U.S. National Security with Eric Rosenbach

- [Announcer] Welcome to the Wiener Conference Call series. These one hour on the record phone calls feature leading experts from Harvard Kennedy School who answer your questions on public policy and current events. Wiener Conference Calls recognize Malcolm Wiener's role in proposing and supporting this series as well as the Wiener Center for Social Policy at Harvard Kennedy School.

Mari Megias:

Good day, everyone. I am Mari Megias in the Office of Alumni Relations and Resource Development at Harvard Kennedy School. And I'm very pleased to welcome you to this Wiener Conference Call which is kindly sustained by Dr. Malcolm Wiener who supports the Kennedy School in this and so many other ways. Today, we are joined by Eric Rosenbach who is the Co-Director of Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He's also a Lecturer in Public Policy. He previously served as the Pentagon's Chief of Staff and Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Security responsible for leading all aspects of the department's cyber activities and other key areas of defense policy. On Capitol Hill, he served as national security advisor for then Senator Chuck Hagle, and in the private sector, he worked in cybersecurity for global companies, a former army intelligence officer and commander of a telecommunications intelligence unit. He has coauthored several books on national security. Given his deep expertise, we are so fortunate that he's agreed to share his thoughts today with the Kennedy School's alumni and friends, Eric.

Eric Rosenbach:

