 I'll kick things off, we still people filtering in, but I'm delighted to welcome you to the next installment of our conversations with strategy, we're delighted to have another distinguished visiting fellow with us today and just to give those of you who haven't been to any of these events before, just a bit of a background, what we do in these events is put one of our visiting fellows, often from the world of politics or government or in this case from the think tank world in conversation with one of our academics and ideally to have a great conversation about their careers but also about the sort of issues that are going on in the world that may be of interest to you. So we're delighted to have with us today, Professor Michael Clark and Professor John Gearsen and so I will hand over to John to begin the conversation. Thank you to both of them. Well thanks very much, Charlie. And it's my great pleasure to welcome Michael Clark back to his former home, which he never really left, a very important figure for the department, the school now, and for me personally, because it was Mike's role of setting up the Centre for Defence Studies in 1990, which I now direct and therefore in many respects certainly not filling his shoes but clump around loosely in the big shoes that Mike came before. But today's about talking about Mike's career and experience across the, I think we can call it the political military debate, security studies, academic but as Charlie said also the think tank world, where for the first time ever, the Royal United Services Institution institutes as they now call themselves appointed a non military director in the in the form of Mike Clark in 2007 where he served with the distinction until 2015 as director general. The, the CV that Mike has is would take up the hour to go through the prestigious roles and things he's done but if I just do a couple of highlights to give you an idea of a security studies career. Mike went as many of us did including me to the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University of Wales, where he didn't be a senior international politics and was later a research officer there at Aber, at a time when war studies didn't didn't admit undergraduates. It was a postgraduate degree at the time and many of us also learned about strategic studies at Aberystwyth. Mike had posts in Manchester Newcastle upon online and, as I said in 1990 came to King's College, where he was the founding director of the Center for Defense Studies. Mike later led the International Policy Institute at King's College, became head of the school as it was then called of social science and public policy in 2004. Now faculty, as you all know, and ended his career at King's College as Deputy Vice Principal for Research Development at King's Mike is a fellow of King's College as well. I would like to tell you about how, if there's been a commission, a panel at any consideration of of military political security studies in the United Kingdom over the last 30 years, you will find that Mike was one of the members of or was advising and he's spent a number of years as an advisor to the Defense Committee of the House of Commons, and also at the moment the Parliamentary Joint National Committee on National Security Strategy, which is which he still serves in. Mike, let's start off what led you to want to go and do international politics if we start at that formative phase. You mentioned to me that you were thinking about doing PPE in take a breath. Yes, well, yeah, looks a great pleasure to speak to john and to say hello to everybody who's out there. It's because I have no idea who's out there I'm just sort of speaking to a blank wall. And somebody once said to me that's good preparation for talking to first year students, just sort of talk and see what, see what happens but it's a great pleasure to do this. Thanks to Aberystwyth because I didn't choose it they chose me I had a very checkered school career so I went to a secondary modern school and then a transfer to comprehensive. I didn't have any old levels. When my a levels came out they were better than anyone expected including me, and having been rejected by all of my choices I just got in those days it was six, I've got six straight rejections. But Aberystwyth suddenly had a waiting list and they rang me up and somebody that you will remember Robbie Pennell, who was the admissions tutor in those days at Aberystwyth I got a call from him and he said there's a place on the first year foundation course doing PPE if you would like to come young man. And so the weeks notice I went. It was wonderful and university education at Aberystwyth simply changed my life, fundamentally and forever. And in that first year that foundation course which which I did enjoy. I thought that international politics was the, the best thing to do thereafter so I transferred to that in the second year, and suddenly enjoyed it and I became a devotee of academic work and and international politics in particular as a result of that experience. And with trained a lot of people who have influenced what goes on at King's and into influenced this area of research. You made a move into the think tank world, and also education. Well, there were those decisions at the time. I mean, the opportunity expansion of our of our world has been pretty much, you know, alongside your career frankly you've been present in a huge expansion of opportunities and and and activities. Right, I mean, you know, the only part of my career was spent as a research officer and then as a temporary lecturer and then as a full time lecturer so I was, I was doing the standard job as a lecturer in international relations doing a lot of teaching. At one time I used to do half a term where I taught for over 20 hours a week for about five weeks and that was absolutely exhausting, you know, preparing 20 hours of material a week. So I did a great deal of teaching in my early part of in the early part of my career which turned out to be a great boom because it helps you understand materials. And it's great to teach intensively, at least for a short period which I did for a few years, but then this opportunity came up in 1990, when Laurie Friedman, Professor war studies at King's won the Ministry of Defense contract to establish this Center for Defense and I worked with Laurie a little bit on the political studies association and I've been a conference organizer and, and he rang the company said would you like to apply for this role as the first director of the center and I was bowled over by the the thought of it by the it was equivalent to a senior lectureship. And I didn't hesitate for a moment at the idea of transferring from being a standard lecturer to this new role that was only guaranteed for the first five years. Because I thought whatever else I'm going to do in my life. I, I've got to I want to give this a try. It never occurred to me not to give it a go. I had a little sort of voice in the back of my mind to say look this may not work out of course. It may not be funding may not be continued you may be out on you might be out on your ear. But to be honest, I thought the risk of that was well worth taking for the opportunity. So I came to King's my son of my job on the 1st of August 1990. And on the 2nd of August 1990 Saddam invaded Q8 remember that. And I had three blank offices in the, in the Norfolk building just empty offices nothing at all