This is CNA Talks, the flagship podcast of CNA, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit analysis organization. November 19th, 2023, Red Sea. Members of Yemen's Houthi movement seize the British cargo ship, the Galaxy Leader, taking 25 crew members hostage.

They claim that the ship is linked to Israel and vow to continue targeting Israel-linked vessels until the Israeli campaign in Gaza ends. These unprecedented attacks led the U.S. Navy to begin operations to ensure the freedom of navigation in the Red Sea. In this episode, we speak to two people who experienced these operations in theater. Welcome to CNA Talks. I'm John Stimson.

In the wake of the October 7 terrorist attacks against Israel and the IDF's subsequent invasion of the Gaza Strip, the Houthi movement in Yemen began seizing and launching aerial attacks against dozens of merchant and naval vessels in the Red Sea. While the Houthis originally stated they were targeting Israel-linked ships, they also indiscriminately attacked ships from many nations with no connection to Israel.

Houthis attacked more than 100 vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. To avoid these attacks, hundreds of commercial vessels rerouted to sail around South Africa, causing delays in international shipping. I'm delighted to welcome Keith Zirkle and Kevin O'Connell to the show today. Both are members of CNA's field program, which deploys analysts for two to three years to posts ranging from aircraft carrier strike groups to military commands.

Kevin and Keith were stationed in the Red and Arabian Seas and in Bahrain, respectively, during the U.S. Navy operations to protect the freedom of navigation in the region. Keith and Kevin, thank you so much for being here today. Thanks for having us on. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Really excited to get into this. It's always a treat when we get to talk to the field reps who have been out during these big operations. Just to start things off, can you tell us a bit about where you were stationed? And Keith, we'll go to you first here.

Yes, John. So I am based in Bahrain, a small island in the Persian Gulf. So Bahrain has what's called U.S. Naval Forces Central Command slash Fifth Fleet. So it oversees all the Navy ships out in the Middle East. Thanks, Keith. What about you, Kevin?

So right now I am CNA's field rep to Commander 7th Fleet. So I'm out in Japan, but over the last year, my previous station was embarked aboard USS Dwight D. Eisenhower with Carrier Strike Group 2. We operated in Fifth Fleet area of operations, so everywhere from the Arabian Gulf to the Northern Arabian Sea. But we probably spent most of our time in the Red Sea working this Houthi challenge that we have over there in the region.

Got it. And that means that you were deployed to the region during combat operations. So how did it feel to be deployed to a combat zone? What was that like?

When we got underway, we sort of knew that, you know, from Norfolk, Virginia, we knew that some things were changing. Originally, we were scheduled to get underway on the 13th or 14th of October. And when the attacks in Israel happened on October 7, we sort of beelined over to fifth fleet area of operations. And then, you know, a few months later, we really found ourselves engaged in combat operations in the Red Sea, being

on board a U.S. aircraft carrier, embarked with the strike group staff in California,

combat operations is definitely a unique experience not something that I can say that I've had anything similar to uh any other time in my life the tempo of the operations was high that meant that we were trading fire back and forth with the Houthis in terms of conducting strikes into Yemen and then also conducting a lot of a lot of defensive operations and defensive merchant vessels in the Red Sea and then also of our own ships when we were targeted so uh

On the one hand, you have your deliberate operations that you're planning on doing every day. And then on the other hand, you had some really dynamic moments when someone comes over the intercom and you launch your alert defensive counter-air fighters and here we go. And that might be at 3:00 in the morning and you're getting out of your pajamas, throwing on your work clothes, going down to the combat center and getting to work. So the schedule was a little bit crazy.

The environment was extremely professional, which is really interesting. Sort of when things get a little bit complicated and start moving quickly, the staff really buckles down and it becomes a really good tactical planning environment and then execution as well. So interesting that when the world gets complicated, the staff really finds its groove and really performs at its best.

That's really comforting to hear that that was your experience. A lot of people might think it might go the other way, where things get hard and people lose their composure and don't deliver at the same high level. So the fact that you had the opposite experience of this, that in fact, once you see these things start to happen, everyone kind of locks in. I think that that shows just like the professionalism of the U.S. military and how capable the people in it are and able to execute under these extreme conditions.

