Mike Pence’s impossible task, CNN.com

Peter Bergen: Mike Pence’s impossible task

Vice President Mike Pence had an impossible task Wednesday night. As the head of the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force, Pence had to defend the administration’s record when more than 210,000 Americans are already dead from Covid-19.

Pence flunked that test, not least because his boss has Covid and is working in the Oval Office without quarantining himself, in defiance of his own administration’s guidelines about what to do if you have the disease.

The Trump administration always focuses on the visuals. The images from the debate told one story as both vice presidential candidates were separated by plexiglass and sat more than 12 feet away from each other — while Pence resorted to his usual set of bromides about the greatness of the Trump presidency,

At one point, Pence was asked why the US had fared worse than a similar industrialized democracy — Canada — with its response to the pandemic. Pence really had no good answer to that question, instead blaming China.

The Chinese certainly deserve some blame for their early missteps in Wuhan, where the virus originated, but that was back in late 2019 and early 2020. Nine months later and Pence articulated no real plan about how a second Trump administration might try and finally lick this virus.

Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is senior editor of the Coronavirus Daily Brief and author of the new book “Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos

How President Trump wound up in the hospital, CNN.com

How President Trump wound up in the hospital
Peter Bergen
Opinion by Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst

Updated 2:11 PM ET, Sat October 3, 2020

“Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is senior editor of the Coronavirus Daily Brief and author of the new book “Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own; view more opinion at CNN.”

(CNN)President Donald Trump has had a lot to say about the coronavirus, a great deal of it misleading or simply false, and he has also modeled and even encouraged irresponsible behavior, all of which has surely contributed to the spread of the virus, since the President has the most powerful megaphone in the United States.

Now all Trump’s delusional thinking has finally caught up with him. Of course, Americans and people around the world wish the President a speedy recovery, which he is likely to have since he is getting some of the best medical treatment available.

But it would be a huge service if Trump spent some of his time at Walter Reed hospital reflecting on how he ended up there. He should also think about the more than 208,000 Americans who have already died from Covid-19 and start formulating a real plan about how to mitigate the spread of this scourge.

A key to such a plan would be an effort to erase all the misinformation Trump has spread since the early days of the pandemic.

First, in February, Trump said that cases would go down to zero “within a couple of days.”

Second, Trump said that come Easter Sunday, the US should be “opened up” because he “just thought it was a beautiful time.”

Third, Trump claimed that the coronavirus was no more dangerous than the seasonal flu.

Fourth, Trump said in March that “anybody that wants a test can get a test,” when tests were actually hard to get at the time. Even this summer, many patients had to wait several days for results, which meant that their tests were essentially useless in helping stop the spread of the virus.

Fifth, Trump suggested that injecting bleach might prove to be a treatment for the virus. (The president later said he was being “sarcastic.”)

Sixth, Trump said that hydroxychloroquine was likely a “game changer” and that he was even taking the drug himself. In June, the Food and Drug Administration revoked “emergency use” of hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19 patients, in part, because it could cause heart problems.

Seventh, Trump said the virus could take a summer vacation once the weather warmed up. It didn’t.

Eighth, Trump publicly denigrated his top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci as an alarmist.

Ninth, Trump claimed that the only reason coronavirus cases were rising in the US was because there was more testing.

Tenth, Trump has repeatedly asserted that an effective vaccine is just around the corner, while top scientists in his own administration say that such a vaccine will likely only be widely available by the middle of next year.

Eleventh, Trump has repeatedly failed to wear a mask in public, while he has publicly ridiculed those who do wear masks as a routine matter. On Tuesday, for instance, when Trump debated former Vice President Joe Biden, the President mocked his opponent, saying, “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from them and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”

Twelfth, Trump has insisted on holding a series of campaign rallies around the US with thousands of attendees, many of them unmasked. He has also hosted events at the White House with large numbers of attendees socializing without masks as if they were at a pre-Covid-19 party, such as the announcement of the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court a week ago.

Trump’s falsehoods and cavalier behavior have had real impacts. A Cornell University study released last week found that that mentions of “Trump within the context of different misinformation topics made up 37% of the overall ‘misinformation conversation,'” based on a sample analysis of 38 million articles in English from around the world.

An Axios/Ipsos poll in July found that more than three quarters of Democrats said they wore a mask at all times outside the house, while only under half of Republicans said they did so. Also, eight in 10 Americans polled said they would not get a vaccine if President Trump said it was safe, but most would trust their doctor.

