Brigadier General Shane Reeves

Brigadier General Shane Reeves

From Five Questions for a General by Modern War Institute at West Point

February 19, 2026 · 37 min

About this episode

Brigadier General Shane Reeves discusses his military career, the importance of intellectual development at West Point, and the challenges of modern warfare.

Welcome back to Five Questions for a General, a production of the Modern War Institute at West Point. This series features specially selected cadet hosts who are given an incredible professional development opportunity—to sit down with senior military officers and ask carefully crafted questions about everything from leadership to their unique experiences while serving, to their expectations about the future of war. In this wide-ranging interview conducted by Cadet Emily Wilczek, Brigadier General Shane Reeves, the dean of the academic board at the United States Military Academy at West Point, reflects on his path to service, his role as West Point’s dean, and the central importance of intellectual development in preparing officers for modern warfare. Drawing on his family’s long military tradition and his own experience as an armor officer and judge advocate general, General Reeves emphasizes that the academy’s core mission is to build an intellectual foundation that enables cadets to navigate uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity rather than freeze in the face of it. The discussion ranges from the inseparability of academic rigor and operational effectiveness to the enduring…

People in this episode

Host: Emily Wilczek

Guest: Brigadier General Shane Reeves

Topics covered

  • leadership
  • military service
  • intellectual development
  • modern warfare
  • character
  • emerging technologies

Keywords

  • West Point
  • academic rigor
  • operational effectiveness
  • AI

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