Mick Ryan

Leverage off-the-shelf commercial technologies and agile startups and standardize which can enable the scaling of success.

Mick Ryan, writing for the Lowery Institute, argues that Western militaries suffer from a term he calls learning deficit, something that prioritizes the exploitation of existing competencies over exploring new solutions.

Western militaries seem to fail to innovate very effectively.

Outside observers have found that in Ukraine, users' requirements drive innovation and any technology that reaches the battlefield is evaluated immediately under harsh battlefield conditions.

It buys more prototypes, all right, but it also buys more legacy systems, and then that innovation dies in the valley.

So what does this mean for the U.S. military in future conflicts it'll fight? Well, fast following.

I mean, if Mick Ryan is right that the adaptation cycles have shrunk from years to months, weeks, days, then whoever fields the best system from day one won't win a war with China.

It's the person who can field the best system on day 30, day 100, day 200, and so on.

But but actually, let me pause before going there, because we're talking about energy and ask you your take on the last couple of weeks of news about the Trump administration and Russia and the diesel purchase and how that issue intersects with all this.

I had Mick Ryan on the show on Tuesday.

So last week for when this episode will air.

And, you know, we were pretty hard on the Trump administration's Russia policy and the diesel purchase.

And I think the key, going back to your earlier questions, is that Trump doesn't like the things that Ukraine is doing for us.

So in the narrow military sense, and there's a great short article on Substack by the Australian military historian, Mick Ryan, about this.

But in the narrow military sense, Ukraine has done a huge amount for us.

They sent at a time when drones and missiles are hitting Ukraine, they sent a couple hundred people from their own air defense squadrons to the Middle East to protect American bases and American troops.

He has been attempting to compel the Ukrainians to cease one of their most effective campaigns of the war so far, their strikes on the Russian energy economy, on the theory that them stopping would help the situation with prices in America.

There's no one better to unpack what's behind all of this and help us explore the connections between these two theaters of war than my regular guest, Major General Mick Ryan of the Australian Army, retired.

Let's get into it.

December 7, 1941, a date which will live on.

Hi, I'm Aaron MacLean.

Thanks for joining School of War.

I am delighted to welcome back to the show, Mick Ryan, a regular School of War guest.

He is, of course, a retired major general in the Australian Army, a extremely prolific author on all things dealing with war since then, even during them, but especially since then.

Now, today is day 1693 of Vladimir Putin's 10-day special military operation, or more accurately, full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

And we are very privileged to be talking to an old friend of the show, Major General Mick Ryan.

Mick Ryan, retired Major General from the Australian Army, former Commander of Australian Defence College in Canberra, and author of War Transformed, which was published in 2022, and an audiobook for The War in Ukraine.

And you are a globally renowned analyst of the war in Ukraine and other conflicts that seem to be popping up around the world.

And your Substack channel is Futura Doctrina, and it's a source of fantastic analysis.