1. Now watching this: . Inspired by Mystery Science Theater 3000, I shall provide commentary.

2. GEN Townsend's talking: "I've got a couple of slides..." I bet you do. Maybe I should stop this now.

3. (Aside: the black uniforms with golden rank squares on the shoulders are vaguely Civil War era...would be better to embrace the look and just issue accurate period uniforms. Otherwise, pinks and greens all the way)

4. Says the 1st slide shows something very "simply"...no it doesn't. I mean, baroque is less cluttered than rococo, but still...

5. Anyway, he says that our adversaries have learned a few tricks: 1 to compete aggressively below the threshold of armed conflict, 2 present multiple levels of "layered standoff" from the strategic whole of gov to the tactical.

5. At the tactical level, he says, that's what we call A2AD. The adversaries have expanded A2AD to the strategic whole of gov layer.

6. I think that's the problem with MDO right there: He's defined adversary strategy as a tactic and then offers what amounts to tactical solutions.

7. Then he says "we once knew how to compete effectively, short of armed conflict... we competed with our near peer adversaries during the Cold War and defeated them." Huh?

8. It's more accurate to say that we succeeded in the Cold War by avoiding a direct conflict with the USSR. We knew how to deter, I guess. Sure. But nukes had a lot to do with that. He's not talking about nukes, though. Is he talking in general about a larger strategy...

9. ...of containment, deterrence, etc? Fine. But the military had a limited role in all of that (except for nukes). That competition was economic, diplomatic, etc. But now, he says, we can't compete anymore. Not sure why he thinks that. Do we no longer do dip or economic policy?

10. Then he says, ok, what's the fix? His answer: MDO. The Army will do MDO. All domains. To prevail in competition (which he's in terms of "standoff" tactics). Of course, the key to that is deterrence, he says, and if we [the Army] fail at that...

11. ..we [the army] will kick ass and win and force a return of competition in terms favorable to us. We will present multiple dilemmas in all domains, too fast for them to keep up.

12. Now LTG Wesley's speaking. "Let me show you a useless slide you probably can't read from where you are sitting and will distract you from listening to me." No, he didn't say that. Would have been cool, tho.

13. He says he won't brief the slide right now. So, it's gratuitous? Actually, the slide's interesting, as it compares AirLand battle with MDO. I hit pause to study. One interesting bit: AirLand was focused on formations, specifically the 2nd Soviet echelon. MDO is...

14. ...different in that it's focus is on systems (then says "A2AD systems"). AirLand was corps/division. This is whole of gov. Inter-agency. Ok. This makes sense. Also, MDO is more joint as it includes sea + cyber + space + that magic word, "synergy."

15. What's this at the bottom?

16. I think it's trying to communicate a phased, linear thing about taking out Soviet echelons (AirLand) vs. a more multi-dimension thing.

17. Better screen grab: