Preparing for Tomorrow’s Wars: Resilience, Resistance in the 21st Century

 In this episode of the “At the Boundary” podcast, GNSI’s Jim Cardoso speaks with Dr. Rob Burrell, Senior Research Fellow at the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, about GNSI’s new research initiative on the Future of Warfare. Dr. Burrell also introduces his upcoming book, Resilience and Resistance, and outlines a fresh analytical framework for understanding irregular warfare in the 21st century.

The conversation explores how resistance movements evolve—from nonviolent protest to full-scale civil war—and how emerging technologies like AI and cyber tools are reshaping the battlespace. Burrell also previews future episodes in this new podcast series, featuring leading experts such as General Charles Cleveland and Dr. Chris Mason.

Whether you’re a defense strategist, policymaker, or curious listener, this episode offers critical insights on how the U.S. must prepare for an era of complex, unconventional conflict.

Links from the episode:

• 2025 Notes from Cambridge Blog

• 2025 Cyber Bay Event Link

• Link to “Resilience and Resistance: Interdisciplinary Lessons in Competition, Deterrence, and Irregular Warfare” by Robert S. Burrell

At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.

A "boundary" is a place, either literal or figurative, where two forces exist in close proximity to each other. Sometimes that boundary is in a state of harmony. More often than not, that boundary has a bit of chaos baked in. The Global and National Security Institute will live on the boundary of security policy and technology and that's where this podcast will focus.

The mission of GNSI is to provide actionable solutions to 21st-century security challenges for decision-makers at the local, state, national and global levels. We hope you enjoy At the Boundary.

Look for our other publications and products on our website publications page.

Transcript

Jim Cardoso: 0:00

Jim, hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of at the boundary, the podcast from the global and national security Institute at the University of South Florida. I'm Jim Cardoso, Senior Director for genocide, and your host for at the boundary. Today on the show, we're excited to announce the newest GNSI research initiative on the future of warfare. Our guest today will be GNSI Senior Research Fellow, Dr Rob Burrell, who's leading the initiative, he'll be using his extensive experience in the concept of resilience and resistance to create a roadmap for what future global conflict will look like. He'll be joining us in just a minute. Couple quick notes. First, the latest post from our notes from Cambridge student blog is now on our website. We sent two USF students, Kyle Rudd and may Burch across the pond for the summer to study at the world renowned Cambridge International Security and Intelligence Program. This week, Mae writes about connecting with USF President Ray law while in the UK, as well as other great experiences she and Kyle are having. We'll drop a link to their blog in the show notes too. By the way, we do plan to send students to isI every summer. USF students start building your resume for next year's application. We also need external support, so if it's something you'd like to help sponsor, drop us a note. We'd love to have a conversation with you. We're also looking forward to cyber Bay 2025, as USF new Bellini College of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity and computing, is working with cyber Florida, Bellini capital and the USF Institute for ai plus X to build one of the premier cybersecurity and AI events in the country. GNSI is partnering to put together the national security segment for the conference. It's slated for October 13 through 15th in downtown Tampa, and a registration link is in the show notes. GNSI is also partnering with one of the country's leading national security institutions to organize a follow on event right here on the USF campus on October 16. We'll have the official announcement and details in near future. So stay tuned. All right, let's bring on Dr Rob Burrell, GNSI, Senior Research Fellow and one of the world's foremost authorities on irregular warfare concepts of resilience and resistance. He also holds a fellowship in the prestigious irregular warfare initiative, and is on the doorstep of publishing his latest book, resilience and resistance, interdisciplinary lessons in competition, deterrence and irregular warfare. Rob, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. So it's been a few months since we previously spoke on at the boundary and beyond finalizing the book and getting the future of warfare initiative going. What else have you been working on?

Dr. Rob Burrell: 3:04

Well, last month, we brought on the study of internal conflict from the Army War College to USF. This offers a huge opportunity for research about illegal warfare for USF students. And additionally, we brought on alumni, Dr Chris Mason from the from the War College as a senior non resident fellow. So this research program has sparked a lot of interest already from USF students, but also some students outside of USF who've contacted both of us. Chris and I published recently an article on civil war in Myanmar, and we use the study of internal conflicts five factor analysis to determine if the Myanmar government could win. And that article was published by the national interest. So the study of internal conflict in its 50 case studies has a lot of promise going forward. It's exciting stuff.

