 Good morning, everybody. I'm going to go ahead and get us started and feel free, for those of you who are in the room, to please move up. There are a few seats up front. It makes it feel like an experience. I'm going to go ahead and just get us started on this amazing morning and day we have planned. I am Paul Butler. I'm the President and Chief Transformation Officer here at New America. We describe New America as a think-and-action tank. So we're engaged in both the policy and the practice. And we're responding to demographic, technological, and social change around the world. We focus our work in five areas, education, democracy, technology, family well-being, and global security. And so that last one you'll hear a lot more about today. On behalf of Ann Marie Slaughter, our CEO, and all of the staff here at New America, welcome to the Future Security Forum. This is our ninth forum, co-organized with Arizona State University, who you will meet shortly and be seeing throughout the day. This is our premier event with ASU. And so we're glad to be here again. We are working together with ASU on a full range of security issues facing the U.S. and the world. And how do we do that? We produce new and original research that promotes transparency and understanding of America's counterterrorism warfare. We report on the origins, and we have reported and continue to report on the origins of the future of proxy warfare, including much work on the Wagner Group. We report on the impact of climate change and the study of the future of security as it relates to our climate around the world. And we're working with many, many different techniques to do this work. One of the things that we do across all of the work of New America is fellows and fellowships. And so we are very proud to be working with ASU to support fellows on their groundbreaking research and writing. Two of those were delighted to support and just call out Kamiyarkidia, who's working on the colonial origins of global mental health. Fascinating work. We're very excited about that. And Philip Bennett, who's working on a biography of the journalist Anthony Shadeed. Also important work, which you all will see shortly. We're also supporting major books. And all of the staff and fellows across both ASU and New America are partnering on a number of publications. One I wanted to call out came out last year. It's a book with Oxford University Press. It's called Understanding the New Proxy Wars. So you will hear more about some of that work through the day. It was written and edited by members of ASU and New America. We've also helped push US combatant commands to provide better reporting of US strikes in their death toll in Somalia and beyond. And we work closely with ASU and the Future Security Initiative, which you'll be hearing about today. And we wanna thank in particular our partners at the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College, who have partnered with us in many prior years. And finally, as you all are experiencing today, both here in the room and online, we convene. Through events and gatherings like this, with experts like those assembled here, we bring critical discussions of the future of security to the general public, not just here in DC and in Arizona, but literally around the country and around the world. So with that, it's my pleasure to introduce James O'Brien, who's the Senior Vice President of University Affairs and the Chief of Staff to the President at ASU. He's been a longtime partner and supporter of New America and I'm delighted to introduce you to him by video. Thank you for joining us. Good morning. Welcome to the Future Security Forum. I'm James O'Brien, Senior Vice President of University Affairs at Arizona State University. This is the ninth annual convening of the Future Security Forum by ASU and New America. The impact of this event is really quite extensive. We've had more than 3,000 participants attendees in the event over the years and more than 23,000 participants in live streaming broadcasts. Additionally, the content that you see today and content from the past is incorporated into ASU's master's degree in global security so that the learnings, the ideas, the innovations that may arise from the discussions and the presentations today can carry on and be brought into the teaching and learning environment that ASU brings to the forum. The kind of content that you will be able to see today and I think benefit from involves speakers and participants from really all sectors of our society who are interested in or participate in question, addressing questions of national security, whether that's the U.S. military, the United States government, industry, think tanks. So it's just a broad base of talent integrated into these discussions and from which we hope to draw new ideas and new energy. The forum now is part of a larger undertaking, also initiated by ASU and New America and that is the Future Security Initiative, which will be an expansion of the kinds of work, the kinds of ways that the work will manifest itself. And so we're gonna build on the prior nine years here and do more and incorporate more ideas and more people into these kinds of undertakings. So great success in the past, I think a great event today. And as we move forward, at ASU, we just wanna celebrate the tremendous energy, the tremendous opportunity that these kinds of convenings offer. The ASU, New America relationship in many ways is a continuing experiment. How do you take the nation's largest public university and have it work with and collaborate and integrate with New America and Washington DC? That has, I think as this forum suggests, produced tremendous value and impact for the benefit of the country, I think there's more to come. I think today's activities are an example of that. And it's really with great pleasure that ASU is able to work with New America to produce this event and enjoy what you learn here today, enjoy the discussions. And we all look forward then to taking the ideas, the best of the ideas and putting them into practice. Thank you. Thank you. So I'm gonna introduce now our first panel. We have Heela Rasul Ayub, who is the director of our Planetary Politics Initiative at New America. She's gonna moderate the panel. It is the title of the panels, What Systemic Shifts Will Shape the Future of Conflict. We're gonna particularly focus on climate change and also migration issues. Thank you, Peter, and welcome everyone. And welcome to this panel discussion on the nexus of climate change, migration and conflict. Climate change is rapidly remapping where humans can exist on the planet. As optimum conditions shift away from the equatorial zones to the poles, more than 600 million people have already been stranded outside of the crucial environmental niche that best supports life. By later the century, three to six billion people between one-third and a half of humanity could be trapped outside of that zone facing extreme heat, food scarcity and higher death rates. Unless emissions are sharply curtailed and mass migration is accommodated. So because we have 30 minutes for discussion and 15 minutes for audience questions, I wanna just dive right into it. It gives me a great pleasure to introduce this illustrious panel from across several time zones and climate zones. We are joined from Baghdad by Ambassador Farid Yasin, climate envoy of the Republic of Iraq, former ambassador to the United States. From Texas, I'm happy to introduce Jeff Godel, a former New America fellow. Jeff's latest book, very scary title, is a New York Times bestseller. The Heat Will Kill You First, Life and Death on a Scorched Planet. He is the author of six previous books including The Water Will Come, Rising Seas, Sinking Cities and The Remaking of the Civilized World. And from Geneva, it gives me great pleasure to be joined by Director General-Elect Amy Pope for the International Organization of Migration. DG-Elect Pope is currently the deputy director general for management and reform of IOM. Prior to joining IOM, she served as senior advisor on migration to President Biden. And in the Obama administration, she served as deputy assistant to the president and deputy homeland security advisor. And so with that, I will just jump into my first question for Ambassador Yasin. In a country like Iraq, which is the fifth most climate vulnerable country to climate breakdown, not only is climate-induced water scarcity exacerbating conflicts, but some of the origins of the water scarcity are from previous rounds of conflict, which has led to a great deal of instability to say the least and weakened institutions. As we see greater migration from rural areas facing acute scarcity, what is the absorbent of capacity of these urban centers to take in these new migrants internally within Iraq and to temper any rising communal conflict? Over to you, Ambassador Yasin. So, John, my microphone. Thank you for asking this question that goes right to the problem. So, first off, in Iraq, urban centers and like in many parts of the world are already operating at above capacity in terms of infrastructure, whether it's roads, whether it's water facilities, whether it's electricity. So Baghdad now is, I don't know, multiple times the population that it was designed to accommodate. So this is something that we have to take into account. What really helps in terms of handling migrants and refugees, if you will, in a country like Iraq is that we have very powerful cultural solidarity networks, whether they're family-oriented or client or religious. They really help and remove a lot of the tensions on this. But the truth is, we won't be able to accommodate more of these waves as they become more frequent. Our climate change, the migrations that we're seeing right now in Iraq are not really due to climate change. They're really due to lack of water, droughts. But these droughts are induced essentially by upstream damming in upstream countries. We've lost some, like, 40% of our water inflow over the last 10, 20 years. We also have to do a lot better in terms of water management. But this is an issue that we will have to be dealing with and dealing with more appropriately. I think the answer for Iraq's problems, as it is for other countries, is to develop and revive our countryside to develop a network of, you know, climate resilient villages, towns that can accommodate lack of water through technology. We're very fortunate to be living in the 21st century. And there are examples of new technologies that are making it possible to develop agriculture in extremely arid areas. There are some technologies, for example, that have reduced the water intake of olive plantations by 96%, sorry, 94%. So instead of having the need for 100 liters, you need only six. I mean, these are things that can change the overall conditions. But of course, you have to prepare for that. And you have to prepare for that by developing the appropriate infrastructure, by developing the right culture, and by getting your populations ready. Nonetheless, you know, water scarcity is not the only thing that will accrue from climate change. As was very well expressed in the book you just mentioned, the heat will kill you first. And I can tell you that the heat is no joking matter. Two weeks ago, three weeks ago, we had five successive days of 50 plus temperate degrees in Baghdad. It's nothing to joke about. We have to be ready. Thank you, Ambassador Yassine. And kind of on your point on adaptive technologies and the need for them, especially, given that we're unlikely to get ahead on mitigation measures. I'd like to turn to Jeff. You say in your book that the heat will kill you first, that as heat waves become more intense and more common, they will become more democratic. But until that happens, the heat is exposing deep fissures of inequity and injustice. Not everybody has access or can afford adaptive technologies like air conditioning or some of the technologies that Ambassador Yassine just mentioned. You also delve deep into the idea that he is predatory from a migration and security point of view. It preys on the most vulnerable first. So how do we reduce the impulse to flee within these places that are most vulnerable and the people that are most vulnerable? And how do we democratize access to adaptive technologies? Thank you. Those are really excellent questions and very complex questions about, you know, let me start with the idea that I think that, you know, for too long in the climate discussion, there's been this binary between, you know, mitigation or adaptation. And we haven't been able to have both conversations kind of at the same time. People think have thought before the talking about adaptation takes away from the political inertia and energy towards mitigation. And if you talk about mitigation, that will take away from any kind of political momentum for adaptation. First of all, so I think we need to really reframe the larger conversation because obviously what's driving, you know, these migration problems that we talk about. In my book, I talk about heat as a kind of force of planetary chaos. And so we need to like turn down the thermostat, right? And that's the number one thing that we can't forget about, which is reducing fossil fuel emissions as quickly as possible, much faster than what we're doing. But then, you know, we also have to think and talk about adaptation. And, you know, that gets into technology for sure, like Ambassador Yasin was talking about. But it's also, you know, deeply political. And it's about this divide between, you know, the wealthy and the vulnerable. And that is, I see that here in Texas. I live in Austin, you know, there's, it's been a summer of brutal extreme heat. And you can see, you know, the outdoor workers, people who are working on the streets, farm workers, you know, incredibly vulnerable to these outdoor conditions. And then there's, you know, the knowledge workers and others who are sitting inside their air conditioned offices and, you know, just think that it's like a little bit higher of an electricity bill. So how do you, how do you deal with this? How do you deal with this separation? And, you know, we have a governor in Texas who for political reasons decided to pass legislation making it illegal for any city or county in Texas to pass laws requiring water breaks and shade breaks rest for outdoor workers. I mean, it's, you know, climate has been politicized in a very powerful way here. So, you know, the answer to these questions is technological. Yes, we can figure out ways to develop cheaper air conditioning better access to air conditioning for people who can't afford it. We can subsidize electricity rates to make it cheaper for people who do have AC to run them. We can think about cooling technologies. There's a lot of technological solutions to some of these problems, but it's also, you know, a deeply political problem. It's a deeply political problem, you know, in the most straightforward sense, but also in, you know, just like money in the sense of we see that in the international climate negotiations with the Green Climate Fund and things like that. So it's a, to me, when we think about, you know, how we're going to deal with this gap, we have to think first about politics. Thanks, Jeff, and on politics, I'd like to turn it over to Director General-elect Amy Pope. You know, IOM as an agency, as an organization that works very much directly on the ground with the populations most affected. In my previous work in development, I've worked very closely with IOM and they've always been on the forefront acknowledging the impacts that climate change over time, and then as well as immediate climate-induced disasters have on populations in the displacement of people. But it's also a very political question. And given your, where you sit in some of the, not necessarily aversion to delving into politics, but acknowledging the impact that climate has on politics and that politics has on acknowledging climate, how much is IOM investing in activities that address adaptation measures? And if there are any specific initiatives or programs that IOM is planning to implement to promote climate resilient migration both within countries and internationally, we'd love to hear more about that. Thank you, Hila. And I also just want to say thank you to New America and ASU for even raising this issue. It's one that frankly I think is not getting enough attention given how significant the impact will be on hundreds of millions of people into the future. I was actually just in Kenya for the Africa Climate Summit. And when I was there, in addition to engaging with the government officials, I also made a trip out to Dadaab, which many of you will know is one of the world's largest and longest standing refugee camps where over 100,000 people have come over the last about two years because of the drought in Somalia. And those people are joining hundreds of thousands of people who are already displaced and are unable to go home because frankly, they don't have a way to live at home. Right. And when we talk about Somalia, we're talking about conflict. Obviously, they've had a long history of conflict and continued threats as a result of al-Shabaab. But when you layer that on top of the inability of communities to make a living and many communities are agricultural or pastoral, so they are literally depending on the land to feed themselves and their children, you immediately see how climate change is becoming a threat multiplier. So it is first and foremost, if you cannot make a living, if you have no future at home, moving is the most human adaptation strategy that now exists. Right. And if you add in communities that have been facing conflict, especially for a prolonged period of time, you can see how climate is actually destabilizing and preventing more durable solutions in those communities. So from my point of view, number one is just building awareness about what's happening. And for a lot of these communities, there is no low-cost air conditioning solution. They have very little. They're living in very basic circumstances. So building awareness of what we're seeing right now on the ground and how that will impact communities across the world, that's key. Two is driving the political consensus that this is happening. So I was in Africa, in Kenya, because we are helping to facilitate what's known as the Kampala Declaration, which is basically an acknowledgement by African member states of the impact of climate on human mobility. Because that consensus doesn't yet exist. Everybody sees it. One of the ministers said to me, well, but it's obvious. It's obvious, but there's still this unwillingness to acknowledge. And the reason why that's so important is because then that allows us to build climate change and climate adaptation into national planning, into resource mobilization, into strategic thinking. So for me, there's an awareness raising. There's a political consensus driving. And then there's on the ground. What is our direct response and our ability to provide more stability for communities that are impacted? So there's a tremendous amount of work that needs to happen. And we are so far behind where we need to be given the real threat this poses to existing communities. And then the destabilizing follow on impact it will have as a result. Thank you. And I particularly appreciate that that last point, because I think for those of us who work in this space, we take it for granted that there is consensus, but there is in fact, not that consensus that is necessary. In fact, there are powers that be that are shifting the consensus to the other side. So on that, and Ambassador, I guess, you do get very political in your role as you should, but, you know, I think we think. We think about measures and we think about these large scale COP convenience and the like, but a lot of the agreements that we have to come to must be done at the regional level. You alluded earlier to the lower flow rate of the rivers in Iraq due to some of your regional neighbors, Turkey and Iran in particular. Can you share a little more with us about how Iraq is engaging with those regional neighbors on the urgency of shared water resources and how that figures into other regional considerations. Thank you. This is a critical issue. You know, oil is precious, but water is even more precious because it's vital for a life. And so in every country has to take into account the requirements of its own population even before looking at the requirements of downstream countries. But, you know, there are historic presidents. One has to take into account Iraq would be nothing without its two rivers. My slogan is, you know, Iraq land of the two rivers. Let's keep it that way. Let's keep them flowing. And so I think there are examples that we could we could emulate in terms of wise management, equitable management of of water that have been implemented. I can think, for example, of the Mekong Delta authority or the way the European Union handles their rivers that cross go through several countries. But the real issue that I want to raise here is that in fact there is even though action has to be local, but the resources that are needed are such a magnitude that this has to be a global global collective efforts. There is so much need and the issue is really down falls down to equity. The countries that will be most vulnerable to climate change have done in the end of the calculations very little to raise the level of CO2 in the atmosphere, which is where it is because of history, because of the fact that, you know, the industrial revolution has been going on for actually more than a century. And so we need to focus on this aspect of equity and to force a consensus to get the countries of the world all to chip in together as they can according to their resources and also according to the needs of the countries that will be most at need. One of the things that I'd like to point out here is that we're all trying to talk about achieving the Paris consensus, which is, you know, capping the increase of average temperatures to 1.5. But that's an average, you know, there are countries that will get less, there are countries that will get a lot more, really a lot more. And my concern as an Iraqi climate envoy is that Iraq is going to be, is both likely to be one of those countries where the temperature rise is going to be way more than 1.5 degrees. And that's going to be also the case of our neighboring countries. And so how do we deal with it? Well, we have to get our act together to what we need to do, but then we will require the help of the international community as much as they can in terms of technology, in terms of resources, and perhaps in terms of a little more water from our neighboring countries. Thank you, Ambassador Yasina. And to that point on, you know, the impact of increased carbon emissions does not stay within borders. And so we are seeing the impact of it on the more vulnerable countries, most vulnerable communities. And so this, it brings me to a point that you made, Jeff, in your book. As a lawyer, I really appreciated your examination of the science of extreme event attribution, especially as we go into the next cop and ongoing discussions around loss and damage funds. What will it take for the international community to accept attribution and attach monetary value to it? Particularly, what special interests playing a very significant role in these discussions? Yeah, that's a great point. I think I don't know what it will take to, you know, gain recognition of the power of this attribution science and how that will exactly play out. But I think it's one of the most important developments in climate science right now and actually in kind of climate politics right now. Because it is, you know, for a long time, scientists have, when they talked about attribution, you know, of extreme events, a hurricane, a drought, a heat wave, they always quoted James Hansen's line about, you know, climate loads to dice so that, you know, these extreme events are more likely, but we could never say, oh, this heat wave or this storm was caused by higher levels of CO2. Well, now attribution science, which is, I have a chapter about it in my book, it's basically a kind of modeling that looks at extreme events and asks, would this have happened without the higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere or not? And I write about a German scientist named Friedrich Auto, who is on the forefront of this. And, you know, they've been able to advance this science far enough that, you know, she and others tell me, you know, it can stand up in court. And what they've done is, it's not that they look at every event and say, aha, you know, this was caused by climate change, they're able to discern that some events are climate driven, like the heat wave in the 1921, they've said virtually could not have happened without the elevated levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. Then they looked at the Pakistani floods last year and they basically said, no, this was within the range of sort of natural events and we don't see CO2 as a driver. But what's really important about this is it begins to change the political dynamics because you can now look at this and say, look, what do you do in the global north or UX on mobile or, you know, caused this in the same way that, you know, there's not an exact comparison, but it's a fair enough comparison of smoking and tobacco, you know, we now can attribute these events. And so once we can attribute these events with some degree of actual, what's close to factual certainty, that changes the political direction in a big way. And it recalculates this big question that's at the heart of what we're talking about about mitigation, adaptation, and security, which is what do the rich, you know, who are causing the problem, owe to, you know, the people who are in the refugee camps and that Amy is talking about, and what does justice and equity mean in this world now? And this attribution science is changing that in a dramatic way. Thank you, Jeff. And then for Director General Elect Pope, you know, I threw out some very dramatic numbers earlier at the top of this conversation. And while that might resonate for some, I think it's too far removed from people's day-to-day realities. But as I mentioned earlier, IOM has been doing excellent work on documenting and researching and seeing what is happening in Texas is between climate change, disasters, and conflict and migration. So, you know, there are conversations within these cops, the UNFCCC, among others, but they seem so high-level. How is the IOM working with these other organizations to create a coordinated and effective, responsive strategy that deals with the day of people's lives and brings it down a few levels? So, I wish I could say that it was fully coordinated and effective. I think because we're not fully at the point where we have appreciated the threat, the response is actually not where it needs to be. I mean, take, for example, what we know about communities that are going to be most impacted by climate disaster. And the truth is part of my priorities coming into the organization is to engage with our sister agencies as well as those other entities that are collecting the data on which communities are going to be most impacted by climate disaster, drought, flood, sea level rise to start and then identify which vulnerabilities exist in those communities. So, for example, if you are completely dependent on farming and we project that you're actually not going to be able to farm, what are we doing now to engage? Right now, that's not happening. There is not a concerted effort globally to approach the problem set that way. And so that means that the solutions are lacking and they're very ad hoc. So, we have really great solutions, you know, working with a community in South Sudan who has been displaced by flooding to help them do better water management. But we do not have across the board a strategic approach where we're systematically applying the data, overlaying it with vulnerability of communities and then coming up with interventions on the adaptation side. So that's where the work needs to happen. And that's why the awareness raising is so critical to the future. Thank you so much. And I think we are almost at time, but before we go to audience questions, one thing that I like to do with panels, I always acknowledge that when we have such a gathering of great minds and experiences, I like to give people the opportunity to ask one another questions. And so I'll turn it over to you while if you have any questions for one another. Well, at the risk of betraying my age, I'd like to make a comment. So most of the models that looking at our evolution as a species under the impact of climate change take 2050 as a target for net zero or 2040. 2050 is to me not that far off. I started working on climate change issues in 1996. That's 27 years ago. 2050 is 27 years from now. So this is real. It's no joke. It's something I don't know if I'll be there, but you, sir, I hope I'm pretty sure you will be. And so this is about the livelihoods of all the people or actually a great chunk of the people who are attending this workshop. This is about you. It's not about strangers. This is something that engages us all and we have to address it because we'll have to live with it. Hopefully. Yeah, I'll just add one thing to that, which is, you know, the reason I gave my book, the as you described scary title of the heat will kill you first is because I really wanted, I think that the discussion about climate and impacts has been kind of marooned in this sort of middle future for too long and dominated by scenarios and I think it's about scenarios and future people that will be impacted and future water flows and future projections of heat and all that. And, you know, I think that I mean, in my book, I really wanted to underscore that this is happening now that these impacts are real. They, you know, heat can, you can go for a walk on a hot day in Baghdad or in Phoenix. And if you're not prepared, you can die in two hours. And this is not hypothetical. This is not some risk that's far in the future. This is a risk that is playing out around us right now in real time that all of us are dealing with. And, you know, I just the attempt in my book was to is to do exactly what the investor talked about, which is shift this conversation to today, not to 2050. The other angle where we are thinking a little bit differently about this is starting to understand and appreciate how migration can actually be one of the climate adaptation strategies. So if people no longer have the opportunity to make a living because of climate factors that have completely eroded their economic opportunities at home, how do we build strategies that enable them to take opportunities that may be elsewhere. In some cases, that's going to be within a country. So we've seen a lot of natural rural to urban migration, but it's important that we start to do planning around that. And then when we think about the demographic changes that we expect to see in the worlds much more broadly, can we think about how do we enable communities that cannot adapt at home to take the jobs that might be elsewhere. So again, thinking about not just how do we avoid a mass migration? How do we do migration that's going to work in the face of a changing climate? Thank you all. And I think then we can turn it over to audience questions. I think we'll have some questions coming from our virtual audience as well as the mic in the room. So we'll give it a minute for questions coming through. Question for Ambassador Yasin. This is Peter Bergen. Can you sort of assess, obviously there's great wealth disparities in the Middle East. The Saudis, the Qataris, the Emiratis have a lot of resources. How are they doing compared to say the Yemenis or other countries without many resources that are equally affected? Well, both the Emirati and the Saudis and I've observed their attitude during the climate change negotiations. In the very beginning they like many people working in the oil industry where dubious were deniers if you will and in fact tried to not scuttle but delay discussions and in fact I remember their chief negotiator and offered the fossil of the year award by organizations like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth in a climate activists. The attitude that you feel that you sense from the chief negotiators from Saudi Arabia, from the Emirates is completely different. It's very responsible and there is a concerted effort on their part to try to use their resources to develop technologies that will help to the greatest degree mitigate the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. They're doing a lot of effort, for example, on carbon capture use and storage. Whether that will be a silver bullet, I don't know but it's certainly something that needs to be pursued and worked on. One of my pet ideas is to try to talk about countries around the Persian Gulf or Arabian Gulf, call it what you will is to see whether we can develop a common stand in these negotiations because in fact one of the reasons why I think Saudi Arabia is moving in the direction that it did is because they are confronted to heat and you mentioned, Jeff mentioned heat in Texas. I think I heard that the municipality of Riyadh just passed a law forbidding people from working outdoors between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. So these are adaptation strategies that would not have come to their minds had they not been so aware of the impact of climate change and the fact that it really can kill you. I think one thing we were reminiscing in the course of this panel was there is some focus on adaptive measures and mitigation measures but we are also going into a new great competition over a battle of resources for renewable energies themselves and so this is creating a new kind of geopolitical tension and geopolitical competition primarily between the U.S. and China but among others and so I would like to pose this question to all three panelists. How do you see this impacting those communities that currently house those resources? Well, I'll say something about this. I think this is going to have a profound impact on geopolitics as the kind of power structures developed around the world by this wealth of fossil fuels and we can argue about the timing and we can argue about this pace of the decline but clearly this transition away from fossil fuels is happening and will continue to happen and there will be sort of winners and losers in this endgame but the endgame is happening right and so we can argue about this. We can argue about this and we can argue about this for the next kind of oil and so we have the rare minerals that are needed for batteries. We have things like lithium that were never considered valuable 20 years ago who cared about lithium and so places like Greenland for example and a lot of ice and some fishing villages and just like not a part of the sort of geopolitical strategy map in any powerful way now all of a sudden is in the middle of this mad goal brush for rare minerals and things and that gives them a lot of leverage and a lot of power and is shifting the sort of larger geopolitical positions about where the future lies you know what impact will this have in the Middle East as you know oil declines in value and obviously there's all kinds of ways of propping up value and prices but in the long run you know this is going to change and as you mentioned that Saudis and others know this but it's still going to be a great geopolitical shift as we in the decade or two as we move forward. For sure it will my advice to countries that are fortunate enough to have resources is to pay attention to what happened to countries with oil the oil curse is a reality so they really should formulate their thinking in terms of long term planning look as far ahead as they can think of their and get the best international lawyers they can to work with them. We have one question from our virtual audience and this is to all panelists how to persuade convinced national governments that need to address mitigate climate change that it is now and immediate I actually think that ties to mobility and migration is actually a really concrete example of how climate is impacting communities right if you are in many places around the world you're seeing people who are displaced by climate there are many many senior officials in other parts of the world who are concerned about mass migration and what the destabilizing impact that might have on their communities for me talking about and seeing the evidence of people moving is one of our best ways to demonstrate that this is happening people are leaving because they have no other choice and so tying it to what we're seeing on the ground making clear what the connection is driving the political consensus around that that's all part of persuading national governments that this is no joke I mean it also helps by the way that people in places like Arizona felt it firsthand people in places like Switzerland where I am felt it firsthand and so that is part of the lived experience if you will well what I'll say is that what we're doing right now is part of what we need to do we have to wear it various awareness as Amy has said and a lot of people are doing excellent work to make people aware of what's happening Jeff's book was mentioned I really urge you all to read it but there have been some remarkable pieces of reporting by journalists across the globe one I will mention in particular is a piece by Alyssa Rubin and colleagues of the New York Times who went and followed with technical equipment that you could do on a print paper but you could do it online where they took instruments that could measure the body temperature of an Iraqi worker in Basra going out to work very early in the morning before because he wanted to get his job done before temperatures would be to unlivable compare that to the life of one of his neighbors not two distant neighbors, a Kuwaiti university professor who lives in a protected environment with an appropriate infrastructure these are things that can make people sense how direct this threat is in terms of impacting our lives to be a worker under noon temperatures in Texas or in Iraq or in Arizona is not something to be envied and I think this is something we have to factor in I have to say Jeff in your book you do mention this a great deal and what I appreciated most about your book is that it started off with stories of families that look like mine young families, healthy families in the US with the means to adapt to the heat and yet they are being affected too and so I think for so long so many people in positions of power and for who can influence those in positions of power have felt fairly inoculated because it's always those people in Bangladesh who are facing flooding and are going to be underwater and those poor people in the Horn of Africa facing droughts in the immediate term but we are seeing the impacts of it coming to life in a real way and so how can we catalyze on this moment to shift public opinion in a way that can influence large scale policy decision making that goes to this question of 15 years ago I had a conversation with Al Gore about the risks and consequences of climate change and he talked about everybody having their oh shit moment where they realized the scope and scale of what we are really talking about here and I think over the years I've talked to many people and it's true many of us have had our oh shit moments I asked President Obama a couple of years ago when I was traveling in Alaska with him there were some changes in the coral reefs in Hawaii that he used to swim and snorkel among when he was a kid and seeing them bleached out and changing and that was one of the things that really woke him up but I've put aside this notion that we're going to have some kind of collective awakening this is going to be trench warfare two steps forward one step back we have one political party that essentially thinks that climate change is a hoax and to the point of security and migration that we've been talking about we would like to think that as we get educated and smarter about this we'll see people in motion understand the risks and consequences of that understand how the threat to security and deal with it in a kind of rational way in fact in Texas what we see is razor blades in the Rio Grande and more calls for armed border patrols it can also work in the opposite direction which is one of the great dangers that I think we face now especially with migration using that as an excuse to divide and to build walls how do we broaden the security question to be not just about you and your family but about us and the world that's an excellent point if I may avail on our panelists to take just one more question from our live audience yes hello this is Andres Martinez the editorial director of future tense another ASU New America collaboration this conversation has been great and it's very close to home we've mentioned Arizona I lived there now and survived the 31 consecutive days of 110 plus degrees that is Fahrenheit so just to clarify I've been really struck Jeff to hear you talk about the tension between adaptation and mitigation and the sense that the politics doesn't allow to talk about both and I what feels like a lifetime ago I think we had you at your first New America talk about geoengineering of all things and so question for you and for the others is are we in a place that you feel we can still explore and deploy technology to serve as part of the answer to this looming crisis or present crisis really politics where as you said some people want to say this is a hoax other people perhaps want to say we need to change our behaviors I some days I worry that there's actually no space to really at least look at technology as part of the answer but really eager to hear your thoughts on that thank you thanks so I think when we talk about broadly about technology that's a very broad subject you brought up geoengineering which is the sort of Frankenstein of technologies which for people who don't know about this what we're talking about is you know basically some nation or even individual putting a fleet of aircraft into the sky that distributes particles that act as sort of a solar shade kind of in some sense creating an artificial volcano which would help reflect away some sunlight and cool the earth it's a really bad idea that it has some kind of political inevitability as temperatures get hotter and hotter which is a whole other subject that I don't think it's worth going into right now but I do think technology you know it can be a huge is obviously a huge tool in dealing with this whether it's you know when I was writing my C level rise book in Lagos I'm reporting in Lagos you know they were I wrote about a Dutch Nigerian architect who built a community center floating in the sort of water slums of Lagos that just out of sort of you know oil drums and spare wood it was this beautiful structure that changed the relationship of the community with the with each other and was a great example of the kind of technology that sort of anti is not technology is not always Elon Musk and you know Tesla's and things like that and here in Texas you know we see technology happening and you know changing things at a big rate you know Texas is the home of fossil fuels it's the nation home of oil and gas in America and yet during the seat wave 30% of the power on the grid was coming from basically solar and you know Texas leads the nation in in in solar energy which nobody talks about and this is happening right these technology technological changes are happening there's technology to deal with water shortages as the ambassador mentioned you know more efficient systems of all ways all kinds of redesigning systems are built more green spaces all kinds of things like this but ultimately you know I feel with the technology discussion is it plays into the idea that there's a kind of silver bullet for this problem that we just need to figure out the right gizmos deployed in the right places and everything will be fixed and it's not and you know the reason why this conversation is so important is because it's really political and it's about you know who gets these gizmos first and where the money flows and what the relationship is of you know these questions about justice and equity that we've talked about that's where the difficult part of this transition is stuck right now thank you so much and I'm a little biased I think there is a silver there potentially is a silver bullet and it's fusion but even if we achieve it if we ever will we'll have to work together to deploy it throughout the world that doesn't mean that we don't need to mitigate as much as possible reduce our greenhouse gas emissions as much as possible but there are things that we could do to see whether we can come up with a silver bullet and I think we need to do all of the above to ensure the future of that kind don't want to be too dramatic but that's what it's all about well we hope to continue these conversations here at New America and elsewhere but I think to both of your points justice and equity and human rights really have to be centered in these conversations I know that we are over time and we have to keep the agenda moving but I really do want to express my heartfelt appreciation for all of your time I know that calling in from across different time zones and with your very busy schedules isn't always easy but appreciate the time that you've made for this all important conversation thank you all thank you thank you very much for this important thing thank you here is Lillian Corral who is the Vice President of Technology and Democracy here at New America and