Yeah, I think that's an accurate description. I think something also is that once you're out there, I guess the day-to-day of doing exercises or presence operations or whatever, whatever it may be on your deployment, that's one challenge, but

When you're involved in combat operations at this high tempo and you're actually trading fire with an adversary rather than what maybe the U.S. Navy is more used to over the last 20 years, which is more so playing offense. I say we're playing a little bit of offense and defense out there.

The sort of mission and purpose that goes along with that is so clear that some of the challenges that you would normally have in day to day like competition operations, it's just it kind of falls away and you're like, all right, I can lock in on the mission. And I think that was really helpful for everybody out there, including myself, because every day you don't have to remind yourself like, man, why am I getting up in the morning? What am I doing today? It's just all right.

very clear what we need to do why we're here and and you know the the service we're providing so i think that was definitely a positive as well absolutely can you just tell me a little bit about the like emotional experience you had in the moments where you know maybe the first time you the the ship was threatened um like what did that feel like was it more fear was it like motivation like what how did you respond the first time you experienced that uh it's an interesting question i would say that i've

I've heard it before, but it really, you know, it's not a fear response at that point. We do exercises all the time and the exercises have, you know, a relatively high level of realism to them. And so when it came down to executing in the real world, especially on the dynamic side, so right, like when you're executing your own plan, deliberate planning, that kind of stuff, okay, you know what's going to happen next, right?

When you're on the dynamic side, you're on the receiving end, you're playing defense, as I said. Yeah, it's a little bit different. You know that there's, you know, whether it's a missile, a UAV, whatever in the air headed towards you with, you know, ill intent. I would just say that, you know, that the execution this time has to be perfect. And it never goes exactly as you planned. But with the

With the amount of training that everybody has and the ability to adapt on the fly, I think like you sort of just fall back on that. So me as you know, one of a very few number of civilians on the ship, you know, I don't have the same sort of training that that our operators do out there, but you just kind of fall into that battle rhythm, figure out where you can support most effectively and

I think that's sort of where I fell back on is, all right, like, where's my role amongst the team? How do I provide value? How do I give the commander the types of information that he needs in order to make decisions? And, you know, that's my role in this large machine. And so, yeah, rather than like focusing on the emotional side personally, I was just like, all right, I'm going to lock in on work myself and figure out where I can provide this value. And I think that's sort of what I ended up relying on.

That's really interesting to hear about that, and I appreciate you sharing that with everyone. And I did want to mention for our audience that Kevin did receive the Deployer Award for this work from the CNA Field Program, which is something that the CNA leadership gives to field reps who were put into combat zones like this. So it's a big honor, and the organization definitely acknowledged the work you put in.

But Keith, I did want to bring you in here because even though you weren't directly in a combat zone, as you mentioned, you were stationed in Bahrain. You know, I'd still be curious to hear about the emotional experience and what you experienced, like suddenly being in a situation where you were supporting operations where people were in real danger. So can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, definitely. So.

October 7th was a surprise, I think most people. And so I was actually in, on the personal front, I was in Jordan because it was Columbus Day weekend. So that was interesting to be when they're like, you need to come back to Bahrain. Because at the early days, there was a lot of concern, confusion about how the region overall would react.

And so the Houthis were not an immediate concern, I would say. But I still remember the afternoon of October 19th, which is the day USS Carney fired their first standard missiles at land attack cruise missiles and drones. But someone burst into the war room we were in and said, vampire, vampire. Now, I had been underway on a carrier strike group previously, and I'd heard that phrase in what they do called general quarters, where the ship pretends the missile's inbound. And so I had thought, wow.

why are we all sitting here and missiles coming at us? But it simply means a missile has been fired. But still, lots of initial confusion. And then also, I mean, it's quite wild. And truly in those early moments, and Kevin probably echoes this, but the first time is just, you are just observing. I think especially as a civilian, because you don't, it's not like you can do anything about it.

