Good afternoon, everyone. Those were the students replying they're well-trained after a year. So welcome back, everybody. This is the second panel this afternoon, and my job is, I would say, probably the easiest job that I've had in the entire 12 months of our academic year, which is to introduce three very esteemed and very well-known scholars. What we're looking at this afternoon is something that is near and dear to my heart, and I think probably near and dear to your heart as well, which is the current challenges, the future trends, the things that we need to be aware of that specialists can really draw us in and provide insight into. So what I'm going to do this afternoon is introduce each of the panelists and then allow them to do their presentations so their background, their context is fresh in your mind as they're giving their presentations. Immediately to my right here I have Dr. Matthew Burrows, who serves as the director of the Atlantic Council's Strategic Foresight Initiative. You probably know him best for something that he authored for the National Intelligence Council, the NIC, which is the Global Trends 2030 Alternative Worlds document. And I know that this is very well read, very well thought of, and both in academic circles and think tanks, but also amongst operators and practitioners. This is a document that has really served to spur discussion and debate about what's coming next and what our future issues are. So Dr. Burrows, I'll hand it over to you, and we have about 15 minutes or so, and then I'll start waving. Thank you very much, and it's a real honor to be here. I wanted to begin actually with a quote that I often use, which is from Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, it's a famous one, it's the best of times, it's the worst of times. I want you to keep that in mind, because I think what we're facing in the future in terms of challenges is actually the result of a lot of success. And Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, the French Revolution, but it's also a time of the Industrial Revolution in England, a revolutionary period. And in many ways we're in the same revolutionary period facing, I would say, even more challenges. So these are five key questions, and I'll answer these as I go through the briefing. But if you were to ask me what were the five key things to watch out for about the future, these would be the five. Beginning with basically middle class aspirations, we're living in a middle class world first time in human history that has huge pressures on governments, both democracies and authoritarian governments. The third is technology. We came from a period I think when back in the 90s, probably this decade when we saw technology is very beneficial. It's really, there are downsides that are occurring, particularly this morning about cyber security a little bit, but there are other security questions, and then there are bigger issues on the economics than on the social. So technology is there, obviously, huge benefits, but also some negatives we have to worry about. The fourth is what we thought. We are seeing a downward trend. Technology is that we may be seeing an uptick on conflict. And the final is how do you put together an international system with so many new rising powers? Previously, the way that question was answered was a world war, and we want to avoid it. So the first big issue, and you'll note I'm not beginning to talk about states, because I actually think this is the age of the individual. You really have this growth of a global middle class, huge. When you're thinking about this is happening over a 20, 30, 40 year period, and you're going to get to a majority of the world are going to be middle class. That means that you're looking, actually, we can begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel on poverty. There still will be poverty in 2030, but not at all like we have known before. This world, though, a middle class is going to be now not Western the way it was 19th, 20th century, but increasingly global. Because population, the biggest populations are in the east and south, that middle class is going to be located in the east and south, and the U.S., Western European, those middle classes actually will form a minority of the world's global middle class. When I talk, and I get lots of invitations to go out and talk, broadly to lots of groups, and there's always a puzzled look that gets on people's faces about this point. We have a campaign, Hillary Clinton's campaign, talking about the decline of the middle class, how you bolster it. You have other campaigns also trying to grapple with this question. It is true that we have seen stagnant incomes for the middle class. This graph basically explains that. This is if you line up all the households in the world and you compare their incomes and you compare this over the last, well, it's between 88 to 2008, so this is a period of huge globalization and historically high levels of global growth. What you're seeing is on that first big hump there, that's the global middle class. The rate of increase in their income over the past couple of decades, as that rate is actually higher than the rate of income growth for the very rich, which are the very end. But in that valley is really the western middle class. This is a case of not all boats rising. The U.S. as a country has done very well, but that western middle class has stagnated in some cases decline. This has huge implications when you're thinking about, I'll just go on. This shows you in the U.S. case exactly what has happened to our medium income. It also, when you're looking at democracies, my thesis on why we are seeing weakness, I would say in western democracies, is based on the economic. Middle classes felt that governments had that responsibility to provide economic opportunities. Those opportunities have been coming in the way that they were in the immediate post-World War II period. You're seeing then something that was not assumed decade or two ago. Assumption was with the growing middle class worldwide, western values would also follow and these new middle classes would actually gravitate to democracy. We've seen, if you follow Freedom House, we've seen basically in the last decade a decline in some of the, and that's what part of the graph indicates, a decline, kind of retrenchment in some of those values. It's not going back to pre the end of the Cold War when you had a huge spurt of democracies, but it is a plateauing of that democracy in a way that we expected that it would actually increase and that you would see pressures grow in China and other places for democracy. Good news is, I want to stress, best of time, worst of time, best of time, education, we've seen a lot more progress than we would have expected. The rates of enrollment, of attainment of secondary or tertiary, going at a much faster rate than they did when the western middle class was expanding in the late 19th and 20th century. We're getting to the point, and this is also very critical, that the gender gap is closing in terms of educational opportunities for young boys and girls. This is happening worldwide. There are some regions that lag a little bit, but nevertheless we're seeing this progress all over. Here's what you wouldn't think you would be seeing in terms of really formal education in the Middle East. You are really seeing real improvements, real growth. The only problem, and it's not shown on this graph, is that PhDs in the Middle East actually have a much harder time of getting jobs than the less skilled. We have a middle class, that's one huge tectonic shift, a middle class world. The other shift that we're looking at, and we don't quite know how this is going to work out, is aging. Aging is happening worldwide, developing states. Some of the developed states, parts of Europe, southern Europe, Germany, Japan, these are aging quite quickly, but more or less everybody is aging except for about 28 countries. Most of them are Sub-Saharan Africa, a few in South Asia. Even the Middle East, the core Middle East, will be aging and it's already starting that process. It's going to be a very slow process there, but you're seeing in this graph basically that there's a crossover point in 2050 when there will be more population over 65 than population under 15. The Sub-Saharan Africa, that is really where you're going to see continued explosive population growth. So the point of Nigeria is going to be 30 to 40% bigger in terms of population over the next 20, 30 years. And in 2050, one out of five people in the world is going to be African. And of the Africans, one out of four will be Nigerian. So the question is, can you keep up economic growth? When you have huge numbers now of your formerly working population actually in retirement. Mackenzie has done a study looking at this, where are you going to get basically what formerly was the labor growth? How are you going to compensate for actually that growth being 40% lower? So 40% lower in terms of worker participation. And the only way is through productivity. Now developing states, productivity is very low. So you can see about how you can boost that up. Some of it has to do with bringing an internet into business operations. But it is a concern in developed states like the U.S. And one of the things, I'm sure you picked up by economists real worry in the U.S. about the fact that productivity has not been picking up in recent years. Now we're at a much higher level than the rest of the world, but nevertheless we will be an aging society. If this, if you wouldn't solve the productivity problem, then you would be looking at global growth 30% lower. And you would be going back to a period before really the last three, four decades when you've had historically high global growth. Other big thing happening, and we've talked a little bit about it, are the technological revolutions. So the internet has really broken open a whole series of other technologies. And these are the robotics, artificial intelligence, biotech, a whole slew. And they are actually, some of them going at a faster speed than Moore's law. So largely again, I would say very beneficial, but real worries about on robotics is it going to come so fast that you're going to displace more workers than you can get new ones trained up and that you can develop new jobs. Are you also biotech concerned that we've been working on in the Atlantic Council looking at the security implications? Because basically now a high schooler can put together an organism. You can send it through a 3D processing all around the world. It's not too, you don't have to be a PhD to really do this, because they're all packaged various ways that you can put together an organism. Still there for putting a lethal one, for developing a virus. It is a really, really live potential and one that in 10, 15 years we could see bioterrorists. Now I remember when we did this briefing in the National Intelligence