- Hey it me, Destin. This is hard to explain. So lemme just start here. Everyone has a unique world view, and that world view is shaped
by different perspectives. Perspectives are shaped by how you choose to spend your time. For the past 15 years, I
have been a federal employee, specifically something called a Department of Defense civil servant and as part of that, I took an oath to defend the Constitution against all threats foreign and domestic and I've been using math
and science to do just that. I've been doing that in the role of something called a Missile
Flight Test Engineer for the Army Test Evaluation Command. We, the men and women of the
Army Test Evaluation Command have been tasked with a
job of protecting soldiers by testing their equipment
to make sure that if someone's gonna use an
offensive system against them, they can defend themselves and in order to do that, you
must first become an expert on the offensive systems. Does that make sense? This is the part that's
hard to explain but, for the last however long, I've been learning how
to use these systems. For example, this is me,
operating a mortar and I have to learn everything
about this thing. This is me operating a mini gun. Now, it looks like
you're just shooting but that's not what's happening here. This is me learning failure modes, how to operate it, the capabilities and
limitations of the system. This is me learning
common jams that happen, how to clear those jams. There's a lot of stuff going on here. It's not just shooting
out of a helicopter. (machine gun firing) This is me in a Bradley
infantry Fighting Vehicle, firing the M242 25 millimeter cannon. That's something I spent
a lot of time doing. The thing that I spent
the most time on was missles and rockets. This is me participating in a test of a javelin missile system. - [Soldier] Windows open. 3-2-1 FIRE! (missile hissing) (missile exploding) (missile exploding) - Footage like this goes on forever and it's hard to believe that I was blessed enough to do this job. I took it very seriously and my teammates who are still doing it are some of the most amazing
people I've ever worked with. The men and women there are brilliant. Now you know me. The world is interesting and amazing and one of my favorite things to do is to be handed a complex question and work with a team of
competent individuals to arrive at a solution to that and then afterwards, I love sharing that path of discovery with others. I was talking about perspective
earlier and this is why. Over 15 years you can kind of understand major trends and shifts
that are happening. For example, in 2003 the main
issues were terrorism, okay? Slowly, that started to shift and I noticed that over time, here in the last couple years especially, the US is mostly concerned
about major state actors. You can imagine how difficult it's been, going into work everyday, working on huge problems that matter and that have huge implications and then not being able to
talk about it with anyone. Well, this video changes that. I'm going back to school, right? On my way out the door, I get this call from a
four-star general and he said, Destin, would you like to
film your last mission and after your mission come to
my office and interview me, a four-star general, and
we'll just talk about what you've been doing all this time and how your little piece of the puzzle fits into the overall bigger picture? And then he told me that we can make that a publicly releasable video. So yes, I'm excited about this. Let's go to Hawaii and
let me share with you my last mission. For my last mission, I was told I'd be filming
a mission in the Pacific, off the coast of Kauai
as a part of RIMPAC. RIMPAC is the Rim of the Pacific exercise. It is the largest naval
exercise in the world and it happens every two years in Hawaii and involves countries
from all over the world. Often with RIMPAC, they'll
do what they call a sink ex. It's an exercise which involves
actually sinking a ship. In this case, the USS Racine. My job was to fly out in a helicopter, over the Pacific, dozens
of miles away from shore, as they're hitting this thing
with missles and rockets and bombs and torpedoes
and all that stuff. I'm gonna be in the helicopter up top and my job is to get footage of impact. So, that's why I had to
go through dunker training with the Marines because that helicopter, if it goes down in the ocean,
there's nowhere to land, so you have to be able to figure out how to get out and survive. It took us about an hour
to get out to the ship. We flew out over the water,
which felt like forever and we finally got there and we realized that we have some challenges. Number one, we had to
loiter at 10,000 feet, which meant we were like
looking through a soda straw 'cause we had our lenses zoomed all the in and with the rocking of the helicopter, that made it really hard
to focus on the ship. So I was really concerned that my shot would be out of focus. Another issue is we didn't know exactly when the impact was going to take place. We knew that there was
this window of time, which meant that me, on
the high speed camera, and the Barking Sands
