From Classroom to War Room: Future Leaders on the Russia-Ukraine War

Text the ATB Team! We'd love to hear from you!

This episode of “At the Boundary” dives deep into the Russia-Ukraine war with students from the Future Strategist Program (FSP) at the University of South Florida. This roundtable discussion unpacks the impact of unmanned drones, the shifting global order, and Ukraine’s unexpected resilience. The conversation explores Putin’s miscalculations, NATO’s evolving role, and the broader implications for international relations. 

What can the U.S. and its allies learn about global intervention the balance, the role of emerging technologies in modern warfare? How is technology going to affect future conflicts?

We conclude the episode with Dr. Jeff Rogg, GNSI Senior Research Fellow, talking with May Birch, the president of FSP about the group's upcoming conference on cybersecurity. While our team at GNSI is providing support for the conference, it's being driven primarily by the students of FSP. It's infectious to listen to the excitement of these future leaders and national security practitioners as they take on the ambitious task of organizing and producing a full academic conference. Mark it on your calendars: April 15.

Links from the episode:
• GNSI Tampa Summit 5: “The Russia-Ukraine War: Lessons for Future Conflicts” Registration 

• “What’s Really Happening?” Podcast with General (Ret) Frank McKenzie on “"Starship Troopers" and "The Forever War."

At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.

A "boundary" is a place, either literal or figurative, where two forces exist in close proximity to each other. Sometimes that boundary is in a state of harmony. More often than not, that boundary has a bit of chaos baked in. The Global and National Security Institute will live on the boundary of security policy and technology and that's where this podcast will focus.

The mission of GNSI is to provide actionable solutions to 21st-century security challenges for decision-makers at the local, state, national and global levels. We hope you enjoy At the Boundary.

Look for our other publications and products on our website publications page.

Episode Transcript

Glenn Beckmann (00:12):
Hi everyone.
Welcome to another episode of atthe boundary, the podcast from
the global and national securityInstitute at the University of
South Florida. I'm GlennBeckman, communications manager
at GNSI, your guest host todayfor at the boundary. On the show
today, we have a discussion thatour entire team has been looking
forward to for quite some time.

(00:36):
We're bringing in a few of thestudents from our FSP student
organization, future strategistprogram, and we're going to have
them in for a round tablediscussion on the topic of their
choosing before we turn thingsover to them, though, I just
want to give you one finalreminder for GNSI, Tampa summit
five, the Russia, Ukraine warlessons for future conflicts.

(00:57):
The heat on this topic hascertainly been turned up over
the last week or so asdiscussions continue between the
Trump administration and theRussians in the search for a
resolution to the war. Ourconference begins tomorrow, and
there's still time to reserveyour seat at the Marshall
Student Center, or you can alsowatch virtually, we put together
an amazing lineup of speakersand experts surrounding our

(01:20):
keynote speakers who are JohnKirby, former senior White House
National Security communicationsadvisor under the Biden
administration. And he's also aproud USF alum go Bulls, class
of 85 and GNSI ExecutiveDirector, retired Marine Corps
General Frank McKenzie. He'salso the former commander of US
Central Command. We're lookingforward to sharing their

(01:43):
insights and experiences withall of the attendees at GNSI
Tampa summit five. Look forregistration information in the
show notes. Speaking of ourexecutive director, we want you
to be on the lookout for thenext episode of his video
podcast. What's reallyhappening. You may or may not
know this, and you probablywouldn't be surprised, but
general Mackenzie is a voraciousreader. He's a military

(02:05):
historian. He loves writing andtalking about books. And his
next episode, he's talking abouta couple of fictional military
novels that had an outsizedinfluence on his career,
Starship Troopers and TheForever War that dropped on our
YouTube channel this week, so gocheck it out. Okay, let's bring
into the studio now a few of ourstudents from the future

(02:27):
strategist program, our team atGNSI has long believed that a
program focused on studentsinterested in national security
would be a welcome and highlysuccessful addition to the
University of South Florida. FSPwas created a little less than a
year ago, and man, we couldn'tbe happier with its success.
Over 40 students are nowinvolved. It's a full fledged

(02:50):
student organization, andthey're even planning on
organizing their own conferenceon cybersecurity. We're going to
tell you more about that at theend of the episode today. In the
meantime, I'm going to turnthings over now to Dr Tad
schnaufer, the strategy andresearch manager at GNSI. He's
an ideal person to speak withthem about their topic of
choice, which is the RussiaUkraine war. He's an adjunct

(03:14):
instructor at USF. He's beenpart of the Florida National
Guard and Reserves for nearly 20years, and, in fact, has spent a
significant amount of time inUkraine, both on his own and
deployed with the FloridaNational Guard. In fact, the
last time he was in Ukraine in2022 his deployment ended just a
couple of weeks before Russiainvaded Ukraine. Students have a

(03:36):
unique perspective and insightinto events of global
consequence, but because they'restudents, those insights can
sometimes be minimalized andoverlooked, and that's the
reason for today's roundtable.
We want to hear what's on theirminds. Tad over to you. Hi.

Tad Schnaufer (04:00):
Welcome to another edition of at the
boundary Podcast. I'm here withfour amazing students from the
University of South Florida. I'mgoing to discuss the war in
Ukraine and some of itsimplications on future
conflicts, especially leading upto our conference, the GNSI
Tampa summit conference nextweek. So why don't we have our
students introduce themselvesfirst? Nico, would you like to
kick us off?

Nichola Lavaud (04:21):
Thank you. A pleasure to be here. My name is
Nico Laveau. I am a sophomore inthe Judy Gants honors college,
studying political science witha minor in sociology, and I'm
also a student analyst here atthe GNSI. Glad to be here,

Garett Donohew (04:33):
awesome. I'm also very thankful to be here.
My name is Garrett donhe. I'm anInformation Science major,
minoring in geographicinformation systems. I'm very
excited for the conferencethat's going to take place next
week. Very happy to be here.
Thank you. Hi

May Burch (04:46):
everyone. My name is May Burch. I'm a second year
International Studies major witha legal studies minor. I'm
within the future strategistprogram under GNSI. I'm the
president of that and I'mexcited to be here. All

Alex Vu (04:58):
right. Good morning everyone. My name is Alex Vu,
I'm also with May at the futurestrategies program. I'm the
treasurer, and I'm also wepresenting next week at the GNSI
Tampa summit on the war inUkraine. So I'm looking forward

Tad Schnaufer (05:10):
to that excellent well, to get us started today,
why don't we go around and fromeach of you, get your
perspective on the war, simplyfrom this question, what's the
most interesting or puzzlingthing about the war you've seen
over the last three years,something that you're really
interested in, but you reallycan't pin down an answer of why
it happened or why it tookplace. We'll go back with Nika.
What I

Nichola Lavaud (05:30):
found interesting recently, in the
past couple days, is what theEuropeans plan on doing with the
frozen Russian assets, whetheror not they will be using it to
fund Ukraine in the face ofnegotiated peace deals, or the
US pulling out.

