 Good morning. Good afternoon. Whatever it is here. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the United States Institute of Peace. Many of you work in this building, so I don't have to welcome you, but many of you don't. Some of you are coming back from other places and I'm very pleased that you are coming back here. We've got a very interesting session here this afternoon that I've been looking forward to for some time. Let me just tell you how we're going to run this. I'm going to introduce David Smock, whom we all know, in a moment, and he will come up here to give kind of the keynote. Following that conversation, we will have a conversation with Ambassador Laurie Fulton, whom I will also introduce in a moment, and Ambassador Fulton and David will have a conversation about the history of USIP. Following that, we will have a panel discussion that, again, Ambassador Fulton will moderate, and three of our best current employees and former employee, the head of the Alumni Association, will have that conversation and they will come up to the stage and Laurie will moderate. Following that, there will be light refreshments out here for continuing conversation, and then I understand that Brian is sponsoring further discussions, conversations down the street here at Tonic, where you can have more than lemonade. Let me introduce the keynote speaker, David Smock. David, of course, has spent 24 years here, and he has announced that he is retiring in January. We will have an opportunity to bid him a proper farewell, but he has seen a lot of USIP history. Indeed, he has made a lot of USIP history, and so we are very honored to have him here. I've been honored and privileged to work with David, and I want to acknowledge that right here. It has been a learning experience for me. His leadership, his innovation, his mentorship, probably many people in this room have benefited from David's leadership and his ability to mentor. He, as I say, has seen USIP history firsthand. He has been thinking about this and writing about this for some time, and so it's a great opportunity for us to listen to David Smock, so David, please. Thank you, Bill. Thank you all for coming today. I'm a little intimidated seeing the last person that came into the room. Charles Smith here sitting in the front row, he wrote the legislation for USIP and was also a staff member here in the early years, so I'll be interested in Charles' reactions to my addressing the question of, has USIP fulfilled its founder's vision? The earliest grassroots movements that mostly started in 1968, and the earliest movements advocated an academy comparable to the military academies, a four-year degree-granting institution that would teach people how to make peace as opposed to the military academies teaching people how to make war. Then legislation was introduced in 1968 by Vance Hartke and Mark Hatfield to create a National Peace Academy. 1968 wasn't finally passed something until 1984, and there were various councils and lobbying groups that were organized. One was the Peace Act Advisory Council, then the Council for a Department of Peace that advocated both for a Department of Peace and for an academy to complement the Department of Peace, and later the National Peace Academy campaign, which was the main campaign vehicle for promoting the passing of legislation. There are a variety of agendas for these people advocating for an institute. As I say, one was the four-year academy to teach and grant degrees, but the leaders of the peace campaign pretty much abandoned that early on, realizing it was going to be competitive with other institutions and that we should be a catalyst rather than a competitor with other institutions. We should complement existing programs. There was a disagreement among the campaign organizers about whether the agenda should be exclusively international or whether it should include domestic, and one of the leaders of that campaign said that they advocated both domestic and international and the way the institutes turned out we're only addressing about 40% of what they had in mind because they saw a broad domestic agenda as well. There were three basic functions seen for an academy. One was research, education, and training, and information services. Then in 1978, Congress authorized the setting up of a commission to look at proposals for a National Peace Academy. This was chaired by Senator Matsunaga and with other eminent people involved, including Andrew Young. They held hearings in 12 cities. They had 300 witnesses. They interviewed 50 other people. There were 6,000 pages of transcripts from these interviews and information collected. In 1981, they submitted their report to Congress on establishing a peace academy and advocated strongly for the creation of an academy. One analyst concluded that the witnesses to the commission saw this as potentially serving a multitude of different purposes. One was as a symbol to the international community. Second, to raise public awareness of issues of peace. Third was to legitimize the fields of peace education and peace research. Fourth, to balance the nation's commitment already going to the war colleges. Five, to contribute to national security. Six, to create an example of positive cost-benefit ratio vis-a-vis expenditures on weapons. Seventh, to avoid politicization of peace research. And eight, to identify the U.S. as a world leader in peace studies. So there were a variety of people who had different ideas of what this organization should look like. But there were several things that were quite clear. One was we should be excluded from government policymaking. And second, we should be excluded from intervening in zones of conflict. Just put your heads around that and then compare them where we are today. The bill supporting the academy was introduced in 1981. There was a lot of opposition, particularly from universities. The apse of schools were particularly vociferous in their objections, feeling this was going to be competitive. The Reagan administration often lift up the fact that Ronald Reagan signed the Defense Authorization Bill of 1984 as meaning that the Reagan administration and President Reagan supported the creation of the institute. The Reagan administration opposed the creation of the institute. President Reagan wrote to committee chairs in the Congress opposing it, saying this was duplicative of private efforts underway and the government couldn't afford what at that time was a $4 million budget. There were letters from other administration leaders including Ken Adelman, who was head of ACT at the time and who he was opposed to the institute. Ironically, he became a member of the first board of directors and David Stockman also opposed. Final passage of the bill came in 1984. It was changed. The name was changed from an academy to an institute. There was a 25% requirement that the budget go for grants to non-profit organizations and this was to pacify universities that had opposed the creation of the institute. This was to be seen, we were to be seen as a catalyst and a supporter for existing programs. And the language, there was language in the original bill about possibility of our granting degrees and this was eliminated as well out of deference to the universities. This is an interesting bit of history. As the bill was being considered, some of the leaders of the campaign wanted to kill the whole thing. They were afraid that under Reagan administration that Reagan would appoint a right wing ideologically oriented board and it would undermine the whole purpose of the institute. Fortunately, they didn't follow through on their effort to kill the bill. The report language from the bill emphasized the fact that we were to be a catalyst, that we would be supportive of other institutions. We were to infuse the field with new coordination, prestige and funding. And while it was clear that we should avoid involvement in policymaking, there was a recognition that our research should be shared with policymakers. But the institute faced opposition, continued opposition from other quarters. The Office of Management and Budget wanted to capture the institute and make it a component of the executive branch. The institute's original board objected strenuously and this was finally dropped. The State Department proposed 17 amendments to our act which would have made the institute a small grant-making organization under the control of the Department of State. This fortunately was rejected by Congress. In the early