Jim Cardoso: 3:54

Yeah, I saw that. And the Myanmar article that you wrote as well, I found that really interesting, discussing the critical, critical rare earth elements there that are existing there, and some of the political nuances that go with trying to have access to them.

Dr. Rob Burrell: 4:11

That's That's right. So you know, the catch and resistance is important because of the international implications of rare earths. Unfortunately, to get international attention, sometimes you have to have something in the bag, right? So that's what they have in the bag. Yes,

Jim Cardoso: 4:25

they do. And we'll be talking about rare earths more in GNSI as we look at our technology policy boundary, type of type of research, and obviously rare earths play a big role in that. In this podcast, though, we are introducing a new GNSI initiative on the future of warfare, and you're leading that effort. Tell us about it.

Dr. Rob Burrell: 4:44

Sure. Well, I'm really excited about the future warfare series. The inspirational event driving the series is the release of my new book, which you talked about resilience and resistance. This book presents an entirely new lens to utilize for the study of tomorrow's come. Conflict. To inform this series, I'm bringing in the best war fighters and academics to discuss how warfare is changing and how the United States can prepare for that. In the first episode, I'll interview General Charles Cleveland, in my opinion, the greatest American general to ever prosecute unconventional warfare. He performed remarkably in Afghanistan and Iraq. I also want to talk to Colonel Dave Maxwell about the Pacific Theater in particular. Dave Maxwell is an expert on North Korea. The second episode is a virtual live cast with Dr Chris Mason. I mentioned him earlier about the study of internal conflict. Mason is the scholar who developed the study of internal conflict. So we're going to talk about this study virtually with a global audience. Mason is going to examine how scholars and practitioners can leverage this study for predictive analysis in determining the outcomes of ongoing civil wars and insurgencies. I'm really excited about the third episode with my lifelong mentor, historian, Dr Craig Simons. Simons has written over 20 books on warfare. His latest is a history of Admiral Chester Nimitz in World War Two, and we plan to discuss the Pacific War and then what lessons the Pacific War offers for future conflict, perhaps with China. In the fourth episode, I'll meet with Colonel Brian Pettit and talk about a very popular topic in special operation circles, the resistance operating concept. This is a strategy of the nation state organizing resistance to occupation prior to conflict even happening. It's a radical idea which has caught hold in several countries, including the Baltic. Then in the fifth episode, I'll interview Dr Chris Marsh, who teaches irregular warfare with National Defense University at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. We're going to discuss Russia and its special operations forces, as well as Russia's irregular strategies utilizing conflict recently, particularly in Ukraine, and in the last episode, I'll meet with Dr Namrata Goswami from John Hopkins University to talk about artificial intelligence, cyber and space and how special operations can leverage these in future conflict. Dr Goswami is one of the leading experts in these types of technologies. And I think that discussion is going to be out of this world.

Jim Cardoso: 7:25

Is there any like strategy pursued to bring these type I mean, it's a wide variety of speakers. You have some longtime practitioners, you have some academics, you have some that are right at that, you know, doing that, that advanced technology and application to it. It's a pretty broad spectrum. Are they just, are they people you knew, or is a combination of people you knew and just some of the eminent experts in the field, or

Dr. Rob Burrell: 7:47

what? Yeah. So working at Special Operations Command at the University for four years, I brought on into my curriculum a lot of academics and practitioners on certain topics, to give exposure to the students, to all those different all those different fields also, you know, the the position I held as an assistant professor at the University was specifically an interdisciplinary scholar, so I couldn't just rely on history, and so I had to build a curriculum that had all those different facets in it, engineering. It had diplomacy, and it had, you know, the practice, the practitioner, which is really good for special operation students, because you got to be able to translate, you know, what's an academic topic into actual, real world practice, right? And so I like to have practitioners, you know, I had every, every single one of these, these folks that are part of the book that I just wrote in, that are part of the series I worked with in instructing a regular warfare with Special Operations students.