The word first or unprecedented is used a lot, especially after COVID, but especially what was happening in the region and in the Red Sea. It really was the first time I believe it's been in the media that we had fired standard missiles to take out both drones and to take out missiles. The US Navy has not been in such sustained combat operations. We didn't know the next event was coming until later on to the conflict when it became obvious there was a trend going on.

But yeah, so you're just a lot of confusion, a bit of anxiety because you don't know what's going to happen next. These attacks and what was going on was getting global attention. It was the delay of shipping was having impacts all over the world, affecting the entire the entire global economy. And so these operations were very, like, prominent and things that people were aware of. You know, while you were going through this, were you aware that they were getting that kind of global attention? And Kevin, we can go to you first.

Yeah, I would say, yeah, we were pretty darn aware. The interesting thing is that on Dwight D. Eisenhower, we actually had Wi-Fi. So we were pretty darn connected with the whole world. So we were able to be out on our social media or checking the news or whatever. It's funny when you start to read stories about yourself.

And so while there was that route where, you know, sort of learning what the world is thinking about and what they're thinking about you, on the other side, we also had many a time where we brought journalists on board the aircraft carrier and they did stories. They talked with commanders. I think there was a 60 Minutes episode that was running. Yeah.

So it was like very clear that this was an extremely high profile ongoing event. At the same time, it's kind of funny when you sort of log on your social media, you log on to, you know, whatever news website that you choose to use. And something happened in the previous 24 hours and it's crickets and

And you're like, huh, that's interesting. Like, we're out here in the Red Sea getting shot at. And the world just continues to spin on. So it was sort of, you know, on the one hand, very high profile. On the other hand, like, you didn't hear about certain things happening until quite a bit later. So definitely an interesting construct there.

We definitely, or I definitely knew it was in the media. I forgot that Kevin had Wi-Fi, but we followed the media environment just operationally because you need to know what's being put out there and how the Houthis would react to it. And also what the Houthis are saying in the open, what we say, open source, but in the press.

But especially when that's how I knew it was a first and unprecedented because the media releases would tell you it was the first time it had happened. I'm not a naval historian by training. So and then again, like there were the interviewers who come through both Fifth Fleet and Bahrain. They've got the ship. So you heard the coverage. But just like Kevin saying, there's certain things that would be emphasized or shared.

And then a bit of the media would go away. But the operations and the conflicts have continued. It's always weird to be working on things that your neighbors, your family is actually reading about and hearing on the news actively that evening or that morning. And one of the things I mean, I would go on leave occasionally. I would follow what was going on because I would just Google Red Sea Houthis and see what they had done in the last two or three days.

So can you give us just like a 500 foot view of the kind of work you were doing, like the specific, you know, a little bit about the specific projects you were working on. And Keith, we can go to you first on this one. Of course. So I'm a statistician by training. And at first, truly in the early days, the fog of war, as they say, it was just observing everyone with real operations happening. The war fighters are doing what they need and doing what they need to do best, what they were trained to do. But I, how,

how does one respond once missiles are being fired from both the US Navy and from an adversary at US Naval Forces and at merchant shipping? So it was a lot of just observing in the early weeks. And then eventually there's enough also going back to when it started, it seemed like a one-off episode here, another one-off episode, but soon there's trend lines. And as a statistician, it was, what are the trends? So how precise are the Houthis targeting getting? What type of ships are they going after?

What is the flow of commercial traffic through the Bab al-Mandeb, which that is the straight from the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden? What types of weapons are they sending in? So they're sending drones, different types of missiles. So

So those are the sorts of things that got to step back and also not having day-to-day operations to actively tactically support. I got to do some quick deep dives into that. And then as the US Navy started to expend missiles, it was looking at what, how many are we expending? What type are we expending? The ratios of what we say blue force weapons, so our own forces weapons against other forces and looking at those ratios and trying to project if the conflict was to continue, what it could look like, what would need to be on hand.

stuff you all know until it's actually happening. You know, Keith, this reminds me of something that I've always thought is really a cool thing about CNA and how our staff comes into this field is that most people who are analysts at CNA don't have a military background. They have more of like a mathematician or scientific background, and those skills then get up

to these real world military operations. And I think that for a lot of us, you know, in our day to day lives, when we don't specialize in these things, things like statistics seem very academic in nature, but they are very much applicable to real world situations exactly like you're describing. And so I think that that skill set that we can bring in of having these like mathematical and scientific backgrounds is,

it brings a whole new perspective to these operations. And so, you know, I think that like this is a great example of that, that you come from a mathematics background, but those mathematics have a very real world implication in this situation.

