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Lieutenant General Curtis Buzzard and Major General Volodymyr Horbatiuk · Five Questions for a General

• 0:03
  Speaker A: You're listening to Five Questions for a General a production of the Modern Morris Institute at West point. I am Dr. Charles Feint, the team lead for this podcast series which features interviews of senior military leaders conducted by specially selected and trained West Point cadet hosts. These exchanges produce timely, relevant and inspirational insights for professional development of leaders at all levels.
• 0:25
  Speaker B: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the class of 1974 recording studio and the five questions for a General Podcast. I'm Cadet Zach Olson, your host. It's my pleasure to be here today with Lieutenant General Curtis Buzzard, the Commander of Security Assistance Group Ukraine, and Major General Volodymyr Khormichu. Gentlemen, welcome to the show.
• 0:42
  Speaker C: Great to be here.
• 0:42
  Speaker D: Thanks for having us here.
• 0:43
  Speaker B: General Buzzard, for those unfamiliar with your role, could you explain your mission as Commander of Security Assistance Group Ukraine and your role within NATO?
• 0:51
  Speaker C: Yeah, so it's two commands and I'm dual headed the SAG U mission or Security Assistance Group. Ukraine's primarily focused on assisting our Ukrainians operationally from advice to information. And then we also manage all the
• 1:07
  Speaker E: US training to support Ukraine as well as US Security assistance.
• 1:12
  Speaker C: And then I've got a small element
• 1:14
  Speaker E: we've created out of Hyde to focus on operational insights.
• 1:17
  Speaker C: I wouldn't call them lessons learned because
• 1:19
  Speaker E: we're really not learning them, but they are the ones. But pulling from their fight the lessons.
• 1:24
  Speaker C: And then on the NATO security assistance and training for Ukraine, otherwise known as insatu, it was stood up after a NATO summit for NATO to provide coherent support to Ukraine. So our job is to coordinate all training in support of Ukraine from across the alliance.
• 1:40
  Speaker E: And we also work with the EU's Military Assistance Mission and a variety of other partners.
• 1:46
  Speaker C: And then we also manage all the security assistance.
• 1:49
  Speaker E: So SAGI is just us, but in SATU is all the security assistance that comes into Ukraine. So I think over the last year about 270,000 tons of security systems from munition vehicles, et cetera.
• 2:02
  Speaker C: Bottom line, both commands are all about
• 2:04
  Speaker E: supporting the armed forces of Ukraine.
• 2:07
  Speaker B: General Novach, can you talk about your role within the Ukrainian Army?
• 2:10
  Speaker D: Yeah, of course. First of all, I used to be the Deputy Chief of General Staff and currently I'm serving as a military representative in the starter in Sagu. Well, closely with General Badert and his team. I have more than 30 officers in Wiesbaden helping to coordinate everything with our partners. We work closely with General Basin for many other reasons.
• 2:32
  Speaker B: Awesome. Gentlemen, based on your experiences and your knowledge so far, what would you say military officers either in the United States or across the world need to know about the changing nature of war due to this conflict.
• 2:44
  Speaker C: Well, you know, up front I think you have the nature of war and the character of war. And we would say the nature of war remains the same brutal contest of will between nations, whereas the character of war, how you fight and the means you employ are changing. And Ukraine is a phenomenal example of adaptation under fire. There's a saying, adapt or die.
• 3:07
  Speaker E: They live it every day.
• 3:08
  Speaker C: And they've had to use innovation and
• 3:10
  Speaker E: have probably amplified the changing character of war because they've had to use technology to offset some shortcomings, whether it be in munitions or even manning.
• 3:21
  Speaker C: And so when I think about several of the things that are changing, one, the battle battlefield is becoming increasingly transparent.
• 3:28
  Speaker E: When you think about just the volume of drones that are out there observing and you think about the hunting in the electromagnetic spectrum that goes on, if
• 3:37
  Speaker C: you can be seen or identified, you can be killed.
• 3:39
  Speaker E: That's true. That was a maxim years ago we sought to try to achieve.
• 3:43
  Speaker C: But now it can happen. And then in addition to that, and as part of it, you have the proliferation of unmanned systems. Ukrainians have had to use drones to offset shortages in artillery and other things. But it's proliferated at a pace and
• 3:58
  Speaker E: scale that is remarkable.
• 3:59
  Speaker C: I look at a fiber optic drone as an example.
• 4:03
  Speaker E: So a fiber optic drone is a drone that has a small fiber optic wire coming out of it. This is only probably about a year, year and a half old. When they first came out, they could fly 10km. They're up to 60km now.
• 4:13
  Speaker C: An FPV first person version drone used
• 4:15
  Speaker E: to be able to fly for about five minutes, a half mile, another about 10 kilometers.
• 4:19
  Speaker C: And so there's all these developments going on. And I mean you got short range drones, mid range drones, long range Dr.
