The predominant capabilities required for the joint force to do a regular warfare are cognitively.

They exist in the six inches between people's years.

But we said exquisite understanding is more valuable than exquisite capabilities.

If you understand why you're in the predicament you're in,

or why you're in a fight, or what the opportunity is in front of you,

that's more valuable than X number of squadrons or carrier strike groups or whatever

you might have, BCTs or A teams, because now

you can actually go about solving the problem you have and not the problem you want to have.

Hey, welcome back to the Modern War Institute podcast. I'm John Ambo, editorial director at MWI,

and in this episode, I got the chance to talk to Dave Stevenson.

He works in the Pentagon as the director of the joint staff's Office of Irregular Warfare and Competition.

And so naturally we talk a lot in this conversation about irregular warfare, but not exclusively.

As you'll hear, he really conceptualizes irregular warfare within a much broader context,

including the emergence of competition as a really major part of the collective U.S. defense paradigm.

It is a really fascinating conversation, and he has a unique perspective based on the work his office does.

Before we get to it, though, a few notes.

First, if irregular warfare Warfare is a subject

you're interested in, we actually have an entire podcast series devoted to that topic. It's called

the Irregular Warfare Podcast. It's a joint project with Princeton University's empirical

studies of conflict project, and it's available anywhere you listen to podcasts. Second, if you

aren't yet following MWI on social media, find us on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

And lastly, as always, what you hear in this episode are the views of the participants and don't represent those of West Point, the Army, or any other agency of the U.S. government.

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