 For our next session, we're joined by our partners at Joint Special Operations University to hear about the role of special operations forces in Ukraine, could not be a more timely discussion. This panel will be moderated by Colonel Ike Wilson, PhD, who's president of Joint Special Operations University. He's also a senior fellow with the New America's International Security Program and a professor of practice at Arizona State. So first we'll hear a little bit about Joint Special Operations University and then Colonel Wilson will pick it up. According to some, the conflict in Ukraine marks the transition to the fourth age of SOF. While maintaining the counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation proficiencies we have acquired over the past two decades or the third age, we must now rebalance and strengthen capabilities to focus on strategic competition with peer competitors. Special operations and conventional forces are learning from Ukraine what the future battleground might look like and the thematic story is emerging. The power of establishing and employing partnerships among U.S. partner and ally nations to diplomatic development and defense initiatives are essential to securing democracies and countering global Chinese and Russian malign influences. By banding together to support Ukraine's fight to maintain its territorial sovereignty and national defense. The United States along with its partners and allies has sought to communicate and clearly display resolve for promoting a rules-based international order. The conflict in Ukraine is a case study of probable conflict scenarios we will see in the future, confrontations that seek to test the U.S. and partner and allies' willingness to respond. SOF provides our nation's leaders unique capabilities to compete in the gray zone and to deter or defeat adversarial actions by our rivals below the threshold of war. As a uniquely qualified low-provocation foreign policy tool, they routinely integrate with country teams and joint interagency, intergovernmental, multinational and commercial or gym seat partners to achieve objectives. As the conflict in Ukraine continues to unfold, let us reflect on SOF's contributions with a critical eye. What have we learned, not most about our adversaries but about ourselves? We must observe closely, assess and adapt quickly. And we must expect that our peer competitors are doing the same. Peter and I wanna thank first and foremost, all of you participating worldwide in this virtual future security forum and my co-sponsors for this year's event, New America, Arizona State University and the U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute. My name is Dr. Ike Wilson. I'm the president of the Joint Special Operations University or the JSOW. And it is indeed my pleasure to serve as a moderator for what promises to be a dynamic and exciting back to our futures look from the tragic but educationally beneficial if we take the lessons forth writ of what's going on in and around the Ukraine today in terms of the war itself. I have a great, we have a great panel and set of ground truth experts who will be speaking with us today if you'd allow me, I'd like to just give them right up front a brief introduction in the order in which they'll speak. Our first two panelists will be speaking with us for about eight to 10 minutes in a prerecorded session and they'll be speaking to us as a command team. So with us today, and again, our panel is titled What is the Role of Special Operations Forces in Ukraine, Signaling the Future. And we'll begin with again a prerecorded set of remarks from the Special Operations Command Europe team, Major General Stephen G. Edwards, Special Commander of Special Operations Command Europe or SOCUR, Command Master Chief Pete Musselman who is the command senior enlisted leader, Special Operations Command Europe, also known as SOCUR. And then after their prerecorded comments, we'll go to live virtual with an additional two panelists, Major General Retired Michael Repas who is NATO Strategic Advisor for Special Operations Ukraine. He is former Deputy Commander of Special Operations Command Europe and former commanding general of the United States Army Special Forces Command. And then we'll round out with Ambassador Retired Greta C. Holtz who is Chancellor of the College of International Security Affairs, National Defense University and former Senior Foreign Policy Advisor, also we called, referred to as a Polad, to the commanding general of United States Special Operations Command. Again, it's my pleasure to be a moderator with you and if I could ask my friends to roll the prerecorded session, we'll get word from ground truth from the command team at SOCUR. Good afternoon, I'm Sergeant First Class Kelly Simon, the Public Affairs NCOIC at Special Operations Command Europe. And it's my pleasure today to introduce our command team, our commander, Major General Stephen Edwards and our senior enlisted leader, Command Master Chief, Pete Musselman. Let me first start by saying today, thank you to Arizona State University, the JSAL, New America and Army War College SSI for bringing us all together today to talk about this important subject of special operations. Okay, as we're all aware, since 9-11, soft forces have been used in many ways for the counter-terrorism or counter-VEO fight. With the changing dynamic within this strategic environment, we are now going to be transitioning ourselves not completely away from the counter-terrorism or counter-VEO fight, but more toward strategic competition. So we'd also like to talk about the efforts that soft has done