From the Crows' Nest

Ken Miller [00:00:00]:
Welcome to From the Crows' Nest. I'm your host, Ken Miller from the Association of Old Crows. As always, thanks for listening today's episode. We are going to answer some listener mail. We've been collecting some questions from our listeners through our social media platforms and email. And so as we kind of gear up for the annual AOC convention and all of our attention is focused on that, wanted to just take an opportunity to get caught up on some mail and hopefully we'll get a lot more questions coming in over the next month. So to help me with this, I have pleased to have our producer on the in the studio with me.

Ken Miller [00:00:46]:
Laura, thanks for joining here outward-facing on From the Crows' Nest. Listeners know your great work because every show is amazing. But it's great to have you kind of live here with me in the studio.

Laura Krebs [00:01:00]:
Hello, Ken.

Ken Miller [00:01:02]:
All right, so we have been collecting some, some questions in the mail. Obviously, I think looking over these questions, it's a lot of them are questions surrounding current events, you know, with Congress, the, the budget acquisition reform, all that stuff. So we want to kind of go through some stuff. So anyways, before we get started, just. How are you doing? Bar?

Laura Krebs [00:01:26]:
I'm good.

Ken Miller [00:01:27]:
Good.

Laura Krebs [00:01:28]:
I'm good. I've had a short work week.

Ken Miller [00:01:30]:
I know it's kind of nice. I mean, obviously Veterans Day, very good holiday to celebrate and I was going to, I was going to do a post on Instagram for Veterans Day and completely forgot. So I, I'm.

Laura Krebs [00:01:43]:
Well, you have to thank all the veterans out there.

Ken Miller [00:01:45]:
Well, he Heather, my, He Heather, our co producer here, like, bailed me out on that. So I appreciate that, but that it's been a weird week. We have off a couple days and yeah, now everything's crammed into today. So looking forward to getting through. Like, it's been, it's been an interesting week with Congress. So what are some of the questions that we have coming in that we want to cover for today?

Laura Krebs [00:02:06]:
I mean, we obviously have to start with Congress and the government shutdown.

Ken Miller [00:02:12]:
What, what, What a crazy circus.

Laura Krebs [00:02:14]:
These questions came in before the vote took place yesterday. So the first one is where are we at with the government shutdown and the spending bills for the year? And then what are you watching develop over the next few months on the congressional front? So let's do the first one part of that.

Ken Miller [00:02:31]:
Well, so, so I, Here, here, here's the challenge. First of all, do I need to answer this sarcastically or.

Laura Krebs [00:02:39]:
Sure.

Ken Miller [00:02:41]:
Because I mean, absolutely, I mean, no, no, it's, it's, I was talking to somebody about this and I was like, you know, it's important to remember when you look at how Congress is, how Congress works, a lot of times it's a lot of times the focus is on theater and maximizing the attention that your message is receiving amongst your audience, amongst your listeners and, you know, people who are aligned with you. So a lot of times we'll see certain policy developments on the horizon, things like shutdowns and crs. And if people who listen to the show will know that when I oftentimes, you know, well before the end of the fiscal year, I'll say we can expect a cr, we know it's going to happen, or we can expect something moving faster than the normal. Usually there's ways to telegraph what's happening. This year. We knew very early on that there was going to be a likely chance of a shutdown because of the, because of the small majorities in the House and Senate. Obviously, the first year of President Trump's administration, there's a lot of point flashpoints that led both sides to feel like they could ha, take the upper hand in that shutdown argument. So all that to say is, you know, the, where.

Ken Miller [00:04:06]:
It did surprise us, though, and this, I think, is what I'm getting at. What surprised us is the length of this shutdown record breaking. You know, it's, you know, usually when you have these types of messaging theatrics, it, it can lead to a shutdown for a couple days or over the weekend, just enough to kind of exercise your, what you, you know, what you can get done. And this realm, though, this side's dug in and there was very little incentive for either side to break off their message. And I think from my perspective, I'll always be on the side of, of, of whichever is advocating the clean cr. In this case, it was the Republican Party. Republicans were guilty of the exact same thing back in like, think 2012, where they shut down the government over policy riders they wanted included because, of course, you had Obama as the president and I, I'm not sure if we had majorities in both the House and Senate, but at least that we did at the House. But there was that political dynamic where we were in the minority or the minority party or the party not in power.

Ken Miller [00:05:12]:
And so we, so the Republicans jumped in on the let's use the policy rider to shut down government. That was wrong this year. It was the other side. So, yeah, it's important to look at what happened not just from the lens of Republican versus Democrat, but also majority versus Minority. Some of this was just predictable where I come down with this, the cr. So what happened was the Senate, about eight Democrats on the Senate side got together, talked to Republican leadership that they could come up with a plan that would allow those eight Democrats to come to switch sides, vote for, to reopen government, and then that bill could be taken back to the House. The House voted on a clean CR, sent it to the Senate on September 19th, and they had something, I don't know, like 20 different votes on it, a lot of different votes to, to, to make sure we knew what the vote, what the votes were. So everybody was on record and you could tell which members were potentially able to switch sides.

Ken Miller [00:06:21]:
The deal was struck. The Senate came in on Monday to vote. They, and then they sent it over to the House. The problem was that of course, obviously they, in order to create, to reopen the government, there was an amendment attached that required the House to come back in and vote because the same piece of legislation has to be voted by both the House and the Senate and signed by the President. So, so the House did that. They came back, they voted. So we're going to be reopening government. Here's.

Ken Miller [00:06:48]:
So for those who aren't following all that happened, here's the, the crux of it. We are under a CR until January 30th. Along with the reopening of government, they also passed a minibus, what they call minibus. It's a partial appropriations for the government covering agriculture, agriculture, military construction, Veterans affairs and legislative branch. So yes, the government decided after being shut down that they were going to be the first. The legislative branch is going to be the first ones to be funded fully for the entire FY2026, which is a little bit weird, but they did it so that, so those three agencies will get funding through the end of 2026. On September 30th next year, the rest of the government, including Defense, is going to bump up against that January 30th deadline.

