Hello, my name is Matt Wright and I'm the web planning and content manager for the International Institute for Environment and Development. I oversee the digital team at IIED, so I'm responsible for all our digital channels, our online platforms and helping to guide the digital direction of the organisation. I'm particularly interested in the digital divide and how we communicate with all the marginalised audiences. I trained as a journalist, as a news and politics reporter, and prior to joining IIED eight years ago, I was head of communications for a football club, so I bring lots of different skills and approaches from different sectors to our work. I want to start by introducing this project, which was prompted by the new ways of working due to the pandemic. Like many others at IIED, we were all working remotely. We even moved out of our London headquarters to a much smaller, serviced office, so there was little in-person contact between colleagues, never mind our overseas partners. We had three main aims from this project. We wanted it to give us the confidence to design and deliver creative projects that balance the need for online and physical engagement. We wanted to be able to talk to donors about how to use online engagement to ensure perspectives and voices from the global south were heard. And finally, from a more internal perspective, we wanted to inform our IT strategy, so part of the report was a series of recommendations for the Institute. During the course of the work, we conducted extensive interviews with a range of partners, covering different sizes, different sectors, different countries and continents. And we also spoke to dozens of IIED staff and drew on research by other IIED projects with digital elements. We incorporated lessons from our experiences of shifting everything online and there was also extensive desk research. And the most important finding, both in terms of the way we work and the strength with which it was communicated to us, was that our partners felt that organizations and donors in the global north, including IIED, didn't ask them enough about the limitations they face and which tools and ways of working would best suit them. They already face a host of challenges, from lack of connectivity, internet speed and cost of access, to the political climate in which they operate, with internet shutdowns and the like. As a result, they feel dictated to, even by organizations that they work in partnership with. They feel forced down past they wouldn't choose and that they feel haven't properly considered the challenges they have to deal with. Another strong message from partners, and particularly those with smaller capacities and less digitally skilled staff, was the need for assistance in how to use some digital tools and indeed selecting which ones to use. They don't have the time for this, they ask for support and in some instances, specific training. Due to the pandemic, all meetings, workshops, events have had to take place online and going fully online has opened up opportunities to hear new voices and make new connections. At IIED, we've hosted a successful online event series and we've seen the representation of our non-UK based speakers double during this period. This has also really enabled us to hone how we do things. We've needed to engage and listen to people and partners to resolve all kinds of different issues and develop clear processes, instructions and tools to do it effectively. This has led to the creation of an online resources hub that you can see here, containing how-to guides, templates for presentations, scripts and feedback surveys and guidance around how to run collaborative and inclusive sessions because the facilitation you need online is very different to how you would deliver at an in-person event. We've produced this for our own staff and we've had training sessions as well trying to pass these resources and skills throughout the organizations and we're now increasingly sharing these with partners as well. This has strengthened relationships in many cases. We've developed them already for our use and our partners appreciate the help. What's more, they're also giving valuable feedback which we're using to revise and improve the resources. Throughout the study there was lots of talk about digital tools that were useful but we also need to factor in the cultural differences and sensitivities. For example, we know Tanzania has a strong oral communications culture. One researcher told us no one on their project ever responded to any emails so everything had to be done verbally which obviously has a lot of implications. In Malawi, meanwhile, another project only communicated using WhatsApp. This plethora of options means there is an increasing requirement on all of us to be more digitally savvy. I've seen the pandemic described as having inspired a five-year leap forward digitally. Those not using digital before are now being forced to. Those who were already using digital are now asking deeper questions. Because of this range of needs and challenges there is no one-tool-fits-all approach. Flexibility is vital but equally it's impossible to know everything so we need to understand the broader principles of digital and what are the important questions to ask and make sure these questions are asked at the earliest possible points in proposals and when projects are being planned. Another key lesson from partners was being careful we don't use digital to offer solutions for problems that no one has actually identified and that no one wants to use. One researcher working with grassroots organizations wanted to bring everything they've been sharing in a WhatsApp group during the pandemic things like petitions, messages, photos of how they were supporting people by providing food parcels into a space that could be more easily accessed by others. They thought it would help with more systemic analysis and would be easier to learn from one another but in actual fact it was never used. Even though what was set up was perceived by the researcher as being relatively simple it was too complicated and hard to access for the organizations and was simply a waste of time. Equally it's not all about digital at all. While doing this project the point was repeatedly made to me that a lot of the most important work researchers have done has only been possible from them being able to immerse themselves in a place or with people and it's just not possible to recreate that digitally. So let's look a bit more closely about how we might combine face-to-face and digital collaboration. This is something we developed a few years ago that we call a research cycle. It shows the typical stages of a project from the launch, generating findings, getting the message out, carrying out an evaluation and so on and then from a communications perspective we've mapped onto it what outputs and dialogue work at which points. Things have obviously moved on since then and although digital outputs were including this we realized it doesn't really represent a digital way of working one that's less dependent on travel where it's easier to connect and where greater collaboration is possible without having to meet in person. So we updated it by overlaying all the different digital tools and techniques you might use to achieve the same results. I think this is also very relevant for donors. During the pandemic donors have seen what's possible for organizations to shift to online meetings and it's very likely donors will become more challenging about paying for travel costs and rightly so, we're going to be asked more often why can't this workshop take place online? Hopefully this cycle of engagement shows what an integrated physical digital approach to projects might look like in practice. It hopefully demonstrates that we're considering these issues and what works in what situation and we're serious about delivering value for money. As we've been exploring, doing things online not only doesn't replicate the greater relationship building possible in person but also doesn't expose you to the wider environment and culture of a place in a community. I want to talk now about one specific piece of work we did with Indigenous communities in Peru, China, Kenya and India to share their expertise on resilient food systems and help bring their voices and knowledge into the current global debates. This included a series of events with each of the communities and the crucial thing about this work is that when we were forced to shift from an in-person to an online activity we didn't just think about how to deliver the same event online we went back to the drawing board to see if we could use this to deliver something better. To give a more researcher perspective on this one of my colleagues, Kristina Swaderska will now talk about how we adapted