[Music] hello everyone good morning good afternoon good evening wherever you are wherever you're listening my name is Scott Smithson and welcome to today's latest edition of the Geo uh geopolitics of Commodities podcast today we're very very lucky to have with us Dr Isaiah Wilson III or Ike Wilson uh to be uh with us for for this discussion Dr Wilson earned his PhD in government with an emphasis on international relations in American politics from Cornell University and is currently a professor of practice in the school of politics and Global Affairs at Arizona State University Dr Wilson is the president and Meritus of joint Special Operations University which is part of the US Special Operations Command he's a partner with gainful Solutions Ventures Incorporated and is the president and CEO of Wilson wise Consulting LLC which provides advisory services on strategy and operational planning technology teaming integration transitional change leadership coaching and organizational design and Innovation a decorated combat veteran with combat tours in the Balkans Iraq and Afghanistan in direct strategic and operational planning and advisory service to six fourstar commanders so the most senior Military Officers we have in the United States Department of Defense three secretaries of defense numerous ambassad bassadors and chief submission in the presidence of three foreign partner country Nations Wilson's civil military career has spanned troop leading staff planning strategic advisory and teaching assignments he has published extensively and I do say extensively on organizational politics civil military relations National Security and defense policy and Grand strategy his book Thinking Beyond war Civil military relations and why America fails to win the peace along with his service and the 2003 operation Iraq Freedom study group helped increase public attention to the problems and errors in US post-war planning and the Iraq War and sparked government movement towards policy reforms Dr Wilson founded the West Point Grand strategy program and his executive directed taught and conducted research at numerous top tier and top ranked colleges and universities to include Yale Columbia West Point and the national War College Dr Wilson is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior futur initiative fellow with new America Dr Wilson Ike welcome to the podcast Scott thanks for having me and uh thanks for that wonderful introduction I would only add addendum it by saying of the numerous Publications the best and most favored uh have been the ones that you and I have been able to uh co- author and produce together as as well as the grand strategy program very proud of that program as you all know and very proud of of your service and in basically helped me co-found that thing um uh you know more more years ago than I would like to admit at this point but it as my last check with them um a couple of months ago they're going strong great well I thank you for that and and it's always a privilege to work with you and excited to have this opportunity to speak with you uh for for many of our listeners May or not know Ike and our time together was in uniform uh both of us are not wearing uniform but we are continuing to do great things in different capacities um Ike before we kind of talk about what's going on in the world and how we make sense of geopolitics and why this should matter to our listeners and and kind of go into these deep things I I welcome the opportunity for you just to maybe spend a little bit of time to kind of tell us what are the different things that you have ongoing with wise consulting or some of your different uh uh Ventures just so our audience kind of knows what's going on with ik excellent well thanks thanks for that uh Scott and uh uh what do I have going on now so I left um uh the uh joint Special Operations University uh three and a half year uh tenure brought on the lead of transformational change effort um back in uh 2019 uh by the then commander of uh United States Special Operations Command three and a half year tour getting a strategic plan set for that and getting an Implement implementation or an action plan to realize those changes the the changes being imperative for changing how we educate leader prepar leader operator prepare and train the global special oper operational leader Force going forward into an age of strategic competition and most importantly strategically rebalancing out of a 20-year period of what we've come to term right or wrong as it may be the global war on terrorism or uh the gwat um what do I do with wise um Wilson um uh strategic Enterprises LLC is basically what I've always found myself doing throughout my my uniformed and and non-uniformed career I would call myself a national and Global public affairs professional um just to kind of put a big uh rubric around it uh incredible to believe but uh this year being my 40th year of um some form of federal service most of that about 28 you kep my time at West Point 33 years of of Uniform service and then uh the day after putting the uniform down going back in as as a civil servant uh serving at the senior executive Services level as an executive my last assignment again being the president of joint Special Operations University left that job in August and since then um have really been doing the same work uh the uniforms may change the clothing may change but the calling doesn't and it's really a calling that found me um very early in my life about the age of 