This text first appeared in West Level’s Fashionable Warfare Institute.
We simply had our first week of our new nationwide safety class at Stanford – Know-how, Innovation and Nice Energy Competitors. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the category to cowl how know-how will form all the weather of nationwide energy (our affect and footprint on the world stage).
Nationwide energy is the mix of a rustic’s diplomacy (mushy energy and alliances), info/intelligence and its navy and financial power. The devices of nationwide energy delivered to bear on this “entire of presidency method” have been lengthy identified by the acronym DIME (Diplomatic, Info, Navy and Financial) and lately have expanded to incorporate “FIL”- finance, intelligence and regulation enforcement-or DIME-FIL.
Final 12 months, the category centered completely on the affect of latest know-how on the navy. Given the broadened scope this 12 months, we’ve tweaked the course content material and title to Know-how, Innovation and Nice Energy Competitors to higher mirror the “entire of presidency” method needed for long-term strategic competitors.
Meet up with the category by studying our intro to the category and summaries of Lessons 2, 3, 4, 5 6, 7 and 8.)
The course is cross listed with Stanford’s Masters in Worldwide Coverage program and the Administration Science and Engineering division. The scholars becoming a member of this battle come from a various vary of disciplines at Stanford together with laptop science, political science, enterprise, regulation, public coverage, economics, and engineering. If the previous is a prologue, they’ll go off to senior roles in protection, overseas coverage and to the businesses constructing new disruptive applied sciences. Our objectives are to assist them perceive the complexity and urgency of the problems, supply them a mannequin to grasp the obstacles and path ahead, and to encourage them to assist lead how the U.S. leverages all devices of nationwide energy to satisfy twenty first century challenges.
On this 12 months’s class, we wish to:
- Assist our college students perceive how every part of our nationwide safety and devices of nationwide energy are actually inexorably intertwined with business know-how. We are going to discover the complexity and urgency of the affect of the twenty first century onslaught of business applied sciences (AI, machine studying, autonomy, biotech, cyber, business entry to area, et al.) in all elements of the federal government — from State to the Division of Protection to Treasury and plenty of extra.
- Give them hands-on expertise on deeply perceive an issue on the intersection of DIME-FIL and dual-use know-how. First by creating hypotheses about the issue; subsequent by getting out of the classroom and speaking to related stakeholders throughout authorities, business, and academia to validate their assumptions; and eventually taking what they discovered to suggest and prototype options to those issues.
Class 1 – Required Readings
Overview of Nice Energy Competitors
- Thomas F. Lynch III & Frank Hoffman, “Chapter 2 | Previous Eras of Nice Energy Competitors: Historic Insights and Implications” Division of Protection: Strategic Evaluation 2020.
- Stephen Kotkin, “Realist World: The Gamers Change, however the Recreation Stays” International Affairs, 2018
- Nadia Schadlow, “The Finish of American Phantasm. Trump and the World as It Is.” International Affairs Sept/Oct 2020
- Elbridge A. Colby and A. Wess Mitchell, “The Age of Nice-Energy Competitors: How the Trump Administration Refashioned American Technique,” International Affairs, January/February 2020
- Nice Energy Competitors Timeline MITRE, 2020
- “Ought to U.S. International Coverage Concentrate on Nice-Energy Competitors? International Affairs Asks the Consultants” International Affairs, Oct. 13, 2020
- Michael J. Mazarr, “This Is Not a Nice-Energy Competitors: Why the Time period Doesn’t Seize As we speak’s Actuality”
- Emma Ashford, “Nice Energy Competitors is a Recipe for Catastrophe” International Coverage, April 2021.
- Matthew Kroenig, The Return of Nice Energy Rivalry: Democracy versus Autocracy from the Historical World to the U.S. and China
U.S. Nationwide Safety Technique
Class 1 Dialogue Questions
- Is nice energy competitors an correct technique to describe the U.S. relationship with China? With Russia? Is doing so productive for U.S. pursuits? Why or why not?
- What are the dangers of casting the US relationship with China and/or Russia as a whole-of-government competitors? What are the dangers of not viewing these relations as aggressive?