the event and what that meant in terms of outcomes. As she talks you'll also see some footage from the event itself with the Quechua community in Peru. As you'll see we ambitiously planned this to be live streamed from the side of a mountain in the Andes. This was meant to be a two-day workshop and we've split it up into four webinars over four days and two key objectives were developing new interdisciplinary research so networking, partnership building including between different sectors and between different actors and another key objective was meaningfully engaging Indigenous peoples in that process making this a virtual event was quite a virtual workshop was challenging giving those objectives but actually we saw that there was real opportunity provided by going virtual I mean we had a small budget just enough for like 30 people but we ended up having more than 130 participants even though we tried to keep it small and critically we had many more Indigenous people involved and presenting than we could have done with the budget that we had. We had 28 Indigenous participants rather than five and they came from different regions Asia, Africa, Latin America, the Arctic. So we were able to completely redesign the event to make Indigenous speakers the main focus and the main speakers for the whole event. We were really lucky to have this partner in Peru who's a real technical wizard. We are able to give him some of our travel budget about 6,000 US dollars to buy good equipment. He worked with the communities to develop the script and different actors in the communities presented. They started with a ceremony to the mountain gods and you could see in some of the shots you could see the mountains really well when they were focusing on the landscape and so you really felt that you were part of this ceremony in the community and then they were explaining their beliefs and their values and how that relates to their food system. And I think it was a real eye-opener for a lot of the academics. We had more than 50 academics from UK universities, from Kew Gardens. As Christina said, reshaping the event permitted a much greater focus on the Indigenous communities and their views than had been initially planned for the workshop. As an aside, this contribution came from one of the internal online events I mentioned. We'd been arranging to share our lessons of digital working. We asked four or five researchers we knew had worked on projects with interesting or unusual online challenges to share their knowledge. We wanted our researchers to hear from their own colleagues about the challenges and opportunities and what they needed to think about. I also wanted to show some behind-the-scenes photos of the rabbi community in Kenya. You can see it's quite a substantial integrated setup. This is particularly interesting to me because IID's role in this was as a facilitator, bringing these communities together and helping them to share knowledge of how to run such an event. It was supported by sessions where we discussed what equipment was needed, where to put the equipment, how much data for good connectivity was required. We also chipped in with various lessons we'd learned. But fundamentally, these communities were sharing with one another about how to do this online. And where a local consultant might be needed, we helped them identify what the needs were. Around 40% of the world's population remains unconnected to the internet. But I'm not going to talk too much about this. I think most people have at least a general awareness of these issues. Even the weather makes a big difference when it comes to connectivity, though. We actually did another event from the side of the same mountain a few months later, only to suffer severe connection problems when the higher winds were interfering with the satellite phone we were using. However, I do want to focus on the cost of data, where, although the reach of mobiles is growing globally, the world is still a long way from fair or equitable access. One memorable statistic was that there's a 30,000% difference between the cheapest and most expensive average data cost in the world. We're in the countries where IID works in particular. The cost of one gigabyte of data ranges between US$2.7 in Malawi to just 16 cents in Uganda. Given the average user in sub-Saharan Africa consumes 300 megabytes per month, roughly enough for half an hour of video conferencing, they're understandably going to use this sparingly and carefully consider whether every specific use is worthwhile. One researcher I spoke to said that cost was the main reason why their primary communication with partners was through audio only. They'd asked partners to turn on their video, but they declined because it's too expensive, saying that it can cost them 20 pounds for just a one-hour meeting using video. We wanted to look at this in more detail, so we did an exercise looking at IID's web pages, PDF publications, and some average audio and video data usage, and then looked at what was possible with just one gigabyte of data. This table shows the results. The purpose was to get our colleagues thinking about how they designed their engagement. When designing sessions, do they know what the cost of data is for their audience? Are they considering using tools and resources that require less bandwidth and are less data-intensive? Applying that to this presentation, for example, I played a video earlier, but did I need to? I could have supplied you with the link to it on YouTube in advance, and if you'd had a weak connection, you could have watched it on YouTube in lower quality, easily, and at a cheaper cost. One thing I did do was transcribe what Christina was saying, and then played the version with the subtitles, because different people comprehend information in different ways. I could also have put the entire text in the chat box. These are all the sort of online design and accessibility issues we want to encourage our researchers to think about. It's not just the cost of data, either. 2.5 billion people live in countries where the cost of the cheapest available smartphone is a quarter or more of the average monthly income. Someone in Sierra Leone on the average wage has to save for six months before they're able to afford a smartphone. In Kenya, that's just 11 days. And we're not talking about the latest iPhone, either. We're talking about a cheap phone with fewer features of lower build quality, including the quality of the screen. Where phones are expensive, it's likely that phones with damaged screens and other faults are going to be used for longer because people are unable to afford to fix or replace them. There are many things like this to consider, and these are the aspects that should be factored in decisions we're taking. The cost of internet access is just one aspect of the digital divide. There's also geography, gender, age, race, social status. How to access and collaborate with these marginalised audiences is one of the biggest priorities for an organisation like IID, because those stakeholders are so critical to us. The community at the front line of dealing with climate change impacts may have minimal internet access, but it's also the community with vital lived experience and knowledge that needs to be shared. In some cases, it could be a simpler supplying data packages. Christina explained earlier how her project had managed to switch its travel budget into funding for data and equipment, and we found donors very supportive to such requests, especially during the pandemic. This might come to an end after COVID, of course. There might be a little less flexibility shown, but we know donors have their own digital strategies and their own desire to target these communities. In many ways, we need to treat digital as a social justice issue. We must increasingly consider access and accessibility issues at project proposal and inception phases. Communicate openly with donors and funders about them from the outset. Our experience is that donors respect this, and they want these issues to be considered. When we talk about accessibility, we're talking about improving the user experience for people with disabilities, including visual, physical, cognitive, and so on. The World Health Organization estimates that around 15% of people live with some form of disability, but good practice and accessibility actually benefits all users, particularly older people, and ensuring what you deliver is inclusive means your services and products are usable by as many people as possible. This means you can get the largest audience possible and it also fits with the mission and values of organizations like ours, creating equal opportunities for all. A good example of this can be found in some work. Our climate change group and digital team have been doing to encourage