You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on Strategy, Defense, and Foreign Affairs.

My name's Ryan Evans. I'm the founder of War in the Rocks. In this episode, I was happy to welcome

General Jim Rainey, the head of Army Futures Command.

We spoke about the future of war and what soldiers, industry, and leaders should expect

as technology changes some of the ways that our army fights.

We also spoke about some of his insights into the changes unfolding under the Army Transformation

Initiative.

Enjoy the show.

When you look at the future of war, I understand you like to ask yourself, is what we're

looking at evolutionary, revolutionary, or some kind of anomaly?

How did you arrive at that way of thinking?

Well, the great thing about my job is everybody is paying attention to what's going on in the world,

but because of the future orientation of part of my main job description,

I have the luxury of having a little more time to study and read and talk to people.

So since the war started, I've been watching very closely.

And the chief and I, General George and I and some others,

started down a, you know, what is a lesson observed versus a lesson learned? So we're seeing

these fascinating things. But how do you actually understand it, take it apart, figure out a solution,

and then institutionalize that solution in a way

that you can say you've genuinely learned from it. So as part of that, figuring that part out,

I started to look at some of the things that are happening and ask myself, would that happen to

a well-trained, well-led U.S. Army unit? Or if that was the U.S.

...