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Peter Roberts

The Command and Control podcast breaks new ground in taking an independent and pragmatic look at what military command and control might look like for the fight tonight and the fight tomorrow. Join us as we talk through C2 for an era of high-end war fighting. The hypothesis is this: command is human, control has become more technological pronounced. As a result, the increasing availability of dynamic control measures is centralising control away from local command. It is a noticeable trend in Western C2 since the late 1980s. Over that time, blending human decision and cutting edge technology has been evolutionary but not deliberate: how will this change? Will it become dominated by a tendency to hoard power in those with the most computing power, might these factors serve to amplify the role of commanders? Given all the hyperbole about AI in C2 (and we will tackle some of that with AI experts), it's a conversation we need to have.

Command and Control

It’s not a topic that is spoken about enough in the national security community: Nuclear Command and Control (NC2), and Communications (NC3) is a world apart from C2 for conventional forces: it underpins strategic stability between nuclear armed states. With the emergence of a ‘3-body problem’ in Great Power Competition, there is a risk that Western leaders (political and military) simply try and transpose Cold War theories onto the problems of today, and add some AI/ML to make it look pretty. Professor Andrew Reddie from the Berkeley Goldman School at the University of California, explains why this would be foolhardy in a remarkably accessible way. That’s not easy given the emotion, biases, and vitriol that surround any discussion on NC2/NC3.

Nuclear Command and Control

Everyone understands that civil agencies and institutions do not operate in the same way as military organisations. The culture, aims, objectives, and funding models are different, as is the way they run activity. So when militaries and these agencies interact, a sense of friction and misunderstanding often emerges. A small group of military staff stand between the behemoths of civil and military leaders – the CIMIC staff; it is their understanding of both sets of cultures that smooths activity in the 97% of military activity that is not combat operations. Kathleen Porath, academic advisor at the NATO CIMIC COE, talks about areas for improvement, the impact of technology, and the investments needed to improve relationships for the future.

CIMIC and C2

The announcement in February 2025 of a restructuring of Ukrainian command and control went largely unnoticed in the West. It shouldn’t have: the implications are significant. Mick Ryan provides some much-needed illumination and insight into what this means, why it came about, some of the challenges and opportunities that may result, and whether lessons are immediately transferrable. Training and selecting commanders is a critical enabler to making this all work, and Mick recalls some of the syllabus from his time at the USMC School of Advanced Warfighting to give us a flavour of how different the Corps level is from Brigade operations. Mick finishes with a short update on IDF C2 as a comparator.
 
As well as Mick’s 3 books currently available, he also has a chapter in Steve Leonard and Jon Klug’s new book, “Professionals Talk Logistics”, available from Howgate Publishing. You can also sign up for Mick’s substack so you don’t have to miss out on his weekly Big 5.

Ukrainian C2: Adaptation under fire

The key principles of logistics might not have changed (Jomini’s principles remain as valid as ever), but we have been lulled into false sense of adequacy about logistics and war. Steve Leonard and Jon Klug delve into how protracted wars make command conversations about logistics and supply different. The honest advice from the G4 might not always be appreciated but husbanding resources for a long-war is something commanders need to hear, and probably don’t get from elsewhere. War-gaming might help but when these exercises are limited by time and training outcomes, the realities and tensions of logistics are less about the last mile and more about an ability to adapt, innovate and invent.
 
Steve and Jon’s new book, ‘Professionals talk Logistics’, is available from Howgate Publishing now.

Professionals Talk Logistics

Peace keeping missions (whether peace enforcement, peace building, peace making, or conflict prevention) are very different to the formatted hierarchy and organisation of set-piece, large-scale military missions which Western allies have been accustomed to over the past decade. Even the experiences of ISAF or Iraq are outliers rather than a standardised format replicable across peace keeping tasks. This is also evident in the C2 of these missions: often more complex, ambiguous, woolly, and confusing than most military officers will be accustomed to. And that’s without bringing in a strategic HQ structure that has fewer staff and less experience than Western counterparts. Ewan Lawson, associate fellow at RUSI, talks through what characterises PK missions: his one-word answer? Fragmentation.