digital working in a more inclusive way, including the negotiators from the least developed countries at COP26, ensuring that web pages load quickly, brings down the cost, and can address problems with low bandwidth. For people, especially in the global south, only use mobile devices, so it's vital to ensure that content works on small screens. Providing different ways to access content, providing transcripts and translations, and encouraging working in asynchronous, non-real time ways can help reduce problems caused by connectivity issues. If you're having a meeting and someone is making notes in a shared document as you go along, if someone drops out for 10 minutes, they can easily see what they miss when they resume. This leads neatly to the environmental impact of digital itself, which is often ignored. Reduction in travel and flights reduces carbon emissions, but not completely. All that work that we do online, from emails and video calls to hosting websites, it all has an environmental cost. There's been a lot of coverage about the extraordinary amount of energy needed to produce Bitcoin, but the truth is that everything done digitally requires electricity and needs to be hosted on a server somewhere, and we have a duty to consider all this as well. This is a growing problem. It's estimated by 2025 global communication technologies will be responsible for more carbon emissions than any country except China, India and the United States. But the good news is that a lot of the measures you might put in place to make your content as accessible as possible and how you design events, all the things we've been talking about all helps with environmental impact. At IIED we're currently working on a large project to update our main website and through doing various audits we've discovered that we have around 4,000 files that are no longer being used. That's 4,000 files we are unnecessarily hosting on our server that's taking up space that we're having to pay for and it's having an unnecessary environmental impact. We recently also worked on a quick and agile project to launch a clone of the word or word game that focuses just on answers that are related to climate and the environment. The author of this tweet is a campaigner on digital waste, so this was a great response to see. We have targets for reducing carbon emissions from air travel, so why not the way we work digitally as well? Of course we have to recognise that air travel is still far and away the greater polluter. You need something like 55,000 hours of HD video meetings just to equate to the carbon emissions of a flight from London to New York.  Just before I finish, I want to come back to where we started in that too often it's organisations in the global north dictating to our partners. This is not intended to be malicious. Using a certain digital tool or proprietary software rather than open source might simply be the quickest or easiest way to do something. But if that's the case, we're not capacity building to the extent we should be. We're not increasing others' knowledge to the extent we could if we were more intentional about what we were doing. We're not reducing others' reliance on us. I was part of a digital dialogue last year with representatives of government, technology firms and grassroots communities that focused on how digital technology can be used to enhance climate action led by social movements. One key point that came up was the issue of trust and the extractive nature of most data collection by global north organisations from global south organisations or communities. If the aim is for marginalised communities to be empowered, it's essential that they have access to and can indeed control the data being generated that is about them and that they have helped to gather. So, those are just some of the areas I covered in this study. I hope it's prompted some interesting thoughts.


So not only is he mindful of the connectivity that happens in these type forums. He has a history and bio that you can read on your own, but I'm going to give some of the things that he has touched in his time. So who we have up before is Chief Master Sergeant LeVar Kirkpatrick retired. He served as the command chief of the 17th training wing as a principal advisor of the quality of life, mission growth, and structural resiliency of 2.1 square miles for the military training base with a population of 5.9 thousand military members, partners with civic leaders appointed and elected to improve the civilian and military relationship between the city of St. Angelo's and Goodfell Air Force Base, which provided 1.2 billion economic impact each year and dear to his heart motivating inspiring 14,000 students each year attending the intelligence training in DOD fire fire I'm sorry fire training ladies and gentlemen please brace yourself for Chief Kirkpatrick thank you I hadn't I hadn't heard that that bio in some time I was laughing because 17 training wing for those of you who don't know who your Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force was there you know if you ever had a job and you were and you knew you were not the best person at that job it's going there to be the command chief of the 17th training wing just two cycles after the Chief Master after Chief Bass I kid you not I got there and every Airman NCO or whatever I meant they were like oh Chief KP you're great but man Chief Bass oh my god and so you know it's it's just one of those things right so if I can I just want to take a little bit of time to talk about the strategic competition and how it relates to you now I'm gonna do this a little bit differently than many of you have already been exposed to this stuff a lot of you guys know this hell a lot of you guys could come up here and do like an in-depth threat briefing based on your theaters and and recognizing that when we talk strategic competition it's not simply one thing it's a lot of different things but I heard it said a few different ways today and that's what kind of what I want to focus on I heard they the actually it started very very early I think Chief Heaton said it I can't remember forgive me if I credit the wrong person but this morning it was when you think about competition you need to recognize we're talking about oh it was about thinking about China when we think about China you know how many of you have fought to have already fought China or have already fought Russia who did I who did I give credit was that to Chief K BK my bad but it was that was it and then when you listen to what Chief Bass said this morning and she spoke about competition and she kept in this thread of we need to think differently and then the chief when he spoke he was very very clear we need to think differently as particularly when you talk about the competition thread and it's about thinking so what I'm gonna try to do just for a little bit of time with you guys today is I want to talk about strategic competition not necessarily just in terms of the the threats and the challenges that we have because that's absolutely true but I kind of want to give a bit of a framework a concept for how we can think about it differently because if you think about it differently you can understand what we're dealing with and when you think differently then you can communicate to your airmen exactly what's going on so when I hear strategic competition it's about how we think and so that's what I want to shape the conversation around and I want to shape it around how you think about these two basic things and those are the two words that are at the root of that strategy and competition how do you think about competition and how do you think about strategy and we'll go into each of those here a little bit and then after that I really just want to have a conversation with you and let's just go back and forth talking about what the challenges we faces as a nation are and I will be at the geostrategic level let's talk let's elevate our thinking up front just recognize I'm not gonna get down into the weeds with you on the the the day-to-day minutiae of what you do let's take a moment and go geostrategic let's talk about America can we do that right because hey that's what's about it's about America right at the end of the day your purpose is to defend America and that's of the utmost importance to me so let's talk about how we defend America through this construct of strategic competition so strategy and competition competition being on the continuum of war war conflict competition all of those are in the same continuum according to the joint doctrine so if you have this this basic content this continuum of war I want to recognize first your warriors so talking about war should not concern you you shouldn't have you should be all about let's talk about war because that's what I want to actually