Class 1 – Visitor Speaker
Our speaker for our firstclass was former Secretary of Protection Normal Jim Mattis who gave an inspiring speak about technique, the Division of Protection’s pivot to nice energy competitors that he led throughout his tenure as Secretary, and the significance and rewards of service to the nation. 
Normal Mattis joined the Marine Corps in 1969, and he has led Marines after which later joint forces at each stage from platoon commander as a Lieutenant all the best way as much as combatant commander of US Central Command as a four-star basic. He lately led our total US Protection Division as our nation’s twenty sixth Secretary of Protection. We’re lucky to now have him again right here at Stanford on the Hoover Establishment.
Lecture 1
When you can’t see the slides click on right here.
After introducing the educating group and sophistication logistics (slides 1-13) we briefly overviewed the quarter (slide 17)
We arrange the category with a dialogue of the return of nice energy competitors. This isn’t a difficulty of which nation is available in first, it’s about what the world-order will appear to be for the remainder of the century and past. Will it’s a rules-based order the place states cooperate to pursue a shared imaginative and prescient for a free and open area and the place the sovereignty of all international locations giant and small is protected underneath worldwide regulation? Or will another imaginative and prescient for an autocratic and dystopian future be coerced and imposed by revisionist powers set on disrupting the U.S. led worldwide order – an order that has introduced the world unprecedented peace and prosperity because the finish of the Second World Warfare? Slide 19.
After which we mentioned the pivot within the U.S. Nationwide Safety Technique (which outlines the key nationwide safety considerations of the US and the way the U.S. plans to take care of them) and 2018 Nationwide Protection Technique (which identifies the priorities and capabilities required by the warfighters to implement the Nationwide Safety Technique.)
These paperwork reoriented the U.S. from its concentrate on counter terrorism to nice energy competitors with Russia and China (Slides 23-27). Slides 34-38 expanded on the three traces of effort within the Nationwide Protection Technique: 1) Construct a Deadly Pressure, 2) Strengthen Alliances and Construct New Partnerships, 3) Reform the Protection Division. Slides 41-42 summarized the competing visions of the U.S. and China. The Biden Administration’s Interim Nationwide Safety Steerage was launched which emphasizes continuity in its evaluation of the challenges posed by China and Russia and the anticipated enduring period of nice energy competitors. (the White Home is now referring to the method towards China as “strategic competitors” slightly than Nice Energy Competitors. (The White Home is now referring to the method towards China as “strategic competitors” slightly than Nice Energy Competitors.)
Slides 45-55 launched seven devices of nationwide energy and the idea of DIME-FIL. We mentioned that the nationwide energy of a rustic (its affect and footprint on the world stage) is extra than simply its navy power. It’s the mix of a rustic’s diplomacy (mushy energy and alliances,) info, and its navy, financial, monetary, intelligence and regulation enforcement power. (This idea is thought by its acronym, DIME-FIL.) We identified that in lots of of those areas we’re now not the chief (the DoD has a well mannered euphemism for this – “we’re overmatched” – that means second place.)
Slides 57 and 58 reminded the scholars that this class is not only concerning the studying and lectures. 50% of their grade is a bunch undertaking on the intersection of DIME-FIL and dual-use applied sciences (AI/ML, quantum, semiconductors, entry to area, cyber, biotech, et al.)
Subsequent week – China, China, China
Classes Realized
- The U.S. is engaged in a Nice Energy Competitors – and in lots of areas we’re not profitable
- A number of elements, not simply navy power make up a nation’s energy
- Diplomacy, Info, Navy, Financial, Monetary, Intelligence, Legislation
- Acronym is DIME-FIL
- Twin-use know-how, that’s know-how that has each business and navy use, has modified the calculus for nationwide energy
- AI/ML, autonomy, quantum, semiconductors, entry to area, cyber, biotech, et al
- Advances in these applied sciences are now not pushed by authorities directives however by client demand.
- College students will work on group nationwide safety tasks, challenges on the intersection of DIME-FIL and dual-use know-how
- We’re educating the subsequent era of leaders who is not going to simply talk about coverage however will create options
Filed underneath: Educating, Know-how Innovation and Fashionable Warfare and Nice Energy Competitors |