• 4:25
  Speaker E: Drones, they've got a nascent cruise missile technology. You look at USVs Unmanned surface vessels on the water, explosively laden ships that are now armed and basically fighting robotically across the Black Sea with a very small navy, a really non existent navy in terms of ship capacity. They destroyed 40% of the Black Sea Fleet.
• 4:45
  Speaker C: And then now UGVs unmanned ground vehicles
• 4:48
  Speaker E: are what's really starting to explode right now because the flood is so lethal, the forward line of troops is so lethal that they've got to use unmanned systems to do resupply because it's so dangerous. So these will deliver more drones, deliver ammo, backhaul casualties.
• 5:01
  Speaker C: So there's this connected nature now of all these things too, kind of Working in in harmony.
• 5:06
  Speaker E: It's almost an unmanned contact layer with a variety of sensors, EW drones, et cetera.
• 5:12
  Speaker C: I would say another big thing is
• 5:14
  Speaker E: just the volume of data. So these drones produce a tremendous amount of data, unmanned systems, signals intelligence capability that's identifying frequencies and so the ability to have a robust and redundant, an ability to fight off of live data very rapidly. I mean there's some things they're doing that are extraordinarily sophisticated with that and then ideally getting to a point where you have automated decision tools to make decisions. So there's this whole kind of data
• 5:44
  Speaker C: flow and then I think we're seeing
• 5:47
  Speaker E: it in social media and deep fakes and other things. Cognitive warfare and strategic influence. Media is something else that I think changing and having more of an impact.
• 5:58
  Speaker C: And finally it's just really it's a
• 6:00
  Speaker E: war of adaptation right now. It's how quick you can innovate.
• 6:03
  Speaker C: I mean somebody shared with me a phrase.
• 6:06
  Speaker E: The Ukrainians see innovation as a form of maneuver. They can't solve a problem, they innovate out of it. They can't put in a minefield, innovate. They use drones to put in mines, they use UGVs to put in mines, et cetera, et cetera.
• 6:18
  Speaker C: So those are some of the aspects. There's all kinds of other things we
• 6:21
  Speaker E: could, we could probably talk about, but those are some of the big ones I think are really influential and something we really need to get our head around.
• 6:27
  Speaker D: So I totally agree with General Buzzer. So war is not no longer anymore a clash of men and machines. You know, that's probably the battle of like ecosystem and agree like total robotization drones, they are not only eyes for reconnaissance anymore. It's like they impacted every sphere of war. They are not just a toy for some special forces. We are using them for the as ammunition. We are using them as a and the strike weapon as well. So what I would like to add here, specific of changes in Ukrainian war, that mobilization, former civilians that we have them now on the floor. We were thinking that they are going to be burden for us because they are inexperienced without military education. And we thought it would take a lot of time to educate them but we were totally wrong. Like without that military education, without military knowledge actually they were not framed with our army rule and they just following the pure logic and common sense. They brought a lot of technology and that is why we are so invented now. We are so effective in developing technology on the front line. So. And even now we are speaking and something changing on the Floor something, developing something, inventing their, you know, I would
• 7:46
  Speaker C: just add too, and he'd probably be humble about it. But Ukraine, really a technological hub in the Soviet Union. And so there's an incredible sophistication to what they understand with technology, you know, and you were seeing it manifested in drones. And really some of what the drones also do is when you look at the cost curve, particularly of defeating enemy
• 8:06
  Speaker E: systems like Russian systems, the shahed long
• 8:09
  Speaker C: range drone is something, you know, hundreds are launched into Ukraine on some night
• 8:13
  Speaker E: you could shoot a Hellfire or advanced precision kill weapon system rocket at it, which would be about commensurate costs. They figured out how to launch. They've developed interceptor drones that will launch about $5,000 each. That'll take out $100,000 Shahed drone. Like we want to be on the right side of that, of that cost curve. There's just a whole lot of innovation that I think is worth considering for us too.
• 8:38
  Speaker C: In many of these rooms they consider just a tradable. It's not like it's an end item on a property book or something.
• 8:44
  Speaker E: It's ammunition that gets shot.
• 8:45
  Speaker C: And again, just some, just some incredible innovation part of it because they haven't
• 8:49
  Speaker E: got enough of some of the other things they need, so they've had to innovate their way out of it.
• 8:53
  Speaker B: Gentlemen, can you talk a little bit of how AI is advancing this kind of innovation that's happening in Ukraine, whether it's deep learning or machine learning or what level is that being used in the innovation scheme within Ukraine?
• 9:05
  Speaker C: I don't think yet there's a huge
• 9:07
  Speaker E: amount of AI being used. There's quite a bit of machine learning. All the data from the drone strikes is uploaded. You have to get credit for what you killed. So you got to upload the drone feed that then gets validated. And so they can track BDA very rapidly. And so there's a lot of machine
• 9:26
  Speaker C: learning that goes into how that's done.
