Panel 6: Know Thyself: Blue Reflection and Audience Participation
9 February
On this panel, we want to shift our gaze from the geostrategic environment and the constellation of threats to one of self-reflection and the future. Many of our intellectual frameworks and bureaucratic structures were built for another time and very different geostrategic landscape. Our ability to change and adapt often seems overmatched by the increasing complexity and sophistication of the world in which we must operate. As a result, our strategies too often underperform and test the limits of our power. Fostering innovation or simply studying the threats without disciplined self-reflection is insufficient and inhibits our ability to undertake fundamental and necessary change. It engenders reactive rather than proactive strategy formulation. The aim is not self-flagellation but to find opportunities through self-awareness and be willing to take risks in pursuit of informed change—the decisive decade demands it.
Todd G. Veazie (Moderator)
Todd Veazie serves as Director of the Strategic Multilayer Assessment (SMA) office in the Joint Staff’s Operations Directorate. SMA supports senior military leaders by assessing complex operational environments and technical challenges that require collaborative multi-agency, multidisciplinary, mixed-method approaches to expand strategic horizons and inform effective strategy.
Prior to reentering public service, Todd was the Chief Operating Officeqr at Kiernan Group Holdings, Inc a global consulting firm specializing in law enforcement, risk services, defense, intelligence, emergency management, and critical infrastructure resiliency. Todd served for thirty years in the United States Navy attaining the rank of Captain. He transitioned to the federal executive service and was assigned to the National Counterterrorism Center. At NCTC he led a talented team that provided dispassionate, whole of government assessments and strategic decision support to the President and his National Security Council staff.
He was born in Washington D.C. and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Marine Science from the University of South Carolina and was commissioned in 1986. After commissioning he reported to Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training and graduated in Class 140. As a Naval Special Warfare (NSW) SEAL officer he served in East and West Coast SEAL Teams and deployed to over fifty countries around the globe. He led Naval Special Warfare formations in the execution of combat and peacetime special operations missions in Latin America, Europe, Africa, the Western Pacific, Central Asia, and the Middle East. Command tours include SEAL Team SEVEN in San Diego, Naval Special Warfare Unit THREE in Bahrain as well as duty as Commodore, Naval Special Warfare Group FOUR in Virginia Beach.
Todd served in numerous staff assignments that include the Executive Director of Joining Forces in the Office of the First Lady at the White House, personnel policy at the Bureau of Naval Personnel, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Resources, Requirements, and Assessments (J8) for the Commander, Naval Special Warfare Command and in the Operations Directorate (J3) on the Joint Staff at the Pentagon. He is a 2003 Graduate of the National War College earning a Master’s Degree in National Security Strategy.
Dr. Anthony H. Cordesman
Anthony H. Cordesman is the Emeritus Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He has previously served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Council, the State Department, and the Department of Energy. Dr Cordesman also served as the national security assistant to Senator John McCain, and he previously held the position of adjunct professor at Georgetown University. He has been awarded the Distinguished Service Medal by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. During his career, he has held assignments in the US embassy in London, the US Embassy in Iran, and in official assignments elsewhere in the Middle East.
Dr. Cordesman also served as a consultant to the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), worked on force planning and net assessment in the NATO International Staff, and held a position as an analyst on security developments in China and Asia. During his time at CSIS, Dr. Cordesman previously held the Burke Chair in Strategy. In that capacity, he served as the director of the Gulf Net Assessment Project and the Gulf in Transition Study, as well as the principal investigator of the CSIS Homeland Defense Project. He has led studies on national missile defense, asymmetric warfare and weapons of mass destruction, and critical infrastructure protection. He directed the CSIS Middle East Net Assessment Project, codirected the CSIS Strategic Energy Initiative, and spearheaded assessments of Russian and Chinese military forces and competition with the United States and its strategic partners. He is the author of a wide range of studies on US security policy, energy policy, and Middle East policy and has served as a consultant to the Departments of State and Defense during the Afghan and Iraq wars. He served as part of General Stanley McChrystal’s civilian advisory group during the formation of a new strategy in Afghanistan and has since acted as a consultant to various elements of the US military and NATO. Current projects include ongoing analysis of the security situation in the Gulf, US strategic competition with Iran, the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, a net assessment of the Indian Ocean region, Chinese military developments and US and Asian assessments of these developments, changes in the nature of modern war, and assessments of US defense strategy, programs, and budgets. Cordesman is the author of more than 50 books, including a four-volume series on the lessons of modern war.