Jim Cardoso: 9:00

Yeah, I worked for general Cleveland in Iraq in 2009 he was my direct boss while during my deployed time over there. And, yeah, I would, I would agree with you. I mean, I think very highly the man, and really enjoyed working for him. And he's, he knew his stuff when it came to, you know, special the Special Forces world, irregular warfare, unconventional warfare, those types of, those types of errors. He was definitely had that expertise. How did you? How did you, How'd you meet how'd you get to know him? Well, to Jay Sal, or that

Dr. Rob Burrell: 9:31

I started on my journey with a regular warfare and unconventional warfare while I was the doctor in chief at SOCOM. So 2011 through 14 is really when I created my, my, my, my human network on the topic. And then later, when I taught at JSO, I asked general Cleveland to come speak when I when I taught on conventional warfare, you know, as kind of a capstone speaker to come and get a. Questions from the students, or talk talk about Task Force Viking, which was the largest unconventional warfare campaign ever, ever conducted by the United States, over 50 odas. So it was huge, huge, you know, mobilized 50,000 Peshmerga to fight against Saddam Hussein. So he participated in all those for free. And you know, I'm very grateful for that.

Jim Cardoso: 10:23

Yeah, okay, yeah, that's fantastic. So let's you talk. You mentioned the book, so let's turn to the book now, the book on resilience and resistance. So why did you write it?

Dr. Rob Burrell: 10:34

I would like I said, I was working at at J Sal Joint Special Operations University, and in 2021 the House resolution on the consortium to study irregular warfare came out so Congress specifically identified the need for the DOD to educate on irregular warfare. This came about after two decades of war in the Middle East, and in recognition that the DoD had made some mistakes, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, I taught irregular warfare, unconventional warfare and counter terrorism at Joint Special Operations University. So I understood where Congress was coming from. There wasn't a single textbook in the DoD or in academia, for that matter, on teaching and learning irregular warfare. This isn't the first time I had, you know, seen this happen. So when I was at the Naval Academy and I taught Marine Corps history in 2003 and 2004 there wasn't a textbook on Marine Corps history, believe it or not, you know that you could use it as a textbook in a class. So in 2003 I wrote one called crucibles, selected readings in US Marine Corps history. So two decades later, I decided the best way to get after a regular warfare education was to do the same thing, write a book. And that's what I did.

Jim Cardoso: 11:50

Well, I also read, you know, in as I was getting ready for this podcast, that you were either an author or you were behind the writing of joint pub three, dash your 5.1 switches on a regular warfare. I didn't, I didn't realize that until unconventional warfare, yeah, until just just prior to this podcast, I realized we had this that's that type of capability.

Dr. Rob Burrell: 12:12

It's a whole it's a whole story there. But yes, I was able to bring a the first joint doctoral pub on unconventional warfare into the DOD. Well,

Jim Cardoso: 12:20

I spent most of my time in the joint world during my time in the Air Force, so I was very familiar with the joint pubs. And, yeah, I always wondered who were the people behind writing those things. And now I am sitting across the table from one. That's right. Very exciting. Good times. Exactly, you talked about some of the practitioners, the eminent practitioners and scholars that help you write this book. Could you tell us a little bit more about

Dr. Rob Burrell: 12:41

them? Sure. Well, irregular warfare, deterrence and competition are the three areas covered in this book, and that's a lot of material to explain, and we wanted the lessons to be interdisciplinary, so the book is broken down into chapters on military science, political science, international relations, sociology, history and engineering. So there's a mix of academics and practitioners throughout the book, and that was purposefully done. We wanted to ensure that every lesson had practical application. And this is not just knowledge presented for the sake of learning, but in utilizing in conflict. So the breakdown by subject in the book, about 40% is applied science of irregular warfare. Then we pretty much cover what the what the DoD calls the four plus one. So that's the four primary adversaries of the United States, which are China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. And then the plus one stands for violent extremist organizations. So to get at all those topics, we have authors from the US, Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, National Defense University, from the University of South Florida, from the State Department, from NATO, from Special Operations Command, and from Johns Hopkins. And then to top the cake, the forward is written by Lieutenant General Charles Cleveland. This book really does have an all star cast, and it tackles education on a regular warfare like it's never been done before.