years, the House consistently zeroed out our budget and we were only saved by the Senate putting funding back in. And the reasons for the House objections were that we could be funded privately. It duplicated the work of other institutions and the institute was slanted to the left even though the original board was slanted clearly to the right. Ken Jensen, who is an original staff member of the institute, had this to say, in the beginning nobody thought this thing was going to last for more than a year because it would be either killed by the right or by the left. Some were convinced that it had fallen into the hands of the CIA. On the other hand, there were a whole bunch of people in Washington in 1986 to 1988 who thought the word peace was a Stalinist word. Even though the board, original board as required by the legislation was divided between Democrats and Republicans, it was appointed by the Reagan administration and it had definitely a conservative tilt. This was the last days of the Cold War and the big issue that the board was most concerned about was to educate people about the nature of the Cold War and the Soviet threat. The issues that divide us from communism was a primary concern and the orientation of the board was that you achieve peace through strength not through conflict resolution. Grants and fellowships were central to the original programming of the board and they felt very strongly about these two programs being central features of the board. Now both programs have been downsized and changed dramatically. The 25% requirement is met but by other means. The peace essay contest which has recently been eliminated was also an original program that the board felt strongly about. The board was adamant that the institute should not be close to the State Department and looking at the board minutes, from the very beginning until the present time and periodically time and again this question comes up what is our relationship to State Department and the board pushing back saying let's keep our distance but today we have radically changed our position relating to State Department particularly through the fact that so much of our funding comes through interagency transfers mostly from State Department. And again as with the originators of the legislation the board was adamant that we should not be involved in zones of conflict. The institute today would be a major disappointment to the original board. Some beginnings to addressing this question came in 1992-93 a project that I was involved in working in Somalia. Bob Oakley who had been a staff member the institute was the U.S. representative in Mogadishu. Just before Black Hawk down and we gathered a group of Somali diaspora to feed recommendations to Oakley on how he should undertake the task in Mogadishu. In the early 1990s was track two dialogue for Kashmir with the encouragement from the State Department. The rule of law program was asked by Russian legislators to comment on a draft Russian constitution and this actually had an influence on the final character of the Russian constitution. So you can see that even though these feelings ran strongly that we should not be involved in zones of conflict, we should be distant from the State Department already in the early years who's beginning to be whittling away at these limitations. So to summarize grants, fellows, peace essay context, where the way they are today would be a disappointment to the original board. The academy is probably the closest of all the current programs to what the original board and the legislation had in mind. The early vision. Our intervention in zones of conflict would be a disappointment. Closeness to the State Department would be a major departure. The idea about research was certainly doing research and the originators of the institute had in mind what we do research, but I think they had in mind more academic research than what we're doing today. None of this is to suggest that we've lost our way or that the institute today is worse than what was originally envisioned. I was one of those that pushed for our involvement in zones of conflict and I think we're better off for it. But it's interesting to see how the institute has evolved from the original vision. Circumstances change. Institutions evolve. This is very normal. We are certainly a more mature and accomplished institution than we were in the early years and I think our accomplishments far surpass what the founders envisaged even if they are different from what the founders had in mind. Thank you. Thank you, David. A lot of that history is before us today and as David says, this institute has evolved from where it started and some places it's been different, some places it's been the same, some places it's better, some places it's worse. I was looking at the YouTube tapes of the groundbreaking that took place right here, of course, in 2008 and here President George W. Bush was there giving the address and he was accompanied by a range of secretaries of state so the relationship between this institute and the state department was very clear. I was interested in David's point about being accused of being the CIA because I was in Ukraine and I was just leaving Ukraine in 2009 and I knew that at the last part I knew that I was coming to the Institute of Peace and so I told some of my Ukrainian colleagues that I was coming to the Institute of Peace and at the time it was in a building up on 17th Street in M big thing was the National Restaurant Association and so my Ukrainian colleagues said National Restaurant Association Institute of Peace I know what organization you're really going to they had this they had this figure the relationship to the State Department goes back to the point David made I think this is very interesting and in this room indeed soon to be on the stage are a lot of people who have worked for the State Department I would say that that is a positive relationship I see Ambassador Carson back there and nodding his head I have spent some time in the State Department myself so this relationship has been and Ambassador Steiner in the back as well so we've got a lot of people who have this kind of experience and one of those is our moderator that I want to ask to come to the stage Ambassador Shulton former board member here at USIP before she was the ambassador to Denmark that was in 2004 to 2008 she was on there and in 2009 to 2013 she was our Ambassador in Denmark she recently retired from the law firm Williams and Conley where she was recognized as one of by Washingtonian magazine. So we are very pleased that Ambassador Connelly could join us here today from the State Department, David. I'm sorry that there's another place. But please welcome Ambassador Connelly. Thank you very much for that nice introduction. And as I said to someone else earlier today, once you are bitten by this institution, you are part of this institution for life. And I am very proud of my service on the board of directors of the United States Institute of Peace. And proud to have been part of some of the efforts that David has been involved in. David, I loved the history. I had a different role in the mid-80s. I was executive director of peace links. And among the things we did was activate women around the country to help our leaders find alternative ways to deal with international conflict. And so among the efforts we did was to get our women around the country and brought tens of thousands of signatures to President Reagan, supporting the National Peace Academy, had tens of thousands of postcards and letters go to Congress. And so it was of with interest that I watched as the National Peace Academy campaign became part of the United States Institute of Peace. So David, you've touched on some interesting parts of that history. I think one of them is the skepticism, if it's fair to say that, of some of the founders and legislators about what would happen to this institute they created if it became part of government. Is that fair? How did that play out? And how did we come to the state where a State Department is one of our best partners? Well, I think the suspicion was mutual on both sides. As I said, the State Department opposed the creation of the institute, thinking it was going to be competitive, wanted to control it, keep it small. And on our side, we didn't want to be controlled by the State Department or be brought under this big umbrella that would limit our own independence. But over the years, State Department saw we could play a useful