Episode #57: General Stanley McChystal and Kristina Talbert-Slagle on Lessons on Counterinsurgency from the Human Body
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 6 January 2014
⏱️ 72 minutes
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Summary
Are there parallels between insurgencies and illness? Or between healthy bodies and healthy nations? Innovative new thinking argues that indeed there are. As understanding in various related disciplines grows, targeted responses are often able to alleviate at least some of the problems.
On December 19, two Yale University professors, Stanley McChrystal (retired General, U.S. Army) and Kristina Talbert-Slagle, an associate research scientist at Yale Global Health Leadership Institute, presented their model of counterinsurgency warfare that likens that mission to the way in which the human body fights infectious disease. The presentation was not intended to produce specific recommendations for any particular ongoing or prospective operation abroad, but it did have interesting and potentially significant implications for the future of counterinsurgency warfare and for how the U.S. government prepares for such possible future missions.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
| 0:07.2 | podcast become a material supporter of LawFair at patreon.com slash LawFair, that's patreon.com slash |
| 0:16.8 | LawFair. Also check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:30.1 | So we deal with a targeted response. Like this, we sometimes think that we have found a miracle |
| 0:40.0 | drawing or a miracle solution. In many cases, that's not the case. Suddenly it takes, we |
| 0:46.7 | realize it takes a much wider level of effort just as going after AIDS has required beyond |
| 0:55.0 | a single drug or a single scientific breakthrough. In fact, what we have to do is create in the nation |
| 1:03.4 | state the equivalent of rebuilding of their immune system so that they have the ability |
| 1:08.7 | to deal with the problem. |
| 1:10.7 | I'm Benjamin Wittis and this is the LawFair podcast. That was General Stanley Macrystal |
| 1:17.3 | speaking at the Brookings Institution on December 19th at a remarkable event hosted by |
| 1:23.2 | my colleague Michael O'Hanland on lessons on counterinsurgency from the human body immunorespons. |
| 1:31.2 | The event featured a presentation by Christina Talbert Slagel of the Yale Global Health Leadership |
| 1:36.6 | Institute and Macrystal, the former head of US and coalition forces in Afghanistan and |
| 1:43.0 | the former head of JSOC. The event looked at the question of whether there are parallels |
| 1:48.2 | between insurgencies and illnesses, between healthy bodies and healthy nations and whether |
| 1:53.9 | we can apply lessons from the HIV AIDS epidemic to counterinsurgency situations like Afghanistan. |
| 2:01.0 | Macrystal and Talbert Slagel presented a model of counterinsurgency warfare that suggests |
| 2:06.8 | that the parallels are really very close. It's the LawFair podcast episode 57, lessons |
| 2:13.5 | on counterinsurgency from the human body. |
| 2:22.8 | Good morning everyone. Happy Holidays and welcome to Brookings. Glad to have you here. |
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