just some carpet, but in one of the offices was a telephone plugged in on the floor. It was the phone started ringing so I picked the phone up. And the voice said this is the BBC. Is that the Center for Defense Studies and I said oh yes. And he said are you following this this this attack on Q8 that's just been launched from Iraq and I said oh yes we're doing a lot on that. He said all right you're right they're just the man to talk to and immediately nothing to work on three blank offices will plunged into the Iraq war. And I had to be very very lucky from my point of view it didn't get I didn't get a full night's sleep for the next six months, but it got the CDS going in exactly the way you would want it to suddenly everybody knew that there's a thing at King's called the Center for Defense Studies even though at the time we didn't have any furniture didn't have any other staff for about a month and so on. It's interesting, because you'll know very well that Laurie Friedman had a very similar experience that I think it was his second or third day that the Falklands were invaded. And, and the premier nuclear strategy theorists in Britain became an expert on expedition warfare. You've got to I mean there's a sort of career thing here I mean you know we. Geno was a great Australian cricket captain was always being asked what's the secret Richie what's the secret to being a captain, and he said it's 90% luck and 10% effort 10% talent, but don't try it unless you've got the 10% and what that really means is that you've got to have the basics you've got to be good at what you do, but there's a way in which you you exploit your good luck as much as you possibly can and you ride your bad luck and there's lots of bad luck of bad luck, but you learn how to ride the bad luck and ruthlessly exploit the good luck. If you've got the 10% that is required as a basis for delivering the goods whatever they may be. So was was this the first occasion that you had to work very closely with the Ministry of Defence, the military because they obviously were the chief funders. How were those early years and how was that experience for you? That was pretty good. I as it happens I've worked with the military a fair bit before from being a student actually that was more by luck by coincidence than anything else I've always interacted with the military just because of the subjects that I did and the things I used to do when I was at Manchester and then it Newcastle, but this role at Kings as the director of the Centre for Defence Studies, as you know, involves a lot of close relationship with the civil service in the MOD and with the military themselves. And I found it's a very easy relationship as long as you're straightforward. I mean the military are extremely polite, they're easy to get along with and civil servants in the Ministry of Defence. And I found a very easy to chat to. Essentially, I think they're slightly embarrassed by what they do so they're very nice about it. Whereas there are civil servants in other parts of Whitehall, who are full of the moral, the moral push of what they do and they're rather, can be rather arrogant about it. The Ministry of Defence were very easy to get on with, as long as you, you, you, as we summarise what your problems are or what you're, what you're offering really straightforwardly and the MOD really wanted this to work. So when we got overwhelmed with work in the first 18 months and we, there's little team of us, there are only three of us, I think at the time. And they, they seconded somebody from MOD to help with the admin and that was a real boost, it gave us an administrative officer, as well as a sort of a departmental secretary which released my time and the time of our two researchers to go out and build the reputation and see this image that the Centre for Defence Studies was much bigger than it really was. And I mean, it eventually ended up with about 30 odd people, but it started as myself and half of two others. And of course you were closely aligned with the War Studies departments. And there's always a, and also with the International Relations Department at LSE to begin with, for the first five years we were meant to be in between both departments. But the backing of the War Studies department was fundamental to making the CDS work and that's been one of the elements of Kings, War Studies of Kings. It's always, since Laurie has been involved with it, Laurie Friedman when he became Professor of War Studies in 1982, almost from the very beginning, he made War Studies entrepreneurial. And so, as well as having this solid research base that brings good people into it, both on staff and students and they are good, unquestionably. There is also this entrepreneurial element, which always looks for opportunities to create new things, new organisations, new arrangements. It gets messy, and sometimes the college doesn't like the messiness of it. You know, Laurie and I both lived through the pressure we used to get from the Central Administration about how messy some of our relationships were. But our relationships with outside bodies and with funding and so on, they were always productive, always productive. I think the challenge of being a think tank within a university presents some issues. I mean you've talked about entrepreneurship, of course, which I suppose think tanks have to be. It doesn't always sit well with, as you say, university bureaucracy and that must affect our junior colleagues and students to some extent. These are two different worlds in some ways. Yeah, I mean, I think the relationship is a lot better now than it was because universities have realised and have embraced the need to be more entrepreneurial and the research excellence framework, the old RAE as it was a research assessment exercise. As it came round, with each iteration, they came round to a greater recognition of the end product of academic work, that academic work is justified in its own terms, and that's absolutely right. But if it's also got a customer out there, and if that customer is government or industry, then that's even better. That end user application, I think, is something which universities have taken a greater interest in and so there's much more toleration now for the sort of messy organisations that you and I are very familiar with and that Laurie was a great entrepreneur for. Somebody once said to me, he said that mentioning another director in London, he said that so and so he said cast a long shadow and the staff never really emerged from it, whereas Laurie Friedman has got green fingers. He just knows how to plant things and let them grow. And you've got to be prepared then to create structures which are flexible enough to be able to do that. So I think the situation is better, but it can always improve, that's for sure, because universities themselves run at great pressure. I'm going to be celebrating the anniversary of the establishment of the department in the near future. But of course, you were here and this this time was a period of the huge expansion as the department which had still been quite small in the late 1980s. It had a huge expansion in the 1990s and into the 2000s. And here we are today with the school and two enormous departments as well as research institutes. Yeah, I think it was 10, 11 people when I joined and I wasn't in the department, I was supported by it, but my job was to be the director of this