role. I mentioned the fact that in the early 90s there was a track two effort on cashmere. This was stimulated by the State Department, came and asked us to do that. And there were other invitations of that sort. We, on our side, saw the opportunity to have some influence on policy. And even though the original board was opposed to our getting involved in the policy process, and until today, we have strict limits on how much we can be engaged. Still, there was an interest in seeing if we could put in front of policymakers ideas that they might adopt. And there were the funding resources. If you look at our budget today, a very high proportion of what keeps us going is from transfers from state and AID so that there's funding that comes out of that relationship with State Department. That reminds me that the United States Institute of Peace is, I think, unique in that it's not a government institution. It is created as an independent corporation, non-profit corporation within the District of Columbia. But yet, all of its operating budget must be funded by Congress. So. Or the government. Yeah, or the government, yeah. And so it can be, yeah, interagency transfer. But it's an interesting, I don't even know that you call that a hybrid. But has that worked, do you think, to USIP's detriment or to USIP's benefit? We have some differences among the staff here in how we should. There are people here who would say, just forget it, folks. You're part of government, and admit it, and go with it. There are others who very jealously guard the independence that comes with being not part of the executive branch. And this is true, particularly in our overseas operations, where we're operating in sensitive areas, where their suspicions as in Ukraine are thinking we're CIA. So I think we ideally have the best of both worlds, that we can be a bridge between non-government and government. And State Department can see us playing a role that they wouldn't turn to other NGOs. But we can also say that we're not government, and we can establish our independence and not be accused of being just a branch of government. I remember during the period I was on the board, and we were operating on the ground in Iraq. It seemed to be a benefit to us, at least as a board member. That was my perception, to be able to be not a United States government entity as such. How does that work, particularly in your area, David, in religion and peacemaking? Well, it's been a bit of an anomaly to have a semi-governmental organization with a religion program. And one of the agendas we have had as a religion program over the years is to try to get greater acceptance in the State Department, particularly, of relating to other disleaders in various places around the world, recognizing religion as a legitimate subject for consideration by diplomats. The Establishment Clause has created great nervousness on the part of diplomats, not wanting to bridge the gap between religion and state. But we're pleased to see that there's been some movement. And the Office of Religious Engagement, in small part, was the result of things that we did. And so I think there's greater acceptance of our role in this field and of the US government getting more involved with religion. Oh, dear, that sounds almost a bit like policymaking, David. Another interesting bit of the history, I think, that you touched on, and I happen to see from another perspective as well, was the, what shall I say, the near non-birth of the United States Institute of Peace as people in Congress became afraid that if you created this entity during the Reagan administration, it would be taken over by people who didn't really believe in conflict resolution. And then, in fact, I spoke recently with somebody who was a member of parliament and whose committee was very important in establishing the institution, who said that also during the first several years of the Institute, they continued to have that concern because they felt that the initial board was very much in the, as you called it, peace through strength as opposed to conflict resolution. What's your view on how the dynamic between the board and it's a complicated dynamic between the board and the Institute and then the board and the Congress has played out? You know, I've emphasized that the initial board was the right-leaning board. But I've looked very carefully at the grants that they approved, at the fellows that they selected. And they were quite assiduous in trying to be balanced, going against some of their own convictions to make sure that there was a broad sweep of the ideological spectrum between right and left and middle. In the early stages, the board controlled virtually everything. They made all the decisions. The staff were seen as implementers. Sam Lewis in interviews said that one of his major tasks as the first substantive president of the Institute after Robert Turner was to try to establish that the staff had a more substantive role than the board was giving it. And this is a tugging and pulling. Sam even said that he used his best diplomatic skills as a foreign service officer to try to establish that the staff should have more authority and power. In a way, it was natural for the board in the early stages to control things until patterns have been established and principles have been laid down. And over the years, there's been an evolution. So I think there's much more balance between the policymaking role of the board and the role that the staff plays in decision making under the rubric of those overall policies. You know, one of the other unique aspects of USIP as we're alluding to is its bipartisan nature. And you've been here for almost a quarter of a century. So you've seen how that bipartisan nature works. And unlike a official government agency, USIP doesn't necessarily change its board automatically with each administration. It doesn't necessarily change its policy or its engagements with each administration. It continues in some ways its efforts, regardless of which party happens to have control of the executive branch. What's your experience, David, on how that has come to pass? Because I think that's quite extraordinary in this town. There have been times in the history of the Institute and the board when the difference between the Democratic members and Republican members was a real difference and there was an ideological split and there were tensions as different issues came up. We had a board meeting yesterday. I think if an outsider had come in and watched those proceedings, it would have been impossible for them to identify which were the Democrats and which were the Republicans. It's been an important evolution and I hope we can continue that way. That's great. What I'd like to do is take a couple of questions from the audience if you have questions. So please ask your question as succinctly as possible so we have time for several questions and raise your hand before I'll call on you and you'll get a microphone. So this has been such a thought-provoking history. I'm sure you have some questions. Okay, we'll go back in the corner. I'll turn this into a question but I hope I can make a comment too. I'm so old I was on the congressional staff when the legislation was going through. My name is Fred Tipson. I was counsel of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee which was not a major player in establishing the Institute but I represented the chairman who was then a Republican, Senator Charles Percy and not regarded by the Reagan administration as being a real Republican. And I will recall the concern about the legislation being hijacked by the conservative agenda of some parts of the administration and I was not a big fan of the president in those days but I think it's important to remember that during that period they established the National Endowment for Democracy and there was a very strong strain within the conservative movement that emphasized democracy as a source of peace, the whole democratic peace argument that democracies were less likely to go to war with each other and it's important to distinguish different opinions within the Republican side of Washington but the administration as well who had different approaches that were sometimes reflected more than others in various institutions. I was particularly concerned to see the original board that was appointed and some of the conversations that went on on the board in those days were pretty scary but it was the height of the Cold War and there was no question that peace