Latest / Five Questions for a General / Brigadier General Shane Reeves

Transcript

Brigadier General Shane Reeves · Five Questions for a General

• 0:03
  Speaker A: You're listening to Five Questions for a General, a production of the Modern War 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.
• 0:26
  Speaker B: Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to the west point class of 1974 recording studio and the five questions for a General Podcast. I am Cadet Emily Wilczek, your host, and it is my pleasure to be here today with the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Brigadier General Shane Reeves. General Reeves is a West Point graduate and was commissioned as an armor officer before transitioning to the Judge Advocate General Corps. He served in Iraq with the Joint Special Operations Commander before joining the law Department at West Point, and he is now the 15th Dean of West Point's academic board. General, welcome to the show.
• 1:00
  Speaker C: Thank you. It's great to be here.
• 1:02
  Speaker B: Now, sir, before we get into the real questions, I have to ask, what does a general do on a snow day?
• 1:07
  Speaker C: Oh, well, shovel, check morale, drink coffee. Those are the three things I've done today.
• 1:14
  Speaker B: That is a great lineup. And, sir, how do you take your coffee?
• 1:17
  Speaker C: Oh, I take it with tons of creamer. It's very foofy. I like creamer. I like whipped cream. On, like, all those things.
• 1:24
  Speaker B: It's the best way to take it.
• 1:25
  Speaker C: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I don't.
• 1:26
  Speaker B: The black coffee purists. I scare me.
• 1:28
  Speaker C: That means I'm not a very good officer. Officers love their coffee black. I don't. I like. With a bunch of sugar and cream and other things in it.
• 1:34
  Speaker B: I mean, if you have it, sir.
• 1:35
  Speaker C: Take advantage of it. That's true.
• 1:37
  Speaker B: All right, now into the real question.
• 1:39
  Speaker C: Okay, wait a minute. How do you like your coffee?
• 1:42
  Speaker B: Sir, I will take my coffee any way I can get it.
• 1:44
  Speaker C: How many cups of coffee do you drink a day?
• 1:46
  Speaker B: I. I try to do only two.
• 1:48
  Speaker C: Good. You gotta hold that in reserve. You're gonna need coffee much more as you get older.
• 1:52
  Speaker B: It's in the back pockets there. Oh, yes. Since I've been a toddler.
• 1:55
  Speaker C: Really?
• 1:56
  Speaker B: Yes.
• 1:56
  Speaker C: You've been drinking coffee since you were a toddler?
• 1:57
  Speaker B: Since I've been about three.
• 1:58
  Speaker C: I'm calling your parents. I'm calling your parents. I'm checking in. I'm not sure that's.
• 2:02
  Speaker B: It explains a lot of why I am the way I am.
• 2:04
  Speaker C: Where are you from?
• 2:05
  Speaker B: New Jersey.
• 2:06
  Speaker C: Okay. That's a New Jersey thing.
• 2:07
  Speaker B: It's an Italian thing, too.
• 2:08
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 2:11
  Speaker B: Okay. All right, General Reeves, you are the dean of the United States Military Academy at West Point. What was your path to joining the army and what does a dean's job entail?
• 2:22
  Speaker C: So my path to joining the army, it's not unique, but it's actually a combination of two things. One is I have a family history in the military. So I've had. My family's been serving in the military for, I mean, really probably a couple hundred years. And a number of them had come to West Point, starting with my great grandfather in the class of 1892 and a number of other family members throughout that period. And so I truly loved my grandfather who was a class of 1939. He was a retired colonel. And I thought he was just the most noble and amazing person. And I enjoyed in my grandparents home because they had all the accoutrements of living a military life. They had things from when they were stationed in Naples or when he had been in combat in World War II or when they lived in Japan. And I was like, how do I get to have that type of life? Because it looks like a great adventure. The other part though was I was, I'm from Wyoming and I thought, what's the, what's the best way to, to get an education? Of course I knew West Point through my family, but it was not lost on me that West Point was free education at an elite institution. And so I was like this, these come together. I have a family history of military service. It was intriguing to me. And this is a great way to, to get an education at an elite school.
• 3:39
  Speaker B: Was there a specific thing that made you stay in the military this long opportunity?