start the competition discussion with is war what is war oddly enough after 20 so much years in the Air Force as the military member it was not until I had the distinct honor to go spend some time at the Air War College where I was actually exposed to how do we as a as an Air Force talk about and train our officers to understand war and there is primarily thinking that comes from these two area there from this great thinker how many of you are familiar with Carl von Klausowitz all right see at the end of this year the hands are going to go up because I'm talking class class with the end theory so we're going to talk about Klausowitz because he provides a definition of war that is pivotal to how most of the Western world views war fighting which goes all the way through the concepts of conflict and competition so we're going to use Klausowitz and his theories to give us a baseline for thinking on war for competition sake all right so here's what it is Klausowitz view describes war is this it is policy it is I'm sorry war is politics by other means essentially what he's saying here is war is a political objective that a state is trying to achieve in order to achieve that they have certain mechanisms that they use one of those mechanisms is violence violence is on the continuum of war and so he's essentially saying that in order to achieve a objective you have a state has the option to use war if you will all the way up until the point to meet that objective stated in other ways this war is always about trying to achieve a political objective does that make sense all right because of that we as a military have to understand that you can win every battle and still lose the war if you do not hit your political objective if you do not achieve what your state was trying to achieve that is baseline for that understanding of what war is make sense all right too easy so this is Carvon Klausowitz's approach I'm not going to bring the next one up but let's take take a take a moment and think about how our adversaries are the great challenger we're considering tends to think about war and the thinker on their end is who sun sue and sun sue defines war very similarly but there's a few distinctions in how sun sue looks at war and here's the two prime things that stand out for sun sue's definition of war and they are this deception is key remember that deception is essential in war and the other aspect of of sun sue's definition as they describe war is the ability to change the will is to is to defeat your enemy's will without the use of violence it's a prime tenant they're trying this hardest to destroy your enemy's will without the use of violence mind you when they do talk violence it's about total destruction just FYI sun sue's definition of war when you actually get into the warfighting portion is about destruction of your enemy it is not truly about reaching a political objective but the political objective aspect of it is simply do everything you can to destroy their will prior to the onset of violence once you start violence it's about complete destruction does that make sense so if you have that context how they how sun sue views which is which informs a lot of Chinese thinking about war and competition and then how the US alright and our Western allies view competition and conflict you can almost potentially see that there's going to be a bit of a a dilemma in terms of how each of us sees conflict but first again I just want to give you this basic premise that from clausiewiczian standpoint and the rest of our conversation here if this first part is going to be all clausiewicz is going to focus on this it's about trying to achieve a political objective by whatever means you have possible right so in order to do that clausiewicz gives this construct here and he says this success in war is based on your ability to balance what's called the paradoxical trinity the paradoxical trinity has these three entities your policy the of the government what the government wants to achieve the might or the skill of the military also known as chance that's the ability to operate in the unknown and the skill that's what your military generals your thinkers do and then the other one is the passion of the people what is the skill the talent in the past and the people what matters to them if in the in the construct of the paradoxical trinity all three of those things have to be our interdependent and they have to be strong in order for them to achieve the objective that a state wants to achieve if you are weak in one or two of those areas it's implied that you will not meet your political objective does that make sense so let's walk through that real quick policy now on this focus kind of on us first and foremost what is our national overarching policy geopolitical policy what matters to America and if it's free you don't have to go to the thing just say it back out to me what matters to America say that America that's right America matters to America American American interests what matter what matters to us America say that our economy freedom what somebody said said democracy hell yeah what else influence what was that other one global influence right so America's policy is based around most of what you just said America's national policy is based around this idea of for a free market income protecting the global commons if you protect the global commons that allows us to have free trade we rely on free trade because that's how our economy functions and that's where we gain most of our power and freedom is having access to the global commons so you will see when you look at national strategic foundational documents that chief bass mentioned earlier you will see generally at the top there's a threat in there that is going to always point back to this idea of our requirement to defend first of all defend the homeland you guys know that as baseline the other one is defend democracy worldwide and ensure that and ensure or try to protect here's the here's the kind of buzzword that that describes this whole thing protection of the current international order right what is the current international order of the world order and that's what we talk about the global commons the ability to diverse and in the global commons those being you know sea space cyber the places that you have a general area that you can communicate back and forth with so that's how that's America's the national policy right I had I'm gonna make sure I covered everything else alright so in order to achieve your policy you have certain instruments of power that you use we know these dime in order to to work that do not find yourself or any state thinking that you only have one instrument sometimes because we are the military instrument we think in terms of the military it it's not power doesn't work like that you have all of the instruments to apply so you guys know this your professionals at this but here's one of the most important things about policy please put this in the back of your head your head for your national policy stability is key changing and shifting policy is the big is where we begin to lose ground when your policy shifts so much now what I just described what we talked about briefly as policy those are not things that have changed those are long-standing national policy but it's important to note that when you talk in government policy stability is key and the other thing about the government and policy that's important is that a number of governments number one goal is survivability of that government I don't know if you realize that but our government is the same way and every other states number one objective it's prime is survival of the of the administration of the government that's in play right so survivability and consistency and stability is going to be key in terms of policy so I'm focused a lot on us because we're going to take a minute and we're going to talk about them but let's get through us first so clausowitz clausowitz gives you this idea of government policy they're the ones who set the objective and then on the other hand he describes what's called the people it's important to note that government and people are not the same thing that's why I remind you of January 6th because the people in the government do not always agree and that's and that's something that is we see it play out all over the world all the time people are different than the governments for which that represent them and it's important to recognize the power of and the influence of those people so when you look at people or when you look at people what clausowitz is referring to here is the will of the people you cannot go into a war or conflict and not have the will of the people to support you if they if you do not have their if you don't if they don't have the will to support it you're not going