with Ukraine since the unprovoked annexation of Crimea and portions of Eastern Ukraine. So our efforts since 2015 have been largely focused on transitioning Ukrainian soft from the former Soviet model, like Spetsnaz, to a more Western NATO interoperable soft force. So to get started, gentlemen, what kind of training did Sokure do with the Ukrainian armed forces pre- and post-invasion? So I think one of the key things to understand following the initial invasion by Russia into Crimea back in 2014 is that we did stand up the Joint Multinational Training Group Ukraine where we brought together allies and partners inside Ukraine to train up Ukrainian armed forces. And obviously we played a role in that as well. The key thing for that was is I actually did a lot of tactical level training to support them with small arms training, close quarter battle, et cetera. But one of the key aspects of this is we really built relationships that we are now able to lean on today where we are no longer co-located with the force. I think one of the key programs we created was a Q-course force generation model for the Ukrainian soft, much like US Army Special Forces and their Q-course. We were dealing with a force that had been built largely like the Russian army, right? It was Warsaw Pact, and their soft forces were modeled exactly like Russian Spetsnaz. So right off the bat, the challenge was how do we start changing their mindset? They had no NCO Corps. How do we infuse NCO Corps into their way of thinking? How do we change their formations? Everything from how they do mission command, from less structured to more mission type orders and delegating responsibility to their lower level commanders. Another big thing that we started doing was incorporating Ukrainians into our multinational exercises. One of our goals was to make them NATO soft interoperable. So bringing them on exercises, bringing them to particular training events where they could be evaluated and graded on how they've changed and how they've matured as a force, I think has been great in maturing them and getting them to where they are today. With the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, the United States policy has been that no U.S. forces can be inside of Ukraine. Therefore, what we have done within Sokure and again for the greater U.S. military is we've transitioned to conducting our training outside of Ukraine with our allies and partners as well as remote advice and assist. So as you can imagine, this presents some unique challenges for us. Where previously we were able to interact with our Ukrainian partners on a daily basis, we now find ourselves having to communicate via remote devices, telephones, computers. So that adds another level of complexity. Additionally, they're in the middle of a fight and asking soldiers to come out of the country to do training as you can imagine would be challenging. Fortunately, there are some of our allies and partners that are able to continue to operate inside of Ukraine. So we rely heavily on them to make sure we truly understand what the truth is on the ground. I think it's key to note when you look at what has occurred or transpired within Ukraine since the initial invasion by Russia is that I think maybe to many surprise the Ukrainians have been very, very successful, which I think is truly a testament to the quality of training that not only the U.S. SOF, but all of our allies and partners provided to the Ukrainians. How has Sokure seen Ukrainian SOF develop and what kind of progress have they made? Since the initial attack by Russia inside Ukraine on 24 February, we have seen the Ukrainian SOF be very, very effective against blunting the initial Russian attacks and we still continue to see them be very effective today in deep strikes inside of Ukraine. Additionally, as the invasion unfolded, we saw the creation of resistance forces and territorial defense forces within Ukraine. And I think Ukrainian SOF has played a key role in helping to get those organizations stood up and helping them be effective. What changes is the SOF community making to address future threats? I think one of the key takeaways or lessons learned that we have for our support through the JMTGU into Ukraine is how important it is to get into these countries or any of our allies or partners countries as early as possible so we can start building upon their competencies as well as build those relationships so we can lean on those later on in the future. Something that we obviously are continuing to do today even though we are not co-located inside the country with our nuclear SOF partners. I think another key aspect is the resistance operating concept that we developed here at SOCUR. It was in the infant stages of coming to fruition within Ukraine. Had we had a few more years to fully develop that out I think it would have been helpful. So as we move into the future and we work with other nations that could potentially be threatened by a larger neighbor I think working on those resistance and comprehensive defense concepts will be key. So since the invasion of Ukraine have you found any training shortfalls that SOCUR is looking to address or improve in the future? Yeah, so that's the challenge. What would we do differently? Yeah, again, I think it's you've got to, right? We train and we rehearse and we practice being there with our partners and we've got to figure out how do we be more effective when there's the time-space distance that we have to deal with? Yeah, and I think, yeah, what we have trained throughout our careers is we train, advise, and assist by, with, and through our