• 3:44
  Speaker C: The Army, I think, is wonderful at investing in its officers, in particular their educations. And so the opportunity to go to law school, the opportunity to continue to get an advanced degree beyond that, that was one. But the more important one is actually leadership. I had an absolute blast. What I was a lieutenant when I was a platoon leader. I was at the 11th ACR 1st Squadron at Fort Irwin, California. And I had exceptional leadership from my, from my fellow platoon leaders to my troop XO to my troop commander, to my squadron commander, to the regimental commander. And it didn't feel like a job. It just felt like I was having a lot of fun doing something that I was excited about. And I think that set a foundation of for me where I thought the army is a really, really neat organization and my leaders cared about me and they were interested. No one ever tried to advise me not to do something that I was interested in. They might say, hey, have you thought about this? Or hey, you're doing well here, so maybe you want to think about that. But I really think it was the opportunities the army provided and the leadership that I've always had and I've always had, I've been really fortunate. I've always had exceptional leaders as and bosses.
• 5:05
  Speaker B: Now, going more extensively on education, you've written extensively on professional military education, and you lead West Point's academic mission. How do you balance the demands of academic rigor with the need to develop adaptable leaders ready for the complex realities of modern warfare?
• 5:22
  Speaker C: I don't really think it's a balance. I think that you can't have adaptable and creative and successful leaders if they don't have an intellectual foundation. So one of the questions you asked me previously is what's my job as the dean? So my job is, if I was going to put it succinctly, is to create an intellectual foundation so that our cadets can successfully navigate the complexities, the uncertainties, the ambiguities of the modern and future battlespace, while also creating anew and all cadets a passion for lifelong learning. A and to satisfy your intellectual curiosity because all that leads to this, all that leads to creating innovative, adaptable, creative thinking. And that is the path to the United States army being successful. Having these young entrepreneurial and creative officers who are connected to a very powerful non commissioned officer is probably our greatest advantage when we think about warfare. And my example would be in, in 2022, when the Russians went into Ukraine, they, they were surprised, or they shouldn't have been, but they were surprised by the resistance that, that they, they ran into and they froze the Russians when they hit the resistance and their plan didn't take place after 72 hours, they froze and they didn't know what to do. And that's because they don't have officers who are able to think their way through what is the proverbial fog of war. And in freezing, they started to call up higher. And then you started to see these senior commanders, these colonels and generals from the Russian military trying to come out to regain momentum. And now compare that to the United States Army. We would simply tell a lieutenant and their NCO say, hey, figure it out. Yes, you've hit an obstacle. You should expect to hit that obstacle now. Find a way to navigate your way around it. And that really is driven by the intellectual ability of our officers and to how like our young officers know how to think their way through a problem. And they're expected to be able to think their way through a problem. In fact, if they can't, they're in the wrong army. And so I don't think it's so much a balance. I think it's inextricably linked the intellectual development of an officer and their ability to practically and pragmatically operate in a military space.
• 7:44
  Speaker B: Now, have you seen in your career this kind of intellectual hunger? Does it become a conscious priority for these people? Or is it something that they passively are just constantly taking in new information and changing the way they do things?
• 7:55
  Speaker C: I think I'm stereotyping. I think young people, your generation is really intellectually curious. I think that you're open to ideas and I think that you're looking to develop yourself again. Back to my job and the faculty's job here at West Point, our job is to foster that intellectual curiosity and to help you pursue it. And so how do we do that? You have to have true intellectual discourse in the classroom. We can't intellectually coddle you. We can't hide ideas from you. You're too smart anyways. You know, cadets are. Cadets understand when they can't, when they're like, whoa, that, that seems to be a sensitive topic. In fact, that's not really the case. There's. There's nothing you can't talk about. There's nothing that you can't debate. There's not, there's no discourse. That can't happen. So our job as faculty is to foster all that while helping you understand that you operate in a hierarchical organization and also understanding that because you may have disagreement with each other, that doesn't necessarily mean that you don't like each other, because there is a homogeny to the military which is our values at West Point. Those be duty, honor, country, or if you think about the army's values, loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, personal courage. Those things underlie our entire conversation. So my job is to foster and leading the faculty, our job is to foster that intellectual curiosity. But I do think if you talk to successful officers who've had great careers, they have continued to learn and to think about new things, to read, constantly reading all the way through their military career. And I think that's what separates a good officer from a great officer, is one that has that intellectual curiosity and then does feed it.