Trump still can use his bully pulpit to reverse some of these damaging trends.

Biden won on the most important crisis facing the US, CNN.com

Peter Bergen: Biden won on the most important crisis facing the US

The coronavirus is the worst public health crisis the country has faced in a century, yet in the presidential debate Tuesday night President Donald Trump didn’t make even a pro forma statement acknowledging the pain and the suffering of the more than 200,000 American families who have had loved ones die of Covid-19. Nor did the President make any kind of empathetic gesture to the 7 million Americans who have become infected with the coronavirus, many of whom will face health complications that may not be lethal, but that will still leave them seriously ill.

Instead, during the debate, Trump, as he has done repeatedly before, gave himself a giant pat on the back for the “great job” his administration has done combating Covid-19.

As Biden was quick to point out, the US has 4% of the world’s population but more than 20% of the reported deaths from the virus.

During the debate, Trump presented no plan for what he would actually do about the coronavirus should he be elected to a second term, other than to shout some slogans about Biden wanting to close the country down and the US being “weeks away from a vaccine,” while top scientists in his own administration say that any potential vaccine likely won’t be widely available until summer 2021.

Biden jumped on Trump about his past delusional thinking about the coronavirus: That it would be gone by Easter; that taking bleach might help eliminate the virus and that warm weather would chase the virus away.

The coronavirus, of course, didn’t take a summer vacation. Instead, in states such as Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Wisconsin and Wyoming over the past week there have been record one-day rises in the rates of coronavirus infection, according to Reuters.

So, whoever assumes the presidency on January 20, 2021 will have to deal with the arguably the most complex crisis facing the US since World War II.

Trump certainly made no case that he was the right guy for dealing with this crisis on the debate stage on Tuesday night.

Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is senior editor of the Coronavirus Daily Brief and author of the book “Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos.”

Covid-19 as a ‘Hinge Event’ and the Implications for the U.S. Security, ASU Council for Arabic and Islamic Studies Annual Lecture Series

Next Event: Wednesday Oct. 14 10 a.m. – 11 a.m.
Covid-19 as a ‘Hinge Event’ and the Implications for the U.S. Security
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ASU Council for Arabic and Islamic Studies Annual Lecture Series featuring

Professor Peter L. Bergen and Professor Daniel Rothenberg

Professor Souad T. Ali, CAIS Founding Chair, Moderator

The pandemic is forcing us to rethink and update our understanding of national security. COVID-19 has profoundly interfered with the life of our nation and we must treat it as one of the most significant threats to our national security in decades. Well over 200,000 people have died from the coronavirus, as millions of jobs have been lost and entire industries devastated. Indeed, the coronavirus crisis is shaping up to be “hinge event” in American History, like the Great Depression or 9/11. It is reshaping the world, politically, globally, socially and economically and it is also revealing major structural weaknesses in American society and undermining already fraying trust in the capacity of the US government to respond effectively to core security challenges. In this event, ASU faculty Peter L. Bergen and Daniel Rothenberg discuss how COVID-19 requires radical new perspectives on national and global security which can only be effectively addressed through innovation, a new “language” of security and a shift from a defense model to one of resilience.

Co-Sponsored by the Center on the Future of War

The top Trump adviser who chose not to write a tell-all book, CNN.com

The top Trump adviser who chose not to write a tell-all book

Opinion by Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst

“Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the editor of the Coronavirus Daily Brief and author of the new book “Trump and His Generals: The Cost of Chaos.” The opinions expressed here are his own. Read more opinion at CNN.”

(CNN)Retired Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, who was President Trump’s national security adviser from February 2017 to April 2018, has written a book that will likely confound both the President’s fans and his critics.

In the preface to “Battlegrounds,” McMaster acknowledges that despite the advice of friends, editors, agents and even family members, he chose not to write a paean to Trump “as an unconventional leader who … advanced American interests,” nor did he write a takedown depicting the President as “a bigoted narcissist unfit for office,” despite the fact that writing either of these types of books “might be lucrative.”

So, for those hoping for a tell-all book along the lines of John Bolton’s “The Room Where it Happened,” which was written by McMaster’s successor as national security adviser and that oozed contempt for Trump, “Battlegrounds” will disappoint.
Nor is McMaster’s book a full-throated defense of Trump’s record, such as the 2019 book, “The Case for Trump” by the historian Victor Davis Hanson — a colleague of McMaster’s at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution — which attempted to make the best case for the President.

