Episode notes
Fast reflections of the annual NATO C2 Centre of Excellence (C2COE) conference in the Hague with the centre's commanding officer, Meitta Groeneveld. The challenging issues of MDO and Synchronisation, and the implications of that doctrine on command and control, were the conference's planned themes. We ended up in a conversation about the Cross Domain Command Concept, data and the human, the need to share, the lessons from Ukraine on C2 about adaptation of C2, the community of interest (the "we"), the political (and societal) will to change, the journey towards and beyond C2 in MDO, and the…
Podcast
Command and Control
Peter Roberts · Tech & Science · English
The Command and Control podcast breaks new ground in taking an independent and pragmatic look at what military command and control 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. The hypothesis is this: command is human
More from Command and Control All episodes →
-
S3 · E9 · 13 Apr 2025 · 40 min
C2 and Peacekeeping
Peace keeping missions (whether peace enforcement, peace building, peace making, or conflict prevention) are very different to the formatted hierarchy and organisation of set-piece, large-scale military missions which Western allies have been accustomed to over the past decade. Even the experiences of ISAF or Iraq are outliers rather than a standardised format replicable across peace keeping tasks. This is also evident in the C2 of these missions: often more complex, ambiguous, woolly, and confusing than most military officers will be accustomed to. And that's without bringing in a strategic…
-
S3 · E8 · 3 Mar 2025 · 42 min
Professionals Talk Logistics
The key principles of logistics might not have changed (Jomini's principles remain as valid as ever), but we have been lulled into false sense of adequacy about logistics and war. Steve Leonard and Jon Klug delve into how protracted wars make command conversations about logistics and supply different. The honest advice from the G4 might not always be appreciated but husbanding resources for a long-war is something commanders need to hear, and probably don't get from elsewhere. War-gaming might help but when these exercises are limited by time and training outcomes, the realities and tensions…
-
S3 · E7 · 10 Feb 2025 · 34 min
Ukrainian C2: Adaptation under fire
The announcement in February 2025 of a restructuring of Ukrainian command and control went largely unnoticed in the West. It shouldn't have: the implications are significant. Mick Ryan provides some much-needed illumination and insight into what this means, why it came about, some of the challenges and opportunities that may result, and whether lessons are immediately transferrable. Training and selecting commanders is a critical enabler to making this all work, and Mick recalls some of the syllabus from his time at the USMC School of Advanced Warfighting to give us a flavour of how…
-
S3 · E7 · 27 Jan 2025 · 29 min
CIMIC and C2
Everyone understands that civil agencies and institutions do not operate in the same way as military organisations. The culture, aims, objectives, and funding models are different, as is the way they run activity. So when militaries and these agencies interact, a sense of friction and misunderstanding often emerges. A small group of military staff stand between the behemoths of civil and military leaders – the CIMIC staff; it is their understanding of both sets of cultures that smooths activity in the 97% of military activity that is not combat operations. Kathleen Porath, academic advisor…
-
S3 · E6 · 23 Dec 2024 · 46 min
Nuclear Command and Control
It's not a topic that is spoken about enough in the national security community: Nuclear Command and Control (NC2), and Communications (NC3) is a world apart from C2 for conventional forces: it underpins strategic stability between nuclear armed states. With the emergence of a '3-body problem' in Great Power Competition, there is a risk that Western leaders (political and military) simply try and transpose Cold War theories onto the problems of today, and add some AI/ML to make it look pretty. Professor Andrew Reddie from the Berkeley Goldman School at the University of California, explains…
-
S3 · E4 · 21 Oct 2024 · 44 min
Horrid Bosses
The military sometimes promote and appoint leaders who are truly terrible. Sometimes this isn't their fault, they are not always narcissistic or toxic: sometimes they are just not up to the job. But the issue for staffs is how to handle poor leaders. Professor William Scott Jackson from Oxford University is perhaps the foremost researcher in this field, and he brings with him a wealth of experience and lessons from the private and commercial world – much of it translates into the military world without much imagination. In this episode he talks about succession management, micro solutions…
-
S3 · E3 · 23 Sep 2024 · 36 min
Synchronisation as Coupling
If there is some unresolved tension in the ideas of mission command and synchronisation – particularly within the MDO concept – then it could be more useful to think about the USMC idea of Coupling: the idea of providing linkage between warfare activities that are needed for to meet the task and/or mission. Instead of simply connecting everything because it's possible, the Corps advocates for an approach that provides the means on a case-by-case basis. Interestingly, it is explained best in MCDP5 (USMC Planning) penned back in 1997, and signed off by the legend who is General Charles C.…
-
S3 · E2 · 12 Aug 2024 · 44 min
Submarine Command and Control
Imagine sitting on a battlefield and trying to figure out what is happening with only your ears to guide you; your guidance is based on orders written weeks or months ago, and the last time you got an update of where your own forces where was a day old (at best). That, in essence, is submarine warfare. There is no constant information flow for situational awareness and communication (of any kind) endangers your existence; so submarine commanders are required to make decisions based on a series of assumptions about a myriad of variables and use their experience, judgement, advice from their…
-
S3 · E1 · 15 Jul 2024 · 35 min
The Civ/Mil part from a NATO SecGen
Former NATO Sec Gen Jaap de Hoop Scheffer talks about what it takes to make effective command relationships work at the highest level of Pol/Mil C2: the tensions between domestic agendas and international obligations, decision-making in NATO, and how to achieve coherence and agreement in matters of war. The conclusion, perhaps unsurprisingly, is that the level of co-operation between politicians and their military counterparts is not something that can be scripted or forced: it depends more on personalities, behaviours, and shared interests than on orders and formal hierarchies. Reflecting…
-
S2 · E9 · 17 Jun 2024 · 43 min
C2 Systems – how much has changed?
In providing commanders with the ability to command and control, computerised systems have been in use for more than 50 years. Their evolution from siloed systems inside individual units, moving across task forces, then to covering theatres has helped operators and HQ staffs orchestrate military means with increasing efficiency and lethality. The change in the last decade – according to Andrew Graham – has been in moving from enabling these domain-to-domain C2 structures to talk to each other, to one that has to integrate the data from each platform system to be seem by everyone else. Now…
Take it with you
The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.
