The Future of War Part III: Strategic Sabotage in an Era of Great-Power

In a regular warfare context, I would say the asymmetry of capability that small groups can now wield favors the attacker. It is much harder to defend. The crucial element in that, though, I think, is having the competency and experience to be able to wield a given technology. technology. Some of that classic Army Special Forces mission of, say, training an insurgent force or a regular force in marksmanship, ambush tactics, of course now has a highly technical corollary to it that's only going to become more important. Our AI imperative here is try to get to our fingertips to know what SOC South knows. The AI tools are going to be able to take decades of information and make it accessible When Admiral Mark Schaefer comes in and takes command after being around the globe for 25 years, I can come in, get on my computer, ask a few questions, and get three decades worth of knowledge of what Sakshaf's been doing. That's going to be a big step in our understanding of the environment. Welcome to Episode 144 of the Irregular Warfare Podcast. I'm your host, Ben Jebb, joined today by Kyle Atwell. This is part three of our four-part Future of War series, and today's show is centered on August Cole's short story, Special Delivery. Set in a near-future South America where U.S.-China strategic competition is intensifying, the vignette follows a four-deployed U.S. Special Operations team and host nation partners using advanced technology to sabotage critical Chinese infrastructure at the port of Chiang Kai in Peru. An indirect action aimed at deterring a looming blockade of Taiwan by the People's Liberation Army. To unpack the real-world implications of strategic sabotage, indirect action, and deterrence, we're joined by author and futurist August Cole and Rear Admiral Mark Schaefer, Commander of Special Operations Command South. You are listening to the Irregular Warfare Podcast, a joint production of the Princeton Empirical Studies of Conflict Project and the Modern War Institute at West Point, dedicated to bridging the gap between scholars and practitioners to support the community of irregular warfare professionals. Here's our conversation with Rear Admiral Mark Schaefer and August Kohl. Mark, August, thanks for joining us today for part three of our Future of War series. It's great to be back. Yeah, wonderful to be here. I love the body of work that you all produce. All right, welcome back to the show, August. By now, our listeners are somewhat familiar with your work and role as an author and futurist, but also longtime friend of the podcast. Before we dig into the story, I was actually hoping to learn a little more about our other guests, Admiral Mark Schaefer. Mark, could you explain your role at Special Operations Command South and provide our audience with a summary of what your command does? Yeah, thanks, Ben. So I am the Special Operations Command South. So I serve as the Special Operations Component to U.S. Southern Command. So that's everything south of Mexico all the way down to Antarctica. And our role is to one, design a campaign plan to employ soft through the theater to achieve long-term objectives. Then we command and control that special operations in the theater. And then we are inherently a joint headquarters. We've got teammates from all five services. We've got one Space Force Guardian. And with that joint headquarters, we are prepared to respond to crisis quickly as an agile force. great so august let's go big to small here and for our listeners we'll play a narrated clip from the story at the end of the show but could you briefly explain why you and peter singer settled on a scenario that involves south american countries in the geopolitical struggle between the u.s and china like where did the inspiration come to weave in china's bell and road initiative one of the big challenges in creating a narrative like this is where do you begin and i mean that quite literally in the geographic sense. And one of my favorite things to do is to basically look at a map of the world and think about the Chinese strategic ambition over the next decade or two. And being able to almost reverse engineer that a bit, where do they have almost like more attack surfaces now that the Belt and Road Initiative is becoming more established, that it's becoming more integrated into their economy. And so here in South America, it seemed like there was a really critically important geography that was Pacific facing, that had a vastly important port for not just commercial shipping into the continent, but also for the PLA potentially. And so walking that forward to the year 2037, when the narrative took place, it wasn't much of a stretch of an imagination for us, it felt, to think about at a deterrence level, is that a pain point, so to speak, that could be pressed on by, in this case, USASOC. There was another form of inspiration, too, on a trip to SOCOM. Someone gave me a sticker that said, with a butter knife and Chuck Taylor's, they'd still win. And, you know, that element, I think you can find woven throughout this narrative. There's a bit of old and new together. And certainly the tactics, sabotaging rail lines, those are familiar, of course, to special operations historians from World War II. But we're in 2037, of course, so things are going to be a little different. The port of Chauncey is about 70 kilometers north of Lima. You have here a team of Green Berets, but importantly, members of the Army's 528th Sustainment Unit, which is a special operations logistics group. And this is a really crucial dimension to this narrative and something often overlooked, I think. And I'm glad that we were able to focus on it for General Braga and Yusasak at the time. Access and placement is elemental to special operations forces having strategic impact. And so the narrative by placing these soldiers in this unconventional warfare role where they're trying to sabotage a port sets up a few really important themes. One is the role of technology, of course, using cyber, but a close in almost like tactical proximate inject. The other is how do you have an effect locally that changes the strategic calculus of Beijing, of the Central Military Commission, all the way on the other side of the world? And so in the story, while you have a sergeant who's basically digging by hand a tunnel into this vital port because their intel was slightly off and they have to improvise on the spot, you have at the same time intel indicating that the Taiwanese blockade that the Chinese are planning is about to go live. And so what can the U.S. do to potentially make Beijing think twice? And so the story plays that out. And by creating not just the physical effects on the ground, but a really important element in this too is the cognitive and the almost information side of it. How do you turn a message about a successful sabotage operation into