Laura Krebs [00:07:44]:
Okay.

Ken Miller [00:07:45]:
The hope is that govern that DoD, they can do another mini appropriations bill that includes DoD in the next couple months before that and then we'll see if there's other elements that get shut down in January. So there's still, we're out of the woods right now, but there's still a lot that Congress has to work on in order to, for there not to be another shutdown in January.

Laura Krebs [00:08:08]:
So then what does this, like, what kind of impact does this do these CRS have on EMSO and Defense in general? I mean, it's obviously not good.

Ken Miller [00:08:16]:
No, I mean this goes back to, you know, there's a constitutional responsibility to fund government. It's clearly right there. Article one, they have the power of the purse fund, the government fund, the national defense fund, general warfare. If Congress needs to make sure that the government stays open. The problem that we run into oftentimes from anEMSO perspective is that when you have these crs, what the CRS are is it continues funding at last year's level. So defense is funded today, in November 2024. Well, in the fiscal year 2026, we are funded at 2025 levels. And because you're funded at previous levels and there's no authorization, there are no new starts.

Ken Miller [00:09:06]:
So you can't start new programs, you can't bring in new money. You can only spend on previously authorized programs at the same levels as the past year. So that really limits your ability to invest in emerging technology, new capabilities, moving things along. And so what ends up happening with EMSO is we are so far down the food chain that those that shortage of funding trickles down to our community. And what that causes then is when we have these cars, we miss test and evaluation milestones, we miss development milestones. You know, sometimes we will move in and out of leadership so there'll be a rotation of leadership or in this case we had a shutdown and some folks were deemed non essential so they were furloughed. All of a sudden then we don't have the people working on these programs, we don't have the money for these programs and it causes delays. Those delays increase the price tag.

Ken Miller [00:10:09]:
And then of course you have to go in next year and get additional money for it. And now you're competing for limited resources against other programs. So there's these cascading effects that really hit these niche capabilities, these niche areas like emo. We as given the importance of emo, we cannot close the gaps inEMSO if we are also going back and forth between CRS minibuses, government shutdowns. All of that stuff is antithetical to having a military advantage around the world. So Congress, if your number one responsibility is to fund the national defense and the power of the purse, like that's what you got to do first. And so I'm a big proponent personally of if we don't have a defense budget by September 30th, we don't have a budget by September 30th, then Congress needs to not be paid. And that money that, that funding Congress needs to, to, to be punished.

Ken Miller [00:11:16]:
For that because that's their number one responsibility. This is not a time for politics on that front. Yeah, they're policy riders. Yes, there's things that the minority wants to do or the majority, but there's a better way of going about it and shutting down the government for it is not the right way.

Laura Krebs [00:11:33]:
Yeah, I can agree with that. So the ndaa, you've talked about it this year.

Ken Miller [00:11:38]:
Yep.

Laura Krebs [00:11:39]:
Do you think that we can expect to see one by the end of the year? How did the government shutdown affect that bill? Bill impact it?

Ken Miller [00:11:50]:
Yeah, so, so we will, we will see a National Defense Authorization Act. The word word today was that they are actually pretty close to a deal and so they might be able to wrap up a final bill in conference committee between the House and the Senate, wrap up that final bill by Thanksgiving. So in, in next couple weeks and then it will vote, be voted on the House floor first in December and then go over to the Senate. So we should be able to have a national Defense authorization bill probably in early December, December. This is one of the few must pass bills that Congress has outside of the annual appropriations that they must pass. So that's the good news. And I think that the, the, the, the national, the NDAA is going to help ensure a defense appropriations bill moves efficiently before January 30th. I think the idea is we, if we can get the authorization done, we know what the top line will be, we know what we, we know kind of the, the, the, the pressure points of in defense and then we can kind of get the authorization and then the appropriations will follow shortly thereafter.

Ken Miller [00:13:06]:
That's my hope. So I'm very much hoping from a defense perspective we don't even get near January 30th. I do think we could get that done earlier in December. The problem is both for the NDAA as well as defensive probes bill is in, in years past I came, I came from the Hill. So when we, when I was on the Hill the defense bill was usually the first one to move because it was really not controversial. Most members of Congress wanted to support our troops in some way so they didn't vote against it. Even if they didn't support all the priorities in defense bill, there was enough reason to vote for the bill and it usually passed on time or near, you know, or at least, you know, very much more efficiently than, than other bills today that that script has flipped. Yeah, it's because it is a non controversial bill.

Ken Miller [00:13:59]:
It's also the bill, the vehicle that a lot of policy Writers get attached to a lot of things to make the Pentagon kind of the, the guinea pig. And they use this because the flip side to that is there's so many people that want to support it instead of just going along with it. Even though you disagree with some provisions, now you're going along with the provisions you don't really like because you really support defense funding. So that, that, that script is a little bit different today. But there is uncertainty as to whether or not the defense appropriations bill will be also used as kind of a poison, you know, attach poison pill riders to it that could hurt the, the any agreement. So we'll see about that. That would be the one gray area that I see with moving forward with defense spending is if either side tries to overly politicize policy riders that they're attaching onto the bill, that could slow it down.

Laura Krebs [00:15:04]:
Yeah, I think it'll be interesting to see what happens.

Ken Miller [00:15:07]:
I mean, at the end of the day, the idea is that, you know, we have to get to January 30th before we have to get all that, all those bills done. The other thing is with the three mini bill, the, the minibus that was already passed to reopen if they do defense spending and it's part of another mini bus of a couple more agencies, then you're left with relatively controversial and controversial appropriations bills for agencies that have not been included in two minibuses, which means there's a really good chance that there's just not going to be any political will to deal with the rest. So whether or not they get a CR till the end of the year or, you know, you just, you, you, you dance around a shutdown again, the more you get accomplished now, the easier it is to shut the government down over unpassed appropriations bills come January 30th. So it's, there's a little bit of a, a gamesmanship that has to play out yet. I would just say for most people, relax on the, on the defense front until December, we'll be good. I think we're, we're in a good spot, but certainly as we get into the new year, start to watch, to see what we haven't done yet, because the narrative will probably change come the new year.