was a loaded term and depended a lot on your strategy for thinking about how to achieve peace. So kudos to those who recognized that the original vision of people like Matsunaga and Mark Hatfield and maybe even Vance Hartke I wouldn't know was that the United States needed to be seen to be making a statement to the world that we believe that peaceful approaches to resolving conflict were as important as the war machine that we were accused of having created during the Vietnam period. It wasn't a matter of distinguishing ourselves from the United States government. We wanted the Institute to represent the government's commitment to a certain approach to peace that was very important to invest in and that's been a struggle ever since the Institute was created but I think right now I would say those who believe in that vision have like David Smock have prevailed in that battle to establish a great institution. Thank you. David do you wanna comment on that or do you have any views on whether USIP has changed as after the Cold War? Only to say that the support for the Institute in the Senate was bipartisan. That was very important. I mean Mark Hatfield probably the Institute wouldn't have been created without Mark Hatfield playing a leadership role. Thank you. We'll take one question over here. Would you tell us a little bit more what is meant by peace through strength? I can see it in many like 360 view and it applies but it also can be peace through a little bit of force too, strength and force. So how do you distinguish peace through strength of the individual countries involved or how do you apply that? We need to be well armed to maintain world peace. That's the way we maintain order and peace in the world is through our military strength. Must be a generational thing. David and I are contemporaries and so we understand peace through strength as it was used as a world view in those days and it really was to have a lot of nuclear weapons is that fair to say and strong ground troops and a very strong military and that that was how we would be a strong nation. Those views have changed over time. I'm gonna take one more question and that's gonna be the last question from the audience and I have a closing question for David before we move on. I just wanted to follow up actually. I thought that was an interesting point to bring up here particularly. Is it possible to have peace without military strength and do you think it ever will be? I'm not gonna go there. Okay. Okay, I have a question for David. So before we transition out of this wonderful opportunity to talk to someone who has the depth of experience with USIP that David does, I wanna ask where do you see USIP going in the decades ahead? When Kristen Lord was leaving, she asked various of us to suggest ideas that might be passed on to the new president about changes that might be made in the Institute. And I offered four suggestions. One is, are we coming to bureaucratic? I don't know how many things I sign every day to approve this, that and the other thing. Secondly, we need to reassess the state of the grant program that I think we may not be going in the right direction with the grant program and we may wanna go back to some of the basic principles of the grant program. Third, we wanna reassess our relationship to the Department of Defense and particularly the role that we've played in the QDR process. And fourth, we need to keep under continual review the relationship that we have with State Department and the dependence we have on interagency transfers and whether we're too dependent on, we need to go back to some of the thinking originally about not being captured by State Department. As I look at the strategic plan, the part of it that excites me the most is the expectation that we will play a significant role in mediating the end of three significant international conflicts over the next five years. I think that's a wonderful challenge. Puts us in the lane that we need to be in in terms of addressing the big issues and using what we have to offer and we have a lot to offer to really bring peace in zones of conflict. David, thank you. Join me in thanking David while we transition. I'd like to call up the next panel. While they're coming up here, I'll just say that we are, I'm thrilled to have this great panel. We've talked about the history of USIP. Now we're gonna talk about USIP going forward. We have Manal Omar, Anand Vargaze and Brian Rose. Brian will be up here as soon as he gets a mic. But so let me start this part of our panel by asking each of our panelists to say a few words about their role and experience at USIP. Manal, we'll start with you. I'm the acting vice president for the Middle East and Africa Center. I've been with the US Institute of Peace for about seven years. And within the Middle East and Africa Center, one of the things that we've done with our overall strategy was really to look and explore what we thought and what we meant when we were talking about conflict. And one of the things that we recognized was that in our viewpoint, conflict isn't always negative. That conflict can lead to accountability. It can lead to change. It's the use of violence that we really wanted to be able to target. And not just specifically talking about, you know, a world free of violence, but actually daring to challenge ourselves within our center about what would sustainable peace look like. And as part of that, we recognize that we really needed to be able to develop tools on the ground within the countries that we had prioritized to be able to really have that longterm vision of sustainable peace. And that looks very different in each of the countries. We have quite a wide range. When you talk about Middle East and Africa, I don't know how you can't be overwhelmed, particularly from the lens of conflict and conflict resolution. But we did manage to identify key areas and key thematic areas. But you know, the different work we look at is some of it really is about research that's fed through on the ground experience through practitioners that are actually running various programs. And we try to make sure that we feed it up to the decision makers. This is an essential part of our strategy because we recognize if we're just talking to the people on the ground alone, there can be a lot of frustration because let's face it, they're not the ones creating the conflict and they're not the decision makers. So how to tie that to the top, to the top level decision makers without forgetting the necessity of being on the ground and working and bringing that combination. The other area, and I think something that I'm proud of was that the Middle East in particular did lead the first field presence through the leadership of people like Paul Hughes and Rusty Barber. The first on the ground field office was open in Baghdad, in Iraq, continues to be functioning. We're very proud that we're still present there. And while everyone was exiting, we managed to stay and we knew that USIP's work was really just beginning. And I think across the region in the Middle East and Africa, that's true recognizing the need for field presence to really bring together and match the academic with the practitioner. And I think that's a very specific niche that USIP has developed over the years. Just since the time I've begun, I can really see that development and recognizing the balance of each. And finally, as I said, the tools, you gotta have partners on the ground. And I think no matter what we do, it just will never lead to sustainable peace. It's going to overwhelm resources and frankly, it's not efficient. I've never found a country where the local community doesn't know the solution. They know the solution. They just don't have the resources and they don't have access to the decision making. So really partnering with that and working with organizations on the ground, we've been able to focus not only on institutions, but also individuals. We found those two parallel strategies to be really essential. Great. Thank you, Manal. Now, before we start questions in a conversation, I wanna be sure you know who each of our panelists is. So, Brian, I'm gonna turn to you. Good afternoon. My name is Brian Rose. I spent about seven and a half years here at USIP before departing in April. I'm now at the Elliott School for International Affairs of the GW. I focused on a wide range of issues while I was here, ranging from work in the, what's now the Academy. I can remember when the Academy was just the education