18 19 and I've been doing it ever since hopscotching between um educational appointments and assignments teaching and doing teaching and doing assignments you know for those of us those of your listeners are old enough to remember the old Indiana Jones um uh movies uh really kind of an Indiana Jones lifestyle um not not all that standard quite unique and peculiar for a uniform military officer and I'm talking to somebody who's who's followed suit in that regard as well when we're not in the classroom teaching Scott we're out um doing quote unquote archaeological work field work and much much of our teaching and our theoretical work our Theory building our Theory testing is all applied and we apply it um in in the fields of practice for me most of that field of practice has been in the traditional sense of military Affairs in in many respects combat zones but beyond but a much broader understanding and appreciation for what constitutes the domain of security and defense certainly in the military sense in the traditional sense of uses of force for power purposes Clos with to destroy enemy forces if and when an enemy Force presents themselves to our nation and our and our community of nation hoods as allies and partners but more importantly frankly and let me emphasize that more importantly uh being able to achieve our our Nations and our community of of Nations interest uh preferably preventively um non-lethally with a multitude of multi- sectoral um uses of force for power purposes what I like to call as part of wise an integrated 3D plus C statecraft approach and the 3DS are defense development and diplomacy and about as broad of an understanding and appreciation for those terms as as you can imagine hyper enabling those with technological innovations and the business practices of the commercial and business sector um for the last 6 months uh since putting down my last Federal service um uniform if you will I've been working a lot of um Silicon Valley uh startups and midcaps uh who have started and innovated commercial Technologies uh from the pure techn uh commercial sector and uh with some help from some seasoned um serial entrepreneurs uh they determine when the firms in their technological Innovations have reached a level of maturity a right and ress to where um they bring me in to then advise them on first and foremost the question of whether or not that t technology has a potential use utility in the defense and security sectors and the military sectors more pointedly if so how so when and with whom and then I I leverage my my uh experiences and my networks to actually get them um in the room if you will with uh leaders from the leader operator in the field all the way up to the fourstar um level commanders and their civilian equivalents it's been a great experience I'm learning a lot I'm actually able to get back in some of the projects I'm working on right now relating and I think we're going to talk about this later uh in our conversation today some reforms and Innovations in terms of our overarching approach to Def to the defense industrial base and in in defense production the global market of um arms and arm sales my dissertation work was on global um uh Small Arms Market reform and uh on the US side of this for military sales and Direct commercial sales um transformation and reinvention what they called at the time reinvention so for me personally and professionally it's been a you know kind of an opportunity to come back full circle to where some of my scholarships started and certainly between then and now um the role of arms and arm sales and we need to relook all of these systems and so to be able to do that on the outside I've always been an innovator some would call me a a heretic and a Maverick um throughout my military career certainly uh always looking for Innovations and innovative solutions within the model most of my career has been inside these Enterprises these governmental Enterprises whenever I'm not in federal Serv service it's an opportunity I jump right back into the same Innovation moment but the opportunity to do so um from the outside um so Innovations outside the models if you will but the St the same calling the same motivation to help yield again those integrated 3D plus C solutions to what today are what I would call um an an era in an age of not just security dilemmas but compound security dilemas I think I look forward to fleshing that out uh a bit uh in conversation back and forth with you Scott since you've helped me flesh out some of that theory over the last 15 years or so no that was that that was all great Ike I I was I was thinking you know one of the there's there's a huge interest in geopolitics right now in the private sector from it doesn't matter Financial Services to manufacturing to what's being taught in Business Schools right now uh to the ways that organizations are thinking about geop itical risk maybe in ways they haven't had to in 30 years right and and so I always enjoy and I think you probably do too the opportunity to talk to private sector clients about what is geopolitics really how do we make sense of the world yes and and and I was just wondering if you could just for our listeners maybe just how do you kind of conceptualize things right now on a global scale we know that we've transitioned out of kind of this global war on terror though the attacks at Moscow reminded us terrorism will never go away despite our best right it's still a thing but we know politically diplomatically economically