Command and Control

C2 has become an industry - but has the essence of command and control been lost? Explore the conversations with us and experts.

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The enemy gets a vote

Western military planning has ignored the adversary for too long. Are we adapting to their way of war?

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How to Train a Military

Simulation has huge potential to improve lethality but it is an addition rather than a replacement for live training and exercises. Listen to discussions with experts to discover why.

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The Profession of Arms

We like theories but only when they add value to the real world. It's not pretty, nor easy.

This Means War

We should pay more attention to combat and warfare around the world. Conversations with experts help us do that.

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MOST RECENT EPISODES

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SEASON 2 / EP.1
JADC2 – a primer
In 2019, the Chiefs of Staff of the US military determined that C2 really had to adapt. The decision came after the...

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SEASON 3 / EP.9
Balancing and regional actors
States face complex calculations in balancing their reactions to wars. Many (perhaps most?) governments of the day are...

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SEASON 3 / EP.7
DPRK in an era of Great Power realignment
Most people will not have missed the visit North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, to Russia last month. What went without...

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SEASON 3 / EP.6
On Taiwan – Strategic ambiguity, operational clarity?
Beijing seems to have an insatiable appetite for increasing the scale and pace of military operations around Taiwan:...

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SEASON 3 / EP.5
Investing in a War Zone
How do companies, businesses, and industry make investment decisions in a war zone? There is no shortage of...

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SEASON 3 / EP.4
Ending Wars – a primer
Bringing conflict to a conclusion usually comes about because of annihilation of one party or the exhaustion of both....

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SEASON 1 / EP.8
Question time
Three great guests, 120 questions, global audience. What could go wrong? recorded at DSEi in London in September 2023,...

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SEASON 3 / EP.3
What if the deep battle doesn’t matter?
The modern interpretation of manoeuvre theory for warfare holds the deep battle as a central avenue to success. Indeed,...

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SEASON 1 / EP.7
Confidence and The Initiative
People lie at the heart of any C2 complex – both those in command and their HQ staff, as well as those at the gritty...

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SEASON 3 / EP.2
Manoeuvre Is In A Coma
The opportunities to use manoeuvrist theory on contemporary battlefields are scarce, if they exist at all.  Professor...

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SEASON 6 / EP.1
AI in C2
Everyone seems to be talking about how Artificial Intelligence inside HQs will revolutionise command and control. The...

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SEASON 3 / EP.1
Is Manoeuvre a Myth?
There is a disturbing undercurrent in Western PME – demonising anything not termed ‘manoeuvre’ or...

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SEASON 1 / EP.5
Familiarity ≠ Trust
Trust has always been a central concept in military command and control: it can be based on a ‘Band of Brothers’...

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SEASON 1 / EP.15
So What Did We Learn?
This first series of this podcast on military training has taken us from World War One to modern day combat operations,...

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A New Orders Process
In ‘How to Win’ rather than ‘How to Operate’ in a peer or near peer war, time is vital and the ability to share...

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SEASON 2 / EP.25
NATO structural issues unresolved
Going into the NATO summit at Vilnius, NATO had a three tier membership structure and lacked the political leadership...

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SEASON 1 / EP.3
What makes a great commander?
It is not hard to identify the great (and successful) commanders across history – and it turns out they have a few...

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SEASON 1 / EP.14
Best Tank on the Battlefield?
The best tank on the battlefield is determined by the best crew inside it, not the best...

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SEASON 2 / EP.24
Japan’s Security Dilemmas
Surrounded by three potential adversaries, hampered by a history that prevents deep alliances with neighbours, and a...

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SEASON 1 / EP.13
Fighting and Debating
Good wartime commanders are very different to those who excel in peace. How do we educate and train people for both...

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SEASON 1 / EP.2
Adaptation under fire
Command and control in war is very different to peacetime plans: and then C2 that works well for defensive operations...

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SEASON 2 / EP.23
A Middle East without America?
For decades, politics, security and economics in the Middle East has been inextricably linked to the USA. Today,...

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SEASON 1 / EP.10
Harder than your worst day in combat
The best training many of us experienced has always taken us outside of our comfort zone. For military forces this is...

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SEASON 1 / EP.9
Combat, Training and Culture
Different cultures conduct military training and education in very different ways. The Israeli Defence Force might be...

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SEASON 1 / EP.1
The Quest for Certainty
Martin van Creveld talked about command being about the ‘Quest for Certainty’, in order to make the right...

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SEASON 1 / EP.8
Credibility is about training people not buying equipment
The capability of a military force is often measured by the equipment it operates. If a cursory examination of combat...

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SEASON 2 / EP.19
The new European military heavyweight
Poland is an outlier in Europe: a state that has been willing to resource the national security statements of political...

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SEASON 1 / EP.7
Military training, Primes and SMEs
As simulators have taken an increasingly prominent role in military training since the 1980s, their complexity – and...

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SEASON 2 / EP.18
What’s not being covered, defence reviews, and the future
One year on from starting the podcast, the production team persuaded me to answer some of the most popular questions...

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SEASON 1 / EP.6
Money, exercises and simulation
Peter talks to Professor Jim Storr about the use of simulators in the British military since the 1980s. Why and how...

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WHO WE ARE

Pursuing the reality of national security, based on evidence not heresay

With an on-line national security audience of nearly a million people in 120+ states around the world, and face-to-face meetings with nearly 17,000 military personnel annually, we strive to stimulate challenging discussions, engaging their intellectual curiosity to improve mental capacity, build resilience, and expanding thinking space.

Our Background

There is compelling evidence that ideas, people and thinking are decisive factors in combat and warfare. Peculiarly, Western militaries seem to sideline the intellectual development of their people and instead rely on the promise of technological revolution. We aim to help in redressing that balance by starting conversations that challenge orthodoxy, offer advice (on tactics, operational art and strategy), inform and educate. Not everyone likes this approach: It takes open minds, intellectual curiosity, and a pragmatic, realistic understanding of warfare.

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Who we are

The national security community contains military personnel, industry, politicians, diplomats, civil servants, scholars and academics, civil servants, and veterans. We stimulate challenging discussions for these audiences, engaging their intellectual curiosity to improve mental capacity, build resilience, and expanding thinking space. From this, better decision-making results under stress.

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Meet our Founder

Professor Peter Roberts spent more than 20 years in the British military, serving all over the world and engaged with a variety of agencies and nations. He went on to become Director of Military Sciences at RUSI, a London based Think Tank, where he spent nearly a decade and remains a Senior Associate Fellow. Peter founded the company to serve the intellectual curiosity of the military and wider national security community. He likes a challenge, reading discordant thinking, visiting hot spots, and a bit of history: things he tries to keep at the heart of the company.

Just listened to this again - the series was a real tour de force. So many important points I particularly liked “ideas, then people, then equipment” & being clear on “how we fight” is a critical capability.
ANONYMOUS
Twitter
A genuinely original take on our mission, and guidance on actual strategy that has turned out to be useful.
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Spotify
Challenging, insightful, discordant.
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iTunes
This was really good (as usual). Particularly like the part on the importance of process (GOOD process) and not just blithely regurgitating buzz words ‘agile’ ’lean’ ’just-in-time’ and actually doing harm
ANONYMOUS
Twitter
Fabulous content, the must-listen resource on contemporary conflict. Fascinating speakers and wonderfully moderated.
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iTunes
Definitely the most valuable high level brief we have had in the 5 years I have been in post. A deep examination of where the future of warfare will take us – and how we will get there. Looking forward to having you back next year
CEO
European Defence Company

PODCAST

Conversations about military thinking, combat, wars and adversaries

A wide range of discussions that match the demands of people in the Profession of Arms; those who want to understand more about what's going on their world - not simply their own organisation. With access to some brilliant people around the world we strive to sate the intellectual curiosity of our audience

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LATEST SERIES

SERIES 01

Command and Control

The Command and Control podcast breaks new ground in determining what C2 might look like for the fight tonight and the fight tomorrow. Join us as we talk through C2 for an era of high-end war fighting. Blending human decision and cutting edge technology has been evolutionary but will this change,...

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SERIES 02

How to train a Military

How do you train the optimal military force for the wars to come? Learning, education, training and simulation are all tackled as priorities in this podcast as a series of interviews with experts who think about military training. A lot.

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SERIES 03

This means war

Conversations about contemporary wars, trends and technologies and what they might mean to the future of warfare.

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ARTICLE FEATURED IN THE WAVELL ROOM

The Quest for Certainty

Martin Van Creveld talked about Command and Control being a constant quest for certainty. Despite the arrival of numberous C2 systems in our HQs, this is a fallacy.
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THINKING

They're not fighting how we want them to

It might be that we have forgotten that the enemy gets a vote. We need to think more about the realities of how adversaries fight

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