Council, the question was, well, 10, 15 years ago we should have been thinking about cybersecurity, because all we saw are the good possibilities. What are the things that now we should be thinking about to prevent the negative excesses of these technologies? And that I don't think we're anywhere near of having a conversation on that, particularly as with genetic engineering, parents can determine makeup of their children. China is going ahead looking at what genes correlate with high intelligence. We have the ability or we soon will have the ability as a species to be responsible, able to determine our own evolution. It is a huge revolution, it turns Darwin on his head. One of the big issues looking forward, and there was some comment on this, on the resource issues, and we do have, particularly in the areas of high population growth, they face a perfect storm in many ways, because that's the parts of the world that are going to be impacted by climate change. They're also growing, as I said before, and they also are areas that are already, we know governments are flailing about, have not been able to really tackle the big challenges. So on top of this you add basically water stress, you add also conflict, which makes it harder to invest in terms of increasing your agricultural productivity, and in Africa the productivity has been flat for several decades, despite the increasing demand. In future you could have, like we did in 2008, but on a bigger scale of food crisis, particularly if we have one of the big red basket, producers, US, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, Australia fail simultaneously. Many of the countries in Northern Africa actually depend heavily on imports. Where we have our own drought and really going on in Southwest part of the country, equally again it's many of the parts that are impacted by climate change, so precipitation patterns are changing rapidly and for agriculture in India and other places that depend on rain, they face an uncertain future. Now India, China have much better resources to cope with these issues, Africa doesn't. Finally looking at conflict, and as I said last couple of decades have been the most peaceful in human history, and certainly way down in terms of interstate conflict. Place we worry increasingly interstate, and that is because of the Middle East, Ukraine, Georgia, other places we're seeing this growth in interstate conflict. The idea was that basically we were going to see this continued downward slope because of globalization, because of growing economic interdependence, but if you look back in history you notice that the pattern is an up and down one, and we've had previous episodes of globalization, ones that have been actually quite large episodes during the 1890s before the first World War. The worry here is that we're going to see this pattern reassert itself. Finally looking at this question of the international order. We have seen a rapid, and I put the emphasis particularly on how rapid it has been. China has tripled its GDP per capita, and it took it about 30 years. Even with a half or a third of it, even probably less population took 105 years to triple its GDP per capita. As a result you're seeing where the center of gravity for the world economy shift back to where it started, which is in Asia. This is happening again, very rapid rate, whereas it took thousands of years for the shift to go westward. It's now going back at a very fast clip. As a result you are seeing countries rise, and in a relative sense other countries begin to decline. We and the National Intelligence Council put this together. We used different measures, and it all came out the same, except for you could move the crossover point one way or the other. The important point here is that you are seeing the rise of these first couple giants, the Chinese and the Indians. You are seeing the relative decline of the US and Europe, and also to an extent Japan. Those are the US partners. This new world is not one that isn't made of the western world. It's a G20 world in many ways, not a G7. That makes it I think harder to think about how you put together an order. It also makes it harder, as we were talking about this morning when our own resources, particularly for defense, are going to go down unless we begin to really tackle our financial issues. Now that shows you, if you're looking at entitlements, this is the result of, as I said before, the aging of society, of the US. It does mean that you're moving into a world where you do have major new forces and major new challenges. You're not going to have those same resources that we traditionally have had. The final thing, and this is really the message, and I think others have talked about it. I still see the US as the center of the international system, but I don't think the status quo can actually be maintained. We have to think imaginatively about how to redesign it, and we have a small window in order to do that. As what we have, and I don't have time to go enjoy it, there are all sorts of different scenarios that you can imagine, a lot of them not very good. All the good ones actually involve US thinking about how to redesign it, so you are inclusive at the same time that we have a hope of maintaining Western values. With that, I'll finish. Thank you so much for that fabulous overview. The best of times and the worst of times, I would say keep this in our head as we move forward. Three provocative questions and then a very scary conversation about resilience and how much of our GDP we're losing as we're sitting here thinking about cyber issues. Which actually brings us round to then our third presenter today, Professor Joel Trackman, who is a professor of international law at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University in Boston. And as a graduate of that institution, I will tell you that Professor Trackman's courses are considered to be the gold standard.  His research interests include international economic law, including international trade, finance, migration, investment and business law. In addition to consulting for the United Nations, OECD, APEC and the World Bank, Professor Trackman is also the author of many books and articles, including two of my favorites. One is the tool of argument how the best lawyers think, argue and win. And the last one, ruling the world, constitutionalism, international law and global governance. So with that, I will hand it over to Professor Trackman. Thank you very much, Andrea. It's really an honor and it's a great learning experience for me to be here. I wanted to really reflect on some of General Gluck's comments and other comments today about the increasing complexity of warfare and maybe just to broaden that of contention. By looking at the expanded non-kinetic toolbox that I think is available to enemies and to allies alike and to recognize, as Dr. Pinovich said, that we're seeking advantage. We're seeking asymmetric advantage and our opponents are too. And what I want to look at is lawfare, the use of legal argumentation and legal fora to one's advantage or to undermine an opponent's ability to seek advantage. And I think the traditional approach to law in every area, including in military affairs, is to comply with law. But I think in business as well as in military affairs, it's important to know that you can use law to seek advantage versus an opponent and perhaps to achieve your goals. So first I should define lawfare and the traditional definition, one coined by General Charles Dunlap of the Air Force now at Duke University, is that it's a strategy of using or misusing law as a substitute for traditional military means to achieve an operational objective. And when you hear him say it's possibly for misuse, you can see the kind of pejorative context. It's something that the bad guys do to restrict the good guys in their ability to carry out operations. But I think it's possible that good guys can use lawfare also and that lawfare can be good. In fact, to the extent that lawfare can be a substitute for kinetic warfare and can be used to achieve your goals, then it can be something that's quite attractive. So when we use it to achieve our objectives at low cost, lawfare is good. Even I would say when we and others are appropriately, appropriately held to account for our actions, there it's good too. And it's something that we fight for in connection with the rule of law. And so it's something that if it's used properly and structured appropriately, it should not be something that strikes fear or anger in our hearts. So in 1999, a couple of scholars, a couple of officers, I should say, of the People's Liberation Army authored a paper called Unrestricted Warfare. One of the things I mentioned in an almost offhand way was the possibility of changing legal rules to one's advantage. And we can see that playing out in the exquisite strategy in the South China Sea and in other areas, the attempt to change rules, but also perhaps to change facts in a way that change the effects of the rules and give an advantage in the legal and perhaps in the propaganda context.  I teach my business law students that litigation is the continuation of business negotiations by other means. And so law is somewhere in between politics and kinetic warfare. And in fact, to say it's in between is not really accurate because I think we can look at it as a kind of integrated aspect of contention. And that's really what I'm trying to suggest is that that's the proper way to understand law, not just as something that we must comply with, but as something that is a component of strategic decision making. And I'd like to conjecture with you about what that would mean. So first, think of lawfare in context, where it's part of contestation in a multi-dimensional board. And lawfare is different from kinetic warfare. It's a kind of symbolic contention like morality or history or religion, where we say this is the way it should be. But law has a kind of difference where sometimes it can have a broader universal appeal. And actually one of the interesting questions in dealing with others and trying to assess the extent to which they might comply with law is to try to look at them individually and understand to what extent are they likely to comply with the rules. What is it about them that might allow us to predict their behavior in response to law? So it's different from geographic arenas. It's even different from some of the other functional arenas like cyber or bio. And of course, once you think about it that way, it's important to recognize that a move that might look good on the kinetic board might look terrible on the lawfare board. And so that's the reason for integrated decision making. So there are a number of different types of things that we could call lawfare. I want to focus on three of them. The first is what you might think of as conventional lawfare, where law is used as a constraint on operational capabilities