new centre which was shared at the time with LSE. I was physically in the same sort of place, the department and I were slightly separate, but it was I think it was about 11 people at the time and before that, I mean before I joined it have been four people I think one to one. So, obviously you're dealing with the with the Ministry of Defence you're dealing with the armed forces to a large extent. And perhaps we'll go back to kings as well. But I want to sort of try and explore just what a big change how extraordinary it was, if I may put it that way, that not that you but that a non military person was chosen to lead the principle military studies think tank in the UK. Obviously we are much smaller field in America, where there are there are multiples I mean one of the, the two, maybe three big name think tanks in Britain. Yeah, I mean Lucy Royal United Service Institute is the oldest surviving security think tank in the world goes back to 1831 established I mean Kings established in 1829 by the Duke of Wellington. So we you know we share a common heritage in that respect, but it had always been a think tank for the military for military thinking it was always designed to help the military to think more carefully about their own profession. And it did never quite fit it in to the more modern think tank niches in the 50s and 60s and 70s. And my predecessor Admiral Richard cobble did a very good job in creating a much more broadly based think tank, but the view that the, the council of Lucy when they approached me about it was they said that they want a professional research director rather than an ex military person who can do it. They want a professional research director who can maybe take it to a different level so that was in a way my my task was to come to Lucy. And it was a bit like change management, I mean it was a very good organization when I took it over and I pay tribute to my predecessor in that respect very strong tribute. It's a bit like change management, you have to look at all areas of the organization say what needs to change. Where do we need to get to in five years so the first thing we did was draw up a five year plan or strategic plan for five years. And then the thing I learned about change is that when you're when you're the boss and you're trying to create change. You've got to do the detail and you've got to stick with it. It's not just announcing a lot of targets and send everybody off to achieve those targets. You've got to do the details sweat the detail, so that change becomes built in to the momentum of the organization and we worked very hard in those first two or three years, and it was very simple in a way, we've got to first of all improve the quality of the research just make it better. And not any problems make sure that it's properly proofread that it's properly presented rebrand so that it looks more modern not not less military but more modern so the fairly obvious things we had to do. And then we had to break down internal silos, and I took a lot of the King's experience with me, both in working in clusters rather than departments to let people cluster together to get whatever the job is that's done doesn't matter which department it's what expertise they have, and also expertise in raising money raising research money. So I was able to take a lot of my King's experience and apply it to change management in Rooster until we, we won the think tank of the year award in 2009 I think it was and then we won three awards in four years, which I was very proud about. So how was the as a category not individuals was a difference between the researchers you led at CDS and the and the researchers you had at Lucy. Some were civilian some were military someone just had service. I mean, how did you face. How did you deal with with with that quite big change, as you say, a historically prestigious organization dominated by the military, but wanted to be relevant in the. Yeah, the first thing I noticed actually there were some differences. The first thing I noticed is that when I went to Lucy, I'd have a meeting with the staff and they'd say, we've got this this and this and I'd say okay. Well I think what we ought to do is the following one two and three, and they went off and did it. And I thought, gosh, you don't want to have a committee about it. No, it hasn't got to be put through some huge bureaucracy. And I couldn't believe that they came back in a week's time and said okay we've done that boss what's next. And there was that sense that was wonderful of this, it was a fairly small club. And we could be friends and we could, we could make things happen that was that was lovely, but and universities can't work that way because they're bigger organizations and they've got other issues. And so there was that, but then I used to say to, as we recruited more researchers and we pushed outwards into different subject areas, and I used to say to them, look, this is not a university department. Which means that that you've got to be as good as if you're in a university department as a rule of thumb is to say that, you know, if you would not get on to the shortlist for Kings or LSE or Aberystwyth or Manchester or then we shouldn't be shortlisted for a job there we shouldn't be shortlisting you for a job at Russi. You've got to be that good, but your job as a researcher is to be is to occupy that gray area this is where policy analysts so you've got to understand the academic research and be able to put it into the sort of terms that policy people understand in ways that is relevant to the military or to the politicians or leaders. You've got to understand how leaders have to react you've got to know a bit about the difficulties of making policy the dynamics of real policymaking and let people in the academic world understand that so you're your translation mechanism. Now in America there are many people and many organizations that do that I mean America is the great, the great has a great plethora of think tanks but there aren't that many in the UK. There are many of us who could say we are policy analysts we stand beside or in between the academic world on the one side, the policy world on the other, and I used to say look it's a privileged position to be in. And we are, you know, I say, I used to say to the young researchers, we are working you like dogs, but believe me you look back on this as the best part of your career, because you're right in the middle of white or you're right in the middle of things, you know, when the world is collapsing around you when when you know Britain's going through traumas over whether it be Brexit or before that over the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, you're right in the middle of it. And so you work yourself very hard because you'll never be in as privileged a position as you are now to do something very interesting and actually rather important. Is it now just to the research the research department in the Foreign Office, where they recruit the academic trained researchers to do some of that in obviously for internal purposes. It is a bit, but the benefit is that you don't have to please the government, and you don't you certainly don't. You don't have to take an official line on anything I used to say to people at Rusey look we Rusey doesn't have a view on anything, you know we don't automatically assume that the military ought to be get to get more money we all