Garett Donohew (05:44):
For me, I think definitely one of the most
interesting parts of the warthat's happened so far is the
use of unmanned drones and itsimplications, and how it has
affected a lot of policy, andobviously a lot of the troops on
the ground, and how it's beingutilized, where it's going to
go, where it came from, and allthe other implications that come

(06:05):
from it economically as well.
It's just insane to see how ithas been playing out, out in the
front and the lack of air forceas well. I think that's also
just an extremely interestingpoint, the fact that we put such
an emphasis on it here, but yet,in Ukraine and Russia, it's kind
of, it's very slow process, andit's actually not really as

(06:26):
utilized as I thought it wouldbe. So that's those are two
things that very interesting to

May Burch (06:33):
me. I find it interesting. I think that it
kind of shook up the globalinternational order. I think
that everyone had a much largerfear of Russia's manpower behind
this. But I think when watchingthe war with Ukraine, it's
interesting to see thedifferences between expectation

(06:57):
and reality, and I think thatwill also be interesting to see
how that plays out in Europe,and especially Eastern Europe
later, even after the war.

Alex Vu (07:08):
Yeah, coming off from May, I am really interested in
the difference between theexpectation and realities of the
war. I feel like the Russiandefinitely underestimate the
Ukrainian respond as all theWestern respond to their
invasion, and I'm veryinteresting to see why was the
Russian calculation that way, aswell as how the war impact

(07:28):
Russia's position in the world,their economic and military
standing, as well as theirrelation and their grand
strategy as well. So definitelya once in a millennia event,
I'll say that can change Russiaposition on the world stage.

Tad Schnaufer (07:44):
Well, with that focus, why don't we go back to
May's point. May, could youformulate a question based off
of that reality versusexpectation, maybe looking at
the beginning of the

May Burch (07:51):
conflict? Oh, yes, I wanted to ask. So everyone
expected this war to be short,decisive and concise, especially
Putin what went wrong? What wasPutin shortcoming in his
original strategy? I think,truthfully, I think there, there

(08:13):
are two parts to it. I think heoverestimated Russia's ability.
Because I think that once again,we all had this expectation that
Russia is a global superpowerand that they would be able to
easily crush any country aroundthem, but I think in
overestimating Russia'sabilities, he also
underestimated Ukraine'sabilities and their willpower to

(08:35):
fight against Russia. I think heassumed this would be simple,
because I think he assumed thatthe Ukrainians would also simply
submit after enough time at war,which I think has easily been
debunked. So I think,truthfully, he did not get, I
think, a good grasp of thesituation before fully diving

(08:56):
into it. And I think that is whyhe expected the war to be so
short when it when it did notactually turn out to be right?

Tad Schnaufer (09:06):
Well, I mean, obviously, Russia borders
Ukraine. Russia has intelligenceassets. There's a lot of Russian
speakers in Ukraine. Why do youwhat kept Putin from
understanding the situation onthe ground better? Going to your
point of why we think again,obviously, we're speculating.
Putin hasn't told us exactlywhat he was thinking. So we're
speculating on why Putin andmaybe his inner circle decided
to invade. But what kept themfrom having the information

(09:27):
you're talking about? In youropinion?

May Burch (09:29):
In my opinion, I think sometimes, when you are
surrounded by your inner circleand they're supporting your
decisions, it's not always aseasy to open up to the idea of
you simply being wrong. So whilethey do border each other, and
I'm sure intelligence wastelling a different story than
Putin's original thought, Iwould argue that his inner

(09:53):
circle has kind of supportedthis war. And when you and your
inner circle have the sameconcepts, i. Ideas, despite what
the rest of the country says, itcan lead to pretty disastrous
outcomes, and I think it has ledto disastrous outcomes in the
past, with leadership unwillingto listen to like the entirety

(10:14):
of the society. So I thinktruthfully, while he may have,
well, no, not me. He likely wasreceiving that information about
Ukraine beforehand. I think thatit likely did not faze him as
much as it should have, and itdidn't factor into his decision
as much as it should have,because he had already made up

(10:36):
his mind. To some degree, I

Garett Donohew (10:37):
think it deals with a lot of ego as well.
Branching off what may said. Ithink everything was kind of
spot on what she said. But a lotof ego, a lot of betrayal. I
think we saw that roughly at thebeginning, when, you know, a lot
of generals and such would justtake what they wanted and leave.
So, yeah, no, I think may nailedthe nail on the hammer with that

(10:58):
one. And in

Tad Schnaufer (10:59):
the literature, and we see this often with wars,
is that decisions, decisionmakers that start wars typically
are working off of what's calledimperfect information. They
don't have all the informationat hand, either because it's
denied to them. They simply justdon't have the resources to
gather it, or they're going to,Mays point in an echo chamber,
right? The information's outthere, their their defense

(11:20):
forces or their intelligencesources have it, but it doesn't
filter its way up to the topwhere the decisions are being
made, because, again, it's beingkept from the boss and, you
know, quote, unquote,additionally, expectations and
you know, and bias of from whatyou want to happen, you tend to
look at information and try tocreate a path to The goal you're
looking to achieve, in thiscase, cherry pick information

(11:44):
that best suits your strategy.
So what's possible going to thispoint with Putin's decision
making is that they expected theUkrainians wouldn't fight as
well. They might not have hadthe will to resist across the
board. They might havespeculated that it's
particularly in the East, whereit's more Russian speaking. In
Ukraine, they might have theRussian forces might have met
less resistance, or even beensupported in some ways by the
population, and more thatimperfect information. They

(12:07):
weren't sure how much supportUkraine would get from the west,
so they knew that Western powerswould likely sanction them, but
that's not a very gooddeterrent. Sanctions are not
going to deter country frominvading, but they didn't. They
might not have anticipated sucha robust response in financial
and military aid from the west.