• 9:28
  Speaker E: They've also got the point where a lot of the output of as they aggregate data, particularly on the intel side, they're able to produce automated, in sums, automated BDA reports, automated damage reports to request resupply. There's a little bit of AI technology in drones. Think it's interesting, you know, it's been shared with me. I don't know if this is always the case, but that sometimes the drone crews don't want to use the AI because they want the satisfaction of the kill.
• 9:55
  Speaker C: And I mean that's a whole other interesting psychological thing. To think about, but I think we're probably on the cusp of some of that. I still think a lot of it
• 10:05
  Speaker E: is helping them manage all this data that we're collecting. And how could we use all this data looking at certain critical enemy systems to get to a point where we have aided target recognition or some type of AI that could automatically detect what it's looking at and then determine what the right munition would be to destroy it. So just not quite there yet, but
• 10:25
  Speaker C: you're seeing bits and pieces of this on the battlefield. I would tell you in my mind,
• 10:30
  Speaker E: something I share with everybody is this fight is the ultimate battle lab. You want to test something, prove to me it works in Ukraine, again, the most sophisticated place in the world. From electronic warfare to air defense to everything else and complicated battlefield. And so there's huge opportunities to do that.
• 10:47
  Speaker D: Yeah. In addition, we are using, we try to use AI for the planning process also. Like it allows us to determine the most favorable courses of action and to predict the result of the operation.
• 10:59
  Speaker C: I mean, I think one of the things, and he could probably talk a little bit more to it, but all the data they've collected off a long
• 11:04
  Speaker E: range one way attack drone strikes allow you to figure out what's the optimal route to plan to get there, given what Russia's capabilities are, what altitude to fly at, what speed to fly at.
• 11:17
  Speaker C: So the more data you have, again,
• 11:19
  Speaker E: the more quality of your, your model will be. And so they've done an incredible amount of work not only collecting that data, but then using it to inform operations.
• 11:29
  Speaker B: Is that truth about AI being used for planning in some capacity? True, across all levels. So from your level, sir, or down to the commander or the drone operator level?
• 11:39
  Speaker D: Yeah, like quite honestly, each of our units, like from the brigade level and higher, they have their own approach and they try to use AI every time differently in order to find the best way to use it. But on a tactical level, we have a lot of like smart guys that try to use it like also like both for the preparation for the execution operation.
• 12:00
  Speaker C: I'm surprised, it's remarkable when I get
• 12:02
  Speaker E: to visit some of the command posts
• 12:03
  Speaker C: to see people in there that are
• 12:06
  Speaker E: data experts, that are software coders, that are in all the stuff that's going on at the brigade and even above level. And that may not be at the
• 12:13
  Speaker C: point of AI yet, but how they're using data to inform decisions and to
• 12:18
  Speaker E: automate reports and many other things.
• 12:21
  Speaker C: So having data capability, understanding data and data teams and units is something the
• 12:28
  Speaker E: army's taking a hard look at. I know General Donahue in particular, is helping to inform the army on what that structure might look like, because it's something, and we're going to have to. We're going to have to think about having it at even lower tactical levels than what we do now. So.
• 12:42
  Speaker B: General Buzzard, many officers we've had on the show have previously stressed the importance of mission command. And as the commander of sagd, how do you translate our philosophy of mission command down to advisors across such a complex battle space?
• 12:55
  Speaker C: You know, obviously, with mission command is about building a common understanding, common visualization, having trust in people so you can
• 13:01
  Speaker E: get to a point where you can encourage discipline, initiative, and they can go out and feel empowered to make things happen. And so as you get at higher
• 13:07
  Speaker C: and higher level, I know I've gone back to one of my old bosses,
• 13:11
  Speaker E: General Petraeus had some really wise guidance on, you got to get the big ideas right. Like, at my level, I got to get the big ideas right, and I got to involve people in developing those big ideas. And we're kind of working some of that right now. In an update to our operational approach, then you got to communicate the big ideas. And so, you know, there's an old
• 13:30
  Speaker C: saying, if you didn't say it today,
• 13:31
  Speaker E: you didn't say it. You got to constantly communicate it so people understand what the. What the priorities are.
• 13:36
  Speaker C: And then you got to measure it. So you got to assess how you're doing.
• 13:39
  Speaker E: You got to know, am I? Because if I.
• 13:41
  Speaker C: You know, what I measure is what matters.
• 13:43
  Speaker E: And so are you measuring what you said was important, what your big ideas were? And then you got to refine those. So you got to.
• 13:49
  Speaker C: You got to continue to do that cycle. And it's challenging.
• 13:52
  Speaker E: I mean, I have two different commands. I have, I think, nine different general officers that work for me. And it's. And, you know, how do I balance my time to be there? I can't be there all the time telling people exactly what to do. So I've got to give them the appropriate guidance and for them to demonstrate initiative.
• 14:09
  Speaker C: And it's one of the traits I talk to people about. Number one for me is character.