Hello, good morning, everyone. It's so nice to be here. Thank you again to the Wieners for allowing us to have this. And it's really great to see so many familiar names in the participants list. And as you can see, I'm doing a little virtual background try to give you the feeling of being back in the classroom at the Kennedy School, but be aware that means that I may also cold call on some of you who are particularly deserving. So what I'd like to do is for about the next 20 minutes or 22 minutes, just give you a little background brief on some issues that I think might be of interest, but then really wanna spend the vast majority of the time having a conversation with you all. Some really good questions that I saw and advance even better, we'll take some questions live and just see what you all are thinking about these issues. So I do have a little bit of a deck. I'm gonna go ahead and share that now. And hopefully our tech is working here and talk you through some of the things that will be the key. But the idea here is that I would like to talk about the nexus of traditional geopolitics and technology and some of the key challenges that the Biden administration is facing right now. So I think here's the short agenda and you know it wouldn't be the Kennedy School if you didn't have a little bit of an analogy to start with. And this normally is where I would cold call on someone, but I think a question I'd like for you to ask in your mind is this like old school risk, traditional geopolitical type situation where you're trying to figure out who you should lie with or this is a new, great game where you have to think about technology as an enabler and in a different way and maybe even a little bit about how you connect economic policy with technology and security policy. Also, wouldn't be the Kennedy School if I didn't give you a very basic framework through which I think you can think through some of these challenges, this is pretty straightforward. You see here it's national security, economic strength and of course, our principles being important to us. And I then would like to start just by giving you a little bit of an overview of things that are in the paper today, now that you have I have that as a framework, go back up and just take a look some of the headlines today starting with Russia when you see that the administration has rolled out a set of new pretty biting sanctions all because Of things that the Russians were doing as they relate to technology primarily again, trying to interfere with the elections, conducting information operations, responsible for the massive solar winds hack in which they got in the supply chain of a software firm and used that to get into many different organizations including in the U.S. government. A lot of tension with Russia right now from an old school perspective supposedly in response to a comment that Biden made about Putin. Putin mobilized pretty significant troops along the border of Ukraine is now threatening an invasion. That's a old-school geopolitics going against new school tech, something to keep in mind, look at a lot of the tension with China right now. Just last week, the Chinese flew fighter aircraft over Taiwanese airspace, something very unusual pretty provocative as you'll see in some of the other slides that I'm gonna present a lot of strategic competition with the Chinese right now in three key sectors that I'll show you again. And even a country like Iran. If you looked at the news last week, it seems like there was an offensive cyber attack on the Iranian nuclear program. From what the newspapers tell me it sounds like it was the Israelis, important aspect of technology and competition there. And that has ratcheted up pressure for the Biden plan to try to reopen negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program. The Iranians responded by saying they were going immediately to 60% enrichment of highly enriched uranium which puts them on the path to a bomb at a much quicker way. So you see what's happening in the news and some of those traditional geopolitical plays. And as I mentioned, what I'd like to do then is go back to talk a little bit about three particular areas of technology that I think you should watch. And there are here, you see I've five listed but I think all of you've heard so much about AI and 5g that they now seem old school. What I'd like to talk to you a little bit more about is about semiconductors, digital finance and then a little bit about space and talk about how there is a nexus with geopolitical competition and then really get some of your thoughts. The one other thing I wanted to start by saying is just that I personally think the Biden administration has a really good team in place right now. All of those senior officials have a lot of experience whether it's someone like Avril Haines is the Director of National Intelligence, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and very experienced Director of the CIA, Tony Blinken. There's a good team there, they are old school. It's a lot of the same characters that luckily is supported by a lot of new younger, and a lot of Kennedy School grads that are much more diverse and have a different background. We can talk about that as well. So let's take a look at this as a framework thinking through semiconductors, digital finance and space, and just keep this framework in mind as I walk through this, the first one I'd like to talk a little bit about is semiconductors, which normally would pretty boring and not really significant part of any national security or foreign policy discussion, but mostly in connection with the United States trying to push back on a Chinese firm known as Huawei which had become very dominant in 5g telecom infrastructure. The U.S. implemented a lot of export controls that may actually have the impact of pushing Chinese work to develop their own semiconductor industry forward. And so that's one of the things that we'd wanna think about if right now now the U.S. actually has a pretty strong a dominant position in the semiconductor area along with the Taiwanese and South Koreans, I think we would wanna think very carefully about what we do to encourage in some ways the Chinese to build their own organic industry. So let's just think about what that means, this now in conjunction with supply chain issues that have been exacerbated by COVID has led to a shortage of semiconductors in the United States to the point that you saw last week in the news that some major U.S. auto manufacturers aren't able to get things off the production line because they're lacking the semiconductors. The effect that it's had in China for several years now is that very quickly growing semiconductor industry still nascent. This is not an easy thing to master but you see that growing much like it grew in the telecom sector with Huawei. So wanna think about whether the balance should be more on security or the economy for the United States. One good example of how you think about these from a pretty sophisticated perspective. The next thing that I'd like to talk to you a little bit about is digital finance. So in the U.S. we think about this from a mostly simplistic perspective of you have Apple Pay or maybe you use PayPal, or maybe if you're in the private sector, you're experimenting with Stripe or Square or some other type payment systems, but in China, their payment platform technology is much superior to the United States as is the penetration and the number of people who are using mobile payments on smartphones or otherwise for all of their transactions. Here's why that matters. The Chinese have started to roll out officially as of last week a digital currency known as the Digital Yuan. Again, for a lot of people in the United States the idea that a Digital Yuan or the Yuan at all could displace the dollar and dollar dominance that has been pervasive since World War II seems far fetched but the U.S. is quite far behind. And quite frankly, the leading competition to a Digital Yuan is Libra a Facebook backed digital token led and initiated by Mark Zuckerberg. And I think you have to ask whether that's something that ever would really be trusted by Americans. You can see here, the very basic explanation of the difference between cryptocurrency which are also reading a lot about, we could talk more about that, digital cash and digital payments a true digital dollar would be backed by the U.S. fed and something that the liability then would be the responsibility of the U.S. government. Why does that matter to someone like me? I'm not a finance person, don't ever really wanna work in the private sector in that way is that I think it has pretty significant geopolitical implications. So about a year and half ago, the Belfer Center ran in the forum. Back in the day when we could all gather in the forum, we ran a crisis simulation about some of the things that could happen in the world if the Digital Yuan five years from that point got more influenced. And here's some of the things that we saw when we gathered a group of former senior leaders like former Treasury Secretary, Larry Summers, former Secretary Defense, Ash Carter, Nick Burns rumored to be possibly the ambassador to China or Russia. We don't know. Meghan O'Sullivan, former Deputy National Security Advisor some real heavyweights who played out a scenario in which because of the Digital Yuan, countries like North Korea and Iran were able to evade sanctions because they were outside the control of a dollar backed currency. So that's still debatable. But one thing that I think I would like at least for you all to consider as something on the horizon. The next thing I wanted to talk a little bit about is about space. It was the case only five years ago, six years ago when I was in the Department of Defense as Assistant Secretary and had space as part of my portfolio, that the U.S. was completely reliant on Russia to produce, and then give us rocket engines. This is a crazy thing, but it is true. The U.S. did not have a domestically produced rocket engine because for so long we'd been dependent on Russian technology and that sector had really weakened. Part of that is that the space sector had been locked up a lot by government contractors and defense contractors in particular. This has changed a lot. And that's what I'd like to highlight is there now is a lot of geopolitical competition in space. Some of it, from the military perspective we'll talk a little bit more about that, but quite frankly a lot of it, just thinking about ways to get to innovative... innovative ways to get to more natural resources down the road. I've talked about semiconductors. There's an aspect of the resources that go into making semiconductors better in these rare earth minerals. Also really important for battery technology, which is key when you think about the greening of the economy, and the Chinese, for example were the first ones to launch a mission to the dark side of the moon, take back lunar samples and in effect looking for some of these rare earth minerals to see whether they could do believe it or not lunar mining. I know this is something that sounds crazy but could actually be the case. So there has been more competition. And the U.S. is very lucky in this case because the private sector has really boomed between spaceX in particular, blue origin. I have a little example here of the number of active satellites, primarily commercial. And this really has been driven by spaceX. So you see how quickly that has developed over the past couple of years in particular. And the point here to quote the current new Secretary of Defense is this space actually already is an area of great competition and probably will grow to be even more so down the road. So the final takeaways here, and then we'll open it up for questions on any of this material or otherwise you can see, I'm not gonna read the slide to you, but I think the real question that is interesting to talk about is because a lot of this strategic competition quite frankly, does revolve around China if we're gonna be very candid, is whether the U.S. should have something that is a more strategic perspective, tying economic policy or industrial policy to American national interests and essentially U.S. foreign policy too. So we have these two things. You have the traditional geopolitical world, like the Russians massing on the border of Ukraine, like the Chinese flying war planes over Taiwanese air space. And then you have these new areas that are mostly technology focused and the area of cyber, AI, semiconductors, digital currencies, these are becoming more and more heavily intertwined. And so for a lot of you all who are in this space, you need to think about what type of policy maker will be needed down the line to try to help the United States and other countries think about this. So why don't we stop there? I saw there were some great questions that were already supplied ahead of time and real happy to go through those. But I think what we're gonna do is Margaret I think was probably gonna ask, Margaret or Mari ask the first question, and then we're gonna go ahead and just go into the question. So I really like to call on people. And what I would encourage you to do is to use the raise the hand function. I see all the participants here. I'll also be watching chat. Although I think in this forum you were mostly cut off from that. Go ahead and raise your hand, and I'm gonna call on some people who may have good questions. So why don't I pause there?

