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In this episode, Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II and Major Brennan Deveraux discuss the Strategic Competition Center, its mission and anticipated activities, and Echevarria's inaugural Strategic Competition Corner article.
Keywords: intrastate strategic competition, interstate strategic competition, doctrine, National Security Strategy, Joint Concept for Competing
Stephanie Crider (Host)
You are listening to 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 United States Army War College, or any other agency of the US government.
I’m in the studio with Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II and Major Brennan Deveraux today. Echevarria is currently a professor of strategy at the US Army War College. He has held the General Douglas MacArthur Chair of Research and the Elihu Root Chair of Military Studies and is the author of six books on military strategy.
Deveraux is a US Army strategist serving as a national security researcher at the US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute (SSI). He has three defense-related master’s degrees and focuses his research on military innovation, emerging technology management, and the characteristics of future warfare. Brennan, over to you.
Brennan Deveraux
Thanks, Stephanie.
So, today I’m going to have the opportunity to sit down and talk to Dr. Echeverria about a new center that we’re standing up at the Strategic Studies Institute—the Strategic Competition Center. We’re gonna talk about why that’s important, what it is, and what it means for our listeners.
So, real quick, before we really dive into the center, Dr. Echevarria, if you could just tell me a little bit about why you’re pushing for this change. You’ve been with the (US Army War College) Press now for over a decade. Why the switch? What’s your motivation?
Antulio J. Echevarria II
Yeah, well, after 12 years as editor of Parameters and then editor in chief of the Press, I decided it was time to get back to what really got me into this business in the first place, which is researching and writing, trying to tackle tough security questions, and offering the best solutions I could. I missed all of that and so, I’m really looking forward to getting back into it. So, that was really the genesis.
Deveraux
Okay. And, I heard you joke the other day, maybe [this change involves] a shift to focusing on your work versus putting all that time into everyone else’s.
Echevarria
Yeah. Yeah. Instead of trying to fix everybody else’s [work], I can finally focus on trying to fix my own, and we’ll see where that goes.
Deveraux
Yeah. Yeah. Well, as [an] aspiring young author, I’ve enjoyed your feedback when you were fixing my own. Hopefully, we can replace you.
So, let’s talk [about] the Strategic Competition Center. What is it and, kind of, why? The defense community has been talking about great-power competition for years. Do we need a new center? And then, why here at the Army War College?
Echevarria
I think it was General [James N.] Mattis who helped reorient the defense community away from counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations and to great-power war, great-power competition, which then became strategic competition, back in his National Defense Strategy some years ago. It was not a knock on our efforts to do counterinsurgency and counterterrorism better, as the years went on. It was really to widen our aperture and to provide more strategic context for these kinds of missions and their potential outcomes and effects moving forward.
So, it really is to broaden the aperture here at the Army War College, provide a service that connects practitioners, strategists and scholars, students, faculty members all together, and play on a little bit of that synergy, working [with] everyone together.
So, that’s why here and why now.
Deveraux
Okay.
So, you can do that as an author. You can do that through just your engagements with the students. What exactly is the center bringing to the table? What kind of tangible things should I be on the lookout for—apart from, you know, Dr. Echeverria’s, you know, got the pen again and he’s back at it?
Echevarria
Yeah. No, that’s a dangerous thing to have the pen in my hand and to be back at it. Like I said, I’m looking forward to that, though.
The center will offer a Strategic Competition Corner in Parameters each issue. And I’m open to any feedback. Then, we’ll have a section in the annual Strategic Estimate (Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment) that the Army War College produces.
We’ll also bring in guest speakers who’ll do noontime lectures for us. Our first one will be Sir Hew Strachan, coming from (the University of) St. Andrews. And, we’ll have practitioners and scholars talking about strategic competition and bringing to bear their expertise. Again, this is a service to reach students [and] faculty members, and to, kind of, play on the resultant synergy from all of that, I hope.
We’ll have a podcast series. It’ll be monthly at first. This is our inaugural one for that, and then I hope to go to one every two weeks, and I will bring in other speakers, so you don’t always have to hear my voice. There’ll be other people, as well, participating in this. So, that’ll be a good thing. We’ll probably have integrated research projects. We already have had one on great-power war, deterring China, and the other major adversaries the United States faces at the moment. So, that was published last summer.
Then we’ll have some specific dedicated research projects. We will always serve our clients who are interested in that—and with a Joint perspective, and even an Army focus, where necessary.
So, we have a lot that is already on the plate. There are other things that we had not yet anticipated that I’m sure will come down the pike, and then we’ll flex to do those, as well.
Right now, though, I’m an army of one. So, the center is small right now, but I’m hoping to grow that over the coming months and years.
Deveraux
Two things real quick before we dive into any of those. First, thanks for the shoutout to the Strategic Estimate (Estimate of the Strategic Security Environment). [It is] worth checking out. We push that every year. I think it’s a great product. I also might be biased because I’m heavily involved in said product. And second, for our listeners, [regarding] the integrated research project that was mentioned—so, one was published already, [and] one is underway—it’s a unique project that is DoD-sponsored, faculty-led, student-driven. So, this last one that came out—Understanding and Deterring Great-Power War (Understanding, Deterring, and Preparing for a Great-Power War in the Twenty-First Century), [was] sponsored by the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army. And then, the chapters were written by nine separate students who collaborated [on] it through the year. Myself, Dr. Echevarria, and Dr. Larry Goodson were the lead[s].
Host
I’d like to circle back to your Strategic Competition Corner. Can you give us a recap of what’s in the article?
Echevarria
Yeah, so in that [inaugural] Corner, I look at the nature of strategic competition. I start with the concept as it’s outlined in the Joint Concept for Competing (JCC). I use that as a start point, and I build off that. My main difference with the way it was laid out in the JCC is that it stresses strategic competition was what goes on between wars, while I would argue that strategic competition also uses wars. Think Rome and Carthage and using wars to progressively weaken your adversary or your rival. And then, you get to a point where that rival can no longer really effectively resist you or prevent you from pursuing your most important interests, as it were. And also, the JCC stresses that strategic competition is about winning without fighting but, tying into what I just said, I think fighting goes a long way to understanding [strategic competition]. It is a key component in strategic competition.
We could argue that there’s a spectrum of strategic competition. Far on the left side might be competition with fair rules and everyone behaves according to the rules, and you bargain your way into beneficial scenarios or situations and all of that. That’s fine, and I wouldn’t necessarily reject that. But what really concerns, I think, the Joint Force is the nature of strategic competition as you begin to move away from that left side of the spectrum, across the center of the spectrum, into [the area] where you are not just struggling or competing or vying for particular interests, you are also increasing the hostility toward your adversary or your rival, and it starts to become clear that there can only be one winner in this kind of game. And so, that’s what I think I want to focus on because that’s the hardest one, I think, to really deal with. And, as far as the Joint Force doctrine and concept development and all those things [are concerned], I would like to see us focus more on that side of the strategic-natured continuum, if you will.
Deveraux
The conflict you’re talking about, in my head, I couldn’t help but go to competition with the Soviet Union in the Cold War. [And] when you talked about going to actual escalation, [I was] thinking about the Vietnam War or the Korean War, or even now [the conflict] with Russia and Ukraine. Does that also kind of fit in your model that maybe [includes] fighting a proxy or fighting indirectly through, you know, the foreign military sales or training?
Echevarria
Oh, yes. The use of proxies is a big part of it. So, we had a cont...