and the training programs and prior to that the international and the domestic education and training programs. So that was a fascinating evolution to be a part of. I've also spent a lot of time engaged in some of these policy influence and policy making projects. One of the programs that I'm very proud to have been a part of was the 2008 and 2009 Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. This was looking at US nuclear weapons policy. Not something that USIP does necessarily on a day-to-day basis, although I think that we still do some of that work in our regional programs and we can talk about that later. But this was USIP's bipartisan capability in action. Congress established the commission. Doctors Bill Perry and former secretaries of defense Bill Perry and Jim Schlesinger led the commission and it was about as bipartisan as anything you could possibly hope to see in Washington. Being a part of that was a fascinating experience and I think we made some good recommendations to the administration and the Congress that led to the development of the USIP to the development of the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review and also influenced the debate in 2009 on the ratification of the new start trading. Following that, I kind of got very deeply involved in the partnerships aspect of USIPIC. My final position here up until April was working in the External Relations Office, specifically on USIP's engagement with the interagency, so the Department of State, USAID and the Defense Department. USIP's role in this and again I'm more than happy to go into this a little bit deeper is has evolved over time. And I think David had it exactly right that conditions change, getting away from some of the core principles that the founders may have envisioned is not necessarily a bad thing, although it's something we should be very mindful of, especially when you start talking about the reliance on interagency transfers. So full spectrum there, I enjoyed my time here and I'm very happy to be able to continue to engage with all of you in alumni capacity. Right, now I was heading up the alumni group. That's right. That's fabulous, thanks, Ron. Tell us about your role here at USIP. Thanks for having me. I'm struck looking at the audience that I don't have to be here, any of you could be here. And so I'm not going to talk about myself. I'm part of the PeaceTech Initiative here, the PeaceTech Lab here at the Institute. And what I think PeaceTech represents is a certain energy that technology and media have infused into the field of peace building over the course of the last seven years, at least that I've been here. And technology and media really are tools that we've tried to harness more and more and hopefully insert into the kind of work that Brian and you, Manal and everybody else here at the Institute have been doing so effectively over the last 30 years. But technology and media really, and this is what PeaceTech I think is about, at least in my conception, and Sheldon might correct me later on, but I think we, technology and media have created a real energy on information and a change in the way we view information coming out of conflict zones. Fog of war was once an assumption that we made about how war was conducted and how we as outsiders might have understood war. We might have had a New York Times correspondent tell us how things were going on in Vietnam or elsewhere. But technology and media have fundamentally changed how we as outsiders can view war and the role of those people who are the so-called victims of war and conflict have in giving us that information. And that dynamic is something that the PeaceTech lab here at the Institute really represents a major opportunity for us to harness. And the second is that there's a related point about how that shift in information changes how we view our role as the Institute and the nature of victimhood in conflict zones. The empowerment of locals to do the peace building to give us the solutions and give us the strategies by which we might help manage conflict is increased exponentially by technology and media. It empowers them to do it. And I think that ability for us to step away and invite them to be more involved in the peace building process through technology and media is a major opportunity for us. And I think PeaceTech lab in my work hopefully is meant to bolster both of those dynamics. So we have such exciting participants on this panel. And one of the, I think astounding things to me about USIP is the ability that experience, varied experience brings USIP that they not only share among people within this institution but share with the government, share with other actors and help set the new path for how we go forward. Manal, you have been, had a lot of experience with USIP work on the ground if you will in areas that are in countries that are in conflict or emerging from conflict. Can you briefly tell us how does experience in one area affect how you can approach or how we can employ lessons learned in another area? Thank you. I think it's a really important question. And one of the things that I always emphasize is that the recognition that each country and even within the countries, I mean, when we're looking at countries like the Sudan's or we're looking at country like Egypt and Iraq, they're huge. Just the capital and the rural areas are so different. And there's a real conscious sensitivity to a cookie cutter approach. But some people have taken it to the extreme where we're so afraid of the cookie cutter, we haven't done well with the lessons learned. And there are very key issues, I think, in lessons learned in post-conflict and transition. And that's one of the things that we've been able to do on the ground. And more importantly, rather than us doing it directly by saying, okay, here's what we saw in Iraq and here's what we saw unfold, what we learned to do was actually to have the people who witnessed conflict firsthand engage in sharing those lessons. Because let's face it, me going over and I remember being in Libya and seeing some patterns emerge that we did see in Iraq and that we saw in other conflict areas and being hesitant to say, oh, I've seen this before because it just wouldn't be accepted. But what we did is we connected some of the Iraqi leaders and the facilitators that we trained with the Libyans. And serving as the convener, we were able to foster a true exchange, whether it was issues to deal with tribes or issues to deal with conflict or mistrust or what do you do on reconciliation? What do you do on constitution process? We really brought them together to have that exchange versus us coming with our top 10 lessons learned. And it was great because the back and forth allowed for the host countries to really extract what they needed from the experiences versus us making the assumptions about what the experiences were, but also not being so shy of a cookie cutter that we just weren't having that conversation. We had the same conversation of lessons learned but we did it in a different format where it was more about connecting people. So I think that was one of the key things that we were able to do on the field. The other area that I think that we've done well in terms of really being able was what I mentioned earlier was a recognition that so many people on the ground have the solution, they just don't have access. Access to resources, in some cases, access to technical expertise. That's why I value our program's cooperation with GLASS, with the governance law and society. I mean, when we were in Libya, they wanted technical expertise that we were not able to offer as the MIA Center, but because USIP has this wide area of expertise, we're able to connect with the religion and peace building. We're able to connect with the rule of law. We're able to connect with the media and technology, with this wide technical expertise that's then linked with people on the ground that we're giving them what they need. And I think that marriage between having the relationship and having the geographic expertise married with the technical really is something that has put us above head and is responsive. And I believe it's one of the reasons why we're so solid in Iraq and in Libya because we're not just talking in an ambiguous way about what they should know. And I kept hearing rule of law, we get it, we love it, we want it, where do we start? And so being able to really give them, I think helped put us ahead. And that type of combination only happens