spend more in the you don't automatically have a view on, you know, the nuclear deterrent, you can take whatever view you want as independent researchers, but the only thing I insist on is that you have good ideas to back that up and that you've checked your facts, but I will support you as researchers to say anything you want, if you've said it on the basis of good research because that is that's that's what independence is all about. There is always a sense that, and I used to throw my weight against this when I saw it happening is it tends to do. When you're writing something you're researching and writing something, you've always got in your mind, even if you're not really aware of it who the audience is you can imagine somebody reading it you can imagine it being read by, you know, a student or a journalist or whatever. And when people were writing with within their minds I whitehall officials if they were trying to please whitehall officials and whitehall officials would read it and say, this is very helpful. Oh yes very helpful we'll put this on our website. You shouldn't do that. You shouldn't write it for them you should write it for somebody who isn't a whitehall official. If the officials like it that's fine, but they are not the audience they're not the target. You should write it because it's an honest piece of independent research, which may or may not be useful to whitehall but the most used to you can be is not, is not when you're writing like a PR department for the Ministry of Defense I mean the ministry's got its own PR department. So, you know, don't write press release style stuff for a ministry if they like it, that's fine if they don't like it tough. Before we open up to the Q&A there's one other thing or aspect of your important career mic which where we coincided as well in this period, and beyond, which is your crucial role in advising and dealing and clarifying complexities to politicians and decision makers. And when I was working with the Defense Committee as the sort of the staff are writing the briefs. You were one of the principal advisors who would come in for to explain things and always frustrating that my brilliantly written brief I don't get much reading but but but your 10 minute summary about about you know what they should care about, what was was was extraordinarily effective. Perhaps you could say something about dealing with with the political class if you want to call it that, and their advisors I guess by which I don't mean you, but the political, the special advisors the people will end up going into ministries with these Yeah, it's a bit the same as dealing with the media I mean media and politicians, although they do very different jobs have the same basic characteristic which is that they're focused on the near term. They're focused on, you know what's going to happen next week and next month and how they're going to maneuver themselves into whatever the situation might be. And, and the job of an advisor, and indeed you know somebody who was doing the sort of job that you were doing is always to try to lift the horizons not not to convince them not to be short term, but to say well if you're if you're thinking about this and this for the next month be aware that it fits into a broader pattern, or it goes against a broader pattern that's been developing over the last two or three years. And so the idea of being an advisor in the political realm is if you're a political advisor then you you advise a bit like Malcolm earlier, you are advising on the short term you're advising on preferably with with less swearing, you're advising on the maneuvers that you need to take. But if you're an academic advisor or a policy analyst, then your advice is to help people contextualize what it's exactly the same you speak to journalists most journalists are so geared up to the to the blank page they will face tomorrow morning when they come into the newsroom, that anything you can tell them that is of a broader perspective this is the way it's been looking for the last couple of years is gold dust for them. And that's that's really where that's the fun part of it if you know your stuff if you're good at what you do and you absorb a lot of information on the way. Then you're able without too much effort to contextualize for people, the things that they're most concerned with. And I mean hanging around the, the political world, as you know is fun. I mean, I used to say that you know hanging around parliament I've been hanging around the buzzers of whitewall and Westminster now for 20 odd years. And it's a bit like being a piano player in a brothel. You know you don't actually take any part in it yourself but you're somehow complicit with the whole thing you keep your eyes and your ears open so there's a degree of complicity, even though you are technically innocent. And there's that there's that sort of interesting. I think that you have with what's going on in Parliament at you know within within the in the tea rooms in Parliament, or whatever. I think I mean I just closed by saying, I mean that's really interesting Mike and I understand exactly what you're saying. Of course, I was going to ask you something you wish you, you have done that you haven't done. And it's on what on your last point. Do you ever wish that you'd perhaps found yourself in the position that that John view now finds himself where where he's not the piano player. He's on the stage. And then there's no hiding. I mean, the review the integrated review. I know he's a professor and he's semi detached, but but this this is actually being inside the policy world, and I'm guiding it, it's not advising. Yeah, no and I full credit to john view because I think what you know what he's doing and what he's done and what he's doing and we'll see the results when we see finally the integrated review, I think it's excellent. I think that happens much more in the states than it does here, and I welcome the fact that it is happening here. I would have loved to have done something like that I mean but my, my involvement was always a bit peripheral in that respect other than running the review that I did for the deputy in the Internet in the Investigary Powers Act, I ran a two year project on that from Lucy, and a couple of other things but I'm by and large I'm an advisor who is plugged in on the outside of state the piano player. But I think the more interaction there is with academics as we're stepping into the policy world and then coming back again. That's healthy, as long as the academics are good and john be undoubtedly is. I saw this in the states and I saw when it goes wrong is that academics go into the policy world and they're not very good policymakers, and then they come back into the academic world and they're not very good academics either because they've been ruined by power, or by the proximity and I saw that little bit in Washington in the years that that I was there, but in general that doesn't happen because people who are good are good academically and then they're pretty good when they go into the policy world because they're good at what they do. And that's great to see and I wish. Yeah, I wish I'd been young enough to be able to be part of that sort of movement which is now been developing in the last 10 years, I guess. I think it's amazing to have seen that many of our students are going into policy jobs and into ministries and departments. And