We simply wrapped up the second 12 months of our Know-how, Innovation, and Nice Energy Competitors class – now a part of our Stanford Gordian Knot Middle for Nationwide Safety Innovation.
Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the category to 1) give our college students an appreciation of the challenges and alternatives for the US in its enduring strategic competitors with the Folks’s Republic of China, Russia and different rivals, and a pair of) provide insights on how business know-how (AI, machine studying, autonomy, cyber, quantum, semiconductors, entry to area, biotech, hypersonics, and others) are radically altering how we are going to compete throughout all the weather of nationwide energy e.g. diplomatic, informational, army, financial, monetary, intelligence and regulation enforcement (our affect and footprint on the world stage).
Why This Class?
The return of strategic competitors between nice powers turned a centerpiece of the 2017 Nationwide Safety Technique and 2018 Nationwide Protection Technique. The 2021 Interim Nationwide Safety Steering and the administration’s not too long ago launched 2022 Nationwide Safety Technique clarify that China has quickly develop into extra assertive and is the one competitor probably able to combining its financial, diplomatic, army, and technological energy to mount a sustained problem to a steady and open worldwide system. And as we’ve seen within the Ukraine, Russia stays decided to wage a brutal warfare to play a disruptive function on the world stage.
Prevailing on this competitors would require greater than merely buying the fruits of this technological revolution; it can require a paradigm shift within the considering of how this know-how may be quickly built-in into new capabilities and platforms to drive new operational and organizational ideas and techniques that change and optimize the best way we compete.
Class Group
The readings, lectures, and visitor audio system explored how rising business applied sciences pose challenges and create alternatives for the US in strategic competitors with nice energy rivals with an emphasis on the Folks’s Republic of China. We centered on the challenges created when U.S. authorities companies, our federal analysis labs, and authorities contractors not have unique entry to those superior applied sciences.
This course included all that you’d anticipate from a Stanford graduate-level class within the Masters in Worldwide Coverage – complete readings, visitor lectures from present and former senior officers/specialists, and written papers. What makes the category distinctive nevertheless, is that that is an experiential coverage class. College students fashioned small groups and launched into a quarter-long venture that acquired them out of the classroom to 1) establish a precedence nationwide safety problem, after which to 2) validate the issue and suggest an in depth resolution examined towards precise stakeholders within the know-how and nationwide safety ecosystem.
The category was break up into three components. Half 1, weeks 1 by 4 coated worldwide relations theories, methods and insurance policies round Nice Energy Competitors particularly centered on the Folks’s Republic of China (PRC) and the Communist Peoples Social gathering (CCP). Half 2, weeks 5 by 8, dove into the business applied sciences: semiconductors, area, cyber, AI and Machine Studying, Excessive Efficiency Computing, and Biotech. In between components 1 and a pair of of the category, the scholars had a midterm particular person venture. It required them to jot down a 2,000-word coverage memo describing how a U.S. competitor is utilizing a selected know-how to counter U.S. pursuits and a proposal for a way the U.S. ought to reply. (These coverage memos had been reviewed by Tarun Chhabra, the Senior Director for Know-how and Nationwide Safety on the Nationwide Safety Council.)
Every week the scholars needed to learn 5-10 articles (see class readings right here.) And every week we had visitor audio system on nice energy competitors, and know-how and its impression on nationwide energy and lectures/class dialogue.
Visitor Audio system
Along with the instructing workforce, the course drew on the expertise and experience of visitor lecturers from business and from throughout U.S. Authorities companies to offer context and perspective on business applied sciences and nationwide safety.
Our class opened with three visitor audio system; former U.S. Secretary of Protection James Mattis and the CIA’s CTO and COO Nand Mulchandani and Andy Makridis. The final class closed with a chat by Google ex-Chairman Eric Schmidt.
Within the weeks in-between we had instructing workforce lectures adopted by audio system that led discussions on the crucial business applied sciences. For semiconductors, the White Home Coordinator for the CHIPS Act – Ronnie Chatterji, and the CTO of Utilized Supplies – Om Nalamasu. For business tech integration and area, former Protection Innovation Unit (DIU) Director Mike Brown and B. Basic Bucky Butow – Director of the Area Portfolio. For Synthetic Intelligence, Lt. Gen. (Ret) Jack Shanahan, former director of the Joint Synthetic Intelligence Middle. And for artificial biology Stanford Professor Drew Endy – President, BioBricks Basis.