• 9:44
  Speaker B: Thank you, sir. Focusing in more on West Point's academic mission. This year's academic theme for West Point is projecting Lethality, Addressing the multi dimensional challenges in the Indo Pacific. Why did you choose that theme and how can West Point contribute to projecting lethality in the Indo Pacific region?
• 10:01
  Speaker C: So every year we try to pick an academic year theme that allows the academic program, whether it's at the, at the Dean's level, at the department level, at the center's level, to, to tether themselves, tether those organizations that are part of the, you know, part of the bigger enterprise into an idea or a concept so that that shapes capstones and who they bring to speak and all those various other ways that we, that we support the cadets educational experience. So we picked this one for the obvious reasons. We, we have moved out of an era that's focused on addressing the non state ideologically motivated terrorist groups, I would say, and moved and not that threat is completely gone, but we have moved our focus and shifted our focus to peer to peer conflict and particularly focused in Asia. I don't think it's a surprise that perhaps the greatest geopolitical threat the United States has faced since the end of World War II is the rise of China, both economically and militarily. And they have very different views on the world than the United States and the broad liberal order that was established post World War II. And so we decided to focus the academic year theme on looking at that challenge and how that challenge may play out. Now to your second part of your question about how does West Point contribute to lethality? It really is three ways. One is by developing our cadets to be the officers that are capable of winning in the modern battle space. Developing our faculty so that the faculty are working on relevant and contemporary topics that help the army solve some of their bigger problems. And really it's connecting ourselves to the army and the bigger department of war enterprise so that our cadets education, our faculty work with the cadets, all working on projects on behalf of the army either is addressing some of the army's bigger problems or our faculty are being developed so that there's actually a bench of experts who happen to have security clearances that have either a technical or some sort of background that the army needs. And then of course the cadets when they graduate have that sophistication of thinking so that they can do the things that we talked about.
• 12:29
  Speaker B: Now, sir, short term, in the next, say five years. What does winning in a contemporary space look like to West Point?
• 12:37
  Speaker C: Well, West Point is of course just one pillar of the broader army and we're a commissioning source as well as a place that produces intellectual capital on behalf of the Army. And so I think winning is whatever challenge may come that faces the Army. West Point needs to be contributing. And that contribution comes through, of course, commissioning 1,000 great new lieutenants every year. But it's also through the great work that's done through our 27 centers of excellence or our 13 academic departments, or through the West Point Works Innovation Hub, which has broken down the silos between many of those departments and those centers so that we're really doing some interdisciplinary work on behalf of the army to solve some of their problems. So I think it's. I think it's contributing in multiple ways to the Army's mission and whatever mission that the army is given.
• 13:29
  Speaker B: Thank you, sir.
• 13:29
  Speaker C: Sure.
• 13:30
  Speaker B: Shifting gears slightly now. Your scholarship on the law of armed conflict emphasizes ethical conduct in warfare. How should future army leaders be prepared to make ethical decisions under pressure, especially in ambiguous operational environments?
• 13:43
  Speaker C: Well, one is you have to just live in the world that you have to understand the world you live in and not the world you want to live in. You are going to face ambiguous and uncertain circumstances. There's this. There's almost, I think, an over reliance or a belief that technology is going to solve many of our problems. And there's the risk of over reliance on technology to clear away, again, that fog of war. And that there's going to be complete clarity, whether it's air superiority or the ability to process voluminous amounts of data to tell us everything that's going on. That's just not the case. War is always going to be confusing. It's always going to be uncertain, there's always going to be complications, and there's always going to be some very difficult decisions to make. So I think the law, as well as ethical reasoning remain incredibly important for giving the left and right limits for an officer's behaviors in warfare. And I think that the expectation is that we will make the right decision and we'll make those decisions grounded in both the legal framework that underlies how we conduct our operations and armed conflict, as well as having the underlying character to make the right ethical decision when the time comes. But there's some things that had been talked about at West Point for a long time that I think are informative. Doing the harder right over the easier wrong. Don't take a half truth. You can find the full truth. We pride ourselves on doing the right thing in the toughest of circumstances. We take an oath to the Constitution because we understand the importance of the rule of law. I mean, all of those things that inform how we develop. Officers, it all comes down to this. We produce leaders of character. And character matters, especially when faced with very, very Difficult circumstances.