in a fairly seamless way, as in the past it would have been those established roots of recruitment through the civil service board. Yeah, now we seem to have final avenues. I think we should open up my kids that's all right. You and me, reflecting on the good old days and maybe open up some questions Charlie I don't know how you want to organize this now. I can see that there's already a question in the chat so I think maybe we'll move to that first Thomas's question was a question to both. Both of you about as a practical matter, whether you have you seen kings and moose make the greatest impact on British government city making what what area was that. Yeah, the people often ask that and the issue is that if you tell me what area you're talking about I'll tell you whether we think we made an impact, because you're doing this stuff all the time and a lot of it is to do the impact is all connected and I'm enchanted really if if government thinks it knows what it's doing on a particular issue and it's very determined then what you write is really for the outside world to to help you understand what's happening or help you criticize whatever it might be. There are certain occasions when government really wants some external perspective so at the end of the Cold War, you know it finished you know Cold War comes to an end in 1991. We saw ourselves in the early days of the same CDS of Kings, doing lots of, of meetings with foreign academics and dignitaries because everyone in MOD was reaching out to say, how are they thinking in the Baltic States, how are they thinking in Russia, and we were we know we were having an impact then on just as it were educating the MOD in the foreign office to the broader civil societies that was suddenly emerging in the former Soviet space then. I had the, the young doctor, medical doctor who became the defense minister I think of Latvia. And he came to do an MA thought he thought well I'm going to be the defense minister I better do an MA. So we tried to give him a crash course in strategy and strategic thinking which, and he went back to become the defense minister. And it was, it was a time of tremendous churn, and government was reaching out for, for ideas and information. Again, I mean I was involved personally as was Laurie Friedman and for others it's in the public domain now about talking to Tony Blair on the eve of the real Black Wars December 2002, and we had a meeting down the street and talking about all of this. And did he take any notice well, not really. But, but nevertheless it was all part of the, of the process and you know and I've, I've, I've, I have known and plugged into the part from David Cameron all the Prime Ministers from Tony Blair onwards at various stages. You never quite know if what you're saying is making an impression or not, but it's adding to the, adding to the, to the, to the background. So, you know, you can never give a definitive answer to say the government did this because what we did the surveillance review that it did in 2014 and 14. Added, I hope added to the discussion around the investigative powers bill, we made some recommendations that were also echoed elsewhere and were taken up. I'm quite pleased that with the way that worked out. Those are those are the immediate issues I can imagine or think of. And if I may that, and it's not supposed to be a cop out at all. I genuinely believe that what what Laurie and you Mike and the rest of us have achieved over the last 20 years is the bringing into defense and security thinking and academic rigor that just wasn't there in the same way it was more policy making and people people became experts by doing and there are amazing other visitors who we have in our departments who did it but the difference is, I do think we've experienced academically but also but also in in asking them to think about policy is something that needs to be based on evidence, as well as politics in a profound way and I think we've got a generation of not just military leaders but but also people in the national security space now, who I think who I think have been helped by the think tanks and by Kings and by a few other universities I don't make this too incestuous as we move forward. I also think that the policy and think tank community and academia were behind, and we were part of it were behind the adoption of a national security approach and national security council structure. I think you so you can see that as something that happened, you know, it wasn't inevitable, but it was it was as a result of lots of different trends. Yeah, I mean politics and you know the political world goes in fits and trust me when governments are new when they just come in, they're always very open to ideas they always reach out because they want ideas to show partly to show that they listen. When they've been in power for say two terms and things are getting sticky politically they stop listening, because they circle the wagons. And of course we've seen that in spades really since the Brexit vote with both governments and here we have government now, you know with an unique majority that's circling the wagons again. And I hope that won't be the story of this whole government but it is at the moment. So things, there are times when governments are more open than others. But at all times one of the things that think tanks have got to do is to keep good ideas alive, even in even when they're not fashionable because there will come a time at which somebody will want something will reach for something. And so the job of think tanks in a sense is to keep relevant ideas going, whether governments like them or not or whether governments think they want them or not. And then to be, you know what you've got to do as a director of think tank is you've got to have the instinct for when certain areas may be opening up and when there's an opportunity to say something that government will find relevant and useful and will want more of. And that's when you when you spot something. That's quite exciting. That's great. Thank you. No, that's great. I was just going to say there's two questions that sort of follow on from each other actually both in relation to getting into this world one from Philippine about the advice for students willing to work in the civil service or as buyers as in think tank such as the Center for Defense Studies what advice you give there. And then a second question for someone who is a military person of 30 years standing is there a world trodden route into academic and think tank work as a second career or as the market saturated. If so, what can be done while still serving to smooth the transitions that's two different routes into this world. Do you want to talk about the CDS John with that specifically raised. I mean, I can although I think you've dealt more with recruiting people across here. I mean, I think I would, I would say it's horses for courses, and a number of my students go straight into ministries and into jobs. And I think that's partly it is it is a result of the more specific, especially master's courses that we have. So in a way that they didn't previously do. The service is more open to people who have studied thematic subject areas that are relevant to the government now. And so, so there is a slight change in terms of the professionalization. I think the question about whether you're going to think tank or government, I think comes down to how you