GEN Brunson: by doing those things that I'm contractually obligated to do. And that's to connect and participate in what we're doing here in this great place. Uh I'm a I love this administration and I came here uh largely to get out of here so I can get back to the fight. Uh but what I learned here was a lot of the things you all are discovering right now. You never really take the time to give yourself over to thought which is an active pursuit. And I would encourage you to do that every day. Uh I'm going to read some things to you about how we're thinking differently about not only our role in in the in the world. Okay? I'm thinking about economics and all kinds of things I never thought I'd have to think of before because they're important to the ally that I serve alongside. And so hopefully some of these things will uh will highlight to you other ways and perspectives you ought to be thinking about not just professionally but also I still believe firmly that there is nothing more honorable than than those who serve us in suits and ties and those who do what we all do in our uniforms. Uh nothing more honorable than the pursuit of what we do. And it's becoming increasingly more important as the days go by. And as I move towards the sunset of my own career I'm thankful for people like you uh who come to schools like this to study not just war but the components that make up the things that lead us to war. 

Politics by extension is what we're training to do right? That's a poor paraphrase. a key indicator that I was I was champion for in my time here for probably a good strong BC student. Uh that's that's probably it. But I I want to share with you just briefly and then we'll move quickly into questions. I will tell you the truth as I know it. I've always believed firmly that if you tell the truth you don't have to remember the lie that you told. Okay? So I will answer honestly. Okay? All right. Thank you. 

Good morning or good afternoon. I want to thank the faculty and leadership here at Carlisle for the invitation to come back home. Specifically I want to thank Dr. Greg Campwell Mr. Bob Foster and Colonel Todd for the heavy lifting required to pull this symposium together and for their dedication to the intellectual rigor of our force. I call Carlisle home because for a soldier this place represents a very specific kind of sanctuary. It's rare hallowed ground and in over 30 plus years in my career where the institution finally demanded that I stop the relentless cycle of just doing and start thinking. 

I remember my time here vividly. I'll be honest with you. I didn't show up here trying to be some sort of philosopher king or some sort of smart guy or really the smartest guy in the room. What I tried to do was to be the guy who asked I tried to be the guy who would uh ask the first question on a late Thursday or or a late Friday so that I could be the first one to get out of class and drive back to North Carolina to see my family. So I never intended to come here and get as much as I got out of this place. But something happens when you spend time in these halls. You start to realize that the military education that you received up to this point has taught you how to follow an asthma and an asthma only. 

But the war college is where you learn how to understand geography. You learn that tactical excellence is a prerequisite but strategic clarity is the actual prize. This year's Land Power symposium theme Peace through strength gets to the heart of the challenges we face today. It's a quintessentially American tenant dating back to George Washington's warning that being prepared for war is the most effectual means of preserving peace. But today strength is often misunderstood as a purely mathematical equation of hulls and wings and people and kinetic effects. 

We see this playing out in real time as we look at the current situation with Iran. To meet the rising tide of aggression in the Middle East we're currently developing deploying elements of the 82nd airborne division two mews multiple aircraft carriers and we're watching this the magnitude of this massive mobilization of American might pushing across thousands of miles of oceans and deserts. And this is a classic away game that we've fought for so many years. It's an incredible feat of logistics the kind of power projection that only the United States can achieve. But we must be honest what the projection cost in terms of time energy and strategic risk. 

When we are forced to surge forces into a theater from a cold start we're fighting the tyranny of distance. We're the outsiders trying to shove a door open while the adversary is leaning against it with its full weight. In these moments we often fall in love with our own air power. We talk about global reach and global power. And don't get me wrong American air power is phenomenal. It's the most devastating force in human history. It can dismantle an integrated air defense system in hours. It can strike a single window from an ocean away. But even in its most precise application air power remains a blunt hammer. Air power can destroy but it cannot occupy. It can punish but it cannot govern. It can shatter a regime's hardware but it cannot look a partner in the eye and say we're staying until the job is done. 

