43: Captains Chapla, Micciche, and Staron on Storyboards as the TPS Reports of the Army

Welcome to the One CA Podcast. Today, we have Captains Kevin Chapla, James Micciche, and Kyle Staron discuss their paper "Civil Affairs as a Function of Smart Power: Redefining Assessments, Reporting, Education, and the Role of Civil Affairs within the Evolving Paradigm of Great Power Competition." Theirs was one of a few CA Issues Papers the Civil Affairs Association selected for publication.

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Transcript:

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But it's really being operationalized by our opponents who don't want to meet us in a hard power contest and instead are trying to utilize the seams. the gray areas, and compete with us at levels below conflict. And that's really where CA, and this is a big part of our paper, can come in and really make a difference in identifying where sharp power is being executed and also finding where its vulnerable populations on key strategic areas might be, as well as coming out with our utilizing all elements of national power and a smart power methodology to counter it.

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Hi, this is John McElligot, your host for today's episode of the 1CA podcast. We're joined today by three captains, authors of the paper, Civil Affairs as a Function of Smart Power, Redefining Assessments, Reporting, Education, and the Role of Civil Affairs Within the Evolving Paradigm of Great Power Competition. The three captains are Kevin Chaplin, who is an active component U .S. Army Civil Affairs officer. He has deployment experience. in Africa, Indo -Pacific, and he's currently assigned to Bravo Company, 83rd Civil Affairs Battalion, which is based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Captain Promotable, James Masici, who is an active component Army Civil Affairs officer with employment and service experience in the Arabian Peninsula, Africa, Afghanistan, Europe, and Indo -Pacific. He's currently a master's candidate at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts, or Boston MA. And Captain Kyle Starin, who's currently a planner at the 353 KCOM and a master's candidate in international security policy at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in New York City. He previously served with the 83rd CA Battalion at Fort Bragg, and he has deployed to Bahrain and Niger as a civil affairs officer. Gentlemen, thank you very much for being on the 1CA podcast.

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We mentioned before recording here that we've got one of you in Fort Bragg, one in Boston, and one in New York. So I have not yet asked if we've got any Red Sox fans or Yankees fans or where you guys hail from. James, where's your hometown? Where did you grow up? Charleston, Virginia. So neither Red Sox or a Yankees fan here. So we're not going to offend anyone either way. Kevin, how about you? Yeah, so I actually grew up in northeastern Pennsylvania, and if you ever see me office, I grew up right outside of Scranton, Pennsylvania. So not much of a baseball fan, but I do support the Mets, and that's kind of disappointing persistently. Yeah. Is there any town in Pennsylvania that resembles the office, the actual town? Yeah, so that's actually a real place. Okay. The Steamtown Mall exists. Nice. And Kyle, where are you coming from? Originally from Memphis, Tennessee, so I have no loyalty to the Yankees or the Red Sox. I sympathize with the Mets just because I find them sympathetic.

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Or pathetic, maybe. Either way. They have the best jingle of all time. I don't think any other baseball team has their own jingle.

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Either way. They have

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Right. That's a good one. Well, gentlemen, we're here today to talk about your paper that you guys put together and the methodology you used, what kind of findings you had. Let me start with the first question. You talk about civil affairs as a function of smart power. So what does smart power mean to you? And this is a question I'll throw out to anyone. You could say who's responding or not at all. Just let us know how you define smart power. What does that mean? I'll take that one up front. This is James. If you look at smart power, smart power is coined by Joseph Nye, who is a political scientist of international relations. And it's a combination of... hard and soft power together. So what it is, it's using all the elements of national power, whether it's political, economic, military, law enforcement, even cultural power, to achieve national goals. Not having an overemphasis on hard power or overemphasis on soft power, but having the correct balance to pinpoint where, when, and how we can best... Okay. So you guys all came from civil affairs based at Fort Bragg, the center of the universe and the home of a lot of C -8 tactical units. So it sounds like what you're talking about is more at the strategic level. Are you generally arguing that civil affairs should be brought up from tactical operational to more operational strategic levels?

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massive structural change. I think it's more of a reformatting of the outlook. So to get back to what James was talking about, tying in elements of national power into a cohesive strategy going forward,

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of national

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going forward, even a tactical unit can inform tactical combat commanders in terms of how to use other elements of national power at a tactical level.

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unit can

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combat commanders in terms of how to use other elements of national power at a tactical level.

