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Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane · Five Questions for a General

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:03
  Speaker B: 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.
• 0:24
  Speaker C: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of the Five Questions for a General Podcast. I'm. I am Cadet Donovan Scott. Your host and Today's guest is Lieutenant General Matthew McFarlane, the commander of U.S. army 1st Corps and Joint Base Lewis McCord. General, welcome to the show.
• 0:40
  Speaker A: Hey, thanks, Donovan. It's great to be here. Really looking forward to our discussion and the rest of the day with engagements with faculty, staff and cadets across the board. Exciting time.
• 0:51
  Speaker C: Sir, you commissioned through the ROTC program at James Madison University and served in the infantry branch. What prompted you to join the military and why did you choose James Madison and the infantry?
• 1:02
  Speaker A: Well, I grew up a military brat, so I watched my father, who served in the military first as an army officer, detailed transportation when I was growing up. So we lived multiple places, but pretty steady there in Northern Virginia right outside of DC for my primary and secondary school years. The key thing that attracted me to the military, besides watching my father and what he was doing, certainly was the team aspect. I grew up playing contact sports, football and lacrosse, and the army is the ultimate team sport where we are all serving teams of teams in what is the ultimate contact sport. Right when you think about it. And so I really enjoyed the teamwork, learning from peers and achieving goals, objectives and winning. And so all of those are key aspects of service in the Army. I went to high school in Northern Virginia and JMU had a really good ROTC program, which when I went for my orientation, really interested me into participating in that program as well as the other things such as the Greek life there and the community aspect of James Madison University really caught my attention. I'm glad I went there and certainly feel like I'm a better leader in person for going there and then the infantry. I just naturally enjoy being in the dirt and doing hard things and accomplishing hard objectives. And doing that at the very tip of the spear is something that intrigued me and that I've enjoyed serving in infantry units and combat arms.
• 2:36
  Speaker C: Sir, you now command U.S. army First Corps, which focuses largely on the Indo Pacific. As the commanding general. How do you think about deterrence in a theater defined more by competition than active conflict?
• 2:48
  Speaker A: Thanks. U.S. army First Corps. Been around a hot minute here Since World War I, they cased the colors for a little bit between the wars, but it now focused solely on the Indo Pacific and serves as a senior tactical and operational level headquarters for the Pacific. We have currently four downtrace divisions. The 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, 7th Infantry Division, which is transforming to 7th Infantry Division Multi Domain Command, the 11th Airborne Division in Alaska, and then the 25th Infantry Division in Hawaii. We have over 62,000 soldiers assigned to the corps with those divisions and then relationships with the 38th Infantry Division as well as the 40th Infantry Division out of California, a habitual relationship that we participate in exercises and campaign with them forward in the Pacific. And the first Australian Division we consider an informal downtrace as we are always working with them during our campaigning in the Pacific. The, the Australian army and US army are certainly pressed on modernization, so we make sure we are interoperable with them and routinely conduct operations with them. And then we also have some downtrace enabling brigades, what we call separate brigades in the Corps. We have a military intelligence brigade, medical brigade, Engineer Brigade, Signal Brigade as well. So we have almost all branches serving somewhere in US army first Corps focused on the Pacific fight. Our mission is to ensure we are ready to conduct joint all domain operations in the Pacific or globally to execute what our nation asks us to do. That's across the spectrum of conflict and that is contributing to deterrence in the Pacific. Deterrence is what Admiral Paparo, the Indo Pacific Commander, calls our highest calling. And for us in the army at the operation Tactical level, deterrence is making sure we're ready to do what our nation asks us to do. Deterrence applied correctly, prevents adversaries or causes adversaries to think the cost for doing something aggressive is too high, based on a formidable foe, which we hope to demonstrate through our campaigning, our readiness, and continue to improve our readiness and our ability to execute operations across the Pacific. And then when our nation calls and asks, like we're seeing in CENTCOM right now, forces are ready to contribute and execute operations at the crisis or conflict level.
• 5:16
  Speaker C: Sir, first Corps operates across vast distances in the Indo Pacific. How does geography fundamentally change the way the army must think about sustainment, command and control and tempo?
