Podcast appearances and mentions of bruce gudmundsson

Links1. "Kaliningrad: Impregnable Fortress or ‘Russian Alamo?,'" by Dr. Steve Wills, CNA, May 15, 2023.2. Sea Control 211 - Bursting A2/AD Bubbles with Robert Dalsjӧ & Michael Jonsson, by Jared Samuelson, CIMSEC, November 15, 2020.3. Sea Control 168 - Operation Albion with Dr. Bruce Gudmundsson and Tim Powledge, by Jared Samuelson, CIMSEC, April 13, 2020. 

Links:1.  Operation Albion: the German Conquest of the Baltic Islands2. Military Learning Gateway

By Jared Samuelson If you’re a naval integration fan, this episode is for you! Dr. Bruce Gudmundsson, a military historian with the Military Learning Gateway,* and career Marine infantryman Tim Powledge join Jared to break down Operation Albion. As World War I wound down, the Germans launched an assault on the Baltic Islands in an attempt … Continue reading Sea Control 168 – Operation Albion with Dr. Bruce Gudmundsson and Tim Powledge →

I was pleased to have Don Vandergriff on the Acquistion Talk podcast. Don is a prolific educator of military training and strategy, and he has a new book out, Adopting Mission Command. During the episode, we discuss how modern organizations have been built around notions scientific management developed by people like Frederick Winslow Taylor. These methods are great for well-defined problems which can be broken down into sequential steps and optimized. It led to an education system that values checklist procedures and creating interchangeable workers for an assembly line. For many years Don has been at the forefront of pushing military training to go beyond Taylorism. He looks to the wisdom of German methods of mission command, or auftragstaktik, that flourished toward the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. The basic idea is to determine commanders intent and allow subordinates to interpret the intent while making decisions which may alter the plan depending on fast changing circumstances. This requires a type of training that produces critical thinkers and decisive decision-makers rather than training that emphasizes process without regard for context. During the episode, we discuss outcomes based training and education, the impact of centralization and hierarchy, how to learn from mistakes, the role of moral courage, why mission command is a two-way street, how difficult it is to write a good intent, and much more. The principles discussed by Don are applicable to defense acquisition as well. Both military operations and acquisition are highly uncertain environments with fast changing information. Building a positive culture based on trust can vastly improve effectiveness by delegating responsibility within the scope of commander's intent -- rather than detailing a laundry list of parameters to be measured by. I'd like to thank Don for joining me on Acquisition Talk. Be sure to check out all of Don's books on Amazon. Here is a good selection of articles and videos, as well as a good article on "The U.S. Army Culture is French!" Be sure to check out his three excellent episodes on the POGO podcast, two of which are with the estimable Bruce Gudmundsson: "Tactical Decision Games," "Military Personnel Reform," and "Mission Command." Don also recommends a book from Martin Samuels, "Piercing the Fog of War."

Military leaders are faced with a dilemma unique among the professions. While doctors get to practice medicine, architects get to design buildings, and educators get to teach students on a daily basis, military professionals spend the vast majority of their careers preparing to do a job they rarely, and in some fortunate cases, never have to actually perform. This makes the education and training of military leaders that much more important. They need to be ready to perform at their peak from the first moment they are called to do so. Those they lead will pay the price for a lack of preparation. The services already do a lot to train their people to do their jobs. Almost everyone who has been in the military can, and often does, tell stories of their time spent in the field engaged in training exercises. Not to take anything away from these exercises, but most of them are only useful insofar as they train and refine procedures—they don’t actually test people’s ability to make difficult decisions based on imperfect information. Bruce Gudmundsson and Don Vandergriff, two leading military historians, talk about how using tactical decision games helps leaders develop the skills they need to deal with uncertain situations and prevail in combat.

Bruce Gudmundsson joins me on the Acquisition Talk podcast to discuss the great work he is doing down in Quantico putting together case studies on military operations and acquisition. The case studies are different than you might see in business schools. He takes historical situations and puts you in the shoes of a central character. Bruce provides a lecture on the background, gives statistics and other images that help you understand the terrain or technology, and then at critical junctures in the story, he asks, "what would you do?" These "decision-forcing case studies" are at the intersection of the traditional case study method, decision games, and the Socratic conversation. The podcast starts by introducing the audience to an accelerated version of a decision-forcing case study, one where we play the part of Emile Rimaihlo, a French artillery engineer. We learn about the technology, the conundrums he faced, and the major consequences of those decisions on the battlefields of World War I. We also discuss the French arsenal system of manufacturing, howitzer gun technology, Bruce's fondness of paradoxes, advice for reading, how Ben Franklin appreciated Socrates, how case studies impart upon the student humility, an ability to handle ambiguity, and a bias towards action, and much more. Bruce also took part in the Quantico Renaissance, which led to the development of updated Marine Corps doctrine that pivoted away from linear fronts and hierarchy to an appreciation of nonlinearity and uncertainty in combat. I ask Bruce whether such a reform is possible in defense acquisition as well. There are three opportunities each week to take part in decision-forcing case studies with Bruce Gudmundsson. There is an in-person Thursday class at 4:30pm in Quantico, and there are two online classes Tuesday at 7:30pm and Friday at 10:30pm (all times Eastern Standard). I highly recommend giving his class a try. It's free, fun, and not intimidating in the least. You'll probably find me in an online class most weeks. You can learn more by visiting http://teachusmc.blogspot.com and emailing Bruce at decision.forcing.case@gmail.com. He will provide you information and links to join the sessions. Also, be sure to check out Bruce's fantastic books, which are available on Amazon, as well as other podcast episodes featuring Bruce, such as at POGO and All Marine Radio. This podcast was produced by Eric Lofgren. Soundtrack by urmymuse: "reflections of u". You can follow us on Twitter @AcqTalk and find more information at AcquisitionTalk.com.

Former Army Chief of Staff Martin Dempsey issued a challenge to the Army in 2012 to change its institutional culture. In his transformative “Mission Command White Paper,” he wrote that “education and training are keys to achieving the habit of mission command; our doctrine must describe it, our schools must teach it, and we must train individually and collectively to it.” But what is mission command? Its origins are found in the Prussian military reforms during the first decade of the nineteenth century following the humiliating defeat at the hands of Napoleon at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt in 1806. Reformers within the Prussian Army understood that victory hinged on a flexible organization composed of units led by officers empowered to use their own judgement to act based on their appraisal of the situation at hand rather than rigidly adhering to a pre-set plan when their orders no longer fit reality. Instead, officers were expected to understand the overall intent of their commander and use the resources at hand to achieve the “why” of the mission even if it didn’t follow the “how” of the issued orders. Bruce Gudmundsson and Don Vandergriff, two leading military historians, discuss the origins, implications, and challenges of mission command in today’s military.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis once wrote, “Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed (successfully or unsuccessfully) before. It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.” He wrote this to impart the importance for military professionals to study history. In this episode, Dr. Bruce Gudmundsson, a historian at the Marine Corps University in Quantico, VA talks about why the study of history is important and how an earlier reform effort has shaped military reform in the United States.

TM Gibbons-Neff of The Washington Post (and formerly of the U.S. Marine Corps) and ​Dr. Bruce Gudmundsson of Marine Corps University joined WOTR's Ryan Evans to talk about TM's recent reporting from the front in Eastern Ukraine through the lens of the history of infantry combat. Image Credit: TM Gibbons-Neff