(12:28):
So those all come come into someof the issues that Putin likely
did not anticipate, at least tothe degree that we have seen,
because that would show why thewars lasted longer. Even Western
analysts thought the war wouldonly last a week or so, or at
least, at least the Russianswould be in Kyiv in a week.
Maybe the war would go onlonger. So at that beginning
point, those are some of theissues that might have been at

(12:49):
play. In addition the Russianbuildup in May of 2021 Putin's
famous article in the summer of2021 declaring, declaring the
Ukrainians, the Russian people,it was kind of a build up, and
seeing what the internationalreaction would be, and the
reaction from the Ukrainians tothat matter, and it would seem
that the reactions were notrobust enough to deter or change
the thinking of the smallleadership node in Russia that

(13:10):
made the decision to go to war.
Some of the points to look at isalso the number of forces that
the Russians had on the borderat the time, as relatively small
number of forces to invade acountry as large as Ukraine,
when it comes to territory size,as well as population, you need
a lot of forces to be able to gointo the country then occupy it.
And you even need those rearguard forces, those Garrison
forces, to maintain control. Soa lot of those numbers don't

(13:33):
point to the Russians expectinga large scale conventional
conflict is what we see today.
Well, you know, with with thatthought process, but why don't
we go back to Garrett, you had aquestion on on the conflict?
Yeah,

Garett Donohew (13:47):
no, my question had to do with the reshaped,
reshaping of the balance ofpower within the world, whether
that be between just Russia andUkraine, where they lie, NATO
and its allies, and how theyview the conflict and how, how
this balance is shifting, or hasshifted, and where do you think
it's going

Tad Schnaufer (14:06):
to focusing more on now, or when the war started,
or just kind of talk about,

Garett Donohew (14:10):
I think as as the war has progressed from when
it started to where it is now,well,

Alex Vu (14:15):
I think the war definitely changed everybody's
perception in Russia'sthemselves, their own perception
on their own position and powerin the world right now. You
know, back in the day, peopleused to think that Russia is the
second military power in theworld, that China is still
number three, and the US, ofcourse, the number one. But now
we can see how Russia cannotbeen fight a war right next to
their border.

Nichola Lavaud (14:34):
Yeah, I kind of have to agree with Alex here.
The war has reshaped what wesee, how we perceive Russia to
be a strong military power, orare they really a strong
military power losing around?
What was it around? I believe300,000 of their soldiers the
past three years in Ukraine, theUkrainians. We also see them as
we know they're not a strongmilitary power because we are

(14:55):
the ones that are funding them.
But we see there's a strongwilled people there. Are that do
want to fight back, that do wantto come control their homeland
and take these aggressors out oftheir homeland. And I think we
also see that the Europeans arenow starting to wake up and also
realize their own potential, intheir sense of the world, of not

(15:16):
being second to America, butalso maybe taking a stronger
charge of their own lands andtheir own borders with the
Polish people finally waking upand saying, you know, as a
European Union, we need tobecome stronger. We need to
become tougher towards Russiaand more unified together. So I
think by the time the war ends,however it ends, whether Russia

(15:37):
wins or Ukraine wins or it endsin a stalemate with Russia
having the lands that they stillcontrol, I think in the broader
sense of things that the worldwill be shaped for the coming
decades,

Tad Schnaufer (15:49):
but it's still not appropriate in this I write
off the Russian military. TheRussian has. Russia still has a
lot of latent power, has a largepopulation, has a lot of natural
resources, and has thecapabilities as their industry
becomes more war oriented, torebuild their military forces
over the next couple of years,but they certainly have suffered
significant losses in Ukraineand weren't we're likely not

(16:10):
anticipating, as we just spokeabout, a long, long scale war
we've already, you know, beengoing for over three years with
this conflict and is likelygoing to drag on for at least a
Few few more months, if notlonger as negotiations continue.
So with the global balance ofpower, it's actually relatively
unchanged in many ways. From myopinion, it looks like the US is

(16:30):
still the strongest power in theworld. The US still has the only
large scale expeditionarymilitary force. The US is only
one that can reach out acrossthe world and actually put
troops anywhere it really wantsto China and Russia can't do
that. Russia is obviously havinga problem even doing it just on
its own border regions, so thattype of balance of power
perspective has not changed.
Now, the Chinese have probablygained a couple rungs on the

(16:51):
ladder, as Russia, in a sense,has been knocked back, but it's
not clear that once this isover, the Russians wouldn't be
able to rebuild relativelyquickly. And going to the point
on the Europeans, of course,they're going to have to step
up. They've This is a age oldtale of the Americans asking
their European allies to domore. The European allies say

(17:12):
they're going to do more, andthen they don't, and then they
start to cycle over again. Thedifference here is that there's
a lot more pressure from theAmericans than we've seen in the
past, with the currentadministration really pushing
the Europeans to do more, andthe threats very, very evident,
because even during the ColdWar, the Soviet Union did not
have any aggressive militaryactions in the European theater.

(17:34):
So obviously, they had hadadvisors around the world and
fought in Afghanistan in the1980s but we did not see Soviet
aggression after the formationof NATO, other than suppressing
some revolt in Hungary in 56 forexample. But we did not see any
large scale Russian militaryoperations during the Cold War.

(17:55):
So this is different. So theEuropean allies, particularly
those in the east, are lookingat it differently, and they have
a historical memory of beingoppressed by the Russians, you
know, particularly the poles.
They take this threat veryseriously. This is not a new
concept to them. The Polishnation was subsumed by three
other empires for over 120years. So they're very well
aware of what can happen if youleave your military arm to

(18:21):
atrophy. You better want to keepthat strong arm of government.
So why don't we turn it over toAlex, you had a point on policy
makers, right? Yeah.

Alex Vu (18:30):
So I'm very curious, from your observation of the war
in Ukraine, if you had to advisepolicymakers on one major
security blind spot that theyshould be paying more attention
to what do you think it would be

Tad Schnaufer (18:43):
American policymakers or Yes, from the
American policymaker point ofview, one of the big points that
they have to look at is, whattype of Europe do you want, and
what type of peace do you want?
Now, obviously the peacenegotiations are going on, and
from an American policystandpoint, you have to say,
okay, so we need to create alasting peace. But
unfortunately, in conflicts likethis we've seen in the past,

(19:04):
whether you're looking at theKorean Peninsula or even in
Cyprus, right, you see that youhave a frozen conflict. You get,
typically a demilitarized zoneof some sort or some sort of
line of contact where theconflict freezes, and then you
have a bunch of peacekeepersthere. Now the US discussion has
pointed to the Europeans wouldbe the peacekeepers in this
case, but the long, long termprojection would be that those

(19:26):
peacekeepers would have to bethere for years, if not decades.
I mean, look at the Cold War.
The US maintained hundreds of1000s of troops in Europe, just
for deterrence, not to mentionon the Korean peninsula. The US
has maintained 10s of 1000s offorces for over 70 years. So to
maintain these types of peace,if the peace deal is not done
completely, and you end upgetting a frozen conflict, could

(19:48):
be just putting the issue offfor a later date. Now, in the
Cold War worked out because theSoviet Union collapsed because
of economic struggles, but as wesee in Korea and again on
Cyprus, you still have a frozenconflict with. Peacekeepers
being able to maintain there. Sothe spot to really look at is,
how do we maintain we need toachieve a peace either that
doesn't require that manypeacekeepers and has a short

(20:10):
term off ramp, if you will, orif there are going to be
peacekeepers, how does eitherNATO or the Europeans step up
and are able to do that, maybeeven through the UN it's a very
difficult long term we'retalking again you this might be
70 years. This might be an adate indeterminate to end. So
it's a very long termprogression. And we see that
with other conflicts as well. Ifyou look at the conflict with