Crew-based Experiential Challenge
The third a part of the category was distinctive – a quarter-long, team-based venture. College students fashioned groups and developed hypotheses of how business applied sciences can be utilized in new and inventive methods to assist the U.S. wield its devices of nationwide energy. And in keeping with all our Gordian Knot Middle lessons, they acquired out of the classroom and interviewed 20+ beneficiaries, coverage makers, and different key stakeholders testing their hypotheses and proposed options. On the finish of the quarter, every of the groups gave a ultimate “Classes Discovered” presentation and adopted up with a 3,000 to five,000-word team-written paper.
By the top of the category all of the groups realized that the issue that they had chosen had morphed into one thing greater, deeper, and way more attention-grabbing.
Crew 1: Local weather Change
Authentic Downside Assertion: What mixtures of applied sciences and worldwide monetary relationships ought to the US prioritize to mitigate local weather change?
Remaining Downside Assertion: How ought to the US handle China’s dominance in photo voltaic panels?
When you can’t see the presentation click on right here.
We knew that these college students might write an awesome analysis paper. As we identified to them, whilst you may be the neatest particular person within the constructing, it’s unlikely that 1) all of the information are within the constructing, 2) you’re smarter than the collective intelligence sitting exterior the constructing.
Jonah Cader: “Know-how, Innovation and Nice Energy Competitors (TIGPC) is that uncommon mixture of the theoretical, tactical, and sensible. Over 10 weeks, Clean, Felter, and Shah define the complexities of recent geopolitical tensions and produce college students up the training curves of crucial areas of technological competitors, from semiconductors to synthetic intelligence. Every week of the seminar is a crash course in a brand new area, delivered to life by wealthy dialogue and an unimaginable slate of practitioners who dwell and breathe the content material of TIGPC every day. Past the classroom, the course plunges college students into getting “out of the constructing” to iterate shortly whereas translating learnings to the true world. Alongside the best way the course acts as a powerful name to public service.”
Crew 2: Networks
Authentic Downside Assertion: How may we implement a ubiquitous safe world entry to the web in an effort to assist circumvent censorship in authoritarian regimes?
Remaining Downside Assertion: How can we create an open, free Web and keep efficient strains of communication in Taiwan in preparation for a possible invasion?
When you can’t see the presentation click on right here
By week 2 of the category college students fashioned groups round a selected know-how problem going through a US authorities company and labored all through the course to develop their very own proposals to assist the U.S. compete extra successfully by new operational ideas, organizations, and/or methods.
Jason Kim: “This course doesn’t simply focus on U.S. nationwide safety points. It teaches college students how you can apply an influential and confirmed methodology to quickly develop options to our most difficult issues.”
Crew 3: Acquisition
Authentic Downside Assertion: How can the U.S. Division of Protection match or beat the velocity of nice energy opponents in buying and integrating crucial applied sciences?
Remaining Downside Assertion: How can the U.S. Division of Protection deploy different funding mechanisms in parallel to conventional procurement automobiles to allow and incentivize the supply of crucial next-generation know-how in beneath 5 years?
When you can’t see the presentation click on right here
We needed to offer our college students hands-on expertise on how you can deeply perceive an issue on the intersection of our nation’s diplomacy, data, its army capabilities, financial energy, finance, intelligence, and regulation enforcement and dual-use know-how. First by having them develop 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 at last by taking what they discovered to suggest and prototype options to those issues.
Matt Kaplan: “The TIGPC class was a spotlight of my educational expertise at Stanford. Over the ten week quarter, I discovered an amazing quantity concerning the significance of know-how in world politics from the three professors and from the specialists in authorities, enterprise, and academia who got here to talk. The category epitomizes a number of the finest components of my time right here: the chance to study from unimaginable, caring school and to work with inspiring classmates. Joe, Steve, Raj instilled in my classmates and me a contemporary sense of pleasure to work in public service.”
Crew 4: Wargames
Authentic Downside Assertion: The U.S. wants a approach, given a consultant simulation, to quickly discover a method for potential novel makes use of of present platforms and weapons.
Remaining Downside Assertion: Strategic wargames stand to profit from a stronger integration of AI+ML however are struggling to search out adoption and utilization. How can this be addressed?
When you can’t see the presentation click on right here
We would like our college students to construct the reflexes and expertise to deeply perceive an issue by gathering first-hand data and validating that the issue they’re fixing is the true drawback, not a symptom of one thing else. Then, college students started quickly constructing minimal viable options (coverage, software program, {hardware} …) as a approach to check and validate their understanding of each the issue and what it could take to resolve it.
