Out Thinking Our Adversaries

Today at West Point, I spoke about how defeating the aspirations and predations and of vicious techno-authoritarians this century will demand not that we out spend them but that we outthink them.

This week I have had the honour of visiting the United States Military Academy at West Point, and to speak with cadets and staff about the lessons of modern war, and what these insights mean for how they lead soldiers in the 21st century. I have also had the opportunity to discuss the employment of fiction to round out the development of military officers, and my book about a war over Taiwan, White Sun War.

Today, I had the privilege to speak about a different topic however. I spoke with cadets and staff about the imperative in the technological age to not out-spend or ‘out-tech’ our adversaries, but to develop our minds in order to out think them.

Thank you to the convenors of this symposium for your invitation to speak here today. I have been asked to discuss why leaders must read, write, research, and think critically about war, strategy, and military service and how research and writing can serve as leadership tools for future officers

I don’t suppose you have many Australians speak here you, and probably even fewer just-retired senior Australian Army officers!

But believe me when I say that even standing here in front of you is somewhat fantastical to me. I was brought up in a speck of a mining town in the Australian outback. It was a great place to grow up, particularly in the 1980s, which as we all know was the highpoint for music in all of human history!

Now, in this small town, I didn’t even wear shoes to school until high school. The idea that I would one day have the honor of speaking to cadets and staff at the world’s most famous military academy would have been dismissed out of hand by my friends and family, even if I had the audacity to imagine such a thing was possible.

But I had the great privilege of being accepted into the Australian Defence Force Academy in 1987. But in my first year I failed every subject. All eight. I think it is still a record. But amazingly, the commandant of the academy – who was an Army major general – took me aside, told me a might still make a half decent army leader, and sent me to our 18-month officer training course.

I learned a couple of important lessons. First, that second chances matter. They can be life changing for those who receive them, and those who give them. I was in touch with the general who gave me a second chance until he passed away, and still correspond with his widow. Second, this taught me that failure did not have to be the end of all things. It was an opportunity to learn, to reflect, and to hone my personal resilience and philosophy on life.

Now you might be wondering, why is he telling me all this?

Well, I am telling you because I was determined to make the most of my second chance. I have always wanted to be a soldier, and while I messed up my first chance, I was not going to mess it up a second time. I was going to be the best army leader possible. And part of my journey of learning about leadership, a journey that never ends by the way, has been my reading, writing, and research about war and military affairs as well as a range of other topics.

These are topics I feel very strongly about. Good armies have always been clever armies. And the cleverest have been those that recognise the need to hone the bodies and the minds of their people.

Our most important possession is the capacity to generate what I have called an intellectual edge over our competitors, whether this be in areas such as trade, or in more perilous endeavours in national security. In particular, overcoming the predations of vicious techno-authoritarians this century will demand NOT that we out spend them BUT that we outthink them.

Technological disruption and recent developments in national security affairs, are challenging the orthodoxy established in the 1950s with regards to the profession of arms. The analogue, machine-based world that existed when important publications such as Huntington’s The Soldier and the State were written has changed considerably. In addition to traditional instruments of war, current and future military leaders must prepare for various non-kinetic instruments such as cognitive warfare that will threaten our societal cohesion and our national security.

Advantage is what military leaders seek to generate over their adversaries. Historically, while we could observe that it takes many forms, advantage in the military can be generated in one of five ways. These are: geography, mass, time, technology and an intellectual advantage.