Jim Cardoso: 14:10

Like you said, the first, really, the first of its kind, it really does

Dr. Rob Burrell: 14:13

is, yeah, there is no, there's no textbook on a regular warfare, hmm,

Jim Cardoso: 14:16

okay, so, I mean, I definitely and when? When does it come out? It comes out soon,

Dr. Rob Burrell: 14:23

but it should be, it should be out when this podcast is released. Oh, that

Jim Cardoso: 14:28

soon. Okay, all right, excellent. Well, that's good. Well, we can, maybe we can link some in the show notes, potentially they help people find it really quickly. So talking about the book, let the first article, it talks about the resilience and resistance model, and it really establishes the framework for the entire book and LA, and really informs a lot of your research on the future of warfare as well. So I think it's, it's worth spending, you know, a few minutes diving into that a bit, you know, first baseline, I would think a lot of people. To this podcast, may hear resilience and resistance, not sure exactly what that is. Could you go and explain to us what that means?

Dr. Rob Burrell: 15:08

Yeah, so irregular warfare can sometimes comprise a sub component of state on state conflict. So you know, World War Two, there's a regular warfare happening, but it normally occurs within a single state. So the two forces in the state at work against each other comprise the resiliency of the current government and its institutions, combating against resistance elements who who desire change, right? So this yin and yang of resistance and resilience pulling on each other to determine the nature of future governance. It occurs within every state. Every state has resilience, resiliency institutions and actors, and every state has resistance to them. Sometimes resistance results in public demonstrations or protests, something nonviolent, and sometimes it emerges in political violence. Intrastate conflict has exploded since the end of World War Two. So in 1946 there were about 18 countries with rebellions and insurgencies. In 2024 there's 60. That's about a third of all nations. So in addition to the growing trend in interstate conflict, external nations have increasingly become involved in trying to shape the outcome of these civil wars. That phenomenon is called internationalized intrastate conflict. Of the 60 nations currently battling internal violence, about 40% are internationalized. So these some examples you know that most people are familiar with because of recent events, Sudan, Libya, Yemen, these are all internationalized examples of interstate conflict. So when you compare the frequency of intrastate conflict with state on state conflict, how many state on state. Conflicts are happening right now.

Unknown: 17:05

Just one, right? I mean, the main one you think about, what is Russia, Ukraine,

Dr. Rob Burrell: 17:10

Ukraine and Russia? Right on state? Yeah. Now, even though intrastate conflict is the new norm, it's happening with increased frequency. The US, Department of Defense and its state department are predispositioned to address state on state conflict. I mean, that's what they focus on. That's their bread and butter. Today, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps are all preparing for conventional war in the Pacific with China, right? Yeah. So in a new era of this multi polar world, the future world, or world order, will likely be determined in these internationalized interstate conflict, not in a world war three, which probably won't happen. So, so this is what my book addresses. You know, it's how the US government and its military can understand interstate conflict across a spectrum of non violent resistance through civil war, and how can the US government support partners, both state and non state actors, to achieve US foreign policy objectives? You know, the subtitle of the book says lessons in deterrence, competition or regular warfare, because those are the primary battlegrounds in which we will likely win or lose, not in conventional

Jim Cardoso: 18:24

war, the model specifies for components or nodes, basically to help scholars practitioners understand the dynamics of change occurring within the context of interstate conflict. Can you talk a little bit about these nodes?

Dr. Rob Burrell: 18:38

Sure, so the first scholar to recognize and dry out these types of nodes was Gordon McCormick, and he wrote about the Shining Path of insurgency in Peru in the 1970s I adapted McCormick's work to demonstrate that those four nodes are part of all interstate conflict, including nonviolent resistance, and not just insurgencies. So I broadened the mark the model to encompass all resilience and resistance activities. The two nodes opposing one another include the resistance node on one side of the model and then the resilience node on the other side. The resistance node desires institutional change. The resilience node wants to maintain the status quo, maintain the status quo. So now the two other nodes include the domestic population, which both resilience and resistance are trying to influence and pull in their direction. And then the international audience, you know, an international sponsor, you know, in is the ones we look at mostly are states. But it doesn't have to be a state. It can be the diaspora, or it could be illicit organizations, religious organizations. In fact, the pope just recently intervened in Syria, right? So he's taking a stand for the Druze in Syria. It could be corporations. Corporations are involved in many interstate conflicts, particularly in Africa. Yeah. So within this framework, a very dynamic interaction is taking between all four nodes of resilience, resistance, the domestic population and the international audience. Each of the nodes has has agency, and all are attempting to determine the future of the state.