think about your career you certainly can move around. Still being an official within a ministry or department is different to being in a think tank. And I think you need to ask yourself about about the nature of your career aspirations, but you certainly can go into both from from the other. Remind position. I mean, my points on this are always that it, again, it depends on what what you're aiming at. If you're looking for a fairly long term job in university at the research side or whatever the chances are that you are going to need a PhD or to be doing a PhD because quite basic standard for universities. In the other think tank world like Lucy or, you know, Rand Europe or PA, some of these consultancy organizations that do a lot of good work. You're as good as the last piece of work you did. And so you've normally speaking you've got to have an MA because you've got masters level because you've got to prove that you can handle research that's what it's all about the research of a PhD, but not necessarily a PhD, but then you've got to show that you're that you're good at what you do, and that you've got something to offer. And so very often, if you're a student now or mature student whatever you're in the forces, the way to align yourself is first of all decide is it is it the more formal university route you want in which case stay in the formal channels and think about PhD work. If you're going to cast more broadly into the policy world the analytical world, then it's a question of first of all network. I mean go to things join, you know, join the the the organization, the organizations and go to the meetings when, you know, when we can. As a network quite quite as we're strongly, and then try to write materials plenty of outlets these days for material and the work that you're doing can always be you know if you've done a good piece of research on something that can always be reduced or should have been reduced to 1500 words or 2000 words that can go on websites that can be offered to think tanks and if as long as it's based on good work again there's no there's no substitute for quality here you can't you can't get away with rubbish or you can't disguise rubbish in this world because you're dealing with bright people who know what they're looking for so it's got to be good, but it's a matter of then of presentation so networking, writing, being able to show that you've got say a specialism in, you know, I don't know counterterrorism or in NATO force structures or military culture or gender in the military something like that. I mean whatever it is, you've got to be able to demonstrate it, and then just network for it, and you know being around as it were proximity in our world because it's a fairly small think tank world in London and throughout the UK. That goes a long way actually just being available to be to talk and chat. Can I just follow up on that because just to ask a chair's prerogative question because I don't know how many of my students on this or students on other courses where you have to do a policy brief style assessment or you're writing sort of a short piece. What advice would you give for someone say it's a short piece just saying about 1500, 2000 words maybe even shorter than that sometimes you find on Lucy's website Brookings places that these think tanks have very sort of succinct concise analysis drawing on excellent research but also doing so in a way that's accessible. What advice would you give to someone writing a policy brief. It's the same advice you give to a good journalist, which is say what you're going to say say it and say what you just said. And the way it works is the opening paragraph should be the answer to the exam question whatever it might be, you know so so the question is, you know is Britain right to be sending forces to Mali to to join the UNISMA the UN force that that's the question. The opening paragraph or the opening statements are, is it a good idea or not, and you say something clear. You might not the fence but you can sit on the fence very incisively, you could say, this is a good idea but there'll be lots of dangers. And then the rest of the of the piece the next six or 700 words you spell it out three four points as to why that is the case. And then in the final bit, you go back to the exam question. So, as it will restate the answer perhaps with a speculative thing for the future or what would the next question would be or what the consequences would be and so on. It's exactly the way journalists are taught to write I mean again I did a lot of journalism in the early part of my life one way or another. And the point about your course spiral staircase writing, which is that you start with the main fact, you know, 12 people were killed today when a fire broke through a warehouse, and that is that that's the basic structure and the work wins its way around that fact that people have died in a nasty fire. And the reason that you, you write according to spiral staircase in the old days is that a sub editor would look at the piece that's seven inches long, there's only five, there's only room for five inches in the paper. So they'd snip off the bottom two inches, or the two inches somewhere in the middle and stick the two ends together and it's still made sense, because the spiral staircase was still there. Now, I'm not saying that the students should write like journalists research is different. But when you convert your research into this sort of briefing, then you've got to think like a journalist because what you're trying to do is answer the question. Show why that is the answer to the question, and then say something interesting which leads people to think I'd like to read more about that person says. That's very, very helpful. And I will get this, get this, this link sent to any of the ones who aren't here. And can I follow up with another question or just because we're talking about the integrated review. And I wonder if you could say what you think is the sort of, this is a big question but what is the what is the main strategic challenge facing Britain today. If you were to be, you know, just one overarching ahead of anything else. What would you say, I mean what the integrated review is trying to take on is, obviously, defining a role that is practical and attainable for Britain in the countries as Brexit Britain. I mean my point on this has always been that the 2020 is going to be a pretty challenging time for all the European countries for all the mid rank countries, including us, and Brexit just makes it more challenging I mean offers opportunities as well, but it takes the safety net away. It means that it's more risky the choice that we take a more risky, but the single thing that the review has got to try to do is to define a practical role, and something that can be achieved within the next sort of 10 to 15 years and then that falling out from that are all the questions then of, well how to make a fusion doctrine a reality so that you integrate what government is doing, how to restructure the armed forces so that they skip effectively half of technological generation and jump into the 2040s by 2030, instead of following behind, you know, jump jump half a generation and create differently structured armed forces that's, you know, what the review is all about establishing domestic resilience to a greater level and we've seen the need for that in the pandemic, making modern