with the diversity of skills and experience that exists in this building. That's great. I mean, that's terrific. And I also like that you are putting people together, the Iraqis and the Libyans, because then that's a network. They've got other people they can contact going forward, sharing problems, sharing solutions. I think that's terrific. Anna, let me go to you next and say, I mean, you can see, look, you can tell the difference in generations, can't you? We have, I bet. I should have three mobile phones, but yeah. I have hard copy. I have hard copy. But you know, what do you see really as the most significant difference that technology and social media is playing in conflict and in peace building today? I mean, we all have witnessed it. We've witnessed it, both on Facebook and on CNN. They got half of its news from Egypt three years ago from Facebook. But what's the biggest change for conflict and peace building? Well, I touched upon this in my introductory comments, but I might have failed to emphasize. I think it's shifted quite significantly the role of individual citizens. And when Manal was talking about civil society actors or government actors, there is an implicit notion of structure there. And that USIP has to find nodes within those structures that we have the best opportunity to make change using. However, I think that technology and media have given individual citizens an opportunity to engage in those same processes that those structures might lead, but have always, at least hitherto, left individuals out of that. Whether it's women or young people, people would have always been seen themselves even as being outside of the mainstream and outside of these structures. I think that's a major opportunity for us. So if you look at technology tools like crowdsourced mapping, the crowd is, by definition, a group of individual citizens. The crowd is not a group of civil society organizations. That is not the crowd. And I think the efforts to mobilize that crowd through the ubiquity of technology tools, really, that's a major opportunity that we have now. In Afghanistan, 75% mobile phone penetration, Kenya is leading the way in mobile money transfers, way more than we are, despite our technological advancement. There are opportunities here that are sort of inherent to the way these technology environments have organically grown. What about the substance on it? Does USIP have a role to play in the substantive message, if you will? I mean, if you look at social media now, I mean, we see IS using it very effectively and some say, perhaps the most effectively. So we can use the tools to understand where the people are and individuals, but what about messaging? You know, USIP has a role and has embraced that role. So Manal talked about the media programs in Iraq. We had the Salam Shabbab TV show that brought together children from, young people from around Iraq, to talk about Iraqi citizenship, how they might go beyond sectarian notions, parochial notions of class and gender and begin to think about citizenship as a common goal. And those messages are things that we have helped construct with the help of locals, of course. But that role of setting the agenda perhaps with locals and using media tools is something that we've already embraced. We have radio drama programs in Afghanistan. We have radio program in South Sudan. So we have embraced that role on the ground in conflict zones. I do think there's an opportunity that we might embrace more domestically, which is, and I think Fred touched upon this in his question slash comment, which is to really strongly articulate alternatives that are nonviolent, even when the US is strongly considering its violent involvement in conflicts. And that is an opportunity that we may have embraced or may have used in certain times in the past or in the recent past. But I think there's a major opportunity for the US Institute to be the consistent voice, to message every day that there is a nonviolent alternative to the conflicts that we might consider involvement in. And if we fail to do that, in some sense, we, I think, have lost some track of the basis of our creation. Thank you, Anna, and I hope we can come back to that. Brian, you have some experience that harkens back in some ways to the beginning of USIP 30 years ago. And so that is in nuclear policy. What do you see as USIP's role? Does USIP have a role to play in nuclear security and nuclear policy? I think USIP does, as I mentioned in my opening remarks. This is something that may not be a day-to-day issue for USIP, and I think that's okay. Just the recognition that the name of the game these days is complexity. Complexity in all forms. I mean, you engage in a conflict, rule of law is an issue, the provision of hopefully arriving at stable governance is an issue, a provision of safety and security, social well-being, economic issues, all of these things. Within that cross-section of issues to consider in terms of how the United States and other countries engage, proliferation issues, nuclear proliferation issues remain part of that equation. I think USIP can assist in extending that conversation, perhaps through its education and training efforts. We've already developed a suite of courses on nuclear policy, on non-proliferation, arms control, the regional impact of these issues, specifically in Pakistan and Northeast Asia, and I think that that's something that USIP can continue. The other avenue, I think that it would not be out of the question for USIP to remain engaged in is sort of these advising or some sort of honest outside broker approach to the policy debates that are currently going on at the State Department and other elements of the administration. It's an area that I don't think is going away anytime soon, so I appreciate your view on USIP's role. I have a question I'd like to ask each member of the panel and I'd like you to answer as briefly as you can, but one of the things I admire most about United States Institute of Peace is that it partners across sectors. So it partners with the United States government, particularly the Department of State, it partners with non-US governments, it partners with non-government organizations, with religious leaders, with community leaders, with individuals. So how does that experience, that diversity of partners help USIP, particularly as it's planning how to go forward? So, Minaal, we'll start with you. Sure, I mean, I think it's such a huge value added, it's so hard to really begin to explain in a short period of time, but through that ability to really partner across different sectors, and I would say both horizontally and vertically, to have that depth and that width to really reach out, allows us to be a lot more effective. It's not only about connecting the grassroots with the decision makers, but for example, USIP on the ground will talk to the private sector, recognizing that at times they may be the triggers of conflict. Recognizing the power of the informal sector, both in terms of women and minorities, but also in terms of informal economic drivers of conflict, and just being able to really do a mapping and then identify key stakeholders, bringing them together sometimes separately and then later at another time altogether to really problem solve. I think it's something that USIP has a very unique advantage of doing. Otherwise, we're really looking at conflict through one lens and that tends to be very difficult when you're talking about mitigation or resolution. I think it also builds a certain efficiency to the way we work. And there's a lot of fear, especially amongst development organizations here in DC, about having too heavy a footprint or too large a footprint or too heavy a bootstump, whatever you call it. But the fact that we've only had offices in Kabul and Baghdad, I think is to our credit, but we've operated via our partners in many, many more conflict zones. We don't go in with an assumption that we have to go there, create an office and stay and create a major infrastructure around our work, that there are people there who can be energized and that we can get from them the needs that we could perhaps fill, whether it's expertise, and then leave. And I think that models a great way of working when you are from one of the most powerful countries in the world and one of the biggest donors to these kinds of projects, to step away in that the partners allow us to do that. And from your experience, Brian. Absolutely. I mean, getting back to the complexity is being