Jim Cardoso: 20:17

And this framework it I mean, I think sometimes you can think of this in terms of, okay, this is what's happening in some type of active conflict. But this, this may not be an active conflict. I mean, these types of, this resiliency, resistance, this yin and yang, as you talked about, and the four nodes, these are happening around the world in multiple, multiple locations, at all times, impacted by states, non states, industry, all sorts of different actors as well,

Dr. Rob Burrell: 20:50

100% so like you know, whenever I start talking about these models, most Americans will stop and ask me, have you done This for United States? And I say, No, I don't do domestic stuff. But, you know, I could. I mean, I I can't. Every time something happens United States, of course, as an academic, I'm looking at it, but I'm not writing about it. In fact, when I was in I went to NATO to do a discussion about some of my typologies, and discussing it at the NATO Special Special Forces school. And when I was talking about the nonviolent aspects of resistance versus resilience, all these weird I got all these weird, you know, facial things like, oh, that doesn't happen with us. I was, like, a million people just protested in Paris yesterday. You weren't paying attention. Yeah, that's your that's your ally, that's your partner. So you should, you should be paying attention to resistance, not just in those that you want to support the resistance to, but in states where you might want to subvert the resistance and help your help your partner be successful. Yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 21:57

there's lessons learned. It doesn't mean that the state is in the verge of collapse, but there's lessons to be learned from that. And now I'm, you know, it's hard not to look it's, it's no secret that it's, it's a politically dynamic time in the United States right now. So, I mean, you can sit back and you can take some of these models, and you know, if you especially, I would recommend everybody look at the book as you get the book, look at the book, and you can see these models, and you can kind of see things that are happening right now, of course, that that, you know, there is, there's a there's a resilience, there's a resistance mode, there's a puppy, you know, all these, all these things are happening in the US. I think it's wise that you stay away from them, from projecting them too much as as an academic. But, I mean, mentally, go for it. Yeah, absolutely. But I think it's interesting is, as we do things at GNSI, as you put this book out, so that people can understand this model and how to apply it. I mean, you should be able to apply it to situations across the world and even, and even here in continent United States,

Dr. Rob Burrell: 22:49

it's happening all around us. One of the, one of the lessons I would teach special forces folks before they went down range was, don't just count the AK 40 sevens. Look at the graffiti.

Jim Cardoso: 23:00

Yeah, yep. No, that's, that's great. So you touch on the you also touch on the resistance continuum as a way to provide, you know, scale to the level of protests against the government. Can you talk about that, and maybe pride some examples, so that, you know, people can hear this, understand. Oh, okay, yeah, I get what he's talking about.

Dr. Rob Burrell: 23:18

Sure. Well, resistance comes in many forms. Each resistance movement is unique. However, there are commonalities in resistance which can be used to categorize their general nature. Additionally, the methods of resistance movement utilize has implications in international law, so these typologies have legal significance. John Cosgrove and Aaron Hahn, both lawyers from Johns Hopkins, first introduced these terms about seven years ago with us, Army Special Operations Command. So the five types of resist, resistance typologies describe how these organizations resist, either through nonviolent but legal means. That's one type, or through illegal means, but which cause no harm to other humans, that's another type, or through the use of limited violence or rebellion, or through a well developed insurgency, or in an all out Civil War. I'll provide some examples of each so most people would recognize Martin Luther King Jr's movement as using non violent but primarily legal means of resistance, like demonstrations. Now, violence could erupt from a peaceful protest, but mlks activists were extremely disciplined and accepted the brutality of the state's response without responding in kind. King expected this. This was this was desired for him, yeah, and through the medium of television, his move, his movement, achieved empathy from the rest of America and the global audience to support his objectives of of equal voting rights. So using non violent legal. Means, has some real strengths as a typology, but it's probably more effective in democracies than in, you know, authoritarian states.