But in the long run, McMaster’s book will likely have a far longer shelf life than the tell-all books about Trump or the books that laud the President because McMaster ably outlines the national security challenges facing the United States that will last long after Trump leaves office.

As McMaster explains, “I wanted to write a book that might help transcend the vitriol of partisan political discourse and help readers better understand the most significant challenges to security, freedom and prosperity.”
By implication, McMaster’s book advances the view that when it comes to US foreign policy, “politics stops at the water’s edge,” as the then-chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, famously observed at the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.

This view is not surprising when you consider that McMaster never voted during the three and half decades that he served under six presidents, a fact that he reveals early on in “Battlegrounds.”

The book operates on several levels: It’s a lively memoir of McMaster’s time in office, and a scholarly, engaging history and deep analysis of the wide range of national security threats that face the United States and its allies.
However, there are areas of clear disagreement between McMaster and Trump over American national security policy that McMaster’s book also articulates.

An early tell about how McMaster sees the world is his book’s subtitle: “The Fight To Defend the Free World.” It signals that “Battlegrounds” will not be a jingoistic apologia for ‘America First,’ but rather the book assumes that Afghans liberated from the Taliban and Iraqis freed from the yoke of Saddam Hussein are as much part of the effort to defend the free world as Americans are. The framing of “the free world” also seems to differ from President Trump, whose fawning admiration for authoritarian leaders from Russia’s Vladimir Putin to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un is well known.

In “Battlegrounds” there is no score-settling, which has been a feature of so many of the books about the Trump White House. Despite their somewhat rocky relationship, McMaster doesn’t even mention Trump’s former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis once in his 545-page book about US national security. Nor does McMaster mention Steve Bannon, who was Trump’s chief strategist for seven months when McMaster was national security adviser, despite the fact that they both clashed repeatedly about the best way forward in Afghanistan.

The key big idea in “Battlegrounds” is that Americans are often guilty of “strategic narcissism” and that they should invest in greater “strategic empathy.” Empathy of course, is not a synonym for sympathy; it is simply trying to put yourself in someone else’s shoes — whether they are an ally or an enemy — in order to understand their points of view, even if you might profoundly disagree with them. (McMaster’s former boss, of course, is not someone who engages in much “strategic empathy,” and “America First” seems like the height of “strategic narcissism.”)

An important example of US strategic narcissism was the erroneous lesson many Americans derived from the first Gulf War after Saddam Huseein seized Kuwait in 1990 and the Iraqi army — the fourth largest in the world at the time — was subsequently easily defeated by the US military.

Indeed, then-Capt. McMaster led a tank battle during the Gulf War that lasted only 23 minutes, in which his force destroyed an astonishing 28 Iraqi tanks, 16 personnel carriers and more than 30 trucks.

McMaster writes that the easy victory against Saddam led many Americans to presume that “military competition was over,” given the US technological overmatch of any likely opponent.

This led to the overconfidence that underpinned the botched 2003 invasion of Iraq, which, at least initially, was an easy victory against Saddam’s conventional army. But soon Iraqi insurgents started deploying unconventional tactics such as suicide attacks and improvised explosive devices that bogged down the US military in Iraq for years.

The United States subsequently overlearned from the failures of the Iraq War and swung back to what McMaster describes as a policy of “resignation” under President Barack Obama, who didn’t appreciate “the risks of inaction” when it came to not enforcing his own “red line” against the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad’s use of chemical weapons against his own people in 2013. This policy also led the Obama administration to pull out of Iraq at the end of 2011, which helped pave the way for the subsequent rise of ISIS.

In other words, in US foreign policy, strategic narcissism can lead both to sins of commission and omission.
Putin.

Just as the swift victory over Saddam in the first Gulf War produced American strategic narcissism, so too did the contemporaneous collapse of the Soviet Union, which some presumed meant history had “ended” and that the self-evident benefits of liberal democracy, embodied in the United States, would ensure that liberal democracies would become the preferred mode of governance everywhere.
This, too, was an illusion. As McMaster notes, in fact, “autocracy was making a comeback.” It was underlined by the election in 2000 of a hitherto obscure former KGB officer as Russian president — Vladimir Putin (who has recently pushed through constitutional changes so he can continue ruling Russia until 2036).