we're going to consider what will the future of AI accountability look like so I'm going to hand it over to Lillian and she will introduce one of our keynotes thank you hello everyone hi Alan hi it's my great pleasure today to have this wonderful conversation thank you for joining us with us today is Alan Davidson the Assistant Secretary for the Department of Commerce for communication and information and he's also the head administrator of the NTIA Alan a little bit about you just for this audience although you know everybody knows who you are but Alan has over 20 years of experience at the intersection of public interest advocacy and technology and the law obviously now as the administrator of NTIA you oversee a lot of the issues that are at the forefront of discussion in the American public debate AI being one of the most important ones that we'll be talking about today but other critical ones like our internet infrastructure and so on which we care a lot about at the Open Technology Institute at New America prior to being at NTIA Alan was the senior advisor for the Mozilla Foundation which is a global nonprofit that also promotes openness, innovation and participation on the internet and then obviously Alan has a long history of being here at New America where you know he was once the director of the Open Technology Institute and also vice president of technology policies so thank you again for joining us Oh it's so great to be back here, thank you So today is an interesting day to talk about AI I know it's somewhere in DC there is also a strong cohort of individuals leaders in the industry having an important conversation as well on the future of AI and AI governance as part of Leader Schumer's Insights Forum Can we start the conversation here just talking a little bit about how you at NTIA think about balancing the need to police AI and optimize AI obviously a lot of the debate is sort of this what feels like extreme polarization around is it really great for our society or will it lead to our extinction how do you kind of set the tone or kind of lay the ground for your own thinking around this Excellent question Well actually let me first by the way start by saying it is really truly great to be back here back at New America, back at this forum and I have to say congratulations to the leaders who have been I very vividly remember I think it was the first forum that we did in this partnership between New America and ASU and admiring the quality of the conversation I felt in some ways it was sort of the best of what this community can bring to furthering our thinking on the hard policy issues in front of us so I just say congratulations to to Peter, to our colleagues at ASU and for the continuation of the forum and it's an honor to be here today for me So terrific question and I think the answer is going to be yes and both right like that the truth is that I think the administration is committed to the idea that responsible innovation in AI is going to bring enormous benefits to humanity, to people at the same time we know that there are very real risks and that those risks need to be dealt with and need to be dealt with today real risk that we are seeing today if we're going to realize that promise of AI and I think just unpacked that the president said it himself very clearly he said we have to be clear eyed about and vigilant about the threats emerging technologies can pose but there will be enormous enormous potential upsides as well and I think that encapsulates our approach right you know the rise of these machine learning techniques has been pretty incredible it's been coming and building for years I think many of us have been surprised by how fast some of the most recent developments have been and we see this is going to transform our society in many many ways and the benefits are very clear you look at something like medicine disease detection drug discovery access to healthcare information by sets of people who might never have had that access all of that is not just on the horizon it's happening now because of these techniques and that's just one area precision agriculture climate change all these things will benefit from these new machine learning tools at the same time we see real risk right and it's long-term risk and it's also immediate risk and that we need to address that risk if we're going to realize those promises but do you think that some of this notion that it will lead to our you know extinction does that sort of obfuscate or kind of make it difficult to really address the concerns and the regulations that need to be in place well it's a great question because I think we see really what should be best thought of as a spectrum of risk right and in some ways it might be easy to try to bifurcate it between the ends of the spectrum there are longer-term risks and we've heard pretty clearly from fairly senior people in the field about their worries about some of those longer-term risks and I think we've taken an approach in the administration to say we need to address those their real national security concerns, safety concerns and we should look at those in the long-term but I think we benefit also from bifurcating that and saying but there are also, that should not hide the fact that there are immediate risks too and it's a different track the immediate risk category and I think we are seeing real potential harms to privacy, to security concerns about human rights and civil rights concerns about civic discourse and those do need bias bias in these systems and equity and those do need to be addressed you may have already answered it in that remark but are there specific issues with how NTIA and the administration are thinking about the concerns around the large language models is there a nature or already some framework that you're thinking about in terms of categorizing these issues or risks it's interesting because for those of us who have been following this space for a while it's not even clear that the large language models are going to be the most impactful or economically consequential developments in this space but they really captured the public's imagination and they're being used already today my kids are using chat GPT I hope it's not on all their homework but they're using it and so it behooves us to be thinking in a clear way about what those risks are and that work has already begun and it's been in progress from the administration point of view OSTP the Office of Science Technology policy put out a blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights we have worked with companies talk more about it to get commitments from them to address some of the harms that we're seeing today and I do think that there are these really immediate questions that need to be answered about the large language models and how they're being used and how they're impacting our society and I'll just say at NTIA we're thinking a lot about accountability in that space that's a piece that we've we launched a project about a year ago we talked more about it but to think about how we make sure that models are accountable and do what they say they're going to do yeah I mean it's interesting you talk about your kids using it I mean the large right now it has captured the public imagination and being a long time native Angelina I mean we're seeing the real dynamic so early on in the development of the technology that real conflict between the use of AI and then what it's doing to you know like the creative economies an example right I mean the Hollywood strike is very much centered around issues and how AI will impact the ability of a whole industry which is you know one of the reasons why our country I think has been so economically and globally powerful on a cultural level how do I know that the use of it and copyright laws are definitely not within your purview but how do you just getting your thinking on how does NTIA and commerce more broadly think about the use balancing kind of these large sets and the use of them and helping that innovative industry and economy grow and at the same time how do we protect the rights of creators that are you know whose work is being absorbed by these models and then being used to generate new content at you know at literally no or very little benefit to the original creator I think it's a great example of the kinds of dislocations that are coming and the pace of it is what is probably in some ways quite surprising I will say there this is a very hard set of issues around intellectual property and particularly large language models but also just generally in the training of models and what models produce the question of who owns what a model produces the question of can an AI own a patent or what does that look like I think there are people who are thinking about these hard legal and policy questions right now I'll just say at the commerce department our colleagues at the patent and trademark office have launched a number of inquiries both on the copyright side and the patent questions that are really interesting and to also think about how we promote in the United States more innovation how we provide the kind of intellectual property of uses and I think this question about artists is quite a real one we're seeing it play out right now and I think that will have to in some ways that will have to be resolved I don't have a great comment on the actual conflict that's going on right now in Hollywood other than to say I think it's a very good example of the kinds of dislocations that were or changes that we're going to see and we need to think about how across the board these new tools are going to affect work in some ways in bursty ways ten years ago I think many of us probably would be included predicted that driverless autonomous systems would be here within a decade and that we might not need truck drivers would our kids learn to drive even that has been slow to come turns out some of these problems are harder than we think we've made amazing progress but we're not there yet and so it's sometimes difficult to predict but there's a burstiness a non-linearity to these steps forward that I think is part of what's unsettling here yes I love that example of the autonomous technology because yes four or five years ago we thought we were seeing cars on the road at any time now and we know that the progress is made but then there's definitely a plateau in terms of the development but also then is the infrastructure really ready to support it and is our policy infrastructure ready to support it so that's a good question about then kind of jumping ahead to how you see your own policymaking especially I know that you've had increase yourself at NTIA about AI governance what are you hearing sort of one give us an update on where you see your agency's role in policymaking over the next year and then also what are you hearing from the inquiries that you've made to civil society and others about how we should be governing the space well it's terrific it's an interesting time to be working in this area and I'd say you know NTIA our statutory mandate by law our role is to serve the president's principal advisor on telecommunications and information policy what does that mean we are basically policy advisors so we think we're not regulators we're not here to regulate but we don't think necessarily about what the law says today we think about what the law ought to say and so we have been engaged in this project across the board of thinking how should we as an administration respond to these new developments which have been coming for a while how do we engage internationally we haven't even touched on the fact that there's a giant giant issues internationally to think about national security issues a strong desire to make sure that innovation happens here in the U.S and with our trusted partners around the world and that we're building AI in ways that promote our foreign policy goals as well I think all of that for us has been it's going to be a far-flung enterprise for the administration there are a number of big things that the administration is working on at MTI I mentioned one of the interesting things we started on we started on this about a year ago before all of the chat it takes a while to do some of these projects we embarked on a project on AI accountability and really thinking about this is just one example of an area but AI accountability this question of how do you make sure that models are actually behaving the way they say they're behaving a key step to making sure that we can put rules in place or guardrails in place is being able to understand what a machine learning model what an artificial intelligence system does and it's a lot like financial audits if you think about financial audits and financial systems if you're going to represent that you've done X, Y, or Z financially there are a whole set of rules around that there's a policy backstop there are standards for accounting and so we embarked on an inquiry to say what would it look like to create that kind of ecosystem for AI so that we would know what the standards are that people should be measuring against and then like figure out how you actually do that measurement we put out a request for comment in the spring we got over 1400 comments which for us our little agency is a ton we touched an herb we're very interested in this question we got a lot of comments back and I'll just say I think there's a keen interest in putting tools in place so people know how to figure out what accountability looks like and then making sure that we think about where we might need policy backstops to make sure that when companies or developers could be private sector, public sector when anybody represents something about how their AI system is working we've got tools to measure whether that's true that's just one example of a kind of full spectrum approach to these issues one of the things obviously that we really care about is the connection with public interest policy and technology right it's not just about advancing open technology but it's really about ensuring that it's serving the public interest and while a lot of these technologies tend to feel like a benefit society we know that they're obviously we've talked about the risks and so as you're engaging the public more broadly how do we actually engage the resident citizens of the U.S. whom are interacting with AI the conversation right now gets really focused on generative AI but the reality is that AI tools AI supported tools have been around in our mix for at least you know obviously for decades but you know definitely in cities and we see the issues with it whether it's you know the bias around any image based technologies so how do you I mean how do we are there things that make you optimistic are there challenges you see to having a more broad based conversation where the public can really be engaged and the concern is that they're not one of the fourth you know like a general public is not really part of the 1400 that get to you know that get to give their input to NTIA and it does seem like this is a different kind of technological moment that does require more public input and debate absolutely so I think it's essential that we have an inclusive conversation so that we are building systems that reflect these real impacts on society and if we we develop at our peril without that input and I think it's going to ultimately be it's important for developers it's important for us if we're going to meet our goals of society we've got to have that equitable conversation so how do we do it I think part of it starts with good storytelling with good narratives to help draw people into this debate you mentioned and I think people are seeing it and feeling it you mentioned some of these other advances we've had you know machine learning in our lives for a while facial recognition is a terrific example and I have to say it is quite surprising to me as an observer how far and how fast we have moved to bring these tools into everyday life you know there have been as a great example the stories about local police departments using facial recognition tools and improperly arresting people right taking people into custody taking them out of their lives the biggest thing that the state can do is deprive you of your freedom and we're doing it based on a set of tools that we know that we know we've shown our bias against people of color right that don't work as well the pace of that change the pace of that adoption just shows how much we need to do to first of all educate and inform people to understand the limits of these tools and put good guardrails in place but I think those stories help us bring people in and even though as you say large language models aren't necessarily the longest running or most impactful thing I think we have to lean into this moment this is a teachable moment for us this is our society's moment people have stepped up everybody I know is talking about chat GPT you know this winter and spring admittedly I run with a set of really nerdy people but you know I think a lot of people were talking about it and we have to use those moments to bring people in the majority of the comments we got those 1400 comments were individuals people worried about their jobs people worried about their security and privacy and I think we can bring people in and if there's anything that's encouraging here it's that we're actually a bit earlier in this discussion I mean I feel this way than we were in some of the previous generations of technology so there has been some there has been some conversation in communities across the U.S. around like facial recognition technology that has been somewhat contentious that in fact a couple years ago forced a couple companies to stop using to stop allowing police departments to use the technology how do when we think about the public when we think about public interest and equity how do we incentivize I mean are we in any position to really incentivize companies to take that view in mind first and to really focus on serving the public good and equity not just assume that it's a benefit to society but to actually really center a lot of their development around these kinds of values and principles the truth is and this is what will help us it is good for businesses and developers more broadly to be thinking about these issues up front the success of their products and of their companies is going to depend on their ability to get ahead of these issues privacy, security the impact of bias in the models that they choose and I think we need to do more work to lift that up I don't want to be naive about the work that it takes to make sure that people understand that but I talked to leaders in the developer community I think in board rooms across the country people are starting to ask the hard questions as they did with cyber security before how are we getting ahead of these issues you know are we actually doing the right thing and making sure that this isn't going to come back to haunt us in terms of our reputation or in terms of our liability I think there will be more to do the starting point is that public attention that drives developers, companies and others to really think we've got to get ahead of this and that's partly why it's important to talk about it I think these accountability frameworks that we are trying to put in place in government starting with tools that show people how they can measure their risk and then moving to ultimately I think these commitments, codes of conduct, ultimately are there going to be rules on the books that actually people have to obey and that will be the path making sure that companies are thinking about this and it strikes me it's important to say I think in New America one of the opportunities here is also to just create more dialogue between industry and civil society to really ensure that because I think the conversation is happening perhaps in the board rooms but sustaining it I think is going to require a lot of convening and constant dialogue over the next 5, 10 years of development so that we're working in essence in concert to make sure that whatever harms are emerging we can identify them quickly and address them and have some level of accountability but also create more more perspective and trust the problems are really hard I mean that's part of the challenge for us some of these are very obvious some of them are harder and so I do think and the solutions are not so easy either so we're early days but this is the part where we really need thought leaders and honestly it's going to be groups like New America who can step up and represent the broad views of the public and also have this dialogue with developers, with companies, with the technical community because we need it and I think a lot of people are asking the question what does good look like they don't even know and that's where we can help and by we I mean us well I have a couple more questions I wanted to get out of the way before we open it up for audience questions but you've been around this industry for a long time, is there something that strikes you as different in terms of how we're approaching this moment versus other ways of development you know what gives you a little bit of I mean these are really hard problems that we don't, there's so much of our own that it's hard to it's going to take a while but what gives you hope and confidence in this well I think the biggest thing is that we're engaging region relatively early so I have been in the sort of technology and policy space particularly around the internet and I think if you compare this to the early days of web 2.0 cloud computing social networking even the development of the internet I'd argue we've done more here than we did in any of those places we've learned some of the lessons part of it is that the developer community has learned like I I look at I used to have this great chart of when did each company hire its first policy person you know Microsoft it was like employee number 20,000 Google it was like employee number 3000 you know Twitter it was like number 400 right if you look at these relatively small companies doing some of this very impactful work they're hiring policy people they're bringing them they're getting themselves to Washington they're part of this dialogue that's happening on Capitol Hill right now and I think there's they're engaging earlier which is great I think also we have a much more sophisticated set of civil society players than we've ever had before New America and others out there really digging in hard on you know how do we how do we make sure we're represented here and I look at I have been involved in teaching over the years and I look at the next generation of computer science students this is what they want to be engaged in not just the development of AI but they care about the impact of what they're building and that to me is the biggest reason for hope we've created we're and we're building a generation and it's partly what they care about of young people who really want to make sure they understand the implications of what they're building so that that is the biggest reason for hope that we're early on but it's it's going to be hard work and a lot to do I would not be doing my job if I didn't mention to that point that yeah you know New America has an amazing program public interest technology program with universities across the US that's focused just on that trying to build the next generation of technologists who have the the rounded perspective to really think about the implication and the ethics that go along to building these powerful tools I think the one and it is extremely encouraging I think probably the one thing that we need to worry about a little bit here is that we don't really have the luxury of time and that is a little bit different than it felt 15 years ago let's say or 20 years ago in the internet space the internet was relatively new when I started working that's there were you know we would measure like it was 40 million people online now there's 5 billion people online the pace of change and the uptick in these technologies is very hot is fast and so we need to be figuring these issues out now so there's a sense of urgency as well so I'm glad we're engaging early but we also need to be engaging early I'll just say the administrations we're working on this right at the highest levels we've worked on this set of commitments from companies we're engaging with our international partners to make sure that we're bringing that we're working with them about global solutions and we are actually you know thinking about what does the legislative world look like just today you know Senator Schumer is convening this very high level group of CEOs that's exactly what they we should be doing right thinking educating ourselves and thinking what are the rules we need to put in place well that is a great opportunity to talk about something we you know we've been advocating for for a really long time which is you know some comprehensive federal privacy legislation that really sets us up to address not just the existing technologies that have been out there that amass and use all of America's data but also the new technologies and a lot of these LLMs in particular like it feels like the time the time says we need to act and there's some urgency around this moment that's been building up but there is a little bit of just inaction so what I mean I don't know what you think about you know our inability to get some comprehensive federal privacy legislation at the door as the Europeans have been able to do and and more generally with the kind of urgency we have there are so many there are still foundational pieces of legislation that we don't have in this country around around technology policy that that need to be advanced I mean how quickly do you know it's a complicated question but how quickly what will it take for us to really take these kinds of actions on it's a great question and I think partly because it tells us something about how we as a society are able to react to some of the technologies I do I will say it is surprising for those of us who have been in this space for a while that we don't have a comprehensive federal privacy law in this country if you had asked many of us not to date myself but 20 years ago if you had said 2023 there will not be a federal privacy law privacy law in the books I think people said that can't be right these two this can be too important we know these things are going to affect people and and we know by the way the poll the data shows us that the public wants these rules as well right and so well the administration has said the president has said we need to be doing more in this space we would really benefit from a federal comprehensive federal privacy law partly because it is the right thing to do to protect consumers and have a baseline that everybody's protected but partly also for our global leadership I mean I work with a lot of people talk to a lot of other leaders around the world thinking about this question of how we can address these hard issues and it's hard when the US itself doesn't even have a baseline privacy law and how do we think about our leadership moving forward so I'm hopeful that with the right incentives we can move quickly I do believe that there's a strong sense that the moment is upon us we have to act we're starting to act and there's going to be a lot more to come in the coming months and years I would love to open it up for questions from the audience if that's okay with you yeah thank you Alan it's good I mean I think we're all happy that somebody is well informed and as long with your deep background is effectively the point person on AI on the commercial side in this country but I wanted to I you may not be responsible for some of this but I wanted to get your thoughts on this question which is we saw essentially the news media business essentially more or less get destroyed by the fact that social media companies were sort of giving away this product for free and no business can survive if the products are being given away for free and so picking up on what Lillian said and one of the reasons we have a very prosperous country is because of copyright and patents and so if you look at the large language models I mean essentially they've hoovered up 170,000 books the authors involved have and that's just one example in terms of creative content so I mean this seems like a very big problem Alan you said time is sort of running out because this thing is moving very quickly so what are the safeguards that realistically could be put in place for content creators whether they're writers or artists or any other form of content creator including developers themselves right? It's a terrific question it's a hard problem I think the problem this is one where I suspect that law will play a major role and have to fairly quickly and when I say that I'm also I mean not just you know new legislation but the interpretation of our existing laws and I think there's a lot of work being done at the copyright office I talked with Pat in trademark office of commerce to try to get ahead of that and think about it hearings on Capitol Hill but I suspect we're going to see litigation and that litigation will give us some insight pretty quickly about what the how our current legal structure will work and then we'll have to go from there I'd also say there's an international dimension to this right? You know math does not stop at the border you know innovation in AI is happening all around the world and part of what we're so keen to do as an administration is yes work domestically think about also the companies that are leading here and getting commitments from them but also then work with our partners we're going to start with the G7 there's a big effort the Hiroshima process that's been kicked off by Japan to come up with codes of conduct around AI and then move out from there Indian government's been a big leader in the global partnership on AI we're very keen to be working with the UK they have a big safety summit coming up so I think you'll see more and more of these international efforts to try and get ahead of these big problems I'm getting the Peters today Hey I'm Pete Singer great to see you again and thanks for a wonderful talk I wondered if you could speak about your own personal but maybe the administration's view of the effect of this on jobs not merely in an economic sense but in a political and societal sense there was there's a variety of contention on how many jobs will be either replaced or redefined or reduced because of this and you know we've got estimates all over the place but what I was struck by recently was there was a poll that came out about two months ago and the way it was labeled in the media was only 14% of Americans worry that they'll lose their jobs to AI and robotics only so one out of seven people in the room and then there was a Gallup poll that came out earlier this week that said actually now it's up to 21% so can you speak to what your view on this is and how the administration is thinking about it particularly in terms of there's very clear social anxiety that also has real potential security effects I think a starting point for us has to be to engage in that conversation and to really understand that there will be impacts but also you know try to be clear-eyed about where they'll be and how we might mitigate risk the biggest thing is starting by understanding that there's going to be a lot of benefit and that that benefit in and itself will create economic opportunity I just think about for example the use of not perfect example but I was speaking to the head of a local private school here about how they were handling the rising use of chat GPT and he said well this is just like a calculator we are going to have to change the way we assess people it's not the end of education it's not something that he was planning to ban in their school it was something that they were going to embrace and think about how it was going to have to change the way they do evaluation students use the calculator today on their math tests in high school we still learn arithmetic the point is there are going to be these benefits in unexpected ways there's a different view of many of these things and not to be you know to be dismissive of concerns because they're real but you know there's data out there that also shows there's a tremendous amount of job creation that comes with these new technologies and so figuring out how we make that pivot to help people respond and also to recognize you know our predictions are not necessarily so good we talked about you know driverless cars a little while ago you know ten years ago we might have said oh my gosh we need to embark on a massive project to rescue the trucking industry that's not here yet it might be here we need to be really clear about it we need to prepare for it but right now it's very hard to find enough truck drivers and it's going to take a little while we think for some of these things to happen so I do think there's a level of preparation being ready for this and then also trying to make sure we're benefiting from the upside the last thing I'll say because I think this is such an awesome question I was just down visiting Miami Dade College down in in Miami it is a giant college system I say this with it's an ASU like college system just massive in its scale I think they have a hundred thousand matriculated students and I went they invited me to see their AI lab and I'm like you don't even really have a PhD program what is this AI lab like right and I went and I was kind of blown away because their approach is we're not here to train PhDs in creating frontier models our well but what we do think is that every business in America is going to need somebody who knows how to use you know machine learning who knows how to use chat GPT who knows how these basic tools work and we are going to be the place that trains people with an associate degree to go out there and be a user and a smart business leader on the use of AI and I think it's brilliant because the fact is we need to stop thinking about the frontier models as the only thing and the job dislocations the only thing we need to be thinking how do we train a next generation of workers to use these tools across the board whether it's radiologists you know scanning scans or you know people using chat GPT and small businesses across the country and that's the retooling that we need to do and start getting ahead of it and that's how we're thinking about it. Florida is a great model it's the largest that southeast Florida region is the largest producer of Latino engineers in the country this question you know makes me ask can you describe what efforts or maybe if they're not already in place what kinds of investments we can be making to really up the digital readiness especially of kids it just seems like part of the I think what you're describing is sort of the augmenting capabilities and potential of AI but as we know a lot of our children especially children of color poor children have just the least access to a lot of technology and even just basic tools to be successful in today's economy so how is a country do I mean what I'd love to see is a country where we're starting to invest early on and really equipping our kids to be all kids to be successful in this moment but how do you from your vantage point and in the collaborations across the federal government where do you see the opportunities to do more of that well it starts with you know the investments that we've been making in STEM education across the country steam education across the country we really do need more investment and more help for people and for diverse communities to be starting at a very young age learning about these tools and the tools that they'll need to be able to succeed in a very STEM oriented world I think we also need better digital literacy and media literacy and there's a lot of work that's been done on that so a lot of it some great work here done here in New America but that's got to be very real and you see groups shout out to Common Sense Media a great example who put out tool kits and are thinking about this how do we embrace this make sure that we're teaching digital literacy and digital media work part of our efforts even at commerce at NTIA as we think about building out broadband infrastructure we've been given big grants to do work on digital equity and our view of digital equity is it's got to include thinking about the workforce of the future helping communities that have been left behind and particularly vulnerable communities making sure they have the tools to thrive online so there's a lot of investment that's going on right now and like I said with the Miami data example we need to take a very expansive view of this this isn't just about it will be partly about investing in those frontier models in those PhDs who are creating the newest technologies the big NSF investments in those academic leadership centers but it's also about how do we reach a very broad cross-section of America and make them understand they're going to be part of this revolution too I often say no child should graduate high school without digital literacy training that is the new civics curriculum of this country and we should figure out how to make that happen Alan this has been a delightful conversation I don't know if we have any more questions from the audience but I think with that we just thank you for your time and thank you for the conversation I will say this is it is a moment of great opportunity but also some peril and I think there really is a big global conversation going on are these going to be technologies of openness are used by closed societies are they going to be technologies of freedom or of control and how do we create more equitable outcomes as we embrace this new machine learning revolution so I'll just say thank you for the conversation the thing that does give me hope is conversations like this and the engagement of leaders like we have here today so thank you Michael Garcia who is a share of the Mike Cyberfellow at New America and has a new report coming out on the cyber security risks of extended reality that will be released fairly soon so you know my name is Daniel Rothen where I co-direct the Future Security Initiative and thanks so much for being here with us Hi I'm Michael Garcia and I'm a fellow in the share of the Mike and cyber initiative in 2007 the first iPhone was released and 4G connections rolled out a year later with wide scale adoption of smartphones and access to 4G mobile apps took off it was unthinkable back then that we'd use a cell phone to get someone's car translate a menu into different languages in real time and FaceTime someone from across the world would have literally no lag time yet the subsequent implications of these apps were not thought of until the incident started happening few if any raised the long arms about foreign interference and elections by manipulating social media the sale of American data to unregulated data brokers that could then be bought by law enforcement agencies was one of dystopian future and a proliferation of virtual currency starting with Bitcoin in 2009 helped give rise to devastating ransomware attacks all of which brought on by the onset of 4G applications with deployment of 5G towers at the United States 5G cable phones and other devices will increasingly proliferate but the true benefits of 5G will be those taking advantage of reduced up and down data streams primarily virtual reality and augmented reality applications or VR and AR for short an increased adoption of 5G devices in the United States will spur widespread use of AR and VR primarily known as extended reality applications or XR for short and it will become accessible through a single or set of metaverses by this I mean a collection of virtual ecosystems that will allow users to interact with each other and their surroundings in a creative and collaborative manner in virtual spaces or physical environments that are digitally manipulated by static or mobile devices in other words one does not need a VR headset to access the metaverse but one simply only needs access to a cell phone and the internet the global XR market could be anywhere from $496 billion in 2025 which would be an increase from $46.4 billion from 2019 the EU estimates that could create anywhere between 440,000 jobs to 860,000 jobs by 2025 indeed one prediction estimates that the world could see 23 million jobs created all these numbers may seem a bit fantastical admittedly it becomes a bit more realistic given the amount of users who could be using XR applications today Americans from 16 64 years old then average 7 hours a day online you're doing it right now if that trend holds or more likely expands one aspect projects that the metaverse will increase the data usage of each internet user by 20 times importantly XR applications must be thought beyond video games or form of communication rather than just seeing a technology that's currently being used or when they will be used in various industries for example since 2017 Hawaii utility in Australia has used VR to allow users to walk through a virtual model of the treatment plan hoping to identify more design problems than traditional walkthroughs US Army course engineers are identifying AR, VR solutions to help a flood risk management infrastructure but more consequentially is how militaries will use XR technologies and metaverses US military has used XR technology for decades starting the 50s when the Air Force used simulations to replicate cockpit experiences for pilots since then the importance of XR technology across all US military branches has only grown just one point US Army has created a synthetic training environment to help training soldiers in realistic battlefields highlighting these use cases is important to detail the significance of the cybersecurity implications that could arise if a bad actor successfully exploits vulnerabilities within these systems VR headsets for examples will introduce a host of new vulnerabilities that could allow hackers to record audio and steal sensitive information which the actors could also exploit XR software to achieve their goals by taking over a user's VR headset to look at their screen, to turn on the microphone and install a virus on their computer and others but one of the more unique outcomes that a bad actor could achieve is by physically manipulating a user this has honestly been dubbed the human joystick phenomenon in fact one study found that nearly 90% of subjects could have their movements controlled by addition of content to their VR screen one could imagine the consequences that could happen in a military context moreover bad actors don't need to exploit a headset or an XR software to achieve their goals but they can potentially a data hosting provider like a mass service provider and launch additional ransomware attacks that would equip the data that is necessary needed for the XR application to function lastly all these examples of various aspects of users and organization privacy an issue that we've been grappling with for decades the United States must also contend with how other governments are developing policies to incentivize or regulate their XR market which could impact how they're used within the United States European Union for example has created a strategy to detail how it will incentivize its XR market on one hand while simultaneously initiating processes to decide how to regulate this market on the other South Korea and Japan with millions of dollars by government services to their citizens and the Metaverse but more consequential is how China views Metaverse China has created a five-year plan that details how it will become a global leader in supplying the XR technology supply chain and this plan it notes that they will develop dedicated processing chips for VR, near-eye displays and other key devices China has also taken a prominent role in developing international standards primarily through the UN's focus group on the Metaverse through this working group the UN is analyzing the technical requirements of the Metaverse for the international community China has represented that nearly each of the 10 sub-working groups and recently held the focus group second form in Shanghai this past July as an aside the United States is upset in this focus group lastly and maybe most concerning the People's Liberation Army is looking to build the battle verse to assist in military training simulating war scenarios, testing new weapons the panel is going to be led by Sarah Levinson who Sarah Levinson Moriarty who is a fellow at New America she was instrumental in getting the Levinson Act passed which was named after her father who was the longest held American hostage in Iran and who died in captivity so I'm going to hand it over to Sarah and she will introduce the panel Thank you Peter and thanks everyone for joining us what I think is a really important discussion and I'm sure everybody here will agree Do we have Cindy? We do Okay So virtually we will have Cindy Lercher who is joining us from the Foley Foundation she's the director of research hostage advocacy and government affairs I have a little handy note to myself so I'm going to put the phone away afterwards don't worry I'm happy to introduce Roger Carstens who is the presidential envoy for hostage affairs there's Cindy, I see her now we also have Ali Soufan who's the chief executive officer at the Soufan Center and he's also a former supervisory special agent at the FBI and then we have Elizabeth Whalen who's the sister of Paul Whalen who's currently held in Russia against as well Thank you all for joining us I am going to pass it over to Cindy for a moment I know she wanted to talk a little bit more about the