Jim Cardoso: 25:08

Yeah, term you use in the book to refer to that, that people have probably heard of civil disobedience. Yes, that's, that's one, one not doesn't capture at all, but it's a good it's kind of that, that area is where the non violent legal. There seems to resist

Dr. Rob Burrell: 25:22

a lot of terms. Non violent action is another. So the second resistance typology is non violent, but it's illegal. So Harriet Tubman in the Underground Railroad, which helps slaves move from slave states to free states, provides an excellent example. Tubman didn't use violence, but her actions of resistance were inherently illegal under congressional law. The third category is rebellion. Rebellion uses violence against humans, okay, but it's normally small in size or duration. Nat Turner's slave revolt in 1831 is a good example. Turner used violence. He killed I think 55 people simultaneously. Local government rooted him out fairly quickly. So rebellion is like a small flare up of violent resistance.

Jim Cardoso: 26:09

But this is the first one. The first two really are not designed to be violent. Violence may occur in them, but they're not designed to be violence, whereas in rebellion, that's where violence is truly a tool.

Dr. Rob Burrell: 26:19

Your target is other humans, yeah, in the in the last three examples here. So the fourth category I described as insurgency. So in this form of violence, the state cannot deal with intensity of the combatants, right? So it uses its arm component. It uses its own military to fight the insurgency. And that's really the difference between rebellion and insurgency, is that the state can no longer address it through law enforcement. It has to use its own military against its own population. And then the fourth or the fifth category is belligerency or or civil war, right? And so the the best example of that is in, you know, the US Civil War is the Confederacy, right? The, in this case, the belligerent, the the opposition to the state looks like another state. You know, it does governance, it does taxes, its armed component looks like a uniform military. So those those are, that's a that's a civil war example, that's the most evolved form of resistance. So these five typologies of resistance can be illustrated across continuum, non violent, legal, non violent, illegal, rebellion, insurgency and belligerency. These categories are useful when you want to examine resistance within a state, you can identify who the primary organizations are resistance, and then that really affects your methods of support, because each one of those resistance organizations has different weaknesses and different strengths, right? So if you provide Gandhi, you know, some, some armed means of resistance, like, give him some, some rifles that doesn't really help his cause, because that's not the type of means he would prefer to use. Meanwhile, if you're, if you're supplying arms to a, you know, a rebellion and it, and you don't want, like, a long term conflict, then you probably shouldn't be providing a lot, right? So you really have to look at what your outcomes that you desire are, what kind of resistance movements are there, and then kind of work within the framework of what works best to support that movement, or to if you want to combat the movement and you're working with your ally, which are the best ways to really combat that moment, right? So if you're supporting the British in India, and you help them to use violence that might not help their cause, one thing you

Jim Cardoso: 28:50

didn't mention, which I think a lot of people listening may say, may go, Hey, didn't talk anything about terrorism. I would think terrorism would somewhere in there. And you do talk about terrorism, actually, within the model, could you kind of talk a little bit more about that?

Dr. Rob Burrell: 29:02

Well, I put terrorism in the third category, right, which is that you can address it with law enforcement, but it's a first of all, terrorism. Terrorism doesn't have a universal agreement, not even in the US government. We, every single agency in the US government, has a different definition for terrorism, and that's for legal purposes. Right? Most, most of the time, we use the word terrorism to give us legal authorities to do things. Right? In most places where where you're using the term terrorism, it allows you to use military force. So you could use, you could use a domestic force. It could be in the third category, or it could be in the fourth category of insurgency. It really depends on, on how large the threat is, and what, what the what the what the what. A government decides to use. So sometimes, I guess it could be in the fourth category. And even in my in my own research, in publications, I drift back and forth depending on the situation. On it. If it's the same as rebellion, a short term one, or as a in the case of a insurgency, you're using force. ISIS is great example. Um ISIS was an insurgency, right? But in many cases today, it doesn't have the same power or influence, so you might be able to address it with your domestic law law enforcement agencies,

Jim Cardoso: 30:37

yeah, you know. And so as we're starting to wind down the podcast, you know, just, you know, for my i The book's not out yet. I've gone through a little bit of it. Not, not the whole thing, I'll admit. But I mean, just the first article on the resilience and resistance model, I really found fascinating. And like I said, laying that grain, that framework, but also, like you said, it's not trying to create a okay, this is a separate study of war that's kind of divorced from the quote, unquote, you know, I'm doing finger quotes. Nobody can see that according to finger quotes, real war. What you're saying is that, no, this is, again, along the lines with your research study. This is the future of war for it's not so much about kind of that state on state on state action that we're spending so much time. I know we talked about this at the beginning. You brought it up, but I think it bears repeating that this is not a separate thing. This is, is what, what you see as framing what the future of all warfare is going to look like.