Mari Megias:

Great, thank you very much. So just in true Kennedy School fashion, please keep your question brief and make sure to end it with a question mark, and Eric will be calling on folk as you raise your hand. So just to start things out with a question that was submitted earlier by Anarud Surrey, MPA 2014, and that question is how will technology shape U.S. foreign policy in the world order in the coming decade? And are there multiple scenarios for her that might evolve?

Eric Rosenbach:

Yeah, that's a great question. It's a good one to pick out. That's really the framing question for a lot of what I was talking about Arnaud. And I don't know that we have the answer but I do think that recognizing technology will be increasingly a part of the geopolitical landscape. And here's the one thing I would say for sure is that I think a lot of this does show need for new type of talent to go into the government and policy-making positions. It's nothing against some of the people in the more senior jobs now, but you know what? Very few of them really understand a lot of this technology. I'd like to tell the story about this was even eight or 10 years ago now. We were first talking about cyber as something new as if the internet was a new invention 10 years ago. And sitting in a meeting in the National Security Council where there were very few cabinet officials who even understood how the internet worked more or less how we could create cyber options in response to cyber attacks. So think about that and then think about something as complicated as a digital currency or AI and others. And you see that we need some new people when it comes down to it. It's a lot about the talent that you have in there. So y'all go ahead, please raise your hand. I see one other hand up right now, and this is what I'd like you to do when we unmute you as a participant, the next person is gonna be A.S. Just tell us a little bit who you are, where you're from so we have a little bit more dynamic interaction here. So go ahead there, A.S.

A.S.:

Sorry, I just had my initials there, but Eric, actually this is Anurad.

Eric Rosenbach:

Okay, all right.

A.S.:

I should just ask .. one quick question.

Eric Rosenbach:

So you got double tapped. All right. I tell you what- Thank you for that. why don't we just to make sure we try to get as many people involved as possible, if there's no one else who has a question I'll go back to you. But otherwise I see, does that sound all right, Arnaud? The next person up-

Yeah, of course. is Malik, I'll go to Malik, and then I'll probably go to Rose just so that y'all can be prepared here. I'll try to read out who's gonna be next up. So Malik, hello, how are you?

Malik:

 I'm doing fine, I'm doing fine. Hello, from Karachi.

Eric Rosenbach:

 Great, hello.

Mailk:

Great. I am MPID 2011, so I'm great to see the background of the Kennedy School. You can hear me loud and clear, correct?

Eric Rosenbach:

Sorry, yeah, loud and clear. All good, thank you.

Malik:

Great. So one thing that has been quite interesting in this COVID scenario is that two sides of societies have done very well. Societies that are very disciplined, societies with a very good command and controlled structure, and societies that are very homogenous which is mostly in Asia, mostly in East Asia they did their management of COVID very well. Societies which are a bit more diverse, free for all like the U.S. and even UK where you can't enforce discipline because there's a lot of diversity they really struggled with it. So on one hand you have that. On the other hand what you have is societies that were innovative, Germany, U.S. even China, they have to come up with the solution. They have been off the vaccine race much quicker. So in terms of the future when you project human society in a digital age with these kind of shots like pandemics coming, what do you think that would the Western societies keep the diversified composition or do you think that there is a model to be more disciplined more command and control, which would be more suited to the future state of the world?

Eric Rosenbach:

Yeah, thank you, Malik. This is a pretty big and deep question. So I think if I could, which is classic Kennedy School, I may try to take a shot at framing it in a way that's a little different because I personally, I'm not sure it's as much about diversity as it is about the system of government. And that there are some places that tend to be more liberal democracy and some places that are less, I think there is a correlation and you're an MPID. So I'm gonna be careful talking about correlations with you between those societies that may happen to be less diverse too. But the real question you pose which I think is a good one, is in an era where there are gonna be global pandemics, global cyber war, free flow of information, what's the right model of government to be able to handle that? I think it's a really great point. We've been doing a little bit of research about that tied to the geopolitics of tech, and it won't surprise you that there are a lot of countries now that are looking to the Chinese model of economic policy and security policy and saying that actually works better because the population is locked down. We have more control, we can advance our industry and economic competitiveness. What really breaks that though is when you look at the fact that the countries that were able to generate the vaccines had a very free market economy, a crazy democracy that results in a lot of friction, but ultimately, maybe it's delivering the best too. So I think there's an open question there and that has implications definitely for the pandemic and global health. But I think, just for the way the world will work down the line. In general, the trend is that the democracy is on the wane. If you are democratic nations democracy overall under pressure. So I would love to hear someone think about that. Malik, we got a little time. Why don't you get a 32nd response to that real quick?