Missile Range guy to my left, who was operating a stabilized camera, we had to just focus on
the ship the entire time, but we couldn't look at
it with our naked eyes. So we didn't know when
impact was gonna happen. We had to rely on the pilot to cry out, impact, impact, impact,
whenever he saw smoke. So thankfully, he was very attentive, he did his job well, we did our job well and we were able to capture the images and get the engineers
data that they needed. They wanted to know what
the warhead effects were, they were trying to do a specific thing with this specific
Norwegian strike missile. It's a Norwegian missile that
was operated by the US Army, which in itself, is a fascinating thing, using targeting data from other systems. So this is really a big
interoperability test. It was fascinating. That was the first thing that happened and then over the course of the day, the Racine just got walloped. It was monitored by a US Army Gray Eagle. The Australians hit it with a Harpoon. The USS Olympia, a submarine,
they hit it with a Harpoon and then the Japanese Defense Forces, they hit it with a
surface to ship missile, so I had another opportunity to film that in slow motion as well and that was hard because again, we had the same problems. We didn't know exactly
when it was gonna hit because it was so far from shore. I almost missed it. We got it right as it
approached the ship but I was very thankful we got
the data that we needed. I wish I had triggered it just not even a hundred milliseconds earlier, but thankfully, we did get the bare-bones data requirement that we needed. The USS Racine had a really bad day. After we hit it with all
these missiles and stuff, some Apaches came all
the way out from shore and they did some work
on the deck with rockets and 30 mike-mike and then
after that the grand finale, a Mark 48 torpedo fired from a US sub and this is something I will never forget. In a helicopter, over the USS Racine, was can get down closer
because there's not a huge safety fan issue like there was with missiles flying at you. You can be right there on it. I chose to get the 4k camera
and just get right on that ship and just hold it as best I could and boom. You can see it happen. The cool thing to me is you can see that big air bubble form under the ship and then it just breaks the keel. It's like breaking the spine of the ship and that thing is done. Later it was finished off
buy some aerial stuff, but the USS Racine is no more. I'm gonna level with you here. I speak rocket, I speak missile, and I'm not intimidated by those things. This was an intimidating
exercise for me personally, because I don't understand how to coordinate battlefield maneuvers. Now I understand that
people in the military do know these things. I don't. I asked my friend Captain Mackenzie Harp to help me get smarter on the topic. So she took me to speak with someone from the Asymmetric Warfare Group, which is a part of TRADOC. Alright this is Lieutenant
Colonel Davis with TRADOC, Training and Doctrine Command, right? - That's correct. - How does the battlefield
work these days? - So right now, when you think
about the modern battlefield, what you're thinking about is your thinking about chess
pieces moving on a map. Could we create new version of that, that is three dimensional? Some of us grew up on Star Wars, even my kids grew up on Star Wars. There's a famous scene
that keeps getting repeated where they are playing chess with these little creatures on a map and they're in three dimensions and they're playing this
three dimensional chess. Well when I was a kid,
I always wanted to play three dimensional chess. That's what we're trying to
do now with this battle space. So there are five
acknowledged domains right now and arguably there's sixth but the five domains and just go from lowest to highest 'cause it's typically easiest that way. There's sea, there's the land, there's the air, which are
our traditional domains which is why we have
Navy for the sea domain, the Army for the land domain and then the Air Force for the air domain. And what we've realized in
the last couple of years is that there's also the space domain and then we also have the cyber domain. Because as we all know, the internet has changed the
connectivity of our planet and it's also changed not only the way we exchange information, but the way that we are going to interact with our environment. - [Destin] So you're saying
the battlefield is not land, with Abrams tanks or sea with a ship or something like that or an airplane flying overhead. You're saying it's more than than now. - Yes. - [Destin] The battlefield is different? - The operational space has changed, just like the world has changed. - Like a futuristic commander, he could be fighting a cyber
war or cyber battle to his left and he can have a naval
battle to his right and he's also thinking
about the air battle. So he could be fighting multiple battles at once in the same conflict. - Absolutely. - [Destin] And that's called what? - Multi-domain operations and then you would be doing cross-domain maneuver, within that multi-domain operation. - [Destin] Explain a