something that really undercuts the credibility and relationship between, say, PLA or affiliated elements in a local country or partner? And so that was the knot that we were trying to tie and then unwinding it bit by bit, scene by scene through the story. And in the end, the strategic effect, it works, right? Not to spoil the narrative, but I think it's really important to illustrate that, you know, through using this access and placement that takes years to establish. You can't surge trust, I think is an adage I've heard people use, but you can't surge soft logistics either. And so I think if we can demonstrate that in a story like this, how critical it is, especially in regions like Southcom is responsible for, then I think that's a successful narrative. August, there's a lot of threads to pull on there. And I'll start with the context of the idea of an operational mission in Southcom in Latin America that is focused on an adversary in the Indo-Pacific, China, right? And so this suggests that there's a lot of transnational challenges that the United States military and the national security enterprise has to manage. Mark, for you working in the Southcom space, how do you look at these transnational threats? Is this a part of your daily conversation? And what kind of challenges does that pose for us, almost bureaucratically as an organization that divides the world in two regions? Yeah, Kyle, that's a great point. We are at our best when we're always thinking globally, whether it's a war game or an exercise. The more we zoom back and use the technology that's available now to see what's going on around the globe. And SOF is in a great position to do that just for their SOF footprint. And we've got SOF located in normally about 80 countries. That's over a third of the countries in the world at any given time. And so we've got small teams often partnered with generational partnerships, very culturally attuned to what's going on in that individual country. And then to bring the perspective of all those teams into the calculus of trying to apply some pressure or pain point to compel a different action. Mark, I know the story happens several years in the future, but given the Pentagon's newfound emphasis on hemispheric security, could you discuss the range of threats and also opportunities in your area of responsibility? What distinguishes Southcom from other theaters? Yeah, the threats are really twofold. So one, this is a stage of non-hemisphere competitors coming into the Western Hemisphere. And so that strategic competition is alive and well in the Western Hemisphere. And what makes it distinct in the Southcom AOR is just we are here at the entryway to the United States. And so with swarming global competition, it's more relevant than ever to be out there on that field of competition. And I truly believe that we are the best partner of choice. And we're so culturally aligned in the Western Hemisphere that the U.S. value proposition and the partnership stands on its own. We just got to be out there to compete well. But the other threat are the narco terrorists and this $350 billion illegal business of narcos is a real threat. And this is where we're also aligned with our partnerships in the countries because it's really eroding the security in many countries, which allows these narco terrorists to thrive and is bringing illicit drugs into the United States. So our interests align. We want to thwart the narco terrorists and countries in Latin America and South America, they want to bring more security to their countries. So I guess I'd like to go a little deeper regarding some of the futuristic technology we find in the story. We see, for example, the exploitation of critical infrastructure like the Chinese train, using cyber tools, augmented reality glasses, and miniature recon drones. Is this stuff currently available, or did you and PW Singer have a brainstorm session and dream it up? when we're working on our useful fiction stories we follow a no vaporware rule among others that we follow to try to create a fairly credible and compelling story and so this encounter in a narrative like this is all basically within the realm of possible you know certainly we're seeing handheld drones that fit in your palm we've got a fairly robust like augmented reality consumer market that's growing. You look at what Oakley just introduced, for example, and the DoD space that's coming. So this is all here. And I think some of the technology questions, though, are also really important because it's important to assess, like, why does it matter? What does it really do? And to start with the sense of importance of something like augmented reality or potentially even haptics, right? Situational awareness. How do you know what's going on around you, especially when some of the most important and decisive effects might be electrons? It could be social media algorithms that are shaping the sentiment around you could be some sort of a cyber or directed energy capability. So how do you see that? We can't do that with our own eyes, but certainly with augmented reality, you can. The other thing I would say too is with cyber, certainly someone on a keyboard or sitting on top of a system that's semi-automated can have effects around the world. But there are a lot of exploits and effects that have to happen up close. And I think from a soft and deterrence perspective, that's actually really important, whether it's trying to, and we didn't so much deal with it in this story, you can have an effect with one capability that might then be actually masking another. That's a conventional soft kind of paradigm and tension that goes back decades that can be really opportunistically used. But in here, we see these soldiers getting close so they can basically turn the infrastructure against itself and create that sense of strategic vulnerability, but also doubt locally. And I think that piece of understanding the effect of a cyber weapon or a cyber capability much bigger than any one and zero or what you're actually doing to a piece of hardware. But what is the context within it exists? What is that effect going to do to sentiment? What is it going to do to confidence and deterrence is crucial. And that level of sophistication, I think you're seeing more and more, of course, out in the world today, but it's going to be more important in the future. Hey, August, two great points on your first one. We're talking about bringing the situational awareness through VR or however it is, this is really what we're seeing. Artificial intelligence bringing all the things that we could know, bringing it into coherence so that what it used to be, the one or two people we would say are walking, talking, encyclopedias because they were just those rare humans who had all that experience and background. We can all have it now with artificial intelligence. And then where we're going in the future is bringing that to the tactical