we're in a different space than we were even five or 10 years ago things like covid and Russia's invasion of Ukraine accelerated that but those drivers were kind of there and and you've been kind of writing and thinking about the shifting technology tectonics of geopolitics for a while so when when you go meet new clients or you're kind of doing this type of Engagement how do you conceptualize the international environment right now now in ways for those that are in the ca part the commercial part haven't had to but now it matters right geopolitics is not just something can influence the bottom line it it can make it whether or not you stay on the bottom line or not right right so how do you do that how do you kind of approach and and conceptualize uh the world as it states right now and then we can kind of go into more deep Dives after that outstanding I'm gonna I'm going to I want to start real quick with just a description of a simple description of geopolitics and again it's a big word but it but it's very simple and when we think about it and unpack the word the geop part is terrafirma it's it's it's geography so it's and what is politics politics is nothing more we can we can we can we can smother this thing with a lot of of unhelpful frankly detail I can go too much into the academic um uh lingo on it but really politics is the allocation and reallocation of things that are of high value you mean that could be m material Commodities that can be the the the esoteric of Human Rights and human security and everything in between but the allocation and the reallocation the distribution in that redistribution of things of high value to human beings and here's the kicker that are also scarce yes right if there was no scarcity we wouldn't be talking about politics politics is about the Dynamics the competition in the conflict between different ideas and different wants needs and desires over things that are of high value again but very very scarce again no scarcity no politics and and and probably no economics and then just putting the Geo in front of it tells us that it's about the role play of human activity on the game board of terrain and I'm looking forward to get I know we're going to get more into this but um geography in short and as Robert Kaplan talked about it a few years back probably 10 gosh 12 years ago in his in his work um the Revenge of geography geography has returned with a Vengeance as Kaplan as I paraph paraphrase Robert Kaplan he's a study of he's a tourist of geography in The Human Condition there are certain places on the planet Earth where geography is having a great outsize vote good bad and ugly and when you study those places on planet Earth on in the world system there are certain locations on on the globe where good bad and ugly interest otherwise separate and discreet interests let's focus on threats and challenges um where they come into natural convergence and coincidence with one another and then there's a compounding Dynamic yes so think about the challenge that you know fa an Alexander the Great of untying the gordian KN right these are gordian KN type challenges and they're multifaceted they are a combination of so-called foreign so-called domestic so-called International so-called National Affairs they are military factors they are diplomatic factors they are informational factors economic factors but they're all they all tend to come into a convergence and at that conver those convergence points there is some type of more than additive compounding Dynamic that's going on and so I've been working on this as a researcher as a scholar um building a Proto theory that we call compound security and the compound security dilemma mhm what that proposes is that this period of change and we we in another one of these moments of power transition and Power in transition at the metag global geostrategic level the world system level in in Echelon all the way down to our local households our individual households um change is a foot power and force are in transition power and force are always in a cycle of change but I believe many of us believe um and frankly many more people more more more scholar and more experienced than than me um believe in in say and state the same or similarly that this period of transition is unique and standout to previous periods in world history so there you know there there are a series of questions now I'm going to leave you with these questions just as a start to to our unpacking of of you know kind of house how I see the world you're already getting a sense I see the world that we're in right now in a world of power transition but a different kind of security dilemma driving that change one that is compounded when I say compounded really what I'm talking about is the intersectionality of threats as our current Biden Harris Administration um has labeled it um starting back in May 2021 with their interim National Security strategic guidance that shaped the 2022 National Security strategy the defense strategy and the National military strategy are guiding strategic documents for the US individually as a nation state as well as the leading power of a community of democracies so an inter intersectionality of threats and I've kind of given a description a picture on the map of what that looks like it's all about interconnectedness and collision yeah a lot of factors are naturally driving otherwise separate Inseparable issues into Collision probably the easiest one but the one of the most Stark might