When the sorties are over and the tankers are empty the planes must return to base but the soldier the soldier always stays. Decisive victory the kind that leads to lasting peace requires the surgical precision of land power. It requires the ability to seize and hold critical terrain to control checkpoints and to secure objectives under the cover of night. Face to face with the end. You can achieve peace through strength from 30,000 feet. You can achieve it by being the physical permanent barrier that the adversary simply cannot move. One of the things that the army is responsible for is setting theaters. And if you look at the things and as they play out in the Middle East currently and along the Gulf states we took a tremendous amount of time to set that theater. Everything that many of you did on your deployments back and forth to Iraq and Afghanistan you set that theater that we might be able to do the things that we're doing now. And that can easily be lost when we think about not only the tyranny of distance but also because most of us in uniform are bereft of the need or desire to give ourselves credit for anything. But what I would tell you we have to do is acknowledge the fact that things happening today were set by things we've done in the past. 

We set that theater that this might be able to be done now. Now I want to contrast that away game in the Middle East with the strategic reality that we've built in the Indo-Pacific. For the last century military planners have been trapped in what I call a north-up view. We look at a map with North America in the center and the Pacific looks like a large blue void. A massive empty expanse that we must cross to get to the fight. This perspective makes us feel as if we're always on the outside looking in. 

Excuse me. I still got on the. I did not as well as I should have. Let's start. Here's the size of the challenges of projection while minimizing the incredible advantages we already have on the ground. But today I want to one of you to take a look at a map that you would normally look at orderly north and south and turn it on its side. I don't know if we have the map with us no. If not just imagine with me please. There's a square here and east is going to be up. East will be in the north. When you look at the east up map the entire strategic logic of the Indo-Pacific flips. That blue void disappears and instead you see a wall. You see a coherent geometric defensive architecture. And right there at the absolute pivot point of that barrier sits the Korean peninsula. 

In Korea we aren't projecting power across a void. The United States presence in Korea is a projection platform that is unmatched on this planet. Our bases represent a foothold a permanent foothold in Asia. And think about the gravity of that statement. While we must scramble to get the 82nd into a position of influence on we're already sitting right there in Korea today. And this is why I think of it as a Beijing perspective. You'll learn and you've learned already that sometimes we're at our best when we take a view of a red perspective on potential blue action. And when you look out I would imagine that Xi Jinping gets up in the morning grabs his cup of coffee and when he looks east one of the first things he sees is Osan Airbase opposing the Bohai Gulf. What he next sees is Camp Humphrey's Korea the largest installation outside of the continental United States. 3300 square acres of terrain and the forces that stay. 

And from Beijing our forces in Korea are immediately proximate. We're right there. 160 miles from Shanghai 600 miles from Beijing and 500 miles from Vladivostok. We're a land-based unsinkable platform capable of achieving effects across every domain. Imagine if the roles were reversed. Imagine if a peer competitor had a permanent heavily fortified land-based installation in the Bahamas or in Cuba. From the steps of the capital that force wouldn't be over the horizon it would be an existential variable in every single decision made by the joint staff and our national command board. It would create a claustrophobia of proximity. And that is the reality that Chinese and North Korean planners face every morning. They're pinned to their own coastline by a sovereign integrated architecture of American and Korean land power. 

When you rotate that map you see Korea isn't an outpost it's the anchor of a strategic triangle. And I'm violating one of my big rules right now. Never have a conversation with people who are smarter than you without a map. We don't have a map up right now but just go with me on this please. Korea provides the tip. It's a central land-based hub that imposes immediate costs on northern threats from Russia and China. It's the inside the bubble force that ensures any adversary's bubble remains porous and vulnerable. Japan provides the shield. It controls the critical maritime choke points of the northern Pacific and provides the depth necessary for sustained operations. The Philippines provides the gate. It secures the southern access points and the vital sea lanes that connect the Pacific to the Indian Ocean. One of the things we have to think about is we have three mutual defense treaty allies in what you could call Northeast Asia or within close proximity there too when you look at the Philippines. So you have this triangle that stretches from Seoul to Tokyo to Manila. And what might happen there if we bring those allies closer together is we have positional advantage by virtue of our relationships and these treaties we've long established. 

