CLSC Dialogues – Ep 24 – MAJ Brennan Deveraux and COL Michael Long – Meet the New CLSC Director: A Conversation on Korea

In this episode of CLSC Dialogues, Major Brennan Deveraux welcomes Colonel Michael Long, the new Director of the China Landpower Studies Center. After discussing COL Long’s thoughts on the new assignment, the conversation shifts to his recent experiences in Korea, offering listeners unique insights from the former Eighth Army G-5 Assistant Chief of Staff for Policy, Planning, and Strategy.

Brennan Deveraux Hello. You’re listening to CLSC Dialogues, a China Landpower Studies Center (CLSC) production. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests, and not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. I’m talking today to the new director of the China Landpower Study Center, Colonel Mike Long. Colonel Long. Welcome.

Michael Long Hey, thank you Brennan. I appreciate you hosting this for the team, and it really means a lot.

Deveraux So, Colonel Long, you’re coming from Korea as the Eighth Army G5. If I could just have you real quick introduce yourself [provide] a little bit about you, and kind of, how you’re coming into CLSC and what that means for the organization.

Long Hey. Perfect. Yeah, I’m coming from the Pacific. Which makes sense why I’m here at CLSC, the China Landpower Studies Center. And, I’m a functional area 59, just like yourself, so [I’m] focused on strategy and policy, planning. I’m coming here from Eighth Army, I was the G5 there. So, assistant chief of staff for policy, planning, strategy, [and] also worked force management. So it’s a great opportunity, and I learned a ton in the job.

Deveraux Great. Well, welcome. I know you’ve already jumped in. So we got you here a couple of months ago. Finally getting you in to talk. Can you talk real quick just to make sure our listeners are caught up? CLSC. What it is and kind of your perspective on what your mission is going forward with the research organization.

Long Yeah, absolutely. So, we’re a team of, there’s a total of six of us. There’s myself as the director. I’m more focused on blue. Blue across the Pacific. Heavy focus on Korea and Japan. We also have three civilians.

Deveraux Just to clarify. When you say blue, you mean friendly forces?

Long I sure do. Yeah. Great. Great point. So that’s really my understanding. My focus here is, you know, when you think of blue and, especially in the landpower perspective, we’re thinking of the Marines out there in mainly Japan and Hawaii. We’re thinking of USARPAC (US Army Pacific Command) and then all the supporting organizations as well as Eighth Army, USFK (US Forces-Korea) it’s portion as well as USFJ (US Forces-Japan) in Japan. But our CLSC team, back to that, is myself as a director. And we have three civilians who are Chinese subject matter experts. So they have a detailed understanding of what I would call the red perspective, the China perspective. Across really at the strategic level, down to the operational and even the tactical level of understanding of the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) specifically. And our focus overall is really landpower. We are also lucky enough to have another colonel, Colonel Kyle Markram, who did a podcast with you earlier. He’s a foreign area officer. He served in China. He is also a [Chinese] speaker. And he just got to us from Taiwan. And then we have a visiting professor, also, Doctor Sheena Greitens, and she spends 50% of her time working with us and 50% of her time working for UT (University of Texas), where she does great work out there, has her own podcast, and is quite a prolific publisher.

Deveraux Yeah, thanks. And I think it’s worth noting that while all of those researchers are looking at China, they all kind of have a little bit of a different lens. So I’ve worked with Brian Carlson, who I know looks at that China-Russia relationship, which is important. And then Jake Rinaldi, who recently went off to Rand, he looked a lot at that, China-North Korea relationship and North Kore