edge. So when they're in there digging with their spoons, they've got enough of the information that they know everything that they need to know around there. And that's really going to be the game changer. And we think SOF is on the leading edge of that. Yeah, Mark, what you said is really interesting, that high-low mix, if you will. And maybe you could unpack a little bit what it's going to be like for an operator in the next decade or so that has to, as you said, be able to literally dig with your hands, but also have an edge AI capability that gives them PhD level capabilities like Ben here. Yeah. So I think one of the things that's going to stay the same is you've got to be tough. You've got to be physical. You've got to have the good sense of operating tactically and then know how to harness all that information that's out there because it's there. And I think at first we're going to start and it's going to be that the man machine teaming, it's going to be a little bit overload, but then we're going to get so good at curating so that the logistician is digging in the tunnel. We know exactly what that operator needs. And then that operator who's back in the safe house, we're going to know at the tactical edge instantly the information that they're going to need. And so as we the more we do it the more we be able to refine that and then get just that right amount of AI empowered information at the edge August just to correct the record I just have a two master It Kyle who got the big brain PhD But speaking of which I saw a hand So Kyle go ahead That's his way of euphemistically saying I'm the resident nerd here. So, a question for you, Mark, putting on your commander hat and your training and equipping hat for the troops. There are a lot of requirements on our operational units when they're in training mode just to do the basics of field work, all the things that were pre-technology. And now we're trying to add on all kinds of sophisticated technologies as outlined in August's work. How do you as a commander view the balance in training traditional skill sets with integrating new technologies? What is the solution to this? Yeah, and that takes the broad range of judgment. So we need the real senior experience, the E9s and the 06s, taking all their experience and saying, okay, what are the fundamentals that we need to preserve? But then also bring up the junior force that has their hands on the new technology and say, this is what's most important that we weave into our training. And then they're going to have to make the tough decisions about what is not part of the core fundamentals that's going to enable us to be phenomenal soft operators. We got to divest some of the old so that we can add some of this new edge technology to how do we do soft enabled cyber? How are we, how do we harness the information that can come from space? We're starting to do that. No doubt. We're going to, we're going to go a little bit too far to the right, a little bit too far to the left, but then constantly assessing, we're going to find the sweet spot. Yeah. Maybe what you got me thinking is when there's so many tasks to train on, you have to have the whole suite of capabilities available, but then it really depends on the mission you're going to take on. So it's building in the time to prepare for the specific mission and identifying the skill sets for that. Does that resonate? Yeah, it sure does. Over my 30 years, we've gotten more specialties within the SEAL teams. And that allows us to be really good. Sometimes when you're serving in the unit, you might not be great at all the skills of the SEALs, but when you're in that unit, you're really good at whether it's diving, whether it's amphibious operations. So I think we're going to continue to see that, but we will have to keep divesting of some things. And those are always really tough decisions. The other piece that this brings up, August specifically chooses a logistician. And the fifth soft truth is that soft operations require non-soft assistance. And that's the fifth one, but I would argue it's not the least important by any means. And I think as we get more sophisticated, we're going to rely on teammates that may not be badged soft operators. And I think that's a good thing. And I actually think it's one of the hallmark strengths of the soft community is because we always have to rely on, whether it's general purpose forces or some other specialties, we're pretty darn good at building teams because that's what we've had to do. We had to do it in 20 plus years in the conflict zone. And so I think that's something that plays to our strengths as well. There's often a lot of talk about technology and the implications for culture in a given military service or branch. But I think, Mark, what you're saying there is super interesting for the idea that, you know, and this is true, I think, as much at a higher level, like with strategy, what you don't do is as important as what you do and sometimes more. And I think especially when it comes to culture and the impact, right? And if you're saying that a future formation in the 2030s may have people with exquisite kinetic skills, but they might be only two or three out of a seven or eight person detachment. And that might be the inverse of today, where you have someone with exquisite cyber skills or language and collection skills. And to me, that space has been a real focus for a lot of the narratives, to be honest, we've been doing across SOCOM and even general purpose force for the Army, etc. Because it's ultimately one of the most important questions. The who is almost the more important question than the what when it comes to technology. mark when you're talking about how you balance traditional skill sets with innovation and incorporating new technology you essentially described mission command right the idea of delegating decision making power down to where the information is and for kyle and i people who are pretty low on the totem pole we always love hearing that but let's get back to the story here so august you write about an arsoft team whose mission is to sabotage chinese overseas infrastructure by relying on local partners and amplifying messages through targeted information operations. This seems a little different from the mental image of commandos kicking in doors and shooting bad dudes. So could you just discuss why you wrote about sabotage and non-traditional capabilities for this story? It's a different kind of movie, isn't it, than a lot of the conventional traditional depictions of special operations forces. The importance, for example, of working with local partners. And that's something that I think you'll find in a lot of the stories we've written that we've discussed in the podcast, but particularly in this case, where you are so relying on someone who has a network that can give you physical access and also help you better understand the strategic effect