partners. The challenge is with has been taken away from us right now, with is being done remotely. One of the biggest challenges we have right now is the fact that we're not co-located with our partner, right? So we're having to do remote, advise, and assist. Now, we have come up with some unique means to try to do this electronically, but unfortunately those have not proved it nearly as effective as actually being co-located with our partner. This can stem from things such as training. Who is going to actually conduct the training? Instead of actually conducting training inside the country, you have to pull the individuals out of the country and to conduct the training, often relying very heavily on our allies and partners to do that. Additionally, trying to get equipment and resourcing into our partners has proved to be very, very difficult as well, especially with the logistics to actually move it from one country inside Ukraine. I think another key point is just the intangibles of not being there with them and not understanding that the daily challenges they have, what the environment's like on the ground, trying to figure out how to support them when you don't have that level of detail is also extremely challenging. I think it is much more difficult now to communicate with our allies and partners. You gotta realize, prior to the invasion inside of Ukraine by Russia, we had daily interactions with their forces. And so to sever that tie to what we have now and where we're able to talk, maybe daily or every other day via phone or video teleconference is good, but it's not nearly the same as what we had before. So those are some huge obstacles that we're having to overcome. Yeah, eight years of persistent presence with a partner, you can't replicate that remotely. Gentlemen, thank you so much for being with us today. Is there anything else that you would like to share? Okay, so I would just like to say we appreciate the opportunity to speak with all of you today. And we are very proud of the Ukrainian Armed Forces for what they've been able to do. And obviously, we believe that's due in some part to what we have done through the JMTGU over the last several years. But again, it's really due to the will of the people inside Ukraine that I think is making them be so effective. Yeah, I mean, this is the proverbial David and Goliath scenario, right? And David's holding his own pretty good right now. So I think that's a testament to everything that allies and partners have done the last eight years. So first, let me just quickly thank our command team at SOCUR, Major General Steve Edwards and Command Master Chief Pete Musselman for exactly as we've promised, a voice from the commander, from the senior enlisted leader from or as close as we can get to the field of action. We'll get to that last piece. I mean, if we understood anything, both senior leaders put on the table, the good in the bad and potential of the ugly of what it means to do some of this relationship activity, trained advise and assist remote and through an indirect approach. So I'm sure we'll be talking about that, if not among the panelists here, certainly in Q&A and discussion. Without further ado, let me turn it over to a general repass. Sir, you've got eight, 10 minutes. We're actually a little ahead schedule, unbelievably whenever you have Ike Wilson online here. But over to you, sir. And then we'll round out with our resident diplomat, Ambassador Holtz. Thank you so much, Ike and that's a privilege to be here today. I'm gonna focus on the future implications of what's going on in Ukraine. And there'll be three focus areas. The first one is the conflicts implication on the Ukrainian saw. The second is the implications for the Indo-Pakom region. And the third will be the implications for the U.S. and NATO. So first to the conflicts implications for Ukrainian saw. In the U.S. and primarily in U.S. Special Operations Command and certainly within Ike's Joint Special Operations University, we're talking about the fourth age of saw. Well, in Ukraine, it will enter its third age of saw in the post-conflict area, era. The first age of Ukrainian saw is under the Spetsnaz construct. First under the Soviets, then independently until they made a clean break from the Russians in 2014. The second age of Ukrainian saw is from 2014 until now or till post-conflict time. And they're fighting with the saw that they have, which heavily incorporates the Western tactics and capabilities that we have given them not only the U.S. but a very heavy dose of NATO interoperability as well. The Western shift and reform processes that were begun in 2014 were incomplete, however, when the war broke out. So we'll be coming back to that, I think, as we go and move into the, or we see them move into the third age, which is the post-conflict saw that will strongly reflect their experiences in combat. Who among us can say that what they are doing is all wrong because they've been pretty darn successful? So it's gonna be difficult to advise them per se. We should be there more to facilitate and aid them and say some of those things won't work in the larger context of coalition operations because we have state-on-state conflict. So there's a general outline, if you will, for the third age of Ukrainian saw. First, they may not be like us or NATO soft. Rather, they may be some type of hybrid force with two core tasks, as I see it. The first one is to be able to directly support national and territorial defense, like they've done so well up to this point. The second one, which is the bit of the mystery of what's going on in Ukraine and elsewhere is