The Command and Control podcast breaks new ground in taking an independent and pragmatic look at what military command and control might look like for the fight tonight and the fight tomorrow. Join us as we talk through C2 for an era of high-end war fighting. The hypothesis is this: command is human, control has become more technological pronounced. As a result, the increasing availability of dynamic control measures is centralising control away from local command. It is a noticeable trend in Western C2 since the late 1980s. Over that time, blending human decision and cutting edge technology has been evolutionary but not deliberate: how will this change? Will it become dominated by a tendency to hoard power in those with the most computing power, might these factors serve to amplify the role of commanders? Given all the hyperbole about AI in C2 (and we will tackle some of that with AI experts), it's a conversation we need to have.
📻 Siste episoder av Command and Control
Her er de nyeste episodene tilgjengelige via RSS-feeden:
A city paralysed by cyber-attack: Civil C2 made real (00:37:10)
In 2019, the Dutch municipality of Lochem was hit with a major cyber-attack that impacted everything from welfare payments to the sewage system. The mayor at the time – Sebastiaan van T' Evre – consid...
C2 - the long view (with Michael Holm) (01:14:44)
It is rare to find anyone who has been actively engaged in C2 over a 20 year time span, let alone 40. For nearly half a century Michael Holm has been making C2 systems for the military. In that time h...
Manoeuvre and the network: C2 at XXX and Below (00:40:12)
If the role of the Corps level is in setting the conditions for Divisions to win, how are Divisions and subordinate commands going to conduct their own battle (and command it)? What are their roles in...
Amphibious Complexity: C2 in the AAF (00:31:01)
If Europeans have been swiftly divesting themselves of real amphibious capability, the reverse has been true of the ADF in recent years. Ray Leggatt, the first true Commander Amphibious Task Force of ...
Goldwater Nichols: Still fit for purpose? (00:33:06)
Most people in the C2 world who would acknowledge the Goldwater Nichols reforms of the US military as one of the big muscle movements in command and control over the last 75 years. It provided the fra...
The Unfair Fight (HQ Corps job) (00:42:44)
It is the responsibility of the Corps level of command to set the conditions for a favourable and unfair fight at the tactical level: so says Major General Mike Keating, Chief of Staff at Headquarters...
Reality checking industry offerings for C2 (00:32:49)
C2 systems litter headquarters – some have coalesced into a single machine, others spread across various apps, platforms, and systems. It's a growing market place and one that can genuinely bamboozle ...
C2 for Urban Warfare (00:39:28)
Western militaries won't be able to do C2 in urban warfare scenarios well enough to prevail. So says Professor John Spencer, author, researcher, commentator and veteran of numerous campaigns. Recent l...
Insubordination (00:34:25)
Sometimes insubordination within the command chain actually works. Want an example? Take the infamous 1973 Yom Kippur War, when the divisional commander of a reserve formation (Ariel Sharon) circumven...
C2 and Peacekeeping (00:40:07)
Peace keeping missions (whether peace enforcement, peace building, peace making, or conflict prevention) are very different to the formatted hierarchy and organisation of set-piece, large-scale milita...
Professionals Talk Logistics (00:41:45)
The key principles of logistics might not have changed (Jomini's principles remain as valid as ever), but we have been lulled into false sense of adequacy about logistics and war. Steve Leonard and Jo...
Ukrainian C2: Adaptation under fire (00:33:47)
The announcement in February 2025 of a restructuring of Ukrainian command and control went largely unnoticed in the West. It shouldn't have: the implications are significant. Mick Ryan provides some m...
CIMIC and C2 (00:28:58)
Everyone understands that civil agencies and institutions do not operate in the same way as military organisations. The culture, aims, objectives, and funding models are different, as is the way they ...
Nuclear Command and Control (00:45:53)
It's not a topic that is spoken about enough in the national security community: Nuclear Command and Control (NC2), and Communications (NC3) is a world apart from C2 for conventional forces: it underp...
C2, MDO and Synchronisation (00:35:59)
Fast reflections of the annual NATO C2 Centre of Excellence (C2COE) conference in the Hague with the centre's commanding officer, Meitta Groeneveld. The challenging issues of MDO and Synchronisation, ...
Horrid Bosses (00:43:31)
The military sometimes promote and appoint leaders who are truly terrible. Sometimes this isn't their fault, they are not always narcissistic or toxic: sometimes they are just not up to the job. But t...
Synchronisation as Coupling (00:35:41)
If there is some unresolved tension in the ideas of mission command and synchronisation – particularly within the MDO concept – then it could be more useful to think about the USMC idea of Coupling: t...
Submarine Command and Control (00:44:21)
Imagine sitting on a battlefield and trying to figure out what is happening with only your ears to guide you; your guidance is based on orders written weeks or months ago, and the last time you got an...
The Civ/Mil part from a NATO SecGen (00:35:03)
Former NATO Sec Gen Jaap de Hoop Scheffer talks about what it takes to make effective command relationships work at the highest level of Pol/Mil C2: the tensions between domestic agendas and internati...
C2 Systems – how much has changed? (00:42:56)
In providing commanders with the ability to command and control, computerised systems have been in use for more than 50 years. Their evolution from siloed systems inside individual units, moving acros...
Naval C2 (00:48:54)
The captain of a warship has, sometimes, godlike omnipotence. Does this mean that naval command and control has some unique characteristics that need to be better understood in order to be integrated ...
Not the Heroic Model of Decision-Making (00:45:27)
What makes a good and a great military leader? The myth of a divine, born leader is very popular but today we actually know better than this fiction. Science has given us the evidence to understand wh...
Delegation to the point of discomfort (00:46:29)
Many medium powers have been struggling to keep pace with the US military as it reimagines how it will undertake command and control over the coming decade. For those in Canada the challenge is extrem...
You Cannot Beat Winter (00:59:15)
A discussion with Major General Karl Engelbrekston, former chief of the Swedish Army who retired in Jun 2023. Command and control is clearly different when operating in environmental and geographic ex...
The Devolution of Command (00:34:00)
Having an intelligent conversation about command and control requires a discussion with the USMC, the same institution that gave us the current C2 taxonomy back in the 1980s. While USMC force design 2...