of your, in this case, cyber operation. To me, that level of knowledge in this case is going to be more impactful than the marksmanship or the explosive skills, for example, in a given team. But pulling back, that's not to say, though, that both aren't important because they are. Kyle was saying the composition of a given team to be applied to a problem set, to a mission, that may be a lot more dynamic in the future. And it felt it was really important in this narrative, particularly to both underscore that fifth soft truth, which in many ways has a backward-looking orientation to it because we see the primacy and the importance of non-kinetic effects. But at the same time, to be able to sense and see across the spectrum, or again, to have access in places that you can't get to without having extreme cultural knowledge and collection capabilities. But you still might have to go blow something up, right? You still might have to finish a target. And so I think that tension is inherent in the thing we were just talking about earlier, who is the operator of the future. And that may be, even as I say this and articulate it, less about one person, but rather the team itself. And as machines and software become more and more parts of those teams, that is another almost like fourth dimension to this, too, right? It's not just a matter of do we have the right humans that we've selected for this unit, but rather do we have the right software and other capabilities beyond that are part of that, too, that then allow us to do something that ultimately is surprising. Because I think if you look at what a soft capability should be, it should not be predictable. And if everyone is looking for the image of people in the dark kicking down doors after fast roping on helicopters, then there is a good chance that what might actually surprise the enemy does not look like that. I guess I never really thought of it like that before. That was pretty genius. Mark, sorry, did you have something to say? Yeah, I was just a piece that you mentioned a couple of times is really understanding the effects that are going to be delivered. And it's not so much what's being delivered, it's the response. In this scenario, such an important piece of this being an effective deterrent is having a good understanding of what the adversary's cognitive recognition of our act is, how they interpret it. and so i think this is a great example where soft can present a bunch of different options and then it comes up into the senior levels and say okay have we set the conditions that you know if we do this cyber action on the train trolleys that are going to chonkay pork do we really think it's going to have the reaction that we hope it has because history has got plenty examples where we do something and then didn't understand what our adversary's response was going to be. And then it leads into whether the Korean War or Japan feeling an existential threat to an oil embargo. And so that really sophisticated understanding is a key component before you can go off and do this surgical SOF operation. And so SOF is involved in that, but this is where it gets into a much larger team of teams to have that understanding before doing that discrete soft operation. The scenario that we're talking about from this story is an act of sabotage against a piece of critical infrastructure. And I think as a mission set, as a national security priority, both defensively, we have our own critical infrastructure and potentially offensively in the future, this is an important topic to explore. So I'll start August with you on the relationship between technology and sabotage. Is new technology favoring the offense, taking offensive actions against others, or is it favoring the defense? How do you view technology impacting sabotage as a tool of warfare or irregular warfare? In a regular warfare context, I would say the asymmetry of capability that small groups can now wield favors the attacker. It is much harder to defend. The crucial element in that, though, I think, is having the competency and the experience to be able to wield a given technology, whether it is a cyber capability, an information campaign, or more exquisite or even homemade autonomous systems or semi-autonomous systems. some of that classic army special forces mission of say training an insurgent force or a regular force a guerrilla force in marksmanship ambush tactics of course now has a highly technical corollary to it that's only going to become more important and so from the perspective of the regular warfare community in the u.s i would see and expect and again i say this as an outsider but i would say and expect that's going to become more and more of not only a crucial capability to have in a given unit, but how to teach it, how to operationalize it. And as we who have kids know how generationally there are vast differences in technical facility, some of that may actually have to flow back up to the US, right, from partner forces. More so even if you're finding opportunities to allow partners to use technology in ways that we haven't thought of, or some of our authorities don't permit, but still, of course, stay within our rules and norms. I think that's actually a really fruitful and rich area to potentially see as an expression of future regular warfare that, again, I think really favors those who are seeking to go after bigger adversaries. Tyler and August, I'm glad you brought this up. This is top of mind because I just had my international security students write an essay about the offense-defense balance for their final exam. But there's this idea that the technology of the day either makes an operational environment more conducive to going on the attack, taking territory for strike advantage, or absorbing the blow and inflicting more casualties by being on the defense. A lot of people, to include some of my students, make the case at the conventional level, technology right now favors the defense. What we're seeing in Ukraine and Eastern Europe, where we've essentially got trench warfare again, drones, even though they enhance mobility, stop mass formations from moving. Israel was able to neutralize Iran's kind of ballistic missile program. But maybe at the sub-conventional war level, at either the asymmetric or regular warfare level, it seems like technology might be favoring the offense. I'm done with the stream of consciousness right now, but I do have a question for Mark going forward. So we're living through a dynamic era where we are updating or outright changing traditional military requirements and skill sets. Could you discuss the range of capabilities that SOC staff needs to adopt to provide value for the joint force? One small piece that I think is right around the corner that will be very helpful is just going to be real-time translation. So it would be just a couple of folks who could sometimes interact with the partners. Having something that