• 5:27
  Speaker A: That's a great question. Obviously, when people look at a map of the Pacific, they see a whole lot of blue. But the reality is that people live on land and the territory people want to defend is their homelands. So partner nations across the Pacific are building their capability for homeland defense through military and other levers of national power. But the Military is a key part of that. And so we work closely with armies across the Pacific and our joint partners across that blue Pacific to get to where we need to go and do what we need to do on the land. The expanse of the Indo Pacific area of operations is massive. And so it takes weeks by vessel to get someplace and days to get there on an airplane. And then within the expanses, in terms of the long lines of communication, you have to consider the dynamics of the geography and what we call the second island chain and the first island chain that's right off the Asian mainland there. And they are just a handful of islands in each of those chains. An example would be the Philippines. Over 7,600 islands, 2,000 of which are occupied or inhabited by human beings. So the ability to maneuver, do operational maneuver, requires maritime or air assets to get between islands. That requires army to think differently about logistics. So not only the operational environment, which is the terrain and geography, but if you think about the ability for, for adversaries to affect our ability to move in the air or on the water, the logistics will be contested. We call it contested logistics. And so how do we sustain our formations across these expanses that require movement by air or water? We are working right now with the 25th Infantry Division as they have command and control between them and 593rd Expeditionary Sustainment Command, which is downtrace for the core as well the maneuver watercraft in and around the Philippines during Balikatan and Salaknib. Those are two exercises we do with the Philippines. So for our army thinking differently about how do you move across expanses, large long distance air assaults over the water, air assaults and then maneuvering using our army watercraft systems is something army hadn't done recently. So those are things we're working through. And then thinking about sustainment, different ways that we can increase posture. With sustainment forward, we call it spring loading the sustainment forward to ensure we have what we need to deal with whatever the operational problem is that we may face. And so between that and command and control, which our army as the foundation of the Joint Force provides command and control, sustainment protection, long range sensing and long range fires. Right. And so command and control is a key aspect of that. As we use our new over the horizon systems that allow us to send data back and forth between vast distances is to optimize our ability to stay connected with our army, our joint partners and our and our allies in the region and make sure we are expediting the ability to pass data from those sensors to our, to our effectors or our shooters is really important. And so that's just a small little tidbit of what's changing in our army. Some of that's changing across all different areas of operation, the C2. But the operational maneuver and contested logistics is a significant focus for us in the Pacific based on the geography.
• 8:49
  Speaker C: General McFarland, you've operated in joint and multinational environments for much of your career.
• 8:54
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 8:54
  Speaker C: What are the most underestimated challenges of coalition warfare that younger leaders don't see until they're in it?
• 9:00
  Speaker A: That's a great question. Because we don't know where we're going to fight, we don't know when we're going to fight, but we're going to fight alongside others at some scale. And so we've got to make sure we understand first that operating as a joint force is essential to dominate on today's battlefield. As our army is evolving with new emerging capabilities, so is our Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force. So understanding all of those and how they can enable whatever your effort in the fight is key. And that also goes for understanding and learning about the partner capabilities. The Australian army is modernizing at a very fast pace like we are and so is the Japanese Ground Self Defense Force. So take the time to learn and understand about your partners on the battlefield. Just like we are numb to how much we know about the army and our systems that we've trained with, over time they will not have trained with us and may not understand, understand some of the new unique capabilities we're bringing. If you look at our drones, some of the counter us things that we're developing right now, and some of the tools that we have where we can drive interoperability. Interoperability is three components. Right. You have the human relationship, understanding the dynamics of language, different terms they use for what is a battalion and brigade mean to different armies. They all have different sizes. That's an example. What you learn through human interoperability and repetition with them. Procedural is how you work together to integrate your systems, whether it's your efforts on the mission and collaborate with like a bilateral coordination center or SOPs. If you have a multinational force that you exchange logistics. So the SOPs that you have to transfer things between armies and efforts and then technical, which we are really trying to drive hard, our ability to connect systems. Sometimes it's just communication and common operational pictures, sometimes it's different sensors to different shooters. So we are streamlining, gaining effective effort in more efficient ways to do that with our technology.
• 11:05
  Speaker C: Sir, you've led soldiers in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, among many other places. How has your understanding of leadership evolved after repeated exposure to fundamentally different types of conflict?
• 11:18
  Speaker A: Another great question. And those experiences you described were really formative for me. All the operational deployments I've gone on have been altering in my approach to leadership. And how you derive the most out of your formation in your team in Kosovo. I went in 1999, right as the air war was happening and was the initial entry forces in. So as a young captain at the time, I was responsible for a tank platoon, a platoon of paratroopers. I was a company commander in the 82nd. I had an Apache platoon, a, uh, 60 platoon in every fight. We planned operations to remove and address checkpoints at different factions in this fight were setting up. So I had a huge amount of responsibility as well as running a small town there, Betina, in Kosovo, that required us to help make sure we were stabilizing the city. So ensuring like utilities got turned on is something that McFarlane wasn't familiar with, but had they had to address and drive with local Kosovar leaders there on the ground, as well as integrating the rotary wing assets with an armored platoon and paratrooper platoon, as we also had a uav, which was a very new experience for me at the time. And so learning there about the importance of being where the risk is and going to where the highest risk is is something I learned there the hard way when things would happen. And then as I moved on out as a major, as the global war on terrorism kicked off, and then as a lieutenant colonel in Iraq and Afghanistan, I certainly learned about the dynamics of host nation culture and the importance of understanding that. I learned that a little bit in Kosovo, but the importance of that in the counterinsurge insurgency fight, different operation from Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq, the counterinsurgency and counter terror fights drove me to really appreciate the human dynamics of wherever we're operating and what that means and in terms of how it can help your mission or not. And then integrating SOF and conventional forces together and the power of interdependence is what I think is where we want to go was punctuated on every one of my tours over there and then last in Syria and Iraq is as we're developing our counter UA efforts. What I learned as a leader there is you've always got to learn. You always have to learn, like be deliberate about learning. I am not a digital native. I'm a digital immigrant. So technology, the ones and zeros. I'm not as fluent As I wish I was when I got over there, I had to learn about connecting our detectors, which was a curse radar, with our defeat mechanism, which was coyote missiles, what we were using, and then through our forward area air defense Command and Control C2, which was in all of our cops there. So working with our team to make sure we can network those and have greater visibility from our forward command posts as we also integrated an architecture working for CENTCOM at the time to make sure we had a common operational picture that provided alignment across the team and understanding across the team quickly. So learning the technology was a real effort for me there to ensure I can, I could leverage it where I could and stay ahead of Iranian militia groups and terrorist groups that were trying to target us with shaheeds and things like that. That meant I need to learn from subordinates more than I was teaching them. So that dynamic was real as I was in the fight on the ground there. And the other aspect is going to the place of risk. As we dealt with potential drone strikes where we'd get intelligence, sometimes we'd evacuate bases, but we still had key infrastructure that we had to protect. So we leave small units there of air defenders. And I would fly up as we evacuated a base and stay with a small team, I think it a National Guard unit, and spend the night in. In their jock with them as we thought there was a chance they could get attacked by drones to, to share their risk with them and the burden with them. And also gave me time to connect and address some of the things that, that they were having challenges with. But go into the place of risk and sharing the hardship and, and the risk with your soldiers is incredibly important. And that was punctuated to me, you know, throughout all the operational deployments. But on my last one, I would be deliberate about flying to locations where I knew there was super high risk because I wanted people to know I was underwriting their risk with my presence there. And so they could see all I was doing to bring the weight of the nation to protect them where possible.
• 15:50
  Speaker C: Sir, what strikes me about your answer is that no two conflicts are the same. And throughout your career, in the many different conflicts you've been part of, it seems like it's all been about adapting to what the new conflict challenges bring in and how your leadership style should evolve to fit that conflict. Which leads me to ask, if you were advising a young officer preparing for the next 20 years of conflict, what mindset or skill set will matter most in an era of great power competition?