Foley Foundation's annual report bringing Americans home Thank you very much Sarah and and first we'd like to give a special to Peter Bergen and Sarah, Levinson Moriarty both former Foley Board members I might add we're just so grateful for you leading the discussion today as well as our panelists and our audience for joining today just to give a quick little introduction to the Foley Foundation we are named after James Wright Foley who was a freelance conflict journalist who reported often in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria Jim was kidnapped on Thanksgiving Day in 2012 then held captive by the Islamic State until his public and brutal murder on August 19, 2014 The Foley Foundation began three weeks after Jim's murder and since then our president and founder Diane Foley has been advocating for the freedom and health of hostage in Robson and promoting journalist safety around the world What brings us here today is our fifth annual bringing Americans home report Our reports consist of over 250 interviews with hostages, wrongful detainees and their families as well as interviews with current former U.S. officials across what we like to call the U.S. Hostage Enterprise that was stood up by Executive Order 13698 Presidential Policy Directive 30 also known as PPD 30 that was back in 2015 which all was later codified by the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage Taking Accountability Act in 2020 This year's reports findings which can be found on the Foley website are based off of two Foley data sets which consist of 215 hostage and 207 wrongful detainee cases going back to 2001 However, this year's results focus primarily on 2022 up to July 31st of this year I should first begin by defining a hostage versus a wrongful detainee which we adhere to the U.S. Government and how they distinguish between the two cases specifically a hostage is an individual kidnapped by a terrorist organization criminal and militant group as well as pirates However, we do exclude criminal cases in our data set wrongful detainees however are individuals held by foreign governments i.e. state actors However, we do at Foley recognize the strong similarities between hostages and wrongful detainees such that both groups are targeted for being Americans and both are held for the purpose to try to effect change in U.S. policy forced concessions and or request a prisoner swap At the time their report was written there were 59 U.S. nationals held hostage and wrongfully detained overseas and over 90% of those cases were wrongful detentions and it's been consistent that way 40 of those cases 79% were U.S. nationals that were held in China Iran, Russia, and Venezuela However, 14 other countries either detained or wrongfully held a U.S. national in 2022 and 23 while we have seen historic levels of U.S. nationals wrongfully detained by foreign governments over the past decade specifically 175% increased in the number of wrongful detention incidents and a 580% increase of the number of U.S. nationals who continue to be held year after year However, there has been which is very good a 31% decrease since the publication of last year's report of U.S. nationals held abroad This is due to 25 releases that at least public releases that occurred from 2022 up to July 31st of this year in the year 2022 also contained the highest number of wrongful detainees released overall within our database that begins in 2001 However, while there have been significant number of releases, it's important to note that the number of U.S. nationals who continue to be held remain at historic high levels. At the same time the number of U.S. nationals held hostage by terrorist organizations militant groups and pirates have fluctuated over the past two decades overall there's been a general downward trend since 2016 since 2022 there have been 9 U.S. hostages released which occurred in Yemen Afghanistan, Niger and Burkina Faso groups responsible for holding these Americans were the Houthis, the Taliban the Kani network and JNIM While there have been several successes over the past year or so I'd like to end with a very stark reminder that we continue to still see Americans held hostage in wrongfully detained overseas currently the Foley Foundation is tracking at least 60 of those cases and of the current hostage and wrongful detention cases, 6 U.S. nationals have been held for over 10 years which is an hour to 14 years thank you very much And I think that is a great place to kind of start the conversation and think about it. I think there's a lot of details and statistics that are in the report and I want to get into the nitty gritty and a little bit of the meat behind it Before we do, I do think it's important to acknowledge the death of Governor Bill Richardson the funeral is tomorrow and so I wanted to take a moment given the success over the past year and I know that there was a close partnership with Governor Richardson and a lot of the people on this stage, I wanted to give everyone a moment just to say a few words about his impact on the hostage ecosystem as a whole I'll go ahead and start by me. Bill Richardson was a great American he spent pretty much a good part of his life trying to free Americans around the world with their hostages wrongfully detained I consider him a strong partner, gave me a lot of advice especially when I was just starting out and I can go back to my time trying to work the Venezuela portfolio there was a time when the United States government just was not gaining traction in Venezuela and Governor Richardson was able to get a meeting with the Venezuelans, flew down to talk to President Maduro and it kind of highlights how in a way this is a team sport and there are times when the United States government can't get the job done for various reasons and yet we're able to work with titans of foreign policy like Bill Richardson who can still try to get the job done so he'll be missed, he was a good friend and ally and my heart goes out to not only his family but also the Richardson Center and Mickey Bergman and the team I second everything Roger said I mean Ambassador Richardson was the trusted third party before there were any third parties he definitely will be missed and it's going to be very difficult to have somebody fill his shoes and I'll just add in that we really appreciated the help that he offered early on when we couldn't get any traction with the Trump administration and it was good to have somebody down in D.C. going around and knocking on doors for us thanks Elizabeth it's a tremendous loss and I think for most families that worked with Governor Richardson he was almost a center of gravity in this space he was a champion, a leader a trailblazer for decades focusing on hostage and wrongful detention cases and truly my heart goes out to the family and to Mickey during this time and he'll be missed greatly thanks Cindy so great let's jump into a bit of the meat of it Roger if you could just level set a little bit for people how do wrongful detention cases come to your desk someone finds out that their family member is being held how did they get to you and how has the Levenson Act helped to enable you to do your job fantastic first question so first off I wouldn't mind thinking New America Foundation and my former boss Peter for hosting this New York State University also for their part in putting this together and to thank my fellow panelists up here this is a team effort it's not just the government it's people like Sarah, Elizabeth and Ali who actually do a lot of the hard work behind the scenes to pull this all together in a way you're all included in that except for Colonel Liam Collins you are not included in that and Liam you'll see how war boots just in case I have to quickly escape the stage and X Phil all the way back to the State Department looking forward to your panel anyway, so wrongful detention has come to us in numerous ways I've had mothers send me an email saying Roger I got your email from so and so my son is being held in Country X the details are such would you please look into that and that's actually a good thing we take that seriously in other words we have a hunger to get Americans out and so however it gets to us that's a good thing so if we take that we go to the consular affairs and reach out to the embassy of the country in question and start gathering all the facts that we possibly can't because at the end of the day we want to build a file with the facts of the case take the Levenson Act criteria and apply that criteria over those facts to see if it's strong enough to send to the Secretary of State for recommendation but we also get them from embassies you might have an embassy a consular officer see that someone's been arrested in a certain country and it's wrong about this case they'll dig into it a little bit and eventually we'll get a cable coming to the Department of State in Washington saying embassies such and such believe this case to be that of a wrongful attention and again it's not a done deal yet at that point we still start gathering information journalists by reporting something I would say a Catherine Swadon gave a wonderful interview I want to say it was in the Houston Chronicle many years ago I read an interview with this grieving mother and was like we've got to figure out whether this case belongs in our desk or not so they come in various ways but once it hits the State Department it's really the starting point is really SPIHA and consular affairs taking a look at the case and then starting to do all the queries whether it's going to the CIA the embassy talking to reporters talking to the families we're essentially trying to vacuum up any bit of information that allows us to build the facts of the case and when the facts of the case are there then as I said we apply the Levenson Act criteria on the top to see if it feels wrongful and that maybe gets to maybe the crux of your question the Levenson Act has been seismic for various reasons in that it codified what we do it's actually put it into law it's allowed us to garner resources it's allowed us to write a report to Congress that falsely explains what we've done but I would say the most important part to my mind is that it gives us criteria with which to evaluate these cases before the Levenson Act came out I think we were just kind of winging it we would try to get a sense of whether someone was held purely because they were an American citizen and a country was leveraging us and now we can take a look at that criteria and actually take a look at some of these cases and bring them on board and I would argue that one of the reasons that we've seen an uptake in 2020 in the Mount of Wrongful Detentions is because we now have criteria and as you probably know and I'll end on this when the criteria came out we sent a cable out all over the world and every single U.S. Embassy and every single consulate had to relook every single arrest and that was like thousands upon thousands of people I said I know you've probably seen all your cases before but take the criteria, apply it to the facts and let's see if we've missed something so I can't thank you enough and for members on Capitol Hill and everyone else who put that legislation together but again it's an example of the partnership of working with family members members on Capitol Hill, their staffs and such to bring something together that has been of great value to this enterprise Thanks Roger and I ask the other panelists to forgive me because I'm going to ask the second question to you as well because I think it's at the top of everyone's mind right now is the Iran deal that's happening Oh good, no comment That was easy I wanted to ask you just a bit because there's a lot of people out there who might be saying things to the effect of this incentivizes hostage taking and I wanted to give you a chance to respond to that in this kind of setting and then Ali I have a follow up question but how do you see this deal coming about and what do you say to those naysayers about whether this incentivizes through I think on the deal itself these are things that we hope for and I can't really say much at all because it's something that we want to wait until it's all over and then we're going to be very open and engaging with members of the public press Congress etc but in terms of your question the United States has made some trades in the last two and a half years the Secretary of State and the President have together worked to make some very hard decisions to bring Americans back and yet in some of these trades that have gone down range we've just not seen the bump up in numbers and we're still going to run the math but I would say anecdotally right now despite the fact that we've I can think of five people that we've traded during the Biden administration we've just not seen uptick and if anything I might say that the number of wrongful detainees is actually going down so you think that if you made a trade that would incentivize everyone and everyone would be out there trying to grab what we could to use this leverage against us and the data is just not showing that and I do want to get a bit into deterrence on top of that afterward but Ali I wanted to give you a chance to speak from your perspective as a third party intermediary how you see the Iran deal and how important adversaries or partners in other countries might be helping us and how we should be thinking about that I think as an outside third party I just care about the people who are going to be released and their families so towards the end everything is going to be political we're in a political year people will have different view of anything that happens based on their partisan lens and to the most part the American people understand the importance of having these folks back with their loved ones and their families so if a government official can say third party no comment other one I said but third parties play a very important role and they play an important role in trying to help the government sometimes go around bureaucracy sometimes open channels and it's difficult for governments to open reach out into regions that's difficult for the US government to automatically reach out to or operationally reach out to and dealing with other partners and government partners overseas in explaining the USCVU in order to kind of like grease the wheels for Roger and others to get involved I think it's extremely important for third party to be very well trusted by all players especially the US government have the knowledge because sometimes third party can complicate a case more than it need to be complicated sometimes for reasons that has to do let's say you know I want to say promotion or whatever it might also you know create some difficulties in moving forward and solving a case so I think from the report the Foley Foundation just put out we had about 25 cases this year that were solved 17 of them were from the 2 different ways 2 different categories here you have the hostages and you have the wrongfully detained from the wrongfully detained I think we had 25 cases 17 of them were just diplomatic efforts of state department and the US government and Roger 12 of them were third party and government so there is definitely a big space for trusted third parties they have to be trusted in order to get involved and I think they can help the families and they also can help the US government reach to a good conclusion in bringing those folks back to their loved ones Elizabeth I want to ask you a bit about your own experience so your brother has been held since 2018 you've seen over 2 administrations how these kind of cases are being handled what's your perspective on what we can be doing better how should we be thinking about this and how has the hostage diplomacy as a foreign policy grown from what you've seen since 2018 well it has been it's almost been 5 years since Paul was wrongfully detained I don't like the term wrongfully detained by a foreign government who wants something for him and that's hostage taking so I tend to refer to it as state sponsored hostage taking rather than wrongful detention because I think wrongful detention is too soft of a term to describe what's going on and I would say I'd like to speak just for a second as part of this response to this whole business about does giving some kind of trade or whatever incentivize further hostage taking and I'd like to point out very particularly my brother's case because Paul was arrested no trade was made for him but then Trevor Reed and Brittany Griner were both taken so the Russians were incentivized by their own minds as to what they thought it had nothing to do with anything that we have or have not done in response so what a hostile foreign government decides to do and why they decide to hold Americans there are a myriad of reasons but it very rarely in my opinion from what I've seen in five years has anything to do with a trade that went before now I will say though in Russia's case that we have seen them try to play the US government with their trades in other words release Brittany Griner and not Paul because they knew of the partisan chaos that that would cause back here and so one of the things that I have been doing recently is pushing to make sure that Paul is not left behind for a third time you know we have another case and I feel for any family in this situation and any detainee but I want to see Paul home and so my job you know when I'm here in DC is to go to the NSC the State Department and such and say thank you for all the work you're doing because we have seen a huge upturn particularly after the Levinson Act has passed and in this administration of people really caring and trying to do as much as they can but you can't say that every stone is being left unturned if there are some stones that still need to be turned over if there are some boulders that we've gently pushed against but we haven't done anything more with and so I have to come down as a family member representing Paul who can't be here and ask the government to push over those boulders to do what it takes to actually get my brother home it is no good to go 80% this other 20% that would result in a win is what is necessary and I look for a winning mentality from any administration Thanks Elizabeth and Cindy I'm going to ask you to speak for a minute just to build on that some of the big boulders that we see what information from the report could we take and really push maybe if we had to prioritize one or two of the findings in the report that we should be encouraging Congress and new legislation to build on the Levenson Act what would you say we should be thinking about? To build I think it's great everything that Elizabeth just said because she represents a family's voice and the work that we do at the Foley Foundation may come alongside family members so we understand so we work with them days after their loved one is either kidnapped or picked up in a foreign government and so we understand we understand the challenges families face as they try to navigate the DC in hostage enterprise most families don't even know what the hostage recovery fusion cell is the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs they're just not aware but the Levenson Act has been and I agree it's been a linchpin to the hostage enterprise but the biggest challenge and I would say this even for wrongful detainee families and for the audience I think it's important to know the only one that has the authority to make the determination for wrongful detention is the Secretary of State so some of these families to be able to get that wrongful detention determination to be able to get access to Ambassador Carson's office there is is an enormous challenge and I think the largest challenge and one of the biggest takeaways is to identify the fact that there's a gap between how the State Department might view a case versus how a family views their case and a family can have a lot of information a lot of intelligence but it's unclear whether or not that internal process in the State Department before it reaches the state office if they have all of that so it's really an opaque process for a lot of these families so one of the things that we would like to do and it builds off of our recommendations as well so help try to close that gap so it's less of a opaque process for the families so they know what they're fighting for what they're fighting against they really just don't know and you know it can take you know a few months to get the designation or it can take a couple of years and it would be it would just be advantageous and helpful for families so they can know what you know they want to put that right foot in front of them right they've made the left step they want to make the right step which which direction does that need to go and I think there's a lot of room within our U.S. government to be able to close that gap to help make that more of a transparent process for families Thanks Cindy and I think that there is work being done on the Hill in that regard and I'd love to give you a chance to respond but I'm conscious of time and I really want to get to deterrence because that's where my passion is right now because I think that it's great that we're bringing so many people home but we need to stop this practice so I wanted to ask both of you and and I'll have you guys weigh in in a second but the secretary had in 2021 been part of the Canada initiative the declaration against arbitrary detention and state to state relations what's happened since then what should we be looking to I know the secretary is very big on deterrence how should we be thinking about this both from a government non-government and private corporation perspective I'll try to be very tight on that by the way I should say thank you to Cynthia for that great report another wonderful report that you've put out and also to the Fully Foundation I see Ellen back there scribbling notes but thanks for all the work that you've done and this report is actually very important to us so thank you in terms of deterrence the secretary I think within the first 14 days of his time here he put his hand on my shoulder and said we've got to get this to where this problem goes away that we put it on the dustbin of history and this may take 10 to 15 years but we have to start it now and since then we have been working with the Canadians they're up to 74 signatures at this point you may or may not know but at the UN General Assembly in New York next week the Canadians are hosting a gathering to talk about the declaration the United States is co-hosting along with Costa Rica so the secretary has stayed right on top of this he's kept it front and center and I would say as I just want to make sure that everyone else has a chance to talk here we try to look at this very holistically I think right now something happens in the foreign policy arena and the United States feels they have to go for a deterrence effort they'll quickly reach in their bag of tricks and pull out sanctions and it's probably it might be an overused tool by this point we would like to take a look at this more broadly across the all elements of national power what you might call the dime bill diplomacy information military economic legal efforts economic financial informational aspects what can we do across the entire elements of US national power to start using tools to make a country not do this anymore to raise the price of this so that a country like Iran for example will say you know what we used to do this but now if we do it again the US is going to raise the cost but in a way that's not the entire answer this has to be a multilateral effort right now the Iranians are going to take hostages from the Swedes the Belgians the French the United States country X country Y country Z and then they'll make their separate deals with each we want to get it to the point where a country suffers one of their citizens being arbitrarily detained in Iran and 10, 20, 30 countries all band together and tell the Iranians you've done something wrong we believe this person is wrongfully detained and we're all getting together to use these tools across all elements of our national power to raise the cost of this if that's if we can successfully do that over the next 10 to 15 years we can take a practice which is essentially 4,500 years old and put that away Thanks Roger and I'm just going to weigh in here as an active moderator and say that I think there's a couple of things that you and I have talked about that would build on that and the US can lead the way in terms of making wrongful detention officially a crime as part of Title 18 or opening up the foreign sovereign immunities act to allow for private litigation against wrongful detention I also think from an American perspective we need to stop having people travel to these countries and build more awareness so the State Department has a website for do not travel to certain countries or the risk of wrongful detention but making more awareness of those risks so that people don't go to these countries Ali I know you had some thoughts on the declaration I wanted to give you a chance to add and I think we're wrapping up on Well I think the Canadian initiative is a very important step as Roger said there is I think 70 you know more than 74 questioners I think we need to have a common definition between all our partners and because what's what's happening like for example I'll give you an example instead of talking around it Jeff Whitkey was kidnapped in a Sahara region but he was kidnapped because they thought he was French and they know the French policy in giving concession but when they found he's an American they kept him for 7 years same thing with sister Sue Allen so every country even from our allies and partners and western partners have a different definitions in dealing with these things constraining the liberty of any individual is illegal according to international law and according to UN laws however they always define it as a hostage not wrongfully detained so states are using this states like Iran or Russia or China and many of the entities that's using the wrongfully detained just to use it to use that term for the sake of argument they are using it because they are they are trying to get something and those individuals or these countries are heavily sanctioned anyway and they are pariah states some of them anyway so just putting additional sanction on the regime is not going to you know effect the people who are making these decisions will probably effect the people so we need some kind of an international coordination with the international community in dealing with these two issues not only from a hostage perspective but also as a state nation states using detention as an international relation tool that they have so this is essential this is important to have something like this and hopefully that down the road can be an international loving act codified all these things in international and international treaties the other thing is prevention I think I would love to see for example if you're buying a ticket even online from any of the platforms something comes up that it explains to you the danger of going to that place and you have to say yes I agree or I read that and understand the complication of what you're going to put your family through and what you're going to put your country through so I think that can be something the travel industry and state department hopefully can work together on something like the third I think is pre-deployment to training journalists I think the Folly Foundation they have a course for journalists to you know independent journalists especially who go overseas also you know this pre-deployment training can be done with coordination sometimes of the US government or by independent third party experts for NGOs faith based organizations you know individuals you know groups of people who are more at risk students and so forth to go for research to these areas so they know what's going to happen if they get picked up they know what their families need to do they prepare themselves just in case so these these are things that you know can happen and I can see them happening but we definitely need to do it in order to create prevention and also to create deterrence Thanks and I'm going to go to you in a second I just want to say for the record that I've been trying to get in touch with the ad council I really think we need some public service announcements around this and I think when somebody goes to search for a location in Google you should get targeted ads as a result of travel to Iran or travel to Russia so that you see some of these risks and have more of that awareness as well as the hostage flag being up at passport agencies or I understand that congress is putting in the passport book some legislation to have information in your passport book about the risk of wrongful detention Elizabeth I know you have some thoughts on this I had wanted to throw another sort of entity in there that I think could play a part in helping with hostage-taking or wrongful detention. We tend to look to the government and to NGOs to solve these situations but we are letting corporations, large corporations who already operate globally and have contacts and connections in different countries we're letting them off the hook. They are allowed to not participate in helping bring Americans home and I feel very strongly about this because my brother was a corporate security director for Borg Warner Automotive and would travel around the world doing business for them and so he was not in Russia on business he was there to help a friend with a wedding but they had contacts and the ability to potentially help Paul in those early days and instead what they did was they made sure that their investors were protected and they eventually a few months later terminated him so that he was no longer an employee. He hadn't at that time there was no Robert Levenson act so it took him almost a year and a half to be declared wrongfully detained and it was just the biggest blow to him that not only was he the global security director but he had created a process for dealing with hostage-taking and kidnapping and his own corporation didn't apply it to him. Another case that I only know of of course as an observer is the Sit Go Corporation when the Sit Go 6 were taken and they did not do what needed to be done for their employees so we see on the other hand the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal are doing what they can for Jason Rezaian and now for Evan Gershkovich they have a bully pulpit and they're definitely able to weigh in but is that at the expense of some of these other detainees like my brother for example so what I am looking for is for a way to whether it has to come from the government or how else to have a level of accountability from global corporations who might have connections and ways to help whether it's help the US government help the Svihar or whatever but that is considered only the that's the acceptable standard and not helping is considered unacceptable. Thanks Elizabeth and I think we brought a lot of information into a really small discussion I think we could talk all day about this but I know we're out of time so oh I got the hook okay okay good all right perfect then I can go over to Cindy I don't know Cindy if you want to weigh in on your perspective from everything that's just been said five more okay sure I'd be happy to I mean of course going last there's everybody had great great opinions on this it's it's challenging at the end of the day accountability is what matters having the world watching when you're committing crimes that does something you know and I agree I agree with sanctions right like you know there's sanction fatigue right and but at the same time you know if we look at the sanctions that we do have is do we have the ability to delist some of these individuals does that help in steps and negotiations or lead to future and further negotiations in addition to that you know along with what Ali was saying having that international attention having that broad definition so it impacts globally you know there's the international convention as to taking a passage that you know that was written in 79 that has not been updated to include hostages taken by foreign governments that would be a good tool to use last suggestion I'll be real brief here and this is kind of a long stretch here is the United Nations again what would happen if you had here's the word again if you do sanction somebody globally we do with the specially designated global terrorist lists we will designate you know a foreign terrorist individual here in the United States which restricts their travel and their funds but in addition to that the UN will come on top and also sanction that individual that meets their criteria and they usually and they typically do that within the first week up to a month when the US does designate and that restricts travel globally for the countries that do participate as well so that's just another look at that but again it's really difficult the challenge here with holding individuals responsible for state for state hostage taking essentially is how high up the chain you know what you know how how is the sanction effective you know if you can't hold the entire regime accountable but at the same time how effective are individual sanctions if it's difficult to be able to identify which individuals responsible for those human rights violations I would say they have to feel the direct impact yes can I give you some good news I would offer that when the President put out his executive order last summer President Biden he actually directed that we keep pushing on this deterrence effort so it's not even just the Secretary of State saying you will it's the President of the United States with all executive authority saying to the interagency figure this out and let's get a deterrence effort up and running and additionally he did give us a sanctioning authority within the sphere and we've so far used it against the Russian FSB their intelligence services and the Iranians IRGC IO so there is no ability within the Spihal realm to like throw a sanction down on an offending organization or person but the most important thing is everything that we're talking about we have an order and a director from the President to figure this out and make it happen yes and I think when those sanctions did come out I'm not sure who it was exactly but said that it's okay to build sanctions upon existing sanctions because it's about hostage taking it's about wrongful detention taking and so I think seeing more Levinson Act sanctions is something that's very much welcome and then building upon that I do want to allow for one or two questions out of the audience I'm told I have a time for that now so Peter so this is really first of all a comment about Roger Roger's I think one of the very few senior officials who was held over by the Trump administration from the Trump administration into the Biden administration precisely because he's been so effective and the families really wanted him to stay in that position so just wanted to thank you for all the work it was your leadership Peter I learned when I worked for you the other thing is I wanted to put a little meat on the bones because Ali had been talking about third parties and Ali was involved in an effort and I think it's all public now that involved David Bradley who's the former chairman of the board here at near America which is Theo Padnos an American journalist was taken by an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria and held for I think at least two years and Ali and David Bradley were instrumental third parties in getting him out so Ali just if you could reflect a little bit on what you can say about that you know I think the way we were dealing with hostages and excuse me wrongfully detained was very different before than it is now it was very complicated and frustrating to deal with the government and I think due to you know the leadership in the FBI today there is a different culture looking into things and more cooperation between the bureau and outside third party and I mean just to to build what you said I you know Spiha, Roger, his office everybody in the office they have been fantastic to work with we really feel that we are one team I think with Theo it was very difficult to reach out into the groups in Syria we dealt with a trusted I think at the time Qatar to reach out to some opposition groups in Syria and those opposition groups reached out to the folks who were holding Theo and there was you know a deal that was facilitated through you know I think secretary Kerry and other folks who had involved in this and I don't want to go on a lot of details because sometimes we utilize we still utilize some of these tactics so I prefer to keep it you know and one of the things about third parties I believe that the moment that they start talking about what they do a lot the moment that means that we're having a failure because you need to operate a little bit behind the scene just to facilitate what need to be done and we have a lot of friends around the world a lot of partners around the world and those you know partners have been instrumental and continue to be instrumental in solving a lot of the difficult cases and I think what I can talk about, what I cannot talk about I think it's better to have Roger talk about these things I think he already said no comment we have one more question yeah we have comments, senior fellow with America, I guess as many of the panelists know my background in hostage recovery is probably a little different than what we're talking about here though it might have a role in deterrence for non-state actors but I don't want to ask about that but the media we haven't really talked about that so I can imagine the media can be helpful in bringing awareness but at the same time when you're trying to get a deal across the finish line you're just like can you just stop we're close now you're causing problems at home with politics at home or the actor you're trying to deal with so it might be a question for Roger or someone else on the panel but what's the role of the media and do you find them helpful or harmful in your efforts thanks for that question Liam and I when we were young officers we served together in Germany before we went off and did some more high speed hostage rescue stuff so great American hero right there I look at the media as this may be kind of strange to say from a government perspective but I look at them as a part of hostage recovery enterprise they've done so much to bring awareness to this whole topic they've brought cases to our attention they've held us accountable I probably have one or two uncomfortable interviews I would say almost every week right to where I'm held accountable by the media and we actually strangely I think appreciate that I think when you have a journalist asking hard questions that's alright I think they have a reason to and you all have a need to know a lot of this stuff when it gets classified I've been encouraged by the amount of journalists who when we say this is going on please hold that story I would say almost 100% of the time they do that even if they lose what could have been a groundbreaking release so overall I would say the journalists we've had the opportunity to work with have done a great job of doing all the things you would expect of a journalist and yet in that one area I guess those few examples where it could actually violate national security they've been kind enough not to report specifically you might talk about what's going on right now I think everyone's doing their job part of our jobs not say too much or even say nothing until after the fact and I think we have that relationship but to my mind we've not really had anything go seriously into the ground because of reporting maybe that will happen in the future we make sure that we work with journalists we have a very good relation all day long we're talking to them so I think in building those relationships we can make sure that we work and they do their jobs as well and again I'll repeat because of what they do I feel like they're a part of the hostage recovery enterprise did I answer that? I'm just going to add to that and then I know we're now officially out of time but I'm just going to add from a family perspective I think that they are really it's really important that they also have the courage to cover the stories that maybe aren't as sexy we were talking in the green room before this about how important it is to recognize that we came home as opposed to the mechanics of the deal and beating up poor Roger or others about the deal itself but focus on celebrating that five Americans hopefully God willing come home next week or the week after whenever it might be I also wanted to add I've been doing this since 2007 when my father was first taken I think we've grown in this ecosystem tremendously and we continue to move forward in such a great direction and I hope one day we won't have to have these discussions because maybe we'll have brought everybody home and stopped it but until that day it's been a pleasure to have these colleagues next to me and hopefully we'll have something similar in the future so the next session which we're going to start our afternoon with is how are others preparing for the future and the moderator of this panel is Colonel Liam Collins who's had a very distinguished career and joined special operations command and instrumental in setting up the West Point's counter-terrorism center and also the modern warfare institute he's also a fellow at New America and we're going to hand it over to Liam All right for this panel we'll be joined by Brigadier General US Army retired Brian Davis who's the director of China research division at Blue Path Labs and former defense attaché to Beijing China Dr. Andrea Kindle-Taylor senior fellow and director of transatlantic security program at the Center for New America security and former deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council and Dr. Tricia Bacon associate professor at American University and author of Terror and Transition so we've got about 30 minutes for this panel so we'll try to work through it and cover these three important topics during that time which will be a challenge but I promise I will not monopolize the full 30 minutes so audience please have some questions in mind so we'll have some time at the end for that the most recent national security strategy states the most pressing strategic challenge facing our vision is from powers that lay that layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy Russia and the People's Republic of China pose different challenges Russia poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system recklessly plotting the basic laws of the international order today as its brutal war of aggression against Ukraine has shown the People's Republic of China by contrast is the only competitor with both the intent to reshape the international order and increasingly the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to advance that objective so it is important to understand the intention and capabilities of these two nations so General Davis I'll start with you first and ask you how is China preparing for the future? Thanks Liam and thanks to New America and Arizona State for the opportunity to participate in this forum so before I address your question I guess I would ask the question so what is China preparing for and I would offer that China is preparing to regain its position as a major global power but not just necessarily a major global power but potentially the major global power by the middle of this century and they do this in several sectors so politically if you look at what Xi Jinping has done since he's taken over as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party he's strengthened his control of the party and then he's strengthened the party's control of both the state and the military he's centralized decision making around himself leading both established formal committees in charge of all the major key issues that he's interested in but also ad hoc committees and finally he has driven the system from what was primarily a consensus based decision making system after the chaos of Mao Zedong back to where he is at the center of that decision making structure why does he do that? Well it appears that he thinks he's the only person that can lead China to its rightful place in the future which is the rejuvenation of the great Chinese nation. Economically for example China is finding ways to maintain connectivity across global economies with major economies of the world but also ensure that several of those economies are reliant on China and they're taking efforts to improve technology innovation modernization and independence for example this year in the spring in the National People's Congress the law was passed to both reform and reorganize the Ministry of Science and Technology which will oversee strategic technologies, policies investments, funding, etc. and they're also taking efforts to strengthen their supply chains and domestic production and specifically some of the key areas for domestic production are 35 technology what they call choke points that are critical for China's economic development finally they're also strengthening their domestic sector of their economy to help better insulate China from foreign influence, negative foreign influence be it sanctions or just the ups and downs of the global economy economically, I'm sorry diplomatically China's working to reshape the international institutions that it's a member of but also at the same time establishing parallel institutions it's also according to global