Laura Krebs [00:16:29]:
Okay, that's some good advice. Well, I think it's always important to keep an eye on obviously the defense spending, especially with China and what China's doing. I'm going to switch gears to China on you now because we always get.

Ken Miller [00:16:44]:
A lot of questions on China.

Laura Krebs [00:16:46]:
We always get a lot of, we Always get a lot of questions on China. It's something that we've talked about a little bit. You've talked about a little bit, but you don't talk about it all the time, so.

Ken Miller [00:16:54]:
I don't, I don't.

Laura Krebs [00:16:55]:
But it's a very interesting topic, Ken.

Ken Miller [00:16:58]:
It is, it is. I, I, I, and it's something that, honestly, there's just so many different perspectives on in terms of what we need to do as a force as, as well as foreign policy, how to mitigate what's going on over in the region. So there is not a real great consensus right now. So it's really fascinating to kind of see the back and forth that takes place on this topic.

Laura Krebs [00:17:26]:
I mean, I, this is a little antidote, but have you ever seen the show the Diplomat on Netflix?

Ken Miller [00:17:32]:
No. I know.

Laura Krebs [00:17:34]:
Okay, well, they know how dangerous China is because I can't tell you, but at the season finale of that, they stopped China from getting something so that China could use against the world. So they know how dangerous China is.

Ken Miller [00:17:47]:
Well, and I'm sure, I don't know if everybody does questions on it, but like, it's, it's, it's really interesting because we did the series back in the fall with how Hollywood influences. Yeah. Tech innovation, and I think this is a perfect example. Like, you can sit there and watch a show. I, I, I'll tend to watch those, like, realistic kind of government shows, you know, like the West Wing and all this. I sit there and I'm like, that's not true. That's not how it happens. That's not how it looks.

Ken Miller [00:18:13]:
And I'm, I'm just terrible. You never want to watch one of those shows with me because I will ruin the experience. But it is true that sometimes, if you really want to know what we need to do in foreign policy or military, just watch Hollywood like it, they.

Laura Krebs [00:18:29]:
Figure it out so easily.

Ken Miller [00:18:31]:
Well, they're able to, they're able to address risk.

Laura Krebs [00:18:35]:
Yep.

Ken Miller [00:18:35]:
Without the cost of human life, this is true. But the point is we can, you can address, you can, you can explore risk mitigation in operations differently in Hollywood than you can obviously in the field. So it just gives you a way of kind of seeing what you're able to accomplish in the realm of the possible. And that will oftentimes lead to some amazing advances and ideas and programs. And so all that to say is, I'll, I'll, I'll take a look at the Diplomat and see. But I think that, you know, maybe they have, they do have happened to A right solution to how we handle it.

Laura Krebs [00:19:16]:
Well, it's crazy because I'll be watching it with my fiance and I'll be like, oh, my goodness, that'sEMSO stuff. And he looks at me, he has no idea what I'm talking about.

Ken Miller [00:19:24]:
It's like, get back to the football game. Right.

Laura Krebs [00:19:27]:
Well, that too. But yeah.

Ken Miller [00:19:29]:
Yeah. Okay, okay, okay, I digress.

Laura Krebs [00:19:31]:
Okay, Back to China. Okay. What indicators do we see that China is integratingEMSO cyber and space effects into a single joint operational framework? That's a can of worms.

Ken Miller [00:19:52]:
We have had a number of briefings on this with our congressional education efforts, and I think what comes out of this is, it's how they're organized. They've been very, they've been very public about how important the Spectrum is to winning the next war. They have organized themselves that way for debt, for, for years. And in fact, it was, and I mentioned, I think it was like 2009, 2008, 2009, when there was a capabilities based assessment done by Paycom and it showed that basically, hey, you know, we got to be ready to, we got to be prepared to fight a war without Spectrum, basically blind. You know, what does that mean? Because we are losing the advantage. As far back as then, we had seen China integrating and organizing their force with EMS operations and spectrum superiority concepts at the forefront of how they're organized. Now, how does the US Respond to that is, I think, the bigger question. We know China has, you know, that this, the capacity of their force, the capabilities that they bring to the fight, the, the, the, the force structure, the strength of party leadership from the top down through the commands, they have a lot of advantages.

Ken Miller [00:21:29]:
They do have some disadvantages too, in terms of how they still will. Very similar to Russia, probably focus on, on centralized execution, which can slow things, can, can bog down military operations significantly, as we've seen with Russia. But the question then is how does us respond? And I think the, that there's two schools of thought that I've heard over the years. The one is, let's copy them. If China's doing it, we need to do it too. And there's a. Seems to make sense. On the other hand, I, I kind of go back to, you know, let's bring in a football analogy.

Ken Miller [00:22:07]:
You know, my, I'm, I'm a Philadelphia Eagles fan, so we're, we're better than everyone else, but.

Laura Krebs [00:22:12]:
Oh, you can't say that.

Ken Miller [00:22:14]:
I know. I, Yeah, I can. I, I'm, I'm the host. I can say whatever I want.

Laura Krebs [00:22:17]:
Okay. Super bowl winners, but we'll leave it there.

Ken Miller [00:22:19]:
Okay, we'll be there again anyways. Like our, our, our GM at one point, I think last year, year before, he said basically if you're copying what the, your opponent is doing, you're losing.

Laura Krebs [00:22:29]:
Okay, that's fair.

Ken Miller [00:22:30]:
So you need to know what your opponent is doing and find a way to do other things differently and better in a different way that forces your opponent to address your capabilities instead of executing their own. Just. And so I take that because I think that that applies actually to our response to China. It's not about copying what China is doing with the integration. It's about finding a way to understand what they do and do things differently. So you're forcing them to adapt to your capability and to your operational concepts. And so we, you know, I think we're going to discuss a little bit about this in, at the AOC convention next month. I'm doing a live show on the main stage and we're addressing the question, is it time that we establish anEMSO force? You know, we, we established a space force back in 2019.