Absolutely. I would say I often get asked what I do. It's hard to say until you get there what you're going to do, especially the statistician. I'm like, show me your data and let's see what we're capable of doing. But the ideal is, of course, you collect the data knowing what you're going to do and you collect the data to that means. But in this case, again, it's happening. The data is there. But

But it's all over the place. And but there's we want to predict what will happen tomorrow. What do we need tomorrow? What does the warfighter need tomorrow for force? What we say force protection, but protecting sailors lives. And so, yeah, I don't you don't have to get to use statistics to like actively work on protecting sailors lives and merchant shippings. The lives of those mariners at sea, too. Absolutely. Kevin, what about you? Can you give us some info about what you were working on?

I worked, you know, Echelon 4 at the carrier strike group level and so I was a little bit more tactically focused on the fight than Keith was.

For me, the topics varied widely. Ultimately, my tasking came directly from Admiral McGuez, who's the strike group commander. So whatever he was interested in and needed analysis on, that's what I was going to work on. It's funny because when we got underway, I thought that was going to be one thing. But by the time the deployment ended, that meant something entirely different.

So the ability to be flexible was really important. Over in the Red Sea, when we were, you know, in the midst of the highest end of the combat operations, I say that most of my focus was on data collection. So just like he said, like, you kind of go out there and you look at what's going on and everybody's involved in the day-to-day planning cycle, the execution of operations, but

There's a little bit less focus on collecting the data of what's actually happening, looking at the trends in that data, and then

making changes to tactics, operations plans, et cetera, to account for those trend lines. So for me, I focused a lot on integrated air and missile defense, given the anti-ship ballistic missile threat, the anti-ship cruise missile threat, and especially the UAV threat in terms of numbers, there was quite a bit of that integrated air and missile defense, both working with the carrier air wing, with the

Area Missile Defense Commander aboard USS Philippine Sea, and then also with the destroyer squadron and each of the individual DDGs. So I spent a lot of time working on that. I worked on command and control a little bit and optimizing our command and control construct in order to be the most effective we could be. I worked on synchronizing kinetic and non-kinetic fires because while everybody loves to talk about missiles, there's plenty of other ways to get involved with that out there as well.

And also I worked a little bit on our side about integrating unmanned systems on the blue side, so on our own forces. Spent some time over on USS Kearney doing some integration with some unmanned systems into the carrier strike group, which was really interesting work. I really liked the opportunity to get over onto one of the DDGs as well and sort of get their perspective on the fight and hopefully integrate that back in with the strike group as well.

So yeah, tasking varied widely. And ultimately, you know, the Houthis got to vote as well. When they said, hey, your priority is going to be air and missile defense because they started shooting at us and at merchants. Well, that's what my priority became as well.

Yeah, that's really interesting. And I think like you said something right away that kind of like, again, kind of highlighted for me, like the importance of what we're doing out there. Like, you know, you said that the focus of the people in the Navy is more on like the actual operations and like it should be right like that. You know, they need to be focused on what they're on, on actually executing these operations, whether they're offensive or defensive, right?

But to be able to also, you know, take in information from those operations, organize it, figure out what can be learned from it and how, you know, how things can be done differently in the future, what worked, what didn't work. That's also very important. So it goes it just goes to show like how supplementing, you know, the people who are there doing these operations and need to be focused on executing the operations with supplementation.

scientific professionals who can then observe, gather data and brief that data to the people who make who are making these decisions on how operations are executed. It just is like an additional resource to everyone involved to make sure that everything's operating at the highest possible level.

