 Hi and welcome to New America. This is Heather Hurlbert, the Director of New Models of Policy Change. Our new President and Chief Transformation Officer, Paul Butler, is supposed to be opening up this forum, but he seems to be having connection issues. So I'm going to talk for a few seconds and hope that he pops back up. And if not, turn it over to Ambassador Jenkins to open the forum. But speaking as slowly as I possibly can, oh dear, I'm told that Paul's computer died. So Ambassador Jenkins, this is your 30 second warning. Please, New America is so delighted to have you join us for this conversation about innovation. Paul is our brand new President, coming to us from the domestic policy side of the house from an organization called Sparks and Honey, which thought a lot in the domestic policy context how to make really big changes around both policy-specific and larger questions of race and social justice. And he had planned to start out this session with a really inspiring story about tenacity coats turning from writing essays to doing animations. And I can't actually, I will, if I try to tell that story, I will just betray that I am in no way an animation or superhero person and I will fail to carry it off. So we will just note that a good thing to learn about one's place the policy universe is that not everyone can do everything. But what we did do here at New Models was partner with WCAPs and other organizations in a process that encouraged people who had new ideas about how to do policy differently to send us essays describing those ideas. And in that process, I hope they learned something, but we certainly learned a great deal about number one, how much new thinking there is out there. And number two, how hard the pathway is from being a person who thinks creatively to actually being a policy innovator in the national security foreign policy space. And so we're really delighted to have some of our winners and some of the folks whose new thinking WCAPs has lifted up here today with us to talk about what that looks like. And with that, I'm delighted to turn it over to Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins. Great, Heather. Thank you. This is a great honor for me to be a part of this. I always enjoyed working with Heather and also Alex Stark, who's also part of this, when they asked me to be a part of the effort, looking at the new thinking, I jumped at the opportunity. In WCAPs, we do a lot of thinking as well in the context of redefining national security and looking at how national security has been defined through the years and what has been missing from those definitions and who are the people who've been missing from the discussions leading up to those final definitions. And so for me, the work that New America and Heather and Alex are doing on this is very much complimentary. And so it's great to think about how we can push forward these ideas and efforts to create some new thinking, particularly in our young generation, but also others, not necessarily the young generation, who can take part in some of the policy discussions. It's particularly fond for me because when I was working at the Ford Foundation at a time when we felt that we needed some new thinking and there was a lot of, we thought at the time, a lot of policies that we were not, a lot of people were not happy with. We used to host at Ford, something called Laboratory for New Thinking. And we used to invite a number of our grantees, it was with me and a number of other foundation, for what we call grant makers, who wanted to pull together different thinkers. And so this concept of new thinking is something that I think we're always going to have to have only because I think we, as we are constantly challenged with new threats and new challenges, we're going to continue to need new thinking and how we actually address them. So I appreciate the work that New America is doing and the ways in which WCAPs can continue to collaborate, to create a new cadre, an increasing cadre of people who can think about how we tackle the challenges that we face in the world to make sure it's better for all of us in the next generation. So with that, I'm going to have the honor of introducing my colleague, Lacey Healy, who's going to be moderating our session today. As many of you might know, Lacey Healy is the founder and editor of Instinct and the host and executive producer of PRX and Instinct Produce Podcasts, Things That Go Boom. She's also a partner with the Truman National Security Project and her work has appeared in well-known newspapers, journals, and pre-articles, including foreign policy. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to my colleague and very, very, very capable moderator, Lacey. Thank you so much, Bonnie, and I'm so glad to be here today. Thank you so much to Heather and Alex and to you for organizing this event. This is such an important conversation. In thinking about this conversation, I kept coming back to the idea that as an editor, I constantly have young folks asking me for advice about what ideas to put out there, what is safe to say, how far they should push the conversation or the status quo in their writing, particularly as a young person and how that might weigh on their future prospects. And when you add you can't deny things like race and gender and socioeconomic status to those calculations, it's hard not to think that there's a whole group of folks who are silencing themselves because there is a tendency to move toward the status quo or to move with inertia or to not always step outside of the box. And so I'm really so excited to talk to this incredible panel of folks who all have come up with really cool, really different ideas and really taken some risks in their own lives to step outside of the norm and start their own things and innovate in a way that is truly new and truly special and to talk to them about some of the obstacles they've faced as well. So I'm going to go one by one down the line, and then you guys will all have a chance to ask your own questions as well. So at first I'm going to start with Lisa, who currently works at an intellectual property law firm in Washington DC. She was previously a Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellow, which is a wonderful program at CSIS where she worked with the project on nuclear issues on emerging technologies and strategic stability. Lisa, I want to ask before starting your own, your current company, your wealth legacy, which is a financial coaching firm, you also started an organization geared toward helping first-generation professionals access higher education. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the link between things like college accessibility, socioeconomic status, financial resources, and innovation in the national security field. Thank you for that introduction, Lacey, and thank you to New America and WCAPs for hosting this event, and especially to Ambassador Jenkins for inviting me. You are someone who is the epitome of innovation, so I'm very excited to have this conversation. Thanks for that question. I'm really excited to get to answer that because I do get quite a few raised eyebrows when I talk about the work that I've done and how does that actually relate to anything in the national security field. And I think that those two organizations really highlight the evolution of my thinking and how we go about creating a more equitable system where access to opportunity is more widespread. And so at first, I thought, well, higher education, let's help folks access the first thing that they need to actually pursue a career that they want, whether that's in public service, national security, or elsewhere. But then I realized there is an overarching theme that as Americans, I think, especially we are so reticent to talk about partly probably because of our history, which is socioeconomic status and the fact that we don't talk about financial literacy in schools. And so if you don't have access to that intergenerational knowledge, you are at a fundamental disadvantage. And so my goal with your wealth legacy, which came out of one, seeing how coronavirus really impacted my community, which is predominantly a community of color and a lower income community, but also because of my experiences in the field. And so that came out of wanting to remedy what I saw as a very critical gap and empower other young professional women with the resources that the educational system didn't to take ownership of their financial lives and pursue the careers that they are passionate about, not just the ones that will pay them the most money. So I can talk about this ad nauseam, but I know we have a lot of other folks with interesting things to say. So I'll leave it there and I'm happy to answer any follow-up questions. Fascinating. I'm so excited to continue the conversation with you guys. And folks, if you have questions, please feel free to put those in the chat. We'll be gathering those. And once I've gotten the chance to ask all of my own, we'll turn over some time to you. Quisha. Quisha is a program development manager for strategic initiatives and innovation at Mahari Medical College, and I'm not sure if I'm saying the name of the college correctly. And you're a founding partner at Trailblazers for Global Health LLC, which is a management consulting firm focused on creating a sustainable, culturally appropriate experience for each client to advance their work with integrity and inspiration. You also consult with the CDC Foundation to support the Arizona Department of Health Services COVID-19 response, which certainly requires a lot of innovative thinking. I'm really interested in partly in the individually tailored work that you do. I want to know, is there any such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach to public health and security? Definitely not. I'll get into that in a second. First, I just want to thank New America for putting on this very important event and for the work that you all do. I would encourage everybody to go read up on some of the blogs and articles on the site because it's very interesting. I did not get paid to say that. I'm just generally interested in what was the content on the site. Also, thank you WCAP's of course, Ambassador Jenkins for being such a trailblazer and the invite. Whatever Ambassador wants me to do, I would definitely stop to do. Also, just to say I'm super excited to be here with all the other panelists. I'll try to be brief because I just want to hear what everyone else has to say and get some questions. With that, Lacey, I'll get back to your question. There are certainly no one-size-fits-all for anything, but certainly not global public health. I'm going to put on my DC Community Organizer hat for a second because I'm big on political education. We don't know where each other is coming from in the audience, so I like to break things down. Briefly, one concept or approach that's big in the global public health space is this idea of one health. For those who don't know, one health is a collaborative, multi-sectoral, transdisciplinary. It affects everything from the very, very small, minute, local level of community-based organizations to regional, national, subnational, and global levels. The overall goal of one health is achieving optimal health outcomes, recognizing the interconnectivity between people, animals, health, and just the shared environment we have. One example of that is the global health securities agenda, which I can get into later if anyone else is as nerdy as me and interested. I say all this to say is that this larger, comprehensive approach of one health is where we all need to start. Whether we're talking about policy work, whether we're talking about security, whether we're talking about climate change, just looking at what are all the moving parts at the various level within a country, within a person, within a community that's affected, and how do we go forth and centering the experiences of the marginalized people, right? Like Liza mentioned, people of color in other communities before, and that's just it's so important to bring up because of certain experiences aren't centered, and even further, certain people are not brought in for representation, how the policy or how the approach or how the program or how anything is ultimately implemented will falter. That's such a good point, and that's such a good broader point as well about the way that we approach security. I love that you said there's never a one-size-fits-all approach to anything, right? So, turning to Chris, Chris is a fourth-year chemistry PhD candidate at UC