the whole Russian critical capabilities at risk. And doing both either unilaterally or in combined operations with partners. In combination, these two core tasks will create opportunities for the Ukrainian armed forces and other security forces fighting their enemies primarily the Russians. The second thing, it will create operational strategic conundrums for the Russians when they go deep. There are some key aspects to this and I'll just enumerate. First, soft may be different from what is currently in the Ukrainian armed forces. And perhaps we'll closer ties with the Ministry of Interior's SVU Alpha and the Director of Military Intelligence, Gerr. Second, there's something else will reflect the enduring and distinct value of soft. I don't think that's gonna go away. I think it's inherent in the way we do business through assessment and selection and in employment. Third, they will have to be capable of integrating diverse capabilities and forces into Ukrainian national defense. And I'll talk about that specifically here in a moment. And then defining their range of organic capabilities will have to include training and leading partners in their regular forces. This goes back to the resistance operating concept in their term of asymmetric defense forces. They'll have to organize and support resistance movements in their forces. Incorporate allied and partner soft into their formations and operations. And then finally conduct unilateral and combined operations into hostile, denied and foreign territory. Shifting now to the second major implication and that's into the Indo-Pacon region. Look, I think it's a matter of fact. Your statement of fact that China and Taiwan are both closely watching what's going on in Ukraine. There's some strategic implications worth noting. The role of resistance in national defense is highlighted. The roles of soft in national defense are highlighted. Unilaterally in this case, small nation against big nation. And in that regard, the role of national resistance is soft in a small state, big state conflict. And in fact, US special operations forces have been working with Taiwan on improving their soft capabilities and incorporating the observations emanating from Ukraine and the tennis that we find in the resistance operating concept. Some specifics in that regard are mobilizing the population led by their soft categories. Educating the people to prepare them for hardship and ensure resilience. We know that logistics matters. It's very interesting to see soft guys talking about how important logistics are. So stockpiling material to defend your nation has become an imperative for small nations in conflict with big states. And then finally, educating the government on the comprehensive defense concept emanating out of NATO and the approach and that's related to national security. And I can conclude with the third implication which is the NATO and US soft. General Edwards laid out several points there and I'm not gonna reiterate those but I will say that the role of soft is special operations in both integrated or comprehensive defense and during conflict with great power has been displayed to the world. The three Baltic nations plus Poland have been deeply involved in watching and are watching this closely. The key lessons are detailed prior planning. Actual preparation, not preparation on paper or finger drills. And popular resilience are essential to countering the eventual not merely possible national security threat. Soft supports both conventional and traditional special operations in both deterrence and high-end conflict. This is not just about tanks, artillery, ships and aircraft anymore. Soft is an integral aspect of coherent in comprehensive national defense. And finally, the assorted NATO programs that have been instituted to support Ukraine provided a meaningful capability but they were incomplete and the reforms were not fully realized. That aside, I think the Ukrainian Defense Forces have acquitted themselves quite well. And I'll stand by for a follow-up questions. Thank you, Mike. General Repas, as always you've over excelled on the exam question. Thanks so much. You've left me with a lot of questions. I'm probably not gonna get to them because I wanna get to the open living room Q&A and first before that I wanna get to Ambassador Holtz but a couple of things that we're gonna get to one way or the other really speaking to your points on resiliency. On resiliency, we've spoken about it. General Edwards spoke to it a couple of times of lessons gathered in hindsight being better than 2010 much less 2020 vision implying perhaps an update to the rock to the resistance operating concept coming out of as we still experience our support to the Ukrainian forces in the war fight itself beginning now, beginning now to update that rock with another R in front of the resistance that being resiliency or as George Kinnem I call it strong pointing self enduring allies in anchoring partners of which the latter Ukraine has certainly proven itself and then some an anchoring partner in the Central European region. Speaking of George Kinnem and interesting segue in and of itself, let's shift over and get some time some ample time to Ambassador Greta Holtz. Greta, microphone is yours. Thank you. Can you hear me? We hear you loud and clear Greta. Don't have visual at your voice wise so. No, so I apologize. I could not hear a word of the YouTube video. So I missed that whole amazing presentation. So I turned off my camera because I think I have bandwidth issues here at the house. And there's a lag in what I see your mouth moving but there's no words