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Podcasts

• Commodore Steve Schreiber on the US Navy's Helicopter Missions and Programs in the GWOT
  
  U.S. Naval Aviation has utilized the helicopter as a platform to perform a multitude of duties since its introduction in the 1940s. The versatility of the rotary aircraft has changed the way the Navy has carried out many of its core missions, including search and rescue, anti-submarine warfare, replenishment at sea, mine detection, anti surface warfare duties and others.
  
  The diversity of the missions to be performed requires aircraft and pilots that can be highly adaptive and multi-mission set when taking off. The Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) has also taken the Navy to much more arid regions than typically seen before. The 60 series of Sikorsky have demonstrated the type of flexibility and modularity needed by the military, especially the U.S. Navy. The five different types of variants found on Naval ships prove that there is a need for a flexible fleet of sea and air worthy aircraft.
  
  Commodore Steve Schreiber is a Naval Aviator who has spent considerable time flying different aircraft. He’s been a test pilot, accumulating over 5,800 hours in 58 different aircraft both in the United States and for the United Kingdom. In this podcast you’ll learn about advances in U.S. Naval Helicopter Aviation and what’s to come for future aircraft platforms including the MH-53.
• Colonel Doug Tamilio PM for Soldier Weapons on the M-4 Carbine
  
  The U.S. Army has always relied on its professional soldier base to maintain the high standards and conduct that have been seen in every conflict. This professionalism is carried over to all tenets of being a soldier: maintaining equipment, physical fitness and military development. Maintaining equipment consistently has ever-changing technologies associated with it.
  
  The M-16 series rifle has been in the U.S. Army arsenal for decades and has proven its reliability and accuracy on battlefields across the world. And the adoption of the M-4 Carbine into the hands of soldiers was a natural shift. The weapon, when maintained properly, put rounds on target at times when it was needed. The M-4 was fielded widely across the Army during Operations Iraqi and Enduring Freedom as the primary weapon assigned to Soldiers conducting direct combat operations and some conducting combat service support.
  
  Weapons technology has also been a constantly improved line item within the Army and at Program Executive Office Soldier, which oversees all soldier weapons programs from the personal rifle, to crew served weapons including the new 40 MM grenade launcher, newer and lighter 240B and the M-4 Carbine.
  
  Colonel Doug Tamilio is charged with Project Manager Soldier Weapons. Given his almost 30 years of Service as an Infantry Officer and Acquisitions, Col Tamilio is leading the fight to get the best weapons in the hands of the Soldiers on the ground. In this podcast you’ll learn about the M-4 Carbine and what the future of the Army service rifle looks like, including plans for future open requirements for individual carbines (M-4 replacement), long range sniper replacement, 9MM replacement and more.
• Task Force Mountain's Major TG Taylor from Afghanistan
  
  There has always been a tight-knit relationship between the military and media in the conduct of major combat operations.
  
  The 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team is currently forward deployed to Afghanistan as Task Force Mountain Warrior.
  
  The U.S. Army Infantry has been operating in remote areas within Afghanistan, taking the fight to the Taliban and integrating themselves in the local population. A key to the strategy behind General McChrystal’s strategy is to win the hearts and minds of the Afghan population and safeguard the villagers where the insurgent/Taliban forces operate.
  
  Another added dynamic to this challenge is conducting combat operations, sometimes doing so with embedded media. The critical challenges within that are the open sharing of the truth and the perspective of the guys on the ground, instead of the broadcasters in New York City and D.C. on the nightly news portraying something different altogether.
  
  Given the escalation of combat operations, the growth of embedded media and embedded reporters in Afghanistan correlates directly with the need for news back home.
  
  As an Infantry Officer and now a public affairs guru, Major TG Taylor knows all too well how operations are conducted. Given his background and experience, who better to team up with major and small media to give them the real perspective of guys and gals on the ground? Listen in this podcast as Major Taylor talks from Afghanistan on how Army combat operations with the media are shaping up.
• Col. Fred Stein (Ret) Talks about Asymetric/Netcentric Warfare
  
  The current operational environments have transformed the way the U.S. military faces counterinsurgency operations on two very different fronts. The U.S. Army and Marine Corps are embedding themselves into combat operations, which involve force units operating to operate very differing roles. At any given time units will be working side by side with local civilians, and in a matter of moments they could be battling some of the same individuals.
  