Berkeley, where his research is focused on the development of nanomaterial tools with applications in agriculture and energy. Chris, in your essay, and by the way, Chris is one of the New America's essay contest winners. In your essay, you suggest the U.S. establish a national battery storage initiative. This is an idea that you explain in your piece intersects with so many national security and foreign policy concerns, but it's not exactly something that comes up frequently in conversations about, say, great power competition. Do you think that our current discourse is calibrated in a way that leads us to discuss innovative solutions like this at the forefront, or do they more often fly under the radar? Yeah, thanks for that question, and again, thanks again for the invitation. I'm glad to be with so many other great panelists, and to answer your question, definitely I think it flies under the radar. As someone who I work as a PhD researcher, I do a lot of the basic research that goes to underlie a lot of these different technologies that we think about. And in terms of energy storage, I think one of the problems is that a lot of these research and these innovation conversations take place in silos that don't necessarily intersect all the time with the other broader kind of ecosystems, the broader policy systems that really are needed to implement them. So in particular, as we kind of think about, we can't talk about energy and energy policy in the United States without getting hit with like an innovation or necessary need for basic R&D and that type of conversation, just because that's the most politically salient. And kind of one of the issues with that is that the US has actually done really well with that over the past decade, right? Lithium ion batteries were invented here in the United States. But one of the issues that comes up is that we haven't built out the infrastructure, we haven't built the political will really, or the necessary supply chains to really continue to take advantage of that and take advantage of maybe the basic scientific R&D that we do in this country to really push forward to develop clean technologies or to really implement those things at scale and maybe in the same way that some other competitors across the world have done. So if we don't have kind of that interdisciplinary thinking, if we don't have those folks who are willing to consider things on a holistic perspective in a long-term timeline, then we kind of lose out and innovation only gets us so far, I think. So I think it's really necessary to, again, to kind of speak into some of the things other panelists have mentioned, having the different voices in the room, having those variety of different perspectives from multiple backgrounds really lends itself to kind of that creative and innovative thinking, I believe. That's great. Speaking of long-term timelines, Emma Claire, you also touch on some ideas that are long-term and even reviving some old programs. Emma Claire is a program associated at Global Zero. She's her research and her interest in disarmament and nonproliferation. I love the stems from her years living and working in Ukraine, where she became interested in the connections between environmental conservation and nuclear secrecy. Emma Claire, in your essay, you suggest we revive something called the megatons to megawatts program in an effort to combat the threats of nuclear weapons and climate change. What do you see as the greatest challenges to actually implementing this type of big thinking? Wow, what a question. Thank you so much, Lacey. And thanks to New America for inviting me to do this panel. It's been great already just hearing the kind of thinking that other panelists are doing. To turn to the question, well, I think there are plenty of very real obstacles to implementing this kind of proposal, or really any of the proposals we're seeing gain a lot of interest, especially from younger people, younger experts, but also activists who are interested in these big plans to kind of introduce a whole new way of thinking about how we deal with things like climate change, health care, all these different big issues and the ways we can address them by thinking across disciplines in the way we've already heard about by these big investments driven by a need to establish programs that help us deal with these kind of existential issues. I think I thought about this proposal in the way that I think about policy a lot in the context of a kind of a Green New Deal framework. If we imagine that the government essentially can do these big projects that will be enough to meet these challenges, how can we take that energy and that capacity and think across these different areas? The way I thought about my proposal was like, how do we improve relations with Russia? This is a constant problem and as someone who studied Russia and lived in the region, I've thought about this for a long time. How can we address the need to very rapidly decarbonize our energy system without running into all these different problems that we might have from, for example, 100% renewables plan? How could we use the materials we already have to minimize the harms we create as we move forward with energy innovation and with a system that works for everybody? I would say that the short answer is that the obstacles are many. There are diplomatic obstacles, political, maybe technological, but I think they're also mountable. I think as we do start to think creatively and across disciplines, we're already creating so many possible solutions. I'm really excited to move forward with this. As we open up to questions from the audience, and please folks, feel free to start putting your questions in the chat. I just want to ask you guys about your own either success stories or stumbling blocks. You're all so fascinating. Some of you have started your own businesses. Some of you are doing really amazing innovative thinking around all of these ideas. Are there particular things that you've run into along the way that you think we can learn from? And feel free to, you can either raise your hand or just go ahead and speak. Kasia, I saw you nodding. I'm always that person. I'll try to be Greek, but I wanted to go back to something Christopher said that I like to love. First of all, just supply chain, supply