Ken Miller [00:23:28]:
Critical force structure reform. Creation of that service was absolutely important to focus our attention on the role of space. In years past, you know, we've established a Cyber Command, a functional combatant command. Each of the services have, has a Cyber Command and have different other organizational structures that address these things. And so the question is, how do you integrate? So we're going to be talking about at the show, is it time that we, that EMSO has its own force? What does that look like? What does that mean for industry or the services? And we're going to have experts that kind of provide a number of different perspectives on the panel on stage. And I do think that there's way we can look at things like hedge forces, dedicatedEMSO force,EMSO cells. We can also talk about capability, CSAs, capable capability, support agency, the different elements that we know we can do. But we have to do it a little bit differently forEMSO to kind of put us out in the forefront.

Ken Miller [00:24:38]:
But the idea for me is that we can't be doing exactly what China does. We have to do some, we have to do something different to again, increase their cost, increase the time it takes them to respond and you know, so, so the latency cost and, and, and greater risk to them. We know, we know China's risk averse. Let's try to find a way to elevate their risk as much as possible because that can slow down their plans and that's what kind of what we want to do right now. So that's. I, so I don't know if that really doesn't answer your question, but for me, like it's not about what China is doing, it's more about what our response is. Well, that makes sense in, you know, in the region.

Laura Krebs [00:25:20]:
So say because the Taiwan conflict, I don't think it's a matter of if it's going to happen, it's a matter of when it's going to happen. So say it were to start tomorrow. Do you think we are in a position right now where we could achieve an advantage in the spectrum if the conflict were to start tomorrow or do you think we are a ways away from being able to achieve.

Ken Miller [00:25:42]:
I know. I think, I think, I think where we're at right now, we would be able to, we would be able to frustrate those plans sufficiently. I mean, okay, I don't want to say yes, we could get a avenge, but we could, we could frustrate that. And I think the reason why I know that is not because of any headline. It's just that if we couldn't, China would have already.

Laura Krebs [00:26:10]:
This is true.

Ken Miller [00:26:11]:
Taiwan.

Laura Krebs [00:26:11]:
Yeah.

Ken Miller [00:26:11]:
So I think the fact that they, they haven't today also indicates that they are, they, they're operating with that risk equation a little bit. Hey, we know that they can do X, Y and Z. America and its partners. So let's just kind of see how things develop. Now I will say this, I've said this before on the show and this is kind of a bit of a digression, but I think it's really important is that you, you mentioned like it's not a matter of if but when. And that is absolutely true. And it's not because China has global imperialistic tendencies. They to them, they see themselves as a dynasty.

Ken Miller [00:26:58]:
They in order to have a successful dynasty in Chinese history which the power, the Chinese global power dates so far back. I mean, yes. That the US is just a blip on the screen in terms of the arc of history. To them, successful dynasties are unified dynasties. And as long as Taiwan remains its own independent territory, China is not unified. Therefore the Chinese dynasty is a failure.

Laura Krebs [00:27:37]:
Correct.

Ken Miller [00:27:38]:
The current party administration, current government, they will not allow China, this era of Chinese power to go down as a failure. So yes, you can guarantee there will be an effort on that front. But it's not like we're going to be going into a Red dawn scenario, you know, Patrick Swayze, you know, in pickup trucks with paratroopers from China falling down into our skies and taking over our cities. That's not going to happen. They, they, they want, they want other countries to defer to China when they make big global decisions, economic decisions, so forth. So you can see how China, not just from a military perspective, but from an economic perspective, from a resource perspective, they have inserted themselves into supply chains, into conflicts, into development all around the world as, because the next fight isn't just going to be can we take Taiwan, but can we legitimately establish a unified Chinese hegemonic dynasty in the south, in the, in the Pacific region?

Laura Krebs [00:28:51]:
Yeah.

Ken Miller [00:28:52]:
And so much so that everything that the US or other countries want to do economically or militarily or anything we have, we would have to defer to China on those decisions. Us will never be put, will never put ourselves in that position. Hopefully we don't. That would be a disaster. But that is what we're dealing with. It's, it's, it's almost a quiet imperialism because it's not going to be geographic as much as it is from just a policy focus. And we need to make sure that, we need to make sure that we understand that, you know, there are, when the fighting starts over Taiwan, it's going to affect freedom of navigation, it's going to affect supply chains, it's going to affect everything in South China Sea trade routes. It's going to, there's going to be proxy wars around the country, there's going to be trouble, you know, growing unrest in South America and Russia's going to jump in and take advantage of any sort of capacity or capability issues that arise from it, from NATO and it's, and, and the US they're going to jump in on it.

Ken Miller [00:30:05]:
Iran's going to jump in on it, Middle east is going to erupt. So it's, we have to understand it's not just two simultaneous or two wars on simultaneous fronts. It is global conflict. And we have to be able to be everywhere quickly to ensure our own global security and defense is assured.

Laura Krebs [00:30:31]:
What are the biggest misconceptions about how EMS dominance factors into a potential Taiwan conflict based on what you just said?

Ken Miller [00:30:42]:
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I think a lot of it, actually we have a lot of the capabilities already in place. I don't think it's as much of a capability matter problem as it is an organizational problem. And so I would say the biggest mistake or one of the biggest challenges we have as a community is to, you know, when you look at adjacent capabilities, things like cyber and information operations and you know, psyops, and so forth. The influence aspect is very important. But you can't do any of those things without spectrum superiority. Now, the challenge that we oftentimes fall into as a community is we want, we will put out, we'll establish reforms that address, say, cyber, our ability for cyber attack. But we're only going to look at the. But we only then look at the spectrum in terms of the frequencies necessary for cyber operations.