Dr. Rob Burrell: 31:33

Yeah. I mean, the the Cold Wars are great, you know, as as you know, the famous saying goes, you know, war doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. The Cold War is an example of two opponents trying to influence the future of the globe and never actually fighting each other directly, right? Because the costs would be so so grave that both decided that wasn't a good idea. And I think with China, we're most likely going to be in a similar example, that there's not going to be another world war three. The Chinese aren't going to push in all their chips and say, Let's go at it. Let's go toe to toe. The Chinese Communist Party hasn't really done that in its history, right? It doesn't like to risk everything. It likes to chip away at you, and so I think that's what we're going to see around the globe. In this new multipolar world, both with our adversaries like Russia and China and in Iran and North Korea, we're going to see this fighting along the periphery. And so the US can either step back and lose all those fights, or we can, we can step in and try to shape a new new world, New World Order. Those are all decisions be made. But the way to really look at all those struggles is to understand what's happening within the state, and then you have three options. You can either support the resiliency of that state, or you can support resistance to the state and have some change within the state. Or you cannot do either one, but you should be doing analysis so that you can make that decision in the future. Right? So when we have states like Libya, which still has a very this huge interstate conflict is just happening, the Civil War ended in 2020 Yeah, those rumors aren't true, right? So, so you still need to do the analysis and stay engaged and do the hard work of understanding what's happening within the state and doing some contingency plans so that you're able to do something when the time is right.

Jim Cardoso: 33:50

Well, you certainly made the work easier with the publishing of this book. So I mean, if people are looking to do that hard work, they all they have to do is use the link, get a copy of it, and they can start, you know better, informing themselves on these things moving forward. And then, like we said, we have an entire future of war research campaign coming up, and then over the next few months and all those things people will be able to download those, watch those kind of soak those in, so to speak, so that both policy makers, decision makers, and just the average American citizen who in a democracy needs to be have an active role, if it's the work right, can be well informed as we go forward. So I think you've done a great service, and I look forward to seeing it come out, formally published. I look forward to seeing the other stuff you're gonna put out as well. So any final thoughts before we finish the podcast? No,

Dr. Rob Burrell: 34:40

I think I'm really excited about this. I'm happy to contribute with the book, but going the next step forward, having these GNSI productions with some really great, talented, amazing folks who who have, you know, great scholars, but also some some great practitioners who have done some amazing things. Yeah. And getting getting more insight from them on these topics is going to be great.

Jim Cardoso: 35:04

Yep, I look forward to it as well, Rob. Thanks for being here today. Thank you. Appreciate it many. Thanks to Dr Rob Burrell, senior research fellow at GNSI, soon to be published author again, and the architect of our latest research initiative, the future of warfare. You'll be able to find all the future interviews and discussions from that initiative on our YouTube channel in the coming weeks and months. Even better, subscribe to the channel and hit that alert button while you're there, so you'll be notified whenever Rob has new insights available next week on at the boundary, our guest will be Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, and its director of the Syria initiative. We interviewed Charles previously, but with things ratcheting up over there, we wanted to bring him back for some more discussion. Thanks for listening today. If you like the podcast, please subscribe and let your friends and colleagues know. You can follow GNSI on our LinkedIn and X accounts at USF, underscore GNSI And check out our website as well at usf.edu/gnsi, while you're there, don't forget to subscribe to our monthly newsletter that's going to wrap up this episode of at the boundary. Each new episode will feature global and national security issues we found to be insightful, intriguing, maybe controversial, but overall, just worth talking about. I'm Jim Cardoso, and we'll see you at the boundary. You.