 Well, good morning everybody. So this panel is a little bit different over the next two days You're going to be talking a great deal about the strategic landscape how it looks in the near term and how it looks at the horizon and You're going to be talking about the weapons and the actors the adversaries and the conflicts What we're going to talk about on this panel is the underlying plate tectonics So what are the trends and the drivers that shape the strategic landscape that create these conditions? That lead to the weapons and the adversaries and the conflicts So this is all about context Now what I've asked this panel to talk about and We're definitely going to talk about what the title is but what I've asked the panel to talk about is to look ahead to 2025 and to Do some thinking about What is what is our strategic preoccupation going to be in 2025? What are we going to be concerned about what threats what challenges? What is that landscape going to look to like to us then? And so we're going to have the first half of our conversation will be about that and then in the second half We're going to transition over to so how do we organize for that world? What kinds of institutions do we need? What's our military force structure supposed to look like? What international institutions do we need? Do we have the government the governance the means that we need to deal with that world we expect to see in 2025 um Now i've asked them to do something a little and i'm going to Set a little context myself before we jump into the discussion But just so you know i mixed it up a little bit with uh with the Actual how we're going to do this conversation and i've asked the panel to do something akin to conference speed dating Which is we're going to start by they're just going to give you a telegraphic list of what they think the biggest challenges or threats Or trends preoccupations are going to be in 2025 without a lot of explanation We're not going to start with a disquisition We're going to do this speed dating style and then we're going to go back and look at that whole picture We have and have a discussion about what that landscape looks like um To prepare for this i decided i wanted to look back And i looked at global trends 2015 Which was written in 2000 and of course we're in the year that they imagined right now And i was curious about how well they did at looking forward and anticipating And they did very well indeed You know they said that information technology would change everything and that may not sound like a bolt out of the blue right now But 15 years ago You did have to have some imagination To say that it was going to change the world of commerce that biotechnology would be changing everything that there would be chronic financial Involatility and a widening economic divide that would shape national security That states would still dominate but governments would be losing control over the means of governance They said that the middle east was going to be Um in chaos with violent extremist movements aimed at their own governments and at the united states And that governments would be shaking to their foundations Um, they did say that there would be a lot of regional military conflicts But not major state conflicts So it was a pretty good It was a pretty good mix and even the places where they were wrong are interesting and i hope we'll talk about Which is they said for example that south africa would be consumed and desay had completely destabilized by aides So even the places where they weren't quite right they said that water scarcity Would be a huge problem by now So even some of the places they were wrong may lead to some interesting discussion So with that let's jump right into our speed dating and um to do that I will turn and introduce you to our panel and for that i'm also going to need a cheat sheet because my goodness These are impressive people with a lot of titles Um first immediately next to me is nadia bliss who is the director of the global security initiative at arizona state University and she's also a professor of practice and this is the one i need to read in the school of computing informatics and decision systems engineering Before she went to asu. She was a group leader at lincoln laboratories. So you can say this is a very accomplished person Next to her is david Gartner And david also has a lot of titles, which is why i have to read it professor of law associate dean faculty co-director of the center for law and global affairs To put it in a nutshell. He's looking at at law and international means for dealing with non-state actors and and trends and Drivers so he's a perfect person to have on this panel as well And last but certainly not least is uh, colonel troi thomas. He is an active duty u.s. Air force officer At the moment he is director for strategic planning on the national security council So he's one of the top strategists in our government before that He was a top advisor to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff He has been deployed in the middle east and in homeland defense missions An intelligence officer and a planner and a very sharp guy So we are glad to have all three of you here for an interesting discussion So nadia get us started in the speed dating What do you think we're going to be strategically preoccupied with or what will be the threat or the concern in 2025? Thanks, Sharon. So i'm not even going to do a list. I'm just going to do one real threat complexity and wickedness of borderless threats particularly in context of uncertainty okay wickedness So i want to highlight that i can't top that i want i do want to highlight two that are closely tied to the theme here One is emerging viruses and the second is water and specifically water shortage and by viruses you mean A wide range. Uh, we see nabola. It could be flu. I'm thinking more, uh, biological Okay, all right All right. Well, I've never speed dated so i'm sure i'm going to blow this I just want to start by saying good morning. I think you should say hi and thank you And thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. I do have one thing I want to um, I want to point out about troi and I and I sorry, I didn't do a disservice Troi is here in a personal capacity. So he is not here speaking on behalf of