Ken Miller [00:31:43]:
The spectrum, while it's a finite, you know, in terms of the usual proportion of the spectrum is finite. You know, electromagnetic energy is infinite. So theEMSO is so much bigger than just cyber.EMSO is so much bigger than just IO. But we tend to strip awayEMSO to only look at it through the cyber lens or the IO lens as an enabler. And I don't think that that's the right way to look at it. So we have to have the mindset that. And it goes back to our, the mso, the, the EWO model.

Ken Miller [00:32:19]:
Sorry, the EWO motto, first in, last out. Like we have to be that. We have to haveEMSO in place day zero to establish superiority or you can't do cyber attacks, you can't do IO, you can't do lethal anything. And we just have to have that mindset that as unsexy as it is, sometimes we need to focus on the spectrum first and then everything else after that. Because if we don't, you can, you can have 300 ship Navy, but without spectrum superiority, they're just bath toys. You can have, you know, fifth, sixth generation fighters, but without spectrum superiority, they won't be able to take off, you know, and, and so we have to be honest that this is a fundamental force of the universe. There is nothing more important to winning war than, than emso, in my opinion. And until we make that orientation to our policy, I think we're going to end up lose, continuing to lose ground.

Laura Krebs [00:33:28]:
That makes sense. Well, hopefully we have some time before this conflict happens and we.

Ken Miller [00:33:38]:
Yeah, well, I mean, the, the word on the street is like, you know, the time frame that we hear is always around 2027. We've been hearing that for a couple years. I don't know if the Trump administration's victory last year kind of moved that a little bit. I will say this one thing about the Trump administration that I do appreciate is that they're very good at making adversaries reevaluate their risk equation.

Laura Krebs [00:34:06]:
Yeah.

Ken Miller [00:34:08]:
The uncertainty of what they're going to do next, while it can frustrate the average voter for sure. Taking a step back and looking at what it does to adversaries is, is quite remarkable. And he's done a number of things to kind of flip the script on supply chain. He's cut some deals with other Asian partners, the Philippines and so forth to kind of sh up some of our supply chain issues that were seriously compromised because of Chinese efforts around the world to, to control resources. And so I, I'm, I have not heard, but I'm curious if, you know, was it 10 months into his administration and some of the things that he's done in. If that has moved the needle at all in terms of delaying beyond 2027 or if that's still the, the timeframe that China is looking at, we'll have to see.

Laura Krebs [00:35:05]:
How do they, how do they determine these time frames? Like that's a dod, I'm not like up to date. Do you know how they determine these time frames?

Ken Miller [00:35:14]:
Not, not. I mean, there's a number of different factors I've heard things of. You know, like there's certain anniversary dates that they want to capitalize on. There's also just watch like every time we do an exercise or training, you know, some sort of training exercise with partners or even on our own in the region or anywhere in the world, they're looking at what we can do. When I went to, when I was in Taiwan, I visited Taiwan. When I was on the Capitol Hill, I visited Taiwan probably like 20 years ago now. And things really haven't changed since then. But one of the things that they talked about was I never heard any sort of when is the date.

Ken Miller [00:35:54]:
But it was just this notion that we were told from subject matter experts over there that China is intent really wants this reunification to be bloodless and quick, almost celebratory in its appearance, similar to Hong Kong when, when it was unified as a, as a kind of, you know, history finally achieving itself, so to speak.

Laura Krebs [00:36:25]:
Yeah.

Ken Miller [00:36:27]:
In order for that to happen, you can't get into any sort of obviously protracted fight, which means can you accomplish that reunification in a short time period before any adversaries can mount a defense of Taiwan? Yeah, I heard back then that was about a, they needed a two week window. And once they could operate with a two week window without us mounting a defense, that's when they would move forward. I don't know if that's still the mindset right now, but I think it's a good marker to understand that this is not just about anniversary dates or anything, but it's also about what, how ready are we to mount an immediate defense of Taiwan? And can we get the right assets and the right quantity and the right capability in theater fast enough to mount that defense within a short time window? Maybe it's 14 days, maybe it's 21 or less. I don't, I don't know. But the idea is you have to be there immediately.

Laura Krebs [00:37:31]:
Yeah.

Ken Miller [00:37:32]:
And so I think that that also plays into the, the timeline is looking at our training exercises, looking at our force structure, looking at a lot of different, you know, a lot of different factors like the war, the Russian war in Ukraine, the things that could be pulling our resources in different directions when that. I'm sure they have an algorithm out there that says, yeah, this is a good time to do it. Yeah. And so I think that that's where there's a lot of uncertainty.

Laura Krebs [00:38:01]:
Okay, well, thanks for explaining that. That was interesting. Like, I've always kind of wondered when they make predictions, they have to base their predictions off of something.

Ken Miller [00:38:10]:
So I, I just think we probably ought to get Poly Market involved in, in this discussion because honestly, like, I was talking to somebody, it was about a defense matter as well. It's about the government shutdown.

Laura Krebs [00:38:22]:
Yeah.

Ken Miller [00:38:23]:
And they were talking about how, like, how we knew when the government shutdown was going to come to an end. And there were people saying it was going to be this week. I was like, how do you know? And they're like, because we're watching Poly Market, like the betting sites and people are actually putting money on certain dates. And when people start putting money on it, you know that they're invested in the solution coming at that time.

Laura Krebs [00:38:47]:
It's like, what do they know that?

Ken Miller [00:38:49]:
And I was like, that's brilliant. I don't gamble at all. Like, I'm too risk averse for that. So. But I'm like sitting there, I'm like, holy crap. Wait, we have, we have people betting on congressional activity.

Laura Krebs [00:39:00]:
Like, Ken, if there's money to be made, people will bet.

Ken Miller [00:39:03]:
Yeah. It's just I, it's not the way my brain works. And so I just never really put that together. So my whole thing is like, maybe we ought to look at the markets to, you know, to see like who's, who's putting money on, on, on timelines.

Laura Krebs [00:39:18]:
Wait, can you bet on this stuff in Vegas? I wonder.

Ken Miller [00:39:21]:
I know, that's what I'm saying. I didn't even know you could bet on the shutdown. I mean, so I, I would. Like you said, if there's a way to make money, I don't see why Not. I mean, I know that there was like, this is totally off topic.