be our typical traditional approach to health and health policy typically a domestic Affair but when you bring in Dynamics like climate change global climate change and covid pandemics you can start to see and appreciate that this thing is bigger than the confines in the Treatment Solutions of what even one single domestic State even as great and powerful as a United States of America can actually solve itself we just went through you know are still in many respects going through a number of years of a global pandemic called covid-19 that showed itself as outsized in an outsized compound threat that is as much of an international World System existential threat as it is something that's very containable in a domestic affair right so that so it challenges these Notions of of a dividing line of what constitutes a domestic policy issue separate and separate able from what we like to call and contain as a security matter and over their matter I would offer there is no more waterers Edge yeah and even the great United States with the preponderance of force that we have available to us we even lack the amount of force for Power Solutions that can actually outsize and oversiz compound security dilemma it challenges um the solving the solvency of unilateral treatments it challenges these Notions of a separability of the Affairs of the domestic state from the foreign and the international it challenges our traditional desired separations of a domestic Affair from a security and um International Affair it challenges the separation of the military instrument of power from the non-military in struments of power it challenges and I would say this is a big challenge that we're still mostly struggling with to understand and appreciate it challenges our Notions that matters of the commercial the business and the economic are separate Inseparable from the the um perils and the travails of security matters yeah in fact I would say it takes us back to a preor war I era I call it a an age of Neo mercantilism where the game of of defense and security competition conflict and even War we can see that playing out more on economic and geoeconomic terms as opposed to the traditional sense particularly since World War II that I think most Americans maybe most westerners of of advanced industrial states have an idea of what constitutes a a matter of security and defense comp competition conflict and War uh four you know big questions today that we that have unique and peculiar answers to them separate than previous Cycles how has the um character of global geopolitical competition changed and to what impacts I've already answered that question I believe that we are living at and facing the challenges of a time today where disruptive change once again again it's cyclical but once again continues to outpace all organizations in organizational leaderships AB ility to see understand appreciate anticipate think and act fast first and in an overmatching way right this challenges our ability to solve problems unilaterally I would offer in more positive aim standpoint that it demands that we Embrace more genuinely not just rhetorically integrated Ally and Coalition partnered multinational multilateral teaming approaches to all challenges es right and and maybe I'll maybe I'll hold there all other questions really really dovetail and and uh derive from those all the way down to if this is in fact a systemic level of change in the world system then we have to reconsider all of our organizational institutional structural and organizational procedural processes and ways of being all the way down to how weow grow Foster prepare and educate and train our national and Global public affairs professionals it requires an entire relook at and a transform through a transformational lens an entire relook at to how we are structured and how we Define ourselves as who we are as private and public Professionals in this in this system of ours I'll pause there no absolutely Ike and that's that's great you know one of the one of the things and for those of you have have had the chance to see some of the writing uh that I has on compound security one of the things it's really most fascinating about it was the identification of a series of locations globally that are consequential and will continue to be consequential and much of this writing was written well before the current kind of morass of conflict and crisis that we see but places like Ukraine places like the Babel menab conflict in Gaza even West Africa yeah Juan these were all kind of things that I that you forecasted and and now we're seeing them and and and what's amazing is every single one of these has the multi-dimensionality that you just described right so take for example Ukraine right Ukraine is obviously a political issue it is a diplomatic issue it's a military issue but it's a huge huge military excuse me energy security issue exactly so you know as some of my previous guests who were in The energy sector we talk about just how different this war has affected the energy kind of practice both oil natural gas where it comes from how it's created new vulnerabilities How It's Made America an l&g superpower something that people wouldn't have foreseen uh but also food security issues right Ukraine right major food exporter but the countries who who need that grain you know have been able to get it at sometimes but not others and so you know that that's an example um and just that factor alone Scott um just just that factor alone and you know