the administration. So just thanks for that That's a good that's a good point So I I think we're in for a period of extended volatility in the security landscape and I think you know, although the nature of war Is unchanging its character is ever changing in that regard I think we're looking at future wars being communal and increasingly criminal Involving these complex coalitions of state non-state Actors fighting out of fear more than out of interest Using largely methods that are focused on disruption and dislocation All right now explain to us what you mean by wickedness Okay, so um, this is A little bit challenging. So Sharon Mentioned I am at my core a math geek Actually, so spend a decade at MIT Lincoln laboratory where Everything was focused on building the best solution to something I think a lot of the challenges that we're facing today It's a little bit depressing, but don't really have solutions Essentially the definition of a wicked problem. There's been a lot of discussions of wicked problems lately Um is where you have conflicting objectives and interdependencies and likely no solutions a good example of this is climate change, um, I'd say Cyber security is probably another one of those we can try to build the most resilient cyber system in the world But there's still you know that executive is still going to click on that link from his or her mom So when we're dealing with wicked problems, we have to account for those interdependencies We have to account and for those interconnectivities. We have to understand that there's no real separation between water insecurity and food insecurity and even postulate that resource insecurities likely going to lead to political instability And often what we see the discourse on the ground is not really connected to realities of what's going on in a particular country and furthermore the The notion of all of these issues so cyber security climate change pandemics lone wolf type of type of threats None of them are actually incurred in a particular country. So we can't say You know, well, we're gonna worry about russia or we're gonna worry about iran or iraq. We have to think about this holistic holistic interconnected to be honest mess And um, I think the one other thing that I'll say about this is There is So it sounds a little bit depressing But I think there is a tremendous opportunity for collaboration And um across nations collaboration across agencies So I spend a career working with the dod in the intelligence community And now I've been reaching out to Folks in usa id and state and what we're actually beginning to realize is that You know the challenges that the defense department faces a faces in their phase zero mission operations Is actually a development challenge that usa id tries to implement So, um, I guess the bottom line is is I don't think we're facing the type of threats where if we build just a faster computer If we build a better rocket if we build a better radar if we build a precision targeting system I think that's not enough. I think there's a need To account for quite a diverse Diverse set of factors across these multiple layers. So well, let me let me ask you then troi When you say volatility and disruption Is it are you saying the same thing as wickedness just using different words or do you mean something different? I think I do mean the the same thing I mean when you look, you know, there there's a Saying that there are no national security problems There's only dilemmas and the dilemmas seem to be getting increasingly complicated both in terms of the number of variables you have to attend to and at the rate at which those variables are are Are changing and then mostly As we think about strategies and and structures for the future of conflict I think we're largely thinking about the relationships among these things So David, how does how do viruses because you were very specific? So are viruses Emblematic of of what troi and nadia are talking about or or is there a reason you picked that above other things? Sure Well, let me maybe start from the the big picture and move and move kind of zero in a viruses So I think what what both comments have highlighted is that the future threats We're going to face whether some of the biggest future threats are increasingly global rather than international in other words They're not state-to-state As much as they are from a range of non-state actors or even from a range of dynamics like climate and viruses They're also increasingly going to involve The solutions are going to increasingly involve Collaboration not just across different agencies and across different governments and perhaps require new forms of global cooperation We'll get to that No, I just want to set the context so within that so let me give a recent example the Ebola crisis What this is a virus that's actually been around for some time? Although it's evolved and this is the first outbreak that's reached the united states It's the first outbreak that's killed as many people as it has But this is a reflection of sort of failure to Engage in surveillance it took four months to discover that this actually was Ebola and it was doctors without borders who discovered it It took another six months before there was any major investment by any country And it was our country that then led the way But that was still a delay and the biggest sort of delay if you think about it is that We don't have a vaccine for what at least in scientific terms is not as complicated a virus to say the AIDS virus or other things And the reason we don't is because the initial investments we made after 9 11, which were quite substantial in biodefense Weren't able to take things to the end stage And so we need sort of new systems to innovate to get the the kind of drugs ahead of the curve So I think it relates to this set of complexity But also it relates to the complexity of our own how we organize government and how we organize international institutions So were we lucky with Ebola? I think we were lucky People however in west africa have not been so lucky by various and in Relatively good shape guinea and Sierra Leone. This is not dying out. I mean it it may indeed Become a new flashpoint that could reach our shores But but I think it's a it's in a sense a warning shot about the