Yeah, my intent out there was always to provide the commander with the types of information that he needs in order to make the best decision possible. Staff has the capability to do a lot of things. You know, the intelligence folks look at the adversary and do an excellent job there. Our logistics team does a really exceptional job as well, making sure that everything gets where it needs to be. Our operations folks, they all got their individual jobs. But ultimately, as the CNA field rep there, I thought that it was my place, and I think it was pretty successful, to sort of

Fill the gaps because oftentimes, those operators have to go forward and do the day, they have a day job, right? My job is analysis through and through. So while as a staff officer, they might have 10 things on their plate, I can dive deep into a given issue and provide the commander with context that he may not get in some other way.

So there's a bit of an art more than a science to how you make this work as a field rep. And it's definitely personality driven as well by who's at your command, how they all work together, where their needs are, where their skills are. And, you know, that's going to be driven by the commander. But, you know, I thought it was a good opportunity to integrate with their team. And I sort of found my lane and, you know, hopefully provided some value there.

You kind of touched on something there that I've heard people talk about a bit before when I've spoken to people who have done field tours at CNA. And that's the social and relationship building element of what you guys do to do it successfully. That like there is like a, you know, figuring out how to fit yourself into the respective command structures and the personalities and the needs of the commanders in question. That's also like a part of what makes CNA

your deployment successful. And it seems like, you know, CNA does a great job of positioning people who have that set of skills as well as their, you know, their more scientific and technical skill sets. When you're embedded with your command and you're there experiencing what they're experiencing, it really builds trust. And also they

want your help too, especially. So there's the soft skills and just, well, in my case, I'd been there for six months previous to the conflict. So I knew who was the staff, how could I help them also, where is the information that gives you a leg up automatically and they know you're there to help them not to assess them. I think that's really important. We're not there to critique them. We are there to, how can I help you do your job better now and tomorrow?

Yeah, I can speak to that. You know, integrating with the staff is how I refer to it. But really, as the CNA rep, you're fully embedded, you are a member of the staff there. And so as Keith said, like, you're not there to assess, critique, anything like that. Like, this is ultimately what value can I provide to the staff so that they can perform at the highest level that they need to, right? So yeah, like the social bit is really interesting, because

at least on a strike group, right? You're on an aircraft carrier. You don't just work together, you live together. So whether it's, you know, sitting down and watching a movie at night or, you know, eating Thanksgiving meal together over the same dining table, these are the individuals that you spend time

all of your time with. We're all away from our families. We're out there. I guess being in a combat zone probably drove us all closer together in some ways as well because you're really going through it. It's long days. It's high stress, lots of caffeine.

But, you know, ultimately that sort of, you know, drives high performance as well. And having good relationships, I saw, especially within the composite warfare construct, which you have your warfare commanders, who's, you know, your commander of your destroyer squadron, the commander of, you know, the air missile defense commander, et cetera, et cetera. Like the personal relationships at that level are really important because there's some natural tension between different warfare areas and, you

They really need to, you know, and they do, they work these out person to person in the moment as, you know, missiles are flying. So, hey, here's what I think needs to happen versus, well, actually, I've got this other priority in my mission, you know, in my warfare area that might conflict with. And those relationships are really important then in order to resolve that and make sure that the strike group as a whole performs, because it's not really about one warfare area at that point. It's about the entire strike group. So,

Yeah, both personally, just hanging out and watching football on the television or professionally in that higher end warfighting context. I can't overstate how important the relationships are that you develop. Absolutely.

Understanding that you were both working on the day-to-day and really embedded and locked in on what you were doing, I'm curious what your connection to CNA was like during that time and how the organization was a resource to you, whether that was other people in the field program or at a headquarters. Kevin, why don't we start with you?

It's funny because ultimately my number one point of contact off the ship was Keith. He's sitting right next to me now. But out of the strike group, I definitely had good communications back to headquarters and received a lot of support from there. It's nice to have an entire organization behind you because as a field rep, you have a bit of a dual role. On the one hand, you are at the tip of the spear or in the field. You're providing support to the warfighter.