makes it easy for both sides to communicate in their native language is going to be a game changer. And I think it's going to be a game changer for all soft around the world. The biggest thing I think is going to be harnessing what we know into a format such that we can digest it quickly. Our AI imperative here is try to get to our fingertips to know what SockSouth knows. and that's not as easy as it sounds, but the AI tools are going to be able to take decades of information and make it accessible. When Admiral Mark Schaefer comes in and takes command after being around the globe for 25 years, I can come in, get on my computer, ask a few questions and get three decades worth of knowledge of what SockShelf has been doing. That's going to be a big step in our understanding of the environment because I think that's going to be a step change for both our tactical operators, but then also a support staff, a better understanding of the operating environment that we're in will be way more effective. Oh, man, we're all over the place here, which is good. That means we're having a dynamic conversation. But I do want to return to this idea of sabotage and escalation management. Mark, due to the nature of your job, we're hoping you can talk us through risk and escalation. How do you think about managing risk in an operational environment characterized by ongoing low-intensity operations and competition? Yeah, when I think about risk, I'm thinking a lot about our relationships in the region. First step, just thinking in a specific country with our specific partners, any kind of operational act will likely be asking them to stretch out. And then that will be based on the trust that we've built over decades and their willingness to support something that we would like to do. And August is one example of what it might be. But some of it might be also working with the local national governments. Then the other risk is the regional dynamics, because as we see, there are dynamics between each country and among the whole region that when we're our most sophisticated engagements, we're able to communicate effectively. But every once in a while, there'll be something that the U.S. will do or SOF will do that will unintentionally upset some of our other partnerships. And that's the risk balance that we pay attention to. August when you looking at protecting critical infrastructure and sabotage operations it seems like there needs to be a strong private partnership here since I guessing a lot of this infrastructure is owned by private businesses. Whose responsibility is it to protect critical infrastructure? How do we coordinate and collaborate this? And I'll lead it to you, but I'm guessing Mark might have some insights on this as well. This is such an important question, and not even just in the context of this narrative. We've seen, thankfully, recent press coverage of the vulnerabilities in our water critical infrastructure in the United States. Small towns here in Massachusetts even have been targeted by Chinese actors. There is a question of responsibility that has different contexts depending on how you want to assign it. There's fiduciary, right? If you're a private company who has management of telecom networks or space networks, right, for traditional communications. But again, much of this is also privately owned now, not just in the US, but globally. So I think having an appreciation of that perspective and what that looks like, who bears the cost is obviously a crucial question for both government and industry alike. And it's more burdensome, right? The smaller you go down the government food chain, a small town, again, of 6,000 people has a different challenge from doing that. So ultimately, though, and I see this as a national level effort, a question of culture, right? And one that is arguably one of the most important to assure our resiliency in a century where conflict with China is coming. So to me, it is absolutely part of the public-private partnership conversation akin to what you might see in cyber. Healthcare has dimensions to this too. And these all overlap, right? There's Venn diagrams of threats, unfortunately, and risks that all of these issues, I think, can be looked at in a similar way of making sure that senior leaders, whether they're in corporations, nonprofits, government, et cetera, understand the implications of not doing the right thing. And this is failure of imagination 101 to me. And I think a lot of people aren't spending enough time thinking about that. Certainly, it is, as you said, a question of understanding where the vulnerabilities are and where really the limitations are in the public sector of protecting. And coercion or imposition of regulations, that sort of thing, isn't always the answer either. Sometimes you have to have people flipping around and want to take that step that protects and assures the provision of a public good. And that's true for allies, right? If you've got a country that is heavily linked into Chinese telecoms or municipal management or another nation's water filtration and management systems, those are conversations to have too about risk. And certainly that is less of a tactical question, but you can see how a lot of that actually does ultimately filter back down to almost that same mindset. yeah i just gotta emphasize great points that august made there and it's easy in the military for us to really emphasize the m and dime or dime fill and the economic we are realizing and becoming more sophisticated in this team of teams approach we see opportunities we might see opportunities through our military lens, but reaching out with an economic lever that can get to the desired outcome. And the other piece is on the information space. I think everybody knows that's a powerful lever. We're still figuring out how to employ that the most responsible and effective way, but it's becoming more well-rounded. The dime is becoming more well-rounded in our most effective operations. I know we've achieved peak IW podcast conversation quality whenever our guests start integrating DIME into the conversation, but this question is for both of you and I'll direct it at August 1st. If deterrence through sabotage works as it does in this story, what does that mean for force planning and civil military resource debates within the Pentagon? on. The impact of sabotage at the strategic level, it's a bit like placing a bet. And much of it assumes that you have a fairly good sense of the odds and the likelihood of not coming out on top. At the same time, if those long odds do pay off, they're considerably more valuable than if you'd kept your money in your pocket. And so from that perspective of resource allocation or policy and doctrine for that matter, I wouldn't go so far as to say that a very effective global sabotage campaign is a replacement for general purpose forces that can fight tonight, so to speak. But at the same time, to not be