• 15:30
  Speaker B: Now, sir, as the founding director of the Lieber Institute of Law and Land Warfare, how do you see the military law and operational understanding of, as well as this focus on character shaping strategic advantage in future conflicts?
• 15:42
  Speaker C: So one of the reasons we created the Lieber Institute, and there was a number of teammates who did this, was because we started to recognize that the operational space was being constrained by a misuse or misinterpretation of the law. And the law of armed conflict allows for some uncomfortable things that would typically not take place in a peaceful circumstance. For example, using force as a first resort versus as a last resort. There'll be. To put it bluntly, warfare will result in property being destroyed and people being killed. But the law allows for those things in certain circumstances. For example, if you're going to conduct a targeting operation and there's going to be some death, you apply the principle proportionality. The principle of proportionality says that the incidental loss of civilian life cannot be excessive in comparison to the concrete and direct military advantage gained. So there's, there's a. There's an equilibrium of balance. And that balance is really between two big principles. One is military necessity, right? The. The need to do these things to, to fight and win. And then there's this idea of humanity. There are certain things we don't do. We don't kill civilians, for example. And so that balance needs to be put. Kept in equilibrium. And what we found was there was increasingly an overemphasis actually on the humanity side, to the detriment of the military necessities side. And so what the Lieber Institute did was put those. Tried to have a. Tried to make sure that that balance is equal, allowing for our operators and those that are being asked to go out and do the most difficult thing that humans do to each other, which is warfare, have the legal. They have a. They have a clear understanding of the legal left and right limits, but those limits had gotten a little bit too tight. And what the Lieber Institute's emphasis was was to broaden those back to the point where it was. It was not just in compliance with what the law actually says, but also takes away some of the restraining functions that have been placed on our operators over the last, I'd say, 20 years.
• 17:52
  Speaker B: Now, sir, we've spoken previously with General Berger on the importance of understanding the ROEs at every level. Could you speak a little bit to that and how completely understanding not only the ROE itself, but where it comes from changes your strategic thinking?
• 18:07
  Speaker C: Yeah, so it's a great question because there's oftentimes a little bit of confusion about the rules of engagement in comparison to the law of armed conflict. Right. So the rules of engagement are US Policy, which means that they can never be broader than what the law allows. So if you want to think of it, the law has, you know, if it's a football field, it's 100 yards. The rules of engagement can never be more than 100 yards. They might be 80 yards or 70 yards. But the rules of engagement are how commanders communicate to their subordinates what you can and can't do. And embedded in that and infused throughout the rules of engagement is the law of armed conflict. But there's also going to be some other things that might be placed in there. There might be, hey, we're not going to, we're not going to go into, I'm just making this up, but we might not go into a house at night. Why would we not go into a house at night? Because that might actually be detrimental to our long term operational. Might be long. Might be a detrimental to our long, our long term operational success. Because you're going to irritate the local population by going at night. So we're not going to do that. Yeah, but there's good reasons to go at night. And so the commander gets to make that decision and weigh those, those, the pros and cons, and then put that in the policy. So understanding the rules of engagement means that if you're following the rules of engagement and they're properly written and constructed, you can have confidence that you're following not just the law, but also the policies that are being directed by the commander. So it's very, very important that everybody at every echelon understands what the ROE says.
• 19:34
  Speaker B: Thank you, sir. Moving into more technology, on your podcast, Inside West Point Ideas that Impact, you've highlighted topics from AI to global security to mentorship. What is one idea from that series that you believe all military leaders should hold front of mind today? And why?