And so people back at headquarters are offering you assistance, whether that is in the form of their time, their effort, whatever it is, right? Like, hey, I could really use some references on X, Y, Z. Like they're going to be able to get that for me from a non-bandwidth limited environment. On an aircraft carrier, your internet's really slow. So yeah, those sorts of things can be extremely helpful. On the other hand,

The second part of that dual role is I'm at the tip of the spear providing data and information back to CNA. So I'm both receiving assistance and also providing data and providing context. So analysts back at headquarters working on studies for all different commands around the world.

They, you know, send me requests for information, RFIs that are coming through. Hey, what are you doing? What are the tactics you're using? What do you find are gaps? What are things that are working? What are things that are not working? I think is how you phrased it earlier. And disseminating that information out through the CNA enterprise into those other operational commands really creates that cross-organizational learning.

So lots of communication back and forth. But as I said, like Keith is actually my main point of contact. I think I sent him a whole bunch of data early on and then his projects sort of spiraled from there. So I can kick it over to him and see what his experience was like because it's probably a little bit different than mine on the ship.

Definitely. And the irony is Kevin and I had never physically met until he got off the ship, I guess like six months later. Because he was at sea. I think it should be noted, I believe the longest duration. He will know better. We definitely didn't set the record for the longest time between port visits, but we got close.

Longest time between port visits with missiles flying at them. I think that's the caveat. But no, the CNA headquarters was great, especially in the early days before Kevin surged out there on the carrier strike group. We actually had another CNA rep on the Ford carrier strike group in the Eastern Mediterranean at the time, technically in 6th Fleet. But

always in contact with them, both getting data, but also checking in, like, how are you doing? Having been on the ship is, are you doing okay? Do you need me to send you a download or an article? But also, especially in the early days, having never been in the combat zone, I was asked, reaching back to colleagues who had been in OEF, OIF, general, what should I be doing? Because I really don't know what I should be doing. But that quickly changed, obviously, both through support from colleagues, but you just find your footing.

everyone knows what they're doing, but they also don't know what they're doing in the early days. And then you all know what you're doing exactly right and exactly. You find your tempo and you find your purpose. But also, I think being part of the broader CNA ecosystem and broader Navy ecosystem, you're looking at it, collecting that data and thinking about the next fight, the next conflict, or hopefully there isn't the next one. But what should we be doing to be better and to improve? And so a lot of that was exactly what Kevin was saying. What are we doing right? What are we doing now?

Also providing that extra context because people get data from different sources, including us, but they might be interpreting it slightly differently than it probably should be received just based on being in the operations. Like, no, the reason that decision was made is not exactly what you're thinking right there. And in a different scenario, you'd probably make a different decision. So that's sort of...

nuance, both to try to capture and convey DNA and also to other areas of the DoD, because I, with Fifth Fleet, liaise with a bunch of other offices who are focused on these problems, because with the Air Force, with the broader Integrative Warfare Systems Community, Missile Defense Agency, there's a lot of other stakeholders who are observing and learning from what's going on in the Red Sea.

Great. That's really good info. So, you know, this kind of leads me also naturally into my next question, which is, you know, we talked a little bit about this here and there, but overall, you know, why do you think CNA's field program is important to the Navy? And what is the what are your what is your impression of the value that that the field program brings? Keith, let's go to you first.

CNA, I believe we've changed our tagline, but that used to be, no one gets closer, I believe, to the data. And truly, having gone to the field, that's exactly the case. You are on the ground collecting data, even sometimes before the actual warfighters, because that's, as an analyst, that's what's on your mind, is how do I capture this so I can do analysis? Do you need data to do analysis or else it's just a thought project? And having embedded analysts at these commands and in operations, especially, I would say, carrier strike groups and at fleet headquarters,

shows you what it's both actually like, but what matters and what will move the needle. There's lots of good academic thought pieces, and I don't want to be too pejorative, but being actually there and working with your teammates, the other warfighters, the sailors, gives you such different perspectives so that your analysis and your insights actually apply to them and are also realistic for the problems they might be facing.