chain, supply chain. Like it is ruptured. It impacts all of us regardless of industry, regardless of country. So please read up on and do what you can. But Christopher mentioned innovation can only take us so far. And that really resonated with me because in addition to being like a program manager, the 50 million other things I do, I love business development. And part of my part of our services under my firm is researching grants, right, but also writing grants and proposals. So designing a program. And what I can say is this word, this word innovation is so tricky, right? Because what what innovation means to one donor is different than what it means to another, which could completely not play out in a culturally appropriate setting. So I just, yeah, let's keep talking about this innovation piece. And then something Emma mentioned that I think is brilliant is really across the board, how do we utilize materials we already have to reduce the harm you've already made. And I think that's something that can be translated again, across various industries of things already exist. We don't need to continue to produce, produce, produce, produce, produce. Right now we really need to try to switch the model of how do we go back to putting people over profit, people, planet, and peace over profit, right? And what does that what does that look like, even if that's an uncomfortable framework for some of us? Let's, let's continue to have those conversations and to briefly answer your question. As you can tell, I'm quite gregarious. So I'm like courage is something I would encourage everyone, especially young women and girls, especially women and girls of color, because we're taught our voice, we should be kind of seen not heard in that our voices, our tones, when we ask questions sometimes can be threatening to larger society. So I would definitely say courage, creativity, and not in the sense of what I can dance I can draw whatever, but the creativity Christopher is bringing from the chemistry perspective, right? The creativity lies is bringing through her business structure. So we all have it within us, you know, it's just a matter of bringing that out and especially in times like this times like this where we're really, where the contradictions are heightened, not just in the US context, but globally, it's important to put your voice out there and just what's why not? What's the worst that can happen? Don't quote me, because if something bad does happen, we'll be like, Quisha said, why not? What's the worst that can happen? But now is the time, everybody. I'll stop right there. Thank you. At least so you have your hand raised. Yes. So I want to follow up on what Quisha said about innovation being different for different people. And I think one of the things that I've learned is that the way that we approach these contentious issues matters, especially when we're talking about financial accessibility, a lot of people who have already made their mark on the field who are established might see that as it sounds like you want it easy and maybe you don't want to pay your dues. And so then it becomes really important to make it very clear why this connection is so important and why paying your dues is not equal to making our field more financially accessible, especially when we talk about paying dues in the terms of working long hours for little or no pay, if you're doing an internship, paying your dues in a strictly financial way is not going to be equitable. Because I think that we need to shift the way that we think about something like that and maybe incorporate the fact that a lot of people have been paying their dues in different ways for a lot longer. We think about the kid who didn't have an SAT tutor or who didn't have access to the best schools. All of those things count. But we don't ask everybody who didn't have to go through those things to go through them. And so in the same way, we shouldn't be asking folks who don't have financial resources to subsidize the cost of living in D.C. for a summer to maybe suffer financially because they just simply don't have the means to make it work otherwise. And so approaching that in a sensitive way is important because we don't want it to come across as a perduative judgment on anybody's situation. It's not wrong to have opportunities. It's not wrong to have a safety net. But for those who don't have it, they shouldn't be penalized. And our field is losing out because as Christopher mentioned, we want those perspectives. We want people from different backgrounds. And we often truncate the diversity discussion at gender or race or whatever it may be without addressing this massive component that affects people across the entire spectrum. That is such a good point. There's a note in the chat that innovation needs to be culturally appropriate, but also needs to be accessible and affordable. And that is something that we so often don't address in the shape of this conversation. What can leaders begin to do to shift the status quo? You mentioned diversity initiatives. Don't get at this other piece of the puzzle. What can we begin to do that does? Can I jump in here? I would just say briefly that it's really good to see leadership of organizations stating their values concretely and sort of explicitly and all the time. And we talked a lot about the way there should be reflected in things like hiring decisions and the way you construct panels and things like that. But I think another key piece of this is a courage when you're talking about moving into the policy space and talking about how you reflect these values in your policy proposals in the projects you fund and the initiatives you really go after. I think there's been a definite change in the fields that I work in and interact with on this first side of stated values. And maybe to some extent, I think also the more organizational developmental perspectives. But I think there's a lot of work to still be done in the actual policies where we're really going to bat for. And I want to jump off that really quick. I think Emma clarifies the great point in that if you want a lot of the policies I work, particularly around in terms of energy policy, I think need to really center this idea of equity and center these ideas of inclusion from the get go. It can't be an additive. So even