Highlights – 2018 Global Security Forum – Gray Zone

2018 Global Security Forum, Prospects and Priorities for U.S. Gray Zone Competition

The Center for Strategic and International Studies held the event on November 27th, moderated by Heather Conley, SVP for Europe, Eurasia, and the Arctic; and Director, Europe Program, CSIS and with a panel comprising of: David Cohen, former Deputy Director, CIA; and former Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at Treasury Ambassador Derek Mitchell, President, National Democratic Institute; former U.S. Ambassador to Myanmar; & former PDASD, Asian and Pacific Security Affairs Thomas Wright, Director, Center on the U.S. and Europe; and Senior Fellow – Foreign Policy, Project on International Order and Strategy, Brookings Suzanne Spaulding, Senior Adviser, Homeland Security Program and International Security Program; and Director, Defending Democratic Institutions IPA SUMMARY HERE

– The gray zone is said to be that space between war and peace.  Is this war? Yes,!  No!  Kinda!

– Both the neo-authoritarian and the free societies/democracies are trying to make the world safer – our system is inherently threatening to neo-authoritarian regimes – both are incompatible and the neo-authoritarians are insecure

– Too many resources are allocated to hard power and not enough in other elements of national power – I hope that we don’t need to mobilize society like during the Cold War but then, we were shaping every day – we need to shine the light on the challenge to address and not overreact to it

– Much of this falls into the seams (domestic and foreign) – typical government responses (IPCs) haven’t been established – any work by government is being done in silos now – nobody has the mission to lead this whole-of-nation or whole-of-society approach that is required – every department has and should have key roles so the White House needs to lead

– Transparency plays to our strengths and their weaknesses – train to fight in the light (take advantage of our incredible head-start and turn on the lights around the world – neo-authoritarian regimes count on keeping secrets from their people and our strength is that our government does not

– I realized we were prevailing in a way over China in Burma was when the Chinese Ambassador said publicly that they need to do CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility)

IPA Permalink:  https://information-professionals.org/highlights-from-the-2018-global-security-forum-at-csis/