Malik:

Great. I do think that the model of democracy is born out of the 18th century enlightenment principles. And it was based on a word which is mechanical energy distance mattered. And so when people are coming together, but I do think democracy as a concept, the way it is constructed is run its course. And I think it will change in another form because the digital age is gonna change things just like the industrial revolution changed in the Malthusian economy to a post-industrial age. So I do think all structures, all governance structures will change as a result of it. Democracy will also change. That is my feeling, because I do think that the debt is gonna take humanity from one level from an industrial to a digital age, and hence the way we are governed will also change.

Eric Rosenbach:

Okay, great, thank you. That's a very insightful question. Rose Edwards, we are gonna go to you next. Rose, go ahead please.

Rose:

Hi, good afternoon from London. Can you hear me?

Eric Rosenbach:

Oh yeah, we can hear you, great.

Rose:

Hi, my name's Rose Edwards. I'm a mid-career MPA from 2016. And this is to pick up on the comment you made with regards to what kind of policy maker will we need down the line to make sense of all this. To some degree informed by my experience at Kennedy, in the last year I've been asked to lead a piece of work looking at whether or not the UK government should set up a college for national security. This has been going on for some months, but it was made public in the Integrated Review of Security, Defense, Development and Foreign Policy that came out last month. I'm writing the business case for it in the next few months. How on earth in writing the strategic bit of that business case do I go about answering exactly the question that you put because the strategic game is indeed to create a post-grad college, such that we have a diverse expert, skilled, curious, statistic able Kennedy skilled, but worth not having been to Kennedy kind of person who can operate internationally with allies and with industry and business and academia. How on earth do you go about pulling that off given that this is so very complicated?

Eric Rosenbach:

Wow, that's a big challenge for you. Good job, Rosie. You should let us know whether we can help you out. I think I maybe saw your question in the pre questions too about how do you teach national security? I have to say, which I hope doesn't deflate morale too much. I'm not sure actually pursuing just a national security school is the best idea for the world we live in right now. I mean, quite frankly, what would be more important is that you find people who have the technology background and try to get them into government. So I guess if the idea is that with this national security school it's a feeder then into the UK civil service, that could be pretty interesting if the people who come have more of a background in biology or come to the things that would help with the pandemic or digital currency and then you give them a national security background, pretty interesting. You just wanna make sure you don't take people who have a background more like mine which is just traditional national security. And I'm always trying to learn the science and the tech, I think. In the U.S. there is something that's called the National Defense University and a National Intelligence University. Those tend to not be as successful I would say, as some of the regular academic run programs like the Kennedy School or Columbia or Georgetown. So it's pretty interesting. I think it's really important though. Now in particular in national security world that if there's a university like that you find a way to attract diverse candidates to it because right now it continues to be hard to get a diverse population, both gender, ethnicity all those things that are important into the defense world, intelligence world. It is a major problem which results in poor policy outcomes from my perspective. What do you think about all that, Rose?

Rose:

I agree with everything you've said, and that's indeed part of the thinking. So it's very much a college in the sense of a community of people where there would indeed be formal training programs, which leads to qualifications, but it's as much about creating networks that are poorest across government and non-government staff passes. So from across the full range of national security departments but where people in business, people in industry and allies are as much part of essentially the party and the ideas because government doesn't run this anymore in the way it might've thought it did even if it really did, then when it thought it did.

Eric Rosenbach:

Yeah, that's great. I almost wish there could be something that's more international. I don't know whether it's NATO or otherwise, executive education also another way to look at that. I will say one of the things is I do think the Biden administration has done a very good job getting younger, newer, diverse talent into the national security world than anytime I've seen before. And I feel like I have a pretty good perspective on this because I've been able to help lots of students and former students get into political appointee jobs. And most of them, quite frankly never envisioned working in the Pentagon. And they definitely don't look like me. I don't have a background like I do which I see is a very positive development. So we need to keep making progress on that. Next up, I was gonna go to Bruno, and after Bruno I was gonna go to Stephanie. Bruno, go ahead.

Bruno:

Hello. Well, first of all, thank you very much for this conference is quite interesting. And it's all is great to hear. So I did the executive education in 2012 and I've been running and leading a humanitarian missions a bit all over the world while I was in Congo, in DRC, Sierra Leone, well, Angola, Tegucigalpa, many other countries. My question here is that, and I made a previous question. I wrote the question about the situation between Israel and Palestine and the impacts of the situation into the U.S. national security. But by chance, just yesterday I got to know that I would go to Kandahar and I will lead the mission there. And it's quite funny. Well, not funny, but quite interesting that I've been reading all these information about the U.S. forces being retrieved back to the country, but then it seems that it is not the complete withdraw. And I've been reading that there's a lot of impacts not just in Afghanistan, but as well into the international U.S. policy. So I would like just to hear a little bit about what you think about the U.S. international policy and the impact international security. Thank you very much, sir.