  This dual role fight has forced a shift in the way we fight. Given lessons learned in Vietnam, the U.S. Army and Marine Corps have taken to teaching counterinsurgency as
• Dr. John Nagl of the Center for a New American Security Talks About Counterinsurgency Operations
  
  The United States Military and coalition forces have battled an insurgent force in Iraq and Afghanistan since the beginning of combat operations in both theatres. The insurgency has forced an operational dichotomy in how forces go about their combat operations. Forces must now interact with a local populace while simultaneously seeking and destroying an enemy heavily embedded within the same population the forces are set to protect. The type of conflict that is being fought has been called by many a low-intensity type given the environment and operational tempo of many engagements.
  
  Counterinsurgency is now the name of the game in both combat theatres as coalition forces have been able to learn as they go in the insurgency fight, and the need for forces to act in civil affairs roles has become increasingly important now in Afghanistan. The recent successes in Iraq have proven the counterinsurgency methods that U.S. and coalition forces have adapted.
  
  Dr. John Nagl (Lieutenant Colonel, USA Ret.) served in Iraq in 2003 as the operations officer for Task Force 1-34 Armor in the Sunni Triangle. At the time, the American military in combat operations was quickly learning on the fly the need for counterinsurgency operations. The hard fact of the matter was that the U.S. Army had been training in a conventional mindset and was not adequately prepared to act in a counterinsurgency role. However, given the adaptable leadership of U.S. officers and non-commissioned officers, the stability operations and insurgent hunting operations became forefront in their minds. Listen as Dr. Nagl talks about his book Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife and how he helped co-author the U.S. Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual

Webcasts

• Colonel Larry James on the Psychology of Terrorism
  
  The United States is currently engaged in a war like we’ve never seen, having more armored vehicles, tanks, aircraft—both manned and unmanned—than ever before; however, this is more than a tactical war. It’s a psychological war. We do not understand the enemy. People raised in an environment in which the United States is the enemy will continue their war even after we’ve withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan. And, they hope to continue to bring their war to our soil. That makes figuring out their psychological motivations much more difficult.
  
  Every day that goes by without America being attacked by a terrorist makes us closer to the next attack.
  
  That’s why it’s imperative to understand how and why a terrorist thinks about destroying the United States. Dr. Larry James, the former Army psychologist who went into Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, leads the discussion in Dayton, Ohio, at the Institute of Defense Studies and Education at Wright State University. Col James has spent a considerable amount of his life trying to understand what makes a terrorist tick. In this presentation, Col. James talks of the psychology of a terrorist.
• Social Media and Operations Security: Weighing the Balance between Security and Open Communication
  
  In this presentation you will learn about:
  
  
  • Balance between the need to keep Soldiers safe with the need to educate the public about the Army and its mission
  • Operations Security, and what it means to your organization (military or not)
  • How social media and open communication actually make our Army stronger
• Cyber Warfare: A Growing Problem for the U.S. Military and Government
  
  Cyberwarfare has become one of the biggest challenges faced by the U.S. military and U.S. government in recent years. Cyberwarfare threatens national security via the intricate networks of the Department of Defense through online and virtual attacks. The military cyber domain now contains such large amounts of military information that protecting and safeguarding these networks has become critical.
  
  The military cyber domain allows for unparalleled sharing of information to many different levels of military leadership. The inter-agency sharing of critical information additionally includes key civilian agencies such as Homeland Security for times of national emergency. Commanders on the ground must always be prepared for cyberwarfare because they know that while their information is being shared between the men and women on the ground, key intelligence is also at risk for interception. While cyberwarfare is important to all branches of the U.S. military, this podcast focuses on the U.S. Air Force in particular. The U.S. Air Force, like the other branches of the military, uses internal networks to keep huge amounts of information.
  
  The U.S. military is unique in their ability to conduct expeditionary cyber domain operations in warfighting. The U.S. Air Force and sister services protect their cyber domain through defensive measures such as force protection and cyber defence. The military’s ability to instantaneously upload and disseminate critical information on the battlefield also gives commanders operational control that is unlike any other ability.
  
  Listen as Lieutenant General Robert “Bob” Elder Jr. of the U.S. Air Force talks about the U.S. strategic commands measures to conduct cyber operations and combat cyberwarfare.