cross-domain maneuver. - We in the military
would define a maneuver as the ability to shoot and move, and often we add communicate to that because you can't do
one without the other. The ability to shoot, move and communicate within multiple domains. Air, land, sea battles,
our traditional way of thinking of warfare, is a cross-domain maneuver when we are shooting from the sea
through the air to the land. That is a cross-domain maneuver. Now we have soldiers
who have the ability to see through the cyber domain, by using the space
domain, i.e. a satellite, in order to conduct a ground movement inside of a city. - You are working with how people interact with each of these domains. I need to find the person who is basically playing the chess game. And who would that be? - So, this is Four Star
General Robert Brown, which is a really big deal, Sir, thank you. - Well I don't know about that but, yeah. - For even considering talking to me. What I've noticed, when
I started 15 years ago, we were fighting insurgencies, - Right. - Terrorism, things like that. - Right. - It's changing. - Yeah, sure. - [Destin] So from your perspective, what I've learned about
talking to all these other folks that work for you is something called multi-domain - Operations. - [Destin] Operations. - Yeah. - [Destin] And can you explain that to me? - So multi-domain operations,
I will tell you it's a, I am positive, one thing I am positive, it's the way of the future and in warfare and we're either going
to do like we are now, innovate and move towards
multi-domain operations, to either win a conflict
in the future or prevent it because nobody'd be stupid
enough to fight against us, or we're gonna be forced to do it because we lose someday pretty badly and we're going to have to do it and I hope that's not the case. - [Destin] You're trying
to get ahead of the curve. - Get ahead of the curve,
not fight last fight but fight the future fight and in fact, maybe not have to fight because we're so darn
good nobody can match us. So this is an evolutionary thing. You go back to the Civil
War, the Battle of Vicksburg, the Army had to work with the
Navy in a river in that case, to win at Vicksburg. - [Destin] Grant actually
diverted the river. - There you go. Exactly. - [Destin] Grant's Canal. - And so you got domains in play there, a little bit of maritime and land. However, things have changed
as you know as well as anybody. The world's gotten so complex and now there're these other domain out there. Cyber, space, I would also
count the human domain as well, I think is the most important. - [Destin] What do you mean by that? - What I mean by the human domain is that when you look at conflict, it's a contest of wills
and people are involved. It's about people. I mean, there maybe machines
going against each other some people say, oh it'll
all be autonomous, AI and all machines in the future. I certainly don't believe that. There'll be autonomous
vehicles, there'll be a lot that's done but people are
always gonna have to be involved, that's the nature of conflict and so it's influence over those people. What we're seeing today is, you can influence someone before you're even at conflict with them and you can influence them in the cyber domain and you can influence
them in the space domain and you can influence and
there are no boundaries in these domains. - Forgive me Sir. You're four-star General, - Yeah. - You're a very important individual (General laughing) but I'm a simple man and so
I need it broken down for me. - Okay. - For example, I've been
keeping up with the news and I know that there's
huge social media campaigns that occur before an actual
battle ever occurs now. - Right. - Is that true? - Well they call it the gray zone effect. You look at what some nations are doing. Russia's pretty darn good at it. China as well where, in what we used to call
Phase Zero, pre-conflict. I don't like that term at all. There's always gonna be competition and we're in a
hyper-competition now, always. You're exactly right. They will be working
to shape and influence people's perceptions before
a conflict even occurs. What happens is, it's a fait accompli, that before we even fire a
bullet they've already won. If you look at Russia and Ukraine. Little bit of that. We call them little green men. They took off their patches, claimed they weren't Russians, just to put just enough
doubt, cyber stuff happening, events happening and it wasn't quite, just staying right below the
threshold of conflict but yet - [Destin] And then as soon as
it was time to turn conflict, it was already over. - Already over. They already had the territory, they already had what they wanted, now they hold onto it. So this is new. There are other aspects that are new. I would tell you that the the speed of human velocity,
of human interaction, is that a rate never before seen. You can put out a video
and millions look at it. When I was your age, there was no way I could get millions of
people look at anything. I have a private that does something in, I have 106,000 people in
the US Army in the Pacific. I have a private that does