coming. So I apologize. So I'll just go ahead and yeah, thanks. Go ahead and speak without the benefit of having heard that YouTube but I could hear on general repass. And I echo your thoughts on his presentation that was like a graduate dissertation in soft special forces Ukraine Europe. So very, very honored to have heard that. So coming from the diplomatic perspective as we continue to compete for access and influence across the globe against a broad and diverse range of competitors and adversaries, the role of our strategic and regional alliances and the US soft and NATO soft networks and their core activities, I believe will remain vital elements of our success. We will need to assiduously integrate all of our national instruments of power and influence in support of our national objectives and those of our partners and allies. Not just in Europe as general repass mentioned across the globe, US and partner soft forces are vital in helping us to shape the environment for success and for making our allies face tough choice or sorry, our adversaries face tough choices. In Ukraine, as you know, we are in a supporting role as a partner to Ukraine in its fight to regain its territory and remain and maintain independence. While we are simultaneously competing with the Russian regime and I would add China but since we're talking about Russia on a strategic scale to ensure a world in which democracy is more secure and global governance is inclusive, effective and based on a Western led liberal world order. Soft have incredible advantages working in this quote unquote gray zone type of environment. They've worked for years with their Ukrainian and NATO soft partners, former Soviet states all along the border of Russia and across Europe and indeed the globe to help prepare these new NATO soft partners to compete, defend and prevail against Russia. As general pass mentioned and probably that video that I couldn't see, soft strengths are many starting with the networks and the relationships that they maintain throughout the European security architecture. Ukraine is no exception. As probably was mentioned for years the US special forces have worked and trained side by side with their Ukrainian soft counterparts on foreign internal defense, civil affairs military information support apps, security force assistance and much more. Given the role that the Ukrainian soft continue to play against the Russians I am confident that these relationships and the training have been mission critical and will continue to be so. There's a great need for the capabilities that US soft and NATO soft counterparts bring to Ukraine and other new NATO partners and this will continue into the future. Again, working with and through alliances and partnerships is an essential part of any intended winning solution and it is indeed an essential part of integrated deterrence. As has been mentioned, advising and assisting indigenous resistance forces, building and maintaining operational networks, building partner capacity, language, cultural knowledge all of these are soft strengths. Decades of US embassies having soft elements as part of US country teams working in a whole of government framework across the globe has built better understanding and better ties between US special forces and their interagency partners, the US interagency partners. The soft element in Ukraine before the war was robust led by a colonel assigned to the US embassy under chief mission authority and there was a consistent missed team presence embedded in the embassy. In addition to multiple special training teams and missions throughout Ukraine, the messaging work that the missed teams do is vital to the success of the Ukrainian war effort and a critical part of our message shaping infrastructure. Special forces and the exquisite skills they bring are a vital part of US government efforts and those of our NATO allies efforts to help Ukrainian and other partner nations build resistance and resiliency against great power competitors and regional threats alike. The US special forces and their robust network of partners are a critical part of the integrated deterrence upon which we and our allies rely to prevail in the continuum of war peace and competition. So I think I'll end there, it's very broad remarks but go to Q and A. Over to Dr. Wilson. Ms. Ambassador Greta, fantastic. You all are making this an easy set of exam questions and then some and more and equally importantly, I'm amazingly, we're still a little ahead of target on time which I love as a moderator and as you all know, anyone who knows me, I'm cursed with the gift of gaps. So I'm gonna take a couple of minutes of moderator privilege and just put something on the table as well that hopefully helps to round out all of our great presentations today and all of us have spoken to this starting with the command team from Procure but really what we're seeing play out from us use utility and I would say rediscovery back to our futures approach to a rediscovery of special operations and special operations forces, US and enduring allies and anchor partners special operations forces identity. We see this playing out. Unfortunate and tragic real terms on the stage of the war in Ukraine. It really set up for and as the sizzle reel up front spoke to if Afghanistan and the military withdrawal from Afghanistan, August of last year might mark historically early history but a historical market nonetheless a ending of sauce industrial third age at least from a and certainly from a US perspective the Ukraine war most likely marks in history real historians will record this in future years