In this episode of SSI Live, Major Brennan Deveraux interviews Colonel Kyle Marcrum and Lieutenant Colonel Paul Milas on the SSI-developed China Strategic Competition Seminar. The conversation explores the origin and relevance of the seminar, highlighting the initiative to educate Army officers on understanding how the People’s Republic of China implements its instruments of national power, its objectives, and its activities both in the Indo-Pacific and globally. Brennan DeverauxWelcome to SSI Live. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the guests, and not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army War College, or any other agency of the US government. I’m your guest host, Major Brennan Deveraux, filling in once again for John Deni, who is on sabbatical this academic year.I’m joined today by my SSI coworkers, Colonel Kyle Marcrum and Lieutenant Colonel Paul Milas. Colonel Marcrum is new to SSI, as well as to the China Landpower Studies Center (CLSC). He is an Indo-Pacific foreign area officer (FAO) who served at the Defense Intelligence Agency, the office of the Secretary of Defense, and as a military attaché in China, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Taiwan.Lieutenant Colonel Milas is also a foreign area officer at SSI and has been our resident Director of African Affairs for the last few years. He previously served at the US Embassy in Rwanda and at the Defense Intelligence Agency.For this conversation, we’re going to be exploring the SSI-developed China Strategic Competition Seminar (CSC). Colonel Milas, I’m going to start with you.I’ll just start with the most straightforward question. What is the China Strategic Competition Seminar or what we call it around the office, CSC. Paul MilasThanks, Brennan. So, the CSC seminar is designed to provide foreign area officers, FA [Functional Area] 59 strategists, and really the everyday warfighter with the tools really necessary to compete with China in this world of great power competition. The course focuses on understanding how the PRC implements its instruments of national power, its objectives, [and] its activities both in the Indo-Pacific and globally.And the aim of the course is to identify opportunities for our army to counter China’s narrative, counter their initiatives, and advance US interests. DeverauxIf I could follow up, what was kind of the spark that led to this class and how long has it been going? MilasSo I became involved with this in early 2023 when I first got to SSI. The year prior, and sometime before that, some of the senior Indo-Pacific foreign area officers identified that there was possibly a gap in our China knowledge due to the reorganization and consolidation of the FAO areas of concentration in the Indo-Pacific. And they recognize that all Indo-Pacific FAOs really need to have a baseline knowledge of the PRC [People’s Republic of China] to better support the joint force.And they saw that some of that was possibly lacking due to that consolidation. Brigadier General Pat Teague, the SDO-DATT (Senior Defense Official- Defense Attache) in Beijing at the time, has really been the main driver of this course and implementing this course. And so, again, a few years ago, about 2022 or so, the USARPAC (US Army Pacific Command) Security Cooperation Division wrote an information paper with an idea to create a course similar to the European Russia Way of War course, but [for] this one we focus on the PRC.And so, during that whole process of thinking about a course, recognizing that we need more China expertise, they reached out to the Army War College and asked us to develop a curriculum because we are an academic institution. And at the same time all this was happening,