McMaster doesn’t share Trump’s admiration for Putin. McMaster, who is fond of alliteration when it comes to describing enemy tactics, says that Putin uses “disinformation, denial, dependence and disruptive technologies” in order to reclaim Russia’s “lost honor” after the collapse of the once-mighty Soviet Union.

In particular, Putin seems to want to drive a wedge between the United States and NATO. Trump appears to be playing along with Putin’s strategy with his regular attacks on NATO, his denigration of key allies such as Canada and Germany, and his cozying up to Putin, none of which makes any strategic sense.

McMaster makes the good point that Trump is far from the only American president who thought they could do business with Putin. George W. Bush famously looked into Putin’s soul as if he were some kind of kindred spirit. Hillary Clinton, when she was Obama’s secretary of state, pursued a “reset” with Russia.

But this was all before Putin set out to subvert the bedrock American principle of free and fair elections, according to the intelligence community. McMaster ignores Trumpian orthodoxy when he notes that “Russian disinformation showed a clear preference for Trump” during the 2016 US presidential election.

China

It is China, not Russia, that McMaster says presents the “larger, more complicated threat to the United States,” a conclusion that will not surprise anyone familiar with Trump’s 2017 national security strategy, written by McMaster and his national security team.
That strategy document made the case that the Chinese steal US intellectual property every year valued at “hundreds of billions of dollars” and are “building the most capable and well-funded military in the world, after our own,” and warned that Chinese “land reclamation projects and militarization of the South China Seas flouts international law, threatens the free flow of trade, and undermines stability.”

McMaster alliteratively asserts that China pursues a strategy of “co-option, coercion and concealment” as it seeks to collapse “the free, open, and rules-based order that the United States and its allies established after World War II.”
The ruling Communist Party, he contends, is using the Chinese telecom giant Huawei to “control global communications infrastructure and the data it carries” in particular for 5G networks and it “surpassed Cisco as the world’s most valuable telecommunications company after it stole the latter’s source code.” In August, the Trump administration barred Huawei all access to US technology. Huawei has repeatedly denied that it enables Chinese spying.

Interestingly, given the Trump administration’s stance on immigration, McMaster suggests that a useful response to Chinese authoritarianism is to expose more Chinese to living in a free society and to actually increase immigration from China into the US, “issuing more visas and providing paths to citizenship for more Chinese, especially those of who have been oppressed at home.”

The Longest War

McMaster spent two years in Afghanistan running an anti-corruption task force and he has pronounced, well-informed views about what to do about America’s longest war. (Disclosure: Before the publication of “Battlegrounds” McMaster asked me to comment on a draft of the chapter about Afghanistan and I offered some minor observations.)

McMaster characterizes US officials involved in negotiations with the Taliban under both presidents Obama and Trump as exhibiting an “extreme case of strategic narcissism based in wishful thinking and a false premise that the Taliban was disconnected from terrorist organizations and open to a power-sharing agreement consistent with the Afghan Constitution.”

Amen to that. US officials negotiate with the Taliban as if they are just a bunch of misunderstood backwoodsmen and a de facto government-in-waiting and so they have to gloss over some important facts, such as the Taliban’s dismal record on women’s rights and human rights in general and their hosting of al-Qaeda when they were actually in power before 9/11.

McMaster points out that this wishful thinking persists despite the fact that the leader of al Qaeda, Ayman al Zawahiri, pledged allegiance to Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour, the leader of the Taliban in 2015 once it became clear that the original leader of the Taliban, Mullah Omar, had died two years earlier.

Similarly, documents found in bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, after he was killed by US Navy SEALs in 2011, underline that bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders continued to be in touch with leaders of the Taliban, including Mullah Omar almost a decade after 9/11.

Also, as McMaster documents, Afghanistan has moved on from the Taliban era in myriad ways. In 2001 there were fewer than one million children in Afghan schools. while the UN estimates that as of 2017 there were almost 10 million children in schools. Where once there had only been the Taliban-controlled Radio Shariat, there are now many hundreds of TV, radio channels and print outlets around the country.

When McMaster was Trump’s national security adviser, he was able to persuade Trump that a long-term public commitment to Afghanistan and the addition of 4,000 US troops, a relatively small number, to the around 10,000 troops already in Afghanistan, would help to secure American interests there.

