The Precision-Guided Podcast Georgetown Security Studies Review

The destabilizing effects of global climate change represent key security challenges for the United States. These challenges are manifested at both the strategic level, in how climate impacts are fueling global trends like instability and mass migration, and at the tactical level, as climate change threatens critical national security infrastructure like military installations. How the United States adapts to the impacts of climate and works to mitigate further climate change has key implications for military readiness, industrial policy, and the resilience of communities across the country and around the world. 

To discuss the key intersection between climate and security, host Gareth Smythe sat down with Kate Gordon, who just completed a two-year tenure as the Senior Advisor to Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm. Kate has spent the past two decades working at the intersection of climate change, energy policy, and economic development, and is a prominent voice knitting these important aspects together into a cohesive response. Kate and Gareth discuss the place-based impacts of climate change, how climate impacts present strategic and tactical challenges to security, the role of the military in climate adaptation and resilience, how the Department of Energy’s place at the forefront of America’s 21st Century Industrial Policy can support the Department of Defense’s industrial policy work, and the role of US allies, partners, and even potential adversaries in advancing climate security. 

There have never been as many security issues facing American business as there are today. Threats from international insecurity, great power competition, and new tools like cyber and AI that allow malign actors to destabilize from a distance face nations and companies alike. This trend is especially concerning given the outsized private ownership of critical infrastructure like energy, water, and transportation that underpins the American way of life.

Given these threats, how are conceptions of corporate security evolving? How are American businesses understanding their role in safeguarding national security? What is the proper posture of government to work with the private industry to ensure resilience?

To answer these questions and more, check out our latest episode, where host Gareth Smythe sits down with Mark Freedman, the Founder and CEO of Rebel Global Security. Rebel is an innovative kind of security risk management consultancy that leverages Mark’s experience working in at high levels within the national security community to assist businesses in becoming more aware of the threat landscape and empowered to address it. 

Is a war for Taiwan “winnable” and is it possible for that war to be short? What is the future of pairing humans with AI
systems on the battlefield, and what remains of the enduring nature of war given the state of emerging technology? How effective is the US strategy of “strategic ambiguity” in the face of modern threats to Taiwan?

 

Check out our latest episode as hosts Miriam Pasternak Jorgensen and Gareth Smythe sit down with Major General (ret.) Mick Ryan, a former Australian solider and renown author, strategist, and historian, for a discussion of Mick’s new book, White Sun War from Casemate Publishers. White Sun War is a fictionalized account of a war in Taiwan fought in the near-future told through the eyes of the American, Chinese and Taiwanese caught up in the struggle.

White Sun War can be purchased from Amazon.

Today, host Shawn Rostker speaks with Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of the Humanitarian Research Lab at the Yale School of Public Health, about his lab’s groundbreaking report documenting Russia’s systematic effort to steal and harbor at least 6,000 Ukrainian children throughout the war. They discuss Russia’s network of over 40 facilities, stretching from Crimea to Siberia, in which children are subjected to political indoctrination, cultural reeducation, and in some cases military training, and identify the state levers that enable it. The plight of the children, as well as the parents desperate to reunite with them, is told in vivid detail through documented instances of war crimes.Russia’s theft of Ukraine’s children represents the largest such campaign since the Nazi kidnappings of Jewish children during WWII that became the first prosecutions at Nuremberg. Executive Director Raymond explains the legal framework that implicates Russia in these war crimes and explains what must come next to identify and return the thousands of Ukrainian children currently being held by Russia.

What is the “Quad,” and how does it serve to foster a Free and Open Indo-Pacific region? What are the main strategic challenges and opportunities that the four Quad member nations hope to use the Quad to address? Which country should be included in the Quad to help further the foreign policy goals of the member nations? 

Check out our latest episode as host Gareth Smythe sits down with Professor Mark Seip, an adjunct faculty member of the Georgetown Security Studies Program and retired Naval officer and strategist, for a discussion covering the Quad and the US’ bi- and multi-lateral relations in the Indo-Pacific region, including Japan, Australia, and India.  

Join our host, Chris Bull, as he sits down with Mike Sexton to discuss career and life advice for SSPers in the first of a new series with SSP and Georgetown alumni.