south you see that play out in the United Nations but elsewhere as well militarily we do tend to I follow that more than the others but obviously the PLA continues to modernize rapidly with the goal as stated by Xi Jinping of achieving basic modernization by 2035 and become a world-class military by the middle of the century and then finally in the information around China continues to strengthen its influence across global media its propaganda system both directed at its domestic population and internationally and it's strengthening its influence operations across the world led by the party's united front work department these are just a few examples of how China is preparing for the future so what has China learned if anything from the Russia's invasion of Ukraine in terms of impacting their goals vision strategy has anything changed based off of what's how that's played out 20 months? Yeah, that's a great question I think it's still playing out so they still have the ultimate lessons lesson or lessons that they take are not necessarily fully established but I think a couple examples are if you look at the run up to Russia's invasion in February of last year it's how the United States and its allies leveraged intelligence and got it out into the public sector so how is China going to prepare for that and insulate? That's probably a major lesson that they took prior to and right after the invasion I think another area that they would see is information aspect in general controlling the narrative shaping that narrative for multiple audiences Russia has not necessarily done that as well as what China will be prepared to do looking at the will of the Ukrainian people to fight against Russia I think most of us were surprised at what they've been able to do that obviously is a key factor for what could play out if there were to be some sort of a Taiwan military scenario whether it's the will to fight or at least the will as a population to hold out until potential help could come from the United States and one thing that we're learning I mean you shouldn't say we're learning some of us are learning some of us already know it but you know technology matters but the people are probably more important technologies we're learning in the war once again and I wonder if you can build a professional non-commissioned officer corps or empower junior leaders in an authoritarian state where that is a kind of a risk to the nation you know is that something what is China doing to ensure that they have or do they have you know junior officers that are able taking initiative on the battlefield with the speed of warfare in the 21st century so yeah the Chinese military is a different system than what we think of when we think of western militaries part of it is the Leninist control over the army so it's different there's the influence of Chinese culture on the army there's a influence of the Chinese Communist Party's influence and culture but in general it is a much more centralized decision-making system the party and this PLA senior leadership values that they do understand that they need more junior officers and NCOs to be able to take initiative but it's more constrained what you might think of from your military background or my military background and NCOs tend to be more not necessarily technicians but more able to execute tasks than be that key small unit leader that develops that has grown in our military that's the strength of what our military is but it continues to involve they continue to change their personnel policies and their training to make their NCO Corps better but I wouldn't say it's going to be an NCO Corps that is a mirror image of a western NCO. Thanks Brian I'll now turn to you Dr. Kindle Taylor and ask you a similar question what's Russia doing to prepare for the future I'll start with your point about the national security strategy talking about Russia as immediate threat and I think that's right but we have to also understand that it's a persistent threat and so what do I mean by that I think we all understand that Russia will emerge from its war in Ukraine weaker in all ways economically geopolitically and certainly militarily and there will therefore be a really significant temptation I think especially here in Washington to downgrade Russia as a threat but I would argue that that would be a significant mistake because what we see is that Russia is looking to adapt and it is involving its tactics in response to the challenges that it faces in Ukraine and just like you talked about well what is China preparing for well what is Russia preparing for and I think we have to be clear that even though the United States isn't fighting Russia in Ukraine Russia very much perceives or understands itself to be at war with us and it has framed this as an existential challenge and even as a civilizational challenge and so it will very much retain the intent to challenge the United States for the foreseeable future and certainly to pass even Putin's time in office so then what are they preparing to do as a part of that civilizational challenge well first and foremost most immediately they're looking to evolve and they're looking to bypass and circumvent the unprecedented western pressure that we put on they are looking and actively circumventing sanctions and export controls that the United States and its allies have applied there was a really great story just today in the New York Times that talked about how Russia is circumventing sanctions and export controls and that they've actually expanded its missile production to pre-war level to pre-war levels so this threat is not going away they're also actively deepening partnerships with external partners obviously in the news today is North Korea and that meeting that deepening of that bilateral relationship but it's also Iran and China so Russia is actively looking to build a coalition of countries that share its hostility to the United States and our influence and our power and I think that the thing that I worry most about is the more desperate Russia becomes in the war the more they're going to be willing to give away in those relationships so giving away technology to the North Koreans to the Iranians and so they are actually amplifying making worse America's challenges in other parts of the globe in addition to the kind of circumventing and mitigating Western pressure they're also adapting tactics and I think that's happening in the battlefield in Ukraine but also in a very broad sense we can see that the more degraded the Russian military is in terms of the conventional military the more they're relying on its non-conventional tools and tactics so at the low end in the hybrid realm that means they're relying more heavily on things like cyber we should expect more attacks on things like critical infrastructure it's sabotage it's information operations that will become much more important in Russia's arsenal the more degraded they are conventionally but then it's also a risk at the high end in the nuclear domain so we should expect that the nuclear weapons become a much more important part of Russia's military strategy it's going to be a low cost and very effective way to offset the vulnerabilities that it faces and so what does that mean well we should expect force posture changes and changes to the structure of its nuclear forces much more elaborate warning exercises and I think you know you're thinking about the arms control realm they're actively undermining the with suspending its participation in new start so this is also the way that they're preparing is they're intentionally introducing risk into the relationship they understand the United States and Europe to be more risk averse than Russia and so they're introducing that risk as a way to get us to self-restrain so I think and it'll be interesting to think about what you know the proliferation of semi-state organizations all of these types of things I think Russia is working on to try to immediately address vulnerabilities that it sees and then in the longer term we should all expect that Russia will certainly look to reconstitute its military and that includes in areas like AI where they're actively trying to integrate AI into the battlefield in Ukraine so I think my kind of bumper sticker is that Russia is down but it's not out and it will remain a good enough power with both the capabilities and the intent to challenge the United States for the foreseeable future alright I'm going to ask a question probably everybody in the audience wants to know about how long this war will go on but I'll set it up a little bit so I'll ask it you know former intel officer will never give you a straight answer so on November 11th I think it was November 11th 2001 I asked my intelligence analyst how long is it you know will it take Kabul to fall to the Taliban and he said oh it's going to probably take years it lasted a long time against the Soviets or the Russian Soviets at the time and the next day they fell and I said well you're worthless to me as an intel analyst so I'm going to ask you the question is right if we assume Ukraine has the will right they've demonstrated that in 2014-2015 and throughout this war right that's not going to waver as long as they get supplied right get the capabilities necessary to fight a war and if those go away they'll probably just go to a counter-insurgency how long can Russia maintain the will probably more will than capability to for the war to go on if it's you know from that perspective is one potential ending recognizing right the war in Afghanistan lasted a decade and but their interest in Ukraine are right exponentially more than anything else that they've been involved in so how long can Russia I think he sees it as in his interest to fight a long war and so first and foremost he obviously believes that he can outlast the United States and Europe and he'll look at political changes potentially here in Washington but also other European capitals and expect that they could bring changes in leadership and a resulting reduction in western military support for Ukraine but even more than that I think I've done a lot of work on looking at kind of the duration of wars and tied to leaders' interests and Putin he faces more challenges at home as a result of the war in Ukraine so the Progosian incident is certainly a very poignant reminder of that but I actually think it's in his interest because being at war makes him more secure at home there's very few authoritarian leaders who are unseated while a war that they are involved in is ongoing and so for me I think it helps insulate him in power as soon as the war ends there's going to be a political reckoning there's going to be a lot of questions asked and certainly if Russians perceive it as a military defeat then the risk of him losing his job which he would equate with probably his life because we know that these personless dictators once they're ousted from office are jailed killed in prison so he's talking about his own personal survival and so I see I believe that he perceives it in his interest to keep this going because it actually makes him more secure in office and so he would like to see this and I do think that they have the kind of capacity at home in order to sustain the fighting for quite a long time I'll ask you one more question before transitioning to terrorism so I mean why do we how do we get their performance how do we predict it's so wrong is it I mean I knew Ukraine's capability I thought they would but even I was surprised by Russia's underperformance I mean obviously you know someone like a meteorologist weren't incentivized to overestimate because the cost of underestimating can be severe but what explains kind of this and it's repeated but you know this inability to kind of really anticipate their capability is it an intelligence failure is it a military industrial complex trying to justify an $800 billion budget is it something else I mean why do we and part of me wonders quite a lot obviously wasn't in the intelligence community at the time but they were obviously wrong on their Afghanistan call thinking that Kabul could last a long time and I sometimes wonder if they have then the knee-jerk reaction to try to warn about in the opposite direction so I think that there was some linkage there but I think generally speaking we have institutionally a predisposition to overestimating Russia's capabilities and during my time in the intelligence community I feel like I saw this time and time again in Syria and other places where there's this expectation of what Russia wants Russia gets without really having spent the time and investing in understanding the capabilities in the intent on the receiving end and so for that reason I think you know that was a large part of it a large part of it is just the way that the war played out right that this isn't the with the training exercises and other things this is not the war that Russia was planning to fight its plans because of the personalization of the political system were also close held a lot of military officers who should have been involved in planning were not they were excluded from that and so it was also a poorly planned so part it's hard to know if we grossly over how to what extent we grossly overestimated the Russian army and to what extent some of it was a bit contingent on the plan that was in place which of course was a result of the personalization and the rot within the Russian system. Thanks Andrea all right Dr. Bacon we'll turn now to a discussion of terrorist groups I mean over the past decades right we've seen consistently evolutions in terms of tactics organizations ideology goals capability pretty much everything across the spectrum so how are terrorist group evolving and what might we expect to see in the future sure it's probably fitting that I'm last in this discussion because of you last but not least perhaps also least but when you go through the national security strategy you just keep flipping and flipping and flipping before you get to counterterrorism and there's clearly good reasons for it that we already heard about so I don't necessarily disagree with the downgrading of terrorism but it does come with its own problems because just because we're done with counterterrorism does not mean they're done with us essentially and I would say there's two things that have really characterized the jihadist movement over the last you know 20 probably more accurately 30 or so years and that probably will going forward and the first is their resilience these are organizations that despite the massive amount of counterterrorism pressure over the last 20 years we have really struggled to actually defeat there have been plenty of decorations of defeat the Taliban in 2001 the Islamic State in Iraq in 2010 al-Shabaab in 2013 the Pakistani Taliban in 2014 and all of these organizations have been able to rebuild and research to be stronger than they were before so I would expect that they will continue to be resilient and I say that also as a caution because there was a lot of talk at this most recent September 11th anniversary which in my professional career was the one with sort of the least discussion or fanfare or events or debates of any since 2001 and there's a lot of discussion about al-Qaeda being as its nadir and the Islamic state is being so and what I would say is these organizations have consistently been declared as defeated as dead and they almost never have been these are just incredibly resilient organizations and I think the second thing that they're effective at which it gets to the resilience is they're very effective at exploiting fertile conditions and so what we see today is not necessarily a jihadist movement that's weaker it's one that has morphed it has an epicenter for example in sub-taharan Africa now where a place where the United States has consistently struggled to recognize the national security importance of that region and what we see there is jihadist expansion on ways that were unimaginable 20 years ago the number of organizations you have both Islamic state and al-Qaeda affiliates the number of countries affected the number of attacks the number of fatalities all of the indicators are very very alarming in sub-taharan Africa and there's really no systems in place at this point to do anything to mitigate that downward slide if anything the great power near peer strategic competition whatever we're calling it is exacerbating it as we see Russia come into this hell for example and essentially make conditions worse and creating conditions that the jihadist groups are even more effective at exploiting we even see in Afghanistan where okay we haven't seen a resurgence of al-Qaeda yet but we have seen the Taliban provide permissive conditions for the Pakistani Taliban and a significant deterioration in Pakistan so overall these are groups that are going to exploit the space that they get from the lack of counterterrorism pressure they're going to seek ways to disrupt and that's essentially what they are at this point they're a disruptive threat to the United States they have the ability to distract from the very important challenges we face from peers or near peers or however we'd like to characterize them they're still very capable of those kinds of actions even if they are not the primary threat anymore and they're still very effective at exploiting conditions when they are available to expand in terms of their recruitment their attacks their safe havens and even their ability to potentially take over entire states in some places in sub-Saharan Africa so we're not necessarily in a less dangerous environment I don't see another September 11th attack coming but we do have a movement overall that has grown and expanded in really important ways and it's still exploiting the conditions that exist today Trisha I've done a terrible job of managing the time so I'll ask you one question and then turn it over to the audience maybe one or two questions so what can we do better from a policy perspective in terms of counterterrorism policy yeah no that's a very reasonable question to ask at this point and what I would say is much of the whatever you want to call the years after September 11th global war on terrorism etc we were incredibly good tactically we're very good at tactical successes in terms of leadership decapitation or offensives that weaken these organizations but these different tactics never really came together as effective strategies to execute the full defeats of some of these organizations some of whom really could have been defeated so I think that that's one of the things that going forward we're going to have less of those tactics less of those resources it's going to force us to come up with a more comprehensive strategy that isn't so military centric thank you Trisha we probably have time for one or two questions depending on the length of our answers yeah thank you very much we saw Kim Jong Un have a visit with Vladimir Putin first time in several years clearly a kind of role change almost where we have Putin as the supplicant and Kim Jong Un as the superior in a very strange twist but has implications for the PLA and for China as well I wonder if you just comment a little bit about what you think about that role change how it might evolve in the future and where China sits in this relationship with Russia right now that's a great question I think part of the relationship is just by nature of they're both real constrained by the United States that U.S. policies are directed at from a Chinese perspective I won't offer the Russian perspective but from the Chinese perspective there's a feeling that the U.S. is in decline and that the U.S. is attempting to thwart China's rightful reemergence as a global power and so Russia in some ways is a partner of convenience I think part of that from the Chinese perspective is also even though there's a lot of areas where China and Russia are not aligned there is a personal relationship between Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin that is important that could be taking them a little further than if the mechanisms of the two states were left to determine that way ahead what will happen after one or both of them eventually go away remains to be seen as a factor and then at the end of the day is with China's growth and modernization and that shift of who's the big brother, who's the little brother in the relationship if China's economy does slow down where they're not modernizing at a rapid pace where the reliance or the appetite for some of the strategic resources that Russia is able to provide such as minerals and oil where that appetite decreases how will that affect that relationship I don't know the answer but it will be professionally looking at it it will be fascinating to see how that plays out the only thing I would add is there's like a dangerous synergy and I think that even though they have disagreements in their interest diverge working together it amplifies the net effect of all of them and they understand that they're less isolated when they're cooperating they're able to distract attention so that's very useful from China's perspective I'm sure Putin doesn't mind if North Korea acts a bit more belligerently on the international stage because that's a distraction so I think of it as like a synergy and that together they're more threatening than they would be individually if it was anybody else I'd say we're out of time but I believe people just got a question one question for I can get a question so for Dr. Wakin you alluded to this on September 11th the National Counterterrorism Centre said essentially we've won against al-Qaeda and in June the UN released a report that basically said completely the opposite the Haqqani who's the Minister of the Interior is part of the Leadership Council of al-Qaeda they have a very different narrative so I just wonder how you adjudicate these seemingly two very different conclusions and for General Davis the Chinese face a demographic cliff that they're about to fall off their economy you mentioned I mean their real estate is going to crash they have a terrible command economy which is the zero COVID policy obviously had a lot of impact if you look at Pew polling they're very unpopular Belt and Road hasn't gone quite the way they wanted and you know they have a sea of problems does that make them more inclined to invade Taiwan in 2027 as she has told PLA to be prepared for or less on the question of adjudicating the different assessments of al-Qaeda they are very hard it's very hard to reconcile those two reports to be sure I think one of the things that we're going to face though is an environment of decreasing amounts and quality of information and it means that people will weigh certain pieces of information more heavily than others and I think that there will be sort of baseline assumptions about the organization that will take people and increasingly sort of divergent assessments so I also think that there is a narrowing of how the US use the threat it's much more about is this a threat to the homeland, is this a threat to the US interest and the UN has sort of a broader aperture and that explains part of it but I think a lot of it is just the sort of dearth of really quality information to use as a basis for an assessment and then on your China question China's economic policy in the past has been focused on modernizing before your demographics cliff catches up with you and with the slow down that does complicate the party's domestic agenda I would say just from watching them for 25 years now never underestimate the ability of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese state to muddle through a problem when we think they can't and so stay tuned to see what happens but it's clear the economy is slowing down there are a lot of problems and this predates the party but it has happened in the past where China is being able to use foreign foreign actors or foreign problems to refocus domestic frustration and that could play out in a Taiwan scenario I think it comes down to Xi Jinping in the past the previous leaders of the party were content to make progress in unification with Taiwan she's given himself more time with the removal of term limits for president now there was no term limit for general secretary of the party or chairman of the central military commission the other two positions he holds but does he feel it has to happen on his watch given his age what point does that perhaps become a tipping point in his mind I don't know obviously and I don't think anybody knows but that's a factor as well I always say from the Russia can you don't underestimate a person with a dictator that they would need to calculate well Peter you set this up like a good party right always leave everybody wanting more instead of realizing they stuck around too long so thank the panelists the next panel is what technologies will shape the future of warfare thanks much and so we're going to use this time for folks in here before we go with our full audience I'm going to instead of having to stare at us ask an unexpected question for you certainly I think the biggest lesson that I've learned through my career is to embrace flexibility I'd say that starting my career I was at the bench for about 10 years I did research and arranged things from detection of biological threat agents to nanomaterials to the development of novel sensors and high performance data processing techniques and about halfway through my career I made the transition to go more into science and technology advisory roles where I at one point served as the acting basic research portfolio director for the entire army in leading the direction of science and technology and also served in some roles in terms of technology's strategy development for not only the army research laboratory but also the whole department of the army so I think you have to really kind of embrace this ability to reinvent yourself and some of my scientific heroes I think of folks like Linus Pauling or to perhaps less or no but equally deep folks like Tuan Vodan had the ability to be able to reinvent themselves to pivot into a new technical area as it presented itself to master that technical area and push that technical area to the envelope and then do it two or three times throughout their career I used to have a sort of a saying early in my career that if you're working on the same thing the day you retire that you work on the day you start it then you probably have it really move the technological stakes for your fall. That's awesome and I love you one, providing great advice to both the policy audience but we've also got some students because this is a joint academic and that is pure gold in terms of life advice but also for how you helped us fill the moment as we get our technology set. So now I see our other guests joining hopefully they're hearing us. We've got Major General Mick Ryan, a close friend who has had a distinguished career in a variety of roles within the Australian military including leading their defense college. He's now an adjunct fellow at Center for Strategic International Studies and also an author of a variety of non-fiction as well as a new fiction book the most recent War Transformed and White Sun War and then we've got Laura Grego who is Senior Scientist and Research Director of the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists as well as a distinguished researcher in her own career so thank you both for joining us. So I'm going to begin with a first question and why don't we start off with Laura first which is what technology do you see as the most important but simultaneously least understood in its significance for the future? Well thanks for the invitation Peter. I think probably many of us are going to include artificial intelligence as the most important and least understood. I think what we see now are the fruits of the previous generation of AI which can do really good pattern recognition make inferences absorb large amounts of data and but I think and that can really be a boon of course it can aid in verification it can provide pathways for controlling technologies some of the concerns though I have about it I think I worry that decision makers will use AI as a decision making tool and this may not necessarily always be better. AI have been better at predicting whether Putin was actually going to invade Ukraine when it did I'm not sure are there things especially in the realm of human behavior where AI might just reproduce our own biases and cause us not to question our information sources not to have enough skepticism the other place I'm concerned about with respect to decision making is that AI will enable and reinforce our desire to move quickly and respond rapidly I spend most of my time thinking about nuclear issues and that is one place I worry nuclear weapons are currently postured to be launched at a moment's notice and many of the strategic technologies increase the tempo and I worry that AI will only further increase the tempo we're starting to include maneuvering glide missiles anti-satellite weapons and novel long range nuclear delivery systems and many of them are ready to be used at a moment's notice so I do worry that AI can increase confidence and compress time scales and then of course the part that we don't understand is that we're kind of looking at the current version of AI but what can it do in the future and we already see how well it can do shaping and manipulating the information environment when coupled with social media what will that look like in the future I mean even currently it amplifies our expressions of racism sexism and other kinds of bigotry social media can do that even when it's not being manipulated by AI but as that becomes more useful and powerful I'm not sure we have a great way to deal with that so those are some of the concerns and the things I think we don't understand about AI so what technology do you see as in that space of most important but simultaneously least understood sorry you cut out there for a moment Peter was that a question for me that was a question for you I'm going to ask it again because we are having tech issues very appropriate to the topic what technology do you see as most important but least understood for me I would have to say it's democratised access to battlefield command and control systems I think there's been a lot of focus during the Ukraine war on things like autonomous systems and even the meshing of civil and military sensor frameworks and analytical capability but I think one of the transformative elements of this war is that at least on the Ukrainian side they've democratised access to systems that were previously secret kept in unit command posts we now have individuals that now have access to input and receive location data, targeting data in a way that we just haven't seen in previous conflicts before it kind of replicates what we've seen go on in society with the internet in the last 30 years now it's on the battlefield and I think what that's doing is having a couple of impacts obviously it's kind of enhancing the survivability of people on one side of things but it's also closing the detection to destruction gap that is continuing to close on the battlefield but it also closes the gap between when things happen and when people find out about them not just on the battlefield but in these things such as the strategic strike we saw in Sevastopol in the last 24 hours we've seen battle damage assessment from multiple open sources so I think that democratisation of access to data to people at the edge on the battlefield is something very new and we're really at the very start of I think I'd really like to echo what Laura and Mick said I think they covered those topics pretty well but I'd like to add probably the one that I think of most often in synthetic biology it holds the greatest promise it's a sort of emerging science but it holds significant promise to be able to do things like fuel the point of need manufacturing to address logistics challenges that go along with any sort of tactical operation but it has the ability to cover so many different directions from materials to sensing modalities to even into computer processing realm and I think we're just at the beginning of the area where we're really just starting to understand this how do we really manage and engineer the genome to really realise downstream processes and downstream materials that are going to be can be used for myriad of things that really kind of I often think of it as sort of the third leg of the synthetic molecular synthetic triad and whether you do your classical stepwise synthetic approaches or you do things like combinatorial chemistry to get to those materials and thirdly leveraging biological systems to be able to produce things for you and again those things could be electronic in nature, they can be optical in nature, they can be even energetic in nature and I think it really starts to change the way we think about national security warfare in a sense that you can start to do some of those things where you need them which is significantly different than the way that we've done them traditionally where you produce the materials in the rear and then have to move them forward so that really gets you into the point of need manufacturing and advanced manufacturing which is really important. So, wars are contests of arms and political will but they're also learning laboratories of a kind both for forces within as they move back and forth but also everyone else watching and thinking about the lessons and how they might apply to their own plans for the future so I'd like to look at the Ukraine war and through that lens what are the lessons that you have taken from Ukraine and why don't we go in the same order again so Laura what are some of the lessons that you've taken from Ukraine? It's an interesting question I know we're talking about future technology but I think two of the big ones that came to mind are more human lessons and one is just a reiteration that leadership is so important and that strong institutions matter I mean arguably President Putin has ruined Russia's future with this decision and I'm very glad that in the United States we have an experienced President with a good temperament and a really solid team behind him that's been able to navigate a lot of these dangers and a lot of the brinksmanship in this conflict and I think the administration has done a pretty good job of managing that while continuing to help Ukraine I mean you can imagine though a different personality could have led us in really different and dangerous directions so just I think a reiteration that strong democratic institutions are so important and strong civil society institutions are so important the ability of citizens to dissent productively when you have these if you have a personalist or a narcissistic leader you end up with an information bubble yes and no men they personalize conflict I think that increases the existential threat the other thing that I thought was interesting in the news in the last few weeks about the role commercial interests have played specifically providing communications broadband internet by the Starlink system I certainly hope that as we go forward we make sure that our decisions are made by people who are accountable to populations and not accountable to their companies not that elected officials always get things right but by design they're accountable so I do think that strategically we really need to think about making sure that those things are in place you know it's not a good idea to have commercial entities have that much decision-making power so I think it's a good thing to keep an eye on in the future especially as humans consider moving into space with more resources we definitely need a strong governance system that's accountable to people Mick you've actually traveled multiple times to Ukraine and so your observations are both as an analyst but also bringing in some first person side so what are some of the highlights of what you've learned from Ukraine Thanks Peter I mean there's a lot of observations we can take I'm not sure anything yet is a lesson learned I think there's some way to go yet and a lot of institutions are struggling with what they observe in Ukraine and whether it's relevant to them or not not every lesson might be but a couple of things I think are important firstly is this notion of the adaptation battle it's as you noted wars are also a learning opportunity and at every level whether it's a tactical operational strategic or political there's an adaptation battle going on as each side struggles to gain some kind of advantage to learn what's going on to learn how they're learning about the conflict and then constantly change adapt and evolve and we've seen both sides adapt and evolve their strategy their tactics their equipment their external relationships throughout this war so I think that's a really important thing and and what that says to me is what is the organizational learning culture of whatever institution you belong to how do you nurture the foundations for adaptation before you go to war so if you do find yourself in one and you're not able to deter it how do you best learn and adapt I think a second observation would be that there are very few few very few new things in this war I mean this most wars are an aggregation of every idea every technology and every organization that's gone before it with a couple of new things added so this war features you know mass warfare it features the mobilization of people and industry it features alliances it features things like trench warfare and alien combat but the couple of new things I think are pretending a change in the character of war be they the mass influence and mass autonomous systems that are being deployed the ability to gain and sustain awareness in the battlefield to a degree we haven't before it's not transparency and it's not always wisdom but it's certainly visibility and what I think that drives and I think the Ukrainian offensive in the south is a great case study of this is that many of the ideas the doctrines and the organizations that we think work in modern warfare are actually half a century old and we need to evolve them expecting the Ukrainians to breach through mine fields with technology that's 50 years old doctrine that's 70 years old in an environment where you can be seen and brought under fire in minutes was an intellectual failure on the part of NATO in the west and we can't afford to have those kind of intellectual failures in the future so so I mean the lesson is new ideas and new organizations need to be layered over the top of many of the old aspects of what we're seeing in this war and there's some pretty careful judgments that will need to be made about that I think Laura and Mick again really hit this pretty pretty well I would probably reshape the question slightly different and bring in a couple other events that happened Nagorno-Karabakh and also dating back to 2020 Libya and what I take from those classrooms as it were is this idea of attributable systems I think we are now in a new realm where attributable systems will become more and more important. Historically if you look back the way that we typically have prosecuted war we had exquisite systems that we protected at all costs whether you think about this as a aircraft carrier or a tank or what have you those are certain systems that we really tried to protect I think we're in a different realm now where we have systems that to some degree have some disposability and are able to work collaboratively with other systems and the ensemble, the network continues to work even if you lose some so this whole idea of attributable systems and graceful degradation I think are really big building blocks that we leverage as we move forward and I think as we from the work that my office does there are significant investments in science and technology not only in the US but around the globe that are starting to move in that direction to be able to realize attributable systems whether they are aerial systems or ground systems or sea systems that you have many of them none of them are as expensive as your exquisite system and so you can lose some of them and if they're designed in a proper way and integrated properly then you can have the ability to still have collaboration scale or swarming or things like that and still prosecute the mission while losing a few of the elements that you would leverage to do that these are all great points and I think in many ways it's important to think about the difference in the phrasing of in the US context we say lessons learned but in for example the British military and others and maybe Australia there's the lessons observed which means I didn't actually a lot of these the question really is will we implement them in our systems and actually we were having a conversation out on the hallway related to your last point Troy of the launch of the replicator initiative but what would it look like does it get funded what's its scale so we've observed lessons but will we actually implement is open-ended right now so with that I'm someone I'm a worry ward so make my life worse what worries you the most when you peer into the future so Laura and you have a responsibility I mean look you literally it's the concerned scientist so it's not just what concerns a scientist but what worries you personally the most about the future of technology and conflict okay yeah a professional concerned person I am definitely concerned about the future and it sometimes it feels like the future is coming faster than you imagine I mean looking looking out at the storms that have just happened this past week that the climate emergency is upon us and we're seeing enormous disruption we're going to see misery for our most vulnerable and it's going to come for everyone if we don't really do a better job of grappling with this and that is going to create incredible pressures with mass migrations economic systems are going to be more fragile so just the context for conflict I think will be you know the pressure is ratcheted up as you know pandemics and wars of course I spend most of my time thinking about nuclear weapons issues and that is a central concern for me of course because we have such a hard time grappling with low risk and high consequence events and at times in our history we've our guiding principle has been trying to how do we de-center these weapons which can not only kill hundreds of millions of people almost immediately but could threaten billions with climate and economic disruption but they're again being centered we have the fraying of arms control agreements and the destruction of that whole edifice that has been our been guide rails for decades we are almost all of the nuclear weapons powers are refurbishing and expanding their nuclear arsenals and creating new delivery systems bespoke delivery systems trying to finesse deterrence and increasing the different types of weapons that can be used we're building more and more ships with missiles now we can do intermediate range missiles and anti-missile systems and they're going to be moving in the same spaces increasing the the supporting technologies like using space more in depth with all of these technologies proliferating them and inviting anti-satellite weapon development again providing another a short tempo use it or lose it type of pressure so I think I guess the question is what are the things we should be doing right now that we wish we had the in ten years we wish we had the guts to do and some of those things I'd like that to be part of the question how should we be thinking about the future what are we supposed to be doing right now to ensure that that looks as good as possible awesome so Mick you've actually played in both these realms of thinking about the future how do we adjust to it but you've also in a recent book painted one of those scenarios that's quite scary what would a war in the Pacific look like so for you personally what do you worry the most and then let's take insight from Laura what's something we can do to keep your worry from coming true I think the main one is we don't take seriously the idea that the major war could could emerge in the 21st century I think in the lead up to the war in Ukraine there were a lot of countries and a lot of politicians who didn't take seriously the fact that there are still people out there who think large wars are a valid option in the 21st century to achieve their national priorities and I think that if we just assume that G or people like him are rational actors and would never go to war it makes our life more difficult in deterring them so we need to take it seriously which means you need to take seriously your deterrence framework because no one wants this to happen you know the kind of catastrophe I painted in white sub war is what I'm trying to prevent and it's what we should all be trying to prevent so in some respects it's an anti-war novel and if it's read that way that that's wonderful so we need to take seriously the fact that large-scale war it's still possible or theories just aren't true humans for 5000 years of thought they're probably going to fight again in the future and therefore we need to invest in deterrence but we also need to invest in the kind of dialogues that we're seeing the PLA issue at the moment to ensure that there are guide rails and things don't escalate unnecessarily between potential belligerence I'd say that perhaps I'd like to see my colleagues here have hit a lot of the points I would have hit but there's a weapons system that is emergent specifically hypersonic weapons give me pause and I think of them that there are three levels of threat first speed we're talking about systems that go at a minimum Mach 5 that's 3,800 