of an opponent. And here we actually, the Israelis, as you know, launched a preemptive strike against Hamas and even against the United Nations on Sunday. And that preemptive strike was led by a German general. What I'm talking about is the preparation and publication of a report on Israel's compliance. And I don't want to litigate that here today, but I want to say they did this report that purports to show that they did comply quite well with the laws of war just in advance of their expectation of a United Nations Council report and in anticipation of eventual attempts to prosecute Israeli military personnel and government officials at the International Criminal Court. So a preemptive strike. And so that's one type of lawfare. A second type of lawfare is where law is used as a form of conflict where it ends with the use of law. And the hope of the international community for a while since the United Nations Charter, at least maybe since Nuremberg, was that we could outlaw the use of aggressive force. And indeed, there is a law against the use of aggressive force. As you know, that's not working out all that well. But the interesting question is the counterfactual, which is hard to assess. Which wars might have happened if that law had not been in place? And the really interesting question is how could international institutions be designed? How could we work with others generally and opponents in particular to make that lawfare more effective in avoiding warfare? So law as a defense against aggression, of course that didn't work out so well for Ukraine and the Crimea. The development of facts on the ground or sort of facts in the water in the South China Sea. Law as a substitute for conflict. And one area, it's a modest area of success. But it looks like an area of success is general territorial conflicts addressed in the world court. Where states, of course, agree to present those conflicts to the world court. And it seems to result in a resolution of many of those conflicts where one can guess that some subset of those conflicts might have resulted in warfare. So three types of lawfare. I'm sorry, I forgot to mention the third. And that is where law is used to gain access to an enemy. In a way that can allow an easier attack on the enemy. So in the area of cyber security, it's the possibility that network gear or software might contain Trojan horses. And under the law of trade, law of the world trade organization, a state might find itself compelled to accept that network gear and not have the ability to avoid dangers. Similarly with bio weapons that might be subject to that kind of legal right of entry. Where in all of the treaties involved in the world trade organization treaty and the investment treaties, because sometimes this comes up with investment, there are security exceptions. But those security exceptions are written in a way that is not always useful. And so one question is can we write those better? Can we work better to ensure that we're not required to accept those kinds of attacks? So let me just say a word about Article 24 of the United Nations Charter. It's easy to see where that prohibition on the aggressive use of force fails. One problem is the indeterminacy of exceptions. And the lack of a definitive authoritative forum for determination of the availability of those exceptions. So of course, there's an exception for self-defense. Well, I don't have to say to this audience that there are all sorts of ways that self-defense might be characterized. There's the idea supported by the United States, but not necessarily clearly in international law, that you can protect your nationals abroad. And the Russians in the Crimea said those people are our nationals. They weren't Russian citizens, so it's a different definition of nationality than most of us would think of. There's the emergent idea which many people who are interested in human rights and solving serious problems, serious humanitarian problems like of humanitarian intervention. And the fear is that the bad guys use humanitarian intervention, use that pretext. So those things are easy to manipulate and we don't have the ability to determine them definitively. And even the United States has established some inconvenient precedents. And one of the aspects of law in this context is that when you violate it or you decline to accept it at time one, you might regret that decision at time two because it can be turned against you. This is what all international lawyers say. This is why you should comply with international law because you'll wish that the rule was there later on. And so as the United States and other countries make decisions in this area, they need to recognize that they may find that they've created inconvenient precedents. And despite all of this uncertainty, I think it's true that Russia has paid a heavy price for its separation of Crimea from the Ukraine. Let me just mention one other thing along those lines in connection with the South China Sea. Earlier today in a question and answer, there was this question about the Philippines' claim against China under the Law of the Sea Convention and its arbitration capability. China, interestingly, has withdrawn from most of that arbitration capability. There will be a decision next month as to whether that withdrawal really covered exactly what the Philippines is claiming. But here, China's withdrawal will at least provide a chance and maybe a significant chance for China to avoid that jurisdiction. Interestingly, the United States, of course, cannot use the Law of the Sea Convention because the United States is not a party to that convention. So let me just say a word about Israel and Hamas. So I think it's clear that Hamas did a very careful job of planning for asymmetric warfare, inciting its missiles and its fighters so as to deprive its enemy of some of its less discriminant weapons. And by really making it tough for its enemy to avoid attacking to delegitimate that enemy's position in the international public arena. There's even been a media campaign, and this is along the lines of that PLA paper about changing international law, seeking to redefine proportionality in the law of armed conflict as proportionality of casualties among civilians instead of proportionality between a mission and the means used for that mission. So Israel has learned about this and is engaging in planning and response, including the response that I mentioned, but also including innovation in protection of civilians. Avoiding the International Criminal Court, avoiding countries like the Netherlands and Spain that have had universal jurisdiction over people who commit these types of crimes. Declining, and this is a judgment that may or may not be a good one, declining to cooperate with the Human Rights Commission investigation, the Shabas report, even though Shabas is no longer on that group. So I think as you think about this idea of lawfare, it's important to recognize that it can be used in strategic planning, but it has to be done in a very particular way, opponent by opponent and conflict by conflict, looking at the relevant legal rules that might affect the strategic decision making, your strategic decision making, and your opponent's strategic decision making. And part of that question, as I've said, is the question of how important is international law to your opponent. And there's some survey evidence where people ask citizens how important is international law to you. And there's other things that you can look at, like the number of international agreements that a particular country has. But we need better ways of measuring and maybe even finding out about particular legal rules to what extent those will affect our enemy's behavior. Is there a formal process? Are there penalties? What would we want in terms of design, in terms of specific contexts to have legal rules that will impose costs on our opponents, and hopefully not impose costs on us, not require us to be constrained in what we think are valuable operations? So what would it mean to have an integrated legal strategic analysis? We have questions like when will law prevent aggression? How can we redesign law to prevent aggression? How can we identify disputes that might be amenable to non-kinetic resolution? What's the value of this to our opponent? Are they really going to go to war? Is there a legal rule that we can establish or that we can refer to that will constrain them? And that could allow you to determine how to deploy your kinetic forces given the ability of your legal forces to resolve certain problems. It's also important to identify potentially legally salient facts that your opponent, China and the South China Sea, or other opponents might be working to change. And to identify that and respond with freedom of the seas operations or other operations that respond and deprive your opponent of those facts that will support their propaganda legal argument. I think it's also important, as the Israelis have shown, to develop and sometimes to stock appropriate weapons systems so as to maximize effectiveness under legal constraint. Do you need to have a knock on the roof munition in order to carry out your operations? Where should you put those things? Another point, and I think this relates to the broader changing context, is that in a sense every asymmetric civilian oriented and even non-civilian oriented warfare is like Ferguson, where there's going to be videotape, there's going to be lots of evidence. And combatants have to be trained to expect that and to act accordingly in terms of their compliance with rule. So there needs to be training, there needs to be record keeping, maybe body cameras for certain types of forces to make sure that you're above reproach. We need to resist opponents' attempts to change international law to their advantage. And I think here I'll sound an optimistic note. I think there's a great deal of shared interest in a number of areas so that it's possible to agree together to change international law to the general advantage in a way that would benefit this country and other countries. And finally, before taking action, I think it's important to anticipate the reversal of positions and to factor in the possibility of establishing an adverse precedent that will work to your disadvantage in the future. So I think lawfare is a kind of innovation and contention. There's been a dramatic rise in law in the world since the Second World War. And with this rise in the amount of law comes a greater capability to frame different issues in different ways. Is this a human rights issue or is it a law of armed conflict issue? Is it a trade issue? And so there's lots of potentially applicable law. And one of the creative things that one can do, that your lawyers can do for you, is to identify legal rules that might be applicable that nobody thought of before. And that's a source of advantage. So I think this strategic approach anticipates bringing to