sadly tragically but of utility to our conversation today Ukraine becomes a a perfect expression of this idea of compound security this compound security dynamic because you know the challenge we're having politically to include geopolitically um in each of our nation states and each of the governments of of our nation states and the global Community is the challenge of of understanding the Russo Ukrainian war in an enlarged context yes right Ukraine the Ukraine the Russo Ukrainian War Putin's war on Ukraine I would say is the more appropriate way of framing this the more accurate way of framing this a a a challenge in and of itself that should elicit um within and Beyond the neighborhood but a global a global robust response a clear ey a clear eyedness and a clear-mindedness of the of the existential issues to a a sovereign state a territorial sovereign state of Ukraine and what that means for the West failan traditions for the rules-based the Western liberal small W small L liberal you know International order um in the rule based system and the value based system that that represents but the factors that you bring to play here Ukraine being a bread basket for a majority of the global south or the global majority right just just as one example the energy the brittleness of the energy sector and how much how much because of a lack of diversification of of energy sources how how we found um Europe very very much so we're only starting to get out of this out of this brittleness now with small D democracies to see the imperative of making sure that Ukraine not only survives but thrives in in in coming out as a territorial nation state that it's been and that it is in the wake of of this um of this war of aggression by Vladimir by Vladimir Putin from a self-interest standpoint we should be able to see that Ukraine matters in and of itself but it Ma has an outsize um impact and it matters for all all of all of um the world system geopolitically and geoeconomic absolutely and you know what's interesting is you know if if some of the secondary features of this war are impacts on the energy sector and on consumable Commodities you know all we have to do is go a little bit south on the map to see how another kind of sacred cow of globalization the ability to have international shipping wherever you want that's now under question as well you know one of the things that um that some of our other Co colleagues and uh guests we've debated the issue of whether or not we're at peak oil right now I think one of the questions is have we seen Peak globalization and are we seeing kind of the unraveling of that um and to kind of shift to the conflict that that started in Israel and Gaza but is now much much more Regional how are we seeing compound security kind of brought to the four in the the Red Sea kind kind of the the line if you will you draw the line of the Suez Canal through the Red Sea to where the Red Sea gets very very narrow called the B menb straight with the houthis how how are we seeing compound security there and this is another node that you identified several years ago how how are we seeing that kind of putting pause to question uh the the benign international business environment that we've largely enjoyed since the end of the Soviet Union yeah I mean again tragically another another another um perfect illustration of what we're talking about here let's start you know we have the the Israel Hamas War you know and if if we if we stick to our traditional frames very easy to to maintain that frame in a very limited way and consider that a limited within region not even a regional conflict but a within region regional conflict could not be any could not be um anything further from the the reality and the truth of the matter case in point the houie the houie threat and the attacks both on the state of Israel but indirect the direct attacks missile attacks on the state of Israel to affect that fight that that contest but indirectly with an outsize impact an intended outside outsize impact on um trans Regional and global commercial shipping again one of these critical 18 to 20 historically recurrent in um geost strategically imperative places on planet Earth on Tera Firma they're about 18 to 20 and this is all unclassified you don't have to get into the classified analysis this is all open source this is just studying and understanding history geography in geography in geography the Terra Firma has a vote and it has a voice and it's we're seeing this convergence of otherwise discrete threats converging and compounding at or approximate to these 18 to 20 locations 12 to 14 of those locations um geostrategic Maritime choke points and um The Straits so we have the Red Sea major transit route a Faultline confrontation Zone certainly now clear to all clear to some of us who studied this for a for living in a calling um but clear to all now but I think still not clear in terms of the outsize impact we're seeing what and we're feeling you know the commercial sector you know the the the maritime insurance companies as one example feeling an increased negative impact a compounded not additive but a compounded negative externality by a small brittle state that otherwise we would be uh um prone and probably right in to some degree discounting discounting discounting Yemen as a a geostrategic threat but power of placement right they have they have a the fortune to the world's Misfortune of Being where they are geolocated on on the planet Earth the Red Sea and the babal