miles an hour are faster combined with the ability to maneuver which sets them apart from continental ballistic missiles which also go about that fast but they really ICBMs travel in a parabolic trajectory whereas hypersonic systems are maneuverable and can change direction and thirdly when they get above about Mach 7 in an oxygen atmosphere you have ionization of oxygen which chemically goes along applies to them this cloak that makes it difficult to be able to sense them so you can't get say an active radar being through because the plasma cloak that surrounds the system makes it invisible to radar so you have a system that's traveling nearly 4,000 miles an hour can maneuver in its hearted attacks and if you could get that to operate in a collaborative way that is a very stark system to contend with and to Laura's point that demonstrated these types of systems can not only carry conventional warheads but also nuclear warheads so that is really a significant challenge I'd say that after thinking about this a while I think the thing that the biggest bang for the buck would probably be in sensing is there a way to be able to efficiently sense these systems because that's really the first step in the kill chain to be able to know where the system is in order to be able to counter it so I think that's where initially where most of the investment in focus on it so I think we've got time for a question from the audience so if you've got a question go ahead and raise your hand actually right there in the back and quickly introduce yourself as well Hi, I'm Bridget I'm the program manager for our Cyber Security Fellowship here at New America this is not my area of expertise but this is something that I've been curious about since my graduate studies so in the past few years as kind of Laura touched on we've seen private companies or the private sector kind of weight its way into military operations via technology so I'd just be interested to hear from you about how that would impact military planning operations innovation thanks great so let's see actually Laura why don't you weigh in I'm going to put you on point on that but also as well then we'll go in the same order so you mentioned one the problem of having a what agent did we use mercurial would be a mercurial multi-billionaire have control over a communications network what else when we think about the role of the private sector and conflict via technology is a point of concern well that's a really good question Bridget and I'm interested to hear it my co-panelists say I think of course the other place where the center of gravity is in the commercial space is in AI and they have enormous resources there and you know it's challenging to self regulate especially for technologies that are moving so quickly and are inherently sophisticated and difficult to understand I think commercial space is a little bit easier because it's sort of more obvious what it does and how it does it and it's a matter of investing and innovating and engineering really but I feel like the AI is an edge and it could be used to produce as Dr. Alexander said their novel biological synthetics it may be great at quickly creating new materials that could transform industries such as room temperature superconductors we had a tantalizing view of that earlier this year that could happen so I think when the center of gravity kind of moves in commercial space those partnerships with government really have to be in place you taken in terms of the role of the private sector related to conflict well I think it works both ways it can work for us but potentially it can work against us and we've seen this meshing of civil and military sensors and analytical capability throughout the war in Ukraine and whether it's using NASA firms or microphones on smartphones to track missiles we've seen this deeper integration of military and civilian and government collection frameworks now I think there might be some interesting interpretations in law about the participation of civilians in conflict at some point were probably not there yet but just as we've used it to find targets to do analysis to do battle damage assessment so might a future adversary use it better than what the Russians have done so we need to be prepared for that environment where all sources can be meshed and used by an adversary against us not the traditional military and government sources of information and analysis Roy I think there's an area that gives me a little concern and that's electronic components so you know when you think about electronic components that integrate circuits and things like that we often acquire them and we integrate them into systems but understanding where they originated and who actually made them has been a challenge because there really are no secure foundries aware of that have the ability to have the throughput to really kind of fuel the major militaries around the globe and to pull that thread a little bit before you rigid is that when those components are made they may be made by someone in the ferries intent that put components on board that can be engaged turn off through a back door through cyber connectivity that really could compromise the final systems that are based around them so really I guess a mitigate would be could we really kind of envision the development of a secure foundry or an ecosystem of secure foundries that would allow us to make those components that we could we would then use to build the systems that we leverage and so that's where I think there's this kind of interplay between the industry and really kind of national security that we have to navigate there really industry has been the real player there because we really just acquire those components and then integrate them and then we trust that they are they are sort of clean and pristine and nothing hidden there so like so many of the other discussions here we go on and on but we actually have to come to a closing point so I want to thank all of you for sharing your insights and so please join me in a round of applause go to our next panel in what new domains will conflict occur which I'm going to moderate and we have Scott Stapp who's vice president of capabilities in all domain integration which he'll explain what that means at Norfolk Grumman and we also have Lauren Zabirek senior advisor at the cyber security and infrastructure security agency both of them are veterans of the US Air Force and we look forward to their comments let me start with Lauren so the question here we're trying to what new domains will conflict occur and obviously cyber in a sense of conflict that's been going on for some period of time there was a time I think even Liam Panetta used it for a potential cyber 11 is that affordable? Thank you for the question and it's a real pleasure to be here so I think what we've seen over the last we'll say decade, decade and a half at this point we're in this sort of environment of endemic cyber conflict, it's ambient we're lucky in that nothing totally destructive has happened at this point but I think most experts would probably say this concept of a cyber 9-11 is probably a little bit hyperbole and probably doesn't really fit the nature of cyber very much so the way I like to think about cyber is not necessarily a place but more like a tool it's a tool in the toolkit for adversaries as well as criminals and other users as well for their game whether it is financial game or whether it is adversarial game so adversaries or criminals will use it to, like I said, to get what they are after whether it's diplomatic, military, financial, etc so I think it's sort of the wrong analogy but that is not to say that real harms are not being caused by the use of cyber in a malicious way Scott so at Northrop who talk us through what a plausible scenario would be for some kind of space based conflict presumably with China when you think about your job is it mostly about China? I think that's I wouldn't say in Northrop, I'd say the department is very clearly focused on China, Secretary Kendall today and the Air Force was down at AFA talking just about that and everybody's probably heard that where he goes China, China, China I mean he just, that is definitely a focus for the Air Force I think as a defense contractor I mean our focus is what our customers focuses are I think the hope is currently that there will not be a conflict in space but you can't presume that won't happen I mean it is interesting that the 1967 you know outer space tree which was hey space is going to be a peaceful domain it ain't that long and that was when space was really not that accessible and you look at just over the last 15 years how much more accessible space is whether it's commercial whether it's our adversaries and we were talking earlier just very much like the sea domain if you go back 1500 years there wasn't conflict on the oceans right I mean it wasn't until you had much more proliferated access to the sea lines of communications commerce everything else that you started to see conflict in that domain as you see space really start to become an economic lover you start to see it actually be involved in other domains of fighting to actually supporting the terrestrial domain you run the chance that you're going to see a conflict in space so you have to look at how do you actually address that systems used to be it used to be very expensive to get to space that the rocket itself cost as much or more than whatever you were putting up that is no longer the case launch to space is actually very economical now so you can start proliferating larger numbers of satellites rather than having them all clustered into a single capability and you were I think you're going to see this to go the same way as you have another domain question for you Lauren which is you know CISA your agency is I think there are 2400 employees or something I mean it's you have but obviously the problem is much bigger than anything you can do as a single agency I mean you'll highly rely on the private sector to do what they're supposed to do so and not if you try and protect everything you're going to end up protecting nothing so in the hierarchy of things that your agency considers critical infrastructure what are they and how do you protect them given the fact that you're in a sense exhorting people to do the right thing you're not you can't find them I don't think for doing the wrong thing the tools are more persuasion so you mentioned critical infrastructure I think a lot of people know that there are 16 sectors and CISA is actually overseeing a number of those I don't think a lot of people do know that 16 I mean you may know so for the audience what are those what are the top things you're trying to protect well some of the most vulnerable are looking at the water and wastewater sector the health care sector K through 12 those are some of the our director Jen Easterly's priorities over the last year or so but things like manufacturing transportation really the things that we rely on as people for everyday lives it runs our lives and if those things suffer particular harms you know I'll say for today my flight was delayed three hours because of the alleged software upgrade so you know obviously an upgrade I love that allegedly but you know obviously minor inconvenience to me but what happens sort of in the aggregate right that's a huge thing or let's look at colonial pipeline in our energy sector I think the attack on that particular entity I think showed a lot of people of the nature of the harm that could happen because it really impacted everyday people they weren't able to get gas right so to your point we do rely on the private sector to hopefully do the right thing now I will say this that I think we're sort of we try to give them the tools that they can but at the end of the day the organizations within the critical critical infrastructure sectors simply don't have I would say with the exception of maybe the financial sector maybe some parts of the transportation sector they don't have the resources to prepare themselves or defend themselves against very well resource very sophisticated actors and so what my team at CIS is trying to do and this is also a high priority for the directors really drive this initiative called secure by design and that is in line with the national cybersecurity strategy from the office of the national cyber director pillar three which states that we need to start moving the capability for security from all of us right the people who are not as well equipped to deal with that to the manufacturers right the organizations that can from the beginning from the design stage really try to make their products as secure and safe as possible and just to clarify so right now when there's a so-called zero day sort of a backdoor into right now you have to patch it yourself you get a message from Apple there's something out there but so what you're trying to do is to put that responsibility back on the software developers etc so that we're not always just repatching or missing the patches exactly so think of patching is something that we are referring to as a soft cost right left and boom you're investing money and time in patching these pieces of software and it's not just one right in organizations they have an entire stack of software a lot of time and resources to go through that and then inevitably right maybe you miss patch like we were talking about you know before with experience that's a problem right and again in the aggregate that results in this residual business risk which then of course really adds up to this this huge national security delta and so what we're saying is hey manufacturers there are things that you can do you know if you think of a vulnerability as a defect right to test for defects in a way that other manufacturers that have embraced quality by design right you mentioned experience so look I mean for those who don't recall the Chinese it's a public record took I think it was 175 million records basically half of the records of half the population in the United States and stole them I think one approach to this that I as you were talking about like litigation by people who are affected might actually be better than just you saying you should do the right thing well traditionally software and you know probably to an extent hardware manufacturers have really shielded themselves from liability although contracts that you get right when you down that basically says we are not liable you're licensing the software so yeah typically or traditionally rather that's been an issue and so I think the courts may be starting to think a little bit differently but of course you know with the national cybersecurity strategy you know the office of the national cyber director you know talked about looking at the liability issue too so that is that aspect regulation that falls outside of Cis's purview but you know that might be coming Scott how is AI changing the defense and space business in general that's a great how is it changing everything in general so I think one of the things you see one of the things that you are going to see in the DOD is the DOD typically is looking for predictable results whenever there is anything I mean the one thing with the military is you train train train train train train you want everything to be You want to understand what that outcome looks like and they struggle with, again, I was a tester at one point during my career and you want to have very predictable results. When you start to look at AI, I think predictive AI, there is a ton of opportunity space within the DoD. When you start looking at cybersecurity, when you start putting AI into computer systems who can look at anomalous behaviors and strange things that have not occurred, whether it's insider threat or intrusions, AI does an amazing job at that. When you start looking from a DoD perspective of looking through, whether it's imagery or signals and have an AI actually diligently go through that, it can actually do that any much faster and cleaner way. When you start talking about generative AI and where systems are going to start making decisions on their own, you already see it in the commercial side, you see people very reluctant on how fast they want to push that in the military and the DoD side. I think you're going to see that go even slower because what you're dealing with is it's different if you're dealing with a business and it makes a bad decision and you lose money in the DoD, it's about lives. If AI makes a decision to do something that costs lives that is either civilian or unintended, it will not go well. I think the department is going to go very slow in generative AI. Well, I'm old enough to remember that when the US Air Force always said that there'd always be a human in the loop when it came to the kill chain, when we saw the drone program really took off in 2008, 2009, that was sort of a mantra. The Chinese obviously have autonomous drones and swarms that are governed by AI. They don't seem to really care about that issue. Now we have public reports. There's been a lot of reports recently about AI-powered wingmen. So how do you keep the human in the loop? I mean, I understand how you might. But if the Chinese are already past that, do you put yourself at a disadvantage by trying to maintain that human in the loop? Yes. I mean, you do. I think the difference with that is much more cultural than it is anything else. I think when you look at some of our adversaries, their risk calculus is much higher, their value on human life is different than ours, and how you look at that problem set. I think for us, when you look at autonomous systems, I think we're going to have to get used to having what we call man on the loop, not in the loop. Things are going to happen way too fast that you can do that. I think in critical decisions, and I think we're going to have to have fully autonomous systems in some cases. If you were to look at a very large incoming raid of missiles and you have a battle manager and operator, he can't make those decisions on how he parses weapons to what's coming in. He's going to have to turn that over to a system that automatically makes those decisions. But those are, again, I would say that is more predictive AI that they're going to use. And it will just do the mathematical calculations very fast on what's happening. As things change, it will adapt. I think anytime it's going to make a critical decision that can have a larger, or what I call strategic consequences, you're going to have a man on the loop basically hitting a verify and making sure those decisions are made correctly. Yeah. You share that view? I actually want to sort of take that rigid a little bit with the cyber aspect of it. We've talked a little bit about the China's cyber capabilities and the theft of a lot of data, especially what we were talking about earlier. A couple of years ago, and I think he probably still continues to talk about this, but the FBI Director Ray talked about how this intellectual property theft is really the represents some of if not the largest transfer of wealth in human history. And if you're an adult, more likely than not, your data has been stolen by China. And so to bridge that with this concept, why is that data? Why is that wealth being stolen to develop these particular capabilities? And so not only from a data aspect, but from the systems themselves as well. So I think that's an important sort of bridging there. Well, I think this does get into norms of behavior. I mean, what you'll see is there's a whole bunch of things you could do with generative AI. We're actually holding ourselves back from doing some of those things, but if you look at some of the things that have occurred recently, just making the news, right, Chinese cruisers cutting in front of US cruisers, that is not normal. That is not what we'd consider norms of operations of the sea. And what they're doing is they're changing the norm. When you see whether it's the Russians or the Chinese, buzzing aircraft, cutting in front of them doing it, we call that unsafe operations. But the question is, for us, are they changing the norm? Are we going to have to figure out how to adapt to a new norm? Because it's unlikely they're going to come backwards and adapt to our norm. And so that is going to cause attention over time of how fast we are willing to change and look at the culture and the norms we have in military operations to adapt to that, because otherwise what you've done is you've ceded the advantage. And the odds of an accident seem to be going up pretty high, right? Whether it's a pilot accident or a ship accident or a... What, Lauren, in terms of when you look at the, we talked about the hierarchy of things you were trying to defend, what's the hierarchy of the threats? Obviously, you have these malicious groups who are doing ransomware that have names like our evil, which is a great kind of name, and then you have states. So when you, at your job, what's the hierarchy of states that are involved in this sort of attacking United States and what's the hierarchy of non-states? I don't know if I can put them into a hierarchy. I think you have the group of state actors that are typically implicated in cyber attacks, which are Russia, China, North Korea, and to an extent, Iran, and then of course you have a number of non-state actors, criminal groups. And I don't think you can say which one is worse or anything like that. There are different capabilities and there are different interests on them. They're still harm to real people being caused. I mentioned the colonial pipeline incident. We hear about ransomware attacks every day, businesses. I think in 2022, the cost that was reported was in the tens of billions of dollars. But also, let's look at livelihoods as well. There was a ransomware attack on a hospital in 2019, and this is of course not the only ransomware attack on a hospital. There's been many. We might not have heard of all of them because they haven't been required to report it and perhaps they were able to recover within days, weeks, maybe months. But there was an attack in 2019 that led to the death of a baby girl. So real harms are being incurred through cyber attacks. So to me, I'm not necessarily saying, okay, state versus non-state. It's again a tool being used for whatever game, but also there is collateral damage. Speaking of collateral damage, there seem to be a lot of satellites in the domain that you're mostly focused on, which is space. Elon Musk, I think, controls 4,000 of them and other. Are you concerned that there is too many of these satellites sort of in low orbit that we're kind of setting up a problem that goes beyond simply like some future conflict with China? So I will tell you, I personally am not. And the reason I will say that is because space is super big. And we've kind of talked about this earlier, which was go look at any FAA map and look at how many airplanes are in the sky at any one time. And they're all operating between 20 and 40,000 feet. I mean, sometimes you look at the map and it's just populated, right? It's just crazy. You look at the satellites and they're talking about operating between 200 nautical miles and 22,000 nautical miles. Multiple different orbitologies, all sorts of stuff. When you really look at, and there was an analysis we did in the department that I had done with Cape because we were looking at how close do you need to track different objects to do conjunction analysis. And what you found out is, is we're constantly moving things around because you don't have a huge, there's a lot of error cones around those. Well, what we found out is there's about a million pieces of debris up there that are of a size that can destroy anything, right? I mean, there is a, and this is not from us. This is just natural debris, micrometeoroids, all these kind of things. That's about a million pieces plus up there. All that are operating around our satellites yet, we aren't seeing major impacts. The number of satellites we have and the likelihood that you'll have a conjunction. And again, you may over time, but it's lower than what we're seeing currently, I think, in the air systems. And again, it's a big space. I want to open up to questions, if anybody has a question from the audience. So we have a mic. Except for Rooster. Who would eventually be perceived to be by the adversary. And they're two different things. I'm just curious as to what your thoughts might be on that. All right, so is that lower or mean? Because I will tell you, from my perspective, I think that's a major problem, right? The department, I mean, you're right, what the Chinese are looking to do in an adversary or military conflict is to change our perception of what occurs, right? And to me, this is where it gets interesting in the AI world, right? Everybody's seen when you look at deep learning algorithms, where you see a picture and an AI algorithm will tell you it's a giraffe. You change a couple, three pixels. You still see it as a giraffe and it calls it a polar bear, right? Is the ability to go in, if they have our data and are smart on how we're using algorithms to use our data and it can actually modify it so that the algorithms read that data completely differently, we're not going to have humans doing this, right? I mean, we're going to have machines doing that. That is a real problem and a real threat for us. And figuring out, which gets back to whether it's secure by design or zero trust, understanding when people are intruding in what they're doing is probably the most critical piece because, yeah, I think from the department side, you're going to have to assume people are in your networks. You're just going to have to assume it. Yeah, and I'll just say, you know, from CISA's point of view, where we are trying to buy down that risk for the nation, part of that is making sure that our systems and our data and our devices are secure because, as I was saying before, it's about real people. It's about harms to people, not just data, but I think you just really explain the potential harms of not securing that data. Kind of Willie, do you have a question? I just wanted to add that question came from Lieutenant General Bob Schmidl, who's also associated with ASU and was instrumental in setting up Cyber Command. And this is Colonel Dennis Willie, who is our first Chief of Staff of the Army Fellow and now works for Space Command. Thank you, Peter. I know that you're running close on time. With respect to the space conjunction problem, you're right. There haven't been a lot of public discussions about breakups and things like that, but the number of objects has gone up almost double that we do track. You talked about the economic aspect of it earlier. And so what we're witnessing is de facto real estate by altitude being occupied by these different constellations, SpaceX and Starlink first, and all of the other ones that the FCC approves. So in the world of conflict at the economic level, any thoughts about how creating this de facto real estate, which no sovereign country is supposed to have real estate in space? So any thoughts on that? Thanks, Peter, for the time. I think that's a great question. I think as we start to look at whether it's Starlink or Kuiper or any of these things that have just massively proliferated our track, I think that does start to create some issues, especially if they are not assigned extremely different altitude regimes, those kind of things. But when you start talking about it, and again, we're going to see this, when you start talking about economics, who owns the moon? I just heard that somebody declared they own the moon, China, others. I mean, it's going to get very interesting over time of a new domain, and it's like a law of the seat. At some point, we decided that 12 nautical miles was international limits, the rest is sovereignty, and then the rest is international. There has not been this huge view on how we're doing space, and the issue gets to what you were talking about is when we were talking about what we can do in cyber, yeah, we could go in and hack all sorts of stuff in cyber, and you could hack hospitals and other stuff, but we have this issue called law of armful conflict that we tell ourselves there are certain value systems we cannot do. When you talk about the Outer Space Treaty, we said it's for peaceful purposes, and we're not going to actually have conflict. Well, China's not a signatory on that. I mean, a lot of these, so who do we handcuff ourselves, and as norms start to change, how do you address what that new world looks like? So if you want to say, no, we need to have some discussions internationally and in space on who owns what pieces, you're back to the UN. I mean, not to shout at the UN, but how fast that works and how effective that works is a big question mark, which gets back to the likelihood a conflict in space grows because you can't develop a common set of norms and you get into a conflict of, no, that's mine, no, that's mine, and the next thing you know, they're at it. I want to thank our panelists very much. Thank you, Lauren. Thank you, Scott. Thanks, Peter. Appreciate it. Thank you. My name is Joanna Naples-Mitchell. I'm a human rights lawyer in New York City. I work at an organization called the Zomia Center, where I run a program that advocates for civilians harmed in U.S. military operations in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. Zomia is a word for a non-state space, an ungoverned or semi-governed territory, like a region with active armed conflict. Our founders are a group of journalists, academics, and researchers who have spent years working in these kinds of spaces. In their work, they observe significant gaps in service delivery, aid, and in knowledge. They founded Zomia to help address this. Today, Zomia has a staff of more than 170 people. We run humanitarian, public health, research, and advocacy projects in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan. We are closely affiliated with both ASU and New America. I direct Zomia's Redress Program, which we founded in June 2022. We founded this program to address the fact that the U.S. government has multiple funds to help civilians harmed in conflict that are not reaching intended beneficiaries. Pends of thousands of civilians have lost loved ones, limbs, and homes in U.S. and coalition airstrikes in recent years. Since 2020, Congress has appropriated $3 million a year for the Pentagon to make condolence payments after killing or injuring civilians in military operations. Condolence payments were common in the military's ground operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also may be known as Salisha or Xgrasha payments, their various terms of, but they peered off as the military shifted to air operations. They were token amounts of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, but they were something. Congress passed this new $3 million funding authorization to encourage the Pentagon to start making these payments again, yet the Pentagon made no payments in 2020 and only won a $5,000 payment to one family in Afghanistan in 2021. Similarly, for the last several years, U.S. aid has received $7.5 million a year through its Marla Rosika fund to spend on projects to help civilians in Iraq. This fund was recently expanded to $10 million a year to be divided among projects in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Yemen. This fund was named after Marla Rosika, a young woman who founded the Center for Civilians in Conflict and was tragically killed by a car bomb in Iraq. Yet it has been unclear in recent years how civilians in Iraq have been held by these funds or how outside organizations can even refer cases to U.S. aid for consideration. We founded the Redress Program to address this gap. We've taken on the cases of families in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan who are harmed by U.S. military operations, advocating for acknowledgement and assistance for them and for accountability more broadly. The program started just as the Secretary of Defense announced the military's new civilian harm mitigation and response action plan known as the CHIMRAP in August 2022, which responds to two decades of civil society documentation and advocacy for greater protection of civilians and accountability for harm. So we've been able to bring perspectives of the families we're presenting and to discussions with the Pentagon on how its processes can better address his family's needs and demands. Before I speak more about the program and what we've done, I want to take a step back. I have mentioned for building on two decades of civil society advocacy. We work closely with organizations like the Center for Civilians in Conflict and Air Wars. We also owe a great debt to some ASU affiliates. Specifically, the journalists Asmat Khan and Anand Gopal, both of whom have worked at ASU, co-authored a 2017 New York Times investigation into a U.S.-led coalition air strike that killed the family of an Iraqi man named Basin Razo. They visited the sites of about 150 air strikes in Iraq and found that one in five strikes had resulted in a civilian death. This was a rate 31 times the rate acknowledged by the coalition. It turns out coalition air strikes were far less precise than the military claimed. This investigation catalyzed a series of changes from the Pentagon and Congress, including the $3 million annual fund of the condolence payments I mentioned before. Since then, Anand co-founded the Zomia Center, the organization where I work. Asmat went on to do future New York Times reporting that helped catalyze the Pentagon's new civilian harm mitigation plan and won her the Pulitzer Prize. And Basin Razo, the man they profiled, has been an amazing advocate for other families harmed by coalition operations in Iraq, and we've been lucky to partner with him in the address program with the Zomia Center. Now, I've talked about how we got here, why this program exists, what it's intended to do, but where are we now? Over the last year, we've taken on the cases of more than 30 families in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. In cases, the Pentagon has already deemed credible, meaning they acknowledged they killed or injured civilians. We've submitted requests for condolence payments. Those requests are all still pending, some since June 2022. We've also collected new evidence of civilian harm from families, journalists, and other civil society organizations, and we've submitted that evidence to Central Command, asking them to reinvestigate those strikes. Families have approached us asking to take on their cases for different reasons, somewhat acknowledgement for the harm done to them. Some want answers. They want to know specifically which coalition government dropped the bomb on their home. Others are facing high medical bills after being injured in a strike, and the money would do a great deal. So others have lost a breadwinner, and even a token payment of a few thousand dollars would help them get back. When we can't at Zomie, we try to support these families as they wait patiently for a response from the military. We're working the stand-up program now to provide more medical and other forms of individualized support in the coming months to these families. We're hoping it can be a model that other entities, including the US government, might be able to scale up in the future. Even as the US media focuses on Russia's devastating invasion of Ukraine, the US military has continued to come to fire for its targeting of civilians by mistake. Most recently, after a strike in northwest Syria in May appeared to have mistaken a shepherd tending his sheep for a high-level al-Qaeda operative. The results of that investigation have not yet been released. Within the redress program, we try to situate our efforts within larger conversations around reparations and accountability, including Ukraine. The Pentagon is now considering how to improve its responses to civilian harm, both individual and community-based, and is looking to other countries, for examples. The Pentagon's concern is forward-looking, which means thinking not only about current modes of warfare, but new ones, as we enter a new age of potential new great-power conflict. At SOMIA, we work to convene other NGOs and survivors, working in these and other contexts to talk about what redress looks like, what works, and what doesn't, what hasn't worked, and what has. The unfortunate reality is that the US military will continue harming civilians by mistake, even if the mode of warfare continues to change. And we need to keep holding them accountable. The redress program was founded to help civilians access a $3 million Pentagon fund intended for them. We're still waiting to see how Central Command responds to our requests. But I will say this, we have developed over the last year in change a relationship of trust with the military. The evidence we've shared and the cases we've raised are being taken seriously. So I am optimistic about what we hear in the coming months. And I'm hopeful that we can continue to work with others to help develop better models that make these processes more accessible to civilians themselves. The military owes them that and so much more. Our next panel is a keynote conversation led by or moderated by Candice Rondeau who's been a part of the Future Security Initiative for many years. She's Senior Director of Future Frontlines and Planetary Politics here at New America. And she's a professor of practice in the Future Security Initiative at Arizona State University. She'll be speaking with Ambassador Oksana Markova. Thank you. Well, Ambassador, thank you and welcome to New America. This is your first time. Yes, first time here physically. That's right. Virtually we've had many moments but also you and I have had a few moments here and there. So I'm excited for this conversation. I wanted to introduce you if you don't mind to our audience here at New America and online. For those of you who don't know her, I would say that over the last two years, two and a half years really since her appointment as Ukraine's ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markova has been one of the most active and energetic diplomats on the circuit in Washington, D.C. And I really count myself as very lucky to have been able to sat across the table from you on many occasions to talk about the future of Ukraine, how to respond to this war of aggression that Russia is waging against your country. I've met a lot of diplomats in my time and I have to say very few have impressed me as much as you in large part because not only do you work tirelessly for Ukraine's interests but you really are working in one of the toughest towns in the world to be a diplomat. I don't envy anybody coming into Washington for the first time trying to figure out how it works because we all struggle. Those of us who live here struggle with it but you have really mastered the arcane art of navigating the State Department, the Pentagon, the White House. I have seen you throw out a first pitch at the National Stadium and now you've got a pretty good arm, I'd say. Actually, pretty impressive. I was trying not to embarrass my son. Well, you did well. You did well. But prior to your time here you were also at the Ministry of Finance from 2015 to 2020. First Deputy Minister and Government Commissioner on Investments. And then since 2018 as Minister of Finance, you know about money apparently. And you have degrees in Environmental Science from the Kyiv-Mohila Academy in Ukraine and MPA, sorry, in Public Finance from Indiana University. Corn Huskers, let's go. And you also have a head for numbers. I have seen that also at work in some of our conversations and science. And I think you know a lot about what it takes to run a business having spent 17 years in the private equity field. So I think you also have a sense of what's going to happen next in terms of reconstruction and we're going to talk a little bit about that today. So again, thank you for coming. Thanks for making the time. Our time is unfortunately limited. I'd love to stay up here all day. But I want to start out with, I think one of the big challenges is probably on everybody's mind here. You know, Ukraine is fighting a war. The defense alone must cost, who knows how many billions, right? But we also know that there is just a huge reconstruction need ongoing and in the future. And I think one of the biggest questions most recently has been around the need for reconstruction in the area of grain exports and production. And where we're going to go next with that. So I want to just ask you, sort of, what is your impression of what happened with the Black Sea grain initiative in terms of its impact on Ukraine's export capacity? And so what's Ukraine's perspective on how to bring that back together you know, move forward? Thank you. Thank you, Candice. And thank you for having me. It's a great pleasure to be here and to be able to have this discussion. And thank you for keeping on the agenda. Something that is not only important for us in Ukraine, but actually has a global meaning. And the result of this war and you know, hopefully the victory of Ukraine soon in this war is going to be a prerequisite of all of us, all countries that have the same values, but also countries that want to deliver better to their citizens to restore as soon as possible the supply chains to address the food security needs, energy security needs. And I think food security and in general, the agricultural issues that you just mentioned are key issues. First, the key issues for Ukraine. Ukraine has been a very heavily agricultural country. And when I say agricultural, it's not just growing, but it's food processing. It's all the value chain. We own 30% of the global black soil, you know, the best type of soil for the growth. And actually, the productivity gain that could happen in that field is huge. This is something that before the full flash war started, we wanted to develop as one of the key advantages of Ukraine. We are top five exporters of the majority of crops from wheat to barley. We're number one, used to be number one in sunflower oil. We are very high on honey. So we can feed the world and once called the bread basket of Europe, we can definitely be a global bread basket. Now, Russia specifically, in addition to their aggressive war, in addition to their war crimes, horrific war crimes against civilians, women, children, in addition to just, you know, having this unjust war, they specifically target the food. So they destroy the grain storages, they destroy the port facilities, they block the Black Sea. The only reason Ukraine is not able to deliver the food, which we grow for so many regions, especially for Middle Eastern Asia, especially for African countries. We cannot do it simply because of the Russian actions. Now, with the help of UN and Turkey, for some time, they were able to broker this grain initiative, which Russia agreed, but then sabotaged, of course, every month, you know, they were trying to delay the ship inspections, they were trying to scare the ship companies, you know, so it wasn't going perfect even when it was there, but Ukraine always stick to what we wanted to do, you know, to get the grain, to get everything out, so that we can end, in addition to just selling it, we even donated, you know, we have this program called Grain from Ukraine, where we donated grain and other countries, US, through the USAID, actually helped to pay for the shipments so that we can donate it to countries in need. So right now, we are in a situation when Russia decided to stop it and block it, they're trying to create or put out all kinds of unreasonable additional demands. We are ready to continue, of course, but it looks like, you know, Russians really would like to weaponize the food again. Now, we're trying to export as much as we can through the land borders using other ports. That's why you see, during the past weeks, increased attacks on Odessa, Odessa region, closer to the Romanian border, that's they're trying to prevent any type of shipment of the food, which will affect not only the shipment of what we have in the storages, but also the harvesting, because we are in the process of harvesting, which is, I think remarkable that Ukrainian farmers have been able to plant care and harvest now the products in this situation, when they are not only under constant attacks, but we are also one of the most mined countries now, the unexploded ordinance, not only in the residential areas or mines, but also in the field. So, look, you know, we will do whatever we can. Soon there will be again another General Assembly of the United Nations. This issue is going to be discussed, of course, and raised by Ukraine. We are trying to communicate with all of our friends and allies, especially in, you know, what people call the global south, you know, essentially saying, we have to be very vocal, we have to press on Russia. We have to tell them that we know who is behind this, and they have to stop not only this aggressive war against Ukraine, but they have to stop threatening half of the globe with the food crisis, because it's serious. Yeah. It is extremely serious. I mean, as you were talking, I was reflecting on a long ago visit to the Museum of the History of the Holodomor, which is a remarkable place in Kiev, very striking if you've never been there. I will just tell you that it lies kind of on this open sort of square where there are tremendous monuments and historical museums, of great value, but the Holodomor to me is interesting just in the context of food security, the weaponization of food, this constant refrain of Russia to return again and again to the food as a weapon historically is tragic, but also I think it should be a lesson to us all that actually as the conflict continues, we should just expect that to continue on some level from Russia. So there are some, you know, there are some challenges ahead as you say. I know that other people are going to also have questions about just kind of the humanitarian crisis because of course this relates not just to food security but human security and I again just want to remark on how struck I was many war zones you've named them with the exception of Iraq I think I've been to all of them. And so I'm just curious to sort of for me it was interesting to see how well the civilian response was sort of coordinated. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the humanitarian situation now what you might predict for the future the winter is coming up. What's needed? What's what are the challenges that you see? Well, yes. So you noted the Museum of Holodomor which is, you know, striking that this year is the 90 years mark of that tragedy when Russians denied food took all the food and people were dying from hunger and this is this is probably the most cruel you know this and children when you live in the country where literally food grows everywhere and to create artificial hunger in the place which was the source of food for so many neighbors not only for itself is a very cynical and very cruel you know, war crime but again not surprising what we see now because unfortunately we have a history of war crimes of Russians whether it's Russian Federation Soviet Union or Russian Empire against Ukrainians but with regard to the humanitarian situation on the one hand it's a very unique I would say war because I don't think we will find many wars when the government continued to execute its functions and never stopped it not even for a day so yes where it was under occupation even there our mayors tried to execute their functions and be with people and try to deliver food and organize something that's why so many of our mayors have been kidnapped by Russians tortured or even killed especially in the areas which they occupied and which they stay occupied but in general all the areas where we have the control and as soon as we liberate there is Ukrainian government there both national and local and all the society and that's another key element you know this the civil society that work together with the government so we are trying to address all these challenges with the help that we are receiving from the US but that's why you know for the first time actually in our 32 years history US is providing us with the budget direct budget support the grant direct budget support and this money are actually humanitarian money they used to pay the salaries to educators they used to support the IDPs they used to to provide the basic needs for people and it's done by the active government our banking system never stopped working during the war during this war Ukrainians especially when there was the Russians were advancing at the beginning and occupying people were actually putting money on the accounts and throwing their cards and trying to move to the territory which Ukraine controls because they knew that that's how it will be kept safe our digital system you know DIA which we have on our phones so we don't you don't need to have passport a driver license with you you have it all in your phone and that also allows us to communicate directly and to send money directly to people through this app essentially governmental app and we have more than 20 million Ukrainians that are communicating with the government like that so this is unique that we are trying to use the digitalization the innovations and the government is adapting to this situation on the other hand of course it's a humanitarian crisis of massive proportions so yes we're able to do and to use the help that we are receiving from the U.S. and other partners to to utilize it but then any thing you look not all of our schools have bomb shelters not all of them had and we need that in order for kids to continue their education the majority of our kids are behind in their vaccination schedules of course the majority of people with very like rare or the diseases that require daily care you know the different type of cancers people who require who are on the different type of daily supports like dialysis or something like this they cannot get it and not only under occupation under occupation it's a total disaster that's why people are killed and tortured and not have the access to basic needs but even in the places where you know either close to the front lines or everywhere the need is pretty much in every sector whether it's healthcare or education or transportation and plus not to mention every day Russia is trying to shell the infrastructure Russia is trying to attack civilian objects but also others there are more people that are killed or wounded we have extreme number of people who lost their limbs and it's not only our brave warriors but it's also civilians throughout and of course preparing now for the winter we remember what happened last winter when russian specifically targeted the energy system in order to create the blackouts and to create the situation when either there will be additional waves of refugees because you cannot stay on them and unfortunately Ukraine has cold winters and when you don't have the electricity or energy supply it's not just about cold you don't have the water supply you don't have sewage you don't have any other basic needs and that's that's a very very difficult situation however and I just came back from Kyiv five days ago I was there when Secretary Blinken visited the resolve of Ukrainian people is still there I've seen it when I came back after Buchia was just liberated it was April 2022 I've seen it in September when I was there I've seen it in December 2022 it was cold and dark and I've seen it now and it's been throughout the 17 months that people say it's difficult it's horrible it's many losses but nobody would say you know that we shall surrender we all know that surrendering for us it just means that we will all die and fighting is at least we have a chance to survive and you know this resolve to fight is still there resolve to do everything possible and sometimes impossible yeah yeah that resolve certainly comes through and I actually was going to ask you a little bit about just a small follow-up on the work being done I think with the help of the U.S. and maybe some others on kind of building more resilient infrastructure for electricity in particular if you could talk a little bit about that yes we actually are working very actively with the State Department and Department of Energy and USAID is the of course part of this group so we have like we have Rammstein meetings on weapons we have literally weekly meetings on energy coordination and what we're trying to do and that comes a little bit related also to the reconstruction post-war is and to steal your president's quote build back better so when we're looking at what Russians are destroying we're trying not just to rebuild or repair what was there but already saying where shall we be in 10 years so during these 17 months of war as surprising as it is our cabinet of ministers adopted the energy strategy for the next 10 years we agreed how we will replace the coal mines and everything else which have been destroyed with the renewables and we will change our mix and we will continue developing our nuclear stations which is the base for Ukraine so we a little bit more than 50 percent of in our mix comes from the nuclear and Ukrainians are very you know professional in the nuclear energy field and when we are talking to all of our friends and trying to get this additional transformers and generators and everything else of course I mean it's not something that is on the shelf and you can pick whatever you want it's something that you it's rare commodity even without the war but when we're choosing between different options we're already thinking is it in line with the 10 year strategy is it in line with our post war reconstruction vision because we can we want after we win and there will be big need to rebuild and the destruction is really big especially in the areas which has been occupied for a longer time we want to do it in a way that we can leapfrog from where we have been in 2022 ahead already so in all the sectors which are critical for Ukraine like agriculture energy IT and digital to do something that is 22nd century you know you know to do something that we can get more business to come to invest because you know let's let's face it just the recent study of the World Bank and they are doing this rapid damage rapid damage report so it's called our DNA so the damage just the physical damage not not the losses of the profits not just the physical damage of what they have assessed was destroyed by Russians during the first full calendar of the full flashed war as of February 2023 amounted to 411 billion US dollars it's it's actually it's not taken into account the big environmental damage it's not taken into account into the mining that has to be mined it's not taken it's not yet it doesn't include the destruction of the dam which actually is not just a simple environmental catastrophe and and the losses that were right there for the water that was rushed down south but that the reservoir was the source of the water for the agricultural district and for many towns and cities so the overall long-term effects are going to be also big so you know the damage is huge and in order to repair we of course would welcome anyhow from our friends and allies but the question whether we'll be able to leapfrog and do it is going to depend on will we attract business compliant large business that will come and and will do it together with us and and that's why we have to open the door for all these innovations and do it in a very inspiring way so that we can become a hub for these innovations in our part of the world so interesting I mean that's one of the paradoxes of war isn't it that I mean that it forces so much loss but then after the fact oftentimes there is a leapfrog in all kinds of ways sometimes social sometimes you know technological industrial but you you you mentioned something actually that you touched on Ramstein which maybe people in the room don't really know what that is but if you if you've spent any time in Germany you will know that there is a base called Ramstein it used to be an expo for for a lot of folks coming out of Afghanistan probably still is for most of the Middle East and a very important tie up lash up for the collaboration and coordination of weapons transfers to Ukraine's frontline fighters we know that there's been a big decision recently on the sort of big list of items that you are looking for in Ukraine we're getting close to two in fact one we have the f-16s they're talking about this one yeah that's the one when did you pin that on before the decision yeah that's interesting it was like a magic talisman so Denmark I believe has come through Netherlands Netherlands has come through what do you think I mean what are you hearing from your colleagues in the defense side about the impact of the f-16s what will it take to kind of get everything up and running what do you predict will happen in the next year what we should we look for well first of all you know as you know we have been since February 24th working on the very long list of capabilities unfortunately we are fighting with not only brutal and criminal enemy but also enemy that is much larger than us so with all the support that we are getting Russia is still you know they people-wise and the methods they use to conscribe you know they can pretty much force any amount of people whoever they can catch and whoever did not leave the country to send them on the front line but also they have a lot of weapons yes bad Soviet type you know sometimes not working but the quantity sometimes is a quality in itself so the list was large and first we were using both our old Soviet type of equipment and some Ukrainian equipment and then starting with the javelins and stingers and then everything else and now we are almost 100% using the NATO standard equipment and to get more capabilities is very important because you know as military people say you know it's on the one hand it's a very world war one type of war you know like it said it's an artillery duels on a very long period very mined you know Russians simply are destroying whole villages you know the city of Mariinka the city of Bakhmut unfortunately when they were advancing they did not think about even the civilians I mean they were just destroying inch by inch by inch moving forward and you know so we need to counter that we need to fight with that but we also need to do something with their supremacy in the air which is also very important so we were discussing a number of capabilities from the beginning and we are very glad that now we have the political decision on the F-16 because it's a very important part of the air defense it's a very important part of the it's an additional capability that has so many so much use and as you know our pilots are already at the training and we are working with our friends and partners and big thanks to Netherlands and Denmark for agreeing to transfer the platforms and we are working on that so again it's a very complex capability so it will take you know some effort to completely get it but you know it's you know all capabilities that we were getting where for the battlefield today throughout the 17 months but we always were thinking also about the building the army of the future how the Ukrainian military will look like after this because again with our aspirations as the future member of the European Union and future member of NATO we do have now the largest the most capable the battle-tested army which will be an asset for the future transatlantic family so for us any capabilities that we add now it's not just the equipment that our brave defenders can use now but it's also it's also shaping through the battle the future force of Ukraine which again inevitably will be the eastern flank of NATO so it's it's it's a very we already have shown and our brave defenders have shown how quickly they can learn the U.S. Patriots I think showing remarkable performance saving life saving children in Ukraine but also showing how superior they are to any of the equipment that Russia has so it's not only a great capability for us to have and we're very grateful to the U.S. for that but it's also a signal to so many other countries that whoever relied upon Russia to provide them the military support or the SAGS you know from the Wagner Group they can no longer do either of them that's right and it's it's a wake-up call that you know with the size of economy that they have with the lack of values and the aggressive nature and the imperialistic thinking which is totally outdated in the 21st century but they cannot even do the evil things as they did I mean they're still doing them to us but so it's a it's a big I think geopolitical question for a number of our friends in the rest of the world and UN is such a great place to talk about it and discuss it and see that we have to reform too we have to move forward we have to address the problem with the country that doesn't respect the UN Charter yeah I mean but those conversations at the UNGA coming up I think to be a fly-animal there would be quite something I have to say and I'm glad that you mentioned our friends the Wagner Group as you know I've spent a lot of time thinking about those guys way too much time and so is my colleague Ben Dalton who is in the audience with us today my partner in crime a lot of folks in here actually have been very much part of the conversation about the Wagner Group not only in New America but certainly I think in the United States and other places where people are paying attention so we've had some big action pretty recently I was planning to come to Kiev actually but a certain friend of ours got in the way Yevgeny Prugoshin and Dmitry Utkin the operational commander of the Wagner Group and of course Valery Chakalov who was kind of the money money guy all killed along with four bodyguards and apparently a set of innocent crew members as far as we know we don't know a lot of questions about what happened there read my book whatever it comes out you'll know I may have some thoughts on it but I will say the question that I get asked now continually and I would like to ask you is okay they're dead but the Wagner Group we all know has been linked to a number of war crimes countless really actually in the Ukraine context and we can't really talk about Syria and so far so what's next with kind of accountability for Wagner operatives what do you think has changed and then where are we going with accountability and justice where they're concerned there is no last and last and just peace without justice and as you know President Zelensky when he says talks about the peace formula justice is such an important element of that so there we will we will not leave any stone unturned so I will come back to Wagner but in general we are doing the criminal investigation in Ukraine the prosecutor general is doing a remarkable job we have more than 100,000 individual cases that already are opened at by the Ukrainian legislation US is helping us a lot and by the way Netherlands on data collection and evidence collection and also how to talk to victims because a number of these crimes are the sexual crimes or the brutal executions of civilians or tortures and you have to do it also in a way not to re-traumatize the victims so we are doing this and we are not only investigated we are also already in the courts and some people are not only indicted and some people are indicted in absentia and some people who we caught you know the prisoners in Ukraine but they are also sentenced and believe it or not and it's a big challenge which our prosecutor's office is paying very big attention to is that the new process of law is there and that all Russian perpetrators actually get lawyers to represent them and to defend them and this is the most difficult issue to find enough attorneys Ukrainians who would defend but we have to do it you know that this is what differentiates us from Russians as well in addition to that a dozen of countries already opened their own criminal investigations we are fully cooperating providing evidence to them and as many countries that would do it we are very grateful there are three international courts all of which have cases whether on genocide or other one of them already indicted the ICC both Putin and Lvova-Belova and rightfully so for the kidnapping of our Ukrainian children which is you know part of the genocide we are working very actively on the crime of aggression which is the mother of all the crimes you know and it's a very well documented crime because Putin did all of that online literally he was publicly documenting every decision that he took which led to announcement of this special military operation i.e. war and then he acknowledged the same actions in 2014 and 15 after he stopped pretending that it was some green man in Crimea you know and then he said yeah of course it was us so so this is very important and frankly I mean of course the prosecution in Ukraine goes faster the international courts will take some time the crime the tribunal for aggression will take probably even more time but it doesn't matter people need to know that you know each of this crime will be in the court of law and that there will be accountability now coming back to those who are dead yes you know the leadership of the Wagner group is brutally executed in a very public way on the two months anniversary of their walk to Moscow but you know they were not the only ones who were committing the crimes the thousands of Wagner operatives which again very documented very well documented in Ukraine we have a very big base of the evidence but all Russian troops as well so it's not just some rogue units it's not just some this private type of military units which again we know they're not really private it's the Russian army and the Russian armed forces and the Russian president who created them and who were providing them with weapons and who were giving them instructions and yes there were some disagreements between Prigozhin and Shoigu but it's more a quarrel between you know the different lines of the same kind of organized crime organization rather than you know really state and the private doing it separately so we'll continue investigating we'll continue indicting them there are other private groups not as successful although I don't know whether successful is the word to use of course but not as capable but there was attempts by Russians to create these groups and there are a number of them which I didn't hear they still are operating outside of Russia I mean hopefully without capable although evil and criminal had like Prigozhin we will see decline of the use of the Suggs in African countries and others but if not then justice for everything they've done in Ukraine will also help us to get them out from so many criminal missions that they have throughout the throughout the globe so you know I think it's a very important issue and to get justice regardless of how much time it will take is as important as winning this war because that justice wherever it will be served fully will be the final victory in this war together with the reconstruction no justice no peace absolutely right that's how it goes well we're getting kind of close to time and I know that there's probably a question or two in the audience so I want to open up the floor and maybe get back to the question on the ICC and the question with the children and what's going on there but let me go to the audience first and go with my colleague Peter Bergen thank you Candice mentioned all the amazing work you were doing in Washington a potential problem of course is the presidential election of 2024 quite a number of the Republican candidates so sort of saying that they implying that they would reduce or maybe even end A to Ukraine I think 71% of Republicans now say A to Ukraine should stop so how do you deal with this sort of American political scene where the Putin is surely looking at these polls and making his own conclusions well first elections are very important for in any democracy and this is something for what we are fighting in Ukraine for democracy for the ability to choose our government and to change it on a regular basis and I would never call an election a problem to be honest this is what people should do and this is the basis of all of us continue development whether we like the results or not right so first of all I have big trust in American people regardless of party affiliations when we explain it to people I always feel the support so when we tell people why and we tell people the more information about what's going on and we tell people that we are fighting for our homes for our loved ones that we were attacked by a brutal bully with no pretext with no reason whatsoever that it's very much our own war for independence and freedom I think the majority of Americans understand and feel it because this is what Americans have in them this is what this country is built on this values so when people eyes that do not support it or say say that you know it's not in the American interest it just means that we didn't explain it well we have to do more we have to go and talk to people we have to give them more information we have to provide them with this with this knowledge and that's why and again I always thank the journalists because their work has been a game changer during this phase of the of the war in 2014 exactly this happened Russia attacked us exactly the same way the sham referendum in Crimea was no different from the sham referendums now but our voice was not heard this time it wasn't just our voice it's the cameras and the journalists who have been there who have been showing the world what's going on so it's very important to continue to inform people by informing people we also have to tell them more about how the American help to us work that yes there is 113 billion that Congress very generously appropriated to provide for the Ukraine and related to Ukraine support but not all of that money goes to Ukraine so yes we are getting the direct budget support which is about slightly above 20 billion for which we are very grateful of course again I always say how grateful we are so that is the money we are getting in order to be able to continue the fight and sustain sustain the effort all the defense assistance which is much larger than this we are not getting the money we are getting the goods and a number of resources that Congress provided goes to replantage their stocks of the Pentagon it goes to increase the production here I just recently last month visited the Lima, Ohio plant which produces Abrams says and I have to tell you you know it's it's additional jobs there and the majority of people in that plant I mean I felt like I'm visiting friends there because they are proud that they are producing this excellent American capability and that we will be able to do it similar with the plants that produces breadless and then you see the videos how when our brave defenders liberated Robotina in the South and there were still people there civilians you know of the age of my mother and they were put into this American Bradley to be evacuated to safety because everyone in Ukraine all defenders know if there is a shell in you go inside the Bradley not outside because this is the place where you will be kept safe so we just have to explain that it's you know we're very grateful again for the weapons but they are produced here and we're doing it together and they are developing providing jobs here in the United States and it's also for the benefit of both of our countries you know we need the goods in order to defend our families but you're producing them here and third which is also very important you know we are defending not only us we are defending the whole European part which Putin has been very loud and clear that he wants to attack and he wants to he has problems not only with Ukraine he has problems with everyone who was able to to get out from this empire the Russian the Soviet or whatever you call it so he's threatened sometimes Poland he threatens definitely all Baltic states he was talking how the Finland and Denmark are no friends and stuff like that so you know right now we are defending other including NATO countries at a very modest I would say military budget and we are doing it ourselves we are not requesting any of our friends to fight for us it's we don't need other boots on the grounds we just need the weapons but if God forbid we fall and Putin occupies completely Ukraine and kills us all he will not be stopped he will be emboldened by this and he will inevitably go further and then unfortunately a number of NATO countries will have to help to defend other NATO countries so the fastest and the most efficient from the financial standpoint this is the minister of finance and me talking is actually to help Ukraine more to stop the war now while it's still in Ukraine so whether it's the moral argument whether it's the shared values whether it's the effectiveness and efficiency argument because it is in the U.S. national security interests to defeat an aggressive autocratic regime that not only attacked Ukraine let's keep in mind that they have attacked Georgia in 2008 that they have committed horrible crimes in Syria that they have poisoned people in the streets of the United Kingdom that they have interfered and send their Wagner sags into so many other places not to mention all the crimes that they have committed while they were in the form of the Soviet Union so many wars and so many so it's it's an all of our civilized people interests to live in a safer world which will return to the security architecture that we had after the World War II because that peace and again I do not imply that the peace was everywhere but at least the lack of a great war which would involve European continent has been a basis for the prosperity that we all enjoyed in the collective western countries and in some newly newly developed economies and we have to get back there as soon as possible if we want to continue delivering to our people to our citizens so I think you know when we explain it clearly to the American people they understand and they support so it's a task for all of us to explain it better so I see I keep getting these high signs over here I wish we could just keep going on I really I hope you come back first of all let me just say that because this has been a wonderful conversation I was going to ask you how many states you've been to but maybe that's we'll have that bet later how many states have you been to actually well not not too many because I'm trying to stay here this is the war is and I'm trying to travel for sure but I've been to California I've been to Ohio I've been to where did I go Massachusetts I've been to Pennsylvania I've been to Florida and New York of course okay but that's not we're going to Illinois I still have to come back to Indiana so okay that's right you've got to get back to Indiana well listen I want to ask one tiny question but it's going to have to be a short answer I'm afraid I did want to come back to this question on the ICC decision to charge Putin to charge the the High Commissioner on Children's Affairs big decision and obviously seems to have constrained Putin's movements what's your response and how has that decision affected the the efforts to repatriate Ukrainian children from Russia well first of all we are very grateful to ICC for taking that case for moving ahead with that case this is probably maybe for me as mother is the most horrendous crime of all so 19 more than 19,000 cases registered already in Ukraine the children we know have been abducted to Russia according to the estimates of our commissioner on on these issues it's actually 200 or 300,000 the Russians themselves themselves claim is even larger amount of children they rescued as they say but you know killing of Ukrainian children abducting them to Russia putting them into this one day adoption and they change their own laws to be able to put them for the speedy adoptions indoctrinating them putting them through what they are telling us the teenagers that we were able to get back through the re-education camps which sounds like from the book about World War II and what Nazis did to children is horrible everyone has to be punished for that and the fact that ICC ruled and indicted them is such a notion of justice and understanding of this problem so we are grateful for the U.S. government that is working with us on this issue we are trying to get back as many children as possible very difficult unfortunately we were able to return a very small number of them we are very grateful to everyone in congress you know there is a number of resolutions that submitted on this issue not only condemning but also calling for some actions with regard to how to do it it's a very difficult issue of course we need to win when we win we will know first of all for sure what is the situation on the occupied territories but also this is what we will start you know working more actively I mean we are working as active as we can but to have the win this of course is going to be a big part of you know our victory is to get all our children back what our first lady our president and everyone in Ukraine says always we will not rest until every child is back let's hope that happens thank you again Ambassador for joining us such a pleasure and an honor and I hope the audience will give you also a warm applause thank you our next panel which is the future of security in Latin America my friend and colleague Danny Rothenberg of ASU and also New America is going to moderate this discussion thanks everybody so we're honored to be joined by Ambassador Juan Carlos Pinzón so he was the former Colombian ambassador to the United States he was also the minister of defense and also ran for president in the country and he's currently the John Weinberg visiting professor at Princeton University so I'd like to start by just asking you to reflect a little bit on the context we're in now so in the post-911 era there's been a lack of a coherent and consistent U.S. policy towards Latin America I'm wondering if you think that such a policy should be enacted developed and if so what would be like the core principles that would motivate a policy like that well thank you then first of all a pleasure to be here and always great to be in this space it's the second time I get to be part of this wonderful conference that happens every year so good to be here well that question that you just made the eternal question in Washington and the eternal question in every capital of Latin America why is that it's so obvious that if we work together we will be very powerful and strong as a region and why is that somehow doesn't happen in a way probably the centers of power are very much related to geopolitics and economics so Asia Europe have been the center of focus for the U.S. for years and it's kind of everybody has taken for granted the South you know the Western Hemisphere as a whole probably the U.S. was very influential for years and you know in a way never had the need to you know go beyond but sometimes we forget about the potential of the region you know when we think about not North America or Latin America but we think about the Americas the hemisphere has a billion people more than that so it's an incredible huge market and this is the region of the world that probably is absolutely independent of any other if you will put all the resources to work it has water more fresh water than any other it has more biodiversity than any other it has more minerals than any other lithium copper gold you name it oil gas etc it has a region especially in the tropical center where we can have access to wind and solar power the capacity to produce food in the western hemisphere is second to none in the whole planet so what explains you know we cannot see it like that and make it operational like that and that's the big thing I believe we need to to think through the other part we should not forget is that Latin America continues to be a very young area of the world the average age is 29 still so there's still some time to develop a lot of opportunities in human capital education technology that if we were to combine I'm sure we'll have an incredible impact especially now but as we say this which is probably true 10 years ago 20 years ago you know even before we get to the present and we see new players global power competition is happening and players are seeing what I describe but not having America as this great partner with technology and education to contribute to the region and help us to increase our productivity the infrastructure but other players China Russia Iran Turkey or even you know regional powers like Brazil that are looking to partner through the bricks to other players so a big question is aren't we getting a little bit late for trying to do that well my answer to that question is I think we're on time I think there are many cultural reasons and historic reasons including the fact that we have democracy include the fact that here in the United States we have probably the fourth or fifth largest Latin American country of the world it happens to be here in the U.S. so the bridges are already on how do we make those bridges operate will be a big question but that's very important now my concern as we speak that I perceive the region going in a different way this narrative that I just provide is probably the one we would love to see but the region is shifting is going away from this story so how do we correct that so it's interesting we when Latin America was at the forefront of U.S. policy making on the news all the time etc usually was because of various references to security viewed as a security threat or viewed as security partners so in the last several decades we've seen other regions whether the Middle East or now China above all the security threat sensibility is what's driven a lot of the policy interest so do you think that what it will take for the U.S. to develop some sort of more coherent engagement with the region is some sort of pressing security threat and if so what might that be or do you not agree with that no I fully agree and this is a big point and we gotta go back and look to history there are three ways of viewers interest in the region probably we're getting into the fourth one let's make sure that this fourth one is really effective for the long term let me remind you the first time the U.S. really realized about the Western Hemisphere and the hemisphere look at you know as a whole as an important place to try to do things was prior to the Montreux doctrine and why did that happen because all of us agree at that time that we didn't want the European powers to come back so somehow we found this idea of the Americas for the Americans meaning the Americas not the United States of America but the whole Americans and Americans not only those that were born in the U.S. but all of us who were born in the Americas you know so that was the first time but then you know kind of we forgot the Europeans got into their own wars they fought for a hundred years you know in the end of 19th century 20th century but suddenly by you know the start of World War II there were two powers that were trying to project global power Germany and Japan especially Germany the Nazis did have ties in the South so that became a real threat to the United States that became a real challenge and suddenly there was a major effort to deny that power through military collaboration actually in the year 1941 the big response was this security agreement and that was the way in which that was prevented later on Cold War happened and during the 50s and 60s when we saw those guerrilla warfare movements coming to a region being successful in Cuba and suddenly having a guerrilla in every country of Latin America then came a new idea from the United States and it had two parts one was you know using the U.S. agencies to confront you know these kind of threats militarily and with other tools but also there was a social economic tool that worked very well and was you know somehow the Alliance for Progress from President Kennedy that somehow had an impact and create this balance that yes the U.S. can create progress and prosperity as time passes that was abandoned in a way and we forgot that in time by the end of Cold War I have to think that there was a good intention but never came to a real end which was trying to create this major western hemisphere market and that was this idea of creating the pre-trade market of the Americas but it never really ended as an opportunity so where are we today? Latin America was taken for granted the U.S. got very much engaged into the Middle East you know into Central Asia more recently is looking a lot to the Pacific and Latin America was taken for granted but now is being contested and somehow these powers are here again here's where we have an opportunity I see out of the geopolitical competition an incredible opportunity for the U.S. to go for this fourth wave of interest in the hemisphere and work hard but where do I see a big challenge? The challenges of security in the region organized crime organized crime is taking over almost every country of Latin America from Mexico to Argentina including definitely my country Colombia you will see the presence of organized crime in politics in power in territorial control and creating an effect in society of course that is very much connected to political realities inequality continues to be there corruption continues to be a terrible disease but unfortunately a response that Latin Americans have looked for of the need of change and the need of you know solving these major issues is not coming as a real solution it's coming from people that used to be during the Cold War era very much against democracy very much against the values that we share a free market and freedom they kind of have new clothes but are the same people but in essence they are trying to promote change they're not being effective socially and policy-wise and on the contrary chaos is happening more often in countries like Mexico like Guatemala like Honduras like Colombia even countries like Brazil, Argentina and Chile not to forget about Peru and not to forget about recent events in Ecuador are really showing that these models of organized crime politicians and all ideologies combine are not being positive for the region so yes we have this opportunity of the fourth wave but I think Washington and definitely as Latin Americans need to be aware of the challenges that we're confronting combine so essentially you've given us a good context for US-Latin American relations one of the defining features of woven into that that timeline is Latin America being the premier region or one of the premier regions for what's known as the third wave of democratization right the shift from authoritarian regimes to democratic regimes which came in with a great deal of excitement among many both in the academy and also on the ground and yet if you look at polling now a lot of the populations in countries those more democratic and less democratic in the region have quite negative feelings about the democratic process and often about democracy I'm wondering what you think helps explain that and whether democracy in Latin America has a rich vibrant future and if so what would guide it that way so the Gallagher poll just to prove your point shows that when you think about institutions worldwide as they are supported around 70 percent average worldwide in Latin America is below 50 percent so there's a you know a real challenge about the credibility of institutions to solve problems second when you think about democracy and the credibility of elections you have these Vanderbilt University studies the Latino barometer that is showing that Latin Americans are starting to distance from the confidence in democracy and starting or not to care about what system they have or even in some countries starting to support the idea that if it is to fight corruption you're ready to support any kind of autocratic system which is very worrisome and that somehow explains the reality of what we're getting we're getting more radical governments in power we're getting people that once they get to power they use democracy just basically to seal you know or to you know guarantee that they can do whatever changes so they move into more privacy concept of democracy so they use the votes to change institutions and that is happening more often so is problematic and I think that's something that we need to watch so you know these very victorious language of post-colonial war which meant we have the most democratic hemisphere after Europe well it's something that today is in question democracy is weakening institutions are having problems and with that you combine security another element of the of the world poll when you ask the question do you feel safe when you walk alone at night the area of the world that has the worst number compared to any other in the world is Latin America but another number out of the 50 cities that are most valent in the world 41 of those are in Latin America so people don't trust justice don't trust institutions and suddenly they start to trust either politicians that are promising crazy things or governments that suddenly provide some sense of security and some sense of solution so it's problematic and and and we see that we see the case of Venezuela a case of well Cuba is an all case but always problematic the case of Nicaragua and other cases in which democracy is not looking as we thought should be democracy can you think of a set of core principles or ideas that would motivate US policy towards Latin America there was a focus on democratization quite a strong push for all that and support in a variety of ways during that transition there have been other pushes at different times but what would pull the interests of the country together to have some coherent vision on the region and this we just have two minutes of just a short and focused response if possible well first thing I'm going to say I'm nobody to recommend the policymakers in Washington you know the US is strong enough and they have to you know find their responses but from my perspective you know being from the region and being a Colombian I perceive three things first I wish the US to keep being friend of their friends and not try to be so much friend of their enemies because that could solve problems in the short term could keep fires low but long term is a bad solution because suddenly you are allowing you know cases of dictators or total misbehaviors or in the case of Venezuela you know a government that is with a terrible record of human rights certainly validated so be aware of that you know the solutions of today can be very harmful long term and can give can give a very set a very bad example that's one but second let's speak on the positive what we're missing in Latin America human capital and infrastructure the combination of those two things create the concept of productivity productivity is stagnant in Latin America for the past 50 years when you think about East Asia that's the East Asian miracle South Korea Malaysia even China that's the miracle they were able to educate people and combine that with the right quality of infrastructure and certainly they were able to become more productive and innovative that's what we're not doing so if you are in the part of the world in which you have these young people with access to all these natural resources