McMaster would expend much political capital advocating for this Afghan policy, which the President intensely disliked. A White House staffer told me for my book “Trump and His Generals” that McMaster “got shot in the face for articulating views that other people also held but were not articulating.”

Departure from Trump orbit

McMaster’s departure from the White House was sealed when he spoke at the Munich Security Conference in February 2018. McMaster told the Munich audience that the recent indictment in the United States of 13 Russian officials for meddling in the 2016 presidential election showed it was “now incontrovertible” that Russia had interfered in it.

Trump quickly tweeted, “General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems. Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!”

Once Trump started publicly contradicting his top aides, they were generally toast. McMaster had wanted to stay on as national security adviser until August 2018, but it was now clear that this wasn’t going to happen. On the lovely, sunny afternoon of April 6, 2018, McMaster was “clapped out” of the White House by hundreds of cheering staffers. This was a far from routine send-off for senior Trump officials who had been pushed out, many of whom had simply slunk away without any celebration of their service.

Once McMaster left the White House, the Afghan policy was reversed. Trump is planning to draw down US troop levels to as low as 4,000 in Afghanistan by Election Day in the US. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has continued negotiating a “deal with the Taliban for the purpose of withdrawing from America’s longest war,” which McMaster says is likely to have a “far worse” outcome “than a sustained commitment” to Afghanistan.

Isolationists and internationalists have long debated America’s proper role in the world ever since President John Quincy Adams famously declared “America … goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.” McMaster makes a convincing and comprehensive case for continued US engagement with the world underlined by the emergence of the novel coronavirus in 2020 which he says requires “international cooperation on health.”

Trump never seemed to really warm to McMaster, who had spent his entire adult life in public service since entering West Point aged 17, unlike Trump who had famously avoided military service during Vietnam and until he had become president had held no public office. McMaster was also a war hero in both the Gulf War and the Iraq War and is too modest to mention in his own memoir that he earned a Silver Star for bravery and was wounded in action.

Along the way, McMaster also earned a PhD in history which became the basis for his bestselling book “Dereliction of Duty,” one of the most influential studies of the US military’s conduct of the Vietnam War. McMaster’s erudition and scholarship are evident in “Battlegrounds,” which comes with more than 75 pages of notes and selected bibliography.

In “Trump and His Generals” I reported that Bannon had warned McMaster before he took the job as national security adviser, “Whatever you do don’t be professorial. Trump is a game-day player. Trump is a guy who never went to class. Never got the syllabus. Never bought a book. Never took a note. He basically comes in the night before the final exams after partying all night, puts on a pot of coffee, takes your notes, memorizes what he’s got to memorize. Walks in at eight o’clock in the morning and gets whatever grade he needs. That’s the reason he doesn’t like professors. He doesn’t like being lectured to.”

McMaster largely ignored this advice. He didn’t go to Mar-a-Lago regularly with the President, which meant that he had less face time with Trump than those who did go. Where other senior officials put a premium on presidential face time, McMaster put a premium on making sure that he had closely vetted the papers that were circulated to other cabinet members and their staffs. He was a grind while those who connected with Trump were generally schmoozers.

McMaster is, in short, a lot of things President Trump is not. But in “Battlegrounds,” he highlights only his policy disagreements with the President and never any kind of personal animus. It’s a stance that Trump must find hard to get his head around since for Trump politics and policy are always personal, as is everything else.

Future Security Forum, online New America/Arizona State

Future Security Forum, online New America/Arizona State
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About the Event

New America and Arizona State University invite you to join an online Future Security Forum, focused on reimagining national security in the age of COVID-19. Top policymakers, practitioners from government, the private sector, and academia will convene a four-day virtual forum to analyze and debate the most pressing global security issues of the 21st century.

Future Security Forum is one of the signature events of the Future of War project—a New America and Arizona State University partnership analyzing emerging global threats, new technological applications, and the changing nature of warfare in an increasingly interconnected world.
Future Security Forum 2020—Four-Day Virtual Program
September 21 – 12:10-3:00pm ET

How can more diverse views make us more secure?
Preparedness, resilience, and global energy security during the pandemic
Reinventing national security post-COVID-19
COVID-19 and implications for the defense industrial base

September 22 – 1:00-3:15pm ET

How do we combat disinformation in the age of the coronavirus?
Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution
As the coronavirus spreads, what are the implications for the U.S. and the world?