kinds of viruses of the future Um and the ways in which we're going to reorganize to respond So if we don't okay, so this is you do see this becoming worse. Why why is it becoming worse? Well, I don't know that it'll be Ebola. I mean it could be flu So let me there there are strains of flu circulating right now in china that have 60 of the people die who who get the flu that's actually On par with what we've seen with Ebola. They haven't reached our shores yet But as we know with flu it it mutates it travels quickly. It's actually much more infectious than Ebola We also know that this is now some 50 times more lethal than the Spanish flu, which was one of the biggest killers in World War one. So In order to get ahead of this curve, you've got to have the surveillance mechanisms to identify it You have to have the the sort of the will and the resources to invest and you have to have the technology and incentives To develop medicines to sort of protect us and to protect People around the world So it's also partly how these things fit together. Absolutely. I mean would the Spanish flu have killed as many people if it weren't on the back of a war No, perhaps not but but conflicts current conflicts are are no less sort of subject to the conditions that would Would lead to such outbreaks, maybe Yeah, and one of the things so when I throw on the table I was looking the world economic forum put out recently a global risks 2015 report and they made a difference between likelihood and impact So they said the likeliest risk is interstate conflict, but the biggest impact is water crisis Second one was extreme weather events, but the biggest impact was the spread of infectious disease So talk a little bit more about where that goes in 2025. I mean, what do you think? What do you think? Is what's the president in 2025 going to be worried about Troy? Well, it's going to be the only briefing. Yeah, certainly it's uh It's still it's still going to be as it is today climate change and disease, but it's also going to be geopolitics I don't think we want to Discount the the threat posed from from other states. I think I think broadly we're looking at sort of three trends It'll intersect in a way to create a heightened sense of Risk at both an individual level and the social level. So one trend would be sort of this proliferation of both power and advanced technology More actors have more access To to both power and technology than ever before and too many of them are spoilers and too many of them are able to project that Violence I think a second trend is sort of a crisis and institutional authority Where states and multilateral institutions are underperforming Um not able to solve some of these problems and meet expectations And that leads to sort of this new norm of inaction and non-compliance with obstructionist in the system And the third I think uh trend would be I think there'll be an escalation in Identity politics as new forms of identity entrepreneurs take advantage of all these new forms of media in this heightened sense of individual insecurity to try and mobilize people um in some cases to To to violence and the three of those trends intersecting I think create this sort of sense of global risk. I'm reminded of uh The german sociologist Ulrich Beck who just passed away last month, but he wrote about a world risk society he said risk is the condition the human condition in the 21st century and In our misperception of risks can often lead to us acting out of fear in an excess of precaution to maybe apply resources in places that aren't sort of the The wisest so I think I think we'll be basically managing global risk in 2025 across all of these dimensions There's two things I'd like um all of you to talk about with that You know first with nadia managing global risk and particularly when you're talking about all these threads that that tie together And it's you know mutually interdependent system How do we untie that enough to know how to approach it? So what I'd like to talk a little bit about is how you model and what it means to model All those drivers and how they affect each other and then also Maybe lift out climate change and talk about With traditional military threats and some of the things you're talking about troi how a condition like that Um effects, you know, maybe jump right into that both of you how water stress and water scarcity or climate change You know, what's the language we use or that we are using as a government to explain how it affects threats We start there just because I want to lift that out a little bit So, you know, how does climate change is not a threat? We're not going to go attack it with the military But how does it affect? Well, I think it is I think we do consider it a threat to our a threat to our security, I mean In some respects extreme weather events are destructive And and disruptive they're not a threat in the sense that we're It's the threat or use of force military force against us. But in terms of our economic prosperity our security The prosperity and security of others that is connected to us I think in particular the manifestations of climate change particularly in terms of extreme weather Certainly affects our affects our security And I know we've talked to and also it's in a lot of the defense and the national security strategy Not that we're talking about that right now, but um is that it's a An accelerator or a threat multiplier, right that where you already have an unstable state And a and a violent movement and then when you also add in water shortages Um and food scarcity and extreme weather and people have to move That's when it turns into something more than just unhappiness into instability. Is that a fair Absolutely I would just say absolutely. I mean, it's not only a they're not only threats in their own right because they're disruptive and they're destructive But as part of the conditions that make communities ripe for mobilization to give the exasperate compound conflict Absolutely I mean so water shortage will be a source of conflict In the in the in the not too distant future, right? I mean we see well um, Ethiopia is trying to harness the Nile And Egypt may not let that happen and that may turn into a violent conflict even today in the context of the middle east We see strategic