(20:32):
Israel and Gaza, right? This isjust this current conflict
starting back in 2023 that wasjust the latest spot of violence
between in this in this region,and the form of peace deals did
not hold. If you're trying tocreate a lasting peace, it's
very difficult. It typicallytakes a lot of force, it takes a
lot of money and a lot ofdedication, and it doesn't have

(20:52):
a clear end. And so it's hard tosell, um, to taxpayers. Why are
we funding, you know,peacekeepers 70 years after the
end of a conflict. So that'spart, that's part of the issue
that policymakers deal with. Butwhat, what do you think
policymakers, European, Russian,Ukrainian are going to deal with
otherwise? How

May Burch (21:11):
involved are we allowed to be? And I think it's
something that America has beenfaced with. It's something that
the NATO is faced with. It'ssomething that I know the
countries surrounding Ukraine,the ones that are holding their
breath, hoping that Ukrainewins, because they're hoping
that Russia doesn't invade themnext, they've all kind of been
dealing with this because therehave been incidents in the past
with other countries in otherregions of the world, where

(21:34):
outside countries will get tooinvolved, and it could lead To
disastrous outcomes, maybepotentially worse than what was
initially intended, what theinitial outcome would have been.
So I know this has been kind ofsomething on everyone's mind is,
how far are we allowed to seethis progress before we truly
get involved? Because we areassisting Ukraine, and we are

(21:57):
sending money, and we aresending military supplies and we
and we are helping. But onceagain, the question just always
goes back to how far into thiswar, and how far into all the
casualties and all in all of theissues before a country is truly
allowed to get involved, andthey're truly allowed to to to

(22:19):
be in that war and fight thatwar. And it's an interesting
debate, because I know, and Ithink one of the reasons that
the US has taken a farther stepback is because of past
failures, as we saw in the waron terror. And then also, I
would argue there, there's a lotof sentiment that the US was
acting as a global police force,and I know that there's a lot of

(22:41):
discontent within the worldbecause of that, and I think
that made it so that in thiswar, specifically, while we have
been of assistance, we have notinvolved ourselves in the way I
think past policy makers wouldencourage us to do so. I think
it's very interesting, becauseit gets to a point where the

(23:03):
debate is is completelysurrounded around the fact of
how much are we going to see andwatch all of these atrocities
occur, and when? When do we stepin? When is the appropriate time
to step in? Because I thinkthat's an ongoing debate, and I
think it always will be anongoing debate of what moment is

(23:24):
the right moment.

Nichola Lavaud (23:25):
I think that's a good point. May I think that
we'll see an aspect of thatafter, well, let's say the
negotiations end and boom, wehave a demarcation line. I think
we'll see an aspect of that inthe sense of who gets to rebuild
Ukraine. Is it the West, or isit Russia who gets to rebuild
and influence a country? And ifit's like the West, right now,

(23:46):
the Europeans are speculatingabout using the frozen assets
that they have from Russia forbuilding Ukraine, for funding
Ukraine. Do they get to usethat, or does that go back to
Russia? Or do we have some sortof Marshall Plan for Ukraine,
who gets to influence Ukraine,and then whoever gets influenced
Ukraine, how will that affect asyou were talking about Dr
schnaufer, the piece down theline, because if the West

(24:10):
influences Ukraine, then let'ssay 2030, years from now,
they're more inclined to joinNATO again. They're more
inclined to join the EU. But ifRussia influences Ukraine, then
maybe they could change thecountry, and they could
influence the country into or tobecome a much more auxiliary
nation towards Russia. Just hasBelarus. So I think we'll see an
aspect of that, especially afternegotiations end.

Alex Vu (24:31):
Oh yeah, for me, I would say the war definitely has
a big impact on policymakers insmall states. We don't, we don't
get to talk much about the smallstates in this case, and I'm
saying small states, as in manydifferent neighboring European
countries and small statesacross the world. Since I'm from
one of them, we have a lot ofcountry from all the way from

(24:51):
Latin America to Africa to Asia.
They look at this war and theysee a former world order that
was based on negotiation. Andinternational law to prevent
conflicts and prevent this sortof interstate war got shattered,
and they were fearing that ifthe next day, if a superpower,
let's say China, for example,wants to get something of their
own, they will not rely on theway we used to do for the last

(25:14):
couple of decades, which wasthrough negotiation and
international law, but ratherthey would use force, hard
force, like the way the Russiandid in Ukraine. And that raised
a lot of concerns for smallstates policy makers around the
world. And I definitely can seethat, you know, there's been a
lot of attention raising and youknow, people have been focusing
more on rearming themselves andpreparing themselves for a

(25:37):
possibility of a future conflictin many

Nichola Lavaud (25:40):
different parts of the world, in case they can't
rely on the United States and

Alex Vu (25:43):
many other of their allies as well, not just the
United States. Yeah,

Tad Schnaufer (25:48):
well, going back to May's original point of
states being allowed to dosomething, what do you mean?
Allowed? We'll use

May Burch (25:53):
the United States in this instance. United States,
realistically, can do what itwants in this war, because
there's no really allowing theUnited States military outside
of the President, obviously. Soby allow, I mean what point do

(26:14):
other countries agree with andcontribute to you stepping in.
So there have been incidents inthe past. What do you mean by
stepping in, like troops on theground, troops on the ground,
type like intervention, actualdirect intervention, in this
war. And so my main questionjust was always a lot of smaller

(26:35):
countries, especially smallercountries surrounding Ukraine,
those that were initially partof the USS. Are they? They have
had these debates as well, justbecause, if Ukraine is overtaken
and absorbed back into Russia,who's to say they're safe from
Russia as well? If it seems thatUkraine is losing, and Russia is

(26:57):
continuing to push in, andthey're starting to invade the
territory, do we step in? Do westop it? Do we do we protect
Ukraine sovereignty, or do wesimply watch it happen, and we
watch Russia invade Ukraine, andwe watch them overtake Ukraine?
I know that

Nichola Lavaud (27:10):
was, that's what the French floated. The French
floated about boots on theground, which obviously ruffled
some feathers here stateside.
But they were floating the ideaof, you know, if, say, Ukraine
loses the tide, and we may justhave to step in. We'll see if
that actually happens. I don'tbelieve it would, but the fact
that they floated that shows achange in the demeanor, and even
the Western Europeans, whousually are not as hawkish as
the Eastern Europeans are, yeah,towards Russia.