• 14:14
  Speaker E: You need to have good character. And then kind of right behind that is, I need you to demonstrate initiative. I need you to recognize and to move to friction and help solve problems. And so I think another way to make sure that people are doing the right thing is when you incentivize it with awards and recognition. And you. Whether it's an Impact Award or Star Note or something so that, that people go oh okay, yeah, I'm doing the right thing, I need to do more of that. And then other people see that. And so ideally you really focus on trying to get everybody to move in the right direction.
• 14:43
  Speaker C: The other big challenge that I have
• 14:45
  Speaker E: is it's a joint manning document. Both commands are and there's a churn so every couple weeks we're replacing people. And so things like newcomer briefs are very important for me to be at and make sure I explained everybody how important this is, what the priorities are. And every time we have a you know, an update brief or we're doing something to kind of again over communicate what the requirements are.
• 15:10
  Speaker C: But I'm super impressed with the folks we have and I think they would all tell you it's an incredibly purposeful
• 15:16
  Speaker E: mission to help the Ukrainians. So I don't think fortunately with this mission I've had no shortage of of initiative.
• 15:24
  Speaker B: That's good. General, can we have mission command in the United States? Can you briefly describe Ukrainians leadership command philosophy?
• 15:31
  Speaker D: I can tell you command and control is like significant changes now from the both reason because of technology. It's about you to literally be present here and to lead your units in Ukraine. And second development of weapon. So it looks like distance not shield anymore. You cannot hide effectively. But honestly we were using all Soviet bunkers for the common post 6 meters of concrete above. And currently it doesn't allow anymore like to hide you to hide your stuff. Obviously you need to be as much as possible mobility and distribution and also to obey the digital hygiene as well. So we have for example assault unit which is his command post commander Regiment command post can be somewhere on north of Ukraine but his units operates all around across the flood and he is successful to lead that them in that regard.
• 16:34
  Speaker C: I'd just add something General Horbachuk talked to me about earlier was and I think it applies to us too is you're going to see increasingly decentralized operations because it's very difficult to ma when you mass you become a target. So again how you empower it junior and junior levels to feel confident in understanding the commander's intent to operate decentralized. And I do think a challenge in this fight is the the placement of the commander. The flood is so lethal but yet commanders have to get out there to feel and understand what's occurring on the battlefield. We're not showing the video in here but General Herbachuk is a one star general when the full scale invasion happened
• 17:17
  Speaker E: ended up Moving up north towards Chernobyl.
• 17:20
  Speaker C: If you want to talk through kind of how that happened and why you
• 17:22
  Speaker E: went up there, I think it might be useful to hear.
• 17:25
  Speaker D: Yeah, there is some like very popular video with a guy like Marshal with Danblow and the battle happening all around. Yeah, at that time that was really taken just a couple days after the Foolscay invasion. At that time I was a Chief of staff of Military Operational District West. Nothing heroic on that video because generals shouldn't be on the front line with the N law. And then obviously that video is proof of my own failure as a planner doing assessment of the enemy. We assume significant mistakes and we did employ our unit in time. What I want to tell you, once you fail as a planner and you force your soldiers to fix your mistakes, please be ready to stand with them shoulder to shoulder.
• 18:19
  Speaker E: Great lesson.
• 18:20
  Speaker B: That's a very good lesson. General, what do you think Americans most misunderstand about Ukrainian security forces capabilities and their challenges?
• 18:28
  Speaker D: I think the most concerning stuff that you are not learning fast enough for any sphere including force protection and planning operation and conducting operation as well. So definitely what we can offer to our western France, that's our combat experience that we can share and we are eager to share it in order to be stronger together in future.
• 18:54
  Speaker E: Future.
• 18:55
  Speaker B: General Buzzard, it's apparent that wars like the one in Ukraine don't really lend themselves to quick fixes. How do you balance the need for long term patience with the pressure of short term results?
• 19:06
  Speaker C: Well, there's a whole lot to unpack in that probably. I mean, I think that, you know, Ukraine has developed a military strategy on
• 19:14
  Speaker E: what they want to achieve. One of the challenges they have is they've got to coordinate with 30 some different countries for support and they don't entirely have the means to achieve their strategy.
• 19:28
  Speaker C: And I look at what they have
• 19:29
  Speaker E: to do to try to coordinate equipment, munitions. There's an unpredictability to the delivery of this. There's challenges in our industrial base, our defense industrial base and Europe's industrial base to equip them in a timely manner. They've now developed their own from drones to creating artillery pieces, munitions, etc. Etc. And so getting to a negotiated peace, which everybody wants now, is very challenging.
• 20:00
  Speaker C: Not just from an equipping standpoint, to
• 20:02
  Speaker E: not be in a position of disadvantage, ideally to be in a position of advantage. This is also wrapped up in concerns of escalation. And then war is politics by other means. And ultimately politically that's what's going to drive a negotiated peace at the political level from both countries fighting and then other countries helping to assist. So there's not an easy way. It's much easier to start a war than to end a war. You know, we're all anxiously watching this because we know everybody wants peace, but it's got to be a just and lasting peace.