battles over the Mosul dam strategic, you know Battles, uh, perhaps to come over to lucha dam. So it's currently an issue But I think it's these longer term issues that we need to be thinking about so here at home We've got a 50 chance of a mega drought a 30 year drought in my region in the southwest An 80 chance of one that'll be 10 years, which is as long as as as was the case in the dustblow What does that mean in terms of our food security here at home? This is not just a future problem Sao Paulo is the largest city in latin america is running out of water as we speak despite being in one of the most Water-rich regions of the world. So what does that mean in terms of migrations across borders? What does that mean in terms of competition over resources to come? I think it'll be quite dramatic, unfortunately I think it's really important for people to understand that There have always been water challenges and states have always Had conflict and generally have worked it out without going to war But we're entering an era when there's going to be absolute scarcity of some of these resources And that's a different baseline So it's hard to know how those things are going to get worked out But talk to us about how we and can we actually understand these complexities and how they interact So I think I'd like to actually pick up on a couple points that uh, David also mentioned so Ebola The the outbreak was rather significant the most significant in the history of the outbreaks and I think You know some of the scientists have observed that one of the reasons for this was the urbanization of the area where the outbreak occurred and this is a perfect example where things are interconnected So typically these outbreaks have been happening in rural regions as opposed to these densely populated urban regions Similarly dengue fever there's studies out there that are showing that climate change is exacerbating dengue fever and potentially to catastrophic effects So I think one of the things that we have to accept So certainly from a technologist academic research perspective is We have to get comfortable with uncertainty We're not going to be able to have a perfect set of risk maps over everything and I will say Risk identifying risk in areas of risk is probably one one of the biggest challenges that we can address together as a as a community So they're exquisite models. They're exquisite models of atmospheric patterns, they're exquisite models of you know temperature rising their exquisite models of water resource management in various areas And sometimes we're still sitting out there debating whether climate change exists. So I think there's a couple things here one We have to start to get the communities talking So the disease community the cdc and the folks that are doing disease models Usually it's mathematicians that are working with bioinformatics type of folks Have to be talking to the people that are studying climate change and working together That's a tremendous challenge and I'll know we'll get into that a little bit later The other component there we have to appreciate the connectivity of everything. A lot of the times we have this tendency to study just the southwest for the water or You know just the middle east or just the Niger river basin or just something else We have to appreciate that all of these things are tightly interconnected, which means understanding Communication networks understanding transportation networks understanding all of those and There are tools out there that you can use to start doing those sort of models But there has to be an appreciation that we're not going to be able to come out with an answer So as we're talking out to policymakers, it's not a matter of saying Look, we've solved it or you know climate change done or disease done But that we've identified almost like a risk landscape that we can We can kind of evaluate with a variety a variety of experts So you can model complexity to the degree that you can start giving options for how to manage risk to some degree I think without a doubt. So, you know complexity and complex systems is you know, a burgeoning Science and I think a lot of this ties back to study of networks So relationships between entities whether it's communication networks or Social networks or infrastructure networks. There's tremendous challenges. They're Mathematical challenges. They're computational challenges But at the moment what we still tend to do is look at all of these events in isolation And I think that's events next next I don't know if next day is the right term It's probably nexus. You know, it's not a water energy nexus. It's not a water food nexus It's not a water disease nexus. It's an all of those nexus And I think that is something that we can start addressing and if we don't we'll keep coming up with You know half well, so yes adequate solutions. Yeah, and let's transition to that to the solution set So let's talk about I mean, so that global trends report said all the things you're saying like I said urbanization population growth water climate Confessional groups identity politics This the rapid spread of more powerful weapons. They're all going to be a problem in 2015 and low and behold they are But we didn't really do anything nexus. I mean we didn't do nothing But we didn't create the means to to prepare for prevent deal with that world. So we are where we are um, are we ready For the 2025 that you all see and if we're not if this current government I personally Just coming out of government. I do not believe that the u.s. Government is organized to manage complexity And the department of defense extensively uses modeling and simulation to plan for the future But I do not believe they use m and s tools to model complexity I do not think that we're organized. I think it's very difficult to reorganize on an international scale even harder And I think all you know all the cry you hear today about we don't have a strategy We need a strategy at bottom is is really discomfort with complexity And the fact that the world won't yield to a single straight line linear strategy. That's my opinion now Let's hear yours. Can I jump in on that please? You know, I like that you started with sort of predictions for today And some of those predictions didn't play out right the