as the clear beginning from a field activity standpoint of a fourth age. What does this look like in terms of preparing for sauce next hero's journey or this cross this threshold crossing? We here in the joint special operation university will put on the table and all of you have spoken to this that the challenge really is striking the right balance restricting the right balance between leading change and that change also including change within the soft communities themselves and leading that change while also preserving and protecting the essence of who special operations forces have been and must continue to be based on what they do and how as a soft professionals first, second, third and now fourth age. We offer that soft like the nations that they serve again, another threshold crossing and one of a compounding dynamic of security dilemmas a new character of conflict security and defense. I'd go further and say that the new character of global geopolitical competition demands a use and utility of special operations and special operations forces that are equally compounded to the threats themselves in fact, over matching of what does that mean? At least some comprehensive combination may be additive, may not be additive may be more than additive but some comprehensive combination of all the skills, techniques, operational methods and tradecraft of all past ages of soft for the United States of fourth age as general re-pass put on the table for the Ukrainians going into a third age of industrial organizational age of soft all this amplified by I would put on the table at least two things. First, 21st century emerging technology and second and more importantly 21st century approach to more tightly operationally real and effective, tightly coupled integrated partnering relationships emphasis on the relationships. I would conclude my little add on here that this requires of us nothing less than a back to our futures, philosophy, mind view and approach to rediscovering soft fuller role purpose and identity. With that, what I'd like to do is Mike Greta maybe give you both a couple of minutes to respond to General Edwards and Command Master Chiefs muscle men's comments to respond and react to each other's comments. And if you so, if you think it's worthwhile to react what I just put on the table and then we're gonna open it up and conclude with some Q and A. I just wanna pile on something the ambassador said that really struck a chord talking about competing for access and influence and soft inherent advantages into gray zone. That will continue to be a theme I think as we move into the fourth age of soft. I don't see that going away quite frankly. And it's not only us, it's also with the Ukrainians and the other forces that we see operating in that region. What I see going on now is the access and placement that we have with our allies and our partners is exceedingly good. I would describe it as rib to rib working on logistics and operational matters, intel sharing and things like that. The thing that I think we derive out of this on the US side is access, understanding, empathy, rapport, interoperability are some of the things that we get there. But we also think in the long term our partners and our allies, it's not us against the world, it's the big us, the big we if you will, working together, particularly in great power conflict. I know that's somewhat of an old term but I still think it adequately describes where we're at. What do they derive out of this? They in this case, the partners of Ukraine potentially or the Taiwanese or anybody else. They're able to leverage other more complex capabilities such as joint flyers, lift, that means aviation, intelligence, communications, medical and logistics. Logistics is basically the center of gravity. Actually, the center of gravity is being maintained by the PsyOP programs that are being run, PsyOP and IO programs that are being run out of Ukraine to keep the international community on board and on sides to provide logistics and other support, both political, financial and logistics as well. So let me. And I think we may have had general repass drop off briefly, Greta, are you still with us? Oh, and Mike, you're back. I'm still here. I, my camera's not working, but yes, I wanna say that that I think some of the enduring soft roles, whatever age it's in are things that we really need right now. So it's that network, it's the ability to, and in my work with the soft, they maintain those networks. Like that's what they value the most, not the most, but as a priority is to be able to reach in, have access, and I think as a diplomat and as a leader of interagency teams, that has been an exquisite capability for all of us. The information ops that they do brings a lot of capacity to the host government, to the embassy on the messaging. So if they're in some places and in some ways moving from kinetic operations, they'll still do that. But the information space and the access and the civil affairs, that sort of binding of people to government through the CA work that they do, I think these are critical elements right now in the type of competition that we face in former Eastern Europe and across the Indo-Pacific region. Outstanding, we often talk about the 12 core activities of special operations and special operations forces, core activities, core tasks. For the last 20 years in hindsight, we regard that last for the U.S. a third age of soft being the global war on terror era. And this fourth age going more into an era of strategic competition, not a pivot or a shift as General Edwards made sure to account for, not a leaving