• 19:54
  Speaker C: I think there's a couple, actually. I do think we've moved into a new era when you talk about the technology and the integration into military operations and really the integration with humans. And it's important for anyone who's listening to recognize that technology is going to be a component of what we do going forward. So, for example, there are reports that in 2025 the Russians had 416,000 casualties, something like that in Ukraine. A shocking number. Right. Maybe the Ukrainians are reporting that the numbers could be as high as 1.2 million Russian Casualt in that conflict so far. But what's more shocking to me is over 70% have been done by drones, 28% roughly indirect and other means, and 2% direct. So war has changed, right? How the world is conducting their operations and fighting each other is just as lethal, it's just as deadly, but it's changed in how they're using the means to do it and maybe even some of the methods on how they're doing it, too. And so I think the takeaway from my podcast is warfare is not static. We cannot be looking backwards. We need to be proactive. We need to be. We need to be proactive in looking forward or we're going to lose. We're going to lose the days of the United States being, you know, being broken out of its slumber because it finally gets punched, and then we're going to turn on the arsenal of democracy to go and fight and win our wars. I just don't think that's the case any longer. I think we moved into an era where warfare is moving too quickly. I think that the war could be over before we even know it. I think that there's a spectrum in the conflict. If you're looking at conflict in terms of whether it's binary or there's a range of it, I think there's a range of conflicts. There's a spectrum of operations that are taking place in the cyber realm or in space or others. And so I think we need to recognize that warfare has become incredibly sophisticated, incredibly advanced. Technology is changing so much on how we fight, and we need to understand that new world. However, there are parts about warfare that are never changing. It's still a struggle between two states at its core, struggle between people, as Clausewood said, further, their political agenda through these means. It's about still seizing space. And so some of those intangibles about war remain the same. It's how states resolve their conflicts. Oftentimes they resolve their disagreements, but they might use economic sanctions, and then sometimes they may do this. So there's this interesting part. When you look at warfare right now, there's a regressive point to it. Like, we're back to this state when we're back to a point where one state will try to seize territory from another state through, through. Through a military means. But we're also into a new era when technology is informing so much about how the, the. How warfare is being conducted. And so I think that's the intent of the podcast, is to do that, but also more. More superficially is to highlight the incredible faculty and people that are at West Point. It's one of the things that has been. When I became the dean, I just am constantly blown away. No matter where I go around West Point, I'm like, oh my goodness. That guy that, you know, he's awesome, or she's awesome. I mean, oh, that's, that's an expert on undirected energy. I don't know if people understand that we have the world's leading expert on micro nukes or, or, oh, wow. We are looking very carefully on how to process data in such a way that can be applied quickly. Or I could just keep going right from autonomy to cyber to you, picket. There's experts at West Point. It's an incredibly powerful faculty and they're all here as a resource for the army. And so I wanted to highlight the excellence of the faculty that reside at West Point.
• 24:01
  Speaker B: Hopefully there'll be some crossovers between the viewership now, sir.
• 24:04
  Speaker C: I hope so. That'd be great. That'd be great.
• 24:06
  Speaker B: Now, quickly calling back to a previous point where we said there might be an over reliance that is developing on technology in this ever changing sphere of modern warfare. How will we know if we've hit that point of overreliance, if we will at all?
• 24:20
  Speaker C: Yeah, it's a really good question. We're probably there now. We probably have hit an over reliance, but it doesn't mean we won't be successful. Because I think this is where both education and training come into. Come into play. Education is focused on preparing a person for dealing with uncertainty. Training is where you are doing things repetitively so that you get good at it. So you may have an M4 and you can clean it in the dark. That's because you've been trained really well. But your education prepares you for when you've lost your M4 or it's broken. And you still have to accomplish the mission. Now you have to get creative, right? And when you put those together, that's what we're trying to produce. And I think that if technology goes down, and it will, I think that's probably a great vulnerability. When technology goes down, we're going to all be shocked because we have become so reliant on our phones and our electricity and our ability to navigate through computers with access to GPS and almost our ability to communicate with impunity through various means that will break when the time comes. And that over reliance may shock us, but it doesn't mean that we're not resilient or capable of being successful in those environments. And that's why, again, I hearken back to teaching people how to think and not what to think, while also training them to be proficient in a number of things. You put those two together means that we will be successful. But my instinct tells me we are already over reliant on technology.
• 26:02
  Speaker B: Now, sir, how do we see human judgment and our ethical reasoning playing alongside these new technologies as we advance in both the technology itself and our education as well?