prediction that south african and most of sub-saharan africa would be dominated By aids it's not to say it's not a major challenge still. Why is that the case? Well, it's the case in part because Of some, you know a coming together a sort of bipartisan coalitions that are unheard of here in washington these days But but one that invested in reorganizing the american government and reorganizing global institutions to respond to this challenge So how did okay, what did that look like? Well in terms of united states government it had to do with single-minded focus on clear targets and outcomes in a way that frankly isn't commonplace Uh, not just in the development space but in in most areas And in in terms of elevating to sort of presidential level interest And organizing in a new sort of interagency model through this i'm talking about pep far george w bush's Plan for aids relief But the second thing which is just as important is the invention of a new global institution Which is based on a multi stakeholder model of governance, right? So no longer just having governments at the table But having the ngo's like the doctors without borders that i mentioned earlier having Corporations like some of the companies that are sort of investing in these new pharmaceuticals having foundations like the gates foundation That's one of the biggest players in the global health context now As well as folks from the from the global south So it's really a new model of governance to respond to these challenges both at the global level and at the national level So they sort of match this at the national level to try and create new conversations It's this kind of multi stakeholder approach to governance that i think could be quite valuable And building out institutions to deal with water perhaps to deal with you know issues about urban climate change as we move forward in terms of Thinking about the sustainable development goal. So i'm actually optimistic that we have Emerging models out there. I just think that we're not applying what we've learned broadly enough How about you try what do you think so i would i would align myself with this idea that uh You know sort of strategic success in the future is a function of sort of competitive coalition building putting together These complex coalitions of state and non-state public and private actors Be able to do that more quickly Organize it mobilize it Put it into action more so than those you're competing with whether that's an adversary like isle or it's a a natural disaster like uh or a disease epidemic so You know, and i think we do have we have models of that in the past and in the present that have that have worked We've seen it we've seen it in response to natural disasters in the past We've seen us rapidly mobilize a coalition to deal with Isle today, but i think there's going to be more of a premium on that in the future and frankly the us Be more specific now about what that means for the armed forces Or you know, how do they have to organize then to deal with this like you know with the ebola We can do that right, but we're not organized for it Well, i wouldn't necessarily say we're not we're not organized for it. I mean i think the right tool I think the i think the u.s. Military historically has proven to be a remarkably versatile tool and very responsive and i think the ebola Ebola is a case where the speed reach industrial strength of the armed forces was the right tool to rapidly sort of mobilize and provide a platform and lay down some capabilities that then could be transitioned over um to Just more of a civilian civilian capability and it was done in support of the lead government agency usa id And with all of these other partners like global communities and lots of other NGOs And and igio so in some respects, uh setting aside the the timeliness of the response Yeah, um the model i think that's the kind of model that will work in the in the future So for the military i think that puts a premium not on a lot of specialization but on versatility and responsiveness So tell me how that means what that means for force structure what if you could You know talk to the chairman and and say here's what you need to do when you wave your wand What is in 2025? Is there a different force structure or force posture? Do we need a different military? I don't think we need a fundamentally, uh different Different military i i do think that you um it would be um sort of irresponsible not to prepare to defend the nation From high end conventional or nuclear warfare. I think that's always been the Case and that will remain true But in preparing for that kind of threat I think you will then also need to Preserve and prepare some of the capabilities that you will need to deal with some of these more transnational non-traditional security challenges and frankly the key to that to me is not necessarily the technology Or even the force structure, but it's the leadership development And i think that's really what the us military brings to bear In a way um that few others do and that is Leaders that are adaptive and agile and can combine capabilities Or draw in capabilities like our tremendous medical capacity or logistics capacity And bring that to bear rapidly as we did in the case of Ebola Can just after that So I mean I think the other component there I agree with you the sort of the traditional threats are not going away We have to make sure that we account for those um, but I think Overall we can be a lot more strategic in our response instead of tactical So the response to ebola was actually quite well executed, but it was very much tactical It was a crisis that needed to be responded to right away If we plan for things in advance if we have a set of risk maps if we have a set of these interconnected type of relationships between various potential threats There's an opportunity for us to get in there earlier and be prepared and that's why you know the reason climate change is scary Is because it's also takes away Our forces from the threats that may be emerging and require tactical response, right Dealing with the hurricanes dealing with extreme weather dealing with earthquakes Dealing with nuclear meltdowns because of earthquakes and tsunamis All of that takes away from the need to still respond to those to those