Laura Krebs [00:39:33]:
But they were totally off topic.

Ken Miller [00:39:34]:
But there, there was betting sites for the selection of the new Pope.

Laura Krebs [00:39:39]:
Oh yeah, I know.

Ken Miller [00:39:40]:
That's how I first heard about the Pope.

Laura Krebs [00:39:41]:
Who, who.

Ken Miller [00:39:42]:
He was like, I had no idea. I, I saw his name listed as, as someone who is kind of getting hot on the bets and so on. So I was like, what the heck? I'm like, I don't even understand all this and I don't know get the over under thing at all. Don't ever pay attention to me for betting advice. But, but it's, it's very interesting that you could understand where things are moving.

Laura Krebs [00:40:06]:
Yeah.

Ken Miller [00:40:06]:
By looking at that.

Laura Krebs [00:40:08]:
So anyways, okay, well, maybe you can.

Ken Miller [00:40:10]:
Delete this segment or not. It's just I will kind of start.

Laura Krebs [00:40:14]:
I will start paying attention to that for world affairs and then yes, I will know what's coming.

Ken Miller [00:40:19]:
But just to make be clear this I as, as, as an AOC representative, I am not endorsing gambling or betting. Okay. Please, like, I don't want to have to start to do PSAs to like contact a 800 number if you have a problem. I'm just saying it's a very interesting dynamic that I've never really gave thought of until like last week.

Laura Krebs [00:40:38]:
It is very interesting. Let's move to innovation because obviously the only way we're going to be able to like rival China is with innovation and industry. So hegseth.

Ken Miller [00:40:51]:
Yep.

Laura Krebs [00:40:52]:
Announced a new acquisition reform proposal which I have not heard of. So this must have been recent, I'm assuming.

Ken Miller [00:41:00]:
Yes, this week.

Laura Krebs [00:41:01]:
Okay.

Ken Miller [00:41:02]:
This week.

Laura Krebs [00:41:03]:
So we've seen this before and often these proposals don't usually amount to much. What are your thoughts on the proposal and its impact on mso?

Ken Miller [00:41:11]:
So yeah, so this week Secretary of War Hagseth gave a presentation to a number of def Defense industry executives to to unveil a really as it's being hailed as a very bold acquisition reform strategy that is meant to basically put the war fighter first in terms of the acquisition process and the time it takes for to between development of a system and fielding and so there's a number of different provisions as part of this plan. The and so far I've been hearing very positive responses from industry that this is a not only is it bold, but it's actually doable. And I know that even just from an article that came out today in Bloomberg Government, they were talking about how some of these provisions are even are already being worked into the FY26 National Defense Authorization Act. So whether or not it will be fully implemented or there'll be just bits and pieces implemented this year, I'm not sure. But there is a lot of emphasis on refocusing the defense industrial base into a mu become much more agile and quick to, to get systems to the field. But also I've been hearing a lot of positive comments coming out of industry that this is kind of the. This. It's a, it's a very bold plan, but one that industry is ready to embrace.

Ken Miller [00:43:01]:
And you know, if, if you followed acquisition reform efforts over the years, you'll know that a lot of times it's not uncommon to come up with a really bold plan and then by the time that plan is implemented, it's more or less just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Nothing really major changes. It's just. It just maybe looks a little bit different, but the, the main hall of the ship is the same. This proposal could potentially have a little bit more teeth in part because it is the acquisition reform plan that's being introduced in this first year. We still have three more years of the Trump administration to really push some of these provisions into, into action. Too often we get these, these acquisition reform plans toward the end of an administration and so then they're tabled or not fully implemented before another administration comes in and wants to undo certain things. So the fact this is happening so early in the administration I think is a good sign.

Ken Miller [00:44:01]:
I think the response from industry members is, is important. One of the things that I do like about this proposal is replacing current program executive officers with what they call PAEs portfolio acquisition executives. And the purpose is to, to these individuals will be in that position for a longer period of time than they currently are under peos where they kind of rotate out after a couple years or so. And the idea is to identify single accountable officials with more decision making power in the acquisition process. And this is one of the things that EMSO really struggles with because we do not know if you ask the Secretary of War, who do you turn to on any problem with mso? There is no one that the Secretary of War can turn to because we don't. We have not established a problem owner for EW for enso. It'd be interesting to see if the provisions in hegseth Secretary Hag says plan with the switch to portfolio acquisition executives and other changes to deliver realistic cost estimates and move things faster and get things into the field with iterative upgrades and things of that nature that are just move Faster. It'll be interesting to see if that problem owner forEMSO problem is solved once and for all.

Ken Miller [00:45:35]:
And so that's what we'll be watching because I think all of the provisions of this acquisition plan I think could be good for mso. The challenge is, can we get the buy in not just from industry, but also from DOD or, sorry, the Department of War and the military services, they all have to buy in the same way. That's usually where things start to break down, but at least on the forefront, I don't see anything in this plan that says, oh, wait, we're going to be taking a back seat here. These are all relevant policy changes that could be good for emso. So I'm looking forward to seeing if we can get specific, specific provisions in this year's National Defense Authorization act and how and, and how Congress addresses other provisions in future years.

Laura Krebs [00:46:25]:
Okay, so what barriers still exist between commercial innovation and military adoption?

Ken Miller [00:46:33]:
Barriers? I don't know. There's probably plenty of barriers. I think the one that I think about the most is the capacity or obstacle in that, or I should say capacity. It's more of a scaling obstacle. You know, m. So electromagnetic energy, the spectrum touches every single one of us daily, minute by minute. And so when you're putting out a commercial technology, telecommunications, your new iPhone, a new computer program, a new game, a new, a new gaming effort, like all these things can be mass produced and sold to millions, if not even billions of people around the world. You, you can produce things at such a scale that it begins to lower the cost and makes production a lot quicker.