Eric Rosenbach:

Okay, great. Thanks Bruno. So we'll do both real quick. I think the situation with Israel is always complicated but it's probably even more complicated right now because of the Iranian nuclear program. The fact that the Israeli government right now is kind of a mess, but also pretty I would say antagonistic with the Biden administration from everything that I understand. Here's a perfect example. The day that the Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin was visiting Israel is when the news broke that there had been an offensive cyber attack on the Iranian nuclear facility. So maybe that was coincidental but you know what Israelis have this history of almost trying to embarrass senior American officials when they come to Israel. I can tell you a lot of stories about the times we tried to save Ash Carter from public embarrassment with Netanyahu, so that I think will continue to be pretty tense as it relates to Palestine. When things are tense with Israel it's hard to make progress on that issue which I think is pretty important. On Afghanistan, from everything I understand it is a complete withdrawal by September 11th of this year. There are about 2,500 troops left and from everything I've read, it's the entire lot out. I would love to hear what some other people on the call think about this. I saw some folks who I know served in Afghanistan and either were or are active duty to see what you think personally. I think it is the right decision. It's a hard decision, but we've been there a long time. I'm not sure how much more progress it's gonna make. And it's just so sad when you see people dying, Americans dying for that. That doesn't at all discount the fact that I'm sure it'll be really hard for a lot of Afghans, if the Taliban does take over. So very empathetic to that too, but I think for the U.S. so probably is the right thing to do. So thank you very much, Bruno. I'm gonna go next to, Stephanie. Go ahead, Stephanie.

Stephanie:

Good afternoon, Eric. This is Stephanie Sanok Kostro, MPP 1998 which I'm not gonna do the math, but makes me not the kind of tech person that you'd be looking for to hire into the government right now.

Eric Rosenbach:

Age is all relative on that account.

Stephanie:

Exactly. It's about the knowledge, right? But just to riff a little bit off of what you were just discussing in terms of Afghanistan, I left Capitol Hill back in 2008 to go to Embassy Baghdad to help with the transition planning that was to lead to the U.S. military withdrawal from that country or rather I was at Embassy Baghdad. And so we were doing the joint campaign plan, and I just hope that as we withdraw from Afghanistan and I think it's a good idea that there has been some rigor in terms of the planning of what missions are essential. Will we hand back to the government of Afghanistan in total, what state department will be in charge of what USAID will do and what our contractors do? I'm now the Executive Vice President for Policy at a Professional Services Council, which represents more than 500 government contracting companies some of which work in Afghanistan. And I know that they're very worried about this announcement and what it means for them and their safety. That was not my question. My question is I wanna bring it back a little bit to your presentation which is to say, I've been really heartened by the Biden administration's renewed emphasis on partnership allies leveraging the international community and whatever role the U.S. wants to take in that forum. But I'm trying to balance that with some of the protectionist issues that have been cropping up. And you mentioned semi-conductors, 5g, artificial intelligence. In recently passed legislation, clearly Congress has taken somewhat of a protectionist bent towards supporting domestic industries and all of those areas. And I was curious as to your thoughts on how do you balance the desire to engage in the international community on things like global health, climate change, and the full spectrum of global issues while also trying to support domestic industries here in the United States?

Eric Rosenbach:

Yeah, thank you, Stephanie. First of all, I think it's a great point that we hopefully don't redo what happened after the pullout of Iraq in 2008 with the rise of ISIS but that seems less likely now, so we'll have to watch, but hopefully it doesn't turn out that way. I think it's an important question about what do you do to try and strengthen the American economy without undermining what has always been a strength of the United States, which is an open economy, a free market? That said, there needs to be a level playing field and people playing by the same rules. And I do think that even in the past administration and currently with the Biden administration, that some of the things that have been put into place with tariffs and export controls have put pressure on China in a way that has opened up the global economy in a way that is fair to everyone including a lot of domestic U.S. industry. So I think that will be hard for a while, but right now there seems to be a trend of countries like the United States that they value democracy first and mostly in open market economy agreeing that there does need to be a change. So as long as we continue to build our alliances and restrengthen those, Asia in particular I think that the balance will be okay quite frankly. And the U..S probably needs five years of really focusing on domestic reconstruction, so to speak and take care of some things here before we really open up again. But that's not my area of expertise so you may have a different thought on that too. If you wanna give a real quick response, Stephanie that'd be great. And then we're gonna go to Monte, and after Monte go to Judith. Stephanie, any quick response to that?

Stephanie:

Yeah, just real quick. I mean, I think that some of the younger folks who you've mentioned getting into the Biden administration had some really great innovative thoughts on how to go about supporting the U.S. economy in ways that it has atrophied to be honest over the course of the last few decades. My concern though remains that if we go too far in terms of domestic content or whatnot, we may end up having less of free flow of goods and services across international borders. And that's something worth watching, I think.

Eric Rosenbach:

Right, yeah, for sure.

Stephanie:

So that's all I have to add to that.

Eric Rosenbach:

Yeah, good point. Thank you so much. Monte, why don't you go ahead please?

