100. The Dictator's Dream: A Conversation with COL John Antal (USA-Ret.)

[Editor’s Note:  Last week’s Mad Scientist Laboratory blog post featured a timely “what if?” nightmare scenario by COL John Antal (USA-Ret.), set in a not-too-distant-future — imagining an Operational Environment where today’s National Defense Strategy threat members, colluding as a coalition of autocracies, launched simultaneous surprise strikes against United States’ Joint forces around the globe.

In today’s 100th episode of The Convergence Podcast, Army Mad Scientist welcomes back COL Antal to read his scenario for our listeners and discuss its associated implications for the U.S. Army — Enjoy!]

COL John Antal (USA-Ret.) is a Soldier, military historian, and leadership expert. He served 30 years in the U.S. Army as a combat arms officer, senior staff officer, and commander. He is the author of two recent books on modern warfare: Next War: Reimagining How We Fight (September 2023) and 7 Seconds to Die: A Military Analysis of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and the Future of Warfighting (February 2022).

In our latest episode of The Convergence podcast, Army Mad Scientist sat down with COL Antal to review and discuss his troubling scenario and the associated implications for the U.S. Army. The following bullet points highlight key takeaways from our conversation:

• The Dictator’s Dreamis a fictional story written as a wakeup call for Army Leaders to focus on a worst-case scenario. “Useful fiction” presents possible scenarios intended to develop creativity and strengthen foresight — solving problems in the short term and creating solutions for the long-run. The U.S. could end up in a war for national survival — something most people cannot imagine.  This scenario helps our Leaders to imagine and think about how to respond to such an existential threat.
• The increasing speed of battlefield adaptation requires the U.S. Army to innovate and develop courses of action very rapidly. We can use lessons from history, specifically recent history, to help inform our decisions on how to adapt our forces. Wargames and thought experiments are also essential, enabling our Leaders to engage in productive dialogues on creative, timely solutions. 
• We are living in a precarious time – possibly more dangerous than at any other time in the 21st century. American deterrence has been dramatically affected by events in the past several years, providing our adversaries with opportunities to exploit. These threats are now colluding in ways we have not previously seen – becoming allies.
• Training rotations at our Combat Training Centers are capstone training events for our maneuver brigade combat teams. They must accurately depict the Operational Environment(OE), specifically regarding the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle/Counter-Unmanned Aerial System (UAV/C-UAS) fight and the dispersed battlefield. You do not rise to the level of your expectations; you fall to the level of your training.

Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory for our next episode of The Convergence on 01 August 2024, as we continue to explore the Future Dynamics of Warfare project with Army War College student LTC Kristine Hinds — addressing 5th Generation Warfare, the 6th Domain, and how we might need to adapt to defend ourselves and our Nation from these evolutions to the OE.

If you enjoyed this post, check out the following previously published Army Mad Scientist content featuring COL Antal:  The Dictator’s Dream, Top Attack: Lessons Learned from the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and associated podcast, and Sooner Than We Think: Command Post Survivability and Future Threats and associated podcast.

Explore the TRADOC G-2‘s Operational Environment Enterprise web page, brimming with information on the OE and how our adversaries fight, including:

Our China Landing Zone, full of information regarding our pacing challenge, including ATP 7-100.3, Chinese Tactics, BiteSize China weekly topics, People’s Liberation Army Ground Forces Quick Reference Guide, and our thirty-plus snapshots captured to date addressing what China is learning about the Operational Environment from Russia’s war against Ukraine (note that a DoD Common Access Card [CAC] is required to access this last link).

Our Russia Landing Zone, including the BiteSize Russia weekly topics. If you have a CAC, you’ll be especially interested in reviewing our weekly RUS-UKR Conflict Running Estimates and associated Narratives, capturing what we learned about the contemporary Russian way of war in Ukraine over the past two years and the ramifications for U.S. Army modernization across DOTMLPF-P.

Our Running Estimates SharePoint site (also requires a CAC to access), containing our monthly OE Running Estimates, associated Narratives, and the 2QFY24 and 3QFY24 OE Assessment TRADOC Intelligence Posts (TIPs).

Read the following Army Mad Scientist OE and threat content:

Realer than Real: Useful Fiction and associated podcast, with proclaimed Mad Scientists P.W. Singer and August Cole

Rapid Adaptation

Other People’s Wars: The US Military and the Challenge of Learning from Foreign Conflicts and associated podcast, with Brent L. Sterling

Live from D.C., it’s Fight Night (Parts One and Two) and associated podcasts (Parts One and Two)

Revolutionizing 21st Century Warfighting: UAVs and C-UAS

Unmanned Capabilities in Today’s Battlespace

The Operational Environment’s Increased Lethality

WMD Threat: Now and in the Future

The Hard Part of Fighting a War: Contested Logistics

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, Army Futures Command (AFC), or Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).