September 23 – 12:30-2:05pm ET

Strategy in the era of coronavirus
So you think you can improve U.S. security? New voices on new policy ideas
How does Chinese espionage work?
U.S.-China relations post COVID-19: Is conflict inevitable?

September 24 – 12:30-3:00pm ET

Why the pandemic has exposed the weakness of the West, and how to fix it
Political violence in the United States: What does the data show?
Far-right terrorism in the age of COVID-19
Deradicalization: Lessons from the field
How is proxy warfare reshaping the world?

Additional information, including agenda times and speakers, can be found below.
Speakers
Susie Adams
Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Federal Sales

Javed Ali
Policymaker in Residence, Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan

Brigadier General Richard E. Angle
Deputy Commanding General, Joint Special Operations Command

Peter Bergen
Vice President, Global Studies & Fellows, New America; Co-Director, Center on the Future of War; Professor of Practice, ASU

Nadya T. Bliss, PhD
Executive Director, Global Security Initiative, Arizona State University; Senior Fellow, New America

Mia Bloom, PhD
Fellow, International Security, New America; Professor of Communication and Middle East Studies, Georgia State University

Sharon Burke
Director, Resource Security Program, New America; Senior Advisor, Future of War Project

Erin Cauchi
Investigative Journalist

Carol V. Evans, PhD
Director, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College

Michèle Flournoy
Managing Partner, WestExec Advisors; former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Muhammad Fraser-Rahim, PhD
Executive Director, North America, Quilliam International

Sir Lawrence Freedman
Emeritus Professor of War Studies, King’s College London and Author of The Future of War: A History

Helene Gayle, MD
President & CEO, Chicago Community Trust; Chair, New America; Member, Cmte. on Equitable Allocation of Vaccine, NASEM

Tressa Guenov
Principal, Policy and Strategic Engagement, Lockheed Martin

Lisa Guernsey
Director, Teaching, Learning, and Tech Program, New America

Heather Hurlburt
Director, New Models of Policy Change, New America

Mara Hvistendahl
Author, The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage

Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins
Founder and President of the Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation

Nicola Johnson
Vice President, Government Affairs and Strategic Communications, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.

Mohammed Khalid
Information Systems, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Dori Koren
Captain, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department

Daniela Lamas, MD
National Fellow, New America; Pulmonary and Critical Care Doctor, Brigham & Women’s Hospital; Faculty, Harvard Medical School

Kimberlyn Leary
Senior Vice President, Urban Institute, former Advisor to White House Council on Women

John Micklethwait
Editor-in-Chief, Bloomberg

James O’Brien
Senior Vice President, University Affairs and Chief of Staff to President, Arizona State University

Michael T. Osterholm, PhD
Director, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota

C. Anthony Pfaff, PhD
Research Professor, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College

George Poste, DVM, PhD
Del E. Webb Professor of Health Innovation and Chief Scientist, Complex Adaptive Systems Initiative, Arizona State University

Vidhya Ramalingam
Founder, Moonshot CVE

Arto Räty
Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs & Communications, Fortum

Candace Rondeaux
Professor of Practice, Arizona State University; Senior Fellow, Center on the Future of War

Daniel Rothenberg, PhD
Co-Director, Center on the Future of War; Professor of Practice, ASU; Senior Fellow, New America

Samm Sacks
Cybersecurity Policy and China Digital Economy Fellow, New America

Melissa Salyk-Virk
Senior Policy Analyst, International Security Program, New America

Randall G. Schriver
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs

Erin Simpson, PhD
Director, Strategic Planning, Corporate Analysis and Technology Center, Northrop Grumman

Peter W. Singer, PhD
Strategist & Senior Fellow, New America

Anne-Marie Slaughter, DPhil
CEO, New America

Colonel Frank Stanco
Chief of Staff of the Army Senior Fellow, New America

Alexandra Stark, PhD
Senior Researcher, Political Reform Program, New America

David Sterman
Senior Policy Analyst, International Security Program, New America

Samuel Visner
Director, National Cybersecurity FFRDC, MITRE Corporation; Former Chief of Signal Intelligence Programs, NSA

General Joseph L. Votel
Former Commander, U.S. Central Command; President and CEO, Business Executives for National Security