MB being one of 12 to 14 of these locations and as the houthis as proxy or surrogate of a supporting Patron called the Islamic State of Iran but also houthi not robbing anything from the houthis as their own independent power they have their own interests separate that's why I think we have to also unpack the difference between being a proxy a proxy relationship and a surrogate relationship I see that the houth is more of a surrogate relationship they have semi- independency they're not they're not a perfect puppet of of Iran while Iran certainly has its Mal intent in terms of its support and supply to the houthis and others but an outsize impact Iran in the likes of Hamas or Hezbollah we're starting to hear language and we're starting to see activities Maring and making the rhetoric more real in with in real practical negative externalities of a rising um Alliance or an axis of resistance right that's that's the stuff of a movement right so we're not just talking about a houy attack on a number of small shipping companies that caus us to divert around the the um the Horn of Africa that's bad enough but the babal MB and what the huther are doing are demonstrating a potentiality of using Force for outside power outcomes they're getting the kind of response from the global Community they're changing and impacting markets and that can be a very inviting thing that can cause an exponential rise in a metastasis if you will of that very localized threat to 12 or 14 of the of the other uh Maritime choke points for an outsize World systemwide Battle of The Straits if you will that might be forthcoming some of the Scott you're familiar with some of the the framing work that we're doing right now um on a project I'm calling compound Maritime insecurity looking at the of what we're facing now and have no way of not seeing unless we put our hands over our eyes um but what was foreseeable before the huies even took a a a power shot with a with a Le lethal with a lethal munition this was foreseeable because of the brittle nature of of the houthi Civil Society you know a challenge of and it raises questions of you know a Poverty of foreign direct investment to help the people of of Yemen maybe come up with a more small D Democratic or less violent extremist type of of social compact in in culture cultur Geo geoculture to the world we have to think about the things that were not done in terms of Investments that have caused a place like Yemen to choose to be not only I have not but I want not and now going towards an alternative an alternative model there there there are many Yemen brittle yemans in the world at or approximate to those 12 or 14 locations that we have to now start foresighting and foreseeing what we're facing in the Bal mandb in Red Sea what if we start seeing this playing out in the South China Sea or in and around the Panama Canal right or in and around the um the straights of jalter right the the north P the northern passage with the opening up driven by a compound security Dynamic of of uh global climate change in creating a a a a a problem set what I would call compound climate security and insecurity right these compounding Dynamics the risk are not the same right the risk there in I you know I'm working with some some friends and colleagues on this from the the global Finance Financial Risk markets we're we're trying to do the math and we're trying to take the mathematics and the mathematical models that we use for calculating Global Financial Risk and those take those traditional models and those tra traditional mathematic mathematical equations and transpose them to factors of geopolitics geoeconomics and geostrategy some of those models some of those some of that mathematic just does not transpose we're finding in a very surprising way through hypothesis tests that some of these some of these models transfer shockingly um and surprisingly um quite well near perfect transposition causing us to rethink back to the financial Global Financial Risk markets hey are we missing multiplier effects right in our risk equations in our calculations so there's a there's a there's a t AET there is a there is a um buir conversation between geoeconomics Global Financial Risk markets in geopolitics Geo strategy in the in the in these kinds of compound security Dynamics like a an outsize threat of a small brittle State called Yemen um there's a lot of bidirectional lessons to gather and learn and transpose to one another and so that's some of the work that we're that we're doing right now through wise uh in partnership with gainful Solutions uh Incorporated and Scott happy to you know glad glad that you're helping helping a little bit on that and some some advis no absolutely and and you know to your point you know just for our listeners to kind of realize you know Ike mentioned these 12 to 14 kind of areas of of commercial shipping importance where the N SE is literally narrow where uh shipping has to go through these important trade arteries you know we've talked a lot about the babal Mena but three of the most crucial ones in the world the Suez Canal the Babel Mev and the straight of for M are all concentrated in this part of the world that is very very close to BEC coming into a broader Regional conflagration right so if if the sh if the houthi attacks have caused significant prices uh price increases in shipping and insurance of mostly manufactured things if things were to cook off closer at home for the Iranians and the straight of hor M now energy becomes