the name of the game. I mean, complexity breeds complexity. Complexity loves bureaucracy. Bureaucracy does not love complexity. So I think as an independent institution engaged with a variety of partners, both with government partners, international partners and geo partners, USIP is in a truly potentially unique space to be able to help move a variety of sectors forward simultaneously. I mean, just kind of looking at the number of actors engaged in conflict and conflict response is staggering and overwhelming for not only any organization like USIP to think about on their own, but the activities that those actors are engaged in are staggering to a point that it necessarily no one actor can engage in this process on their own. Partnerships are essential. And getting back to the original intention or one of the original intentions of USIP as an independent honest broker in this space that I think has to remain a priority for USIP going forward. Thank you. I'm gonna ask each of you, and I'm gonna start with you this time. Tell me if you have one unexpected lesson learned from your work with USIP and how that will form your thinking going forward. This is, so my graduate studies brought me here. Actually, the graduate program I went to was started by Steve Heidemann and Dan Brumberg, both of whom are here at the Institute, somewhat ironically, but the program was on democracy and governance and the Institute was the last place I thought I would be actually. I thought of myself as going out and fixing people's elections or something or the other. Fixing them might have helped. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I never thought of peace building as being my calling, yeah. And then I came here. Two things that I learned was one that it was in some sense my calling. My colleagues might disagree that I'm any good at it, but I do think of it as being a vocation, the way one might consider oneself a minister or a nurse, that peace building is a vocation and I surprised myself by, in some sense, embracing it. And the second thing that surprised me was the degree to which conflict management professionals are conflict diverse. And that, speak of bureaucracy, that animates every interaction or the lack of it here at the Institute. And I think that is perhaps a culture that can perhaps, if we all take upon ourselves this notion of peace building as being a vocation, perhaps we might get a little bit closer to being less conflict diverse. But I don't know, that's probably a vision for the future. Thank you, Anna. Brian, what's your one surprise, I guess? Sure. I think, and it sort of builds on something what Anand just said is that the diversity of actors engaged in the broader peace building field and the diversity of actors engaged here in this building has been astounding to me. I mean, I actually, with another USIP alumni, Beth Cole, one of my former bosses, I'm helping her up at GW teach a course on stability operations and peace building. One of the immediate reactions that we get from those students in a graduate level course is how unbelievably overwhelming it is to think about this stuff holistically, which necessitates to an extent that I really had no idea when I first arrived here, the integration of across, necessarily across a variety of sectors, across a variety of functional issues, including science and technology, including rule of law, including proliferation issues or other transfer of illicit goods, human trafficking. And just to think about the immense complexity of an issue that USIP is, and I'm very grateful for this, is finally getting into more robustly that's countering violent extremism. It requires a range of specialists to be able to develop that holistic approach. And once again, I mean, I think USIP is in a good position here in town to be able to provide some of that expertise and also do it through a lens of conflict. That's something we talk about a lot. And when I was still here in the External Relations Department, probably something that you did not appreciate hearing from me periodically about trying to drill in that we need to emphasize that USIP approaches things through this conflict lens. But I think it's all very important. And the diversity of the staff here and to address the diversity of the issues is something that I hope continues. Great. Thank you, Brian. Now, what's your unexpected lesson learned? I guess my unexpected was to recheck assumptions for, I came to USIP with over 15 years of experience in the Middle East, and so I kind of figured I've got this. I know this. I'm in and out. I know the region well. And just starting with the name, US Institute of Peace, I embraced myself for the assumption that people would really heavily push back on the US and maybe embrace the peace side. And my experience was very much the opposite. People were more willing to deal with the US because they saw it as an access directly to power. And they were not as resistant, as I had imagined, with US being in the name. And the resistance came from the word peace. People were frustrated. People wanted force. People wanted intervention. Or on the other side, people felt that there wasn't enough support for a strong thing. And I think we see that in the conflict in Syria today. People want something heavier. And so really being able to show and actually to remind ourselves, and I think the work that the academy is doing along this is very essential, that there is actually stronger and more momentum built with nonviolent resistance. And really being able to bring some of those conversations back to the field and not take the word peace for granted. And when you're talking about peace builder, to unpack that and have a dialogue on what that can mean and what's the power behind that word was an important thing to remind me to always check those assumptions. Great. Thank you, Manal. So I'd like to open it up. So if you have a question, it can be very brief. That would be terrific, because we'll take a couple of questions. We'll start in the back of the room. Can't see you, but there's your microphone. Oh, there's your microphone. So my name is Dave Wastaki. I'm going to be a grad student problem this spring here. But I'm also working with a gentleman on an application for artificial intelligence to conflict resolution. So questions specifically for Anand, I have two questions. The first is, are there any applications that the USIP is working with related to data science and artificial intelligence in the peace arena? And second question, are there any opportunities for entrepreneurs to work with USIP and your peace tech initiative specifically? Are you ready? Yes and yes. Thank you. Yes. I'm just kidding. A smoky and responsive ever there wasn't. The peace tech lab, which is now spinning in the process of rather slowly spinning off from USIP but spinning off nonetheless, is engaged in both of those areas. Not so much artificial intelligence, but certainly data science. We have the open situation room exchange. You can go to osrx.org that really tries to harness the power of data for decision making on the ground. So the notion of big data as being a new tool for all of us to use in decision making here, perhaps in countering violent extremism or other efforts, is probably well explored. But we are trying to push that a little further and look at how data that comes from conflict zones can be shared amongst those who would like to build peace and help them make decisions better. On the entrepreneurship side, the peace tech lab is in itself a representation of the entrepreneurial opportunities that have come from technology and media. The fact that we're spinning off as a separate 501C3 is meant to embrace that opportunity. But part of the vision is also to create an incubator program for other organizations that would like to harness technology and media, develop technology tools, create media campaigns. It's a little further in our planning, but it's certainly at the core of who we think we'd like to be as a lab. Thank you. Another question? Yes, the green. Ken, my record, World Dogs. Two months before the appearance of Ebola in West Africa, a Canadian company commenced a field test of an Ebola vaccine in the very area where Ebola first appeared. This is likely to have been the source of the epidemic. The participation of the Defense Department in this program suggests it's related to issues of war and peace. Is it the role of the Institute to raise questions on incidents like this? Anybody want to tackle