thinking and acting along those lines to create that doubt in the minds of very strategic adversary like China, but other actors out there as well, where I think the same model can be applied, would imply a bit of negligence almost, because I think you have to have a variety of tools for policymakers to be able to employ. And that goes, again, from conventional military operations to more traditional special operations to the kind of things that are being depicted in this story. So from that perspective, it is a range of capabilities that should hopefully be able to be called upon that the adversary, when they're looking at their next move, isn't sure which one they're going to face. And so to me, that deterrent effect comes from really underscoring the uncertainty at every turn in the game. And soft forces are really well equipped to do this. Again, part of it's the relationships, part of it's the facility with technology, and some of it also is just the ability to be more audacious and move more nimbly into these environments. August, I like how you talk about it as this bet that you may make. And we'll be in the best position if we're able to have options to hold our adversaries, important things at risk. And then almost a responsibility of us is to place this bet, the most likely place where it will have the desired effect before greater conflict. You know, this is the responsible thing to do before there's a more likely outcome of armed conflict. So it's a little bit difficult to think about it that way because it's risky and it's political risky. It might be risky for those individual operators. But then again, take a big step back. And if the alternative is there's a higher probability of armed conflict, it ought to be really considered. And that's a really important part of a war game against senior leaders thinking about this and when they might pull that lever or that deterrent option. I know Ben's about to take us to the conclusion, but something you said, Mark, triggered if you're going to hold things at risk through the potential of sabotage, you almost have to do acts of sabotage at some point to signal credibility that you can do this. So the challenge of how do you signal you can do this without actually doing it and risking escalation is a dilemma you get to deal with and not me, thankfully. sorry but kyle you're so right then we get some diplomatic communications make sure that the information gets into their cognitive space so that they factor that into the decision making and then maybe in in the right surgical place if we get it right and actually nobody gets hurt but they just got her stuff that can be repaired they see that it is a credible uh deterrent because we've got the ability to act on all these things we hold at risk. That would be the position. That would be the hand we'd want to have before making that bet, as August would say. I want to take us to the conclusion, but this line of questioning is fascinating because it's not just theoretical, right? We saw this play out a few months ago in Ukraine with Operation Spiders Web, in which A $100,000 bet, tease August's parlance, had huge payoffs, doing over $7 billion worth of damage to Russia's nuclear infrastructure, to strategic bombers. By all accounts, it caused some heads to roll within Russia, inserted some uncertainty, and also, I think, led to real material support for Ukraine in the wake of Operation Spider's Web. But to echo Kyle's comments, I don't envy anyone who has to think through when and how do we sabotage and what is the high payoff target list here. I guess I'll just jump to the conclusion now. So, August, based on some of the themes from today's conversation, how should practitioners, policymakers and academics think about the future of war? One of the overarching, even overriding themes in the discussion of the future of war is about speed, that we're, as humans, likely to be outpaced by artificial intelligence and the human in on outside the loop is a really important discussion. My hope is that a story like this underscores that certain aspects and dimensions of warfare in the future are going to remain deliberate and slow. That is the creation of, again, logistics networks, whether they're covert or covert or condescent, whether it is relationships that may take a generation to establish. And similarly, really knowing that slow development of understanding of the impact on an adversary of potentially non-kinetic activities may be one of the more high payoff investments of resources that our military can make. Then, Mark, similar question to you, although I guess slightly smaller in scope. How should the Southcom enterprise and its constituent organizations think about future warfare? What changes need to be made and what should remain constant? I think the thing that should remain constant is going to be building these generational relationships. I thought August said it very well, that it takes a long time. And this is a theater where we've seen decades of engagement make consequential impacts on our relationships and things that we're able to do. Two decades ago, team leaders working with junior officers who now are leading militaries in South and Central America. The things that we've got to incorporate, as we understand our partners and we're culturally aware of what's important to them as we meet them to do partner enables or enable partner operations, bringing just the right technology. So being able to bring that, whether it's Intel and getting it quickly by using advanced technology and foreign disclosure processes that get automated. Bringing all that technology to meet the partner where they're at to enable them to be more effective is the next step for operations in South Carolina. We are at time. We have to get everyone out of here before 1400. So thanks again for joining us on the Irregular Warfare podcast. to August, Mark. It was great to have you. It's great to be back. Yeah, really my pleasure. Y'all do great work. Thanks for inviting me. Have a great weekend. Happy holidays. Thanks again for listening to that conversation. We'll now transition to a narrated excerpt from August Cole's short story, Special Delivery. The scene follows a small U.S. Special Operations team forward deployed near the port of Chiang Kai in Peru. As the People's Liberation Army moves towards a blockade of Taiwan, the team receives a mission to sabotage Chinese-owned critical infrastructure in South America, part of a broader, globally coordinated effort to undercut China's trade and industrial base. The operation demands advanced technology and technical know-how, but it also hinges on something a little more timeless. Soldiers operating in austere, indigenous environments, and non-standard teams far from conventional support hubs. The story opens as the detachment infiltrates port infrastructure through a hand-carved underground tunnel. And now, without further ado, here's