to get the things that you need in order to accomplish it which goes into what chief bass has been begging us to to focus on which is resources you know if the people don't care you'll never get the resources you need because the people are the very people are the very ones that supply the resources required so how do you influence will how do you influence will of a people let's talk say that messaging perfect how else how do you influence a nation's will or the will of the people broadly because it's it's in there and what you said but I would just pull it out just a little bit even more say that fear is a powerful tool how do you how do you use fear then you said say that through actions okay and you said control markets through fear alright what else you said self-interest I heard someone else say that again yes yeah you like you knew what I wanted to hear how many figured out he's just trying to get you say media because it is at the end of the day it's about information if you want to influence the will of a people it's the information that they get and you control the information through the media that they take in so in America we have free press free media guess what our will is completely informed by the information that our people receive completely and so the will of the American people is completely responsive to the kinds of information that we get and that we receive through media through social media through information through misinformation all of it is equally powerful and determining the will of the people that you find yourself responsible for so that's what clausowitz describes as that I don't know if you see I'm we're laying some breadcrumbs to see what the problems are you guys hopefully we're walking the same direction alright so the next one on that Trinity that he describes is this idea of chance but then he refers to it as military so what this refers to is that on the Trinity you have two things so far that we've discussed policy what is the government want to try to accomplish what is the overall objective hopefully it's stable the other thing is the people do the people support it are they interested do they support the outcomes of what the government wants to achieve and then you have this idea of chance or the military which recognizes that there are always unknowns there's things that you don't know and there has to be some form of skilled and talented group of individuals with tools and capabilities that will go after trying to solve whatever that problem is and that is where the military comes in we are the ones that deal in the fog of what he calls fog of war and the way clausowitz describes it the fog of war the military of the he actually uses the army is the term that he used based on his time is oppression in 1700s but he refers to it as the army but what we're talking about there is the fog of war in the generals their ability to adapt to change and to think and to operate with less than perfect information if you can do that that you are effective as a military so I'm going to just take a moment and plant ourselves right there just for a second you've heard it said here so many times today at least this was stood out to me that we need to be a thinking force we need to be a thinking force when you look at the military and our potential success and whatever challenge we have in front of us we have to be agile highly skilled and we have to be a thinking force whatever the fact that you're away from your section your home units for the next four days is the and is not cheap for you to be here I know many of you are like well I didn't get the chance to rent a car blah blah blah the government's being cheap this is not a low-cost endeavor for all of you to be here for the time that you are here this is a significant investment and one of the things that you heard the chief say and the chief say that we want you to take this time to think think about what you've done think about your experiences think about how you can do things better than before because how many of you been through enlisted PME I know silly question right all right how many of you been through officer PME couple a couple of us so here was what I learned in officer PME when I had a chance to do IDE and SDE it was this they took a year of their lives away from work from everything else and we went to school and we learned and we thought and we debated and we engaged in military thinking and we talked to strategy and we try and try to develop better ways to do things because we had a break to think when I had a chance to do officer PME you know we did it and enlisted PME you guys know we got after it we went in we were there we freaking did class for eight-hour days non-stop because and let officer PME I don't know if I'm allowed to say this but we were doing half days is that is that is that secret I don't know but we was but if it was like if it was 1230 and you were still in the building it was like a problem like something had gone horribly wrong if you are still in the building at 1230 all right so but what I'm saying is is man you're getting after it and you know what what's happening why you're at PME you're airmen your NCOs and so forth you're still responsible for them aren't you so I know they try to you know how you need to focus on this well you get a unit hey Sergeant so and so done messed up you get that call damn I got to go handle this and then you got to get back to writing a paper doing briefings and doing all of the things that we were doing in PME here's how I always viewed it from the moment you joined you you took the oath of enlistment as an enlisted member you were on a hamster wheel and we have been running your ass for 20 plus years we have not given you a break your officer teammates every once in a while they run they get a break they get a staff job they post up for a staff job for a couple years where they go to school you ever wonder why when a new commander shows up oh they're like on fire you know they get in there like a kid they're like oh my god new command they just want to do something and they got two years and what did they do for two years they run hard for two years and then the next commander comes in and guess what they do they run hard for two years you know why because they chances are particularly at certain levels they're either just coming off of staff or command or somewhere else where they had time to stop take a break think about what they wanted to do next reflect on these things and then they jump back in and then go after it you know what you were doing you know what you're asking your people to do I'm not saying that we have the immediate solution for that right now but I can tell you this if we take the moment to give you a moment of a break to stop and try to reflect and think let's take the time to do that let's really take the time to stop and think and reflect so we can try to help solve some of the bigger problems that we find ourselves facing and that's that's a big part of what I think is going to be make a successful going forward is actually taking the time to think strategically so here's the other thing on thinking because I'm still I'm thinking for military is it's been mentioned how many of you think about the second and third order effects of actions all right how many of you take actions deliberately to achieve those second and third order effects because that's that's that's a key thing there is to do it knowing that maybe this immediate effect I know what this is but I'm actually trying to get to that other effect I give you one other way you can try to get there just through conceptual thinking alone is this when you hit an organization in your unit I want I want to challenge you to think strategically in this way try to solve problems that are not just two years out or one year out Chief Bass has been talking about 2030 think about solving the 2030 problem think about what you can do today that impacts 2030 how the way that you do your PT or the way that you develop your your airmen or the way that you are mentoring these chiefs is going to prime them for 2030 think beyond the immediacy of the moment and trying to solve something that can get on your EPR in the next five minutes and actually take the time to think about what is the big problem that's five to ten years out and can I do my part to take steps and trying to get there if you do that you'll find yourself naturally beginning to think more strategically and you'll start taking actions with the second and third order effects as the primary outcomes of what you're trying to achieve and that that's a big portion for thinking strategically the last one on thinking I just think is this is man try to solve your boss's bosses problem from thinking to just try to solve your boss so you know you have your if your