that we have but we leave closer to the place of the world that has more technology and more universities of quality than any other in the world that's North America that's the United States of America why is that we're not getting that spillover why is that we're not raising that level of education and somehow access to technology and infrastructure that's very important and that's denying as we speak an incredible opportunity that geopolitics are giving to the region the events of COVID and the events of the war in Ukraine have wake up this geopolitical all sense that you better have your centers of production at least you know in different parts and hopefully in parts that you can control so the perfect spot to bring all this production is Latin America why are we not getting all that massively because we don't have the skill labor or the logistics or even the political stability due to organized crime that I described before that guarantees the environment for companies to come and sit that's a big thing and that's something that we should be working on that would be ideal we can really focus on on both US policy and of course Latin American institutions private sector different kinds of leaders and hopefully governments but I see many of the governments in Latin America distracted with as I said all narratives and some of them very compromised with organized crime which is very concerning thank you so much thank you thank you thanks for Shape the Future the moderator is going to be Alexandra Stark who's an associate policy researcher at Rand she's also a fellow at New America and she has a forthcoming book about Yemen coming out relatively soon Alex I worked at New America until recently and so I'm thrilled to be kind of joining my former colleagues again today thanks so much for having us also thrilled to be exciting to be speaking with these two really interesting and exciting folks on the panel today we don't have too much time so I'm not going to give them the full introduction that they probably deserve and share all their accolades but just to let you know who we're speaking to in brief this is Dr Ruth Ben-Giat she's a professor of history and Italian studies at New York University and the author of Strong Men Mussolini to the Present and Lieutenant General retired Michael K. Nagata he's former director of strategic operational planning at NCTC and strategic advisor and senior vice president at CACI International so welcome and thank you so much for joining us today so talking about future international security threats and what kinds of threats the United States faces in terms of security is a hugely broad topic and I wanted to talk about what you see as the most pressing future challenges not necessarily the challenges of right now although we could of course be seeing the seeds of them developing but really the challenges that we're likely to face down the road and I know there are a plethora of challenges ranging from you know technology like AI and cyber to New York peer adversaries to nuclear proliferation to everything in between and we could spend a long time listing all those challenges so instead I'm going to give you a kind of harder version of the question ask what do you see as maybe the one most pressing threat that the United States faces in terms of security in the near future whether it's you know the most challenging or maybe the most intractable or most interesting problem and then I'd love to hear your thoughts about whether and what are the ways that we can kind of approach these these really intractable and important problems so I'm going to start with Ruth if that's okay what's the challenge you would identify Hi everyone so it's hard to have one challenge because they're all interrelated I think that demonstrating that democracy works and also making democracy appealing which it currently is decreasing in that category there are new polls both Afro barometer Latino barometer polls of young people who in high numbers say that democracy is would not be their preferred form of government and this matters because when we do not have democracy and we have authoritarian regimes that or electoral autocracies that depend on disinformation and repression we often have our ruled by disinformation on public health on climate change on the big things that actually affect people's lives and will lead to a ton of instability in the future so it's not that democracies are always stable and it certainly have democracies have created their share of coups and instabilities in the past but I'm quite focused on this so the US in particular it's no secret you know faces a kind of assault on its democracy from within now as well as from without and it was interesting to preparing these remarks to think back that the day that Joe Biden started his presidency on a very strong pro-democracy platform where he said explicitly over and over again we've got to prove democracy works that day of his inauguration China Russia and Iran held their third joint naval drill in the Indian Ocean and I'm also thinking you know about the concatenation of events where in the fall of 2021 if we think back to you know the climate that allowed the invasion of Ukraine to happen the Russian and Chinese ambassadors the pen to join essay that absolutely dripped with scorn it makes me very angry as first generation American to read it drip was scorned for American democracy which was followed by a joint statement by Putin and she you know and the the occasion was Biden's summit of democracy to which they were not invited and saying that you know the U.S. does not have a monopoly on democratic rights and the U.S. is creating global conflict and anti-NATO stuff though so this is this wasn't an invitation to the kind of instability that then you know came we saw with the invasion of Ukraine and I think that it was very striking to me as somebody who studies people who have often been underestimated in terms of their chaos potential the strongman that when the war first happened the Washington Post reported that you know some people in the White House this is a quote found it hard to wrap their minds around the scale of the Russian leader's ambitions it did not seem like the kind of thing that a rational country would undertake and this was a quote from a security leader and there were similar things that were said by by European officials so you know being prepared for all kinds of instability we have an uptick of coups we're going to have more you know again climate change and also autocracy fueled instabilities China with Taiwan they'll expect the worst and understand the logic and that applies also to the GOP just real quick I think I do not think that you can understand the GOP at this point through explanatory frameworks that are created for democracy I see the GOP as an autocratic party that's now dependent on the kind of autocratic tools of rule from propaganda corruption and election denial as a form of corruption and the threatened reality of violent so this too expect the worst and do everything we can to bolster democracy and that includes messaging that creates a kind of horizon of possibility that it can work because we are assaulted by psychological warfare for many years now since Trump came on the scene perhaps before that's telling us that democracy can't work thanks and Mike what's the the most pressing or kind of challenging threat that you'd identify first of all thank you for to you and New America for inviting me to be here it's an honor to be on this panel with Ruth you know when I first learned that this was this question you were going to start with I started writing a list of things that I wanted to talk about but you I don't want to inflict the list on anybody so I'm just going to focus on what I would put at the top of that list and that I'll give you the short version first and I'll explain a little bit more what worries me most is not one of our dangerous or highly competitive adversaries somewhere around the world although they are a significant problem you've already mentioned Russia China Iran North Korea these are all significant threats and potential adversaries to the United States but they're not at the top of my list either the top of my list is our own failure to adapt as a retired military officer I think I've been watching a steadily growing failure to adapt and in some cases an unwillingness to adapt grow gradually over at least the last couple of decades where I think this comes to a head perhaps most strongly is a failure to adapt to something that is literally changing the face of mankind and began in the arguably in the late 1970s early 1980s and that's the emergence of what we today call digital technologies I think one has to go all the way back to the period between the 10th to the 12th century with the emergence of what we today call gunpowder back then it was just explosive powder that the Chinese originally used for fireworks but rapidly became a weapon of war the emergence of gunpowder in my opinion literally changed the face on the trajectory of mankind for better and for worse I think digital technologies their emergence are doing the same thing and may be even more disruptive than the emergence of explosives many centuries ago and what I see in many places not just the United States but what worries me the most when I consider the national security challenges of the United States is our own ongoing failures our own ongoing reluctance our own ongoing risk aversion to embracing the fact that these technologies are here to stay they're going to become more proliferated less expensive and more powerful as every year goes by and we can either be at the head of that race by working much harder than we are right now or we can be a victim of that trajectory I know that's very uplifting but I'll stop there Thank you So Ruth you talked about the challenge of autocracies and kind of democratic backsliding I'm wondering what you see as the future of autocracies both kind of globally and maybe how the erosion of democratic institutions might affect the United States as well what does that future trajectory look like and what will that mean in terms of the challenges that we face Yeah we're at a very interesting moment on the one hand there has been a very it's not unusual in history but we're at a moment where the weakness the structural weaknesses the ravages from corruption and the toll of personalist leadership models is being exposed and we see this and sometimes it's an event like Russia invading Ukraine which opens the curtains but there are patterns these things and if you study them like I wrote an op-ed for MSNBC two days after Putin invaded Ukraine that this wasn't going to go well it was going to show up the total corruption of the military and there are parallels actually with fascist Italy that they're fighting with terrible outdated equipment bad rations because authoritarians don't care about their people they don't care they'll use them for cannon fodder and the resources get siphoned off to corruption especially if you have a kleptocracy I also found it very interesting in China the protests against the lockdowns which were protests against being dehumanized really and all these young people you know 79 universities had protests even changing pinks all in the matter had a protest so that's these are significant things and we're in the midst of a global renaissance protest look at in Iran places that never have protests of the scale or haven't had them for a long time so there is this kind of anti-authoritarian resistance and there also is weakness of these regimes that I think will be more revealed but these are also adaptable regimes authoritarian leaders are transactional there they do what they need to do to survive and so the Chinese are it's very interesting what's happening I don't actually like the term global south but it's very interesting to me that Lula who's a bit of a democracy warrior is partnering with the Chinese allowing them to have drones and surveillance things over the Amazon and so it's a very dynamic and changing situation and so autocracies also will adapt and so democracies have not this goes with what Mike was saying democracies have perhaps not been as able to adapt to certain circumstances and that is now showing up as well Mike you talked about the proliferation of digital technology and our failures to adapt I'm wondering again we could probably write a long list of the obstacles to adapting but what are some of maybe the primary obstacles that you see to adapting to really face this this challenge head on and how can we think about you know removing those obstacles or getting around them great question the list is long as you suggested including our own tendency to be highly bureaucratic inside the United States government that that alone is an enormous hindrance to rapid adoption literally of anything not just modern technology but that's not the our biggest problem and this is going to probably sound both facile and too obvious but I'm going to say it anyways that thing is true weak leadership weak leadership is our biggest problem and what I mean specifically more specifically than just weak leadership is risk averse leadership which is inherently weak leadership the you know someone of my age for example I cannot I cannot be a digital native I'm too old so so my ability to learn rapidly how to employ these rapidly these rapidly emerging technologies is always going to be less strong less reliable less agile than someone who's half my age but I should still try I should still try because this is the way the world is going and you can either swim with the tide or you can drown in it unfortunately because at the leadership level of most governments not just the United States government let's face it a policymaker in Washington DC you generally in their 60s maybe in their 70s they're not digital natives either so they are they are automatically handicapped by the fact they're not digital natives in a in rapidly adopting technologies they're not well positioned to understand but all it takes is courage all it takes is a willingness to try and a willingness to fail because a lot of things will go wrong but the alternative is to not to adapt and if anybody thinks that our adversaries and competitors around the world are going to be as either as bureaucratic which as I mentioned at the beginning or as risk averse as we are we're nuts they're visibly not they're willing to accept the failures inherent to achieve progress in ways that unfortunately American leaders often are not now there are many reasons for that I won't go I won't go on about that but the bottom line if we don't find a way to become more risk tolerant embrace the fact and it is a fact that the only way to get better at something is to periodically fail at it so that you learn what your mistakes are and you get better the next time if we don't adopt that in our adoption of and adaptation to rapidly changing modern technologies we're just going to be left behind I think so unfortunately we only have a few more minutes I know we could talk about this probably for a much longer but I'm struck that both of you have identified challenges that aren't necessarily traditional security challenges and that have to do both with domestic and the international and they kind of blend those two realms together and in a way that's really interesting so Ruth I'm wondering do you think that it's necessary for us to reform our own democratic institutions or to show shore up our institutions at home in order to be able to take on this global challenge of autocracy yeah absolutely and I mean let me say that one of the things that makes me most angry is excuse me mispronouncing his name Tuberville Tuberville there is you know active the GOP has become as I said an autocratic party a party that wants democracy to fail and is a party and excuse me a party that is sabotaging in a way that's a strong word U.S. military and and security power not knowing that you do it at home and it resonates in the world so it's not just Tuberville holding up all the military promotions which is just terrible it's Rand Paul holding up diplomatic appointments so that the U.S. remains without important diplomatic posts filled and so this is a kind of you have to put all these things together and it's an attempt to kind of reign in and have American power be absent be distracted by you know I call it garbage politics the things that Republicans are doing threatening to you know crash the economy the impeachments and this is this is kind of a resolute attempt on their part to obstruct American power in the world to the benefit of our adversaries Thank you and Mike I have the same question for you actually you've already mentioned the challenges of kind of bureaucracy and of leadership at home but I'm wondering are there other areas that you think of that we would need to reform or to shore up at home in order to confront these global challenges? Yes one automatically comes to mind it I think I could argue it's not just connected to my previous remarks but I think it connects in some ways to what Ruth was talking about in terms of the difficulties we're having around the world as I think everybody will recall you either learned it in school you saw evidence of it over your lives that you know America at least as far back as World War II has styled itself as the leader of the free world now everybody knows there was no plebiscite electing us to be the leader of the free world we claimed that mantle at the end of World War II but we had enough credibility with much of the world by the end of that horrible conflict that the term stuck other people other countries not everywhere not universally but many countries were willing to go along with the idea that America was the free world now why why was much of the free world willing to say okay you're the leader I will accept that in my view it's because the United States had established a tradition however imperfectly of being the most generous nation on earth we have abandoned that notion that that we should be because we're more powerful than anybody else we ought to be more generous than anybody else and by abandoning that tradition which we did hold onto for much of the Cold War but it's long gone now or at least it's a pale shadow of what it once was unsurprisingly the willingness and readiness of populations around the world to acknowledge us as a leader has been steadily dwindling now there are other reasons why this has happened but if someone were to ask me what's the single most important reason we keep calling ourselves the leader of the free world but we've abandoned the generosity that made it an attractive idea well thank you so much to you both I wish we had lots more time to discuss these really interesting intractable problems but thank you so much for this conversation today thanks to the audience and thanks to New America for hosting us my name is Colonel Carmela Scott Skelan I am a senior fellow assigned to New America this past year my research topic was Army Logistics in the Pacific I looked at logistics in the Pacific through three lands best Contestant Logistics Teranie of Distance and Modernization on Equipment in the Pacific just looking at these three aspects on logistics in the Pacific I just believe that the Army as well as the other services can get a lot of things accomplished as we look at the challenges in the Pacific so first if we think about contested logistics disunderstanding especially looking at some of the issues that we're currently facing and that the Ukraine looking at the importance of what's happening and lessons learned during the Ukraine's operation there are things that we can take away from so I think that the Ukraine is very have been successful overall because of some of the things that they've done initially with the logistics operations and so logistics has been around a long time and Army's wars can never be won because of logistics but they definitely can be lost because of logistics so when we start talking about contested logistics today's environment especially in the Pacific logistics will be contested across all domains so what can we do today to get prepared for that operation so when we start thinking about contested logistics in the Army lens we start to think how can we position ourselves what do we have now that we can position in the Pacific or globally across the world to ensure that we're positioned correctly to support the particular theater of operations so when we start thinking of those things what comes to mind is Army pre-position equipment so we start thinking about Army pre-position equipment what are those equipments that we have that we can use that can bring to bear in the Pacific theater operation that's important do we have the right equipment in the Pacific at the right time and can we get it to the right point of need when needed we have our seven sustainment support brigade that has those functions the Army watercraft associated with them so there have been studies on the Army watercraft so what we need to do when I say we meaning the Army how many watercraft do we really need to sustain in the Pacific theater how we maintain in those watercraft do we have enough so I think it's worth senior leaders kind of pulling that thread a little bit and doing it conducting a study to ensuring that we have enough watercraft and that those watercraft are actually being maintained maintained to a level that they need to be maintained and not just hovering around 37% because at one particular time the Army watercraft fleets were the readiness rates were dipped as low as that 37% so we have to ensure that we are maintaining the level of our readiness for Army watercraft at a high level because we don't know when we may need those Army watercraft because when you look at modernization on the logistics side we still have enduring equipment so as we're modernizing and bringing new equipment online we're still trying to maintain Army doing equipment sets so that's a challenge for some of our low gestations out there and as we're bringing new equipment abroad ensuring that we have our maintainers that's trained and that they have the right tools to maintain this new equipment those are the key things that we have the right equipment preposition globally and this equipment is maintained and that is also exercise meaning that this equipment is being downloaded and that it is supporting joint exercises joint meaning all services allies and partners are utilizing this equipment you know the more we can touch the equipment it is being utilized this it's that muscle memory it's the people knowing and understanding what capabilities they have to bring to bear that combatant command and understanding that we have this resource that's associated with this theater that I can use so all of that is important when I start thinking about how we sustain operations in the Pacific when we start talking about new equipment being fielded in that theater dis-insuring that our maintainers are being trained to maintain this new equipment while at the same time maintaining their enduring fleets that we have so that's going to be equally as important and so as we moved to sustainment 2030 and beyond we have this whole predicted logistics that's on the table now so I know our AMC commander he's doing a great job with that CASCOM commander they're doing great they're predicted logistics so that's the wave of the future I'm excited about that I'm telling you logistics can't win a war we all know that but I'm here to tell you that logistics if not done correctly can cause a defeat so we have to pay attention to all those decisions and some of the challenges with logistics and we have to do the things now to get ahead of these challenges and confront confront logistics head-on and attack those things and I know that our senior leaders are doing that and again I'm just proud to be a part of that and I hope that my research and that when people kind of read the research in the paper to that they can walk away what you know some little anecdote to say hey you know just you know this this paper kind of highlights certain things and that's the hope of this like I say some of the things in in my research some senior leaders some of the senior leaders already working towards that but I just kind of wanted to highlight my 30-something years of logistics in the army things that I've seen on the ground that I felt like just putting it out in the paper hoping that senior leaders would read the paper that they can understand from my level I kind of went through the ranks from enlisted officer to a colonel in the army so I've seen a lot of logistics and again hopefully this paper will kind of knight people to to focus a little more on logistics and not let it be the last conversation for our conversation after we've gone through everything just understanding that logistics is very important and as we start talking about any type of exercise we should always ask ourselves hey where's my logistics counterpart if they're not in the room let's pause and let's find that G4 because this is important our next speaker will be David Sturman who is a senior policy analyst here at Future Security in New America also a research fellow at ASU's Future Security Initiative and you know one of the the key forces behind the book mentioned earlier called understanding the new proxy wars and he's going to be talking about the state of America's counter insurgency wars thanks Daniel so as mentioned I'm a senior policy analyst here and affiliated with the ASU's Future Security Initiative and I'm going to be talking about America's various counter terrorism drone and counter insurgency wars which are in a moment of substantial change right now as we all know the US withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021 and as far as we know at least publicly the United States has only conducted a single drone strike in Afghanistan since then that drone strike killed the leader of al Qaeda I'm not solid hearing beyond Afghanistan the number of US strikes whether you count it as a global total or whether you want to zero in on particular theaters is also at an unprecedented look however and in addition in October and October 2022 the Biden administration released new roles with more restrictive guidelines on the use of direct action outside of areas of active hostilities which was publicly released in redacted forms this summer but there are three important cautions that I want to emphasize and I think are important to understanding the state of America's wars today first well most strikes are at unprecedented lows the trajectory is not downward in every war US strikes are actually escalating in Somalia where the Biden when the Biden administration took office it paused US strikes in Somalia and many other locations indeed our count at New America where we tracked these strikes has the Biden administration conducting only four air strikes in its first year an office in Somalia and there were seven more in the first month or partial month under the Trump administration however this year which is still not over we have tracked 17 US air strikes in Somalia and a ground operation importantly most of these strikes are occurring under an exception to the new rules regarding US strikes the allowance for collective self-defense of partner organizations this goes to show the importance of looking at the trajectories in their particular conflict context that not only are there cases or at least one case where it is escalating but it is escalating and increasing and decreasing at various points in relationship to a specific ongoing conflict which is not purely decided by the United States second the decline in strikes that we've seen produces unprecedented reduction in strikes is a much longer trend than it is often given credit for there have been no strikes for example reported in Pakistan since 2018 so we're now at half a decade in Yemen there was an unprecedented spike in strikes to more than 130 under the Trump administration 2017 but what is often not told in discussions of the number of strikes is that the strikes then fell to be in line with what was occurring under the Obama administration in the late years and then actually fell to almost zero with a couple strikes against significant leaders at least according to our tracking by the end of the Trump administration in Libya US strikes actually spiked under the Obama administration why? because there was an operation to retake a specific city in Libya cert and that actually wrapped up before the end of the Obama administration and that involved hundreds of strikes and was led into a Trump administration ongoing with a couple occasional strikes that eventually petered out in Iraq and Syria there's often a lot of discussion of a major spike in strikes and casualties under the Trump administration and indeed there was an increase in the early Trump administration however it is also important to note that that aligned with the efforts to retake major cities in Iraq and Syria that were held by ISIS and were while there may be an effect of administration decisions and different roles regarding strikes was also in large part of product of a preset campaign that was already going on to crush the Islamic State's territorial caliphate finally and then what we see now this current reduction was actually prepared again at the very end of the Trump administration with very few strikes once territory ISIS's territorial hole was smashed again these examples caution against focusing on the particular legacy of administrations rather than the longer-term campaigns which often cross administrations finally we need to be cautious about what we know take for example Yemen where this year there were reports of a mystery drone strike in the government of Marib actually two that killed senior al-Qaeda and the Arabian Peninsula leaders do we know whether it was the United States? we actually do not Sencombe denies conducting the strikes however it could be a covert U.S. strike it could also be by a U.S. partner unfortunately the current setup of the way that strikes are confirmed or denied leaves a lot of room open for this kind of confusion and it's particularly important when we seem to see strikes that bear sort of markers of what could well be a U.S. strike in these two cases in January and February of this year specifically use of a technology the R9X or ninja missile that is believed to be potentially a U.S. signature targeting high-level al-Qaeda figures that could conceivably fit under the new roles even without a declaration that Yemen is an area of active hostilities and just generalize reporting from the region even as we have no acknowledgement from the U.S. side even anonymous claims regarding whether this was a U.S. strike similar issues regarding challenges of whether a strike is the United States or not have popped up in Somalia recently as well as in Afghanistan so in conclusion I want to leave you with three four points about this moment of significant change when the number of U.S. strikes and other operations has radically declined first just the intensity is declining and that's an important thing to know but the trajectory again is not consistent across every location and could well re-escalate in some conflict areas second the trend began well before the Biden administration and is in large part connected to the ups and downs of specific campaigns and should be analyzed thusly and third we just need far greater transparency to be able to know when strikes are occurring when strikes occur and they are not the United States and when they are U.S. strikes that undergirds the entire understanding of when the United States does or does not kill civilians but also major strategic questions and with that thank you our next panel is what is the future of Afghanistan with Peter Bergen and Martin Beck who you will introduce so thanks so much thank you sorry about our picnic program we are on the whole college we'll either fix it or broadcast that particular part of the program at some later date so we're very lucky to have Martin Beck here who was a former chief of staff for President Ghani he was in Kabul on August the 15th 2021 when the Taliban took over he was in the presidential palace and he was quite surprised when President Ghani suddenly disappeared he's also a fellow at New America and so there are basically three or four questions that we wanted to discuss let's begin perhaps with something that Martin mentioned to me this morning which is the National Counterterrorism Center put out on September 11th put out an assessment that Al Qaeda was basically more or less over in Afghanistan which is very different from an assessment in June the United Nations said that there were 400 members of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan some of them had positions in the Taliban administration some of them were collecting welfare payments from the Taliban so Martin so first of all what do you think about the claim to two days ago that Al Qaeda was more or less out of business that was put forward by the US government thank you Peter for having me I was surprised when I read about the report let me elaborate a little bit further the report looks sounds to me more politically teller in a way politically motivated to do with the US cycle of election so I have worked in the Afghan intelligence service back in 2015 from 2015 until 2017 I was number two in the Afghan Intel service in charge of the domestic Intel intelligence so I've worked closely with the CIA, MI6 with other agencies with our partners in Afghanistan actively against the Al Qaeda and other terror outfits my perception of or my impression of the report is that the report is based first main factor determining this report is the US intelligence communities interaction with the Taliban with DGI director of intelligence the director of intelligence mainly in Doha it happens as far as I know there's a channel to do with the with the Doha talk started this channel was established so they actively pass mainly exchange information and also time to time I assume there's some intel passes to the Taliban regarding the ISIS K like Daesh Khurasan branch so the Taliban's claim to the American is that there's a significant reduction in the activity of Daesh in Afghanistan so the verification mechanism I believe is the signal intelligence and so the signal intelligence of course shows a reduction why? as anyone who's have a deeper understanding of the Saudi Asia the terror landscape knows that the terror outfits there especially in the past two decades of American massive reliance on the technology they know how to avoid signal intelligence or other technical means so my understanding and also reports from the ground is that Daesh or ISIS K for time being they are not launching any attack against the Taliban that's what I've heard from many sources so there is a reduction so the talk about it or the reports we get from the ground is they are because recently after some high-profile Daesh attack against the Taliban the Daesh was under tremendous pressure and I think it's more to do with the signal intel the American pass to the Taliban so now Daesh is kind of reconsidering their modus operandi and they're going silent for a time being so that in a way that's silent or being a even some people talk of tactical ceasefire that shows a reduction of violence that's second so these two factors maybe if someone doesn't have a better understanding of the South Asia believe this is real so that Daesh is not a threat or it's kind of reduced second on the question of al-Qaeda I think it's very naive to assume that al-Qaeda doesn't have a presence in Afghanistan or doesn't pose a threat to the global security so just looking I mean it doesn't take much time just looking at local media or follow reading news on Pakistan you will figure out what's going on inside Pakistan right now how TTP have increased this operation cross-border operation inside the Pakistan and that speaks for itself TTP being the Pakistani Taliban exactly yeah so again my conclusion is unfortunately this report or this assessment is more politically motivated and it doesn't match to the ground reality first and second to the two reports with the UN one in May which you mentioned the other one in July of the analytical support and the sanction monitoring team of the security council came out and talked the details about it yeah these UN reports are very thorough and they're based on member states reporting it's not just the United States assessment it's many states and I found them generally speaking to be the most accurate assessment of what's going on certainly that's available publicly and in one of the previous reports the UN said that Siraj Akhani who's the minister of the interior which is like running DHS FBI CIA is on the leadership council of Al Qaeda of course the Akhanis have been sort of co-located with Al Qaeda for decades so anyway I'm skeptical of the idea that Al Qaeda is sort of out of business now on the other hand you know they haven't announced new leader Eman al-Sawari was killed in July of 2022 in downtown Kabul he was living there with the knowledge of Taliban officials according to the Biden administration which kind of speaks for itself but the fact that they haven't appointed a new leader so what does that suggest to you or they may have appointed a new leader that haven't published his name well I think for Al Qaeda Afghanistan is now a safe haven and if anyone is like let's put us ourself in their shoes it would be very stupid to do anything at this moment it's at the best time I think they're learning from their predicates of presence in the region they're reorganizing building their bases and even reports of new other members relocating inside Afghanistan and at the same time they are trying to help this narrative of Taliban's are sticking with the Duhadi so I think it's a time of consolidation for the Taliban and Al Qaeda Al Qaeda members are in Taliban's intel service the director of you call GTI fellow director of intelligence in a few Afghan members of that Al Qaeda is actively there working and also some governors which was in the report highlighted my understanding is Afghanistan right now unfortunately have turned to a headquarter of terrorism yeah and the short term it would not pose an immediate threat to the United States it's already posing threat more to the region look the Pakistan already two cross border attack in Tajik style two ISK attack inside Iran originated from Afghanistan so the ground realities or the reports we get from the ground speaks differently yeah the UN report also said there are 20 terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan which I think speaks for itself and the other thing which is interesting about the UN report is the United States when it left the Taliban now have 70,000 armored vehicles more than 100 helicopters the UN report suggests there's 8.5 billion dollars of military equipment that was left behind the Taliban now has 8.5 billion dollars is more than the defense budget of a lot of European countries so the Taliban is very well armed there is no meaningful armed resistance I don't think I mean obviously you have Ahmad Shah Massoud's son leading the resistance but he's in Tajikistan and it seems to me as an outsider that the attacks that the what the armed resistance is doing is pretty limited to Panjir and isn't really that significant Am I what do you think about the armed resistance they seem to be getting almost no resources from any country they have some kind of presence in Tajikistan but this is not like Ahmad Shah Massoud's resistance to the Taliban before 9-11 where he had access to Tajikistan he was also pretty weak by the time 9-11 happened but he was in the country and he was obviously then helped we were able to ally with the northern alliance and overthrow the Taliban so what's your assessment of the internal armed resistance to the extent it exists if it would go a little further before answering this question I would like to address the Doha Deen which kind of killed any potential armed resistance so if you see the history of Afghanistan or the region mainly Afghanistan most of the you know say regime change or any things in Afghanistan is kind of foreign driven in a way unfortunately the Doha Deen undermined the afghan state which was built by American blood and regional afghan together there was a counter terrorism capability in place with the Trump administration and with the Biden President Biden's announcement of complete withdrawal kind of give a sense to the afghan that Taliban is the future so in a way we lost Afghanistan not through a military defeat mainly through policy defeat or political defeat so this itself killed an armed future armed resistance because afghans are survivalists you know much better than anyone else they always look the other day when I was talking with one of the freedom fighters this Mujahidin against the soviet he said something very interesting to me said during those days when you would ask an elders in a village like this who's in charge of this place are you with the Mujahidin or the communist regime the elder would say whoever controls this area this hell top I'm his subject so people are seeing the wind what the wind has changed now the way things has been with the Duhadil and with the continuous talk with the Taliban so afghans are kind of suspicious what's happening so they of course fed off with the Taliban but they're still seeing what direction United States will take it doesn't mean United States have to go back in a military way no in a political way what is the big game what is the bigger decisions so that's one of the major factor for the armed resistance any resistance inside the country to pick up first second after august 2021 some of former ANSF members and also some of former northern alliance launched some sort of resistance but of course it was difficult as you mentioned earlier logistical support the weapons and the way the Taliban came to the power it still is very small and unfortunately it has not been able to politically expand itself it's become very narrow in a way but the armed resistance is there it's not completely died but as a force is there beside that the women's of Afghanistan are protesting there are a lot of other forms of resistance but mainly I would say because I'm in touch with a lot of former ANSF members tribal elders and others they're looking for the how the when the politics change in Washington the reason why I mentioned Washington Washington is very important because from since 1979 our destiny has been tied with Washington so I think it's a lot to do with here and and it if things are not if people are not coming up in a massive protest doesn't work against Taliban we all know they have like what sort of regime they are but people are waiting with what the bigger politics become then they will decide so the Taliban right now you know they're well entrenched they don't face any real internal opposition they're well armed but things can change and so if you go back to December 2011 then Vice President Biden and Tony Blinken negotiated a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq three years later Obama sent American troops back into Iraq because first of all ISIS was threatening genocide against the Yazidis and then as we heard earlier today they they kidnapped and murdered Jim Foley and other American journalists and aid workers and there are still 2,500 American troops in Iraq today which interestingly is exactly the same number of troops that was kind of keeping a lid on things in Afghanistan in the beginning of 2021 so what do you think you say that Washington is obviously so important to kind of the way Afghanistan and Afghanistan see the world what do you think could change realistically you know are they this going to be there forever the Taliban or are the particular things that could change the politics either in Washington or in the region or in Europe or elsewhere where suddenly this kind of de facto acceptance of the Taliban as the as the government even though no government they're not recognized by any country but they are in charge what could change that situation well like they're people talk about many scenarios and that the way I see the activities on the ground and the way the Taliban came to the power all of itself as an umbrella is a threat to the region and global security and probably what I would suggest be kind of odd not fashionable in today's global politics because now it's more about the Bible of a great power competition but what I see is for the United States and also original countries to work together so from like the beginning if I we go a little bit in the history of course Pakistan initially undermined the US presence in Afghanistan for the war is reason after 2010 it was Iran Russia China they start heavily supporting the Taliban but today they already see it's becoming a threat look the incident in Pakistan the activities in the border of Tajikistan and the attacks inside Iran and also which one thing we don't talk is about ETI Eastern Turkestan Islamic Movement which is the Uyghurs and it's a bigger number in the northeast of Afghanistan where I came from and from 2014 after the security transition they were the one who changed the security in favor of Taliban in the northeast so they're a threat to China as well so right now Taliban's are playing very smartly it's not in a way flirting with the China Russia at the same time flirting with United States so using today I was seeing the news they're giving a very rich carpet welcome to the new Chinese ambassador definitely it's it's very the message is very clear they're trying to give a message to the United States I think we shouldn't be