bear the power of law, of international law specifically. I think it would be ignorant. We sometimes think, well, we can't prevent war so international law is irrelevant. I think that's an ignorant position because I can point to lots of circumstances where this country and other countries change their behavior in response to legal rules. And so it's also ignorant, as many traditional international lawyers have assumed, that law is always effective. And so the better analytical position is to try to identify the circumstances where lawfare can be effective and to craft a fully integrated kinetic and lawfare based strategy. Thank you. Thank you very much, Professor Trackman. So my job for the next five minutes or so is to take your questions, answer questions, direct them to our panelists. I would say one of the ways to look at this is all three of our panelists have given us perspectives on cooperation and conflict. The extent to which competition is systemic, the extent to which the international system needs to flex, needs to change to absorb some of these challenges. And from all three of our presenters, I think they gave us the challenge of creativity. If this is what the world is looking at, this is what the future trends are, we need to be creative to figure out how we're going to incorporate that in our thoughts going forward. So we have about 10 minutes or so to ask the panelists questions. If you have a particular panelist you wish to single out, by all means do so. If not, then please say it's for the entire panel. And then just two thoughts. For those of you who have questions, please try to ask the question rather than tell us what the world is shaped like and lots of background. And there is absolutely no requirement to stand up to ask your questions. One of the foundation members pointed out to me last year, Andrea, we have very sharp minds, but we have very creaky knees. Please don't make us bob up and down. If you do ask a question, please try and use the microphone. And if you're sitting next to somebody who's fumbling with a microphone, please try to help them with the microphone. The acoustics in this building go front and back, but they don't go sideways. So the microphones really help us to be able to hear each other. So with that, I will open it up to, we have time for three or four profound and deep questions. A gentleman at the back and then the lady here at the front. Yes, please. Hello, I'd like to, my name is Austin Schofield. I'm a Naval War College Foundation member. I want to ask a question about cyber warfare. I know you had various other definitions for it. My question is the casualties in cyber warfare and cyber cyber attacks. So often our citizens or businesses, what responsibility does the military have to protect these businesses? If they're being attacked by a state actor or a non-state actor that's funded by a state. So the lady at the front who had her hand up, please. Thank you. Anyone in the panel can answer this one because it kind of crosses, I think, a couple different boundaries. What I haven't heard, but I do think is relevant to everything you've discussed, is the point about privacy and about U.S. persons. I work for DIA and U.S. persons. I've interpreted the Executive Order 12.3.5248.1-R. And how you use strategy and how you look at rules and engagement and what you can and can't do. Given the context of that, if we are trending east and south, they don't follow those same rules. They don't look at privacy and or persons in the same way. From a legal perspective and how we look at how we work with cyber and how we store data or the big data issues. Everyone's wranging themselves around about, oh, with big data, we've got to worry about the U.S. persons. Well, the definition of U.S. persons seems to be changing a bit, too. And the enemy also knows that areas that we restrict ourselves. So from a strategy perspective, from trends and all that, how do we solve those issues? Let me just say, in addition to those thoughts, which I think are really very interesting. I think our data is going to become either voluntarily on our part or because of governmental or business activity somewhere recorded electronically. And the cat is out of the bag. And I think the only recourse after that is a legal recourse to say to a business, you've abused my data or to a government, you've abused my data. And here I think the problem is with globalization and the fact that the data moves around quite a bit. And globalization of these kinds of technologies and the commerce that they allow is very, very valuable. And so in order to have that globalization, the United States had a very tough negotiation with the European Union over its data privacy efforts. In order to have that globalization, we kind of have to agree about who's in control of which data or agree about what the standards will be. And I think you're going to see more of that over time to respond to the important questions that you've raised. I don't have a solution for this problem, but I think when you're talking about U.S. persons, I think we're comfortable with the idea of immigration and people coming to live here. But what you're increasingly seeing is really movement or mobility, where people actually may not have any real residence for an extended period of time. This is particularly at the highly skilled level where they're really living in several different countries throughout a year in high demand. And we're going to see this particularly as we see labor shortages in aging states where there really will be a demand. It won't necessarily be that they come and settle. So how to define what a U.S. person is in that sort of environment, and it's already, as you indicated, difficult to do that, I think is going to become even more difficult. When I was listening to Matthew Barrows, I was hearing some of the old conflict, have and have nots. And in this world, of course, HABS has something to do with innovation, software creativity, entrepreneurship, ever more so than in past eras. And then you get into the protection laws. Historical studies show that economic might has been much stronger in countries with these strongest property laws than countries that didn't. And this goes back, these studies go back a very long way. So if we're to provide opportunity, don't we need to provide a combination of military and legal protection for that opportunity? And of course, the laws need to be backed up, so you do need guns. How do you see the combination, Professor, of protecting our economic properties, our properties, the combination of law and military? Well, it's an interesting question, and I don't claim expertise on intellectual property rights. But what I'll say is, you know, in the current negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, the United States is seeking actively to enhance intellectual property protections in those partner states, especially in the Pacific. And the United States did a lot in that regard in connection with the formation of the World Trade Organization in 1995. And so intellectual property rights have been advanced. So the last time I studied this, and I think it's still true, economists really don't know. They profess ignorance as to how strong intellectual property rights protection should be. Right now, if you invent something, you get a patent that lasts 20 years. Why 20 years? It seems rather arbitrary. If you invent something, perhaps you should get that forever. Also, those laws are used sometimes to stifle innovation, to attack new innovators. So as I say, it's not an area I know well, but I know there's ambivalence about their quality. I think in the end, for commercial law, I would be against having a military used to enforce those laws. And the reason is that as a liberal in the classical sense, I believe that other countries should have a right to their systems of laws and that we shouldn't use military force to change them, except in the most extreme circumstances. Intellectual property rights would not qualify along those lines. So I think that's an area where politics and legal contestation and things short of kinetic warfare seem most appropriate. Good afternoon.  But one thing that I look at is how strong it is at influencing public opinion. I know during the Algerian war, the FLN influenced public opinion with Le Mans, with the French newspaper, and they got what they wanted. Ultimately, the freedom flotilla, the views from that were on the YouTube instantaneously. What's your opinion on how that's changed, how the public opinion has been influenced by the internet? Well, I think Brzezinski mentions this in his last strategy book, which is basically that you have a public opinion out there that is worldwide that sees everything instantaneously. And I think what where I just came back from a conference in Poland and what everybody is trying to grapple with is why an authoritarian leader who in many ways has suppressed a lot of his media, brought it under state control has nevertheless been very good at crafting a narrative that appeals not only to populate his public in Russia, but also in countries and surrounding areas, including obviously in parts of Ukraine. And I think the cyber obviously is a big part in increasing that connectivity, getting the pictures sent around the world instantaneously. But what we have to think about as well as what sort of messages, how you craft them into a narrative and what that narrative is. And at least the opinion of the people in Poland and other places is that the West, including the US, has really been behind the curve in developing its own narrative. And that that is the critical part, even though we have a lot more assets on the cyber society, on the media and so on, that we really haven't learned that lesson. Okay, so the rules of engagement here are that when Captain Mike Sherlock stands, I'm getting the hook. So regrettably we've run out of time for further questions, but I know that our panelists have provided us with many interesting things to think about for tomorrow's discussion. So thank you all to our panelists.