tactical threats And I mean to be fair one of the things that I think is really important and I resonate with troy is The leadership Has to recognize this so this notion that we need to be more strategic in our planning Is is something that must be recognized at the highest levels and to be honest The quadrennial defense review one of the three pillars of our Defense strategy is build security globally So it is clearly recognized in the top level strategy document of the department of defense Are we doing that? That's another question. I think our who would be doing that if we were going to be building security Do we have the civilian expeditionary capacity to do it? So I think it requires cross agency private academia all of those partnerships to be engaged and I think it's not one of those things that you can I don't think you can force it, right? There is a recognition that this is a need There is a recognition that this is a very important need But it requires a few key leaders to say we will be more transparent in our actions We will be more collaborative in our actions We will build coalitions with other governments and other agencies and I don't think that's a trivial thing But I I think overall we can do it That's what you were saying worked in the case of AIDS, but can we afford to keep doing it this way where we have a you know sort of a Outer crust of an institution in the united states and across the world And then we have to build on top of it to actually handle I I fear we can't afford not to right? I mean in the sense that we can't so So I have a I have a slightly different take on a bullet, right? And it's not just about the us response it's about the global response So we have a world health organization, which is dominated to a too large degree by regional fiefdoms including a fiefdom in africa that was Slow to respond right in part because national governments didn't want to admit that they had this level of crisis And so it's not just that I think the us government should have responded more quickly, but that globally We don't have the sort of the security of health infrastructure Which is part of what we're going to need around the world to protect us from emerging infectious disease Nor do we have the surveillance capacity at the level that we need and then within the us government I'd be interested in hearing more about this I think there's there's the challenge where the urgent Displaces the these longer range threats, right the kind of What we're saying is the important and and I don't you know, this is where maybe others expertise would be more helpful And you see how do we reorganize? I mean your office is thinking long-term strategy, but but in a sense it's somewhat of an outlier I think in terms of the inboxes of Of many officials. So how do you get ahead of the the crisis of the day? Well, I think many of the folks in here have been in uh been in government And they know that the inbox is certainly a challenge and the the urgent can sometimes crowd out the The strategic but I I think you would find in every Every department and agency and certainly in the national security council That a good bit of bandwidth is is going to some long-range planning I mean you certainly can't argue that we're not doing some long-range planning to deal with climate change or global health security or That we're not focused on the future by rebalancing our attention more to To to asia And so there's there's not a day that goes by at least in my my experience at the pentagon and at the at the national security council Where some significant portion of the institution isn't dedicating itself to the future. Maybe not the deep Deep future, maybe not always 30 years out But often at least the near the near to midterm future So, you know, but that's not what you know, that's not what's covered in the in the news You know our long-term planning for the But sometimes it is, you know And I think one of the challenges then is how you get the resources the means involved in that conversation so that You can have a quadrennial defense review that recognizes We need to lay the foundation and recognizes that climate change is a will be a problem in 2025 But are we actually then investing Toward that end and are we creating the institutions and I want to ask again, maybe more bluntly do we need to Are is it possible to restructure and destroy and remake institutions or do we just have to accept That it is what it is and build them ad hoc To where we need them Um, I think it's really hard. There's a there's a deep path dependence with institutions So the kind of multi stokeholder governance that I mentioned the reason the world health organization doesn't have it Is because it's sort of a 20th century product of the post-World War two era And it's an interstate institution. It's pretty hard to turn those into multi stakeholder institutions We don't have a lot of examples of that We have more examples of 21st century institutions, especially in the health context, but not only in the health context Which are embracing this model. So, you know, when we think about some of the water challenges I think that might be a good candidate for for a new set of institutions internationally within the government I think one of the issues that I've seen, you know in the sort of development side of this is that The the integration right now of state and a id puts pressure on the sort of shorter term planning It can be helpful and and you know current operations in the way that That nadia mentioned, but it can get it can get even within the government I think away from thinking about these longer term drivers of climate or emerging Can you can you talk a little bit nadia about some of the work you're doing on climate change with social media? Sure. So I guess to your earlier question I think it is possible to reorganize an institution our president michael crow has done it pretty successfully, I think So and actually, I mean to be honest the restructuring university and restructuring agencies towards a more multi mission orientation is not I would claim it's not that different. It's it's rather significant restructuring. So if we if we talk a little bit about This holistic approach to Understanding and tracking some of these risks. So What the tendency is