Ken Miller [00:47:34]:
Scaling for defense has always been a problem because we, where commercial technology is going is where defense technology needs to go. Decades ago, it was the, it was the reverse. DOD was the driver of innovation, and commercial grew from that. Today it's the opposite. But once you start to talk about specific technologies or capabilities, then you have a scaling issue because you're, you don't need to buy millions. You can't buy millions. You have to buy hundreds or maybe thousands. And so to scale, to have such a small scale for advanced technology will naturally increase the price.

Ken Miller [00:48:17]:
And once you increase the price, you start to slow things down and then things start to Christmas tree a little bit and new things are added and the, and the program is delayed. So I think one of the obstacles is just the scaling thing. How do you, how do you keep the cost down when you're only producing a relative handful of a particular type of technology that is very prevalent in commercial sector, but can Just be produced so cheaply because it's used by everybody.

Laura Krebs [00:48:45]:
I mean, that makes sense. It's a good question.

Ken Miller [00:48:51]:
So, yeah, so I think that that's, I mean, I think that's a pretty good, I mean, overall, like the, the, I think the questions that are coming in from our audience are just, they're, they're all kind of touching on the same theme. Like, we're, they are very close, but we're just missing a few key muscle movements, so to speak, to get to the, that final place that we need to be. You know, I was, I was this. I, I don't know if there's a question on this. I, but, you know, last week I was on Capitol Hill.

Laura Krebs [00:49:22]:
Yep.

Ken Miller [00:49:22]:
Talking to, to members of Congress. I was with my committee chairman, Scott Oliver, who is formerly with theEMSO Cross Functional Team, and was, you know, obviously was under his watch that we created that we have the 2020 electromagnetic spectrum superiority strategy. So we were just giving an update, kind of a state ofEMSO on the Hill. And, and we walked away with, we were really pleased with the level of knowledge that staff had and the level of interest that members of Congress had. But it also kind of, we, we reached a ceiling really quickly in terms of they get it, but they don't know what they need to do next. And I think that I listen to some of these questions. I kind of feel like that's a general sense that, like, we have a pretty good idea, but we're having trouble looking around the corner a little bit.

Laura Krebs [00:50:12]:
It makes sense. It's like we grasp it, but we don't grasp it enough to know where to go.

Ken Miller [00:50:18]:
Exactly.

Laura Krebs [00:50:20]:
Yeah. So where would you say we should go next, since you grasp it, if.

Ken Miller [00:50:26]:
I, if I were, if you were in charge. King. King for the day? No, no. I, I, I do think that we need to look seriously at force structure and, or force restructuring. I'm not going to say, say that we need to have anEMSO force per se.

Laura Krebs [00:50:46]:
Okay.

Ken Miller [00:50:49]:
I don't know enough about how the services are organized and, and, and the difficulty of establishing a separate force for mso. And I do think that the opposition's perspective has some credibility in that if you have a service, anEMSO force, anEMSO service, the other services aren't going to, aren't going to do it. And so you need to make sure all the services are on the same page. However, we need some dedicated force, however you, however you define it, that we can deploy immediately to conflict zones around the world and really begin to Train and prepare our forces for theEMSO fight because that is, like I said, that's going to dictate the outcome. So we, we do need something that allows us that, that provides our warfighters, the, the combatant commanders, a force that they can put in the field of trained, qualified, just really smart war fighters who understandEMSO and can look at the problems, say, okay, here's what we need to do differently or better to be effective against certain threats, and we are not there yet. And anything short of some dedicated force that has both the authority and the resources to hold the services and, and the Department of War accountable, unless we have that, I think we're going to continue to have these gaps persist really quickly.

Laura Krebs [00:52:38]:
For some of your listeners or that are not military, how does it work right now? Does each branch have deployed their own kind of mso?

Ken Miller [00:52:50]:
Yeah.

Laura Krebs [00:52:51]:
Is that how it works?

Ken Miller [00:52:53]:
So the combatant commanders are the one. The combatant commands are the ones that fight the war.

Laura Krebs [00:52:57]:
Yes.

Ken Miller [00:52:58]:
And so it's the services role. The services don't actually fight the war. They pro. They man train and equip the combatant commanders, combat commands for the fight. So all the services have the same responsibilities on emo.

Laura Krebs [00:53:18]:
Okay.

Ken Miller [00:53:19]:
Problem is, or the challenge is, you know, obviously each of the services look at it the problem differently because, okay, you know, you have electromagnetic energy and signals look different in the environment than they do terrestrially on the ground, than they do in space when you're outside the atmosphere. So all of those, all the services have to look at the problem a little differently. That's why you need a problem owner in the Department of War to be able to point out, okay, we have all this. We have the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps. They're looking at these, these, this problem set. And here are the solutions they're bringing together and making sure that those solutions align with each other. And it's exactly what the combatant commanders need to win. We don't.

Ken Miller [00:54:06]:
We are missing that piece, I think. And so combatant commanders have a requirement. They say we need X, Y and Z. The services give them what they can and what they have. But it's not always exactly up to the level of training and readiness we need or, or both technology technologically and, and, and, and warfighter training. It's not quite up to the level we need it to be. So getting that problem owner in the Department of War is, I think, the missing piece.

Laura Krebs [00:54:36]:
Why do you think it hasn't happened yet?

Ken Miller [00:54:40]:
Because you're going to have it. It's Going to be that that person needs to have authority and resources. It comes down to those two things. If you're gonna. And if you're going to endow someone with authority and resources, you're taking authority and resources from someone else.

Laura Krebs [00:55:00]:
Yeah, yeah.

Ken Miller [00:55:01]:
And that's where I think a lot of problems rest.

Laura Krebs [00:55:04]:
Makes sense. Okay, that makes sense. Well, it will be interesting to see what comes. What would you call it? If you could call it. Would you call it theEMSO Force or would you call it something else?

Ken Miller [00:55:18]:
Ooh, good question. I don't know. It has to be something with a crow.

Laura Krebs [00:55:22]:
It has to be something with a crow.

Ken Miller [00:55:24]:
Come on.

Laura Krebs [00:55:25]:
The crow.