Frederic Wehrey, PhD
Senior Fellow, Middle East Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Col. Isaiah (Ike) Wilson III, PhD
Director, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College

Adrian Wooldridge
Political Editor, The Economist

Schedule
12:10PM – 03:00PM
Day One – Sept. 21
12:10PM – 12:15PM
(Sept. 21) Welcome Remarks
Speakers
Anne-Marie Slaughter, DPhil
CEO, New America
12:15PM – 01:00PM
(Sept. 21) How Can More Diverse Views Make Us More Secure?
Speakers
Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins
Founder and President of the Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation
Kimberlyn Leary
Senior Vice President, Urban Institute, former Advisor to White House Council on Women, Fellow, International Security Program, New America; Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School and Faculty Affiliate at Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School
Col. (ret) Isaiah (Ike) Wilson III, PhD
President, Joint Special Operations University; Fellow, International Security Program, New America
Moderated by: Anne-Marie Slaughter, DPhil
CEO, New America
01:00PM – 01:30PM
(Sept. 21) Preparedness, Resilience, and Global Energy Security During the Pandemic
Speakers
Arto Räty
Senior Vice President, Corporate Affairs & Communications, Fortum; Former Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Defence of Finland; Former Director of National Defence Policy Unit
Sharon Burke
Senior Advisor, International Security and Resource Security, New America; former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy, U.S. Department of Defense
01:30PM – 02:15PM
(Sept. 21) Reinventing National Security in the Era of COVID-19
Speakers
General Joseph L. Votel
Former Commander, U.S. Central Command; President and CEO, Business Executives for National Security
Michèle Flournoy
Co-Founder and Managing Partner, WestExec Advisors; former CEO, CNAS; former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy
Moderated by: Peter Bergen
Vice President, Global Studies and Fellows, New America; Co-Director, Center on the Future of War; Professor of Practice, Arizona State University
02:15PM – 03:00PM
(Sept. 21) COVID-19 and Implications for the Defense Industrial Base
Speakers
Susie Adams
Chief Technology Officer, Microsoft Federal
Erin Simpson, PhD
Director, Strategic Analysis, Northrop Grumman
Nicola Johnson
Vice President, Government Affairs and Strategic Communications, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.
Tressa Guenov
Principal, Policy and Strategic Engagement, Lockheed Martin
Moderated by: Peter W. Singer, PhD
Strategist & Senior Fellow, New America; Professor of Practice, Arizona State University
01:00PM – 03:15PM
Day Two – Sept. 22
01:00PM – 01:05PM
(Sept. 22) Welcome Remarks
Speakers
James O’Brien
Senior Vice President, University Affairs and Chief of Staff to the President, Arizona State University
01:05PM – 01:50PM
(Sept. 22) How do we Combat Disinformation in the Age of COVID-19?
Speakers
Lisa Guernsey
Director, Teaching, Learning, and Tech Program, New America
Daniel Rothenberg, PhD
Co-Director, Center on the Future of War; Professor of Practice, Arizona State University; Senior Fellow, New America
Samuel Visner
Director, National Cybersecurity FFRDC, MITRE Corporation; Former Chief, Signal Intelligence Programs, NSA
Brigadier General Richard E. Angle
Deputy Commanding General, Joint Special Operations Command
Moderated by: Nadya T. Bliss, PhD
Executive Director, Global Security Initiative, Arizona State University
01:50PM – 02:00PM
(Sept. 22) Pop-up – Burn-In: A Novel of the Real Robotic Revolution
Speakers
Peter W. Singer, PhD
Strategist & Senior Fellow, New America; Professor of Practice, Arizona State University
02:00PM – 02:15PM
Break
02:15PM – 03:15PM
(Sept. 22) As COVID-19 Spreads, What are the Implications for the United States and the World?
Speakers
Michael T. Osterholm, PhD
Director, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, University of Minnesota
Daniela Lamas, MD
National Fellow, New America; Pulmonary and Critical Care Doctor, Brigham & Women’s Hospital; Faculty, Harvard Medical School
George Poste, DVM, PhD
Chief Scientist, Complex Adaptive Systems Initiative; Regents’ Professor and Del E. Webb Chair in Health Innovation, Arizona State University
Helene Gayle, MD
President & CEO, Chicago Community Trust; Chair, New America; Member, Committee on Equitable Allocation of Vaccine for the Novel Coronavirus, The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine
Moderated by: Peter Bergen
Vice President of Global Studies and Fellows, New America; Co-Director, Center on the Future of War; Professor of Practice, Arizona State University
12:30PM – 02:05PM
Day Three – Sept. 23
12:30PM – 12:35PM
(Sept. 23) Welcome Remarks
Speakers
Carol Evans, PhD
Director, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College
12:35PM – 01:00PM
(Sept. 23) Strategy in the Era of Coronavirus
Speakers
Sir Lawrence Freedman
Emeritus Professor of War Studies, King’s College London; Author of The Future of War: A History and Strategy: A History
01:00PM – 01:10PM
(Sept. 23) Pop Up – So You Think You Can Improve U.S. Security? New Voices on New Policy Ideas
01:10PM – 01:20PM
(Sept. 23) Pop Up – How Does Chinese Espionage Work?
Speakers
Mara Hvistendahl
Author, The Scientist and the Spy: A True Story of China, the FBI, and Industrial Espionage
01:20PM – 02:05PM
(Sept. 23) U.S.-China Relations Post COVID-19: Is Conflict Inevitable?
Speakers
Samm Sacks
Cybersecurity Policy and China Digital Economy Fellow, New America
Randall G. Schriver
former Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs
Moderated by: COL Frank Stanco
2019-2020 Chief of Staff of the Army Senior Fellow, New America
01:00PM – 03:00PM
Day Four – Sept. 24
01:00PM – 01:05PM
(Sept. 24) Welcome Remarks
Speakers
Col. (ret) Isaiah (Ike) Wilson III, PhD
President, Joint Special Operations University; Fellow, International Security Program, New America
12:35PM – 01:05PM
(Sept. 24) The Wake-Up Call: Why the Pandemic Has Exposed the Weakness of the West, and How to Fix It
Speakers
John Micklethwait
Editor-in-Chief, Bloomberg; Co-Author, The Wake-Up Call
Adrian Wooldridge
Political Editor, The Economist; Co-Author, The Wake-Up Call
Moderated by: Heather Hurlburt
Director, New Models of Policy Change, New America
01:05PM – 01:10PM
(Sept. 24) Pop-up – Political Violence in the U.S.: What Does the Data Show?
Speakers
David Sterman
Senior Policy Analyst, International Security Program, New America
01:10PM – 02:00PM
(Sept. 24) Far-Right Terrorism in the Age of COVID-19
Speakers
Mia Bloom, PhD
Fellow, International Security Program, New America; Professor of Communication and Middle East Studies, Georgia State University
Dori Koren
Captain, Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department
Erin Cauchi
Investigative Journalist
Vidhya Ramalingam
Founder, Moonshot CVE
Co-Moderated by: Heather Hurlburt
Director, New Models of Policy Change, New America
Co-Moderated by: Javed Ali
Policymaker in Residence, Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan; Fellow, International Security Program, New America
02:00PM – 02:15PM
(Sept. 24) Pop-up – Deradicalization: Lessons From the Field
Speakers
Muhammad Fraser-Rahim, PhD
Executive Director, North America, Quilliam International
Mohammed Khalid
02:15PM – 03:00PM
(Sept. 24) How is Proxy Warfare Reshaping the World?
Speakers
Candace Rondeaux
Professor of Practice, School of Politics and Global Studies, Arizona State University; Senior Fellow, Center on the Future of War
Melissa Salyk-Virk
Senior Policy Analyst, International Security Program, New America
Alexandra Stark, PhD
Senior Researcher, Political Reform Program, New America
Frederic Wehrey, PhD
Senior Fellow, Middle East Program, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Moderated by: C. Anthony Pfaff, PhD
Research Professor, Strategic Studies Institute
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With special recognition and gratitude to
Directions
Future Security Forum 2020 Will be Held Online

The 2020 Future Security Forum will take place via Webex. If this is the first time you’ve joined a Webex event, you can download the Webex Meetings software here. You’ll use the same link to join each day of the conference, and we’ll share that link with registered attendees on Friday. The link will also be posted on the Future Security Forum conference page. If you need to leave the live event at any time, you can rejoin using the same link.

Click here for an instructional video on how to use Webex.

If you are not able to join the event via Webex, you can also watch the Forum live on our YouTube channel. Videos from the conference will also be made available after the conference. If you have any questions or experience any difficulties joining the conference sessions, please email events@newamerica.org.