Monte:

Thank you. Monte, at this point calling in from Toronto Canada attributed to COVID. However, prior to that, my work is in Kinshasa DRC where at present, I teach and I do administrative public pro bono. And prior to that served with the UN/UNDP for over 30 years illustrating how much I do not know in regions post-conflict. My comment question to you. And you've circumscribed the issue in the sense that national security in a sense is personal security. Then it's also devolves into what I consider to be constructive development which I believe will be enhanced by the incoming Director of USAID, Sam Power who is extremely passionate, which I believe is important. However, discipline is important as well. And the concern I have is the best in development aid is that which is embedded nationally within the state or nation. And there is a difference and is not transactional, but it allows and affords locals to learn and make mistakes because you can only learn by making mistakes. And the United States and I've been privileged working with your military. I hold them in the highest respect and regard is how can governance deal with this? Because in terms of voting publics, they look whether it's Congress for two years or president four years, they want to see immediate return whereas broad issues national security this is multi-generational because hatred and bias is an acquired taste. You don't learn it. I thank you.

Eric Rosenbach:

Great, okay, thank you. Thanks for what you're doing there too, Monte. Yeah, I think it's first of all, great that Samantha will be there and she is gonna have a little bit of a different role because she's not only the Director, the administrator of USAID, but she's gonna be on the National Security Council. So that gives that organization, literally a seat at the table when we're having very strategic conversations about important issues. And Samantha, obviously a very seasoned operator there and has a lot of trust with the senior people. So I think that will help put a new perspective for development on the agenda. I'm not sure exactly how quickly you can change the way AID works. That's a pretty big bureaucracy and even someone like Samantha, I'm not sure I can change it overnight, but the approach that you're talking about sounds right to me, you wanna build some local capacity, hold people accountable in a way that doesn't always happen in that world either. So I think it will be interesting to see how all that works out and very encouraged by that. And again, some great Kennedy School people in there at the top and also she's taken some folks with her lower down too, so. Okay, great. Thank you, Monte. I'm gonna go next to Judith. Go ahead, Judith. And then next one's gonna go to Howard.

Judith:

 Hi, this is Judy Benardete. I'm actually an HBS grad and former Deans Council member at the Kennedy School.

Eric Rosenbach:

Okay, great.

Judith:

So my question is gonna be predictably about money. And the question is, why given the need to hire artificial intelligence people with expertise and immigration expertise, instead of trying to cherry pick them once they graduate from somewhere like the Kennedy School or the Harvard School, why aren't we investing in them? Sports teams invest in kids in high school, why aren't we investing in them and putting them through the equivalent of an ROTC program? As I remember of my days at MIT that you had these big programs there, it avoids the problem of the limiting factor of the faculty. You can start a school on its own dedicated school but how do you get the breadth and the richness of the faculty you have at the Kennedy School or Harvard in one of those schools? So why wouldn't the government take a page out of the COVID vaccine investments strategy and say, wow, let's throw money at this. And very cost-effectively take into ROTC program from freshman year in college and just leap program like that with an obligation to pay back.

Eric Rosenbach:

Yeah, yeah, thank you, Judy. I think that's a really interesting point. And there are a couple of things that you can use as a model for this idea. So for example, 10 years ago, when cyber was a new thing which again, seems kind of funny now. We saw that there was a huge lack of talent in that space and did actually start ROTC like programs to bolster students' understanding of cybersecurity issues even started a new branch in the U.S. army that's a cyber branch. You could see doing something very similar to that. And then even having graduates from that program from universities all around the country then go in and do some type of service probably not just in the military, but also in government. I think that would be very appealing, not just the military. So you could choose to do your service and a civilian part of the government. Another interesting idea for doing this is trying to find talent that exists out there maybe even in the private sector and giving them the opportunity to come into government for two, three, four years. Right now there's something called the U.S. Digital Service. And one of the faculty at the Kennedy School Kathy Pham was one of the original founders of the U.S. Digital Service. We'd started a Defense Digital Service when I was Chief of Staff. And it was really a pretty cool idea. We got these very high end engineers who had just been working at Google or Microsoft or small startups, ask them if they would come work in government for three years out of government salary, which is nothing compared to what they're making in the private sector. And there was a huge interest in doing it in demand because they wanted to solve all these really hard tech problems. Some in AI, some having to do a space and GPS. So I think there are ways you can do it but there just has to be the will there from some senior folks and people who are willing to just crush the bureaucracy because the bureaucracy itself is not always open to new innovative ideas for outsiders or ways of educating. But that's a great idea. Any other thoughts on that, Judy?

Judy:

Well, yeah, I think it could be useful. I do agree completely that it would not be a military focused thing and it would also allow... I like the idea rather than sort the teach for America model of going in for two or three years, you really build and lead Corps that will make their career there. And their friends from college will all be in there and they will know by the time you get out of one of these graduate schools, you have so many options. And in my experience it was more... so anyways I think that the idea of a Corps that would be there really you'll lose some after their obligation is met, but many more will stay in and a reserve Corps can be another alternative instead of having a three year commitment. Maybe you create a reserve Corps who could be called up from time to time supplementary rather than those that can afford to take off a few years. I think you want to avoid leaders that comes from the luxury of being able to leave a graduate school and choose a career in something where you're making a quarter of the money you make elsewhere.