a victim of this sort of play now United States has a lot of expertise on the region but the good thing is also region is also realizing it's a threat to them as well so the best way is back we come go we go back to the history after post 9-11 there was a consensus so on Afghanistan at least there's a consensus kind of forming a game so the best way is I think United States you stayed as a letter of free world and also is still as someone shaping the global politic and in the past two decades have invested a lot in Afghanistan more than one million American military and civilians served in Afghanistan the veterans are very active I see a talk with them on Afghanistan issues so probably it's ended for certain politician but it's not ended for the people so my suggestion would be before it's becoming too all I mean late it would be good for the United States to lead this and to form a consensus with the region and on a before Afghanistan become more descent into chaos in a civil war or this total groups becoming more consolidated I think United States has to use this leverage even Taliban are disparate for recognition but all this has to put a price maybe we need a constitutional order in Afghanistan where all the Afghans come together that could be bring peace and stability in the region also counter other terror organization so probably look idealistic but one of the way forward already everyone is talking United States talking separately Iran talking separately with Taliban Chinese everyone is doing their own bilateral security things with the Taliban so what I'm suggesting is maybe something bigger a consensus something we have to learn from the four decade if we say from 1979 or the past two decades listen learn from Afghanistan because that region the terror landscape in Saudi Asia is very fluid you know it very well than anyone else in this room how Taliban Al-Qaeda even the current leadership of ISSK they were former Taliban former Al-Qaeda they knew each other very well so we shouldn't say that the threat is not gone so yeah but so it's the problem with you know the Taliban is not recognized by any country and the last time they controlled Afghanistan they were recognized by three countries Saudi Arabia the Emirates and Pakistan but it's a I mean there's a policy dilemma which is 40 million Afghans who are many of whom are close to starvation there's no jobs the economy is completely collapsed and the Taliban are the de facto government so how do you deal with the government you know even whatever you do to help Afghans ultimately is going to help the Taliban right so how if you're you know if you're a U.S. policymaker it's tough because there's certain things you do want from the Taliban if you have dual nationals who are in Taliban custody of which I think there are several you're trying to negotiate their release you're also trying to you know make sure that Afghans don't starve how do you deal with the Taliban in such a way that you're not propping up the regime it's an interesting question because and also the dilemma exists yeah I mean already the reports are out around 28 million Afghans need humanitarian assistance in like life-saving it's it's just one of the biggest humanitarian crisis at the moment the fear the reason why Afghans are why saying of the engagement with the Taliban like why saying they're like they're whicers against engaging against the Taliban for reason because when we look back this theory like Doha deal what happened and they handed over of Afghan government to the Taliban same with Afghans a fair kind of an engagement or talk with the Taliban might lead in a way to their recognition or normalizing their gender apartheid regime yeah so the way forward is very difficult it's not easy but even the Doha deal being so flawed there are was things inside that could be used for a for a join or peace in Afghanistan something a joint government will emerge from the Republic or the Taliban so it's still the Taliban is taking to that deal they're saying we're committed to that so what happens to the into the Afghan side of it that could be revived second by whom by whom but by if international community because they're asking all the times financial support or recognition so any legitimate government in Afghanistan should have come out of the process so one of the process is this yeah that's what I'm saying is the United States has to put this condition because United States is the signatory of that deal that's not a popular deal in Afghanistan but it's better than nothing there's a framework in place so that could be used one way and the second there has been call as I mentioned earlier there's a need for a principle like principle engage why why the world need to engage with the Taliban for what that has to be clear that engagement only for humanitarian assistance or other things might lead in a way normalizing their behavior which is happening right now so it's better to have a better policy I think we have I don't agree with the other like saying we don't have many options there are options still there are many options on the the table and that are think the Taliban the way I know them I've been talking with them and we have found and talked they always think the world especially United States doesn't have a consistent policy said it will keep changing and keep changing so they're saying why we have to change they will change and they're right in a way because United States since 2001 has keep changing its policy in a way which has benefited the Taliban I think it's time for us to learn from all those past mistakes and there is there is still a way forward to correct the course of action we United States closed this embassy in Afghanistan in 1989 after the soviets withdrew that turned out to be a mistake we don't have United States doesn't have any kind of diplomatic presence in Afghanistan I guess it has a de facto embassy in Doha and maybe Uzbekistan but should the United States seriously consider reopening its embassy or should other Western countries I mean obviously China Iran they all have their embassies Pakistan should Western countries open consulates or some or if not an embassy at least have a diplomatic presence I'm understanding that that has the danger of normalizing etc I mean as the previous speaker Ambassador mentioned like validating the authoritarian regime sometimes it's said I say jokingly it's not to be good for to be too close to America and also as a big enemy you know it's dangerous for you I think that it's kind of the way you see America has always to have a tendency to you know punish its own allies and and rewards the enemy so on that point that following his argument I would say this is the least Afghan expect from I mean Afghans already angry with the decision of President Trump and by President Biden and and United States invests so much in that country a generation was coming up you know democracy was flourishing you were one of those generations yeah you were one part oh yeah thousands of like but I mean how were you on 9-11 I was in 9th grade right so you saw this whole generation come up it was connected to the outside world exactly and and the Afghan was connected and and I think it was becoming a source of hope a lot of original countries was jealous of that I think this whole thing shouldn't have ended the way it ended and we could have still with a little bit of maturity and patience a country to the kids of war like active American prisons you cannot end that in one night in one year so negotiation needs patience and also easily because I was a member of negotiating team and before that negotiation before the they used signing the Doha deal we warn the Americans in Doha in Kabul in Washington because I was part of a dialogue with the Taliban and the only leverage was the withdrawal we just United States just give it easily to the Taliban so on the opening I think no as I mentioned earlier the opening of embassies has to be connect to a condition to a thing otherwise you just validate your point you mentioned that you know the Trump what it is the Trump and Biden administration you know the Trump administration did the withdrawal deal with the Taliban kind of gave the Taliban everything they wanted and the Biden administration went through with it but obviously they're not the only political actors that made mistakes and so how do you grade the Ghani administration I mean you were President Ghani's chief of staff you were in the palace the day the Taliban took Kabul what mistakes did the Afghan did Afghan politicians make well I mean that is one of the main internal factor for the class if I would highlight the mystics we made President Ghani the style of governance and politics because he took or he understood to perceive the negotiation more personal he thought the whole negotiation is to remove him from power and took it more personal the rivalry of Ambassador Khalilzad and President Ghani in a way undermine the U.S. and Kabul relationship that's one factor and second President Ghani because in 2020 I left the government I was a member of negotiating team as I mentioned earlier he taught the oldest processes to boost him from power instead of he preparing for a a war without American support he prepared for a scenario where there will be a deal he's not there he has to object it so there he brought a massive change in armed forces didn't allow the armed forces to have nurture its own leadership so saying because army was already I mean Taliban also because we had a stalemate both side was tired of fighting so he's saying a deal comes like that if his interest is not included the army might impose that on him so he actively removed all the our best commanders best generals from the from the army corps from brigade from so a massive engineering happened in the army in our intel service in our police service in our local governance went after in April 2021 when President Biden announced a complete withdrawal didn't stick he was expecting Biden might change the policy of Trump but no he didn't he went with the withdrawal so everything crushed so we had warned them in 2019 in July 2019 after a dialogue with the Taliban we should not hold the presidential election because that is more bring more tension tension domestically the country is already facing an existential threat and the peace process are going so we need to be united but the old election was a major mistake that presidential election because no one participated and it should have shallow of the republic system and the country became more divided so I would say we are as responsible as here so President Ghani and all of us are really responsible for that I mean kind of he expedited the collapse of the republic the republic could recess the republic had resources the republic had a better armed forces so our when when this Doha deal was being negotiated we came with a with a theory that this deal will not bring peace but it's an opening for us so we should prepare for a time when Americans will withdraw then Taliban will have its we will keep talking but the talk will not give any result so because Taliban believe whether the American support will collapse so whether the American support we should be able to take the war in another stalemate then the real negotiation will start so we didn't prepare for this scenario that was one of we have time for maybe one question if there is a question there isn't I will thank Mateen Beck very for his insights and let's hope that some people are listening to the ideas that you have because I don't think the Taliban are going to be in power forever I think embedded in our DNA that they're going to make some mistakes they might start recruiting Europeans they might also engage in ethnic cleansing against the Hazars which they did in the past they might be attacks against an American target in the region that could be from traceable to Afghanistan so things can change and so anyway thank you very much so thanks for having me our next panel or rather our next presentation is a video called how is the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force approaching the future of security it's our colleague Peter Singer strategist and senior fellow New America professor of practice in the Future Security Initiative at ASU interviewing General Uchikura Hirawaki the Chief of Staff of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force it's my pleasure and honor to introduce General Hirawaki Uchikura Chief of Staff of Japan's Air Self-Defense Force his roles and accomplishments over three decades of service range from piloting F-15 fighter jets to serving as Director General of the Defense Planning and Policy Department to Commander of Air Defense Command but most important to me personally is that we were able to serve together when he was a military fellow in Washington DC and I got to know Uchi both as a friend but also witness how he is an amazing researcher and writer very appropriate to our gathering today and during that time he conducted research and wrote a white paper on how interoperability is about more than just technology it's about partnership and I think that's a relevant lesson both for the conference but also for the larger relationship between the U.S. and Japan General thank you so much for joining us we'll start now with a question from what's going on in the world around us General what lessons are you taking from what we've observed in the conflict in Ukraine? I am General Hirawaki Uchikura Chief of Staff of the Air Self-Defense Force for Koku Data High I'd like to express my gratitude to Dr. Singer who invited me to this historic future security forum I have changed my relationship with him since I was a fellow at the Brookings Institution it is my great honor to be here today on behalf of Koku Data High the views that are going to be expressed today are those of mine and do not expect the official policy or official of Koku Data High ministry of defense or the government of the town let me briefly talk about the lessons from the situation in Ukraine from two perspectives the first one is at the strategic level and it is the importance of deterrence to discourage aggression and the ability to respond in case of a contingency the biggest lesson that we have learned from Russia's aggression against Ukraine is that it is critical to maintain sufficient deterrence to restrain opponent actions we now see that when a country with strong military capability forms the intention to launch an aggression it is inherently difficult to gauge its intent from the outside and conditions under which threats may materialize always with this also while no nation alone can defend its own security here is the new implementation of the importance of not only strengthening our own defense capabilities but also enhancing interoperability which includes the corollity of aircraft and weapons and the connectivity of network that enable cooperation at a higher level with the ally who have the intent and the capability to respond to invasion in a coordinated manner considering both dataness and response perspective it is also necessary to reinforce cooperation and cooperation with the ally like my country and other the second few points is to form a operational level and it is the necessity of defense capabilities that can adapt to new way of warfare in the aggression against new plane hybrid warfare has emerged with a combination of massive missile threats by ballistic and road missiles a symmetric attack developing the space cyber and extra magnetic domains and with a man asset and information warfare with this in mind we have reached our recognition then it is urgent for us to build advanced integrated air and missile defense where we can combine kinetic and non kinetic means appropriately in the concept of IAMD it is also vital to strengthen passive defense capabilities to mitigate damage and ensure functionality through dispersion concealment and camouflage damage distortion and others as well as active defense capabilities such as air defense and ballistic missile defense when I participated in NATO exercise air defender 23 in Germany in June which focused on dispersion deployment I exchanged views and shared this definition with air chiefs from participating countries general as you look beyond you could other key trends that you observe shaping the future of security and in particular what scenario of the future might be the most challenging I think there are two key trends first there are the global trends known as geopolitical competition looking at the Indo-Pacific region where Japan is located for example there are a number of countries for the security concerns Russia has lost an aggression against Ukraine and shaping the foundation of the international order despite its permanent membership of the United Nations Security Council China continues to advance its unilateral changes to the status quo by force or such attempts in the East China Sea and South China Sea North Korea escalates its activities known as ballistic missiles have unprecedented fight decency and received with the development of nuclear weapons therefore it is important for Japan in cooperation and collaboration with other and like-minded countries and others to continue to demonstrate the intention and capability to guitar unilateral changes to the status quo by force and such attempts through our strategic alignment and the synodistic effects from our common effort based upon this idea the Kofu Jedi has adapted bilateral multilateral training with X signs with Australia India Germany France and Italy in the past year with the Japan-U.S. alliance at the cornerstone the security of the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific are in several levels this phrase clearly expresses the recent trend the second trend is to view security as a comprehensive national power which links the major functions of a country such as democracy and so on such as diplomacy intelligence military affairs and economy which is abbreviated at time to technological innovation when it comes to diplomacy and independence for instance it is it is critical to be able to communicate timely and acute accurate information through social media while discerning that olden city of conflicting information in terms of militarily telling the greatest because of level age space cyber and electromagnetic domains as well as capabilities supported by state of art technologies such as the use of unmanned systems and drones in addition to traditional militarily power from the viewpoint of geography geopolitical competition the most challenging scenario and when I opponent utilize this genetic means such as A to A D as well as cognitive warfare with the goal of intentionally encountering the cooperative and collaborative relationship between Japan and our ally and like-minded countries and others thus attempting to take advantage of opportunity to carry out unilateral changes to the status quo by force and such an attempt or at once side especially from a military perspective to then the scenario where if the wolf fighting war gets beginning in the space and cyber domain and the C5 I guess are achieved by functions due to unstable communications significant loss of difficult post-traumaticism accepting and existing assets are unable to respond in a timely and appropriate manner numerous missiles will be able to fly heat and land causing enormous tumor and material damage to the political and economic standard of state this would be the worst scenario caused by the negative effect from technological innovation it used to be high-sensical but now it turns out to be an operational reality exemplified by addition against Ukraine which is now widely viewed as an operational situation to prepare for General as you look at these trends you have a responsibility not only to respond to them but also shape the force of tomorrow in 2040 from today what capabilities might it have that it does not have now well um considering how we did that approach I'd like to share three big changes that we are anticipating that first change is the improvement of space of the the regional capabilities Japan's national defense strategy states that the Japan Air Safety Defense Force will be renamed to Japan Air and Space Safety Defense Force only three years have passed in the establishment of our first space unit and it is still at its initial phase I think it will possess stronger space capabilities by 2040 the second one is an enhancement of transitional air hours to defend the air domain changing our fighter unit as an example it is estimated that by 2040 we will operate approximately 150 F-35 including F-35B with starboard capability 70 upgraded F-15s as well as next generation fighter aircraft GCAP that we have currently developing the UK and Italy with this aircraft for Kujirata we have increasing capability and flexibility including the ability to operate standard of research the standard change is a progress with unmanned and automated systems in accordance with the defense build-up program for Kujirata we will continue to promote unmanned asset defense capabilities it is predicted that by 2040 in addition to the RQ4B already in place we will be able to operate some unmanned aerial vehicles linked to this fighter aircraft we will also promote the automation of various sensors and command control systems then we will conclude that to be more efficient and capable of performing more missions with fewer personnel first regarding space operations I predict that the Kujirata will possess its capability to carry out wide range of missions apart from space domain awareness both on the ground and in space secondly it is also expected when it comes to integrated air and missile defense we will be able to respond effectively to hypersonic weapons and missiles that requires on irregular projectiles at low altitude then we we anticipate that the Kujirata will possess standard of defense capabilities including the capability independently operate dynamic targeting which the U.S. military already possesses of course in order to prevent further attacks from an opponent by utilizing the standard defense capability it is also expected that we will have counter strike capabilities to mount effective counter strike against the opponent in each of those trends and capabilities we see a variety of new technologies General what technologies do you see as being key to the future? Key technologies for the future will be AI simulation using VR and AR and database access technology first AI technology was expected to be used in the military field that only to assist in command and decision making and to improve information processing capabilities but also to be equipped with unmanned aerial vehicles and used in the cyber domain furthermore to the range of AI represented by chat GDP is increasingly recognized as having a significant impact on social life in addition in order to win the battle where the combat situation will become even more rapid and complex in the future it is necessary to make quicker and more accurate decisions than those of our opponent AI plays a major role in improving the digital making process itself as well as makes it helpful to build a man on the loop system that allows humans to not oversee the digital making process second simulation technology using VR and AR is becoming increasingly important as a complexity of combat situations makes it more difficult to create the same situation in actual training and exercise high fidelity simulators that only enable mission decorsals but also contribute to SDGs by reducing the number of flights using actual aircraft third I believe that the technology to share sensitive information stored in databases with other military services and allies in VR time is a critical technology as a range of utilization of asset sensors expands at an accelerating pace interoperability betterings of beginnings to seek from network connectivity to database accessibility general I know as both a leader but also as a writer that you care deeply about the role of people in the organization so what new and different skills do you anticipate that military officers will need in this future I think there are two skills that military officers will need in the future first is a skill related to spirituality and digital making in order to control a battle where combat situations are becoming more rapid and complex it is necessary to ensure sparely or digital making by having commanders or staff officers make appropriate decisions more quickly and more accurately than the opponent therefore I think that the commanders who will make decisions in such an environment we need to acquire even more skills than they currently have to observe and orient information quickly and connect to their decisions and actions if we look ahead to the day in the near future when frontline commanders will be using wearable devices such as smart glasses to take command I believe that the skills required will become in extra campaign linked to IT details second is a skill related to mission command in a situation where combat conditions are becoming more rapid and complex it is possible that command and control may be cut off due to the jamming of communications where a commander can grasp information sufficiently detailed command in which detailed instructions are given to subordinate commanders for their actions is suitable on the other hand when the worst situation is uncertain and rapidly changing due to disruption of communications it is appropriate to take mission command dedicating decision maintenance and operational execution to subordinate commanders in a quota for the situation therefore I believe that officers will be required more than ever before to have the skills and the mental cabinet to deeply understand their own duties missions and to be able to command in a timely and appropriate manner even without the instruction and order from their spheroes General you have been very generous with your time and also speaking with us across multiple time zones we very much appreciate you joining us and sharing your thoughts thank you for our final panel today and thanks so much for spending your time with us as what is the future of cyber security our colleague Peter Singer doing an interview with General Paul Nakasone who is the commander of U.S. cyber command and also the director of the national security agency chief of the central security service so again thank you and if I tried to list all of general Paul Nakasone's accomplishments and his over three decades of service to the nation it would use up all our interview time so I'll just sum it up by saying that when it comes to national and cyber security he's been there and done that his roles have ranged from command at the company battalion and brigade level to assignments in the U.S. Korea, Afghanistan and Iraq to finally serving as both commander of U.S. cyber command and director of the national security agency since 2018 during what has been in arguably one of the most dynamic times in not just cyber security history but overall national security general thank you very much for joining us thanks Peter it's good to see you again so let's jump right in as you come to the end of your time in military service can you take us through how it started and evolved what were some key lessons that you've learned along the way Peter I was commissioned through the ROTC program at the end of the Reagan administration so I enter an army as a career intelligence officer really at the kind of the height of the Cold War and what I see is first of all the demise of the Soviet Union I see the rise of the Balkans and then I'm at the Pentagon on 9-11 and I think I would characterize everything in my military experience pre 9-11 and post 9-11 and so from the post 9-11 you know opportunities like many of my peers to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan but in 2007 I landed the national security agency to command a brigade and I just happened to be at a time in a place where cyber is taking off I've seen our experiences in Iraq where we were able to bring signals intelligence to war fighters in the front end and also seen in 2008 the penetration of our classified networks and so I'm there for the stand-up of U.S. cyber command so I guess a person that's been fairly lucky in their experiences through their career So let's look at what's changed over that period of time let's break it down what was the biggest change that you've seen within the military during that period and then secondly I'd like to ask you what's the biggest change in terms of the types of threats that you've been dealing with Oh so for the military again I entered the military right after Goldwater Knickles has been signed and I would tell you the dramatic change in our military is the ability to operate as a joint force I come into a service you know that's very parochial in the late 80s but by the 90s we have learned the lesson that it is all about being joint and the way that we're going to do things in the future is through a joint force and my experiences in Korea and Iraq and Afghanistan reinforce this idea that if we're going to have success it's going to be part of the joint force and with that comes this realization that with the joint force we're able to take this concept this tenet that we've always talked about intelligence-driving operations and actually make it real and this is what we have done really since I would say since about 2005 So when you said make it real can you give a non-classified example to illustrate that for us? Yeah I saw it specifically in 2006 2007 all the way in the mid-2000s in Iraq and Afghanistan when you had first of all our special operations forces and then our conventional forces take what is you know incredibly sensitive information from the national security agency and be able to utilize that a series of missions where they're actually able to drive their operations one mission, three missions, five missions sometimes multiple missions and a night and this is not just on our very elite operators but also on our conventional forces So let's talk about that threat side of things and the change in it so over the course of your careers you laid out you know you went from having to think about the Warsaw Pact Soviet Army to then Iraq to then insurgents Taliban to now great power competition Talk to me about how it's not merely the way the threat has changed but the way that you as a leader have to think about that threat I think the last portion is really important Peter because this idea of critical thinking being dynamic in your thoughts is something I've seen very successful leaders do throughout my career remember you know we come in with really a bipolar world where we're all thinking about the full to gap we transition to counterinsurgency violent extremist organizations and then we're coming back to great power competition where the lessons that you learn in the late 80s suddenly are coming back in you know the mid 2000s and from that I think that I would say is that you know your ability to understand you know what are your competitive advantages how do you think differently about the threat how do you apply our competitive advantages to the threat are what makes very successful leaders and obviously separates those that have been successful from those that have been less successful as well So we've got some folks listening who were around for that lessons from the 80s and the Warsaw Pact that are coming back what's a particular lesson that you see coming back from that period of a different kind of great power competition but there are some parallels Well I think you know we come back to deterrence right I mean deterrence is something we all study as we came into the military in the late 80s is something we practice I think we you know lost a little bit of our operational knowledge of it you know as counterterrorism violent extremist organizations played out and now it's coming back but I think what's different and the way that I've seen it in cyberspaces it's not necessarily that our you know what we do have changed but how we do it needs to change and so when we think about deterrence how do we use information differently how do we use intelligence differently how do we use our technology different to you know be able to signal to our adversaries of our capabilities So let's go into that area that is fundamentally different because you know literally it didn't exist back then which is having to develop cyber strategy so you've been part of doing this at both an organizational but also a national level first what do you see as the essential elements of cyber strategy Peter I've seen four different cyber strategies from our department 2011 2014 2018 and now the the latest one that's coming out in the coming weeks really successful strategies first of all are able to depict the strategic environment in which we are in okay that's one of the things that's necessary for strategy but the big piece that I think successful strategies have is being able to identify the one way or the one mean that we're going to get to our ends much more successful let me give you an example I think 2018 is a watershed moment in terms of the way that Department of Defense approaches cyber everything up to that we were relatively passive we'd have an intrusion we would lose data we would have an intruder in our networks and then we would go to to clean it up in 2018 we said this is going to stop we are going to have a much more proactive approach this is defend for this is an idea of operating outside the United States to be in constant contact with our adversaries to understand what's going on for us cyber command this is persistent engagement informing and acting and so to your question is you have to describe the strategic environment but importantly describe exactly the ways and the means that you're going to get after to make a difference in what the strategic environment is telling us today so that's a really interesting that you've been there to witness and been part of the creation of multiple different strategies so I'd like to ask you I'm going to put on my professor hat I'd like to ask you to evaluate not the strategy itself but how we build strategy what does the U.S. do well in terms of the building of strategy and what do we need to up our game on when it comes to this building the process of developing strategy and cyberspace I think the U.S. military it does very well at a doctrinal approach a methodology upon which we build a strategy we've done this we have a doctrine that identifies how we do it as army officers learn this in Leavenworth you learn this at the army war college you learn this in your joint force training it's very laid out I think we write a lot of strategies I think the challenge that I see with strategy right now is that we tend to be so siloed within the military that we forget that there's you know there's other means upon which we can accomplish our outcomes how do we look differently at the interagency how do we look differently at the intelligence committee how do we look differently at the private sector these are all incredibly important in the environment in which we live today particularly in the domain in which I operate which is cyberspace if you're going to write a strategy you're not talking about the private sector or you're not talking about international partners what's the value of the strategy going to be I would say probably less than what you're hopeful and so I think the challenge that we have is we've got to think broadly about how we're going to bring different players into and make them a part of our strategy and ensure that we you know and somehow incorporate their contributions or what we need from their contributions to be successful on our own ends thank you so you're at an important moment of transition both for the nation but also for you personally as you look back what are you most proud of in your tenure at cyber command and the NSA and in turn are there any areas of unfinished business so to speak personally I would go back to 2018 and it's a russia small group I come out of my confirmation hearings knowing that there's going to be a safe and successful election midterms in 2018 or there's going to be a new commander and a new director of NSA and so we got after it very quickly we brought together the best of NSA in U.S. cyber command he said hey this is our end we're going to get a safe and successful election for the midterms in 2018 and what really kind of grew from that or a number of different ideas that set the course for us at both our agency and command things like hunt forward operations you know today we've done 50 different operations 23 different countries 77 different networks with partners to hunt for adversaries this is an idea again that's you know akin to our defend forward our persistent engagement it also brings in this idea of the private sector so on the fall of 2018 we say hey we found all this malware let's look at a you know a civilian company to see if they've ever seen this malware before so this private public partnership is actually demonstrated then and so what grows from the Russia small group is first of all in the agency this idea that we need a cyber security director and a year later we do that what grows from that is that hey what we are doing is not going to change we're going to do signals intelligence cyber security and cyber operations at both our agency and command but the how is dramatically different we're going to operate in the unclassified space we're going to operate with public sector partners we are going to be able to publish things like cyber security advisories that we release to the nation in the world this is different and this is all from the Russia small group let me talk a little bit about unfinished business for us I've talked about China as the generational challenge for our nation our current generation our children our children's children it is a different nation in terms of the competition that we are experiencing now with China as we look to the future my sense is that we will continue to have this very very high level of competition but if we want to ensure that the future is one where we're able to protect our homeland and continue to protect our allies and partners we have to address the challenge that is China the diplomatic information military economic power of this nation is different than we've ever experienced in terms of the agency unfinished business for me is really focused on our people in the next five years we're going to hire half of our civilian workforce we have to think differently about talent management how do we onboard people how do we train people how do we do hybrid work how do we look at things like well-being that is you know akin to what we saw what we needed during COVID-19 and then on the command side the unfinished business for us really is getting to sustain readiness our optimal has increased dramatically how do we take service like authorities and blend them into what we are doing and get the experiences of a force that is always ready and always able to continue to do multiple missions at one time this is the unfinished business for us Peter so as you know I work in that space between both non-fiction but also sometimes fictional future so I'm going to ask your help can you paint a scene of what cybersecurity and cyber warfare will look like 10 years from now what will be the same what might be different let me begin with what I think the same is I think success in the future will always go to the nation or the activity that has the best people and are able to leverage the people and being able to apply those people in a manner that gets sufficiently to the end state that they're trying to reach that's not going to change I don't think that the nature of warfare is going to change in terms of being violent and bloody and incredibly challenging for a nation state but here's what I think is going to change the fact that speed is going to change dramatically we see it in our domain what was once weeks had become days what has become days have become hours in the future will be down to seconds in terms of what we're going to have to be able to process what we're going to have to be able to do secondly my sense is that partnerships are going to change if we are going to be successful particularly in the domain in which I operate cyberspace we have to have a much broader range of partners we have to have partners that are not only within our government but are within the private sector that are international partners that are academic partners that allow us to get after very very tough challenges in a very quick manner and the last thing that I think is going to change is is obviously I think we will see you know a continuing challenge with regards to how do we leverage the technology that is so quickly changing what we're doing whether or not it's artificial intelligence machine learning whether or not it's encryption whether or not it's future quantum these are the things that we're going to have to master as first of all a joint force and then obviously as policymakers as well so you've been very generous with your time so I'd like to close by asking one last question that in many ways is you know behind the scenes for some in the audience particularly those at the start of their careers is there advice that you would give to someone just entering the field of national and cyber security tips for for how to thrive in the way that you have so I think I'd begin Peter with the idea that treat your work as both as a profession and as being a professional one of the things that I think I've been the beneficiary of has been really a career of continued education and whenever I was moving towards another rank or a new job it seemed like the service had sent me back to further training this is part of being a professional and being a profession I've also had the great fortune to work with incredible leaders people that really set the tone both in the policy making and also the operational force you know a series of different folks on the joint force a series of folks of army leaders whether or not it's been Keith Alexander or Stan McChrystal or others they have really kind of shaped this idea of what a professional does and how they operate the second piece is that I've learned from my experiences that one of the key things that you have to bring to your work is passion it's passion I mean you get up in the morning and what you do matters and you feel as though what you do matters and you get excited to go to work obviously some days you're more excited than others but the key to success here is that find something that you're passionate about and when you find that passion you know continue to continue to look at being a professional and enhancing the profession and the last thing I would share and this is probably a bit parochial but I think many in many with my experience would say the same thing it comes back in many ways to small unit leadership when you're a rising cadet before you get commissioned one of the things that they do is they teach you to be a small unit leader a fire team leader or squad leader and those lessons have never really left me set the example lead from the front establish and maintain standards being able to articulate guidance clearly moral and physical courage you know it seemed like at the time when you're learning those things okay okay I got it but every single job every single day that I spend here within the agency and command I come back to the same principles and so small unit leadership really was among the most essential things that I learned early in my career thank you for joining us today thank you to our colleagues at Arizona State University thank you to US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute we will share their insights on lessons to learn from Ukraine in an upcoming video thank you to the James W. Furley Legacy Foundation also for joining we're pleased today to continue ASU and New America's partnership as the Future Security Initiative I look forward to seeing you next year and to turn it over to my colleague Daniel Rothenberg who's going to thank specific folks at ASU and then I'll close it out yeah thanks for for spending some time with us today and we have this unique partnership that binds Arizona State University you know we're the largest public research university in the country with New America this innovative you know forward thinking think tank and we link we're linked not just by doing events and things like this we have structural connections where we share resources share team members have folks work together in all sorts of ways that we're quite proud of and I really want to thank ASU leadership because the university set up a situation where we can do interesting entrepreneurial things that are not typical for for universities President Michael Crow, Chief of Staff Jim O'Brien have opened the the event for us today of Pat Kenny our Dean a Magna and a host of Dean of Social Sciences and our school director Ganesh Murat Teskur and then we have a whole other team of faculty and staff that are just essential to all the things that we get done so thank you so much thank you Daniel Rothenberg for being you know this partnership started with me and Daniel nine years ago and it's expanded since want to thank New America's president Paul Butler Peter Singer for doing a lot of those videos Jason Stewart, Candace Rondeau Lillian Corral, Shannon Lynch Hila Rasool Ayub, Brian Hatfield Joe Wilkes and I want to particularly thank Molly Martin who did a huge amount of work on this and David Sturman who also did a huge amount of work on this and also Angela Spidlat so thank you for joining us you get some kind of reward for staying the whole day if you thank you