• 26:14
  Speaker C: Great question. So when you talk about, say, artificial intelligence, right? If I talk to a firstie and a plebe, they have different views on the use of AI and at all, really, there's an inflection point, and someday someone will write on this. But there was an inflection point, I think probably September 2023, when ChatGPT and those systems became widely distributed and widely used. And so they're awesome. I mean, if you use AI, you see how quickly you can do things. You're just like, I cannot believe how quickly it can process all this information and be able to succinctly create something that's usable and workable. It makes you so much more efficient. So the technology is something that is here. Technology always wins. There have been many efforts to try to ban technology. I mean, I could go back to a story I like to tell is Pope Urban ii. Crossbows had been created, and the crossbows were really effective at piercing armor, and they were upsetting the social hierarchy at the time. And so Pope Urban II said, okay, anyone who uses a crossbow, you're excommunicated. So what did everybody do? They went, let's go get a bunch of crossbows. Why? Because they were effective. And if you look at warfare, there's been efforts to ban the use of balloons and airplanes and submarines and nuclear weapon. It just doesn't. Technology always wins. So artificial intelligence is here and it's. And it's a tool that is, is going to be critical to gaining advantage. So your question is, what about human judgment? What I worry about is as we over, as we more and more rely on artificial intelligence and, and the, the great advantages it produces, that in that reliance, we start to lose the critical thinking skills that were actually necessary to create that system. And then when those critical thinking skills atrophy, we lose our ability to make decisions. We lose our ability to make those calls and use our judgment because we're just deferential to the machine or whatever it spits out, which, by the way, makes us very easy to manipulate it. It means that we're not great discerner is a fact. And it means that we don't have the level of cynicism. And I'm not saying that in a derogatory way, but I want our, our leaders to have enough of a, of a cynical view to go, I don't think that's right. I'm going to double check that. And so we have to be very careful that we don't have those critical thinking skills and that sophistication of thinking atrophy or go away because of our over reliance on the technology. So my job right now, and it's something we're trying to figure out here, is how do I create in cadets what I call the AI enabled officer? The officer that understands how to use AI for advantage and understands how to use it in such a way that it does create the efficiencies to allow you to go do those things that only humans can do. Go see your soldiers and look them in the eye, get to know them, talk to them, give them the personal touch, lead them. That's what I think the technology should be used for. Not the over reliance on telling me how I should engage with a human. Because the machine can't tell you that.
• 29:29
  Speaker B: Sir. Is there a tactic that you use personally to kind of fight back against the urge to just throw everything into ChatGPT or another AI that is like, wait a minute, I need to do this myself. Is there that urge?
• 29:44
  Speaker C: I wonder if maybe I'm not trying to make it a generational thing. I wonder if it's a little bit easier for me because I'm old and I understood the world. I mean, I remember the world before there were cell phones, right? Like there was, there was a time period when I like to joke with cats. I'm like, oh, by the way, you like the. There used to be a cord like hooked to a phone. You put it to your ear and you couldn't walk away. Right. I, I don't think I rely on the technology as much as I should because my, my background and my understanding and how I've been developed was not to do that. Which was mine was to. Is to, you know, read a couple of things and come up with those, those a decision based on that. But I can see the, the temptation of doing that very. It's. It's just so easy. It's so easy to, to put it all in the gonculator and something comes out and you're like, that's really good. And it's just going to get better and better and better to where it's going to be very difficult to discern between what a human's done and what the machine is, is popping out. I think you have to. So the answer to your question is it's probably easier for me than others, but I would say for anyone who listens, you have to be disciplined enough to, to do certain things. I have found that when I watch myself, for example, my attention span is, is not as long as it used to be. It's harder for me just to sit down and watch a two hour movie or even a 30 minute show without picking up my phone and looking at it because my attention span is getting shorter and shorter and shorter. And I don't think you can do deep thinking in that, in that space. So I try very hard to go quiet at certain parts of my day or my night without any electronics around me. And I do certain things like, like read an actual book. Not scroll through something, but read an actual book. You know, I just, I just finished a great extremely long two volume set on the rise and fall of the Japanese Empire from 1933 to 40, 45 and I found it really satisfying to read an entire book. And I came away thinking like I have a much better perspective on that time period. I also read like old school newspapers. Like I take out the, you know, the picture paper of choice and I take it out and I read it versus on my phone because I just don't want the electronic piece of it. So I try to discipline myself, to be careful on how much I rely on the technology and then understand when it's actually a good use and when it might be a harmful use.
