Update 10 - 2 April 2018

Events

1) Senior US mentor for Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Over sixty students from MIIS, Berkeley and DLI formed teams around the 6 party talks over denuclearizing DPRK.

2) Attended discussion on "Is Demographic Change Inevitable" by Dr, David Leal. 
--Analyzed shifts in demography and how it is affecting the national political process

3) Discussion on "Russian threats to the US Judicial System" by Suzanne Spaulding (CSIS)
--Centered around parallels in election meddling and attacks on judicial processes

4) Met with USCG PACAREA Command (VADM Midgette) and his senior staff
--3x Admirals, 15 CAPTs and CDRs
--Topics were arctic, climate change and cybersecurity in the maritime domain, Pacific maritime security
--I moderated the cybersecurity discussion b/w myself, Dr. Herb Lin and Dr. Jason Jaskolka
--Meeting with PACAREA/C5I Director and her staff this month

5) Attended roundtable on "Human Rights Violators" with DOJ, FBI and DHS leaders
--Topics centered on slavery, immigration and how to message

6) Met with Director, EPA, HON Scott Pruit
--Topics centered on core principle of rule of law

Upcoming

- Meetings with Commandant, USMC, USFK/CG, GEN (ret) Patreaus, CNO 

- Mentorship for four Hacking 4 Defense Teams

- Continued course development for future Stanford class on Sun Tzu and Information Warfare

- Present research on 4 Historic Strategist in late April

- Facilitate and guest lecture in Stanford course on the role of Technology and National Security

Readings from this period:

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond. Dr. Diamond analyzes the role of guns, germs and steel shaped our current world. How did a small country like England take over most of the world even with a small population. Why didn't large populations prevail? Uses his analysis from from personally studying areas of the Pacific. https://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Cal Newport. Dr. Newport looks at the difference between deep work and shallow work in our lives. Uses examples of people in history that benefited from focused time to accomplish tremendous tasks in short time. This is countered by examples of people trapped in the minutia of e-mail and constant work infringement on downtime. He stated that one company determined that each e-mail cost over 80 cents to produce and the average member of the company sends 500 emails in a week with little actually value returned. Where is the Air Force with that same perspective? https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/

Underworld, by Don DeLillo (fiction). Mr. DeLillo's tremendous descriptive prose is on display in this long novel that links a homerun baseball from the World Series in the 1930s across time to the development of nuclear weapons to the use of retired B-52s as painting canvases in the dessert. Many parts of the book are unnecessary to the plot, but his ability to spend pages describing a scene allows readers to engross themselves in a story. https://www.amazon.com/Underworld-Novel-Don-DeLillo/

Cyberstorm, by Matthew Mather (fiction). Mr. Mather writes a piece on what would happen in Manhattan following a devastation cyber attack on the American power grid following global provocation. It is further complicated by two massive winter storms occurring at the beginning of the outage. Quickly, people that are used to the benefits of technology suffer as the power, information and life-sustaining needs are gone. In weeks, the city is unrecognizable and humans are different.

Writings from this period:

Paper on adult learning using modern and future technology (doctoral requirement)

Completed draft introduction and Thucydides portion of historic strategist work

Current Research:

Air Force: Four historical strategists take on cyber. Plan is to assess how Thucydides, Jomini, A.J. Mahan, Herman Kahn would approach cyber strategy. Thucydides, Jomini, Mahan, Kahn. Will finish paper in April

Doctoral: The role of private foundations in high school. Plan is assess the positive benefits of private foundations and what happens in school districts that do not have private foundations. Dissertation plan approved. Chapter 1 draft approved.


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