Listen to the 'Command and Control' podcast by Peter Roberts

What makes a good and a great military leader? The myth of a divine, born leader is very popular, but we actually know better than that. Science has given us the evidence to understand what traits and characteristics imbue a person with the skills and experience to become a great leader. For this, we actually know how to select them based on the very different requirements in wartime and peacetime. It is also popular to talk about leadership and followership as two distinct functions; the term 'servant leader' has become fashionable amongst military professionals as an attempt to delineate the boundaries between these two groups, yet still keep the hierarchy. Expert analysis is harder to find, however – for that we need to turn to science and a human psychologist.

Many medium powers have been struggling to keep pace with the US military as it reimagines how it will undertake command and control over the coming decade. For those in Canada, the challenge is extremely pertinent: shared coastlines, integrated C2 at NORAD, conjoined airspace and territorial seas, a long and unfenced land border, and the block between the US homeland and Russian forces in the Arctic. Canada also faces pressing concerns in trying to balance resources between the challenges being faced to their West as well as to their East and North.

Deputy Commander of the Canadian Joint Operations Command, Major General Darcy Molstad, talks to podcast host Peter Roberts about the various challenges, tensions and frictions, and how Canada has been adapting. Underneath all of the strategic discussion lies an enduring truth about what commanders face in the future, and what will be required of them: delegation to the point of discomfort.

In this episode, podcast host Peter Roberts engages in a discussion with Major General Karl Engelbrekston, former chief of the Swedish Army who retired in June 2023. Command and control is clearly different when operating in environmental and geographic extremes; the High North (well inside the Arctic Circle) exemplifies those conditions. How to command and how to exercise control over military forces in those extremes leads to an interesting conversation about the realities of delegation and empowerment.

Given Karl Engelbrekston's experiences with multi-national forces too, there are some interesting takeaways from this discussion that get to heart of modern C2. Most usefully, this conversation allows us to hold a mirror to some of the rhetoric about contemporary and future C2 made in other military circles. Sobering stuff.

The best people to talk about command and control are inside the USMC, the same institution that gave us the current C2 taxonomy back in the 1980s. While USMC force design 2030 forges towards a decentralised command structure and an aggregated control hierarchy, the pragmatism of the Corps has nested capabilities at lower levels that would allow a much more flexible approach. In contrast to other forces which retain very structured C2 architectures, the USMC seems to be comfortable with a degree of ambiguity that would make others tremble.

In this episode, podcast host Peter Roberts talks to Colonel Lester (Ray) Gerber from USMC Pacific Forces Command about the philosophy of C2 in the Corps, about the nature of control now and in the future, and about the centrality of the human component. Much of the latter part of the discussion is focused on partners and allies: should we be ready for less command and more co-operation in a revised C2 dynamic fit for the fight tonight? Much to ponder on here.

Command and control in the air domain has always been very different to that of other domains. Much more control, command execute in different ways, at different levels, and all captured in the phrase "Best picture has....".

How much has been forgotten from former experiences of air C2 in major contests and competitions? How much are we willing to relearn? How much of the differences in domain-specific C2 will be lost as we amalgamate and integrate structures towards a beautifully informed single commander or system, a la Enders Game?

Podcast host Peter Roberts talks to former senior RAF officer, Paul Kendall, about our understanding of air power in the West, Supremacy and Superiority, and a contested electronic environment without the freedoms that have been hallmarks of Western military operations since the 1990s.

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 host Peter Roberts and Colonel Mietta Groeneveld, Director and Commander of the C2COE. Given this was recorded only 90 minutes after a fairly intense 3 days, the episode does not cover all the takeaways, but it gives a flavour about some of the themes talked about and some of Mietta's thoughts too.

In 2019, the US military Chiefs of Staff determined that C2 really had to adapt to suit the modern operating environment. The decision came after the publication of a report on Russian C2 and counter C2 capabilities and – on that basis – the programme on Joint All Domain C2 (JADC2) was started.

Currently, the US is spending between $1-2BN per year on it, having scoped the basic requirement and pushed activity forward with remarkable speed. US DoD is progressing rapidly through the experimentation phase but the programme has shifted scope and shape over the past 5 years – moving from a plan to enable the Joint Force Commander with a long screwdriver to something that enables a more dynamic and rapid kill chain.

In this first episode of the new series, Senior Military Fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), Rafael Lopez explains that while the programme may still suffer from “Principle Agent Problems”, the future looks pretty bright.

In this final episode of the series, we are bringing the political, military, and industry expert views on modern C2 – recorded live at DSEI London 2023. Join our expert panel of Royal Navy Fleet Commander Vice Admiral Andrew Burns, Commandant Royal Military Academy Sandhurst Major General Zac Stenning of the British Army, and Group Senior Vice President of Defence at Systematic Andrew Graham discussing the challenges and opportunities of modern command and control.

Among the themes discussed are: What will C2 look like in the future? Will C2 survive in its current form? What’s the role of the commander in the future? And do we train and educate our future commanders well enough?

Warfare rarely exists within one domain. Combined arms, multi-domain integration and allied partnering makes a common BMS essential. Maj Gen Zac Stenning of the British Army discusses how the West must work together on technology to ensure continued relevance.

Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are the latest buzzwords to hit defence. Yet, what do they really mean? Former Chief of the Royal Danish Air Force Henrik Dam and Brigadier General (Rtd) Henrik Sommer separate fact from science fiction and explain what industry can really provide to militaries.

Trust has always been a central concept in military command and control: it can be based on a ‘Band of Brothers’ construct or something a bit more complex with allies and partners. Yet this human-to-human rubric is not the same when we consider the concept of trust as it applies to human-machine trust. Or is it? Peter talks to Christina Balis, who wrote a paper in June 2022 about human-machine trust, about how we should be thinking about this – something that has been missing from the discussions as more C2 systems are added into military forces. What emerges is a demand for less coders (or software savvy commanders), and more about diverse education sets and inquisitive minds. Especially if the philosophies of delegated and mission-command are to remain more than rhetoric.

It is not just the sharing of a common operational picture among allies and own forces that changes the game. It is now the additional functionality – speed, usability, integration of feeds, and ability to overcome degraded comms that is a necessity in today’s era of peer warfare argues Lieutenant General (Rtd) Ben Hodges of the US Army in this latest episode of Command & Control.

The nature of war is unpredictable for a myriad of reasons – not least because it is a human endeavour. But how much does personality and politics play a part on battlefield outcomes? Professor Mike Clarke, former Head of RUSI explores how exemplary command and control can overcome this ever-present factor.

If the Ukraine conflict has taught us anything, it is that cutting edge, available technology tips the balance in a big tech, peer war. Listen to Dr Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute discuss how Ukraine’s combination of effective, multi-level C2 with a trusted Battle Management System is at the heart of their battle-winning strategy.

As C2 technology becomes ever more sophisticated, the successful meshing of this with human intent is vital in contemporary warfare. General Mick Ryan (Rtd) of the Australian Army discusses the command and control pinchpoints where human endeavour ends and that of the machine begins.

The podcast host: Dr Peter Roberts

Dr Peter Roberts is the host of the 'Command and Control' podcast. He is both a Royal Navy veteran and the former Director of Military Sciences at the Royal United Services Institute.

In addition, he is a regular global commentator on military affairs and the host of a popular defence podcast called Western Way of War.

The podcast episodes and release

The ‘Command and Control’ podcast is planned to have 8 episodes.

The first episode is released on June 2023, and the last one will be a live Q&A session at DSEI London on September 12 2023.