something that's on CNN tonight, worldwide impact, influence. Good or bad. That's changed. The speed of perception. I was talking this one time
and someone confronted me and said, well things moved
fast in the Civil War, by telegraph, things moved fast. They might have moved fast, they didn't diffuse rapidly. Now you can diffuse. Send a tweet and halfway around the world, billions of people are paying
attention to it, right? So this has an impact in conflict, it has an impact in
everything in our society. Business, sports, military conflict, it's a huge impact. So you've got all the domains,
air, land, sea, space, and I think around the all of them is this human domain,
that is the most complex, the most important. Let's get back to multi-domain operations, we're going all over the place. I wanna try and simplify
it best I can for you. It's an evolutionary process. Over time we've had
air land, air land sea. We're evolving but it's
a revolutionary impact, where you're maneuvering in all domains to a position of relative advantage. So what we were just talking about was maneuvering in cyber to a position of relative advantage pre-conflict, maneuvering in space to a
position of relative advantage and to take advantage of
multi-domain operations, if you truly work together,
one of our strengths, we're more joint than
any force in the world, the US Military. We're still not joint enpugh. We've got to work where
it's not the exception where we're working really well together, not a joint integration, I'm sorry joint interdependence, but joint integration. - Lemme ask you this. So yesterday I was over the water, watching an engagement
by a foreign nation, engaging a target with information from US satellites provided on a different type of communication network. I just see the engagement. I'm a missile tester. I test the missile but I don't get to see the chess games. I'm a little too close to the board, I'm the pawn. - So think about in the past if the services are in stove pipes and you can do things in
your service pretty well but if you have a menu of options of all the service capabilities, like you saw yesterday. There was a missile that
launched from the land, can destroy a ship at sea and it was controlled by an Army element, but using Navy, Air Force,
Marine and as you mentioned, some national satellite means things never before
used to pull it together and enable it to talk and work together, that gives you more options
against an adversary. Anybody would want more options. It allows you to present multiple dilemmas to an adversary instead of a linear, here comes the land force, here's the maritime forces, here's the air, we're working together, it's very linear and predictable, It's very unpredictable,
multi-domain operations. - [Destin] So that's the
goal, is to be unpredictable. - Unpredictable, present multiple dilemmas to you adversary that
they have to deal with and then multiple options
to your leadership and that's what you saw a
little taste of yesterday, now picture if that ship is trying to skirt into
the littorals to avoid our strength at sea that our Navy, the best in the world has, so they're trying to skirt around it. Well the Army can engage
that ship now and destroy it so now it has to go back out
to sea and be right in our engagement area, where
we're going to destroy them. So you're your pairing
up together, all domains, maneuvering to a position
of relative advantage and each domain working together to create those windows of opportunity where you can dominate your adversary. The other good thing is, and the reason I talk
about the human dimension, the human domain in all this, you can't do this if you
can't empower people. - [Destin] What do you mean? - If you've got someone
that you tell them a task and that's all they can
do, this would never work. You have to have the ability to empower, what we call in the Army mission command, but the other services
have similar versions, where I can give someone
an outcome I want. They figure out how to get there, they'll amaze you with what they do. Talented young leaders, our
people, are our advantage. The best non-commissioned
officers in the world. The best leaders that are taught to thrive in ambiguity and chaos. - Multi-domain battle,
we have multiple layers are playing 4-D chess, but you're saying it's like the chess pieces are alive themselves. - Yeah. - and they can think on their own. - Good analogy. - [Destin] What move is best. - Yeah it's not you. There's no longer the central
figure moving that piece, it moves too rapidly. Those pieces are empowered
and can move themselves but work together and know how to work so they're integrated because they practice
together all the time, just like we were doing yesterday and just like you saw,
historically for the first time, doing that on a regular basis. You really develop a web of options that you can use to keep an adversary completely off guard and you're completely unpredictable on that. So you're using all
domains, all angles you can, to present those multiple dilemmas and that requires incredible
