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 containment strategy at the time that required us to engage in what we called limited conflicts. They weren’t necessarily that limited to those on the ground. So nonetheless, yeah, proxy through-and-through is an important part of strategic competition, the closer you get to the right end of the spectrum, if you will. So, you’re absolutely right to bring that up.
The other part of the problem is that our rivals or adversaries realize that we are competing for advantage against them. They need to respond in some way. It would be great if we could keep that in mind.
What I’m trying to sketch out is a strategy of preclusion—which is based on denial, to a certain extent—but I don’t want to go too far in that because I’m likely to change my mind. We’re talking about an environment in which not all the cards are on the table, but the intention is clear to those sitting on the other side of the table looking at you. So, they know what we are after. They may not understand all of our actions, but they believe they have our intent down. And we believe we have their intent down.
And so, given that that is the going-in situation, how do we deal with that? How do we come out with a win? Yes, states have survived, states will continue to survive, but regimes do not necessarily survive. Nazi Germany, thankfully, is no longer with us. The Soviet Union, as it was led and politically constructed during the Cold War, no longer exists. Yes, we’re dealing with the Kremlin and a revanchist Russia and so on. So, states survive, but political regimes do not.
So, things do end in a strategic competition scenario or context. And so, that’s one of the things I think we need to remember. Whereas the JCC will stress the continuity, the fact that competition will go on and on. That’s true. But some of those regimes, our own administrations, perhaps—or some of the Western administrations—may not survive the competition, even though the states do so.
Deveraux
No, that’s an interesting point, and it doesn’t have to even be a world war—to the Nazi Germany point—or a revolution, or a, you know, nation collapse as much, as you could probably have some pretty drastic shifts in whether it’s ideology or policy or something along those lines with a player on the board in this competition really shifting.
I know, personally, I struggled a little bit, and I’m sure that the Vietnam veterans had a similar thing. As you look at changing relationships with, like, the people in Syria, the leadership in Syria, or Afghanistan, or I know Dr. Pfaff, our SSI director, works a lot with Iraq. And as an Iraq veteran, I’m like, why? But the dynamic shifts, right? And it shifts for a lot of reasons. And I think that’s really interesting because I’ve definitely been in schools where they’ve emphasized that there is no winning, as we’re all still just going to keep playing for better. But to your point, there might be aspects of, you know, at least somebody losing.
Echevarria
Yeah, no, there absolutely is. So, [on] the Western side, more resilient democracies are much more resilient than autocratic regimes, but people are fired, replaced, elected out of government. They’re held accountable, in a way. So, political administrations do change—and they may change in a fundamental way, as well—even in the West. So, yes, things do end. Political competition is important from that respect, as well.
Deveraux
Okay. If I could jump us back to those other tangibles you talked about, you already alluded to the first guest speaker, which I’m really looking forward to, and that we’re going to keep going with the podcast. I hope I get some invites. I’m standing by. I enjoy the podcasts.
If you could start designing out some potential guests, not to name names, but a little more aspirational, what kind of guests are you looking to secure? Are we talking thinkers, military officers, political leaders, a combination of?
Echevarria
Yeah, all of the above, really, because they all have a lot to bring to the table here.
So, accomplished scholars who have done great historical work in rivalry among nation states and how that has played out. Military officers who have been the connecting tissue, if you will, between political aspirations and the things that happen on the ground. So, definitely those folks. And really, I’d like to bring in, if I can, policymakers at a higher level to get their perspective on how things look from the side of the desk that is actually trying to craft out or hammer out some kind of policy moving forward, understanding that they’re doing so within an environment that is tense, fluctuating, and not always clear.
And, we may be wrong in some of the assumptions surrounding our intentions vis-a-vis our adversaries’ intentions. And that’s all part of the process, though. So, to get them, to bring them in, having a talk about that, I think, would be a great service for students and, also for interested faculty. So, yes.
Deveraux
All right. And, I think for securing a guest speaker to come talk to the students, to travel and coordinate and [manage] schedules is a bigger lift than, say, coordinating with a guest speaker who may either be in the area, or we can go virtual for a podcast. So, there might be a lot more openings to pull in some of these thinkers who might not have the time or the bandwidth to, you know, hop on and put together a presentation, but [people] might just be willing [to show up] for a 15-minute, 20-minute chat with you or me or Stephanie.
Echevarria
Yeah, absolutely. That would be the easier lift, as you said. So, I would expect that our podcast series will be able to leverage that a lot more than, perhaps, bringing people in. Although there’s something to be said for just having people in your presence, being able to ask them questions face-to-face, as it were. And then, we’ll have opportunities for small groups of faculty and/or students to engage those speakers after the main event, so to speak. So, all of it, I think, will benefit. But, I think you’re right that the podcast series will become increasingly more important just because all these folks are busy, but they can probably find an hour on their calendar [and] carve out some time to have a dialogue with us.
Deveraux
Okay. If I’m a listener [and] I’m hyped about the Strategic Competition Center, whether that’s as someone who’s just going to follow and catch the Corner or listen to the podcast and kind of see what comes up—or if maybe I fit that category of, you know, oh, hey, I’m a thinker in this field. I would love to get involved and chat with you. Is there a hub? Is there going to be, you know, a website, a place I can go? Is this off of the (US Army War College) Press website? Can you just talk me through how I can stay involved?
Echevarria
There will be a website for [the] Strategic Competition [Center] and a lot of our publications and contact information—well, all of our contact information will be there—ways to contact me and my as-yet-to-be-named assistant, will be there as well. You can find information there about the center and about upcoming speakers and [if you] would like to offer your services as a potential speaker, either on one of our podcasts or [as] part of a noontime lecture, by all means, please, contact me there.
Deveraux
Sir, I think this is great. I’ve already said I’m excited about it. I hope you keep me in the loop, even as I eventually PCS out of here.
I look forward to the website. I look forward to the next Corner, and I hope to have a chance to talk to some big thinkers in the field.
Echevarria
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, we look forward to that. Thank you for your support so far in all this. And, I hope to continue our relationship moving forward.
And, thank you also to Stephanie, who is, as always, always there when she’s needed. And so, thank you very much.
Host
I appreciate you both making time to record this podcast today.
Listeners, you can read the genesis article at press.armywarcollege.edu/parameters. Look for volume 55, issue 4. For more Army War College podcasts, check out Conversations on Strategy, SSI Live, CLSC Dialogues, and A Better Peace.
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