This text first appeared in West Level’s Fashionable Warfare Institute.

We simply had our ultimate session of our Know-how, Innovation, and Nice Energy Competitors class. Joe Felter, Raj Shah and I designed the category to offer our college students insights on how industrial expertise (AI, machine studying, autonomy, cyber, quantum, semiconductors, entry to house, biotech, hypersonics, and others) will form how we make use of all the weather of nationwide energy (our affect and footprint on the world stage).

(Meet up with the category by studying our intro to the category, and summaries of Lessons 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6, 7 and 8.)

This class has 4 components that had been like most lecture courses in worldwide coverage:

• Weekly Readings – 5-10 articles/week
• 20+ visitor audio system on expertise and its affect on nationwide energy – prior secretaries of protection and state, present and prior Nationwide Safety council members, four-star generals who lead service branches
• Lectures/Class dialogue
• Midterm particular person venture – a 2,000-word coverage memo that describes how a U.S. competitor is utilizing a particular expertise to counter U.S. pursuits and a proposal how the U.S. ought to reply

The fifth a part of the category was distinctive.

• 1 / 4-long, team-based ultimate venture. College students developed hypotheses of how industrial applied sciences can be utilized in new and inventive methods to assist the U.S. wield its devices of nationwide energy. After which they obtained out of the classroom and interviewed 20+ beneficiaries, coverage makers, and different key stakeholders testing their hypotheses and proposed options.

On the finish of the quarter, every of the groups gave a ultimate “Classes Discovered” presentation with a follow-up a 3,000 to five,000-word team-written paper.

By the tip the category all of the groups realized that the issue that they had chosen had morphed into one thing larger, deeper and way more fascinating.

Crew Military Enterprise Capital

Unique drawback assertion: the U.S. must reevaluate and enhance its public enterprise capital relationship with firms with dual-use applied sciences.

Remaining drawback assertion: the DoD must reevaluate and enhance its funding methods and partnerships with dual-use mid-stage non-public firms.

In the event you can’t see the presentation click on right here.

We knew that these college students may write an excellent analysis paper. As we identified to them, when you will be the neatest particular person within the constructing, it’s unlikely that 1) all of the info are within the constructing, 2) you’re smarter than the collective intelligence sitting outdoors the constructing.

Crew Conflicted Capital

Unique drawback assertion: Chinese language funding in US startups with crucial applied sciences poses a risk to US navy capabilities, however the lack of transparency in enterprise capital makes it difficult to trace them.

Remaining drawback assertion: Chinese language adversarial enterprise capital investments in U.S. dual-use startups proceed to threaten US navy capabilities throughout crucial applied sciences, however the scope of the issue is comparatively small. VCs and entrepreneurs can play a job in addressing the problem by shunning recognized sources of adversarial capital.

In the event you can’t see the presentation click on right here.

By week 2 of the category college students shaped groups round a particular expertise problem dealing with a US authorities company and labored all through the course to develop their very own proposals to assist the U.S. compete extra successfully by new operational ideas, organizations, and/or methods.

Crew Aurora

Unique Downside Assertion: How can the U.S. make use of its cyber capabilities to offer the populace of China with unrestricted Web entry to bolster civil society towards CCP crackdowns, to be able to strain the PRC, unfold American liberal values, and uphold U.S. freedom of motion within the data area?

Remaining Downside Assertion: How does the USG leverage a soft-power data marketing campaign to assist Hong Kong residents’ proper to self-determination and democratic governance with out putting people at undue danger (of prosecution as international brokers underneath the Nationwide Safety Regulation)?

In the event you can’t see the presentation click on right here.

We wished to offer our college students hands-on expertise on learn how to deeply perceive an issue on the intersection of our nation’s diplomacy, data, its navy capabilities, financial energy, finance, intelligence, and legislation enforcement and dual-use expertise. First by having them develop hypotheses about the issue; subsequent by getting out of the classroom and speaking to related stakeholders throughout authorities, trade, and academia to validate their assumptions; and eventually by taking what they discovered to suggest and prototype options to those issues.

Crew ShortCircuit

Unique Downside Assertion: U.S. semiconductor procurement is closely depending on TSMC, which creates a considerable vulnerability within the occasion a PRC invasion of Taiwan, or different kinetic disruptions within the Indo-Pacific.

Remaining Downside Assertion: How ought to the U.S. Authorities increase the home semiconductor workforce by schooling and innovation initiatives to extend its semiconductor sector competitiveness?

In the event you can’t see the presentation click on right here. 

We wish our college students to construct the reflexes and expertise to deeply perceive an issue by gathering first-hand data and validating that the issue they’re fixing is the actual drawback, not a symptom of one thing else. Then, college students started quickly constructing minimal viable options (coverage, software program, {hardware} …) as a option to take a look at and validate their understanding of each the issue and what it will take to resolve it.