Etienne Reche-Ley: “Know-how, Innovation and Nice Energy Competitors gave me a chance to dive into an actual world nationwide safety risk to the US and perceive the implications of it inside the nice energy competitors. Not like every other class I’ve taken at Stanford, this class allowed me to take motion on our drawback about networks, censorship and the shortage of free circulation of data in authoritarian regimes, and gave me the prospect to fulfill and study from a large number of specialists on the subject. I completed this class with a deep understanding of our drawback, a proposed actionable resolution and a newfound curiosity within the intersection of know-how and innovation because it applies to nationwide protection. I’m very grateful to have been a part of this course, and it has impressed me to go a step additional and pursue a profession associated to nationwide safety.”
Crew 6: Disinformation
Authentic Downside Assertion: Disinformation is a nationwide safety risk.
Remaining Downside Assertion: The U.S.’s skill to shut the disinformation response kill chain is hampered by a scarcity of coordination between U.S. authorities companies, no clear possession of the disinformation drawback, and a scarcity of clear pointers on public-private partnerships.
When you can’t see the presentation click on right here
One different aim of the category was to proceed to validate and refine our pedagogy of mixing a conventional lecture class with an experiential venture. We did this by tasking the scholars to 1) use what they discovered from the lectures and a pair of) then check their assumptions exterior the classroom, the exterior enter they acquired can be a power multiplier. It will make the lecture materials actual, tangible and actionable. And we and they might find yourself with one thing fairly worthwhile.
Shreyas Lakhtakia: “TIGPC is an interdisciplinary class like no different. It’s a fabulous introduction to a number of the most vital tech and geopolitical challenges and questions of the twenty first century. The category, just like the matters it covers, is unimaginable and bold – it’s a good way to degree up your understanding of not simply worldwide coverage, political concept and know-how coverage but additionally deep tech and the function of startups in projecting nationwide energy. When you’re interested in the way forward for the world and the function of the US in it, you received’t discover a extra distinctive course, a extra devoted instructing workforce or higher audio system to listen to from than this!”
Crew 7: Quantum Know-how
Authentic Downside Assertion: China’s deliberate authorities funding in quantum dwarfs that of the U.S. by an element of 10.
Remaining Downside Assertion: The US quantum ecosystem doesn’t generate sufficient consciousness of alternatives to pursue careers in quantum that would catalyze business progress.
When you can’t see the presentation click on right here
We knew we had been asking loads from our college students. We had been integrating a lecture class with a heavy studying checklist with one of the best practices of speculation testing from Lean Launchpad/Hacking for Protection/I-Corps. However I’ve but to guess unsuitable in pushing college students previous what they suppose is affordable. Most rise approach above the event.
Crew 9: Lithium-Ion Batteries
Authentic Downside Assertion: Provide and manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries is centered in China. How can the U.S. develop into aggressive?
Remaining Downside Assertion: China controls the processing of crucial supplies used for lithium-ion batteries. To regain management the DOE must incentivize brief and long-term methods to extend processing of crucial supplies and reduce dependence on lithium-ion batteries.
When you can’t see the presentation click on right here
All of our college students put in extraordinary quantity of labor. Our college students got here from a various set of background and pursuits – from undergraduate sophomores to fifth 12 months PhD’s – in a combination together with worldwide coverage, economics, pc science, enterprise, regulation and engineering. Some will go on to senior roles in State, Protection, coverage or different companies. Others will be a part of or discovered the businesses constructing new disruptive applied sciences. They’ll be those to find out what the world-order will seem like 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 beneath worldwide regulation? Or will it’s an autocratic and dystopian future coerced and imposed by a neo-totalitarian regime?
This class modified the trajectory of lots of our college students. A quantity expressed newfound curiosity in exploring profession choices within the area of nationwide safety. A number of shall be making the most of alternatives offered by the Gordian Knot Middle for Nationwide Safety Innovation to additional pursue their contribution to nationwide safety.
This course and our work at Stanford’s Gordian Knot Middle wouldn’t be potential with out the unrelenting assist and steering from Ambassador Mike McFaul and Professor Riitta Katila, GKC founding school and Principal Investigators, and the tenacity of David Hoyt, Gordian Knot Middle Assistant Director.
Classes Discovered
- We mixed lecture and experiential studying so our college students can act on issues not simply admire them
- The exterior enter the scholars acquired was a power multiplier
- It made the lecture materials actual, tangible and actionable
- Pushing college students previous what they suppose is affordable ends in extraordinary output. Most rise approach above the event
- The category creates alternatives for our greatest and brightest to interact and tackle challenges on the nexus of know-how, innovation and nationwide safety
- The ultimate shows and papers from the category are proof that can occur
Filed beneath: Know-how Innovation and Nice Energy Competitors |