joint integration. That's not natural 'cause we
all grow up in stove pipes, 37 years I've been Army,
trained in Army schools. I did joint time, I was on
the Joint Staff and stuff but I think of an Army solution first. So you gotta get out of those stove pipes. Maybe there's a better air solution. Maybe a better cyber solution. Maybe a better maritime solution. - I think I see what's
happening right here Sir. This is US Army Pacific. - Right. - You're the guy in charge
of the 4D chess board - Yeah. Well, portions of it maybe. - Portions of it. If multi-domain operations,
we've got land, sea, space, air, cyber. Is this video a weapon? - Absolutely. - What? So I just made a weapon? - Yeah pretty much. Well, if it can help folks
understand number one, if it can deter those
that would do us harm, it's a hell of a weapon and if it can help those
who are working this understand it a little better,
support it a little better, then it's a heck of a weapon. Yeah I guess you could almost say that, that's why you're doing this. Pretty clever with these
analogies here, yeah. - I don't know what to do
with this information now. That's pretty amazing. So war is changing. - Yeah, there's no question,
we're at an inflection point and some of the things,
the reasons we go to war, maybe not changing, but
the character of war, with technology, I mean, significantly changing. - I'll be honest, when I was growing up, a soldier, the stereotype
of an American soldier, was a tough person with big
muscles that could run far and pick up big things. - Yeah. - Now it's a hyper-intelligent individual? - I wouldn't go away, physical prowess is key for a soldier, 'cause it's still tough work and I would say in all the services, being physically fit is still key. In fact, we just developed a new Army combat physical fitness
test that's excellent. It help you prepare you for
what you will face in combat. So you still have to be physically fit, you gotta be more of a holistic person, but you got to learn and I wouldn't say it's
hyper-intelligence, I'd say it's the ability
to solve a complex problem in a timely manner with
a creative solution, the ability to thrive
in ambiguity and chaos, that's not necessarily hyper-intelligence. That's the ability to
make the right decision, know when you have enough information, know when you don't
have enough information. It's common sense, it is intelligence, but it's training education
that we have to do and we're doing different
than we did in the past. We might have told somebody in the past, here's your task, here are the exact steps you need to take to accomplish it. Shouldn't do that anymore. Here's the outcome I want, you figure out how to get there. That's the difference. - War is changing. Thank you very much for your time. - [ General] Absolutely. - I feel like you're the
game master or something. - I don't know about that. - There's a huge, not a
game, war is not a game. - One thing I am positive though, is if we do this right, if we truly come together and
integrate in a joint manner, as the United States along
with our International, our allies are so key
that's why as you saw, we had a Japanese ground
self-defense force involved and our great allies around
the world are critical. We're not gonna do anything alone. But if we come together and we truly get multi-domain operations right, it'll be an absolute key
to peace and stability in the future, 'cause no
one would be foolish enough, and some of these nations
we've been talking about, many out there, they don't have the people, the ability to empower people, the way we do and it's that American Spirit, that is a huge advantage. It has been for a long time. We can't handcuff those folks. We gotta empower them and that's what multi-domain operations is all about and I sure wouldn't want to go against us when we do it right. Nobody wants to fight. The best thing would be
again, the deterrence where we never have to fight, because nobody'd be foolish
enough to go against us. So that's the best thing. I thank you for interested in this, flying around in a helicopter, above a missile being fired, several missles being fired. - [Destin] It was awesome. - Pretty gutsy and coming out and seeing
some of these things, just a small taste of it, got a lot to connect, a lot of work to do, pull all the pieces together
but if anybody can do it, the United States military can. I feel very confident and I'm
very proud United States Army leading the way with
multi-domain operations. - The General mentioned that
this video could be a weapon and I hope it is. I hope it's a countermeasure. The one thing I want you to
take away from this video is that multi-domain operations
are the future of warfare. I find it fascinating that General Brown, a four-star General, a person who wields incredible military might, is concerned about the cyber domain. You heard him say it, right? Several times. The cyber domain and the human element affected by the cyber domain. Let's think about what's
different about the cyber domain. If you roll up into a bay in a a ship and you start shooting stuff, people are gonna notice, right? But how do maneuvers take