Alex Vu (27:34):
And I think that's a great point as well, because,
and you mentioned thepeacekeeping, it's a really
difficult thing to do, and Ithink it's even going to be
harder, as you said, to have apeacekeeping force without the
presence of the United

May Burch (27:46):
States. I think they are waiting on the US. They're
seeing what the US will do. TheUS has kind of always been this
leading force of intervention inwars and outside wars, and so I
think a lot of countries havebeen waiting to see, okay, is
the US going to intervene? Andonce the US intervenes, that
kind of opens a path for othersto to step in and stop this. But
until then, I think it's justbeen a constant debate on the

(28:07):
world stage, really, of how farare we going to let this go? I
think,

Nichola Lavaud (28:13):
I think we're we're using, we're seeing that a
lot right now. Since herestateside, no one is talking
about using the frozen Russianassets in support of Ukraine.
But in Europe, the leadershaven't said it themselves, but
around political parties,commentators, it's been going
around now for the past coupledays. Now that we need to use
these funds, we need to show ourstrength, and the Europeans

(28:34):
understand that this is reallytheir only card up their sleeve,
since they do not have themanpower that the US has, and if
the US decides to do anegotiated peace deal with
Russia that the Ukrainians don'tlike and that the Europeans
don't like as well, that thiswill be their only trump card
that they could use to continuesupporting Ukraine in the face
of any deal made as well.

Garett Donohew (28:55):
Lot of questions of what policymakers will be
doing inside of Russia and howthey're going to take a step
back after Ukraine and realize,you know, certain assets, or,
you know, when, when theyinvaded Ukraine, it was this
concept of, you know, that theyclaimed that the Ukrainians were
being genocided, or the Russiansin Ukraine were being genocided.

(29:15):
And, you know, we saw how thatturned out, and how it was
proven to be, you know, still upin the air, but not, not
entirely true. But what'sstopping Russia from doing
something like that again, youknow, making some bold face
claim and invading anothercountry on its on its former
USSR block to gain control?

Tad Schnaufer (29:36):
Well, it's a difficult question, because, of
course, there is this idea thatthe, you know, the US could be
everywhere all the time, tryingto help every country but
countries you know, looking atIR theory, international
relations theory and a realistperspective is simply countries
are going to act in theirnational interests, and they're
not going to just willy nillyput forces on the ground around

(29:56):
the world unless they have adirect national interest in it.
Now that. Interest is typicallydefined by the ruling party or
the leaders of that country atthe time, along with the
domestic audience, if they'reputting pressure one way or the
other, these topics aredifficult to discuss. But you
know, power is the currency ofinternational relations. The
more powerful you are, you cando what you want. You know,

(30:18):
quoting the History of thePeloponnesian War, the strong
will do what they will, and theweak will suffer what they must.
So you always want to be in aposition of strength. You want
to have that power and theability to do what you'd like.
Because when you have power onthe international stage,
historically, you don't, you'reit's not a question, are you
allowed, as if you want to ornot? And going to the small

(30:39):
state perspective that Alexbrought up, if you're a small
state, you don't have the powerto be able to do a lot what you
would like, typically. So that'sthat's issues that states have
to deal with in their foreignpolicy making. The decision
makers can only use the toolsthey have, the instruments and
national power that they have,and however strong those are.
Before we turn it over to Nico,what do you have a question you

(31:01):
were thinking about? Ryan,

Nichola Lavaud (31:02):
my question is regarding the peace negotiations
currently happening in Riyadhthat the Ukrainians don't seem
to have a strong role in. Whendo you negotiate? If the
negotiations were to end with apeace deal made, how would the
Ukrainians react, and do we seethem accepting this deal made
without their consultation andcapitulating, or do we still see

(31:24):
them trying to find a way tofight back? Obviously, if they
lose us support, then they don'thave the financial and physical
means to fight back. But how doI wonder how it'll play out in
the end, once the deal is made?
Well,

Tad Schnaufer (31:37):
I'm sure we're all wondering how it's going to
play out, and there's a milliondifferent avenues that the peace
negotiations can go but youknow, you see a lot of people
comparing it to 1938 in Munich,with the British selling this,
selling out the Czechs, theczechoslovakians, with the
Sudetenland. There are somedifferences here that need to be

(31:58):
pointed out. One that the checkswere left out in the
negotiations through that entireprocess. So we're not sure how
this entire process is going togo. So just because the
negotiations have startedbetween the US and Russia does
not mean that Ukraine will nothave a seat at the table later
on. So we'll have to see howthose play out until the entire
process is over. So that willanswer a lot of your questions

(32:18):
of what the Ukrainians do. Itdepends on the peace
negotiations. Peace Negotiationstypically take a long time. The
difference in 1938 was that wasnot a peace negotiation. That
was a negotiation of balance ofpower between the major powers,
while the Czech official SAT inanother room and pretty much
just got handed in. Notice. Theother big difference between
1938 and today with thesenegotiations is the Ukrainians

(32:39):
fought. Ukrainians are fightingas an act of conflict. So this
is a peace negotiations or acease fire negotiations. Anyway.
Again, it's not about justhanding over land in a act of
appeasement, as we saw withChamberlain in 38 it's this is
an actual discussion to end thewar, and hopefully going back to
our earlier conversation aboutpeace, making an enduring peace,

(33:02):
ensuring that peace can actuallybe maintained. Which peace being
maintained is costly. Deterrenceis costly, as we mentioned in
the Cold War. And the bigproblem with the deterrence is
it's you can't measure successvery well, right? If you're
measuring a war, or if you'refighting a war, you can measure
the battles you've won. Oh,we've won four battles. We've
gained this much territory.
There's all these metrics youcan use to see if you're winning
or losing. But or losing, right?

(33:24):
But when you're deterring aconflict, all you can measure is
the fact that nothing happened.
Trying to maintain the statusquo is very difficult, and
maintaining the peace becauseit's hard to sell. It's hard to
sell the taxpayers, particularlyas time goes on, whether they're
European, Russian or Americantaxpayers, you can see this
across the board. So it'sdifficult for the peace
negotiations. We're going tohave to see how it plans out.
But just because it has startedin Riyadh between the US and

(33:46):
Russia, does not mean theUkrainians won't have to see the
table some point. And again,it's not a like case to 1938 in
many ways. So it would be, it'shard to make that that
comparison so quickly. It'sjust, it's just, simply, there's
too many things that aredifferent. So, uh, with that in
mind, what do you think thefuture might hold, uh, for the

(34:09):
NATO alliance, for for NATO as awhole. So let's say, obviously
we had, we, let's imagine theconflict continues to go on.
Where do you guys see NATOgoing?