• 20:35
  Speaker B: General, can I ask about the industrial supply bases that are in, you know, countries around the world? The United States or Europe? I think a lot of Americans might know. You know, I remember years ago we were concerned with the number of 155 rounds that we could provide to Ukraine or across the world and have our own stockpile at the same time. And over the past couple years we've gotten significantly better at that. Is the rest of the world keeping pace or are they lagging behind in their ability to assist Ukraine?
• 21:02
  Speaker C: Yeah, I think this war has been
• 21:04
  Speaker E: a big wake up call to the
• 21:06
  Speaker C: defense industrial base and or requirements. I mean that's part of it, having
• 21:11
  Speaker E: the requirements out there to drive the defense industrial base. But this is a large scale combat operation. This is the largest war since World War II and it's now lasted longer than the German Soviet war in World War II. And we're probably not still not where we need to be with production. I try to, with my NATO hat on, I try to get Ukrainians 150,000 rounds of 155. He that's the minimum requirement a month.
• 21:42
  Speaker C: Ideally they'd like 300,000.
• 21:45
  Speaker E: We don't produce 150,000 and the industry in Europe doesn't either.
• 21:51
  Speaker C: So there's a huge emphasis right now, particularly in Europe and in the US
• 21:55
  Speaker E: to build this out.
• 21:56
  Speaker C: But our industrial base just is not
• 21:58
  Speaker E: prepared to produce the capacity that's required to conduct a war like this over this amount of time. And then you look at on the changing character of war side, the technology side, there's very few western drones used in Ukraine. They're cost prohibitive, even up to maybe ten times as much. They generally struggle to work in this electronic warfare environment and they generally aren't open architecture and can't be adjusted and manipulated on the front, which the Ukrainians can do. So we're producing many times an overpriced product that wouldn't work. And we're not able to innovate as quickly as they do. The innovation cycle can be anywhere from two weeks to a month where things are changing. And a drone may have 150200 modifications on it for a year. In a year. Our industry is not as linked to the warfighter as theirs is. It's like a tactician with the technician to be able to adjust. And I hope that our industry also looks to leverage Ukrainians experience and we can get to a point where there's some partnerships, some co production, we can leverage all that they're learning but right
• 23:06
  Speaker C: now we're not yet in a position. There's a lot of good positive movement and forward momentum but we got to be in a position not just because
• 23:13
  Speaker E: of the Russia problem, but China also.
• 23:17
  Speaker B: General, when Ukraine realized it needed to start innovating on its own drones and build that production base, what was the biggest challenge you faced initially and how did you overcome that?
• 23:27
  Speaker D: I would say that lack of resources including artillery munition causes us to invent something new. And actually if you take the ratio of enemy losses, the biggest percentage of enemy losses because of drones, but artillery and tank still matters and only things how you orchestrate all this, how deconflick all this stuff. Speaking about industry and development and co production, all of our units they are worked tightly with our developers and our developers they capable to receive information about using their product like rapidly and they are able to adapt very quickly to our requirement and our needs. So it's like constant process of developing and using technology.
• 24:17
  Speaker C: I'd just add having just been to a drone factory last Friday or two Fridays ago, one of the challenges Ukrainians have is scaling because if you scale a factory it very quickly becomes a target and Russia's looking for these and they've got to disaggregate production, the body, the engine, whatever. Then they bring it together at another location. They're also challenged with components, all the components. And China's giving a lot of components
• 24:45
  Speaker E: to Russia and supporting Russia. And Ukraine has had to figure out how to develop a lot of their own and try to become independent of this. And then another big challenge is explosives is arming these. There's not enough TNT production globally to meet the requirement.
• 25:03
  Speaker C: So there's a lot of interesting challenges
• 25:06
  Speaker E: that have surfaced here.
• 25:08
  Speaker B: So General Buzzard, from a SAGU vantage point, what metrics do you guys look for for progress in the war and which ones are overemphasized?
• 25:17
  Speaker C: Well, you know, it's challenging because most of what we try to track on progress in the wars is from our Ukrainian partners. And you know, I think that I would say right now when I describe
• 25:29
  Speaker E: what's occurring on the battlefield is that Ukraine continues to generally hold and stabilize across the fly, not giving seeding terrain at very small rates while at a Great cost to Russia. When you talk about the casualties, you
• 25:45
  Speaker C: look at the movement from Bakhmut to
• 25:47
  Speaker E: Pokros, 20 months, 50 kilometers, which should be a long road march during a day, 300,000 casualties. And so this has been very painful on Russia. And so when I talk to the chief of defense for Ukraine, you know,
• 26:05
  Speaker C: his goal is he's got to kill
• 26:08
  Speaker E: more Russians each month than what they contract to come into their military. And then he needs help with putting pressure on Russia's economy.