excited. Just want to start off by saying how excited we are right now, um, about the all season thus far and really the preparation and all the work that's gone into getting ready for Thursday and this weekend. And there's a lot of people involved in it. It starts with the personnel department led by Kyle Smith, but it really takes the entire building. And so so many people, a lot of sacrifices, and we're just very appreciative of all the work, uh, the support from the organization, um, Mr. Blank, uh, so thankful for him and any resource that we need to put together the best team possible. We have it. So, um, very excited, appreciative and ready to go make this team better picture. Yeah, I'll get ready. Um, what, uh, you know, um, a lot of buzz about if the best player available as a running back to the falcons take what will be the approach at number eight for you off? So we talked about best player available a lot, right? And I think what gets lost is really a few things with that. When you talk about best player available, there's not a the draft board. I think we're supposed to bring it in, but somebody wants to, but so the draft board isn't just one line of players and you're taking who else the person that's on the top of it, right? So players are in categories. So generally, when you're on the clock, you have players in a category and but there's multiple positions can be in that particular category. When we say best play available, the key is don't reach for need. If you have players up in this category, don't reach down and take a lesser player at a position of need because number one, we're not again, we're not drafting just for today or tomorrow. We're not prisoners. The moment we're drafting for you're gonna have these players under contract for the next four to five years. So and your needs change day to day. You know, so we want to make sure that we're thinking long term in big picture and it's always we're not prisoners of the moment in that sense. So when we say best player available, the other thing is it's our board, right? Every board you probably look at 32 different boards and they're all different. And on TV, you have certain boards, but they don't have all the information in terms of they're not sitting in the medical meetings or the background meetings are. So it's when we say best player available, we're talking about thinking long term and not reaching for an ease and just making the total team better. Is it fair to say in language terms that's I'd rather have the best player at expedition versus the second or third best player at why position where we draft. We're also not great on the curve.  And at this other position, this player is going to be a depth player. You know, I think that's what we're talking about. If you have impact players at either one of these positions, then yes, you can say, Okay, we want this premium position, or we have a clear look. We talked about positionless football. Hey, the head coach or the coaches have a clear vision for this player and how we're going to use them. So let's get out of the position mindset. But at the end of the day, we want to make sure we're taking impact players and making the total team better. We're not gonna, you know, one thing that we talked about when we get in this form in this setting, we never want to, we never really want anyone to be able to read this transcript and get any kind of tip on what we're going to do. So and and it's and the reason I say that is because it's a you're kind of asking, Hey, how many first round grades? And so people probably have a point to where if you're because we're open to trading up or open to trading back. So if I give you a number, then you know that, Hey, they're not going to trade past this point. So we wouldn't say that we wouldn't go there and give you that information. There's been impact players everywhere, Mike, I mean, sorry about that. No answer. They said, is there, you know, there's more this year than maybe last year? Where? Where? Where do you look at? And I know I always answer that question the same way in that and I really do believe this. Throughout the draft, it's you can find players anywhere. And I just have a lot of confidence in our staff and our coaches. And I really believe that we're going to find players at at any point in this draft that can that can help this football team. And we have to have a clear vision for exactly how we're going to use them. Because I'll say the difference for us is we are excited about the players who've added thus far and we better make sure that the players we bring in are going to have an opportunity to make the team. And the players here, I know they're working to make sure those guys don't make the team. So it's going to be really competitive as you look at the depth chart and where we are. So I think you can find impact players at any point have a lot of confidence in our staff and the way we operate and the way we work. But it's going to be a challenge for anyone to come in and really compete to find a spot. How many if any, the simulations do you go through the process? And just to dress rehearsal may be the wrong word, but just to get an idea for how I think you got to it, Josh. Yeah, I mean, everybody's got different processes. You know, the scouts go through it. You go through a tear, not talk all the time.  We pick you try to have a good understanding more importantly of who realistically going to be there, especially at eight, you know, ready to make the pick. Again, there who knows what really happened Thursday night. But then you got to be ready also to be able to move as well. And you're okay with moving depending on what you're getting. So we're always constantly going through that.  I know some teams do that where they try to mock the whole thing out or you guys do on your, which is great. But the reality is, you know, we try to game through that. And we're talking all the time about our player X is here. What do you want to do? He may be in our pod. Well, somebody may trade up, somebody may take him unexpectedly or vice versa. So we're always trying to work through that constantly. Talk about who's really going to be there. How do you gather that information? Because starting one other do those are sitting up there trying not to say anything. Also, Terry has been, you know, I got my opinion. I think it's sometimes, which is awesome. But there's so much more coverage on the draft. So there's 5,000 mock drafts and information true or not travels at warp speed now. Right. If there is having a cup of coffee and he may say something, somebody may be sitting next to me, tweets it out that the Falcons are, you know, taking Josh Kindle at the eighth big, you know, and it goes around the world, you know, right.  There's so much information out there. And it's awesome that people are this interested in it. It's a fun time of year. Is it fair to say that when you talk about moving that you've already been in contact with teams, you may want to move up to your spot and certain things fall their way with their looking for particularly certain quarterbacks going as a running, maybe a player, but is it very safe to take those calls? Correct. Correct. We've already and we'll continue to do that over the next couple days. And but we have we've already talked to a few teams after us because we want to be open and we've talked to teams in front of us and we've talked to teams behind us so far. We'll continue to have those conversations because we want to be flexible. Like author said, we game it out and we talk through all the different scenarios. And it's our job just to be prepared for whatever happens. So we talked through all the different ways and but yes, we've had those conversations already and we'll continue to have those conversations. Whether we're talking about in front of us or behind us. To follow up on that, we've had obviously active offseason and the trade, the signings, etc. Does that have any impact on interest in accumulating assets, perhaps in trading down? Just saying because of the players we've signed, we'd rather move down and get more assets. Well, I think one thing it does for us is it depends on that player who the players are that we're looking at and then you weigh that out. So if it's approaching your pick and you have a few players in your clump and then this is the pick that we can get if we move back a couple spots and then you're weighing that out. Do we wait and take this player or do we want this player and something else additional? Like I said, the only effect that with free agency, the only thing that affects where it wasn't like that in the last, we weren't able to be active in free agency in the previous couple years. So I don't want to say it was easier to make our team but it's going to be more, we want the roster to be, it's to be more of a challenge to make the team for anybody because we're raising the talent level of the roster. That said, throughout the draft there's going to be undrafted free agents that are competing to make the team. So it's all about if we have a clear vision for the player and just weighing those things out as they come to us. How is the collective character and makeup component for this group that you all be picking from Thursday to Saturday? Character wise, how do we assess? Yeah, character makeup is important for you all or you're comfortable with that there not people there that's going to be young. Oh man, there's some good young man in this draft. It really good and obviously it's, you know, appreciate the question because that that is really important to us. And if you look at the players that we've signed us for, there's a lot of really good man that we've added. We believe we have really strong character and a really strong foundation and a really strong culture. And we believe we've added to that this offseason. We want to continue to add to it in the draft but there's a lot of really good options in this draft that we're going to be putting in top to bottom. Some really good man. Yeah, you know, it should be exciting and we won't get to coach them all but there's some very impressive, impressive people we've talked to, you know, to talk about the future and the health of our sport. It's inspiring when you go, it's easy to be cynical now. You're going, you know, people can complain about rules or this has changed and you know, you don't get to do five of days like you used to. And so you look around and talk to some of the players coming into this league and very, very impressive. You guys have been open about the importance of character in the past in the pre draft process when you're talking to these prospects. Is that a really big point of emphasis to character component? Yeah, so I mean, you're looking at body of work. You know, I think sometimes Terry and I, you know, in those short meetings, we're going to get usually, I mean, I've seen people eliminate themselves, but to us, we're getting their best foot forward. And so you're just taking everything as it comes and goes and trying to take all the information to make the best decision, collaborate and make the best decision for us. So we understand that too, you know, and it's just human nature when you're, but we want to know the person is, the day to day habits. It's not a perfect, there's no perfect system, there's no perfect test. And so that's why it's really important that every interaction matters. Obviously folks on the first round pick, you know, everyone believes you take these out beside that. But when you look at the rest of the draft unfold, which is more important, I think in a certain sense, because there's other players that we found starting level players and everything else. How much does how the first round shakes out when you talk about knee versus knee? So your board