deterrence means something all of those are the things that fall out of the fundamental need to take a really hard look at where Britain is going in the 2030s 2040s. We're not doing that anyway, but we're doing it even more sensitively because of Brexit and because of the COVID crisis. That's great. And I can see that we've got a question that follows on from that quite nicely from Renee saying, what are your thoughts on the UK's return to east of Suez, and more importantly its desire to get involved in the Indo-Pacific region. The Prince of Wales, sorry, the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier is on its way as part of a carrier battle group into problem, certainly the South China Sea, it'll go to Singapore and then the program will reveal itself after that. And it will go into phonops, which is a freedom of navigation operations. And the Chinese will laugh at it. They'll say it's the, it's the knee jerk reaction of a blown out old imperial power. In reality, they'll absolutely hate it, because it is a challenge. And more than that, the integrated review looks as if it will lean towards more activity in what it calls the Indo-Pacific. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary said only last week, he said we will incline towards the Indo-Pacific. And there's an argument for doing that because 90% of the growth in world trade, not world trade, but the growth in world trade between now and 2030 will be in Asia, 90%. So there's quite a lot to play for. And if Britain can reconcile itself to whatever relationship is going to have to the EU and to which European partners, and I hope it'll be a very good and close one, then it makes sense for Britain to be more involved in the Indo-Pacific. And again, I mean, there are three, you know, we're in a world of greater protectionism. So there are three enormous trade blocks at the moment. There's the recap trade block, the cooperation economic program, which is a big Pacific one that the Americans basically pulled out of the TPP as was and the Chinese have now taken it over. That's worth $26 trillion in terms of GDP. There's the North American one, the successor to the old, to the old North American NAFTA, which is now the US, Mexico, Canada agreement, that's worth $23 trillion. And then there's the EU single market, which is worth $21 trillion. So there's three big trade organizations out there worth $20 trillion. And we're not on any of them. All right, and we have a GDP of just over $2.3 trillion. So there are about eight to 10 times bigger than us, and we are sitting on our own. There is a really good argument for trying to integrate ourselves a bit more to at least if we're not going to be part of the European single market, then we need to plug into the recap one because then the North American one is not open to us. And we've taken ourselves out of the single market. So there is only one the biggest one that we might plug ourselves into and then there's the, what's called the comprehensive and progressive trans specific partnership, which is a rather strange one a new one. We might get into that. And that might make a difference. China is not in that but Australia is Canada is Mexico is Vietnam is that's a more strange organization but we might get in that as well. So there's lots of reasons to be committed to more Indo-Pacific interests economically and security terms, but if we're going to do it we can't dabble. That's the point I'm making. If we're going to do it in a security sense, then it will carry risks. If we're going to do it in an economic sense, then it will change the structure of our economy. So, yes, let's do it. If that's what the integrated review thinks is the right thing to do, but don't pretend that we can do it without consequences. We mustn't dabble strategy being strategic means devoting resources to something it means doing less of something else and more of something, more of one thing and less of something else it means transferring resources and strategic choice is about quite big steps this way or that way. So if that's the step we're going to take, fine, but let's be aware of what we're doing. That's great. Thank you. I can see we've got a couple more questions in relation to career related issues. But obviously anyone feel free to jump at any point if they want to ask more questions about the strategic picture as well but Philippine was just following up saying thank you for your very helpful answer. She is a first year BA and was asking whether some of these things still apply to someone who's at the beginning of their career rather than the masters level student in terms of maximising skills and experiences, internships and writing jobs. And then there's another question to do with regional specialities considered to be an advantage when trying to engage in defense studies or strategic studies in academia, where the think tanks academic institutions prefer generalists to specialists so yeah. Okay, the second one first because that's easier. Yes, I mean, specialists rather than generalists. There's there's lots of good generalists around but I mean think tanks. I've all got programs to study this or that and very specific programs because when you're in a when you're running a think tank. You're always, you're always trying to balance the the subjects that you want to look at that you think are important with what you can get funding for, or what somebody's prepared to fund. And so you, you, you're always drawn to be very specific about what you want from individual members of staff, or from new projects. So if you've got a regional specialist and that's very good to have. If you've got language skills within your regional specialist and that's very good to have as far as think tanks go in any case. That's certainly true. For someone at the first year level, and, you know, I feel for you having to having to go through your first year in these conditions in university life. I really, I really do hope that these these constraints fall away pretty quickly and you can enjoy all the universities have to offer. To get into research you will need to be at the master's level at some point, but there's a lot you can do is an undergrad in internships for sure, you can still get involved in network in the sort of networking that I was talking about, you just plug yourself into the think tanks that are nearest to what you think you might be interested in and, you know, plug it into all sorts of other things too. And remember it isn't just the think tanks like Russi or Chatham House or the International Institute for Strategic Studies those are the big three. But I mean there's all sorts of trade associations so there's ADS for instance which is the, you know, defense and security and aerospace Royal Aeronautical Society there's the maritime UK on on more maritime issues naval and civilian maritime. There's lots of trade associations, and they have, they have meetings which some of which are open to the public. And so if you if you've got an area that you think you're interested in you'd like to get interested in. There's ways of plugging in to the relevant think tanks or places that use people use analysts and stay connected and you know in your undergrad work, you can build up quite a useful portfolio without it. You can get in the way of your undergrad work because you ultimately want the best grade you can get. But you can build up a portfolio of experience