and a departure of the previous period in most importantly, not a departure from the criticality of those core activities and tasks, but taking those core activities and tasks understandably for the last 22 years focused on really all the counter operations of the 12 from counter-terrorism to counter violent extremism to counter violent extremist organizations, combat rescue, et cetera, hostage rescue, et cetera, et cetera. And then getting back to a fuller compliment, a fuller compliment of the 12. I get my question to both of you is what does that recan, what are some lessons gathered that we think already that we're seeing in the Ukrainian situation that shows a reorientation? Maybe a reprioritization of the alignment of those 12 core activities. Seems to me that we've mentioned information operations and through information informational advantage, employment of, in an enablement of influence, strategic and operational influence and a lot of talk about resilience and resistance. It seems to me those may be portending to be the new facets of the tip of the spear of soft through integrated joint, inter-agency, inter-governmental, multinational and commercial partnerships going forward. I'd be interested in your thoughts on that and what the current fight is actually helping us to gather lessons for the learning employment of a prioritization of the classic 12. Madam Ambassador, if you don't mind, I'll jump on this first and then toss it over to you. Okay, first off in the information sphere, the strategic communications and IO that are coming out of Ukraine are outstanding and I'll say that they've done a very effective job of keeping their messaging coherent and as a result, NATO cohesive. That's the knock on effect of what they've been able to do, cohesively, politically NATO has been very strong. Yes, there's internal dissension. Yes, there's debate. Yes, there are outliers, but cohesively NATO has gone forward with one voice and concerted action. So they've done very good there. What we don't see because we're focused on receiving the IO messaging coming out of Ukraine and our European partners here. What we don't see is what Russia is doing in places where we aren't. We are getting our tails kicked in the non-first world areas, Africa, parts of Asia, Central and South America. Russia is really making hay with their IO capabilities down there saying, okay, all the grain's going to Europe. It's not going to the countries that need it in the Middle East and Africa. They're going to starve you to death. I mean, you can just go on grains of big one. But that is a blind spot for us. And if we're not careful, we're going to lose all the progress we've made over the past 20, 30 years in these areas and lose our foothold there because Russia has effectively put IO campaigns in places that matter for national resource purposes. And I would say for regional partners and powerhouses. That's the big one I see. The other thing that I see that is going on is that the Ministry of Interior has the SBU forces and they have police powers and they can do things that the military forces can't do. And they're considered special operations but then the military intel directorate, they have the GER, which is considered a military special operations force as well. So the blending, right now they have at least three distinct stove pipes of special operations. I think they can be on the cusp of blending their capabilities to have a very unique flavor of what special operations is in combination with domestic authorities and extraterritorial capabilities as well as very magnificent intelligence capabilities provided by the MID. So in that regard, I think we should be taking notes and paying very close attention to the future force structure of Ukraine special operations. Fantastic, Greta, over to you. Any comments? Thanks, yeah, I think we're learning in Ukraine as much as we are giving on the messaging, on the strategic messaging. Like no better messenger than the president of Ukraine, right? We have all learned a lot from him. So I would say that that is important. I would imagine that if you're looking at the war and if you're following the news, wherever you are, you see a big role for the Ukrainian special forces and their NATO partners, maybe behind the curtain, but I would think this would be a very big growth time for other countries who are worried, not just in Europe, to want to get the kind of training and partnering that our soft forces do on unconventional warfare, resistance, foreign internal defense, all those capabilities, I imagine it's a growth time for that. So yeah, I think in my opinion, it's hard to tell whether the Russians are winning the Info War in Africa because I think they're also losing a bit as well. I don't know that I could say that I have good data on what your average African citizen thinks about Russia, the grain, I don't know. So I know that the country teams, whether or not they're soft there, work very hard to counter the messaging that Russia puts out. I don't know, I don't have data on that, but I would imagine it's kind of a mixed story. So I'll stop there. Greta and Mike, on that point too, and I'm gonna go to another question here real quick. This piece may be where the China piece comes in. I'm intrigued of what, admittedly, we still have to figure out the right data and how to interpret the data in terms of the second order effect and the consequence that you've both spoken to, certainly in the Russia context, we're doing well in the near abroad in the direct traditional sense, but what about what may be exploited by Russia nonlinear, noncontiguously