Special Delivery, brought to life by our narrator, Patrick Kirchner. Special Delivery, written by Peter W. Singer and August Cole, read by Patrick Kirchner. Chenkai, Peru, 8 June 2037 Diana and the other members of the Army team squatted inside the cramped shed, which smelled of diesel and decaying rat nests. Alvarez studied the satellite view of the port on her tack pad, looking for any deviations in the sweep patterns of the site security drones and the overnight PLA and local foot patrols. We're green on our route in, she said. Garcia, ready? Taking in the team and their calm demeanor eased the tension that had been building as she crawled through the tunnel and exited into the shed. Were it not for the port's perimeter wall, she would just about have been able to reach out and touch the safehouse on the other side where the tunnel began. Dressed in the dark blue coveralls worn by the port's workers, the team was filthy from the scramble to get through the tunnel as quickly as possible. Orange safety vests covered their plate carriers and tactical equipment. There was a trade-off in this setup, but given the risk they might end up in a gunfight, the team decided to balance blending in on arrival with potentially fighting their way out of the facility. Master Sergeant Tabor passed around a package of wipes. Rather than use them to clean their hands or faces, the soldiers wiped down the optics and sensors affixed to their cut-down Sig Sauer carbines and Flux Raider machine pistols. Diana carried a suppressed FN pistol that she also wiped down and stowed in a holster she had affixed to the underside of a clipboard. She did not wear any armor, but joked that the clipboard she carried was better protection. Given their disguises had to fool AI-powered surveillance more than human eyes, it was a savvy bet. Tabor then collected the wipes and shoved them into a pants pocket. Garcia tinkered with a drone the size of a deck of cards that he wore affixed to his protective chest rig under his safety vest. Satisfied its propellers were powered up, he set it next to the now-open window. Then he turned his attention to a full-sized tablet whose smudged screen glowed an ember-like red. Without looking at the group, he said, Be ready to move in a minute. I'm about to loop the cams and thermals. Stand by. Diana, who would be leading the group, gave a thumbs up. Nobody spoke as they waited, and filling the nervous silence, a truck rumbled by so close that it shook the flimsy aluminum door on its hinges. Their AR glasses would guide them on a circuitous 312-meter route from the port's western wall, across an access road, into a forest of conics containers, before finally arriving at their target. It was a carefully choreographed movement of starts and stops between gaps in the port's Chinese managed surveillance system. We're good on the repeaters, too, said Staff Sergeant Mark Lang, the team's communications specialist. Rather than use a space SOCOM communication network that might be detected by PLA counterintelligence Lang had set up a series of wireless repeaters of a kind used throughout Peru as families and neighborhoods created their own private nets using Starlink Kuiper Cielo and other cheap satellite bandwidth providers. Okay, let's go, said Garcia. Remember, we take it easy, said Tabor. This tunnel is our best way into the port complex of the target. and our best way out of it. A countdown timer in the lower left of Alvarez's field division, just below the highlighted pathways, indicated she had 94 seconds until the port's surveillance drone in this sector would be looping back through. Checking her vis glasses, Alvarez saw that 17 meters remained until her next waypoint in the port. She would need to move from her concealed position in the shadow between two Costco Connex containers, across an access road illuminated by LED light poles, and then into the service building that was their final position. The rest of the team was already inside, and Diana was motioning her across from the building's open bay. Just as she took a step into the open, a gruff male voice called to her from behind in Spanish. Hey, what are you doing here? the man asked. Alvarez froze. Then she took a step back into the shadows and staggered. A pained moan escaped her mouth. What's wrong? the man asked. Hey, answer me. Sick. I've been sick. I've missed too much work this week already, she said. I'm just looking for a place to throw up without getting in trouble with my Costco manager. Gagging, Alvarez doubled over, hoping her bluff would hold a few more moments. Leaning heavily against the metal container's wall, she looked across the service road and could see Tabor leaning against a tool chest, watching the approaching worker through the optics on his MCX. The heavyset man, maybe in his early fifties, took a couple of steps closer to her and put a hand on her shoulder. He took off his hard hat and sighed as he ran his fingers through his thick gray hair. I'm sorry, he said. We all work too hard. You can rest in my office if you like, but just for a minute. I can get you some water, but then you have to leave before the Costco guys come in for the day. Thank you, she said, rising to her feet. Turning to him, she saw his eyes widen when he noticed her plate carrier under the orange safety vest. Putting her body between Tabor and the worker, she jabbed him in the neck with a taser. He slumped against her, and she slowly let him down. The countdown timer had twenty seconds left until the security drone would begin flying its rounds over this sector of the port. Heaving him over her left shoulder in a fireman's carry, she dashed across the service road without looking left or right, just praying to herself that she would make it across without being detected. Something always goes wrong during operations, and she always hoped she wouldn't be the one caught up in it. Not this time, though. All set? Tabor said. Well, he's still breathing. Help me secure him upstairs. Will do. Rest of the team is up there, Tabor said. As the pair carried the unconscious worker up the stairs by his shoulders and feet, Tabor nodded to himself and then spoke softly. That was the right call, Alvarez. Might be too soon to call that one, but I appreciate it, she said. In just a few minutes, they would all find out if they'd been discovered. Even if they were, they would have to follow through with their mission, and then deal with the consequences. The perimeter surveillance drone flew just below the second-floor windows of the maintenance building's office, a festive twinkle of red and white blinking safety lights. Scanning downward rather than up, it had no idea the team was there. Tabor resumed zip-tying the knocked-out worker's feet and hands, and then carefully fitted a sensory hood. Alvarez nodded thanks and looked expectantly at Garcia. Okay, we're clear and I've got eyes on the target, said Garcia, who turned from the