is basically set where it is, right? But I think what it does do is, is you make decisions. Well, you can make a decision to domino effect, right? So wherever you take a player, whoever you take, then you can decide, okay, do we want to move back at this next pick? Do we want to move up? And you look at a particular position and you can say this position is a little thin. And so we need to move up to get a player there and we want to take the best players off the board. So it could affect you. Whatever you do, it's going to affect you moving around, I guess in a sense, because we're never going to be look, we might not make a single trade in this draft or we might make four, you know, we don't see ourselves as a team that's ever going to just sit on our hands. If we see a player that we want, we want to try to figure out a way to get it. So what I've continued to learn is, and I've always said this, but I've really learned more, but I've always said that, hey, we're all creatures of habit and we learned a certain way. So we grew up around certain people and we learned to do things a certain way, and that's what we're used to. And then you get around other people, really smart people from other buildings, and you say, oh, that's what we're going to do. We're going to get people from other buildings and you say, okay, let's adopt our process. This is the Falcons process as opposed to just how we've done. I've always said that, but still in my mind, I was used to doing things a certain way. So when we get ready for the meetings or the way we're going to approach this specific thing, I still go back to that what I've been used to doing, but I think what's best for this group was best for this group of this staff, these coaches, this building, and so I think that's where I've continued to learn and adapt to not be set in your ways and do things a certain way just because you have done, let's do what's best for us and what's best for his team and continue to be open minded and continue to evolve. More to that too, Mike, that's the perfect process, but you know, we're always looking to improve on it, and so if something worked two years ago, we may still use that, you know, we're not going to just change just to sake of changing, but we're always pushing to see if there's things we can do better in this process. It's the same thing when people ask you about, you know, what are your non-negotiables and why give that information away? We certainly don't think we've got all the answers.  I think that's foolish. Certainly there's people that do, but we're just always looking for ways of people we've had and coaches, what have you guys done well, personnel, guys that come from other teams, what's worked, what doesn't, and then we're constantly trying to evolve and push and improve. Has your evaluation of players in the team designed, do you understand what I'm saying? You're always looking at the easy thing to do as a coach is only look short-term. You know, when you're in this job, I think at any job that's a high pressure job, I think sometimes you can make some pretty bad decisions when you're just looking day-to-day to win some kind of narrative. You see it happens. That's why I'm so thankful to work here from the beginning. It's not perfect, but as you're going along, building this thing every day is not a knee-jerk reaction to it. When you make some moves, you're trying to do what's in the best interest of the team long-term. Again, as you're doing this, sometimes you don't want to sacrifice something short-term that's going to be a disaster long-term. We're always looking at that. It's the national football team that's going to get the opportunity to come in here and do this job. You don't want to get to that problem where you ever get desperate and try to win the day-to-day narrative. I know he's sitting right there, but this is true that I would say in most cases it's hard. The head coach is he's on the front line. He's the game. He's got to go out there and do everything he can do to win that game on the front line. It's easy for me or someone in the front office to say, hey, we have to think long-term. We've got to think big picture, and it's probably harder for coaches. You think that it's easier for them to be stuck in the moment, but I'll say it's about Arthur that he does. He's still able to think, go through it and think long-term and think big picture. Even if this can help us right now, he knows long-term this is what's going on. We've got to be safe. We've got to take things into consideration. You feel with all the moves you made this season, the draft has put you closer to being where you want to be as you approach the actual field portion? Statutously, you know what, every year you'd love to have 15 picks. I think that what we're at right now, this is going to be a very competitive I'm excited about that. So that's part of the strategy, too, as you're moving around in the draft.  Because we may have some guys on one-year deals, and it's maybe a hard 53 to make. That's a great problem to have. But it's going to make us some forces, make some really tough decisions at the end of camp. And so that's where you're really excited, because you can see that that's what's on deck for us. So there's a lot of stuff. I mean, you get to this time right now. We feel good. We don't feel desperate going into this. We can make some great picks to allow us to take the subjective best player available, so to speak, and allow us to move around. Terry, I remember two years ago, obviously, you were picking several spots higher, but it seemed like you guys had a really good feel of what was going to happen ahead of you last year. Not so much. Where's the, I guess, uncertainty level now of what could happen, basically 1 through 7? I would say, in my opinion, this is the most uncertain it's been, in my opinion. Because you really just don't know. And we do. We sit there. We try to game it out and think about what we would expect or what we would anticipate. But there's just too many things. There's a lot of things that you can't predict. You don't really know what another team is thinking, regardless of what's out there. You don't really know what another team's thinking. You don't know when someone's going to trade up and how that affects other things. If someone's going to trade up and someone's going to trade back. So it is difficult. But what we just have to do is make sure we really talk through as many different scenarios as we can. So we're comfortable and ready to make a move when we need to. But what we're excited about is, again, whether we're moving up, moving down, or staying at 8, we're going to get a really good player that's going to make an impact for us. So with talking through the scenarios, with so much uncertainty, and not knowing what's going to happen in front of you, how much of that work on making a trade is done before Thursday or Friday or Saturday? And how much is done in the moment when either you guys see something you like, or another team sees something they like, and the phone number pops up that you might not have expected? How much of that groundwork is already laid? How much can't happen until the moment? Yeah, when you're picking where we are, you've had those conversations in general. I'd be surprised if the phone would ring and there'd be someone that you haven't talked to yet. When you're picking in the top 10, usually you've had those conversations and gone all the way down to, OK, this is what it would be. And you agree to the framework, if this happens, if this player is there, this is what we would do. And so you have those conversations. Now when you're in the third round, that's when you get a lot of those calls on the clock that you weren't prepared for, that you don't know, and then that's more so. But when you're picking where we are, a lot of those conversations have been had. I think it was February 28th when the roster move was made with Muriota and you were asked about the impact on the quarterback death chart. You said, we're not in the business of anointing players. We're anointing starters. But it wasn't long after that that you're newly signed. Backup seemed to take that responsibility when he said that he was signed to be the backup to Desmond. Were you comfortable with him saying that? Were you surprised that he said that? And to follow up on that, would you like to add more competition at that position? Yeah, and ask that question. And we want, we're very clear when players come in, OK, this is the vision and this is our plan for you. And really, no one's anointed. Everybody's out there competing, even though right now this is the starting quarterback and this is the backup. But you need to be clear and you want to have a clear, when you're bringing players in and you're bringing in a free agent, we tell them, OK, this is the vision we have for you. And we want to be very honest about this is what we'd like to happen. Now, things obviously change. And but we want to be very clear. So no, it was very clear when we spoke to the player's agent and we obviously spoke to Taylor as well. We're very clear with the vision for him it was. We're clear with the vision for Desmond is. And we're not going to close any doors. We won't close any doors. Like no different than I said in that same press conference, we could add to it. We're not closing doors on any position. We can move up, we can move down, and we can take any position. If it's going to help make an impact on this team and help improve this football team, then we're not afraid to do it. Yeah, but the more context to that, Charles, you got to remember this, especially that position, right, the way you map things out and the number of reps you have. And when you get somebody like Taylor, I mean, it's a guy, it's a veteran in this league. And when he's choosing between the couple spots, again, Terry and I won't compromise that. We're not going to sit there and tell somebody whatever we can just to get them to sign. And then, oh, yeah, we're going to have a competition. And y'all know how that goes. All of a sudden, usually one guy gets five reps, the other guy gets two. Like the way you're trying to prepare and get somebody ready to play. Now, certainly, if it's not going well, he knows things can change, everything just can change. But I think a lot of that, it's we'll never sit there and compromise our morals and just make up, tell somebody whatever they want to hear, get them to sign, just accumulate, because that's not the way we want to operate. So when you're considering you're dealing with a free agency, we're pretty crystal clear what the vision is. Obviously, know that it can change. But certainly, when Taylor was sitting there trying to pick between a couple teams, lay it all out. We'll never sit there in line with somebody and say, tell them that we're going to do something or not. Which is really more of a very recent godly rehab in the roster. You