based in California where I am, which is widely considered a leader on energy policy and climate policy, I think there's been a real shift in the past couple years thinking about not just how can we decrease, for example, carbon emissions or make from national security's perspective, make this more energy resilient, but specifically who's benefiting from these different technologies, right? California has deployed a wide range of rooftop solar, but rooftop solar does not equitably benefit everyone. And I think with the wildfires and with folks increasingly, islanding, it's becoming increasingly clear that that only benefits certain populations and in fact may harm other parts of kind of the energy ecosystem. So really thinking about and the same thing with there's a million other examples, electric fields for charging, things like that, which disproportionately benefit higher income, majority communities. So I think from a security perspective and thinking more broadly how we craft policy, like it's really centering those values that we want to achieve from the get go has to be part of it and not as an add on later on. Yeah, that's a great suggestion. I have a question from the audience from Ruby Boots, who asks, as individuals who are seeking reform, what is your greatest frustration when trying to get this message across to particularly to the mainstream? Feel free to jump in. Frustrations here, there have to be frustrations. I know you have frustrations. Okay, go ahead, Liz, I'll tag in later. So I think my primary frustration is that I sometimes worry that talking about these issues perhaps makes folks think that I'm not as passionate about the work that I do in the field, working on emerging technology, working on how to make sure that nuclear strategic stability isn't adversely affected by our new implementation of these new technologies. And so for me personally, I think as a young person who is relatively new to this work, I sometimes wonder whether talking about this takes away from that, but I feel that these issues are important enough that they deserve to be spoken about and it's something I'm passionate about and will continue doing so. That is definitely a concern. Briefly, one of my frustrations is just the lack of historical context, especially with regards to geopolitics. So I do a lot of work in Southern Africa and I constantly am one of the few people who brings up the effects of of original colonization and then neocolonialism and what impact that has for health outcomes in certain countries. So just being the person who's always like, but wait, do you remember history? But wait, do you remember this perspective that we weren't taught in grade school? But wait, do you do you understand how when you're in a different, it's interesting because we all work or a lot of us work globally, right? So you would think people who work international would have a leg up on others, but that is not often the case. So just reminding people of a historical context and the inability to develop anything in a silo because you have to take into consideration other parts of the puzzle. I would also just really quickly, I mean, I think about this a lot, but moving in fields that are broadly construed as national security, I think you really notice that it's kind of built in an opposite way to something like maybe an academic discipline that we're all initially trained in, where as you get more investment in the system as it exists, as your incentives to ask for radical change or even significant change become, it becomes harder and harder to do that because of your career position, like that's when you have the credibility and the knowledge, and that serves a purpose obviously. But also, I mean, I think it can be very paralyzing for the field as a whole. So if you're a younger person, especially someone who's aligning themselves with sort of the cause of change or reform, I think there's a lot of legwork you have to do to sort of account for things maybe you can't know because of your lack of experience or because of your position in the field. And you kind of have to rely on others with that experience to pick up your ideas and say like, yeah, that that could work. And it's, you know, it takes it takes a little bit of courage, I think in a little bit of maybe sometimes being a little stupid or letting yourself be a little stupid. Risks are risks always feel a little bit stupid until they work. A question came in for Quisha actually while you were responding, which is that someone wanted to know they're really interested in learning more about the public health and one health approach to challenges in national security. And can you share a little bit more about how a public health approach which centers on the lived experience of experiences of communities could inform or transform how the field understands security. Right, and I can't say there's a perfect solution yet, but anytime I think about just proper global public health structures, I always have to turn to Cuba. Earlier when I mentioned the people-centered approach, it's a completely different dynamic, a completely different framework than when you're looking at cost-benefit analysis and looking at cost, share profit versus how do we uplift persons in society? Because if a society is healthy, economy is healthy, it's just, sorry, I'm trying to take my words closely, but you all get my drift. So one thing I always like pointing out about Cuba is the community-based healthcare that they give. Mind you, that's a very, very micro level situation where literally you have a doctor for, say, a few blocks. So that doctor knows exactly the conditions of each person living there. They know they're their doctor, you know, so they see them. They understand, okay, this person has this level of education. This person does this type of work. So these are the social determinants of health that would impact this particular person. So it's also very personalized. How that model would play out on a national security framework within the U.S., I'd have to ponder more, but I'm going to drop my email in the chat because I think that will be a fun brainstorming exercise, honestly. So I don't know if I fully answer that person's question, but if not, I can double back. I just don't want to take up too much space. Really