that one? That's a good segue to my last question. I'm going to follow David's mom, be like, I ain't touching that. But if you'll allow me, given the time constraints, possibly they can answer if they choose to your question in this one, which I'd like to pose to everyone on the panel. And that is given the plethora of conflicts in the world, how should USIP decide where to engage? So we'll start with Brian. Sure. I think that over my time here at USIP, I've seen an evolution of how USIP begins to address this question. I've been pleased to be in part of some of the strategic planning sessions in Middle East and North Africa for some of the functional offices here at USIP. Prioritization is obviously key in an era of fiscal austerity. I would also love to see USIP run towards the gray areas. So what is state doing? What is USAID doing? What is the Defense Department doing? And identifying through careful assessment and through evaluation of past programs, through evaluation of past practices and evaluation of past partners how USIP can really focus in on niche areas of opportunity or areas that involve that need to go beyond institutional frames. So an example of this, I think, is something that I was fortunate to work on a couple of years ago, where a need arose for firmer guidelines on how the military and the NGO community should interact in a war zone, in a non-permissive environment, is what we call it. That type of work, maybe not the broader issue of SIVMIL, but that type of work where a need was identified, what happens when a soldier and an NGO aid worker bump into each other in the middle of the night is something that I think USIP has a substantial role to play in. I would also love to see USIP again going to some of these gray zones in a regional sense, thinking about things regionally, thinking in a networked way as some of the emerging adversaries to the US and other allies and partners conduct themselves. Borders don't necessarily matter to IS, or at least the ones that we put into place. So thinking regionally, I think, is of critical importance and may actually enable USIP to be a better partner to some of its government partners at the State Department, specifically in the J family of bureaus, the Democracy, Human Rights and Governance, and then over at USAID from the dacha office, there are folks that work on a range of issues, including the Office of Transition Initiatives. I think that there's, and it gets back to this partnerships argument, the gray areas or where USIP can be most effective in building those partnerships, and I think the gray areas or where USIP can let its uniqueness shine for lack of a better term. Thank you. Manal, where do you, how do you think USIP should decide where to engage? You knew, Ambassador, that's a great question, and trust me when I say it actually keeps me up at night. I come from a country of conflict, and my parents were refugees in four countries before they were able to settle down, and when I look at the conflict, I feel this overwhelming need to take action. And one of the things that we did in this strategy, because almost all my team members, whether they come from a country of conflict or not, feel that passion and feel that drive. It's why I love working at USIP so much, and we said to each other, we can't do it. We know we can't. I mean, again, Middle East and Africa, just think about it. All these countries will pop in mind, and we really went through a rigorous process of establishing criteria, and I hope that rather than trying to summarize it here, that those who are interested, I'm happy to share that criteria with you, but an essential element was where we really felt confident that we had the entry points, both through partners and again, through decision makers to initiate change, because the reality is some of the conflicts are beyond USIP's mandate, and it might not be the point of time for us to enter. Like I said, as everyone was pulling out of Iraq, we recognized this is when our work would really begin. And so through a very rigorous process, and one that was participatory, we sat and we discussed as a team and more broadly across the institute had some meetings with external stakeholders about what was the essential criteria where we could enter, and the way I would describe it is as an acupuncture. Where can we put that needle that's going to affect the entire body and really leverage it, because we're not going to be able to address the body as a whole. And that reality has helped us scale back on very essential conflicts that we watch, we care about dearly, but we know it's not time for us to enter, and instead to really harness and put our energy behind what we ended up with was six priority countries and four thematic areas. That's terrific. Acupuncturers gives us all an ability to visualize, because when you think about USIP, as wonderful it is, and you think about its budget, comparatively speaking, yes, you've got to be able to hit the spot and radiate the conflict resolution. And you have kind of a unique perspective. So how do you see USIP's decision-making process for where to engage? Every so often, and it doesn't happen very often, I'll have parents of, or family friends come to me and send their children to me who want to get into graduate school, or do something to save the world. And they, often Indian parents would rather have them be engineers or doctors, and they don't really understand what their kids want to do, and they say, well, he's at the US Institute of Peace, I don't know what that is, but I'm sure he can explain something to my kids. And so I end up with this, this inadvertent mentorship role, and I have a lot of people who come to me, they say, I just want to help the world, what can I do? And I say, my response to them would be somewhat, something, I'm going somewhere with this. We like it. Yeah. And I say to them, figure out what the level, not exactly what you want to do, but figure out the level of the problem that you want to solve. So if you want to solve, save the world, you could be a psychologist, you could work with individuals and work out their individual problems. You could be an attorney, you could work with individuals and get their conflict resolved. You could go all the way up to the diplomatic level and work at the interstate level. There are all sorts of levels at which people have problems and which you as an individual might be able to help solve some of those problems. But you can't do all of them. And I think choosing the appropriate level at which you have the best strength and the most interest is a good way to go. And I think the Institute has had a fairly strong role and a strong track record at the intrastate level. So interstate, frankly, we've already got the State Department, we've got the DOD. This might defer somewhat to Brian's point. But I think at the intrastate level, when we're working with local actors who might then be able to engage their local governments, that has been a major track record of ours. And it is a place where, one, there are not many other actors from the US government working. And certainly, there are other opportunities for us. But I think if we can begin to say where are our opportunities, that we can work at the intrastate governmental level. So if you look at India and Pakistan, for example, we might say, you know what? That interstate problem is a far too complex and is not really our problem. But if you looked at the number of intrastate problems that exist in India, forget Pakistan. We have a great Pakistan program. But look at the border scum issues, the interreligious violence, the intercast issues that exist. I think, for me personally, I'm from India, so I'm just giving you that example. But that would be the way to engage in a place like India. And it's that kind of lens. What is the appropriate level? I think the intrastate level is a good level to choose, personally. But that's a kind of lens that we should probably use when choosing priority countries. And so part of what you look for is the ability to, as I see it, the ability of USIP to develop leadership on the ground and within states, within neighborhoods, within areas, within issues where there's conflict. Yes. I think that's a wonderful place to leave this. And I'd like you to join me in thanking this panel. You're coming up. I think it's nice. Please join us in the area right here for some lemonade. And then something stronger after that. OK. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.