May Burch (34:20):
Honestly, it'll be interesting how NATO comes to
play out, because the there'sreally only two avenues I see it
going either the president stepsdown and Ukraine joins NATO, and
then, in doing so, I think thatwould be a deterrent for Russia,
and likely would lead to peacenegotiations that would favor
both sides, simply just becausewith Na with Ukraine being a

(34:43):
member of NATO, that would meanthat NATO then has the ability
to get more involved, directlyinvolved in this war, because
they would have a reasoningbehind it, and that would lead
to a lot of member nations ofNATO wanting to get involved as
well. The second way I see. Thisgoing as NATO continues to have
their hands off of this. Theythey don't admit Ukraine until

(35:05):
after these talks and afterthere's enduring peace. And I
think that that would lead tothe peace negotiations leaning
heavily in Russia's favor,simply because Russia is the
stronger force out of the two.
And I think there was a quoteyou said, the strong take what
they will in the weak, endurewhat they must this. Russia is

(35:26):
unfortunate, not unfortunately,but Russia is the strong in this
situation. And without NATO'sbacking, I think that makes it
so that Ukraine is quite easilygoing to be within the weak
category. I

Nichola Lavaud (35:41):
think that the future of NATO, in my opinion,
is a strong one, but it alsorelies upon what our European
partners intend to do. Rightnow, Poland pays their most per
cap per GDP rate. I believe bythe end of this year, they'll be
paying almost 5% or by nextyear, they'll be paying 5% of
their GDP into NATO. Right nowthey're in charge of the EU.

(36:02):
They're want, they're trying tomotivate their partners in the
EU that they need to pay more,that they need to pay more
attention to Russia, so that inthe long term, that this doesn't
happen again, or that Russiadoesn't find another way to
infiltrate and hurt the Europeannations. So I believe that NATO
now has seen that wake up callwith the war in Ukraine, and no

(36:22):
matter how it ends, whether itends with Russia keeping control
of the 20% of land that theyhave, or somehow Ukraine takes
back all their land, I thinkthat no matter how it ends, that
NATO will still play a strongrole, most possibly in
peacekeeping forces, if thereare peacekeeping forces and in

(36:42):
keeping control and security ofEurope as a whole. Since, I do
believe that long term for now,that the European powers will
start to put more of their fairshare and will start to input
more into NATO, since they sawwhat exactly can happen when
Russia takes over Ukraine, andthey also, they also see what
happens when they have anadministration in the US that is

(37:04):
pushing putting pressure onthem, and that's threatening to
become more isolationist if theydon't play their if they don't
pay their fair share. So I thinknow they're being forced from
both sides to start to pay theirfair share in the Western
European powers, once they startdoing it, then everyone else in
Europe will start doing it as

Garett Donohew (37:18):
well. Nico, I agree with your point that
NATO's I think goals at the endof the day is going to be a lot
on prevention, but I think it'salso very important to realize
that one of the big reasons whyRussia Ukraine invaded Ukraine
was because of the heavy NATOpresence in Europe.

Nichola Lavaud (37:35):
He also grew NATO in the end we, we accepted.
Was it Sweden? Yes, we Sweden,Finland. So he, if he is, if he
invaded Ukraine due to thestronger NATO presence in the
eastern part, through Poland,Latvia and the Baltic states, it
backfired on him, because weended up having even more NATO
presence next to Russia due tothe war in Ukraine. Yes,

Garett Donohew (37:57):
it most definitely did. But I think, I
think for a lot of policymakersin NATO, though, I think it's
still definitely something tolook into in terms of directly,
like Ukraine or some of theBaltic states, even though, like
Estonia, because, I mean, theyare building up their defenses,
as we talked about before. Butit's just, I think it's just an
important factor to considerthat, if it was one of the

(38:19):
reasons why, if it was,hypothetically, one of the
reasons why Russia was to invadeUkraine, I think it's something
that will be definitely onpolicy makers minds in NATO,
about them doing it again, and afear of that.

Nichola Lavaud (38:32):
I think that fear will lead to them not
accepting Ukraine anytime soon.
I don't foresee Ukraine beingaccepted into NATO, but that
fear will lead to the existingmembers of NATO, especially
those right next to Russia,building up their defenses
towards the Russian border.
Absolutely

Tad Schnaufer (38:48):
agree. The question would really be, is,
how much did it drive thisparticular conflict? Now, it
certainly could have played arole, as with most foreign
policy decisions. It's really apie chart. There's a there's a
number of factors that come intoplay. We like to pinpoint one
thing. It was NATO expansionthat did this. It was the
Russian Black Sea fleets beingstationed in Crimea. That's a

(39:09):
strategic point. That's why theytook the province of Crimea in
2014 but there's a lot of otherfactors that go that come into
play. NATO expansion is probablyone of them, and particularly,
again, if you're aninternational relations realist,
and you read of foreign affairsand you see John Mearsheimer is
a famous realist. He often says,you know, the war in Ukraine is

(39:30):
the West's fault, right? Becausethe West expanded. But we have
to only speculate that. How dowe know what would have happened
if NATO did not expand with theRussians had just been
aggressive earlier? We don'tknow. But what we do know is
that no one's attacked a NATOcountry yet. So that's that's
part of that deterrence kind ofleading from the Cold War time
frame, it would be difficult forNATO to accept Ukraine at this

(39:52):
time or any time in the nearfuture. Just doesn't just just
very difficult, particularlywith contested borders, and
certainly in an act of conflictthat's. Not going to happen, or
even if it's a ceasefire insteadof a long term peace. So NATO
expansion likely played a role.
The question would be, how much?
And that's how we'd have to, youknow, you'd have to ask Putin,
because remember this conflict,although the large scale

(40:14):
conventional conflict, startedin 2022 there were Russian
troops, obviously, withannexation of Crimea in 2014 and
then there was the simmeringconflict in eastern Ukraine, in
the dumb boss, from 2014 all theway to 2022 which included
Russian, Russian soldiers andincluded rebel back, rebel
groups backed by Russia. So thatconflict didn't end, and that's

(40:34):
why it just expanded in 2022with, with a full scale
invasion. So with all thosepoints in mind, to wrap up from
your perspective, as we look atour conference next week on the
lessons learned from the war inUkraine for future conflicts,
whether that's a China Taiwanscenario, whether that's a
larger conflict in the MiddleEast, or even possibly conflicts

(40:58):
in Africa, we still have theCivil War, or the conflict in
Sudan, as well as conflict areasin the DRC and otherwise. So
what lessons for futureconflicts have we learned from
Ukraine? Ukraine, the UkrainianRussian conflict as your closing
statement? So we'll start withyou, Alex.

