This vendible first appeared in West Point’s Modern War Institute.
We just had our final session of our Technology, Innovation, and Unconfined Power Competition class. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the matriculation to requite our students insights on how commercial technology (AI, machine learning, autonomy, cyber, quantum, semiconductors, wangle to space, biotech, hypersonics, and others) will shape how we employ all the elements of national power (our influence and footprint on the world stage).
(Catch up with the matriculation by reading our intro to the class, and summaries of Classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6, 7 and 8.)
This matriculation has four parts that were like most lecture classes in international policy:
- Weekly Readings – 5-10 articles/week
- 20 guest speakers on technology and its impact on national power – prior secretaries of defense and state, current and prior National Security steering members, four-star generals who lead service branches
- Lectures/Class discussion
- Midterm individual project – a 2,000-word policy memo that describes how a U.S. competitor is using a specific technology to counter U.S. interests and a proposal how the U.S. should respond
The fifth part of the matriculation was unique.
- A quarter-long, team-based final project. Students ripened hypotheses of how commercial technologies can be used in new and creative ways to help the U.S. wield its instruments of national power. And then they got out of the classroom and interviewed 20 beneficiaries, policy makers, and other key stakeholders testing their hypotheses and proposed solutions.
At the end of the quarter, each of the teams gave a final “Lessons Learned” presentation with a follow-up a 3,000 to 5,000-word team-written paper.
By the end the matriculation all the teams realized that the problem they had selected had morphed into something bigger, deeper and much increasingly interesting.
Team Army Venture Wanted
Original problem statement: the U.S. needs to reevaluate and modernize its public venture wanted relationship with companies with dual-use technologies.
Final problem statement: the DoD needs to reevaluate and modernize its funding strategies and partnerships with dual-use mid-stage private companies.
If you can’t see the presentation click here.
We knew that these students could write a unconfined research paper. As we pointed out to them, while you can be the smartest person in the building, it’s unlikely that 1) all the facts are in the building, 2) you’re smarter than the joint intelligence sitting outside the building.
Team Conflicted Wanted
Original problem statement: Chinese investment in US startups with hair-trigger technologies poses a threat to US military capabilities, but the lack of transparency in venture wanted makes it challenging to track them.
Final problem statement: Chinese adversarial venture wanted investments in U.S. dual-use startups protract to threaten US military capabilities wideness hair-trigger technologies, but the telescopic of the problem is relatively small. VCs and entrepreneurs can play a role in addressing the rencontre by shunning known sources of adversarial capital.
If you can’t see the presentation click here.
By week 2 of the matriculation students worked teams virtually a specific technology rencontre facing a US government organ and worked throughout the undertow to develop their own proposals to help the U.S. compete increasingly powerfully through new operational concepts, organizations, and/or strategies.
Team Aurora
Original Problem Statement: How can the U.S. employ its cyber capabilities to provide the populace of China with unrestricted Internet wangle to perpetuate starchy society versus CCP crackdowns, in order to pressure the PRC, spread American liberal values, and uphold U.S. self-rule of whoopee in the information domain?
Final Problem Statement: How does the USG leverage a soft-power information wayfarers to support Hong Kong residents’ right to self-determination and democratic governance without placing individuals at undue risk (of prosecution as foreign teachers under the National Security Law)?
If you can’t see the presentation click here.
We wanted to requite our students hands-on wits on how to tightly understand a problem at the intersection of our country’s diplomacy, information, its military capabilities, economic strength, finance, intelligence, and law enforcement and dual-use technology. First by having them develop hypotheses well-nigh the problem; next by getting out of the classroom and talking to relevant stakeholders wideness government, industry, and academia to validate their assumptions; and finally by taking what they learned to propose and prototype solutions to these problems.
Team ShortCircuit
Original Problem Statement: U.S. semiconductor procurement is heavily dependent on TSMC, which creates a substantial vulnerability in the event a PRC invasion of Taiwan, or other kinetic disruptions in the Indo-Pacific.
Final Problem Statement: How should the U.S. Government plicate the domestic semiconductor workforce through education and innovation initiatives to increase its semiconductor sector competitiveness?
If you can’t see the presentation click here.
We want our students to build the reflexes and skills to tightly understand a problem by gathering first-hand information and validating that the problem they are solving is the real problem, not a symptom of something else. Then, students began rapidly towers minimal viable solutions (policy, software, hardware …) as a way to test and validate their understanding of both the problem and what it would take to solve it.
Team Drone
Original Problem Statement: Drones can be used as a surprise element in an amphibious thumping to overwhelm defenses. In a potential Taiwan Strait Crisis, there is a need for a low-cost and survivable counter-drone system to defend Taiwan.
Final Problem Statement: Taiwan needs a robust and survivable writ and tenancy system to powerfully and quickly bring the right windfall to the right place at the right time during an invasion.
If you can’t see the presentation click here.
One other goal of the matriculation was testing a teaching team proposition – that we could turn a lecture matriculation into one that gave when increasingly in output than we put in. That by tasking the students to 1) use what they learned from the lectures and 2) then test their assumptions outside the classroom, the external input they received would be a gravity multiplier. It would make the lecture material real, tangible and actionable. And we and they would end up with something quite valuable.