Ken Miller [00:55:26]:
By the way, I have to say, like, I'm really excited about some of our upcoming programming.

Laura Krebs [00:55:30]:
Why? I think you should tell the audience what's coming up.

Ken Miller [00:55:33]:
Yeah, so. So we have. We're. We're already working into January, I think, for, for the episodes. But, you know, obviously coming up for the convention, we're going to be there at the convention. We have a lot of podcasts scheduled, going to be sitting down with a lot of the. The keynote speakers for each day, going to be talking to a lot of attendees, a lot of exhibitors, and you can watch all of my interviews on social media, on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. And so that, that.

Ken Miller [00:56:03]:
Looking forward to that. That show coming next month, but before then. And I'm not sure if we're going to do one episode or a series yet, but I am working on an episode where we are going to understand what it means to be a crow. And the way that we're tackling this problem is I am going to have. I am looking for. Next week I'm going to be interviewing an ornithologist, an expert in crow behavior and contributions of crows to culture, society and everything and what we as humans have learned from crows. And then I'm going to interview a war fighter to take a look at all that was talked about with the ornithologist and relate it to being a crow in the field. Because I think if you look at the behavior of crows, their problem solving, their intelligence, their.

Ken Miller [00:56:54]:
The, the, the, the language that they use, how they come together, how they work with one another, the teamwork, all that stuff, all those attributes are reside in everyEMSO specialist in the military. And we have the best. I'm going to say we have the best community, military community out there. If there's a problem, our community can fix it. And so I think it's going to be a really interesting look into why we are called crows and why it's such a fitting call sign or label to give to our community because of what crows mean to the world and human development as well. It's just a fascinating intersection. So we're going to take a look at it from that perspective. I'm really, I'm reading some books and even one of the books I read in talking about the cultural impact of crows, they actually mentioned the AOC in the book about that.

Ken Miller [00:57:55]:
We have an association that, that, you know, focuses on. They call themselves the crows and that's what actually started this whole endeavor. So looking forward to that as well. And then we also have some episodes on disruptive EW machines. We have one on the fourth Intelligence Revolution with Anthony Vincy. I'm also looking to do directed energy, State of directed energy. We're also going to be doing a deep dive from an industry perspective on the acquisition reform package put out by Secretary Hegseth. So a lot of good episodes coming up and looking forward to getting those out to the listeners.

Laura Krebs [00:58:41]:
Okay, I have one last question for you and then I'll let you go. What is the perfect Thanksgiving dinner for an old crow like yourself?

Ken Miller [00:58:52]:
Sorry, what was that?

Laura Krebs [00:58:54]:
What is the perfect Thanksgiving dinner for an old crow like yourself? Since Thanksgiving's coming up, it can't be as.

Ken Miller [00:59:02]:
As counter as this sounds. It can't be turkey because turkey just makes you really tired and.

Laura Krebs [00:59:08]:
Fair enough.

Ken Miller [00:59:09]:
And emso. The Emsogo warfighter is not a tired person. So I would say it has to be something that gives you energy and, and no pun intended and kind of makes you a little bit sharper. So I'm going to kind of go in the direction of something like ham because for, for. For a Thanksgiving dinner and.

Laura Krebs [00:59:32]:
Okay.

Ken Miller [00:59:33]:
You know, and then of course, I'm just all about nutrient rich health food. So I don't get too much into a lot of the. As long as there's just plenty of. Of I love. Like give me sauteed or oven roasted Brussels sprouts any day of the week. I actually make a really good recipe on that, so probably you should give it to me. What?

Laura Krebs [00:59:56]:
You should give me your Brussels sprout recipe.

Ken Miller [00:59:58]:
I don't even have. I don't have it written down. I just, I just cheese Ken. I just kind of do it and. Okay, just pour stuff together and honey and, and spices and everything and, and pomegranate and cranberries and things of that nature. So it's really good. So I would, I would kind of go that route and then of course, you know, you have to have, you have to have dessert. But, and my, my dessert of choice is always going to be something apple related.

Ken Miller [01:00:25]:
Apple, crisp apple.

Laura Krebs [01:00:26]:
You don't like pumpkin pie?

Ken Miller [01:00:27]:
I, you know, I do, I do, but there's just something about apple pie in the fall. Like, it's just, I don't know when, when I can eat pumpkin pie. If it's the only option. There's another option there. Like, I'll probably, like, I gotta go that route.

Laura Krebs [01:00:43]:
Fair enough.

Ken Miller [01:00:44]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I, I wonder what a crow. I'm trying to think what, like what crows will eat just about anything. Well, ravens are the, are the meat eating type. So I don't know. I mean, you can, I wonder what a, a crow, a true crow related dinner might be. But I'm sure that they would eat anything.

Laura Krebs [01:01:05]:
You could put some stuff out on your porch. I'm sure we'll have leftovers. Put some out on your porch and see what the crows.

Ken Miller [01:01:11]:
See what happens.

Laura Krebs [01:01:12]:
Yeah.

Ken Miller [01:01:14]:
And then record it and put it up on Instagram.

Laura Krebs [01:01:16]:
There you go, There you go. There you go. There's your Instagram post for Thanksgiving.

Ken Miller [01:01:21]:
It's awesome. All right, well, I think that that'll do it for now. I greatly appreciate, Laura, your help with the questions and gathering them up. I know it litters your, your inbox, but we really appreciate it. So if you're, if you're listening, just anytime you have a question, regardless of whether it's on an episode, a policy development just, or you're new to the field and you just kind of have basic questions about whatEMSO means, please connect with us through social media, email, what have you send in your question. We'll. We occasionally do this every quarter or so, but I can also answer these questions as they come in directly to you. So I really do appreciate the listener questions.

Ken Miller [01:02:05]:
And that's all we have for today. That will conclude this episode of From the Crows' Nest. I'd like to thank my producer Laura Krebs for joining me to help with the questions. As always, please take a moment to review, share and subscribe to the podcast. It's always good to hear from our listeners and so please take a moment to let us know how we're doing. That's it for today. Thanks for listening.