in other regions? Africa, beyond the so-called first world, for lack of a better way of characterizing it. What about China also? Greta, you had talked about China earlier. This may be a key place where we need to look at how China may be there to exploit the gray, exploit that gray zone that is indirectly generating out of the contagion of the de facto conflict in approximate to the Ukraine. Let me, we've got a couple of other great questions here. Let me put one on the table for you all. And then this may be, it'll give you both an opportunity to address it. And it goes back to a question that relates to some of the concerns that were put on the table by the Sokure team. Let me just read the question. The Sokure command team and other leaders have highlighted the challenge and importance of relationship formation and notably that it's hard to do after an emergency has occurred. The challenge of small state versus big states seem to imply a much greater reach for these relationships in the context of national resistance. Within the re-imagination of the 21st century operating model of SOF, how do you know it's working? Thoughts on that? Wow. I want to be clever here, but that's a stubborn. Yeah, I think he's coming. That's a PhD level discussion, I think. Yeah, you know. Let me, let me, maybe, maybe let me try to break it down. And, you know, Lord knows you got the, you got the doctor here trying to break it down from a PhD level. So bear with me real quick. I think it gets to, I think this question really at the heart of it gets to what Major General Edwards and Command Master Chief Musselman put on the table of the difficulties of, you know, hindsight being better in 2020. Yeah. Coulda woulda shoulda. What could we have done in more preventive defense, I might call it, pre-support and development to include the stockpiling of logistics of service and support material for irregular, indirect, unconventional logistics, right? Once the balloons go up. Likewise, the difficulty of maintaining and leveraging those networks that you both speak to and the ambassador most pointedly, how to leverage that and get the most out of it. And might we be still only benefiting from the pre-investments in those relationships? And now they're at best one degree removed because of some of the strategic and policy restrictions of no longer being able to physically be there directly with your partner on the ground. So one of the things we're missing here is we didn't cover what the Europeans are doing. So some of the nations never left Ukraine. Some of the other nations returned to Ukraine rather quickly after the initial combat phase as soon as the Russians withdrew from the Kiev area. So in regards to the US, it's not like the Ukrainians are uncovered because particularly Poland, Lithuania and some of the other countries have had a very, I would say meaningful, not necessarily robust, but a meaningful engagement with Ukrainian soft throughout the conflict. So we, the US are heavily reliant upon our Polish partners who are exceedingly, I would say central to facilitating what Ukrainian soft is doing over there, both logistically and I would say with practical advice and help. And the other nations, Lithuania, Estonia, the three Ps if you will providing assistance over there. So we, the US are indirectly helping via Poland and some of the other people that have direct contact with them. And then you get into the technical side that General Edwards talked about, video teleconferencing, phone calls, things like that that they're taking and it's helping to a large degree there. And so it's three dimensional chess and that you have to work with the people that have access and placement. Do you need physical connectivity to achieve the effect that you're talking about or do you have somebody else that you can do that indirectly through the Poles or the Lithuanians that have been there continuously? That's great, Mike. Ambassador, you get the rightful last word, quick word and then we'll transition it back over to the next panel, thanks. Thanks, so just going back a little bit to the African response to the Russian. If you will recall when they invaded there was a UN vote, I don't remember the exact vote but a lot of those African countries stood up and said no to invasion, they did not like that. That was before, it was right at the beginning when the grain was cut off. So I think that that is significant. On the Chinese messaging, in my experience, I see a difference between what the leaders of these countries in Africa want and get from the Chinese versus the people. So oftentimes the Chinese will use checkbook diplomacy, you see it in Sri Lanka, where they'll support a regime, the regime will take these very difficult loans and then the people suffer and then they throw out the people. So I'm not sure that China's message resonates with these citizens of the countries. I don't know what they're selling. It certainly resonates with corrupt politicians who are not democratically elected and some who are more, everybody wants to do business with China as do we but their strategic message on what is China and what do we bring to you? It's not, I don't believe that it fully resonates with the citizens of those countries. Thanks so much, Ambassador and General Ambassador, thanks to the both of you as well as our SOC year command team for what we promised, a very dynamic back to our futures conversation on the future of special operations and SOF through the lens of Ukraine past, present and future. Thank you very much and we'll turn it back over to the organizers for the forum. Thank you.