Team Apollo
Original Problem Statement: The Space Gravity must leverage commercial innovation and establish a trained, experienced vanquishment workforce that will unhook innovation impact that the Space Gravity requires.
Final Problem Statement: The United States Space Gravity lacks the supply uniting and rapid launch capabilities needed to respond to contingencies in space. The private sector possesses these capabilities, but is not stuff ratherish leveraged or incentivized.
If you can’t see the presentation click here.
We knew we were asking a lot from our students. We were integrating a lecture matriculation with a heavy reading list with the weightier practices of proposition testing from Lean Launchpad/Hacking for Defense/I-Corps. But I’ve yet to bet wrong in pushing students past what they think is reasonable. Most rise way whilom the occasion.
Given this was the first time we taught integrated lectures and projects our student reviews ranged from the “we must have paid them to write this” to “did they take the same matriculation as everyone else?” (Actually it was, let’s fix the valid issues they raised.)
A few student quotes:
“This is a MUST TAKE [caps theirs]. The professors and teaching team are second to none, and the guest speakers are truly amazing. This undertow is challenging, but you truly get out of it what you put into it, and you will learn so much crucial and interesting material.”
“THIS IS A FANTASTIC COURSE! [caps theirs]. The material was excellent, the instruction from legendary professions was top notch and the reading material was timely, interesting, and relevant. Anyone who is interested in geopolitics and technology innovation needs to take this course. Not only that, but each week features a variegated guest speaker that is usually from the highest levels of US government and is THE expert in the subject for that week’s course. Really wondrous wits getting to listen to and have Q&A with such incredible people.”
Team Catena
Original Problem Statement: China’s cryptocurrency ban presents the U.S. with an opportunity to influence blockchain development, vamp technical talent, and leverage digital windfall technology.
Final Problem Statement: CCP’s economic urgency makes countries such as Australia dependent on China’s economy and vulnerable to the party’s will. The U.S. must unriddle which key Australian industries are most threatened and determine viable volitional trading partners.
If you can’t see the presentation click here.
A few increasingly student quotes:
“This is hands-down one of the weightier courses I’ve taken at Stanford. From the moment I walked into the door, I was stunned by both the quotient of people you’re sharing oxygen with in that room, and how welcoming and wieldy they are. Despite it stuff the first offering of this course, everything was well-organized, and our team was unchangingly supported with a wealth of resources and wangle we needed to get our policy deliverables to, slantingly a healthy dose of near-constant feedback and encouragement from the teaching team. Readings were engaging and insightful, and the guest list we had was simply unbelievable- Mattis, McFaul, Rice, Pottinger, among several others in the White House, Pentagon, and beyond. There’s a real feeling that everyone who worked on this undertow wants you to grow as a student but moreover teach them what you’re learning.
Beware Steve Blank- he can be harsh and warlike but exemplifies the ‘rude but life-saving doctor’ trope. I’ve learned increasingly from responding to a single Blank cold-question in lecture than from three unshortened quarters of unromantic math at Stanford. Be sure to get started early on your teamwork and talk to the lecturers as much as you can- this really is a ‘you get as much as you give’ course, and the highest returns are to be had by stuff tenacious, loud, and unabashed in your questioning.
And, for God’s sake, don’t yank cartoons on your final presentation- the JCOS might be watching.
“DO NOT TAKE THIS COURSE! This matriculation is a well-constructed waste of time.“
“This was the worst matriculation I took at Stanford “
While the positive feedback accolades for the matriculation were rewarding, several comments identified areas we can improve:
- Letting the students know upfront the workload and unique format of the class
- Better organization and timing
- Readings: be much clearer on which ones are mandatory vs optional
- Clarify details, flows and objectives for each class
- Tie speakers to projects / student presentations
- Make weekly office hours mandatory to ensure all students receive regular professor/student interaction, feedback and guidance from week 1
All of our students put in no-go value of work. Our students, a mix between international policy and engineering, will go off to senior roles in State, Defense, policy and to the companies towers new disruptive technologies. They will be the ones to determine what the world-order will squint like for the rest of the century and beyond. Will it be a rules-based order where states cooperate to pursue a shared vision for a self-ruling and unshut region and where the sovereignty of all countries large and small is protected under international law? Or will it be an autocratic and dystopian future coerced and imposed by a neo-totalitarian regime?
This matriculation reverted the trajectory of many of our students. A number expressed newfound interest in exploring career options in the field of national security. Several will be taking wholesomeness of opportunities provided by the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation to remoter pursue their contribution to national security.
Lessons Learned
- We could turn a lecture matriculation into one that gave when increasingly in output than we put in.
- Tasking the students to test their assumptions outside the classroom, the external input they received was a gravity multiplier
- It made the lecture material real, tangible and actionable
- Pushing students past what they think is reasonable results in no-go output. Most rise way whilom the occasion
- The output of the matriculation convinced us that the work of students like these could materially add to the safety and security of the self-ruling world
- It is a national security imperative to create greater opportunities for our weightier and brightest to engage and write challenges at the nexus of technology, innovation and national security
Note: Inspired by our wits with this course, we decided to increase the focus of Stanford’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation on developing and empowering the no-go and largely untapped potential of students wideness the university and beyond.