C2 and Peacekeeping

Sometimes insubordination within the command chain actually works. Want an example? Take the infamous 1973 Yom Kippur War, when the divisional commander of a reserve formation (Ariel Sharon) circumvented not just his superiors but also the IDF chief in order to get approval for his plan. Gross insubordination….but it worked. History favours Sharon’s own narrative but the command chain had a different perspective. Personalities matter in C2: sometimes the clash of commanders can be detrimental to the campaign. Sometimes insubordination is necessary, but you won’t end up as Prime Minister every time. Nate Jennings explains the context of the fight, the decisions, and the background to the big decisions.

Insubordination

The show is about military command and control - sometimes considered the panacea of battles and campaigns - and what it might look like for the fight tonight and the fight tomorrow, whether for irregular warfare or for high end warfighting.
 
The hypothesis is that command is human and control has become increasingly technical/technological. In that, much has been written about command but little enough about control. Blending human decision-making with cutting edge technology in military headquarters has been an evolutionary process over the past 20 years, but the advent of data science, big data, machine learning and AI have given rise to a sereis of promises about machine control at the speed of data exchange: it sounds like an end to human command. How much truth sits within these statements by political masters and AI evangelists? Can AI substitute for the creativity, wit and guile of human commanders? How will dynamic control measures shape military command in the future? 
 
Join us as we talk through C2 for an era of high-end war fighting at a moment when the increasing availability of dynamic control measures is centralising control away from local command. It has been a noticeable trend in Western C2 since the late 1980s. Given the growth of C2 systems in HQs, I think we need to consider how we effectively synchronise between the key functions of command and control. We aim is to open the conversation up – since we haven’t had a serious debate about what the ‘control’ element of C2 since the 1980s.

The big questions: What's it all about, why is it important, and why now?

Martin van Creveld talked about command being about the ‘Quest for Certainty’, in order to make the right decisions. But there is, according to Mick Ryan, also a fallacy in certainty. It is a myth that certainty on a battlefield can ever be achieved – whether the delivery of a real time common operating picture, or exact knowledge of enemy disposition and intent. How do we train and prepare commanders for a battlespace that has no certainly, but also where time is compressed for decisions, where delegation is forced down to new levels, and a command footprint is – in and of itself – a high value target for the enemy? The conversation starts with the context and culture of command in the US, UK and Australia, but also touches on Russia, China and Iran. It moves on to talk about developing people (political leaders as well as military ones), and then addresses the future C2 environment and ideas about preparing leaders, commanders and the role of industry in delivering effective C2 systems for the future. A rip roaring opener for this new podcast series.

The Quest for Certainty

Command and control in war is very different to peacetime plans: and then C2 that works well for defensive operations will not necessarily be optimised for offense. The Western experiences of Afghanistan and Iraq threw up a host of lessons which HQs have been implementing: yet the observations of C2 in Ukraine provide a different lens for the problem. Peer and near-peer conflict requires a different C2 strategy, one that is determined by those who are able to exploit control tools available now – not those promised at some date in the future. From multiple visits to the Ukrainian military over the past 15 months – and built on experience of numerous other conflict zone - Dr Jack Watling, Senior Research Fellow for Land Warfare at RUSI in London, has a unique view on what it takes to deliver control on a modern battlefield: Whilst command seems to be more culturally specific than we think, control measures need a good deal more flexibility and imagination than we, perhaps, train for.

Adaptation under fire

It is not hard to identify the great (and successful) commanders across history – and it turns out they have a few things in common. But what has changed with the advent of control measures into the C2 rubric? Peter talks to Professor Michael Clarke about how compression and expansion have shaped the modern military C2 machine, about the skills needed from a commander today, and how the political military relationship is changing – given the ability to orchestrate campaigns from afar. The conversation ends by touching on the added complexity of coalition partners and allies in C2 structures: There is no doubt that this requires a successful commander to have an even wider playlist than was the norm across history. Whether we talent spot and train these individuals well enough is a more dubious proposition.

What makes a great commander?

Having spent the week at the NATO C2 Centre of Excellence in The Hague, talking C2 with some impressive people, this episode captures a ‘hot wash’ between Peter and Colonel Mietta Groeneveld, Director and Commander of the C2COE. Given this was recorded only 90mins after a fairly intense 3 days, we don’t cover all the take aways, but it gives a flavour about some of the themes we talked about and some of Mietta's thoughts too.

NATO C2: How to improve

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