and knowledge that is quite useful. I mean we had a Russi, you know we had a number of interns at undergrad level couple of actually six-form level who just came back and worked for a few weeks at a time we never let them do too much because we never wanted to to exploit interns. But they used to come in and work and there's one young lady from one of the schools in Ealing, who's now at University of Surrey, who may well end up with a job at Russi when she graduates because she just made herself very useful and she's good at what she did and she she plugged in and stuck at it over a three year period and is now doing very well. I think Mike's right I think you, you don't hold back get involved offer offer to help make build relationships even though it's a big department it's a big university, it still comes down to relationships. And on the generalist versus regional expert, I'm going to give the annoying answer which is that you have to be an expert on something who's capable of being a generalist by which I mean, as soon as you get into a think tank, the likelihood is you'll be asked to do things completely outside your area of expertise on some occasions, and that's the people who you find most useful within a research centre, because the core skills of research and communication are transferable. So you do need both something you're interested in and you excel in, but also the ability to work across across themes I think. So the Kings and the Russi, I established what we call them research lunches where once a week, and people just come together for lunchtime with brown bag lunch in the American style, we just bring your own lunch together. And we talk about two or three topics that were around, you know, this week it would have been Joe Biden, and perhaps North Korea, and maybe climate change prospects for climate change conference or something like that. And we just literally people, you know, around the table, a couple of people would know quite a lot about it because it'd be part of their area and the others would just be interested. And we just go round and just pick each other's brains. It's that liveliness and they were some of the best meetings, you know, I ever remember they were such fun. And the last five minutes we always said it was scurrilous gossip. Anybody heard anything, anybody heard any interesting gossip from Whitehall. And we just throw in all the rumours we'd heard, just for fun. And some of them turned out to be true, some of them weren't. PhD question, can I just say, as the PhD is written by you, there's no difference. So the quality of the PhD is exactly the same. I'm trying to add something but it's about the amount of time you do. Clearly, the key difference is it's a longer period and a PhD is a tough thing to do full time and it's a very tough thing to do whilst doing another job. And so you have to be very committed and be able to maintain that momentum over a period. But the end product, the end result and the support you get from the department is the same whether you do part time or full time. No, I'd agree completely with that. And yes, I think the advice I got when I provided my PhD was don't get it right to get it written. And I think, obviously, as has been said, you've got to know your stuff, but it's about that 90% as well, making sure you can get it done, as John said, having the time to be able to do that. But also, yeah, if you have a reason to finish it, you'll finish it, whether it's part time or full time, I'm sure. Just to pick up on a comment. I don't know if I should share this, Charlie, but I shouldn't really. But my wife loves to remind me that she completed her PhD part time quicker than I did full time. So that's helpful advice to everyone, but also, yeah, what wonderful to hear the Scottish gossip, as Michael said. But just to finish up, Sam, your question on whether it will be on the YouTube channel or on it will either be there or be on our internal intranet and I'll leave that to Danielle and we can let you know about that. So please tell friends about it and we love having as many of you here as possible and also watching these events afterwards. Just to follow up on just the advice in terms of getting into this one thing that I would say is that we have some wonderful avenues and forums for writing within the department as well. My wife is a very, very good journal, our undergraduates do some really, really great work, so look for opportunities to get involved. People really respect the sort of material that's coming out from our students and so look to write at every opportunity. I'll hand to Michael and John, if they have any final comments, but yeah, I'll leave that. I'll pass on to you to just, if you want to summarize before we head off. Well, in my final comments, thanks for this opportunity to chat about the business and so on. It's not something I do a lot of in this context, so it's nice to be able to do that. My sense is, you know, when you're when you're going through a career, you want to get a reputation for being straightforward and trustworthy. You know, if those of you have watched the apprentice which I've seen a few times in the dim and distant past, that is a that is a model of everything you shouldn't do. I think it was Whitler's idiots on the apprentice. They do everything exactly wrongly. You should do the exact opposite to what they do. So it's the idea of being be straightforward be trustworthy. Take your boss solutions not problems, and be good in a crisis because keep your head in the crisis and if if you're good at what you do if you do a common thing on commonly well. The senior people will notice believe me they do. I mean I've been a senior person long enough to a common thing on commonly well, we notice. If somebody, you know, makes a mess of something it's pretty easy, we notice that too. So common thing on commonly well be trustworthy. And I think, well, Mike that's great advice I would just go back to something we were saying before about when you set up CDS and the decision to come wasn't difficult for you. I think you need to think about what you what you're comfortable with as an individual. And for some people, they they prefer a structured career, which is very straightforward. And for others, I mean everyone's got the capacity for entrepreneurship, but I would say think tanks are quite entrepreneurial activities where you have to find the next, the next project the next funder. It's dynamic it's very stimulating, but it, but it is an element of insecurity to it. And not everybody is comfortable with that. And also you have to hustle as a as a staff member and also as the leadership. And if that appeals to you, I'm sure you'll find it stimulating and exciting, but for some people that they would rather understand and know what they have to do and do excellent work. And that would then suggest a more mainstream academic approach, perhaps, or even the civil service. I mean, I think that some of that to me encapsulates the difference, perhaps. That's great. Thank you so much, John and Michael for a really great discussions and really wonderful advice and thank you to all of you for attending and some excellent questions and we look forward to seeing you back here for the next conversation with in a couple of weeks time so just keep a lookout for that and take care and stay safe and we look forward to seeing you soon. Thanks Mike. Thank you. Bye bye.