• 26:18
  Speaker C: And so the Ukrainians do that on
• 26:19
  Speaker E: their own with a very coherent long range drone strike campaign that had been predominantly recently against petroleum storage and refining capability to have an impact on the price of fuel and the Russian economy. But then there's also sanctions from the United States and Europe as well as actions against the shadow fleet, which is a way that they get money. So it's.
• 26:42
  Speaker C: So it's very hard to, at my level, to track any particular trends. But at the macro level, they've got
• 26:52
  Speaker E: to continue to hold and inflict great cost on Russia. And then there's got to be pressure economically and then ultimately these are political decisions that get us to peace. And that's a whole other challenge in and of itself.
• 27:04
  Speaker B: General Horbrichuk, switching gears a little bit, after decades of war, fatigue is felt on both sides. When you go and talk to soldiers or advisors, what do you talk to them about? How do you reassure them when it becomes very stressful?
• 27:17
  Speaker D: So the level of fatigue is extremely high, both in military and civilians as well. But at the same time, all our soldiers, they are ready to continue to fight. They just afraid to think that we must abandon some territory or just quit, you know, same with the civilians. You probably know that Russia, they are reflecting significant impact on our energy infrastructure. And take into account the low temperature, it's like 22 below the zero degrees. And all our civilians, like they truly suffer, but they're not showing any signs of, you know, like on some disagree. They are ready to resist, they're ready to suffer. In order to have a victory is incredible.
• 28:07
  Speaker C: I mean, one of the things I
• 28:08
  Speaker E: admire the most is the will and the endurance of the soldiers.
• 28:13
  Speaker C: And many of them been fighting again.
• 28:15
  Speaker E: You know, when I go out to
• 28:17
  Speaker C: meet Ukrainians, particularly the first time I
• 28:19
  Speaker E: was in country, I was very cognizant to be humble and really to say two things. One, I recognize you've actually been fighting since 2014, not 2022, and you're also fighting a war that we have not fought.
• 28:34
  Speaker C: So, yeah, there's an incredible Level, I think amazing level of resiliency given we're
• 28:41
  Speaker E: now almost completing the fourth year of fighting.
• 28:45
  Speaker B: General Buzzard, can you talk about a point of failure in your life and how you learned from it as well?
• 28:49
  Speaker E: Yeah, there's a whole lot of things probably to talk about there.
• 28:52
  Speaker C: I'm a big fan of Coach K. Coach Kashevsky.
• 28:54
  Speaker E: When I was a commandant here, I used. He has a book called Beyond Basketball. It's not about basketball at all. It's about life and it's about learning. And one of the chapters is Failure.
• 29:03
  Speaker C: And this is what every cadet experiences.
• 29:05
  Speaker E: I think you're, you know, you're a
• 29:07
  Speaker C: phenomenal young person at your high school. You've generally always felt success and you
• 29:11
  Speaker E: show up here in West Point has an incredible way to find things you're going to fail at.
• 29:15
  Speaker C: And Coach K talked about failing plebe swimming, failing something else.
• 29:19
  Speaker E: I was a rock swimmer. It's funny, my sister was a collegiate ranked swimmer and yet I was in, you know, rock swimming. I did play basketball for a little bit up here too, but, but I
• 29:30
  Speaker C: think in life, failure, there's a couple
• 29:32
  Speaker E: different ways you fail.
• 29:33
  Speaker C: One, you learn because you didn't prepare. And I've experienced that where, you know, for a course I fail a test
• 29:41
  Speaker E: or I remember, you know, an initial live fire as a platoon leader where I regretted maybe not spending a little extra time preparing. It taught me a really important lesson.
• 29:49
  Speaker C: And I found later on in life as battalion and brigade commander, often the platoon or company that had the worst
• 29:55
  Speaker E: day blank fire had the best night live fire because it was a humbling experience and they used it as a stepping stone to get better. And that's something that Coach K talks about. You know, the second way you fail
• 30:08
  Speaker C: is you break the rules.
• 30:08
  Speaker E: You do something, you know, and we've all done that, you learn the third way.
• 30:15
  Speaker C: And I think really the more important one where failures is such a great teacher is when you're pushing yourself to
• 30:21
  Speaker E: a point where you're trying to achieve more than what's possible and maybe you don't quite make it. And then you learn from that experience and you were willing to do something to challenge yourself in a way you didn't think you could.
• 30:32
  Speaker C: You know, it's everything from having the
• 30:35
  Speaker E: personal courage to go to Ranger school or, you know, jump off the 10 meter board or, you know, whatever else. You may not get it right the first time, but you, but you push
• 30:42
  Speaker C: yourself and then the last way and I.
• 30:44
  Speaker E: And I've got kind of a funny story with this. But you also experience failure sometimes because life isn't fair. Things aren't fair.