fascinating. And it's really interesting generally how I'm interested in folks' thoughts on how sort of centering the lived experiences of communities or having more of that conversation could really change the way that we're thinking about security. Maybe this feeds into this question, but sort of a broader question for you guys. Someone also wanted to know how you see the transatlantic national security concept evolving in the future. Chris, did I see you nodding your head there? I was going to say that's a loaded question. There's a lot to unpack there, but I think in particular, I can take a stab at it and hopefully hear more from other folks. But in terms of how the transatlantic national security, I think from a security perspective, there's so many broader issues. I think of kind of traditional national security, but there's also kind of a need as we tackle much broader issues in the past year we've seen COVID-19 very rapidly. We've also seen the effects of climate change, right? So there's these needs for broad coalitions, I think, of collaboration and kind of diplomacy that really centers solutions and kind of experiences for a wide variety of different stakeholders. So I think we need a broader lens as we kind of consider what national security looks like in terms of maybe not just less the traditional national security, but also considering how we can export different learning models or technologies and kind of ensure that it's bringing more people into the boat. Sort of building on that. A really great question slash comment in the chat came from Sylvia Mishra, which was that innovation in the national security space probably requires engaging both established and emerging experts to unlearn some of the things. And there are probably a lot of things that need to be unlearned and to both adapt to the fast-changing environment, but also really come up with innovative solutions to our current problems. What is your one big idea if you each and I'm going to make you each answer this? What's your one big idea to make national security resilient and relevant while also taking into consideration the diversity and inclusivity? Quechua, go ahead. Oh, you raised your hand, though. Colleagues, please speak. I don't want to be that. I have an answer before we close out, but I don't want to be that person. Christopher, I see you positioning. I can take a stab. So my big idea is pay people for their work. That's going to increase retention in ways I don't think we can even begin to understand. Pay your interns and don't only pay them, pay them a livable wage, a $1,500 stipend does not suffice in D.C., and pay overtime, pay benefits, give people an incentive to stay because I think that a lot of folks I've spoken to leave for the private sector because you make more money, you work less hours, you have overtime benefits. And that is a very realistic situation. I think that for those of us who are so passionate about the field, we think, well, if you want to stay, you'll stay. But that glosses over the reality of a lot of folks. And so that is my one big idea is pay folks what they're worth. And not just interns, but pay people what they're worth. If you're working in D.C. and you're making less than $30,000 a year in an entry-level job, it's entirely unsustainable. I just today, that was my case first job. I also saw someone tweet today that the only way that they were able to do that was by taking out huge additional grad school loans, which is something that I did as well. And then you see folks with huge amounts of debt unable to make choices that they otherwise that otherwise would be open to them. Chris? Yeah, I was going to say if I was trying to think about one big idea to kind of really transform the way we think about national security, I'd go back to supply chains. I think it's really just such a critical piece of what we do. And that's really a place where we've seen, I mean, you'll be in the past couple months, I think last week, President Biden just released a memo thinking about strategic supply chains. I think it was specifically talking about semiconductors. But more broadly, this is a place where government and where policy has a lot of power to kind of think about as such a large purchaser, whether you're talking about from a national security, whether they're talking about from military, where you're talking about even I think the USPS just released some controversial things that don't need to get into about electrifying its fleet. But this is a place where I think we need to, it's a place where people don't tend to think about as this is a place where is this is energy policy, this is national security policy. When we think about the ability of the United States to kind of leverage some of those resources to build a supply chain to take advantage of it. To kind of make our energy systems and to make so many of the systems we rely on more resilient to changes in climate, changes in national security and foreign relations. And I think this is someplace that I would hope to see a lot more thinking going into. Anna Claire. This is a hard question. I feel like I wrote my essay about my one big idea, but I'll have it all. I know we're making you just deliver us all sorts of innovation in this particular panel. No, I would say that going off of what others have said and going off what I said earlier as well, you know, we're in a moment where because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there's a real move to redefine national security to cover a vast swath of domestic issues like public health, you know, all sorts of logistics issues. And it's really just you know, I think there's a real shift happening. And what I want to see is that we take the good, the useful parts of the way we think about national security right now. Like the willingness to invest in it, you know, is number one. And the importance of thinking holistically about things like logistics, you know, and supply chains and things like that. And if we want to bring those to domestic policy, you know, to work on just the really challenging like public health and infrastructure issues that are facing us today, like I'm all for it. What I, you know, what I don't want to see is the bad parts of it, right, which are the, you know, the almost the massive incentives against thinking