Crew Drone

Unique Downside Assertion: Drones can be utilized as a shock aspect in an amphibious assault to overwhelm defenses. In a possible Taiwan Strait Disaster, there’s a want for a low-cost and survivable counter-drone system to defend Taiwan.

Remaining Downside Assertion: Taiwan wants a strong and survivable command and management system to successfully and shortly carry the best asset to the best place on the proper time throughout an invasion.

In the event you can’t see the presentation click on right here.

One different aim of the category was testing a instructing crew speculation – that we may flip a lecture class into one which gave again extra in output than we put in. That by tasking the scholars to 1) use what they discovered from the lectures and a couple of) then take a look at their assumptions outdoors the classroom, the exterior enter they obtained could be a drive multiplier. It might make the lecture materials actual, tangible and actionable. And we and they’d find yourself with one thing fairly beneficial.

Crew Apollo

Unique Downside Assertion: The House Power should leverage industrial innovation and set up a skilled, skilled acquisition workforce that may ship innovation affect that the House Power requires.

Remaining Downside Assertion: The USA House Power lacks the provision chain and fast launch capabilities wanted to answer contingencies in house. The non-public sector possesses these capabilities, however will not be being adequately leveraged or incentivized.

In the event you can’t see the presentation click on right here. 

We knew we had been asking loads from our college students. We had been integrating a lecture class with a heavy studying checklist with the very best practices of speculation testing from Lean Launchpad/Hacking for Protection/I-Corps. However I’ve but to wager mistaken in pushing college students previous what they suppose is affordable. Most rise manner above the event.

Given this was the primary time we taught built-in lectures and initiatives our scholar evaluations ranged from the “we will need to have paid them to put in writing this” to “did they take the identical class as everybody else?” (Truly it was, let’s repair the legitimate points they raised.)

A couple of scholar quotes:

Crew Catena

Unique Downside Assertion: China’s cryptocurrency ban presents the U.S. with a possibility to affect blockchain improvement, appeal to technical expertise, and leverage digital asset expertise.

Remaining Downside Assertion: CCP’s financial coercion makes international locations similar to Australia depending on China’s economic system and susceptible to the get together’s will. The U.S. should analyze which key Australian industries are most threatened and decide viable different buying and selling companions.

In the event you can’t see the presentation click on right here.

A couple of extra scholar quotes:

Whereas the optimistic suggestions accolades for the category had been rewarding, a number of feedback recognized areas we will enhance:

• Letting the scholars know upfront the workload and distinctive format of the category
• Higher group and timing
  • Readings: be a lot clearer on which of them are obligatory vs non-compulsory

  • Make clear particulars, flows and aims for every class

  • Tie audio system to initiatives / scholar displays

• Make weekly workplace hours obligatory to make sure all college students obtain common professor/scholar interplay, suggestions and steerage from week 1

All of our college students put in extraordinary quantity of labor. Our college students, a mixture between worldwide coverage and engineering, will go off to senior roles in State, Protection, coverage and to the businesses constructing new disruptive applied sciences. They would be the ones to find out what the world-order will seem like for the remainder of the century and past. Will or not it’s a rules-based order the place states cooperate to pursue a shared imaginative and prescient for a free and open area and the place the sovereignty of all international locations massive and small is protected underneath worldwide legislation? Or will or not it’s an autocratic and dystopian future coerced and imposed by a neo-totalitarian regime?

This class modified the trajectory of lots of our college students. A quantity expressed newfound curiosity in exploring profession choices within the subject of nationwide safety. A number of might be profiting from alternatives supplied by the Gordian Knot Heart for Nationwide Safety Innovation to additional pursue their contribution to nationwide safety.

Classes Discovered

• We may flip a lecture class into one which gave again extra in output than we put in.
• Tasking the scholars to check their assumptions outdoors the classroom, the exterior enter they obtained was a drive multiplier
  • It made the lecture materials actual, tangible and actionable
• Pushing college students previous what they suppose is affordable ends in extraordinary output. Most rise manner above the event
• The output of the category satisfied us that the work of scholars like these may materially add to the security and safety of the free world
• It’s a nationwide safety crucial to create higher alternatives for our greatest and brightest to interact and deal with challenges on the nexus of expertise, innovation and nationwide safety

Be aware: Impressed by our expertise with this course, we determined to extend the main target of Stanford’s Gordian Knot Heart for Nationwide Safety Innovation on growing and empowering the extraordinary and largely untapped potential of scholars throughout the college and past.

Filed underneath: Company/Gov’t Innovation, Know-how Innovation and Nice Energy Competitors |