squadron if you're the squadron level and your squad and the commander's got a got it sir or ma'am I'm helping try to solve that you also need to be thinking about the group or the wing or the organization up trying to solve those problems are recognizing the context of the issue you're you're you're trying to get after in the context of the broader problem that's at hand try to solve that next level finally on the military side is I have I've always had this belief that men you have a responsibility to develop the future that's already been said right if you want to develop the future you have to consider at least two two basic factors because when I say the future talk about the airmen of the future you need to think about or know what the tools that they're going to have at their disposal and the environment that they're going to be functioning in the tools and the environment you should know the tools and the environment because those are the things that determine the warrior that you need for tomorrow if we all were in if we lived in Spartan era and we were Spartans what were the tools that we would have spears and shields and Swords so what would be the what would be the training that I would have to give you or what would be the the the talent that I would need you to have to function in that in that environment it would be different than it is today I would need you to have strong leg you'd have to have strong upper body leg power you'd have to be someone who was I guess fearless in terms of their ability to follow orders and to connect to to their teammates in a very physical manner you'd have to meet certain physical requirements in terms of height and build to be an effective warrior and that was not just because it was cool at the time it was because the tools that they had an environment for which they were prepared to fight in so that's how they designed themselves to be a warrior culture so as tools evolve so will evolve the requirements of the warriors themselves think about the tools that are coming online cyber AI think about the different environments that we find ourselves working in think about those challenges and now as you're developing your airmen what are the things we need to do to build them for that environment and it's okay if they don't look like you because your environment and their environment will be different that's okay so if the military functions and if it if it if we can do that we can think this way if we have that agility if we're led in this way we can respond to the unknown and that's what chance is that's what that's what he's talking about when he describes his concept of chance does that make sense all right so the the other one so that's competition war just breaking down war in terms of the paradoxical Trinity knows three different forces this next one is this idea of strategy because that's you know strategic strategy so it's generally accepted and I say generally accepted because it's still somewhat debated but when you think about strategy in its most basic terms it's this it is ends ways and means ends being what it is that you hope to achieve ways how are you going to achieve it and means what are the resources that you are going to have in order to achieve it now I heard general Brown say this and if many of you have heard a lot of people hate the word strategy they're like that's not strategy this is not strategy this is blah blah blah this is a bunch of BS that's not that's not strategy here's where I think a lot of this comes from the national defense strategy national security strategy you guys have read those documents at least the summaries right and we got a new national defense strategy coming up I want to encourage you to read it as well those documents are not the totality of strategy those documents reflect the ends and ways of what we're trying to accomplish they define what the environment is and they tell you how we can get there broadly speaking they do not generally get into the specific resource requirement to get after it where does the resource requirement come from it's from that other thing that chief bass was talking about which is the national defense authorization act that comes out every year what congress gives you the money that you need and I'm sorry the money the authorization that you need the appropriations bills gives you the actual money that you need and guess what the other resources you you're the resource the national defense strategy whatever it says is incomplete without you being the means that's that's how that functions so whatever it is that we said we want to accomplish as a state as a nation we say hey you need to get a more lethal force we need to the last one had talked about lethality I know this one is going to talk a lot about integrated deterrence that's going to be really really key for us right so even that if you get after integrated deterrence let how do we do integrated deterrence so we're going to talk about how we get after it but what's the means to it it's you it's you being deliberate about integrating across domains how you think taking on new skills training your people to to function and partner with academia and other military organizations and entities actually connecting things that are generally connected your ability and who you are just remember when you look at strategy you're the means so yes read the national defense strategy and yes recognize that your responsibility is to be the means and to develop those means those means are the people it's the thinking that you have it's the it's the way you utilize the resources that are ahead of you when you do that then you actually are able to achieve it so I get it I see why people say I don't like to talk about strategy because not strategy because yes I give you I'll give the term strategy but soon as I don't have the resources what happens it affects my ends in ways because I can't get there that's why we have these frustrations about CR I don't know if many of you are frustrated as enough as you should be about living under continuing resolution but when you don't get the money that you need or that you said that was completely based on a strategic calculation that our senior leaders have made in order to get here I need this and this is how we will get there give that to me and we don't get that so now I have to go back to what I was trying to do and adjust and I end up shifting the target so this is the challenge of strategy all right so I gave you all of that that base that that thinking to do this and I apologize if that took a long time but I want you to think about this what is the China problem and this time I want to I want to hear from you guys because here's the here's the beautiful part all of this national defense strategy talk all of the strategic competition maybe you want your you do like in my organization I was adamant that every single person read the national defense strategy in the unit I didn't care what they were like at least had to read it and have a comprehension about it so maybe you do that kind of thing in your organization when you take on the man the title of chief the words that come out of your mouth are going to be just as if not more impactful to the people who are under your organization then the words on that document they're not going to say the national defense strategy says strategic competition is blah blah blah blah they're going to say chief said we need to be focused on this chief said we need to do that so let's talk about the China problem chiefs and let's just walk through list hypothetically to say from the perspective that Klausowitz would break it down from the Trinity so that first portion that I mentioned what's China's policy right now it we could do open dialogue it's been mentioned already but I'm curious said again I couldn't I can't hear be the be the world's number one power I heard it stated differently by them I think they called it the great rejuvenation right after a hundred years but they call shame if you will a hundred years of shame because their America again America's view on history is very like seventeen hundreds everything is you know we're so old that was from the seventy hundreds China's talking thousands of years when you talk look at time and so they say this hundred years is a blip in the in the history of the Chinese people this is a blip this is not who we are let's go back to who we should be as a powerhouse as a state so their goal is to the great rejuvenation by twenty four twenty forty nine that's a that's one of that's a massive policy let me ask you this do you think that their policy will shift and change it won't they don't have a can but but do they have the same pressures that I don't know how but like we have in terms of policy who leads the Chinese government Xi Jinping man they're