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of how

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So I think that's what we're talking about, is just getting after how to tie in military units with... initiatives put forward by the embassy in that country and vice versa, telling the embassy what the military has to offer in terms of capabilities to achieve strategic ends, even at a tactical level. So why would you say that using civil affairs as a function of smart power is needed, or why is that a wise move for the U .S. government? Hey, Kevin here. I'll take that one. So I think it's important to emphasize that as civil affairs, we're often working in areas that are Continuously being contested by a lot of different actors on the interstate scale, meaning that puts us in a real good position to kind of identify and determine how these peers are using their, in this case, sharp power to disrupt our efforts abroad or trying to exploit a population. maybe trying to desabilize the environment. So it really puts us in a good position, and I think that allows us to inform policymakers or inform the DOD to then inform policymakers to identify exactly which tools need to be used, why, and where, and for what end. So, Kevin, you brought up a new term for the audience here, sharp power. You mentioned sharp power in the paper. We started off mentioning smart power. So what's sharp power all about and who wields sharp power? Within the context of our paper, I'll let James follow up with this because this is pretty near and dear to his heart. But within the context of our paper, in this case, pure competitors like China, Russia are those wielding sharp power. And the National Endowment of Democracy. defined it as enabling authoritarians to cut razor -like into the fabric of a society, stoking and amplifying existing division. So in this case, it could take the form of China expanding its Belt and Road Initiative across Africa or through Pakistan, using their infrastructure back to exploit local economies on the continent of Africa for that. for that matter um but i'll let james kind of follow up with the details on that one yeah this is james so yeah sharp power it's a pretty new concept that's out there but i think it's something that we've seen in a while so uh i think the previous incarnation was known as soft balancing and what sharp power really comes from is the fact that u .s and our allies still remain the largest power brokers in terms of hard power around the world so even though our competitors are starting to make uh some small incremental gains in hard power levels we have, we still remain, with our allies and alliances, the predominant hard power in the entire world. And furthermore, to that point, if you look at this as well, the economic interdependency between the U .S. and our competitors is so much... uh ingrained after such a large period of globalization following the 90s on the 80s and all through the 90s and early 2000s that an actual armed conflict would be very detrimental to all parties so we have these system level deterrences in place and if you look at joint doctrine note 1 -19 so this is actually in doctrine it's we are in a part something called a competition continuum and of those three legs the competition continuum one of them is competing at levels below conflict And that's really where sharp power comes in. So what it is, it's manipulative, it's precise, it finds areas where there's instability, that you can use micro -level inputs to get macro -strategic -level gains. And this is being wielded by China. One can look at their three warfares, the strategic psychological operations they utilize, the overt and covert need manipulation, the exploitation of natural and international legal systems. Also, the Gerasimov Doctrine by the Russians. And you can also look at some of the regional actors out there as well. So Ron's use of the militias throughout the Shia Crescent, it really highlights this as well. So this is something that is out there. It's still being studied and manifested, but it's really being operationalized by our opponents who don't want to meet us in a hard power contest and instead are trying to utilize the seams, the gray areas, and compete with us at levels below conflict. And that's really where CA... and this is a big part of our paper, can come in and really make a difference in identifying where sharp power is being executed and also finding where its vulnerable populations on key strategic areas might be, as well as coming out with our utilizing all elements of national power and a smart power methodology to counter it. Good point. Now, the definition of sharp power referenced, I believe, authoritarian regimes, but sounds like... It's not just relegated to authoritarian governments to wield sharp powers. You know, your argument is part that the U .S. should be doing this as well, right? I would take a step back and say sharp power has negative connotations to it, specifically with trying to tear down democracies, tear down governance to make strategic ends met. So if you look at what Chris Krebs said, he's the director of the Cybersecurity Center for Homeland Security. He says, you know, Russia's not trying to. win the game, so to say. They're just trying to cause instability. They're trying to cause chaos, and they're trying to destabilize. So smart power is about stabilization. It's about governance. It's about building stable systems. Now, sharp power, inversely, is about tearing those down. So you really have two diametrically opposed constructs that we can see forward here. Okay. But I think the 95th, for example, is focusing on some governance and anti -governance. So would anti -governance, for example, if we were in a country where we wanted to help tear down the government or institutions to build up ones that were sided with the U .S. interests, then that could be seen as sharp power as opposed to smart power? Or is it really just based on your perspective? Yes, I think the resistance, counter -resistance narrative or the offensive or defensive resistance, as I've heard it also called as well, that can kind of be filled in the sharp power. The thing is, sharp power is mostly aimed at either unocracies or democracies. So we'd have to look at the kind of situation, state in which it's going on. All right. Gentlemen, you argue that the U .S.'s most dangerous rivals will utilize non -military means to compete. So maybe talk about some evidence that supports that claim, what's been happening in the news that we could talk about that's unclassed. And what are the global conditions that you would assume for this world of less military conflict with U .S. rivals? Yeah, this is Kyle. So James talked about the three warfares of China doctrine. That came out in 1999, so we're already 20 years behind that doctrine. And what they argued in that paper in 1999 was just a confluence of military and economic means to achieve national goals. And we're seeing that most clearly. in how they're executing the Belt and Road Initiative across really the world, across Asia, into Africa, into Southeastern Europe even. And not only are they achieving infrastructure development that they control and then directly benefits national Chinese companies, but also if a country cannot repay certain debts, the Chinese government itself gains complete legal control of key... infrastructure such as ports and harbors.

00:14:06    SPEAKER_04
Wow. So they didn't really get them over a barrel. Competing at a level below conflict in such a way that they actually gain key nodes in the globalized economy physically.

00:14:14    SPEAKER_04
such a way that they actually gain key nodes in the globalized economy physically. We saw in Russi