made decisions on the major or now, Jeff, in terms of the careers? Well, we'll just keep those private for now. Obviously, the deadline's coming up pretty quick. But we'll keep that between those players, those agents. And when we make it official, we'll let you guys know. Is there a situation that could unfold where you have a tie between players that you have? Or is everybody on the board? Or have you ranked them clearly one above the other, racked and stacked? Is there a position that you wear? Stings shake out a weird way? You go, we didn't expect either one of these guys to be here. And we both value them. Like, how does that tie break work? Well, the way the board is right now, they're in categories. And we're continuing to do that. Even now, you said, are they graded? They're graded categories. I'm just trying to understand a little bit. So you have hired, they're in categories and stacked in that way. So there's higher categories. And so we'll have players. So you can have a player say, if this is a red player or this player is graded, this particular grade. And then we could have 10 players in that grade category. But they're all in that category, you know what I mean? So then when you're on the board, you can be looking at all the players that are in this particular category. And we've already had those discussions and talked through it. And what's the vision for this particular player? Now, to the earlier question, yes, as you're going through the draft, if now you're in the fourth round and depending on what you've done, and now you have these particular players in this category, it's the same category, but you can go a different way because of what you've done before. But the key is, where our discipline comes in is we don't want to reach down to a lower category and take a player just because they fit a need. So that's where that comes in. I think what you're asking too, is if you've got the same grade on two guys, where then all of a sudden they come up on the clock and it's like now you're having a debate. No, even if you've got them going across horizontally, we've still stacked them. So you're getting those situations, you're not making some emotional decision when the clock's going down. You want to try to avoid that. I mean, it's the same thing when you're trying to go through situations on a play call sheet. That's why I call throwing darts. You don't want to have those emotional discussions when you're on the clock like that. That's why you do try to game it out. But that's a good question, because you could have the same grade, different positions, or maybe you got the same grade, but we've tried to stack them, rank them, so you're not in that situation. I have a question to follow. Why do teams take so long enough to make pitch? That's the best question. You can ask. Why do teams take so long? I've got my theories, but everybody does it differently. Well, I'll tell you why, because it's airtime, right? It's true. Well, and a couple of reasons. It can be strategic, because sometimes your phone is ringing and you want to have those conversations. That's part of it. But then also, if you don't want to hurry up and turn in the card, because that time period, they're talking about your team. So part of it's airtime. Part of it's you want to take the calls if you are getting calls at that point and kind of consider some things. But it's not if you're on the clock and we're watching tape. It's not good. No, it's not good. That's not good. So yeah, it's like cramming for your exam. Yes. Yes. How much we're hearing a lot about the cognitive, the new kind of cognitive test. How much weight do you put in the cognitive test? We haven't heard as much since Vince Young in the last couple of days about cognitive test scores and how they may be dropping some prospects and so forth. And those things have been around forever. Yeah, there's a lot of different tests. There's so many different ones. And when you really look through it, D-Led, there's never one thing. It's like if someone says, hey, if you want to be healthy, take this one pill and you're going to be great and you'll be healthy. No, there's always so many different things. So if there was one test, any test where there was a cognitive test, if there was one, the 40-yard dash or one metric that we could say, this is going to be the key to success or determining success, then I wouldn't be sitting here right now. We wouldn't have a whole personnel department and all these resources invested in trying to find the right players. There's so many variables. There's a total picture. So we utilize a lot of different. Danny Leskin runs our analytics department and he does a really good job working with everyone. And there's a lot of different information. And we take all the information and we look at what's correlating to success. But there's so many other elements to it as opposed to one number to determine a player's success. Yeah, that's like a college admissions, right? When you're sitting there and some people get enamored with an SAT score or some people took the ACT dependent where you went to school and you're looking at people's resumes and some schools, they don't go higher than a 4-0. I don't know what they grade some of these schools anymore. Some people, I don't know how you get a 4.5 GPA, but I guess they exist. You're taking all with a grand assault. You're trying to have some comparative data with standardized tests and those may have evolved and you're just trying to take it all in. And that's the best analogy I can give you, there's no perfect test.  Not in two-lane. So maybe North Carolina. But that's the thing. That's the best analogy I can give you for it. And you can't fault everybody. They're trying to create a business for themselves. And it's a lot of stuff going on this time of year. Rumors and whatnot. Terry, I'd love to get your perspective on this concept of imposition of value. And I think that's where some of these questions kind of, it's kind of around this concept of when you have two players out of position, how do you discern who's more valuable for a team? And the Falcons, I think, are particularly relevant because you've done things like dropping pits with number four of this contract that's gone out to Chris Lynch, which are kind of against the grain, I think, in some of those respects. So just how does that positional value kind of help inform your draft strategy? Yeah, and if you take those players, so you take a Chris Lynch drum, and we believe he's an impact player with a rare makeup. And everything that we're about, that's what he's about. And so it's looking at everything, and someone might say, OK, you shouldn't pay a guard or invest in that position. But we look at it like, what's the impact he makes on the field, off the field, in the locker room, in all those areas? Obviously, we took Kyle and we took Drake and we believe they're impact players, regardless of putting him at a particular position. Now, there are premium positions, right? So you say, what are the premium positions on defense? You would say, guys that are corners, guys that can cover and take the ball away, and guys that can get pressure on the quarterback. And then you look at offensively, what are the premium positions? OK, you say tackle, you say quarterback, and what are the premium? Those are more, you can stack those above other positions. But when we're looking, going through the process and looking at everything, it's important to look at the makeup and look at the players. And we're thinking about the total team. So we're trying to make the team better. You're talking about not making an emotional decision. As a player available, it may be only two or three picks away from you, or a player available that you have had your eyes on for a specific reason. How do you not get emotional about picking up the phone and saying, I don't want to risk it. This guy's not going to be here in three more picks. We need to make a move. So how do you balance that out? And that's why all these calls are made, parameters. If you want to move back, go up. So you understand, we've got that pot of players. And if you've got somebody that just, we think this guy could change the whole program. Certainly, you're going to have those conversations ahead of time. You know the risk. And then some things you can control. Again, call around. You can make, think you have parameters or trades. Somebody may give that team an offer that's out of your control. But you try to prepare that for all those scenarios in case you do need to do that.   And then somebody comes in there and they get them a better deal the last second and you lose out. And you're just like, all right, well, we're about to go down to here. But you're trying to work through all that stuff right now. Yeah, we have all those conversations now, like Arthur's saying. And then you have to trust the process to and trust all the work that's been into it. And then you have to trust your board because there's a lot of stories when you look at the history where it was just that and someone was devastated because some player went that they wanted and they took the guy that was left there and ended up being a really good player, Hall of Fame players. There's a lot of those stories. So we have all those discussions. And yet we still have to trust the process and feel good about who we're going to take off the board. There's so much smoke out there right now, especially in the days leading into Thursday. Do you guys completely tune all this stuff that's swirling in the public out? Or how do you try to absorb this information determining what's real, what's fake? There's just so much of that out there. You can't tune anything out. I know Kayden sends me everything. I know you were talking about your buddy over there. It sends you everything. So you see everything. We see all of them. Go grab a cup of coffee. Yeah, see it. I mean, it's everywhere. Right. No building. So we do, we see everything. And like, yeah, we have to eliminate the noise. And again, that's where looking at the history helps as well because we always say when you look at some instant analysis of some different areas and how off they were, it's kind of entertaining when you go back and you look the history of it. So that's where we do have to, you see everything. And our Desmond say the other day, yeah, I have a TV. So you're going to see stuff. Whoever says they don't see anything, that's just not true. But what you have to do is have the right perspective and understand it is. It's entertaining and it's cool that everyone's interested in it. I don't know how many mock drafts there are out there, but there's so many mock drafts. It's unbelievable. And there's a lot of different experts. And there's a lot of really smart, talented people on TV. And yet there's certain reasons, like I'm sure when they walk in, they get the little card and this is what I'm going to argue today. And I'm going to be passionate about this. And that's just right. It's entertainment. That's what this business is. And all those things are good, though. And you appreciate those things. But for us, we have to make sure we do, even though we see it, block it out and make sure we're making the right decisions for the right reasons for this team, this organization, and making sure we're improving this team. What should you pay attention to? Maybe not for yourself, but for other teams, but for other people. I mean, the lack of mock drafts that exist. Pay attention to what the rocks are saying. Yeah, for others, not for what they do. You guys are going to deal with, like, from my head. Carolina is going to deal with my head. You're probably going to deal with yourself. Well, we try more so to, we try to gather as much information as we can and try to figure it out for ourselves. And again, not necessarily when you're in the top 10, I think more so as you get into the draft. Our pro department does a really good job of we have up, hey, these are what these teams, these other teams need. And these are the areas where they have to get a player. So as we're going through the draft and we see, okay, they've met these needs. And so we work hard to, just among ourselves, to figure that out as opposed to, we see everything, but you have to take it with a grain of salt. For both of you, what about as far as player evaluations?  