• 32:12
  Speaker B: Sir, I will gladly join on your crusade against ebooks. They are the worst. They're the worst. Many leaders at West Point and in the operational army often talk about preparing leaders in conditions of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Or Vuca, what is one key practice or mindset that you think makes the biggest difference in leaders thriving, not just surviving when faced with uncertainty?
• 32:37
  Speaker C: I don't think this will surprise you. Education, like developing yourself intellectually. I mean there when I think about I'm biased, I'm the dean, but obviously as an officer there's a. You have to be physically proficient, right? And you have to have the military competencies to be successful. But if you want to be successful in uncertainty, especially in a competitive environment, it's going to be your brain that gets you through that. And so you have to be challenging yourself all the time. And it's something I say to faculty here consistently, which is we don't want the West Point graduate, when the time comes and it's so confusing and so uncertain, to freeze because they don't know how to think their way out of it. And so our job is to push to, again, not intellectually coddle, to try our very hardest to make sure that you're gaining those intellectual skills to be able to do that. So I would tell you if you want to be successful in an uncertain environment, and it's going to be complex and it's going to be weird, and there's going to be something that you, you know, maybe no one's ever seen before. It's going to be ingenuity, it's going to be creativity, it's going to be teamwork, it's going to be physical stamina. But at the end of the day, it's going to be, do you have the intellectual skills to do it?
• 33:53
  Speaker B: Thank you, sir. Our final question.
• 33:56
  Speaker C: Sure.
• 33:57
  Speaker B: Knowing what you know now, what advice would you offer your younger self?
• 34:02
  Speaker C: Good question. Time goes fast. Don't rush through it. Stop to smell the roses before you're going to become President of the United States or whatever your plan is. Enjoy being a platoon leader. It's fun. I mean, being a lieutenant is fun. The army is a blast. Like, enjoy it, understand, Embrace the adventure that the army provides for you. Don't be too worried about the next step all the time. I mean, it sounds counterintuitive, but live a little bit in the moment and just be really good at what you're doing at that time. And I think that is something that I worry about a little bit with cadets, is they're so talented. I mean, you all are so talented. You're so capable, you're so physically fit, but you're also so driven that you're thinking, well, I got to do this. To this, to this, to this, to this. Like, no, stop. Just go off the hip, platoon, and have a blast, and the rest of it will come or not. And then just pivot. You have all the skill sets to pivot and be successful in life and have confidence that you can do that. But just enjoy it a little bit more than I think sometimes we do.
• 35:08
  Speaker B: Thank you, sir.
• 35:08
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 35:09
  Speaker B: That is amazing advice. General Reeves, thank you for your time today.
• 35:14
  Speaker C: Thanks for having me.
• 35:14
  Speaker B: Excellent discussion about professional education, military strategy, ethical reasoning, and preparing for tomorrow's wars.
• 35:22
  Speaker C: Today I would like to tell you that you're a much better podcast host than I am. You are now top of the heap. You are top of the heap at the academy, sir.
• 35:30
  Speaker B: I take that amazing praise and I'm gonna put it in my back pocket and tell my mom later.
• 35:34
  Speaker C: Good. I don't know how many podcasts are at the Academy. There's probably two. You're one, maybe I'm two. There's more than I don't know. You're still better than whoever else is out there.
• 35:42
  Speaker B: We got a few from MWI sprinkled in the mix there. I can't say that I am top of the heap in those, but, sir, I will take that to heart. On behalf of Colonel Pat Sullivan, the director of the Modern war Institute, and Dr. Charlie Feint, the director of this podcast series, it is my pleasure to present you with this rare and coveted mwi.
• 36:02
  Speaker C: Ah, thank you. I appreciate it.
• 36:04
  Speaker B: Thank you, sir.
• 36:05
  Speaker C: Thanks for your hosting and thanks to the great MWI leadership. Of course, thanks to the class of 74 for all the effort they put into making this. This is wonderful. So thanks for having me.
• 36:14
  Speaker B: Thank you for coming, sir.
• 36:15
  Speaker C: Yep.
• 36:18
  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 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.