is to completely separate The models from the real-time Analytics or real-time analysis of what's going on on the ground From the historical past of what has happened and some of the some of the research that's ongoing presently at asu is actually to combine all three of those domains So you have this seamless interaction between the past the present and the future to allow you to navigate through various spaces I'll give you a semi a semi concrete example. So one of the things that we're looking at is Scarcity of scarcity of water a good example of that is of course the southwest Well, of course, one of the things that you can do is you can actually track social media As to the reference to the word drought or reference to the word scarcity or flood or something like that and what that actually allows you to do is Look at the framing of the dialogue on the ground. So what is framing using certain types of keywords To encourage or discourage a certain interpretation. So what does that actually mean? What does that actually mean from an implementation perspective? Well, if you can look at the southwest and project 30 or 40 years out and realize that there's going to be a significant drought And you know that the framing of the discourse is focused on say Need for investment and infrastructure or need for new policy, you know, what sort of implementation Will actually be more effective on the ground The other component to this is you can actually use social media is almost like a temperature in absence of Real data. So you may not be able to go in and measure Scarcity in detail in every single country, but you can get it as essentially You know a test. How is it going? Are people worried about this and sometimes what's what's interesting So there's research that people forget things very fast. So for example, we were looking at california and arizona And there's we do have significant drought issues and there was a period of rain and all of a sudden everybody stopped talking about drought Right and drought is a long-term strategic problem. It doesn't go away with one period of rain So that's just a little bit of an example. That's great. We have time for a couple of questions from the audience So Yes, we have one right here Yes If you wish to be recorded for all time, yes Hi, Simone Garrow from control risks. Um, where does the changing oil market fit into all of this? Uh, it's a good question and interestingly enough global trends. Yeah global trends 2015 said we'd be fine That uh, most of the world's resources were still in the ground and that by 2015 it wouldn't be a problem um I think one of the interesting things about about the oil market is the real problem is concentration of supply And volatility political volatility where it's concentrated So as long as the united states is part of a global market that concentration of supply in other countries like russia iran nigeria Saudi arabia that's going to can iraq It's going to continue to be a very volatile market and the ups and downs will continue to be a challenge For the global economy and for the political economy So I think that's a long-term trend when it comes to oil I also think that right now the world consumes something like 89 million barrels a day The global economy runs on this stuff It's going to be a tough transition And we're going to have to make sure that hundreds of millions of people still have access to energy today And also lay in the future For a different kind of energy economy or it's going to be much worse So it's an interesting dynamic for sure the way that energy destabilizes and we talk about organizing and you know One last plug from me and let's take another question Is that my office was an experiment in that I ran in the department of defense in in a How to manage an issue that cuts across and that is a long-term multi stakeholder issue And my office has been eliminated since so Things pop up and they pop down as as need be and I think our goal was to was to try to influence the larger institution And that has to be a part of the solution Yes, sir And then we do have someone who really wants to ask a question. So we'll get to that next Ken Meyer gorg world ox It's been 70 years since the atomic bomb was first used and if you look at the progress in biology chemistry electronics Since that time Seems to mean that that we have probably developed some weaponry that we're not even familiar with That may make the prospect of a future armageddon based on something other than nuclear war possible For instance people have been talking for 20 years about a weapon that could target enemies based on genotype Which gives new meaning to the word genocide? In that regard, uh, do we know whether we're weaponizing ebola? David Um, I don't know. Uh, I think you know, there are a number of conventions against Biological weaponry. We're not so I would I would hope not an imagine not that but you're raising the possibility that there's some non-state actor out there who might try to and I think that is not Perhaps as remote a possibility as we would wish it to be and there are certainly states that and including the one we're sitting in that have developed Biological and chemical agents in the past. So it's not an unrealistic Question as a state weapon either but try and yet any comment? I have no Well, think think ahead again 10 years from now are the weapons going to be different and are we going to see weapons like this? Oh, I I would think absolutely. I mean, I'm not a future technologist, but there's some panels that'll go into that But certainly Bio weapons are a tremendous concern, which is why we've invested so much in in biodefense and if there were You know things that could cause extinction like events if not globally but regionally it would be something like An epidemic particularly an airborne pathogen That could very quickly move and wipe out major portions of the population. So we've got to be prepared for that Yes Thank you. Hi. I'm john glenn with us global leadership coalition and thanks a lot for a really stimulating conversation I want to ask you all to talk a little bit more about the kind of complex coalitions required for these problems And suggest one example there when we're seeing some of the changes about it in some ways changing roles of