place in the cyber domain? They're more subversive than that, right? People don't wear
uniforms on the internet. Surfninja385 is not declaring his intent to be hostile before he does something. Maneuvers and actions in the cyber domain don't make loud noises. This type of conflict
is based on deception and the most important deception is to convince you that
you're not at conflict. Heck, even a couple days ago, I was tweeting something
asking about this stuff and I was accused pretty
quickly of tinfoil hattery. I think the reason that is, is because we like to think
about this place that we gather, the internet place here, as just a fun, consequence-free place where we can like and up vote and comment and subscribe and all that kind of stuff, but come on. We can all feel it, we just
don't know how to say it. I feel this us versus them thing and I've seen really smart
friends fall into it and I'm guilty myself. Something's happening. I just had a four-star
General tell me that the cyber domain and specifically,
the human elements, us, affected within that cyber domain, is one of the five most
important components to modern warfare. There's an old saying
from when I was a kid. Knowing is half the battle
and it totally applies here. Think about it. Just knowing that the cyber
domain is a battle space and I'm in it, is huge. So what about the other
half of the battle? Straight-up. I believe the biggest threat right now is division. They're gonna find the
division within our society and they're gonna try to amplify it. I would like to submit
for your consideration, a countermeasure. A way to get through
this modern bombardment, in this new battle space that
we haven't experienced before. If they're trying to divide us, I think the way to get
around this is proactive, intentional unity. We can all do this. We all need to be more
conscious of what types of content we're consuming online. What are we liking? What are we sharing? How is that affecting our minds? Is it affecting the way we treat people, both online and offline? If we extend patience and political grace, not just to those people we like, but also to those with whom we disagree, these maneuvers in the cyber
domain meant to divide us, simply will not work. Political grace. Basically the art of disagreeing well. This is the ultimate countermeasure to this kind of attack. Thanks for watching this video.
I really enjoyed this video, I loved how they flat out admitted the intent of the video. It kinda showcased how affected I could be by videos online by doing it and being so open about it which proved their point nicely. (Plus missiles and sinking ships look awesome)
I have been watching this guys videos for a while, I had no idea that was his actual job. Is this the first time he has told youtube about it?
Hey /u/MrPennywhistle , I have been subscribed to your channel for years now. In my opinion: This is the best and most important video you've ever done. I am in the Canadian military, everything you've said about the cyber domain is 100% spot-on, it terrifies because the worst attacks are completely invisible. It's often overlooked and shrugged off as though the cyber domain merely presented innocuous threats to national security, but what it does, is influence the way a nation can think...and that is IMMENSE. Imagine if Cold War USSR had been able to instill a cyber presence in the U.S. and putting that extra layer of fear in people, while also managing to convert people to their cause to create unrest. That would have been disastrous.
It's no laughing matter, and it's only going to get worse for the next decade. Countries like China and North Korea actually have an advantage over the U.S. by having their "own internet". The people are protected as their internet is cut off from the real world, while the government has access to the "real internet" and is able to coordinate cyber attacks.
That "maneuvering into a position of relative advantage pre-conflict" bit reminded me of the Gulf War stealth fighter leaflet drops. I mean, yeah, propaganda. But I can get behind stopping battles before they begin.
Very interesting and high quality video as always, although very different and much more important I would say that most other SmarterEveryDay episodes.
It's clear that this general wasn't interested or at least, only interested in giving a cool insight on multi domain operations to the general public. He is clearly using the techniques discussed in the video, creating what is by all intents and purposes a cyberweapon. He actually admits it himself and that also probably is a well planned and important part of the video, making people or "the human element" understand the power of cyberwarfare. Maybe even act as a way to counteract enemy cyber threats by giving people a new outlook on propaganda. Interesting world we live in.
Can someone explain what the fuck happened at 1:49? That ricochet makes absolutely 0 sense.
Is DOD short of engineers lately? Seems like this is an engineer recruiting video.
Guy's a pretty good shot with that minigun.
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