I said prep for the draft, but just, whether it's at the con line or somewhere along the way, hey, you know, I'll catch up with you after the con line. We both looked at this player. This is what I see is, how much of those notes comparing it? It doesn't even matter.  It's like, you know, even with among buddies and because it's so competitive, you know, I think unfortunately there are some people that may talk too much, you know, and you can gather some information out from other, you know, scouts or coaches. Very carefully, you know, naturally you're gonna have some conversations. I mean, to say you won't, but you're very careful what you say to people, even if you'd be your best friend on another team, just how competitive it is. Which court is the biggest liars? I don't know, but some GMs, I've listened to some of these, not listened, but I've read some of these headlines and there's some comical answers. When you know it, it's not really the truth. So it goes both ways. I think it's, again, the way it's covered, maybe I don't know.  Yeah, I saw someone say the other day, you're working hard at this period to get the outcome, get the desired outcome. And that's what everybody, I was just on the phone with someone that known for a long time, another GM, and I respect him a lot and he's a great man, all that stuff, but he could have been selling me a bill of goods because at the end of the day he's trying to get the best desired outcome for his team, for their team. And we're trying to do the same things. When it comes to landing guys on the day three, I don't wanna ask what's different about the process because I'm sure the process is the same, but you know, we find guys like Avery or Tyler or some of the successes that you've had in those rounds. Maybe the question is like, what's the key to finding those guys that maybe others have passed up 149 times? So with those two particular players, I think those are good players to ask about because we talk, we always have to have a clear vision where there's the first, second, third, or eighth round, have a clear vision for the player, but it's more so where when you're drafting those earlier rounds, you hope you're drafting starters, whether they're starters initially or they grow into it, but there's a starting vision. At some point now you get in those later rounds, you want starters in every round, but you have to make sure you have a clear four down vision for them. So when you think about Avery, we knew Avery was, he's smart, he's tough, he's versatile, and there's a kicking game, not just as a returner, punting kick returner, but we know he can cover. We know he can do a lot of different things in the kicking game. So how does he get a jersey on game day? Okay, special teams while he's developing. Same thing with Tyler, and go through Tyler and go through the evaluation of him, and Tyler was a, he played some linebacker in college, that he can play in the kicking game, and sometimes you don't have the evidence on film of them playing in the kicking game, but if you look at the player's makeup and the player skill set, and then some guys just have to get in the building and they have to learn how to do it, but if you're bringing a player in at that point and he's pigeonholed at this one position and we don't see the value in the kicking game, he's not a smart, tough, highly competitive guy that's gonna go out there and do whatever he has to do to get a jersey on game day, and that makes it more challenging. So it's about having a clear vision for who the players are and how they can make your roster. This is why you spend so much time.  So it wasn't all of a sudden just by random chance and then it also helps those guys succeed too because it's been a long process to think, all right, if we get this guy, here's how we wanna use him, here's how we wanna bring him along, where you're not just tired, worn down and just all right, we'll give the coach a win here and take this guy and that didn't work for anybody. So yeah, there is an art to it, trying to say all right, well, if we don't take a player early that we really like, there may be a guy at that same position we like later in the draft and we think he's got a certain skill set that'd be really successful. And both Tyler and Avery, those were guys that we had targeted early and we just, and timing and luck sometimes. We're sitting there waiting on them so they could have jumped in front of them and we're thankful that they were there when we took them. You're not gonna have to free agent list, is that as simple to say it comes from the guys in your draft board that just didn't get there as it is quick, because that's the other part of this, the next day of the draft, it's, you know, you gotta sign 15, 20 of these guys, it's as simple to say that they were on your board they just didn't get drafted and those are the guys we're gonna sign.  Yeah, there you go. Yeah, just real quick for both of you guys now that you've been there a few times, what's, you know, now that all of this work, a year, years of work is behind you, what's your favorite part of the process once Thursday starts and we're on for the next few days? That's probably coming in here talking to you guys after the fix. I like to see who's worn down by the grind, you know, it's a late press conference, we'll see who's got perseverance, who's still got, you know, still sharp, you know, close to midnight, that's what I'm looking for. I enjoy the whole process and it really is all the time that we've spent, not just with the players, but with the staff when we're going back and forth to these workouts and you really get to spend a lot of time with everyone and getting to know everyone and you really enjoy that part of it and then to see how it all comes together and some of these players, we're talking about, it's really true, there's a lot of good young men. This league is in a good place and you enjoy that and we know we can't draft all of them but we might be signing them four years from now, five years from now and so the whole process and it really is special, like it's a special time for the young man, their families and so it's cool to see that come together because these guys have worked really hard and some of these stories with players that the challenges they've had to go through for their lives, you really root for them and so to see it all come together on those days and having the conversations on the phone and it really is special. Thank you.


Hey everybody, Lance Quake here. We are going to discuss the aerobic energy system today. So the video we did previously, we kind of introduced these three different energy systems, the aerobic system, the alactic anaerobic and the lactic anaerobic. What we're talking about today is the aerobic system. So if you recall, what does aerobic mean? Aerobic means that I'm creating this energy with oxygen. And so that's the primary thing that defines this energy system. Now, if we were to get into some of the biochemistry, you're going to find out that there's, it's not that the pathway is super complicated, though it kind of is, it's that there's a lot of pathways. And so if we talk about that lactic anaerobic system, the glycolytic system, that whole function of glycolysis is basically this entire other system, right, this lactic anaerobic system. But in the aerobic system, it's also just the first step of the aerobic system. And then we go and we do a lot of other stuff after that. So if that gives you some sort of perspective on the complexity of the aerobic system, primarily the aerobic system is going to produce the majority of your usable energy, your adenosine triphosphate, your ATP. And that because of that and because of the complexity, those two reasons, there is a lot of room for improvement with it. So if you think about the the alactic anaerobic system and you think about people trying to get fast or trying to jump higher, those changes aren't usually very dramatic. But if you take someone off a couch and then train them to do a 5K, like those two states of people are completely different. And that's because, you know, primarily, at least in my mind, that's because the aerobic energy system is is very malleable and has is subject to change. So we're going to talk about different aerobic activities. The biggest points that I want to hit on is that it's it's very changeable and it's it's supporting most of your energy. The third and final point is that it's it's kind of slow to get going. So if I don't warm up, I don't give it time to get going. And I have to use some of those other those without oxygen systems. And I'm more prone to gassing out or getting really, really tired, so tired that I can't really recover from it. So a proper warm up is probably the best way to deal with this. But there are other ways that we can do. We can we can purposefully repeat sprints over and over and over again to actually train the aerobic systems ability to, you know, replenish the I want to say substrates because that's the word. But replant and get rid of all the byproducts of of the exercise that we've done. Help us fight off the fatigue and help us keep our performance at a really high level as even as we, you know, get later and later into say a game or into a workout. So let's see if I can remember those three points. The aerobic system produces most of your energy. It takes a while to get going and it's very it's very malleable and it takes a while to get going. So those are our three major take homes for the aerobic energy system.