62. Sooner Than We Think: Command Post Survivability and Future Threats with COL (Ret.) John Antal

COL John Antal (USA, Ret.) is a lifelong student of leadership and the art of war. His purpose in life is “to develop leaders and inspire service.” Today, he is an Amazon best-selling author, a defense analyst, a military correspondent, and a galvanic speaker. John has appeared on radio, podcast, and television shows and is the author of 16 books and hundreds of magazine articles on military and leadership subjects. His latest books are Leadership Rising (July 2021); and 7 Seconds to Die, A Military Analysis of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and the Future of Warfighting (February 2022). In the past year, based on his in-depth study of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, COL Antal has made over 108 presentations on the “changing methods of warfare” to U.S. military and national security leaders. He offers these presentations to the U.S. military at no charge and as a “Soldier for Life.” His previous The Convergence podcast — Top Attack: Lessons Learned from the 2nd Nagorno-Karabakh War — and its associated blog post remain Army Mad Scientist’s “best-selling” listens and reads to date!

In today’s podcast, COL Antal returns to discuss the challenges facing our Army in executing continuous and uninterrupted mission command in the contemporary battlespace, ensuring command post survivability, and achieving the Joint Force’s requirement for an All Domain Common Operational Picture.  The following bullet points highlight key insights from our interview:

• Modern conflict is increasingly transparent; it is impossible to hide on the battlefield.  Consequently, it is imperative that the Army adopt and practice “masking” — a full spectrum, multi-domain effort to deceive enemy sensors and disrupt targeting.  Our Joint Force must obscure its optical, thermal, electronic, acoustic, and quantum signatures — or die! 

• Today’s centralized command posts are incredibly vulnerable to enemy fire, while “Command Posts-in-Sanctuary” — those out of reach of adversary strikes — are limited by communications capabilities. To find an appropriate middle ground, we should adopt decentralized, mobile command posts that can support command and control and mask their locations and communications. 

• It is unlikely that the United States will initiate the first strike in a conflict. Therefore, the U.S. military must consider how it will respond to a first strike by our adversaries. We should ask what we could do to prepare for a bolt from the blue attack, then make those changes now. 

• Like our adversaries, we must assimilate the lessons learned from the on-going war in Ukraine.  China, for instance, has learned that any potential invasion of Taiwan requires the rapid application of overwhelmingly devastating military strength. 

• The tempo of war is accelerating. The Joint Force should adapt its mission command to operate in this space.  Integration with Artificial Intelligence (AI) will facilitate the creation of a Kill Web, replacing our current human-centric, and slower, Kill Chain.

Stay tuned to the Mad Scientist Laboratory for our next episode of The Convergence — addressing how wargaming can broaden our understanding of future Operational Environment possibilities — to be published in a fortnight on 18 August 2022.  To whet your appetite, read Ian Sullivan‘s informative post entitled Would You Like to Play a Game? Wargaming as a Learning Experience and Key Assumptions Check.

If you enjoyed this post, check out COL Antal’s associated paper — 21 Command Post Rules To Live By — and his previous insights on battlefield transparency and masking in Top Attack: Lessons Learned from the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and the associated podcast…

… as well as the following related content:

Insights from Ukraine on the Operational Environment and the Changing Character of Warfare

Nowhere to Hide: Information Exploitation and Sanitization

War Laid Bare and Decision in the 21st Century, by Matthew Ader

On Surprise Attacks Below the “Bolt from the Blue” Threshold, by Lesley Kucharski

Battlefield sensing and AI discussions in The Future of Ground Warfare with COL Scott Shaw and associated podcast

Takeaways Learned about the Future of the AI Battlefield

Integrating Artificial Intelligence into Military Operations, by Dr. James Mancillas

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).