gonna they're gonna get rid of him right what how long did he say he was gonna have that job for life he's not going anywhere so that policy is gonna have stability which is key for policy and and they're gonna drive towards it and that just covers the policy side side of it alright so then let's look at the other side of that Trinity the people where the people at what do you think pardon me they're exactly where they're told to be I like that pardon me they're a compliance culture okay alright what else say that again the government has tremendous influence do you remember what we said is how do you control will that that was that's exactly it media and information is how you how you drive your will and they have locked down the commons and so they control the information that is within their sphere and that it drives their will they've just had two movies over the last several years their two movies the two most popular movies in China and China do you think they were like the Avengers or like movies like that no it is straight up Chinese propaganda it is about defeating the West that is that is that is completely it and they did one recently that about the chosen the frozen chosen up in North Korea they did a movie about the battle up there completely historically inaccurate about how the Chinese won that but guess what it doesn't matter they all went there the I say they all there's a lot of people's a billion people I don't think they all went but a lot of people went went there and ate the film ate ate it up so that propaganda you control the information and you control the will of your people so if they say we need to do this and it's going to take violence do you think their people are going to debate them on that they quell that kind of thing pretty quick all right they say stop that okay so that's the people a little bit what's the last one the military or chance their ability there talk to me about the Chinese military they have limited bureaucracy their structure is is different what else they have the means say somebody else said it as well you said somebody spending they've increased their spending absolutely and they're doing it smartly you know what I love about they do things so much cheaper you know why are one of the things that makes our defense budget so expensive is because we have to design things you know how much R&D costs but not of you China I'm stealing that shit you know what I'm saying I'm like I don't count just stealing I'm taking his mind and and and then so you lose all of all of so here we are investing in the genius and the design and all of that it comes with time just come in and steal it claim it that's a totally different dynamic that you have yourself with so that's one aspect of their military so let's talk let's just go back to their concept of their strategy alright so their strategy there ends their ways means you kind of connected you guys already connected that it's going to be tied to this here and somebody mentioned it already the Belt and Road Initiative so you guys are tracking the Belt and Road Initiative I'm sure you've all heard about it I don't want to drag it through the the mud but I'll just say this is one thing that kind of stood out to me can I just give you like my moment of enlightenment on the Belt and Road Initiative so you know this is a massive economic undertaking that that China is doing is going to take them into West Europe and economically man they are going to it's it's going to just go gangbusters in terms of their ability to control commerce in that area and here's a little side note if you want to know why the dollar and English language is so popular it's because we trade so aggressively with countries that that's one of the reasons that that the English language and the dollar is so prevalent because it is the language of commerce I just want to say at some point in time when the yen and Mandarin become the the language of commerce we're going to find ourselves or maybe our kids kids will be in schools learning a different language so that they can be effective in the future economy if that makes sense we're in we're we may be in a situation watching that that transition but here's the thing about this China problem that I think is interesting with their with the Belt and Road Initiative because many of you are not in you know maybe you're like dang we so focused on China China China what about my theater how does that impact my theater you know what are the other actors doing okay well so here's an example let's think about this there's a couple different ports are a couple places that the Belt and Road Initiative is going to stop off on its way to you know over to Western Europe and two of them really stand out in my brain one of them is Tehran and the other one is Moscow and in Istanbul and so forth but Tehran and Moscow that really stands out to me for some reason so and here's why those happen to be countries that the US does not necessarily agree with them ideologically we've got tons of issues in terms of particularly Iran their their fomenting you know Islam extremism in the region the tensions with Israel all of the things what is the mechanism that we have been using to try to engage with Iran generally do you guys know what's the prime thing what is it sanctions so how effective will sanctions be when the Belt and Road Initiative is in play and there's very little if any requirement for them to engage with us from that perspective damn you closed the door on that one but but so how effective will that be it's going to become harder so if you limit if you lost one of your opportunities if you lost one of the aspects of dime that you use for global power because now economically you don't have the ability to use sanctions to try to to try to drive or try to work behavior you find yourself with limited options and how you're going to respond to a country that has the potential to begin to act more aggressive to their neighbors because they have less checks and balances there's less at risk for them because now they have a backer or a supporter in China and I say a backer it's loose because China views relationships with other countries very differently than we do okay here's a quick example of how China views relation not an example but a way to think about it China builds transactional relationships with countries and America builds transformative relationships with countries if you are going to engage with America it's transformative in nature be meeting that there's certain norms and behaviors and things that we're going to look for does human rights matter to you I can't be giving you the head of state of Nigeria or or or Uganda or Rwanda I can't be giving you all of the supplies and weapons knowing that you're violating human rights in your own country because America's values travel with our money so it becomes very transformative in the way that we relate to other states China is transactional you give me this or we'll take that give me this we take that and that's really fascinating way that they have used colonialism across Africa but they're doing it with other states as well but again if they're deciding and they're deliberately choosing non-western non-democratic states to align with and build these transactional relationships those states run a much higher risk in the future of responding to us or to their environment using violence knowing that they have a backer that does not care about how they respond how they act so the belt and road initiative is not just about Chinese prosperity it's actually about bringing prosperity to some of our adversaries and challengers Moscow you think that without having without the tightness of the relationship between Putin and and China they would be doing what they're doing in Ukraine right now absolutely not we would have sanctioned them China would have been like yeah we have to sanction them as well and that would have changed that dynamic so what happens to begin to act more boldly more erratic and so if you want to see global instability at least instability to the existing world order for which we said is our policy to defend this stands against that this is a massive challenge to it so what is our solution we're going to build alliances and friends across the country across the world that's what we're going to use at least as a state again I'm at the geo strategic standpoint this is about building relationships and connections I know the words are small for you guys but can you guys see what that says China these are countries that China is the largest world trade and the other one is the countries where the US is the largest trading partner now it's not a it's not a numbers you know I'm less interested in the 124 and 56 and this is dated so that this is this may have changed a bit what I am