Alex Vu (41:19):
Well, this is, in my opinion, at the same time. But
also want to put this outbecause we Garrett mentioned why
the expansion of NATO might beone of the reasons leading to
the war. Why have a oppositedirection for that? I think
there's a sort of this underbalancing from the United States
and Western countries in thebuild up of the war in Ukraine
that contributed to Putin'sdecision of going to war. I

(41:41):
mean, we the events of 2014,happened, and we didn't have a
good balancing actions againstRussian aggression in Ukraine.
We let them take Crimea andlaunch a war in the Donbas
region, and the only thing wedid was sanctioning them, which
didn't really affect them thatmuch. So I can argue that this
sort of under balancing, not therather, not the expansion of

(42:03):
NATO or both, but this underbalancing plays a bigger role in
Putin's determination of goingto war. So there are definitely
a lot of reasons, as Dr Sinhamentioned, but for me
personally, I would say is weneed to think about balancing
under balancing and effectivebalancing, especially in future
conflicts. If tomorrow, Chinalaunch a sort of blockade around

(42:28):
Taiwan, what's our balancingstrategy for them? Are we just
sanctioning them? Of course,that's going to hurt a lot of
people. Would that be effective?
So yeah, definitely a lot oflessons on that one. But

Tad Schnaufer (42:37):
with the NATO expansion piece, it really is a
chicken in the egg typescenario, because was it the
NATO expansion in 1999 thatstarted pushing the Russians to
look at the West as anaggressive stance. So there's
multiple correlations, right?
You know that difference betweencausation and correlation, we
can see a number of factorsincreasing. NATO is expanding,
but Russia is also getting morepowerful throughout the 2000s
leading up, particularly to the2008 invasion of Georgia. So

(43:00):
it's, it's hard to pinpointwhat's that causation and
likely, as as noted, it's, it'sa multi, multiple factors play a
role in decision makers,including, it seems, with the
with the Russians. One of thebig, big points is opportunity.
There's just an opportunity,there's an opening, and they
seize that opportunity, as wesaw with the Maidan protests,

(43:20):
Maidan resolution revolution,rather, in 2014 there was an
opportunity, and the Russianstook it. So one thing for
leaders, just like we saw withthe lead up to World War Two or
World War One for that matter,is you want to close that window
of opportunity in the leader'smind. You want to make it
crystal clear that if they'regoing to do something that you
don't use, you absolutely do notwant them to. Do you make it

(43:40):
clear that it's going to be toocostly, maybe. What do you think
for future conflicts? What wouldwe learn from the current war in
Ukraine? I think

May Burch (43:48):
that, and to bring this back to like the shift of
the global internationalstructure, I think that we
learned these smaller countriescan push back, and they will
push back. And I think in thisis very much so an assumption,
but I think China was watchingthis invasion. And I think

(44:09):
truthfully, if Russia hadsuccessfully done it in the time
period they initially thoughtthey would, I think that China
would have invaded Taiwan. And Ithink that this has kind of
pushed China to not invadeTaiwan, and even to bring it
back to the African Peninsula,as you said. I mean, I was in

(44:29):
South Africa just last summer,and it's interesting to see,
because I think it gave a lot ofpause to to these big these big
countries with a lot of power,these these hegemonic powers
that we have in the system. Ithink it made them realize that

(44:49):
they may have a lot of power,and they may have a lot of
influence, but that does notalways necessitate that wars
like this will be an easy winfor them. And. What I would hope
is that it leads to morebalance, listening to outside of
your inner circle, listening tothe intelligence and listening
to informants and listening topeople within that country,

(45:13):
like, as you were saying, howthere's Russian speakers in
Ukraine, listening to those thathave been to Ukraine. But I also
think for the internationalorder as a whole. This kind of
gives us more of an idea of howto manage these situations in
the future, because we watchedthis go on. And I know there are
other talks of how to do this,how to do that, but I think back

(45:36):
to China, like if China were toinvade Taiwan today, I think
that we would much moresufficiently handle that
situation. Having the experienceof Russia versus Ukraine, Russia
is a big name in the world, andI think for Russia to struggle
with Ukraine, it kind of giveshope to smaller countries that
maybe were holding their breathin this, especially Taiwan, but

(45:59):
also it gives maybediscouragement to larger
countries from doing suchinvasions, because not only will
the other countries kind ofstand against this, but I think
also the people of the countrywon't easily back down, as we
have always kind of easilyassumed them to do.

Tad Schnaufer (46:19):
Garrett, what do you think future lessons learned
from this war?

Garett Donohew (46:22):
Yeah, no, I think there's a lot of emphasis
on a global intervention. A lotof you know, as we've seen with
NATO and all that, it's a it's aheavy factor, and I think it's
going to continue to play everyfactor in certain policies, like
we talked about with China andTaiwan, what would happen if
that was to take go down. Ithink, I think globally, there's

(46:42):
a lot of thought that will goaround it. And another, another
huge aspect, I think, istechnology. I think we should
definitely look at Ukraine andRussia and the conflict as a
whole with this kind of biggerlens, and also understand that
not every single conflict isgoing to be like this.

Nichola Lavaud (47:01):
I think this is a lesson for mainly our
adversaries, but even for usright now, in these times, do
not underestimate the US and itsallies. We have built these
partnerships for decades, and Idon't think even myself or
Americans completely realizedhow there would be such a strong
rally around the flag effectaround the US, telling the

(47:23):
Europeans we have to fight. Wehave to well, that fight. We
have to make sure that Ukrainestands and fights for
themselves. And I think theChinese have seen that in the
sense of, if they were to takeover Taiwan and the US were to
take charge, how would theallies in the Southeast Asia
area, the Koreans, the Japanesethe Filipinos, the Australians.
How would they play in, inrallying around the US, around

(47:45):
the flag being Taiwan and Russiaand China don't have those same
relationships with many othercountries that the US does. And
in times of peace, and in timesof, you know, good times,
usually people like to look atthe allies and say, Oh, we don't
really need them. Or why do wehave these allies? Why do we
have these partnerships? Butit's really when the times are
tough, 911, right now, that ourallies come to our aid when we

(48:09):
need when we call them up, theycome to us. And it shows the
world that we have friends, andwe will use our friends to get
what we want. And so right now,we need to realize that it was
through our friends that we'reable to continue to support
Ukraine and for futureconflicts, we will be using
these allies to support whomeverwe need to support, whether it's
us or a country that we findstrategic to our interest.

(48:30):
Although

Tad Schnaufer (48:31):
I think perhaps the verbiage you might want to
say, cooperate with the Alliesinstead of using them, but
cooperate

Nichola Lavaud (48:37):
with our friends, sometimes we need to
use them excellent Well,

Tad Schnaufer (48:41):
those are some interesting points, and
obviously we'll explore a lot ofthese points much more in depth
next week at the March TampaSummit, as we bring in experts
from around the world to discussthe lessons learned from the war
in Ukraine and how they couldapply to future conflicts. So
thank you all for your timetoday. It was very interesting
getting that studentperspective, and we'll see you

(49:02):
around on campus. Thank you.
Thank you.

May Burch (49:03):
Thanks for having us.

