Abstract: The Army is in a period of Transition and Transformation, where the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan are supposed to be over or winding down, in theory enabling the force to rebalance and refocus our efforts.  Though we have been here before with many post-war and conflict periods, the Army and DoD are in actuality presented with possibly the most complex set of challenges and threats to the Army’s mission and to national security as a whole this nation has experienced.  While the Budget Control Act is currently preventing any strategic planning for operations, training, personnel forecasting and management, and R&D/Acquisition investment, all key factors for input into any strategy, the myriad threats to national security and in global competition are on the rise.  Resources and focus are down; threats and competition are going up.  China’s rapid development and matching need for resources, such as those in Africa and the South China Seas; a reemerging Russia, bent on disrupting NATO efforts to expand while simultaneously persisting in efforts to expand their reach in the Arctic and the Middle East and disrupt U.S. interests where it can in the “Grey Zone” of conflict; an unstable and possibly nuclear weapons-capable North Korea; an Iran that will be nuclear-armed and looking to maintain Shia hegemony in the Middle East and defeat U.S. interests in the region; and existing and emerging transnational terrorist organizations and states, such as Daesh/ISIL; innovative and widely-available technologies in cyberwarfare, unmanned aerial systems, dynamic shifts in regional and global demographics, information and liberation technology, and even the U.S. national debt round out a list of our current and future national security challenges.

SECDEF Ash Carter has articulated that the DoD is looking for a Third Offset Strategy to keep our unique hedge of capabilities against many, if not all of these threats and conditions.  Unfortunately, neither the First nor Second Offset were devised as such and only came into their being once key technologies and applications were developed against a much smaller list of threats and capabilities than we face now.

The key question is then, how does the Army, with these challenges, limitations, and threats, create opportunities now that assist a Third Offset Strategy?  Or at least, how are we going to fight and win our nations’ wars in the near and far-term?

About the Speaker: COL J.B. Vowell has served as an Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army for over 25 years.  He has had a variety of postings, including Europe, the Pacific, Iraq, Egypt, and Afghanistan.  He was a combat leader in both the Surge in Iraq, 2006-2007 and the Surge in Afghanistan, 2010-2011.  He currently serves as Army Chief of Staff GEN Mark Milley’s Senior Fellow to Brookings Institution, where he works to assist in the development of policy and strategy with research towards Land Warfare, 2030-2050 and the Human Domain of Battle.

Abstract: Derek Chollet will offer his inside assessment of Barack Obama’s foreign policy legacy, tackling the prevailing consensus to argue that Obama has profoundly altered the course of American foreign policy for the better and positioned the United States to lead in the future. His recent book The Long Game combines a deep sense of history with new details and compelling insights into how the Obama administration approached the most difficult global challenges. With the unique perspective of having served at the three national-security power centers during the Obama years – the White House, State Department, and Pentagon – Chollet takes readers behind the scenes of the intense struggles over the most consequential issues: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the meltdown of Syria and the rise of ISIS, the Ukraine crisis and a belligerent Russia, the conflict in Libya, the tangle with Iran, the turbulent relationship with Israel, and the rise of new powers like China. An unflinching, fast-paced account of U.S. foreign policy, The Long Game reveals how Obama has defied the Washington establishment to redefine America’s role in the world, offering important lessons for the next president.

About the Speaker: Derek Chollet served in senior positions during the Obama administration at the White House, State Department, and Pentagon, most recently as the U.S. assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs. He is currently a counselor and senior advisor at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, an adjunct senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Institute of War and Peace Studies, and a regular contributor to Defense One and many other publications. His previous books include America Between Wars: From 11/9 to 9/11, coauthored with James Goldgeier, and The Unquiet American: Richard Holbrooke in the World, coedited with Samantha Power. He lives in Washington, DC, with his family.

Abstract: In a world that is increasingly unstable, intelligence services like the American CIA and the United Kingdom's MI6 exist to deliver security. Whether the challenge involves terrorism, cyber-security, or the renewed specter of great power conflict, intelligence agencies mitigate threats and provide decisional advantage to national leaders. But empowered intelligence services require adequate supervision and oversight, which must be about more than the narrow (if still precarious) task of ensuring the legality of covert operations and surveillance activities. 

Global Intelligence Oversight is a comparative investigation of how democratic countries can govern their intelligence services so that they are effective, but operate within frameworks that are acceptable to their people in an interconnected world. The book demonstrates how the institutions that oversee intelligence agencies participate in the protection of national security while safeguarding civil liberties, balancing among competing national interests, and building public trust in inherently secret activities. It does so by analyzing the role of courts and independent oversight bodies as they operate in countries with robust constitutional frameworks and powerful intelligence services. The book also illuminates a new transnational oversight dynamic that is shaping and constraining security services in new ways. It describes how global technology companies and litigation in transnational forums constitute a new form of oversight whose contours are still undefined. As rapid changes in technology bring the world closer together, these forces will complement their more traditional counterparts in ensuring that intelligence activities remain effective, legitimate, and sustainable. To purchase the book, please click here.

About the Speakers: Samuel J. Rascoff is an expert in national security law, and serves as faculty director of the Center on Law and Security. Named a Carnegie Scholar in 2009, Rascoff came to the Law School from the New York City Police Department, where, as director of intelligence analysis, he created and led a team responsible for assessing the terrorist threat to the city. A graduate of Harvard summa cum laude, Oxford with first class honors, and Yale Law School, Rascoff previously served as a law clerk to US Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter and to Judge Pierre N. Leval of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He was also a special assistant with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and an associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. Rascoff’s publications include “Presidential Intelligence” (Harvard Law Review); “Counterterrorism and New Deterrence” (NYU Law Review); “Establishing Official Islam? The Law and Strategy of Counter-Radicalization” (Stanford Law Review); “Domesticating Intelligence” (Southern California Law Review), and “The Law of Homegrown (Counter-) Terrorism” (Texas Law Review).

Zachary K. Goldman is the Executive Director of the Center on Law and Security and an Adjunct Professor of Law at NYU School of Law. Previously, Zachary served as a Special Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the U.S. Department of Defense, and as a policy advisor in the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, where he was the subject matter expert on terrorist financing in the Arabian Peninsula and Iran sanctions. In the private sector, he was a litigator at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York.

Zachary is the co-editor of Global Intelligence Oversight: Governing Security in the Twenty-First Century, an edited volume on comparative approaches to intelligence oversight, published by Oxford University Press.  He has testified before Congress and has published on national security strategy, cybersecurity, counterterrorism, and financial sanctions in outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, The Financial Times Chinese, the South China Morning Post, Political Science Quarterly, Cold War History, The Atlantic, The Diplomat, The National Interest, and others.

Zachary is a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, and a member of the Advisory Committee to the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Law and National Security. He received his JD from New York University School of Law, his Masters in International Relations from the London School of Economics, and his BA from Harvard University.