So when we look at that triangle as opposed to seeing it as three separate posts when we begin to think about this those trilateral relationships and what we might accomplish in these relationships we find ourselves in a far better position than we actually think that we are. And again more often than not we refuse to take credit for the work that's already been done. But I would tell you right now we need to acknowledge where our presence is where our allies are and what we might be able to accomplish together. 

And as you sit here in Carlisle you might think that this is just an academic exercise but it's one born of the time to think. If I were to ask you to raise your hands in here who has more time to think now than they ever had in the past 20 to 25 years I think every hand in this room would go up. Unless of course you've been working in the director of God. You have to think every day. That wasn't a joke. I mean I had to. But I know those people are thinking and working hard every day. You all though are the fulcrum upon which this strategic geometry will pivot in the future. If the fulcrum is weak the lever of American power and by extension strength snap. To be that steady and unyielding point I need you to be what I call an IQ leader. First you must be an innovator. I'm not talking about coding or building robots or drones. I'm talking about the innovation of the mind. It's the ability to challenge the fundamental assumptions of your staff and those whom you work alongside. If you find yourself in a planning session and everybody agrees that a north-up approach is the best because it's familiar then you're already in danger. Someone has to be the innovator who rotates the map. Someone has to ask how does this look from the adversary's perspective. 

Second you must be an investor. Your most valuable and most perishable resource is that gray space between your ears. And between the ears of your subordinates. You must invest in a climate where people believe their voice matters. I've always said don't be a no person always be the yes but person. Cause people to think. When your boss gives you a mission yes is the commitment but the but is where you earn your paycheck as a strategic leader. Yes we can do that but here's the risk to our sustainment. Here's the risk to our to our protection. Here's the risk to our mission if we do this thing. And here's the cost and position we can achieve if we shift our position. Yes but. If you don't invest in a culture where your NCOs and other officers can give you a but you're leading a hollow formation. Think of our organizations as machinery. You need a certain amount of friction for the gears to catch. If everything is too smooth the system slips. Friction leads to thinking and heat reveals where the system needs oil. But remember a leader who is a jerk is just standing in the gear. Don't be a jerk. That's not written here but I think that's very sane don't be a jerk. 

Sand doesn't create useful friction. It seizes up the machine and causes total failure. Friction leads to conversations and conversations lead to solutions. Jerks lead to silence and in crisis silence is fatal. Third be an initiator. We need to spread mission command like it's the only thing that matters. In the next fight the mother may I style of leadership will be a death sentence. We need initiators who can operate in the dark who understand the intent of a strategic triangle and who can solve problems on the periphery without waiting for a signal from the rear. We need leaders who understand when the comms go quiet the east up map will still always work. Everything you've done this year every paper you wrote every heated seminar debate wasn't for your own edification. It was for the service members who will look to you for a way forward when the maps don't make sense and the world feels like it's upside down. As I look toward the end of my own career I'm not worried about our technology. Our technology is world class and always will be. I'm not even worried about our budget especially when we're looking down the barrel of 1.5 trillion right now. 

I'm worried about our imagination. I'm worried that we'll be so wedded to our north up or comfortable views that we'll miss the strategic opportunities that are staring us right in the face. Geography is the one thing in the world that doesn't change. The mountains in Korea are not moving. The choke points in Japan aren't shifting. The sea lanes in the Philippines are where they've always been. What can change and what must change though is our perspective to see them more clearly. Peace through strength isn't about having the biggest stick. It's about having the best seat in the house and knowing exactly how to use it. While the blunt hammer of air power can clear the way it's the surgical permanent presence of land power that will secure our future in this century and the next. In Korea we have that presence. We aren't projecting power. Our alliance is our power. Our alliance is already there. And in our alliance together we're occupying the geography of the adversary's planning nightmare and we're holding the line. 

You all will graduate into an era that will demand everything that you have as those before have of those of us who've been serving far longer. And so it'll demand your intellect your stamina and above all it will require your perspective. When you leave Carlisle don't just go back to work. Go back and change perspective challenge assumptions and lead. Remind everyone that in this nation and in every nation represented in here today we can't wait for the fight. We have to define the ground upon which we will fight to ensure that the fight never happens. 

All right thank you for your service thank you for your time and I look forward to answering your questions and seeing you all out there in the US and the world. Thank you.