Glenn Beckmann (49:13):
That's Dr Tad Schnaufer, our strategy and
research manager at GNSI, thanksfor a great conversation with
some terrific members of ourfuture strategist program, those
students have, as the sayinggoes around these parts, taken
the bull by the horns. Go Bulls.
What started with about a dozenvolunteers has blossomed into a
full fledged studentorganization with over 40

(49:34):
members. And as we told you atthe beginning of the show today,
they are already planning andorganizing their own
cybersecurity conference fornext month here on the Tampa
campus at USF may Burch is thepresident of FSP, and she's here
to tell us more about thatconference, and for that we
thought it would be a great ideato bring in Dr Jeff rogg, senior

(49:54):
research fellow at GNSI, and thecoordinator for FSP. He's done
much of the behind the sceneswork to help launch FSP. Take it
away. Jeff,

Jeff Rogg (50:06):
thanks, Glenn, and I'm very excited to talk about
this conference. Lily Shores isthe student who's done a
remarkable job organizing it andworking with FSP the future
strategist program. She couldn'tbe here today, but I'm very glad
to be joined by May Burch andMay, can you tell us what the
status of the conference is

May Burch (50:24):
so so far, we actually have almost all of our
panelists, but one confirmed forthe upcoming conference. It is a
cyber security conference forthose that don't know. It has
four panels and one specialspeaker, which will be general
Mackenzie. Think thanks to Lily.
And so far we have, honestly, wehave almost all the details

(50:46):
planned out. It's planned to bein april 15 at the Marshall
Student Center. We are hoping tobring in a lot of students.
That's what it's mainly meant tobe. It's a student ran
conference so the moderatorssitting on the panels, those
will be students, the peopleproposing policies before each
panel, those will be students.

(51:07):
We will have students presentingresearch on posters throughout
the event, and then even thevolunteers we are hoping to
mainly be a base of students.
Lily came to us with this idea,and is truly a wonderfully
thought out conference. We didnot have much time to enact this
conference, unfortunately, butLily has done her hardest work.

(51:28):
Lily has put in the lily has putin a lot of effort to to bring
this conference to life. And I'mglad as FSP president that we
have been able to help her inthis, and I we're all very
excited to see where this goes.
Because, truthfully, we arehoping to make this an inaugural

(51:52):
conference. We are hoping torepeat this every year, and to
kind of help it grow with thehelp of GNSI and other partners
that we have on this, such asEmory riddle, and even
potentially a partnership withthe Judy gnshaf Honors College.
And so I would, I would justlike to say that we're very
we're all very excited for thisconference, and that as we get

(52:15):
farther into the conference andthe planning, and we're coming
to the final stages ofdevelopment right before the
conference. I think that theturnout of the conference will
be quite, quite good, and Ithink that also the messages
talked about on the conferenceare going to be very important.
If anything, I would like tojust kind of bring up the panel

(52:37):
topics just for one second, sothe first panel will be on a AI
and Cyber Security Operations,enhancing defense and navigating
emerging threats. The second oneis zero trust architecture for
critical infrastructure. Thethird one is quantum ready,
protecting data in a postquantum world. The force. Fourth

(52:57):
one is securing the digitaleconomy, the future of trust and
transactions, and then the onewith general McKenzie as our
highlighted speaker, is digitaldefense, the intersection of
cyber policy strategy in ModernWarfare. I think that all five
of these topics are veryrelevant to today, since
cybersecurity has grown to beone of the largest facets of

(53:21):
national international security.
And I think also that each eachpanel will just have very
immersive, very important themesand messages within them. That I
think that not only should thestudents take away, but I think
that policy makers should takeaway from it. And I also think
that I hope that the expertswalk away feeling the experts on

(53:42):
the panels. I hope that theywalk away feeling that not only
were they able to share theirknowledge to these students, but
also that they're able to learnfrom it, and they're able to
learn from these debates withthe other side, the other
panelists on these panels. So

Jeff Rogg (53:57):
thanks May. And I think I want to highlight some
things for the listeners, comingfrom an academic and subject
matter expert perspective, thatLily did a fantastic job, not
only organizing conference, butchoosing the topics. Again, I
have to emphasize that this is astudent designed conference,
meaning even the topics. Now,you know, I spoke to Lily a

(54:18):
little bit, and you know, wediscuss some of the organization
and design of it, but as far asthe topics, the themes and the
and the structure of it, that'sall student impelled, and that's
innovative. That's a differentapproach than what we see with
most academic conferences today,or even industry conferences,
where it's done by people whoare already established in those

(54:38):
fields. To me, the value in thisis, when you study something so
much or you spend so much timeworking in a particular area. So
what I'm talking about herereally are academics and
practitioners or industryleaders. You sort of fall into
patterns of thought and behaviorregarding what you're already

(54:59):
in. Hurston, and what'sdifferent is now students have
the opportunity to presentoriginal ideas. And one of the
real key innovations that I seein this conference is the
students are going to putforward proposals. Students are
going to moderate, then subjectmatter experts, who can,
perhaps, on the basis of theirexperience, assess those

(55:22):
proposals with what is realistictoday. But that's not to say in
other words, if a subject matterexpert sees challenges in a
student proposal, it's still notto say that there's a future
there or something that thesubject matter experts have to
consider. And what I mean bythat is, is having students

(55:43):
bring forth new ideas shows youwhere their mindset is, where
the you know, Franklin DelanoRoosevelt said, Men aren't
prisoners of faith, they'reprisoners of their own mind. So
this helps us break out ofmindsets that we all have. And
so again, I'm justextraordinarily pleased that
students are organizing,designing and engaging with the

(56:04):
practitioners, including whothey're inviting to the
conference, Truly, truly, Ithink, an innovative design
that, as you mentioned, GNSI andFSB hope to repeat in the
future.

May Burch (56:14):
I just want to thank Dr Jeff frog for being here and
for talking about thisconference with us, and for
giving us the platform, really,to speak more on this
conference. And I would alsolike to thank our audience for
listening in and and I wouldalso like to encourage all to
please come to the conference ifyou can, and if not, I know that

(56:35):
it will be recorded. So I wouldjust highly encourage that you
also just listen to theconference as well if you can't
come in. Thank you. That's

Glenn Beckmann (56:44):
Dr Jeff rogg, Senior Research Fellow with
GNSI, talking with may Burch, astudent here at USF, and the
President of the futurestrategist program, student
organization here at theUniversity of South Florida.
What a great show today. We'reglad we had the chance to share
with you some of these amazingstudents and their forward
leaning ideas. Look for moregreat ideas from them in the

(57:07):
future. If you're interested inFSP or know someone who should
be check out our website formore information, and there'll
be more details online abouttheir upcoming cybersecurity
conference in the near future aswell, next week on at the
boundary, one of our favoriteguest returns with more about
the crazier and getting crazierworld of artificial

(57:27):
intelligence. USF Professor Johnlocado has spoken to us before
about AI, and he's an integralpart of the brand new college
created last year here at USF,the College of artificial
intelligence, cybersecurity andcomputing. He's going to talk
about that, and he's also goingto talk with us about things
like deep seek Lucy and a fewother developments in that

(57:48):
sphere. Now that's next week. Ifyou don't want to miss it or any
of our future episodes, be sureto subscribe to the podcast
going to wrap up this episode ofat the boundary. Each new that's
episode will feature global andnational security issues we
found to be worthy of attentionand discussion. I'm Glenn

(58:11):
Beckman, thanks for listeningtoday. We'll see you next week
at the boundary.