Robert C. Jones
Robert Jones is a retired US Army Special Forces Colonel; a former Deputy District Attorney; and the senior strategist at US Special Operations Command. Currently serving within the SOCOM J5-JSOU Donovan Integration Group. Mr. Jones is responsible for leading innovative thinking on the strategic environment and how it impacts factors critical to national security, such as the evolving character of conflict, all aspects of irregular warfare, deterrence in competition, societal stability, and implications for SOF. He also serves as a Strategic Advisor to the Director of Plans, Policy and Strategy.
Mr. Jones is a featured lecturer for the JSOU Enlisted Academy, as well as the USAJFKSWCS Officer Course. He is currently promoting proactive campaigning constructs of strategic influence and irregular deterrence that are rooted in the fundamentals of insurgency and unconventional warfare and intended to inform SOF operationalization of National Strategies. His focus is the pursuit of understanding, and the provision of context.
David Kilcullen
Dr. David Kilcullen is Professor of International and Political Studies at UNSW Canberra, Professor of Practice in Global Security at Arizona State University, and CEO of the analysis firm Cordillera Applications Group. Professor Kilcullen is a theorist and practitioner of guerrilla and unconventional warfare, counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, with operational experience over 25 years with the Australian and U.S. governments as a light infantry officer, intelligence analyst, policy adviser and diplomat. He served in Iraq as senior counterinsurgency advisor to Multinational Force Iraq, then as senior counterterrorism advisor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and deployed during the War on Terrorism to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Libya and Colombia. He is the author of seven books and numerous scholarly papers on terrorism, insurgency, urbanization, special operations and future war. He heads the Future Operations Research Group at UNSW Canberra, and teaches contemporary strategy, special operations, urban warfare, military innovation and adaptation. He has led several concept-design projects for U.S. and allied governments on risk prediction, resilience and counterterrorism. He works with advanced research agencies in the United States, Canada, and the UK on technology, artificial intelligence and future conflict.
Lieutenant General (Ret) Michael K. Nagata
Michael K. Nagata is a Senior Vice President and Strategic Advisor for CACI International; joining the company in December 2019. Retiring from the US Army in 2019 after 38 years of Active Duty, with 34 years in US Special Operations, his final assignment was Director of Strategic Operational Planning for the National Counterterrorism Center.
A native of Virginia, he graduated from Georgia State University, and first enlisted in the US Army as an Infantry Private, later receiving his Commission as an Infantry Officer in 1982 from the US Army Officer Candidate School. He served in the 2nd Infantry Division in Korea before volunteering for Army Special Forces in 1984. Assigned to the 1st Special Forces Group, he served in both 1st and 2nd Battalions. In 1990, he was selected for a Special Mission Unit, and deployed extensively over several assignments there on contingency and combat operations.
From 1999 to 2000, he commanded the Army’s Special Forces Qualification Course. In 2000, he returned to a Special Mission Unit as a Squadron Commander and was involved in the initial combat deployments after the 9/11 attacks. After graduating from the National War College in 2003, he served in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence. From 2005 to 2008, as a Special Mission Unit commander, he led multiple Joint SOF task forces across more than a dozen countries in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
He then served within the US Intelligence Community in Washington D.C. as a Military Deputy for Counterterrorism until 2009. He then deployed again until late 2011 to Pakistan as the Deputy Chief, Office of the Defense Representative at the US Embassy. Upon returning to the US, he served on the Joint Staff as the Deputy Director for Special Operations and Counterterrorism until 2013. From 2013 to 2015 he commanded US Special Operations Command-Central, was responsible for Special Operations across the Central Command, and was heavily involved in the first two years of combat against the Islamic State.
LTG (R) Nagata is a graduate of the Infantry Officer Basic and Advanced Courses, the Special Forces Qualification Course, the United States Marine Corps Command and Staff College, and the National War College in Washington D.C. He and his wife Barbara have five children, and several grandchildren, who are the lights of their lives.