Yeah, so I think I can narrow this down to sort of two phrases that come to the front of my mind. One is operational context, and the other is speed of relevance, to borrow a term from Admiral Wyckoff, the current commander of NAVSET 5th Fleet. So operational context, starting there, the field program really, it provides...

both field studies and also headquarters studies with the true ground truth that you have out in the fleet. Something may look like it's going to go down in one way on paper, but then when you actually see it in person, it happens not always exactly the same way. So understanding what ground truth is

at execution or in the field is not always the same as what you'll find in a reference document. They both have their place, but that operational context is really critical. The second piece that I would say is what my experience was on the strike group was the speed of relevance.

Analysis, it's only as useful as it is to the person who is ultimately the decision maker. For me, our decision makers, our commanders, they needed answers and they needed them now. Realistically, they needed them yesterday, but they'll take now. Whether this is air and missile defense or new tactics or whatever it is, right?

The process of doing analysis back in the United States or back at headquarters or wherever it is, you know, Warfare Development Center, it's not always going to deliver results.

right now. Whereas me in the field, I'm standing there right next to the person, you know, collecting the data, doing the analysis and turning a product and getting it back into the commander's hand in time to make the next decision. Now, that doesn't always mean that the product is a final product, but sometimes it

80% solution is better than a 0% solution. So providing the analysis to the commander in the field within their own decision cycle really speeds up their ability to get inside of the adversary's decision cycle. So when they see trends in how we're operating and how the adversary is operating, and they're able to change tactics, change operations, change strategy prior to the adversary being able to, that's a force multiplier.

Yeah, you put that really well. And I think like, you know, I kind of want to build on one thing you just said about how, you know, like the 80% and 80% and 80% solution is still useful. And that is what science is, you know, it's all about iteration and development and change, you know, like,

It's maybe happening at a quicker pace when you're doing it in the field like you just laid out where it's problem, solution, and you're kind of developing that over time. But in medical science and any field where experimentation and study is the way that things move forward, it's always about taking a study, replicating it,

seeing what you can replicate, seeing what you can't and, you know, developing that thought from there. So, yeah, like it may not be a perfect solution, but you're still this is still very much the scientific process as you describe it.

Absolutely. Yeah, you get that 80% solution, you get that into your commander's hand, they act on it, they make decisions. And do you follow up and finish it out and get to 100% eventually? Absolutely. But if you're waiting for that perfect product, you may never get there. And by the time that you do, it may not be relevant anymore. Because while we are iterating, learning, adapting, and I would say the Red Sea has been actually an opportunity for the Navy against an adversary that maybe doesn't have some of the same level of threat of some of our

other adversaries or competitors on the strategic stage, right? Like, it's an opportunity for us to get better to practice our systems, to practice our tactics, to walk through these TTPs and figure out what works and what doesn't work. And so, you know, as a field rep, I felt fortunate to be out there, you know, data rich environment, that's one way to put it. And then, you

have that opportunity to work with the command in order to iterate. Also, it's a thinking adversary, right? So the Houthis don't stand still. They change tactics as well. Something that worked last month might not work this month. And so, again, speed irrelevance, you have to be able to adapt with inside that cycle. And I think that the best way to do that is to be physically present in the field. I simply would not have had the context nor the ability to act with speed without being there in person.

It's incredibly well put. And I think we're just about out of time today. But Keith and Kevin, this has been an absolutely fantastic conversation. And I learned a lot listening to both of you. So thank you so much for coming on. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you. It was a pleasure. For our listeners, there'll be a link to CNA's field program webpage in the show notes, as well as a few case studies that if you're interested in learning more about our field program, great opportunity to do it there. But I want to thank you all so much for listening. And we'll see you next time on CNA Talks.

The views expressed are those of the commentators and do not necessarily reflect those of CNA or any of its sponsors. CNA Talks is produced, edited, and mixed by John Stimson. Our theme music is by Edward Granga. If you enjoy our show, we'd love it if you could give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and tell your friends about us. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you in two weeks. ♪