Eric Rosenbach:

I really agree with that. That's a great point. I would say another thing I think is really important in addressing the overall shortfall in areas like AI expertise, a lot in the bio field is that the U.S. needs to change immigration policy in a way that for a lot of high-end tech talent the graduates from U.S. universities, like automatically get them a green card because there are many, many of the students who want to stay here including a lot of the top Chinese national engineers in a way that could be one of our greatest assets in the strategic competition if the high-end talent staying here in the U.S. too. So thank you very much, Judy. Howard, you're up next. And then I'm gonna go to Mo Khan. Go ahead there, Howard.

Howard: 

Hey, Eric, it's a Howard Cohen. Great to see you.

Eric Rosenbach:

Yeah, great to see you too, or hear you anyway. I can't see a picture. I hope things are going well with you.

Howard:

 Things are growing great. So MPP class of 2018 where I had a great research supervisor just saying. And I'm currently in New York. I spent most of my career as a tech entrepreneur, but I'm currently working for Facebook. Just to piggyback on some of the topic that you were just talking about, I'm curious to know what you think are some of the greatest opportunities for private and public sector collaboration around cybersecurity or other topics that you touched on in your presentation?

Eric Rosenbach:

Okay, good question. Yeah, I know you've been working on some of this stuff too, which is great. I think that the U.S. government can't do much of this on its own, quite frankly. It used to be the case that with the National Security Agency, it'd be able to take care of a lot of the cybersecurity issues. But now when you see things like the solar winds attack you recognize that you need a lot of private sector buy-in. I think that it's actually been really encouraging last several years in particular how much the private sector has emerged to play a major role in keeping both individuals and organizations in the country safe. If you look at a firm like CrowdStrike or Mandiant, they're doing a lot to help on that, but it's in areas of thinking about probably using AI for defense where there could be greater collaboration. I think there should be some sort of collaboration in the area of digital currencies and building a framework and even the technology that would really improve Americans' confidence and trust in a digital currency would be a great place. This is not tech collaboration, but I think, and feel really strongly that the United States needs a national data security law. Right now there's nothing like that in the U.S. Most firms have to default either to New York or California, figuring out what to comply with for either their sector or their state in terms of privacy and data security. And if the private sector could get on board with one standard, it could really move a law like that. I know a lot of corporate executives and board members right now are very frustrated by the fact they have to figure it out this patchwork law of privacy and data security laws. So that'd be one policy idea where there could be some collaboration. Thanks a lot, Howard. Those are great questions. I hope that you're doing well there. Wanted to go and get a question from Mo Khan. Mo, how are you doing

Moushumi:

 Great. Hi, nice to hear your voice.

Eric Rosenbach:

Nice to hear your voice too.

Moushumi:

 And you look the same from however long ago. 2008 I don't wanna take myself-

Eric Rosenbach:

Yeah, I think the camera must be making it look better than it is now though so. Oh, no, it looks like Mo, did you drop off? Okay, it looks like Mo dropped off somehow. We'll get her right back and maybe my team can help out here too. Let's see. Since Mo dropped off, why don't we go to Fred? Fred Taylor, how are you doing

Fred:

 Wonderful. Good to see you. Thank you for taking the time out today.

Eric Rosenbach:

Absolutely. We'll do Fred and then I see Mo's back on, and we'll go back to Mo. Go ahead, Fred. How are you?

Fred:

 Oh, well, yeah, good. Fred Taylor, National Security Fellow 2011. Since leaving the military, I have now worked for a company with Viasat broadband, satellite ISP. And wanted to frame a question here is that if you accept the data is the new oil of the world. And as part of that is that you have requirements for strategic networks. You have needs for strategic hook points, work traditionally on the terrestrial world, you look at Arctic Crossing or Panama Canal or something like that. And there's chart points and very clear in terms of how the data flows and connectivity pieces fit together. From a national security standpoint, when you think about data and connectivity, as you mentioned in your opening remarks, how would you address those things and the natural security implications from a very fluid world that is not necessarily controlled physically in an environment and even from a cyber aspect where everyone has access to safe space capability for connectivity, the ability to share, and move data and information. So the question is what are the national security implications and decisions that would surround a policy arrangements with industry partners and other organizations that don't necessarily play in the national security framework traditionally?

Eric Rosenbach:

Yeah, that's a great question, Fred. I remember you working in the space segment back then 10 years ago. So it's great to hear that you're still in that even though you're not in the force anymore.

Fred:

Yeah, sir .

Eric Rosenbach:

Okay, you don't have to call me, sir. Definitely not now that's for sure. I think it's like this, you'll sometimes hear mostly from people who either are or have worked at the NSA that we should set up some type of strategic capability where you'd be able to monitor and respond incoming cyber attacks from nation state actors, like the Russians or the Chinese, maybe the Iranians, the North Koreans. I have always thought that's a completely unrealistic idea both ethnically and from like the philosophy of the United States and legal constraints too. So that leads me to the point where I think this should be again, much more where private sector organizations are either expected to or taking more responsibility to mitigate their cyber risk. And when they don't that they're just very clear cut repercussions for that right now. That has improved a lot over the last 10 years. CEOs are actually getting fired, litigation forcing people to invest more in cyber security. But another reason why I think a national data security law would be that type of public policy instrument you needed to essentially address some of the, would be super wonky people negative externalities that are essentially hoisted upon the public right now for firms that under invest in this. So I'm not sure it's an infrastructure thing or technical thing as much as it is a policy solution. I would say because you're a space person that we should think a lot about the cybersecurity of space all those satellites that are going up they're part of the internet in most cases and quite vulnerable both from physical and cyber attack. So that's a huge area for people who are looking for a new experience in cybersecurity. Think about the nexus with space.