window and slumped against the wall and put on his VR goggles. Diana, you're on the antenna, he added. Just pointed at the train tracks next to the signal tower, okay? I'm punching through the firewalls now. Okay, just like we practiced. Antenna powered on, she said. Roger, Garcia said. Now scanning for the network ports. Engines approaching the interdiction point in twenty seconds, Diana said. You ever play with trains as a kid, Garcia? Tabor asked. Ten seconds, Diana said. No, he responded. Too bad, said Tabor. Used to smash them together all the time, just like this. Uh-huh, Garcia mumbled. He was back in the zone, tuning out the rest of the team and focusing on the task in front of him. As the former Peruvian National Police Officer and the Special Forces Cyber Specialist coordinated, Alvarez tapped out a message confirming that Sergeant Sergio Alvaro, the team's SIOP member, was ready to transmit imagery from the operation back at the house they'd used to infiltrate into the port. The mission's ultimate effectiveness depended on not just Beijing, but the whole world knowing what had happened, and what the potential risks were to the port. Especially locally, where simmering grievances would inflame existing environmental and economic tensions over Chinese activity. Garcia reached into his backpack and began pushing buttons that clicked with the metallic sound of a rifle's safety being switched off. Boosting signal now. We have battery power for maybe five minutes max. Make every Tron count. Claro, said Diana. Here it comes. The locomotive's diesel engines rumbled unmistakably, and in the dark hours of the night It sounded like a plane landing. A piercing whine punctuated the rumble as the train's engine sped up, now under Garcia's control. The 140-ton locomotive in the six cars behind it seemed to surge forward faster and faster along the tracks, as if suddenly caught in a river's raging current. The train cars disappeared out of sight into the mouth of the tunnel. A few seconds later, thunder roared across the port complex as the locomotive slammed into the train coming the other direction in the tunnel. The window panes in the maintenance building shook as if lightning had just struck. In a sense, it had. Three security drones raced by the window again, just below the team, and toward the tunnel, the quadcopter's tinny sirens blaring an ear-splitting whine. Alvaro's got access to these Chinese drone feeds live back at the house. He's working them real time and pushing them out on local social media and making the feed available to anyone who wants it, Garcia said. Let me see, said Alvarez, mindful that this phase of the mission might be the most important. Alvaro, aided by Garcia's hacking of the Chinese drone signals, would stir up an online campaign in the crucial seconds and minutes before the PLA and Costco narratives could be established. The messaging and cognitive effects were essential to the operations deterrent element. This narrative was simple, and the mission and resulting footage set it up perfectly. The Chinese were careless with Peruvian lives and safety. What made the campaign so effective was that it was true, as the thousands of people who worked in and around the port had experienced already. For all the deep fakes and AI-driven messaging, the best campaigns were built around the truth. Each step along the way, though, depended on years-ago preparatory planning and positioning of logistics for the team, as well as relationships with locals like Diana. The foot and road routes into Peru and the equipment and electronics hidden nearby would likely not be able to be used again, so this had to count. Given the stakes, it was worth it to orchestrate an industrial accident at China's most important strategic port in South America to send a clear message to the PLA and Communist Party that any attempt to blockade or militarily interfere in Taiwan would be met with follow-on strikes at crucial Chinese infrastructure around the world. Importantly, nobody on her team had fired their weapons. She wished rendering the port worker unconscious could have been avoided. But if she were lucky, he would decide it more dangerous to reveal what happened to him to the port's Chinese managers than keep the secret. Okay, Alvarez told the team. It's time to go. Back to the exit point. By ones and twos, the team left the safe house and joined the crowds flooding into the streets. Not long after dawn broke and people awoke to the news of the train disaster at the port, a fresh protest drew hundreds of people to the neighborhood. Within an hour, thousands thronged the streets, wielding oversized signs and umbrellas to guard against facial recognition. They beat empty water jugs like drums, creating a wave-like cacophony that surged up and down the street. Into this perfectly timed street protest, inspired by Sergeant Alvaro's wide-cast feed from the train attack and footage of other attacks on Chinese belt and road infrastructure elsewhere in the world, the Army Commandos and Diana disappeared. After changing into local clothes and light disguises to blend in with the protesters, some left on e-scooters driven by locals. Others departed on foot to be picked up by auto-taxi or bus once they cleared the immediate area. Those on foot had to hand their submachine guns and comms gear to their teammates, to be returned later. The SUVs they'd arrived in had been moved hours before to be discreetly scrapped. Diana and Alvarez left together. the last to depart in a wind-worn Toyota sedan they picked up two blocks away. For the first hour they said nothing, and Alvarez drifted off into sleep. She snapped awake and popped a mint stim tab. How long until we get to Ayacucho? she asked Diana. You want to sleep the whole way? Be my guest, Diana said. No way. Ten hours? About right. We'll meet the team there, and then another eight or nine hours to the Las Bombas mine? Yes, to the safehouse nearby, but we will rest for a few hours in Ayacucho. Alvarez studied the tablet in her lap, balanced on one knee. There's a new plan. Things are speeding up and we have to make a stop on the way at Akash, she said. Alvarez toggled to a new site and scrolled through. She could see Diana was focused on her driving, so kept the news to herself. Beijing had backed its naval and air forces away from their position blockading Taiwan. Share prices were crashing in Shanghai and for foreign-listed Chinese logistics and infrastructure companies. From Alvarez's perspective, deterrent seemed to be working for now. Yet her team's mission would continue into the mountains, following the next phase of their operation. Her gut told her that this was not the end of the crisis, but only the beginning. If this situation with China escalated, her team of special operations soldiers and others like them would be ready to act next time as far more than deterrence. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.