• 30:53
  Speaker C: You know, I was in Ranger school. I had this great squad. I had two of my squad mates
• 30:59
  Speaker E: were general officers also. Now we had this, like, incredibly talented squad. We had, you know, an NCO in it that ended up being the NCO honor grad.
• 31:06
  Speaker C: We were a desert phase. I just finished. I hadn't done all that great in the first patrol, and then the second one, I did okay, good enough to get a go.
• 31:14
  Speaker E: But I was, you know, I wasn't really proud of what had happened. And we were all, like, super tired and exhausted. We were standing around a fire again. It was night, it was dark, and somebody accidentally grabbed my rucksack and weapon and put it on a truck with a couple others from the wrong squad. And so I lost accountability of my weapon. And so I got recycled. And I'm like, you know, this isn't fair. I got my go. Why does this happen? But life isn't fair.
• 31:39
  Speaker C: And at the time, it really hit
• 31:41
  Speaker E: me because I was part of these were all my classmates in my squad. I was super.
• 31:45
  Speaker C: And so then the next class comes in, and it's not officer centric, and
• 31:50
  Speaker E: most of the squad is junior enlisted from 82nd range of regiment and other things. And I ended up being the only lieutenant in the squad. So I was kind of the outsider, and I had to prove myself. I knew platoon planning, they knew field craft and tactics.
• 32:02
  Speaker C: And so, you know, at the time,
• 32:04
  Speaker E: I wasn't super excited to having recycled. But when I look back on it, you know, 10, 15, 20 years later, it was probably the best thing that happened to me. It forced me to have to prove myself in a different, you know, with a different group of people. It was a tremendous learning opportunity.
• 32:19
  Speaker C: So I think we've all experienced failure. You have to be comfortable with failure.
• 32:23
  Speaker E: You have to.
• 32:24
  Speaker C: You should be pushing yourself to the. To the point of failure. I think in certain things, you got to. And in the military, you know, we
• 32:31
  Speaker E: can't just fail all the time. We got to manage that against risk because the ultimate cost in. In our profession is very high, you know, with. With potential, with lives. So.
• 32:41
  Speaker C: So again, it's a. It's a super question. It's something that, as a commandant here,
• 32:46
  Speaker E: I would talk to cadets a lot of times, and the cadets came in to get trouble. You know, they got in trouble. I would talk about, hey, you're going to use this as a stepping stone to getting better? Or is this indicative of your character? And you're going to go in the wrong direction.
• 32:59
  Speaker B: General, do you have any advice to share that's held with you through your career?
• 33:03
  Speaker D: Oh yeah, like speaking about failure. Yeah. Unfortunately a couple years ago I was thinking that like I'm a super educated, as a military professional, I was quite arrogant in order to assume something new, especially from the civilians, and I regret about that. And advice would be to everyone, to the cadets, to the young officers. Don't be arrogant, don't be snobby. Be open for everything new. Be open to understand that someone, even not the professional in your sphere, he has something, he probably can have something to add to your effectiveness.
• 33:41
  Speaker E: Yeah.
• 33:41
  Speaker C: Be willing to listen.
• 33:43
  Speaker E: That's hugely important.
• 33:44
  Speaker B: Absolutely. Gentlemen, this is somewhat on a similar note. But knowing what you know now, what advice would you offer your younger self?
• 33:52
  Speaker D: First of all, absolute vigilance. Take every threat serious, don't be frivolous. You know, in the military profession the price of unjustified optimism is a human life. Second, openness for everything new. I'm not trying to encourage you to break the rules like the military rules, etc. But think out of the box, you know, and assume technology, assume that the progress and don't be arrogant to learn something new.
• 34:25
  Speaker C: Yeah, I think for me particularly the higher and higher you get in leadership positions, you're in very stressful situations and missions and you're very focused on objectives and just really think taking time to enjoy the journey on the way, like something sometimes I regret and we didn't
• 34:45
  Speaker E: have cell phones when I started out in the military, but just having enough pictures of the people you serve with,
• 34:51
  Speaker C: you know, these memories, it goes so fast.
• 34:54
  Speaker E: I mean, I can tell you it
• 34:56
  Speaker C: feels like yesterday, you know, I was
• 34:58
  Speaker E: a cadet commissioning out of here and going off to be a lieutenant and I think just, you know, taking time to enjoy the journey along the way, you know, a little bit more.
• 35:06
  Speaker C: I mean, I feel like as a parent and a husband, I'm very proud
• 35:10
  Speaker E: of my children and I think I did a pretty good job balancing professional requirements and personal requirements along the way. But it's just something I think we all look back on every one of us in here probably, and sometimes what seems urgent really isn't urgent. And again, enjoying the journey.
• 35:28
  Speaker B: Sir, can you speak a little bit more on striking that balance on a much smaller scale? I feel the same way as a cadet at West Point where I, I, I gotta go to class and I have a job to do and I have a position and leadership position and when am I gonna go call My family.