government or the private sector or academia I mean if you look 50 60 years ago Overwhelmingly the capital flows in the developing world were from official of development assistance Today the figure estimates are that's about 10 percent. So sometimes in our work We say that rather than substituting for private capital as it needed to do in the past Government needs now to leverage private capital because what the private sector can do well is bring things to scale That's one example in a model of thinking about it But rather than I'd like to ask you to take a step further than we need complex coalitions. What are those roles? What are those responsibilities and how they recall? How do they necessitate us to change the way we may think about those people? So our government's becoming leverage and catalyst instead of the driver Is that just reality? I mean, but it doesn't it doesn't seem to be right now Good Let me let me pick up on that theme. So as we're thinking towards a new set of goals, right? Integrating developments and and the environment sustainability sustainable development goals One idea that I think could have great value is to try and leverage private finance Especially bond finance for cities because cities are the drivers of our emissions They're also the drivers of our economic growth And yet the reality is if you look at sub-Saharan Africa, for example Only Dakar outside of South Africa has actually been able to have any bond issue And they were only able to do that because USAID helped support it So why don't we think more broadly about the kind of green investments to deal with these water shortages to deal with some of the health infrastructure? But to do that, frankly, it it won't happen by itself You do I do need government to incentivize to leverage sometimes to back These kinds of financing and and we may need new forms of global cooperation to do it So I think you're quite right that that's an avenue to look at and I think it sort of feeds into the kinds of conversation We're gonna have it It's and let's have some more commentary on that but also if you would now morph it into sort of your closing thoughts So if you would about where we're going to be in 2025 and how How we do this how we create these coalitions that will allow us to govern in that world So I guess one of the very specific things in terms of in terms of partnerships I do think there's a tremendous opportunity for very strong partnership within the government With the department of defense intelligence community and USAID I mean that just A short personal anecdote when I started at ASU I was working on a lot of defense related issues and Literally my next door office mate was focused on Development and USAID and for about four months We did not talk at all except say hi to each other in the hallway And then four months into my tenure there We we sort of were in a meeting together and we realized We were thinking about exactly the same thing like I mean exactly the same things And if you think about something that I said earlier, so phase zero operations Prekinetic operations are development operations. So very strong collaboration there. I think Is something that is both necessary and possible And I guess from a closing from a closing point perspective. So one of the things that Sharon sent to all of us in preparation for this was sort of can we end on a positive note and To be honest I don't think we can end on plan and all I really think we can. I think everything that I am hearing from both partners within the us And international discussions that we've been having with partners outside of the us There's this general understanding at very high levels that there's this need for Cooperation and collaboration And I think we all understand that we don't live in like this closed all society And we have we have to work together In the presence of uncertainty and the presence of wickedness to address these challenges together and to be honest That's the only way we're going to be able to do it. Troy Last thought. Well, I certainly I certainly agree with that. I begin with uh, first of all, you know, it's it's about It's about relationships in the united states as well positioned in that regard globally because our diplomats our development professionals Our service member are out there in every part of the world And that's important that we we sort of build on those relationships so that we can actually rapidly mobilize these coalitions I think there's other some real practical things we can do we can Share information more we can take more risk with information sharing It's something we have a comparative advantage in as a as a nation and as a as a government And it's a it's a low-cost high impact way to build trust and we keep these coalitions together and the other thing I would add is Ideas even as we develop sort of the sophisticated capabilities to fight kind of high-end wars They still have to be able to plug and play with people that can't keep keep pace So we put a premium on interoperability I think we also got to think about sort of co-operability capabilities that allow people that have Don't quite have an f-22 or an f-35 but be able to communicate and integrate So that when we are using our military we can do it with a bigger coalition So we have to build the enabling platforms to to have these kinds of pop-up coalitions David any last thoughts just quickly Thanks for for having this panel. I think it's really important to keep this focus on long-term drivers of insecurity I think it's important to remember the the role of the united states in the past and Potentially in the future and catalyzing the kinds of global cooperation institutions. I was talking about and lastly to think about leveraging non-state actors as allies in solving these problems even as in the short term obviously we need to address those non-state actors who are causing problems Well, uh, this is a great panel and I would ask you to applaud them not just for what they said to you today But for the fact that all three of them are actually walking the walk and they're doing they're trying to do And prepare for that future and help prepare this country for how to be Successful in a more complicated future. So these are practitioners and thinkers and let's give them a hand