interested in who the partners are who are the partners so you know who our number one ally when we go to we've been in any armed conflict has been like who's who's our I think of them like a ride or die like if we're going in you know what country is our ride or die like they come with us Australia Australia's in it Australia's like hey what do you need we're there mate and so here's the deal with Australia number one trading partner like they don't want that smoke as if you look at what's going to potentially could happen with Taiwan Australia doesn't want that smoke there they don't want the smoke on there locally but at the same time they don't want to see a rising China because they know that that threatens them so they're in this precarious situation where they will support us up into a point and that becomes the dilemma of this transactional relationship that China's built with everybody is the people that you were expecting to depend on to help you to slow the rise of China or their Belt and Road Initiative are economically intertwined with China to a point where it becomes complicated to know that we can actually trust account on our allies which is one of the reasons that you'll see it's such a priority for us to do everything we can to strengthen our alliances strengthen our military alliances strengthen our relationships with those teammates to make sense alright I lost my clicker so with that being said I know what from this conversation that we've had a little bit and I and then I'm if you guys have questions discussions let's challenge things this is what I want to do and I'll tell you why a second I talked a lot about who we are and then a bit about our adversary and this is Sun Tzu because this is how how they think they've been studying us for a long time they've been sending their their their people to our universities and getting educated in American culture and history and they are they are they are well beyond us in terms of their knowledge and understanding about who we are what our values are and what the trigger points are for the American people we have a lot of catching up to do and if you want to win no matter what that looks like you have to know yourself and that's why it's sometimes for us to just reflect on who we are and and maybe some of the challenges that we have and you also have to know your enemy what matters to them what are their values and what is of interest to them and then when you have both when you understand both of those things your potential for success is far far greater than before sound good all right so the last thing I want to I want to do is when I think about strategic competition and this it's really your why if you understand is this is why you do the things you do and so if you haven't seen this I'm going to share with you real quick because this to me is a poignant message how do I know and a lot of times when people hear the phrase how do I know the next thing they say is what how do I know what but the key really isn't to know what the key is to know why because when you know your why you have options on what your what can be for instance my why is to inspire people to walk in purpose my what is stand-up comedy my what is writing books my what can be going out with some friends to eat in fact another what that has moved me towards my why is a web series that we have out now called break time so every Wednesday at three o'clock you should subscribe to the to the channel we do a series called break time on YouTube so three o'clock we drop a new episode one episode in particular about to show you a clip to we were in a we're in Winston Salem so break time this is how it works I travel the country I do stand-up comedy probably an hour or hour and a half at an event and in the middle of my show I'll just sit down and start talking to the audience and funny just happens or I'll meet somebody who's really interesting so I met this one guy and he said that he teaches music at a school I was like alright you teach music you know can't you sing and then I'm just gonna show you the clip check it so musical director yes sir alright so let me get a couple let me get a couple bars of like a amazing grace can't do the first part go ahead amazing how sweet the sound that saved her like me that brother sing all right what you give me the version is if your uncle just got out of jail you got shot in the back when you was a kid I'm just saying let me see the hood version real quick if you know just see if that exists let me see what you got so here's the thing the first time I asked him to sing he knew what he was doing the second time I asked him saying he knew why he was doing it when you know your why your what has more impact because you're walking in or towards your purpose something about like being a black guy introducing a clip of a black guy who introduces a clip of himself is so meta that I love it but but hope I mean I'm sure some of you guys have seen that before but the message to me is that's that completely connects to this idea of strategic competition and what we're really talking about is understanding why you have so many things that you're being asked to do or change or function in and it's happening and it's happening at a rapid rate and many of you know exactly what you need to do I know what I need to do and you're telling your airmen you and they're asking you why take the time to explain why take the time to internalize the why why does this matter because not just because someone says because China no get to a deeper level of understanding about what that means and how that's going to change the world the global world order and how that will impact our children's children and and how that is going to potentially drive up other adversaries not China to behave differently and impact our relationships with our allies and friends and so forth all over the globe this understanding your why changes how you behave in the very thing you're doing right now and that's what we need our people to do is to think more aggressively to try to solve the big problems that we have sound good alright so that's what I had I like I don't know if there's we got a questions or comments or debate here if I can give you one homework assignment for why you guys leave this with my beef as a chief sometimes is I used to come to conferences like this after I made chief and went to him for many many years with cheap bass and so forth and you know I made this I had this mistake so many don't make this mistake I would show up and I would be like angry angry chief just like all the angry tech sergeant have this thing about tech sergeants they're the angriest group of people on the planet it's not debatable tech sergeants look at them they're they're angry and then but then there's chiefs and chiefs are like some of the most honorary people to try to work with and I sit back there at these conferences and I was on retu because I had this chip on my shoulder that I said man we sit here and we talk about leadership leadership leadership leadership leadership everyone is warm and fuzzy leadership and how you do this and how you do that leadership leadership leadership and I was like I got it we're good leaders but if we lose the next war brother what's it for I don't care and I say the and I don't mean to be that way I don't care that we're the world's best we're not a leader development organization we're a war fighting organization we have a mandate by the American people to defend America to defend our interests on the globe yes as a part of that process we build great leaders as a part of that process we develop human beings to become better members of society but you know what your primary function is based on what you're wearing on your chest it's to defend this country it's to be thinking about the problems that we just talked about and how we can solve them at your level that's the part that matters to me so I used to be one of the guys to sit there and be frustrated and then I get a call from the chief master on Air Force and it's like hey you used to complain about it I come and talk about it all right so here I am all right so questions I'll leave it wanted okay am I into their lunch period hey I'm here all week but so here was my last homework assignment when you guys are having your side conversations man talk about some of this talk about how you're going to try to defeat China don't just allow it to just be simply focused on you know all the I'm complaining about the EES system or complain about that those things are important but make a part of your your conversations among each other about here's how my organization can get better more efficient more effective more lethal and how we can integrate better for the purpose of integrated deterrence hey thank you guys for your time I much appreciate you