about problems as solvable, you know, identifying the most urgent problems and trying to solve them rather than like, you know, spending so much effort maintaining a status quo, right. Or I, you know, I mean, I think we all kind of have our, we have our own understandings of what needs to be done in this field. But what I just really want to see in the work that I'm doing now is, is to try to push for a better, a better status quo more on the domestic side as we start to use these tools developed in this, you know, international policy side to think domestically. That makes sense. And that is the big conversation right now, shifting things to a more holistic approach potentially to more, to look at security through a new lens. Krisha, can I, can I ask you for your big idea? And I'll be brief, but or try to be brief, but completely agree with what's been stated and Emma took piece of it. So I'll be even more brief of just the need to redefine safety and security, because what that means to different communities, different people, it varies right, especially the times we're in now. And that's, I think the opportunity with our industry and security is that there's a lot of opportunity, right. One of the challenges is, which is why the question is worded so well is these antiquated ways of thinking, because it can also be a very stodgy, very slow moving, very resistant to change type environment as well. So though it's a bit trite, I will say that one of my big main ideas is just representation representation representation that's in every layer every level, that's leadership, that's decision making, but that's not representation for the sake of it, right. So it's not saying, oh, we need a queer gender non conforming person. Oh, we need a black woman. Oh, we need someone from here, but it's really being thoughtful and meaningful into how can we make this sustainable, right. Paralyzes earlier point about financial piece, like, can people even afford to work in this industry? Do people have the access to education that puts you on a career track that you would even think to do nuclear proliferation? You know what I mean? Like, this isn't, this isn't on the radar of a lot of people who could have that capacity built, right. So just really looking at the beginnings, the origins of it, but where we would like to go and it's impossible to get there without again and not just not just black, white, not just race, not just gender, but also the class dynamic, right. How many people from a poor working class background have a say into what's happening at the security level as well? And how much is our divide exacerbated by the idea that those people aren't involved in conversations at the top, that there is a disconnect between folks who who's even even among folks within our community who have parents who went to college or had that kind of access to, you know, sort of understand the system as they were going in and others who had to, you know, sort of find their way through it the hard way. I'm interested in your thoughts, any of you, your thoughts on sort of how we put this idea of more holistic national security, some of these big ideas, how we began to put that into practice in taking it into consideration that this is an environment that as you just said, it can be antiquated, it can be resistant to change. What will it take to begin to shake up that to really shake up the status quo? Time, patience, conversations like this, support structures. One thing I love about WCAP's women of color advancing peace and security is that it's a very safe space of just women of color across various interdisciplinary fields. But that support, like it sounds very peace and love, but like we've got to support each other better. Do you know what I mean? And we've got to support each other to vocalize certain issues when you see them. But we have to have systems in place within an institution so that person isn't penalized or threatened in some way for speaking up because you're trying to just improve the industry you care about. Anyone else? Take off what Prisha said. I think there are two components. One is what we are asking for needs to be actionable. I think that a lot of the reasons why so many ideas don't get off the ground is that we say things like more diversity, increased retention. And that, I don't see a roadmap forward with that. And so I think that the way you start making small incremental change or even radical change is to give people a blueprint and to come prepared with a foolproof argument because I think that a lot of the reasons why we don't see changes because people can't see it, because they can't see what the next step is. You want more diversity. Okay, what does that mean? And so I think that's one part. And then the second part is something that Prisha alluded to, which is we need advocates. And I always talk about Ambassador Jenkins in this way because there's a difference between a mentor and an advocate. An advocate gets in the room that you're not in and puts forth your ideas and encourages people to see their merit. And so I think in a lot of ways we need leadership to understand that they are going to have to play a large role in moving this forward. And so it is a collaboration of, I don't remember who mentioned this earlier, of young professionals and more established folks in really trying to craft a new narrative in our field. I would also say just briefly that as a field we kind of can't do it alone. I think there's a piece where if we want to see real change in national security policy, it's one of the least democratic parts of American policy and one of the most important. And so this is sort of something that I should have mentioned also I think in an earlier comment. But as we're thinking about policy, as we're thinking about how to connect policy to people's lives, there has to be an exchange where the field is willing to accept pressure from activist movements, from grassroots organizing to be the sort of conduit for policies that work better for people. There's only so much you can do to reform a field and to reform the actual issues that we work on as a field without working with society on a larger scale. Yeah, and I can just piggyback off what I'm clarifying because I was saying, I think advocates, I really like that a mentor versus