Fred:

Thank you.

Eric Rosenback:

Great, yeah, thanks, Fred. Thanks very much. Okay, I think we have Mo backup. Mo, you there?

Moushumi:

 Yeah, thanks. So my question is actually regarding South Asia. I'd love to get some of your thoughts on what the Biden administration's priorities might be. And I've been living in Taka off and on since pretty much graduation. And I've really noticed a shift where China and India really are the dominant players whether it's economically or in other ways. And I feel that U.S. has been almost playing catch-up and more of a reactive role and really trying to get back into the swing of things whereas before that was not the case. So I'd love your viewpoint on South Asia particularly Bangladesh and China and India.

Eric Rosenbach:

Okay, great. Great question, Mo. Thank you very much. It's cool to be back in touch with you too. Not surprising to you. I think the focus of the administration when it comes to South Asia will be on trying to strengthen a partnership with India that really has developed a lot over the last several years the last decade, whereas before India self-identified still as part of that non-aligned movement, would tend to buy a lot of military stuff from the Russians before the U.S. that has all started to change. The domestic situation in India right now to me is troublesome, when you see some of the things that Modi is doing based on ethnicity or religion, I think we need to put more pressure on him to uphold human rights and have a real democracy. I think some of that has had spilled over into Bangladesh. And I would just say that I think this idea that you outlined to the strategic competition with a country like Bangladesh is really important because the U.S. wants to be close with a country like Bangladesh where economic growth is quite frankly, I think more. There's a lot more to admire there compared to Pakistan, there are a lot of studies that have looked that. So I hope that works. I hate to say it but unfortunately it probably is not at the top of the agenda when it comes to Bangladesh but maybe Mo you can stir something up and get going there. The last question I wanted to finish with is actually Malcolm Wiener, and Malcolm, how are you doing? It's great that you're here. Thank you for having us put this whole thing together, too and nice to see at least your picture again. How are you?

Malcolm Wiener:

 Well, thank you for an 86 year old. I've been wondering whether it might be possible to create a high site West Point plus a high site ROTC program where promising students would be given a free ride through the equivalent of college and graduate school in exchange for years of service. It seems to me, these are the areas of major threats to the country just as much as army or Navy attack. And that's an obvious response consistent with our traditions and our experience.

Eric Rosenbach:

I think it's a great idea. That's an even more amped up version along the lines of what Judy was talking about where you establish a new educational institution. And I obviously am biased but investing in something like that seems to be so likely to have a huge return on investment compared to the cost you'd need to get up and running. And I think that we should look very serious at that. I think one positive indicator is that the existing military service academies and organizations like Georgia Tech or Caltech or RIT, or even some state schools and community colleges have done a great job developing education curriculum that is putting people in the workforce that also it's helped a lot with equity concerns and not just being people from elite parts of the country and background. But I like that idea a lot Malcolm, and the Kennedy School, we're working really hard on trying to put into the curriculum or MPPs in particular more background on things like AI, using digital platforms, using geospatial tools to do public policy analysis because I think it will result in better outcomes and students also then just have a better feel for the technology too. Give us some more feedback and thoughts on that, Malcolm.

Malcolm Wiener:

Well, it suddenly dawns on me that we've always done it, but only in a tiny way. One of my classmates at Harvard and ROTC, which paid my way through Harvard since I came from a poor family majored in physics. And when he graduated, he got a message that said, "Don't even bother buying a Naval uniform, just report to such and such a facility." And he served out his Naval service doing high level physics. We could simply make that a program and do it, do it on a larger scale.

Eric Rosenbach:

Right, I think it's a good idea. I also did ROTC, but it was a poly sci major, and more of a meathead than you I'm sure, and learned all of my tech stuff while working in an NSA post which is another advantage of an experience like that. I didn't learn it in school, but learned a lot of it by working some operations around there. So you could see that being in addition to an Academy like that, then placing them in the workforce where they'd get a lot of experience that could help the private sector too, and bolster that nexus, I think. So, thank you so much, Malcolm. We're at the top of the hour now, and I just really wanted to thank Malcolm again, and thank all of you for showing up to participate. It's really interesting for me to also hear your thoughts and hopefully, got some things going up there, your wheels turning for you as well. Thank you for everything you do out in the real world. That's what the Kennedy School is all about. I know you're doing that in one way or another so thank you for that. And let us know if there's anything we can do to help you out down the road. So with that, I think I'm turning it back over to Margaret.

Mari Megias:

Yeah, hi, actually.

Eric Rosenbach:

Or Mari.

Mari Megias:

Yeah, just wanted to thank everyone who called in and apologies that we weren't able to get to everyone's questions. And just to note that our next Wiener Conference Call will be held on April 29th with Jason Ferman. We'll discuss the economic effects of the pandemic. So thank you very much, everyone and have a great rest of the day.