• 35:41
  Speaker E: Yeah.
• 35:41
  Speaker B: You know, when am I gonna go and, and, and hang out with my friends where it's not gonna compromise what I have to do?
• 35:48
  Speaker C: I mean, you have to do things in any career, I think that give you energy also. I mean your family obviously gives, you know, gives me a ton of energy and so, you know, making sure that I make time. I mean my wife knows how committed
• 36:01
  Speaker E: I am to this profession and particularly to this mission right now to Ukra. Wife's grandmother was Ukrainian. It's somewhat personal in terms of, you know, I feel this assistance. I got to work, I got to Visit Ukraine in 2008. I had Ukrainians come and train at JMRC, the training center here in Germany.
• 36:19
  Speaker C: But I was so again there's a,
• 36:21
  Speaker E: there's a high level of commitment, but
• 36:22
  Speaker C: you can't assume that your family is
• 36:25
  Speaker E: going to be along for the ride all the, you know, all the time because you love what you're doing and so making sure that you make time to invest in them and what they're
• 36:36
  Speaker C: doing and their experiences and you know,
• 36:38
  Speaker E: I love my wife, I love my daughters and was super important. I get energy out of being with them too. And so it's, it's all part of this kind of balance that. But it's a, it's a tough thing to, for anybody to, to manage.
• 36:50
  Speaker C: I mean, I look at, I look at my own challenges with deployments and,
• 36:54
  Speaker E: and very challenging jobs. And then I look at what General Herbachuk experienced having a country that's been at war since 2014 and you know, the challenges he has seeing his wife and children. I mean they came to visit B spaten and you know, it's the first time his daughter's out of Kyiv out of the air raid sirens and she's in college there and I think of all the stress he has and the things he thinks about but you don't
• 37:17
  Speaker C: want to, I guess you know, back
• 37:18
  Speaker E: to the original point. You don't want to look back and I don't. But you don't want to look back on your time in the military with regret and go I over prioritize something that I shouldn't have.
• 37:27
  Speaker D: Yeah. And again. And kids, they growing so quickly, you know and like I realized and like I have lost so many time with them, you know, and obviously because of war, but before the full scale invasion it also, you need to find a possibility to spend more time with them because time is running and absolutely brief. You don't need to regret that time.
• 37:54
  Speaker C: My wife was active duty her dad was active duty, married into a military family. I'm super proud of my children. I have three daughters.
• 38:01
  Speaker E: One went to UNC, but married an army officer at West Point, graduates graduate. And then the other two were traders and went to naval academy. But the fact that they all chose to serve in some way, I mean, I am super proud of. And I think they saw the purpose in me, they saw the value in public service.
• 38:19
  Speaker C: And so it makes me feel good
• 38:20
  Speaker E: about the example that I set for them. And really I'm just super proud of them.
• 38:27
  Speaker B: I'm honestly not sure how to ask this, but what does balance look like for you when it comes to your job, job and your family? I mean, balance seems like such an improper word to use, but how do you manage that? The stress in that kind of relationship?
• 38:40
  Speaker D: So, like, that's not only about me, you know, I'm in a much more better position now to, to, to meet my family, to, to have some time with them. But can you imagine those guys from the trenches, they are spending like months and years there and very rarely have an opportunity to meet with their family. But neverth, we try all of them for every level, we try to find that opportunity to meet with them, to call them and to reunite with them. But during the wartime, it's super hard to do so for the obvious reason. And a lot of our military families, they even traveling close to the flock in order to see their sons, to see their husbands, etc. So our people try to find that balance, but it's like super hard.
• 39:37
  Speaker B: And gentlemen, as a final question, I'd like to give you the opportunity, if you'd like to say any last parting thoughts.
• 39:43
  Speaker C: I would just want to remind everybody that being part of this mission reinforces to me that there's a lot to learn from this war. And we must learn more than our adversaries do, because the cost in blood and treasure will be very high if we don't.
• 40:01
  Speaker D: And from my side, in conclusion, I would like to express the huge words of appreciation to all American nation for your constant support. And now we truly see who our truly brothers and sisters. So thank you for that, gentlemen.
• 40:18
  Speaker B: Thank you for your time today and for an excellent discussion about professional education, military strategy, and the ever evolving war in Ukraine. Ukraine. On behalf of Colonel Pat Sullivan, the director of the Modern war Institute, and Dr. Charlie Feint, the director of this podcast series, it's my pleasure to present you with these rare and coveted MWI coins. Thank you, gentlemen.
• 40:37
  Speaker D: Thank you.
• 40:38
  Speaker E: Thanks. Thank you, sir.
• 40:42
  Speaker A: This has been an episode of five Questions for a General A production of the Modern War Institute of West Point. If you like what you heard today, please download, like, subscribe and share this podcast to help us reach an even, like, larger audience. All statements in this podcast represent the personal views of the speakers and do not represent an official position of the United States Military Academy or the United States Government.