an advocate, I think is a really powerful thing, especially when we're talking about new ideas, right? New ideas and innovation tend to start from folks who are earlier in their career, folks who don't necessarily have that senior leadership to kind of see what implemented. So I think if we really want to see it rapidly, it kind of takes, it takes those folks who are willing to take risks, and I've had this in my career, I'm sure other folks can speak to it as well, folks who are willing to take a risk and kind of roll with an idea that maybe they don't have an expertise in or it's not their idea, but they have trust in the people that just bring it up. So I think really building those relationships and building those networks to kind of for folks to introduce new ideas and kind of be supportive in that process is key. May I have to say one super quick thing? Yeah. So just just listening to the comments that reminded me of the author Ash Coebley, like start where you are and use what you can. Not all of us are going to be the vocal people, like this is wrong. What is the gender analysis with this? That's not realistically going to be for everybody, but if you're a numbers person, maybe your thing is really parsing through the data and saying, well, technically, like it's only a 4% variance if we do this, you know what I mean? So it's like, utilize what feels real to you, because if you don't do it in an authentic meaningful way, it's not going to be sustainable. And the last thing you want to do is put yourself out there, and then you don't finish as strong as you start. And then Emma Claire's comments reminded me of maybe, maybe it's time for some kind of public relations or some kind of refacing, re-imaging of the whole, of the whole envelope, you know? I know January 6th with the insurrection, it forced a lot of us in the DC community to again rethink what does safety and security mean if we're residents and we're not safe and secure. So I think, I think, not just a rebranding because that makes it sound uncommercial, but just really thinking about what are we talking about these days, because it's not business as usual. It's funny you should say that, because I was actually just part of a group that was doing some sort of rethinking of national security, and we broke out into small groups. And the thing that our group really took on was that we needed a new national narrative, something that helped us to feel like winning was something different than we currently think that winning is. And that was sort of rooted in this idea that the last year has been so hard on America. And it's been so hard on America because we've prepared in one way for the things that we thought were threats and the things that we thought that we needed to win, and all of the things that we sort of thought deep down back in our heads that we were already winning, we really weren't. We were sort of letting them languish. And here we are sort of paying the consequences of a lot of that. So it's really interesting that you should bring up the narrative. I'm interested if anybody has thoughts on sort of that narrative idea of the way that we talk to people. It sort of goes back to the question about how do you begin to bring these ideas to the mainstream? And I think that'll probably be our last bit. If folks want to also weigh in with any last thoughts, please take this opportunity. And after you do, we'll turn it over. I can very briefly jump in and just say I think that if we haven't learned over the last year that national security is not what we're going to expect it to be, then there's no other time to kind of really consider what kind of just redefining what national security means, whether those threats are more domestic or whether there come in terms of in forms of kind of biology or in terms of other kind of wide varieties. I think taking advantage, I mean never letting a crisis go to waste, taking advantage of that to kind of really think and reframe what we consider national security to be. And I think that should really be people-centered. That should be at the center of the community's only thing about who, what does this community need in order to feel secure? And I think that varies widely and that'll just require a lot of thought and listening. You can develop a policy. Thanks so much, all. This has been a wonderful, wonderful conversation and so much food for that. There's a long road ahead. Quisha, your point about time is well taken. I'm going to turn this back over to Heather Hobert with a big thanks for having us all and thank you so much. Thank you, Lacey, for doing such a wonderful job of moderating and thank you to all our panelists for a really amazing conversation which took this to so many more deep places, both ones we had expected and ones we haven't. And as several of you alluded to, I think maybe the best way to finish up here is to say a few more words about Ambassador Jenkins because, Lisa, as you said, many of us at various stages in our career feel this pressure between how much do we want to speak out on issues that concern us and can we do that while still being taken seriously on the policy topics that we're passionate about. And from the founding of WCAPS to her work at Ford and in the Obama administration and on the 9-11 commission and at Rand and as a JD PhD, Ambassador Jenkins is always shown the way that you can do both of those things. And I was so thrilled that we were able to do this event with WCAPS and with her personally before she leaves us for her next big challenge that we're all excited about as undersecretary state-designate for international security and arms control at the State Department. So, Ambassador Jenkins, we couldn't be more excited to have done this as a bit of a tribute to you and also to see how many folks are eager to come up behind you and do some of the same things that you've done all across our field, which is just so exciting to think about what possibilities are. So, thank you all so much. Thank you to my colleagues at New America who made this happen through a couple little glitches along the way. Please check out the links in the chat. You can learn more about all of our speakers and read their essays by going to the event website at newamerica.org or checking out wcaps.org and have a wonderful afternoon.