• 16:20
  Speaker A: First, understand the operational environment as I learned a little bit in Kosovo, but certainly during subsequent deployments, even after I'd been in Iraq multiple times when I went back there. The environment is changing. The adversaries who was on the, on the battlefield was changing, the capabilities they had are changing. And be more deliberate about you learning yourself and educating your team on it. People think you go through a validation exercise before deployment, and then when you go, you fight with what you know from, you know, your combat training center. The reality is our responsibility is if we're driving a Learn Adapt act, adapt again, we're going to do it in the fight. And so in my last effort, we're deliberate on onboarding all the new members of the coalition, but certainly the members of the units from the army to make sure they understood the operational environment, make sure they understood the new ttps our enemies are employing and how we are countering and then striking back where we could. That's a deliberate effort, that's continuous. And so the fluidity of the, of the adapt cycle that I described is incredibly important. And you've got to drive that and lead that with intention. Lot of people like to think what they saw since they went on a couple Iraq deployments in like 2007, 2011, that they knew everything about Iraq. And in 2021, 2021 to 2022, or 2022 to 2023, and it was so different. And so that's a key thing. The other one is getting to where you need to go to learn and understand what's happening in your organization. I was able to do it when I went up as we evacuated those bases and I went up to be with our air defenders that were still protecting those bases. But you need to understand the small things happening in your formation. And it's not saying micromanage. It means you need to understand the small things so bad things can really happen if you don't have an understanding of the depth and breadth of your organization for how things are going. Applying the command and feedback approach, which I learned from previous leaders I served around, is incredibly important. So there's a formal process for command and feedback. You put out an order, you do a confirmation and back brief, you do rehearsals. That's all opportunity for feedback. There is no perfect leader or organization in the military. The best are the ones that can see themselves and drive improvement. And that includes with a current operation, being able to put out the order, realize you need feedback. You know, candor with the commander is sacred. Right? I'm sure you guys say that around here. That means Giving honest feedback in something so the leader can then drive needed change to address challenges or explore opportunities. Both come from bottom up feedback and candid feedback from subordinates. In other operations, it's just, you know, informal questions you ask or like when I went forward to that base with those defenders was able to spend time getting their feedback on what information are they actually getting threat updates, are they really getting their mail? You know, what challenges are they having with the ammunition and the ability to see and maintain the status of their equipment. And so it's incredibly important and you have some type of system, it's a loop to drive progress and complete the mission.
• 19:39
  Speaker C: Sir, I know we have to get you to your next event, so I'll wrap up with one last question. Knowing what you know now, what advice would you offer your younger self?
• 19:47
  Speaker A: Yeah, another great question and I hope to talk about it today in my other engagements. As you build trust with your formation, it starts with your example. Every day, the most powerful order you can give as your example. And then each of your soldiers are different. They were all raised differently. I grew up in an Irish Catholic family where raising your voice was super common. My spouse grew up as an only child and when they got upset with each other, it was silent treatment. I bring that up because how you drive and get attention for different soldiers is different based on how they were brought up, whether team sports, individual, different dynamics like that matter. And so as you try to build trust in them, having trust in you to lead them, well, if you understand that they have all the competence and capabilities to execute missions with minimal guidance, that's ultimate trust there. Yeah, it takes reps and sets and you have to spend time understanding their skills and experience. And then where you need to address, where you can help them develop, sometimes it's direction. Like new privates, they're given a blue book, they're given SOPs to learn through a lot of repetition over time. You move to developing, then you move to empowering, and then you move to trust. We want to approach with empowering every day and then step into developing where needed. And then when you have a short amount of time with a new situation, you probably need to be more directive. But that continuum from directive, developing, empowering to trust, something I learned from a former leader I had that I thought was really good because each soldier is different each year. Subordinates are different on that scale. People confuse trust with I'm going to keep my word and tell the truth. That's not trust. Trust in the operational sense is you knowing that they understand your guidance and they will move out with it because you've seen them operate and have trust that they will get it done to the standard that you expect expect with minimal casualties and max effects say on handling. I've had a handful of subordinates where I've gotten a complete trust, where they could tell from my tone of voice on the radio and I could tell from theirs if there was confusion, we needed to have a more deliberate conversation or it was a directive task and they would say got it. Because they knew in those handful of soldiers I'd had multiple assignments with was a common denominator. Right, because you work around with each other. So reps and sets and you know, really having a cohesive team to build that operational trust is important and then moving as quickly as you can to the right towards trust from direction, developing, empowering the trust is is where we want to show up to work with looking to do every day.
• 22:27
  Speaker C: Well, that concludes our podcast, sir. General McFarlane, thank you for your time today and for an excellent discussion about security cooperation in the Indo Pacific. On behalf of Colonel Pat Sullivan, the director of the Modern War institute suit, and Dr. Charlie Feint, the director of this podcast series, is my pleasure to present you with this rare and coveted MWI coin. Thank you, sir.
• 22:47
  Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you so much, Donovan. It's been great to be here. It's really important that we continue to drive discussion and provide insight with leaders across our army as we drive adaptability and ensure we're ready for whatever's coming next. I'm honored to be here. I read and listen to everything MWI puts out and this helps us develop adaptability. I appreciate the different insights and perspective that MWI provides your audience, all of which are leaders or were leaders in our army or looking forward to be leaders in our army. It matters. So thanks for all that you do and I look forward to continuing a day here of engagement on leadership.
• 23:30
  Speaker B: 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 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.