any way, and it doesn’t mean that deterrence can’t work. It just means that the United States has to recognize that the CCP may weigh costs differently than America would. Because Taiwan is bound up within that party’s legitimacy/identity, Beijing may be willing to accept costs that traditional deterrence models assume would be unacceptable for any other normal player. Understanding that difference doesn’t weaken deterrence, it actually makes it more realistic and, ultimately, more likely to succeed if certain measures are taken. Host Proponents claim that strategic ambiguity provides vital diplomatic flexibility, but you suggest that it might incentivize incremental Chinese aggression. Why do you believe Washington’s lack of clarity is being misread by Beijing as a sign of weakness or indecision? Ziller Thank you for that question. It’s very apropos to the topic. Strategic ambiguity has served the United States and policymakers for decades now, and there are good reasons why it was adopted in the first place. It gave, and continues to give, policymakers some level of flexibility and helps to discourage unilateral actions by either Beijing or Taipei. For Beijing, it discourages forceful unification, and for Taipei, it discourages unilateral independence or unilateral announcement of independence. My argument isn’t that the United States should abandon ambiguity overnight but, rather that policymakers should ask whether the strategy is still producing the effects and the effects of the degree that the United States wants. The strategic environment has changed very dramatically since the policy was first adopted, so I think it’s time to kind of revisit the question of strategic ambiguity’s place within the deterrence relationship. This reassessment is warranted. You know, just looking at some recent events (or relatively recent events)over the last several years, there’s been a steady increase in PLA (People’s Liberation Army) air and maritime activity around Taiwan. They’ve carried out larger exercises. They’ve participated in more coercive behavior and more gray-zone operations. To add some specifics to that, to put things in perspective, the PLA aircraft have entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (or ADIZ) roughly 1,700 times in 2023. Just one year later, so in 2024, that number had climbed to more than 3,600. That’s not a small change. That’s a significant increase in operational tempo. If you’re sitting in Beijing [and] every year, you’re flying more and more aircraft around Taiwan, conducting larger exercises, and spending more time operating around the island, yet, nothing fundamentally changes about how the United States responds, at some point, I think it’s reasonable to ask whether you’re beginning to interpret the signals that you’re giving off differently than Washington intends. So, that’s really the question that I’m raising. Another challenge with strategic ambiguity as a central pillar of deterrence policy is that flexibility for one side can sometimes look like uncertainty to the other. And, one of the central components of deterrence is how all parties, in the case of the three-way deterrence relationship that’s prevalent in the Taiwanese straits, is how everyone perceives each other and the actions that the participants—and the terms of the relationship—are given out. If an adversary isn’t confident about your intentions or your willingness to respond, there’s a greater chance they’ll test the boundaries incrementally rather than through a single dramatic action. That’s, I think, what we’ve been seeing in the last couple [of] years, as those statistics articulate. Just a final thought on this question. Ultimately, that’s why I think signaling deserves as much attention as the military force posture. It’s not only about what capabilities the United States has. It’s about making sure their actions, diplomatic messaging, as well as military posture reinforce one another, rather than sending any sort of mixed signals or unclear messages. The most effective deterrent signal isn’t a single military exercise or a single diplomatic statement issued at different points. It’s all of those instruments consistently communicating the same me...

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