much much more volatile right right or if Hezbollah uh opens a second front against Israel I mean that's already happening it's not to the scale that most can appreciate but it's happening you know the these are non-state actors who have the ability to disrupt Comm uh uh commercial shipping now in the Eastern Mediterranean and so again these are the most important arteries by which we can think about global economics of of all internationally traded goods come from the ocean right and we have not had to worry about this and and now you're seeing disruptions of not only shipping but subse infrastructure two weeks ago there were reports about if it was the houthis with the Russians or the Russians or the houthis with Russian advising but significant parts of Africa had no internet last week okay because many of the undersea cables that also marry and mirror these commercial shipping lanes some of these major Fiber Optic Cables had been destroyed now it doesn't take a genius to realize that's probably not a technical capability that the houthis have inhouse right and guys like you and I have spent enough time in the Middle East to know when something is kind of a organic process and where something is brought in right Technical Training perspective from a knowhow and so again the world is trying to adjust to these geopolitical risks right Europe buying more LG getting off Russian oil and gas uh ukrainians sinking half of the Russians Naval Black Sea Fleet they can get the grain out to the global South but there's always a counter reaction right um and the counter reaction is something other than an addition yes right we don't know yet we're you know we're you know we're scientists here as well as practitioners as scientists we don't know yet what we we know that it's not an addition addition problem in terms of forces Force required of different sorts to provide an outside solution to solve and to mitigate equally if not more importantly we don't know we know it's not an addition problem to the risk equation that the risk are not just going to go up one one unit of of negative externality of negative impact it's something more multiplicative or exponential it requires a whole different set of of you know mathematical equations if you will but the acceleration the accelerative um conditionality that this Springs as well particularly these choke points yeah right it's I mean it's bui's equation from in terms of philosophy going through a constrain a constrained vessel yeah I mean it's physics there's a physics to this and if we're not anticipatory at these very specific choke points land Maritime um informational informational right if we're not if we're not in in an anticipatory mind set in in frankly in an anticipatory presence and posture with quote unquote forces available military non-military governmental non-governmental most importantly preventively economically and investing in some of these brittle locations to build a resiliency that becomes a very existential problem in terms of a zero sum calculation in the great power game between who wins and who and who loses and whether the winner is going to be an authoritarian State Nation entity versus a versus a small D Democratic um um Liberal Liberal Consortium of of nation states that makes the small relatively speaking otherwise small We Believe still to our Folly containable threat that's an existential you have to enlarge the context and when you enlarge the context you see that a win or loss in a place in and around um a location such as it is of the bab Al mandb and um the Red Sea uh has an outside effect and it's part of a larger a bigger Maps larger War yeah a big a bigger map's larger set of competitions geopolitical and geoeconomic um largely between the so-called great Powers the great forces the United States aiz China a revanchist Russia under Putin's Imperial um interests and Designs a number of small trans Regional Once Upon a Time Empires that once upon a time want to be again and let's not forget let's not forget those other than nation state differently ordered State actors those non-state actors um like um violent extremist organizations as such of of al-Qaeda in the so-called abor uh Islamic State we're seeing we're seeing a a a worrisome rise of a you know what we had maybe mitigated down to a to a um remission state with the Islamic State of maybe a stage one stage two cancer forgive the metaphor sorry not sorry but it really actually works we're starting to see a rem metastasis MH of of of these threats particularly at that geopolitical historically relevant geopolitical scene between the greater Middle East in North Africa right what makes Scott to your earlier point and I'll pause again and turn a mic back to you um your example of of those 12 to 14 um uh loral choke points those commercial um uh key terrain Transit spaces and routes three or four all around the so-called greater Middle East yeah that matters for the greater Middle East but that also in a in an uh HR mckel mender a geostrategic standpoint you know the the classical theorist of geostrategy and geopolitics and geoeconomics this region historically is where the world literally turns and pivots it's the geostrategic pivot so the outsize impacts are not going to be containable the negative externalities are not going to be containable to those three or four critical Transit choke points they're going to have outsize impacts world systemwide world systemwide and so having that mindset and understanding the the larger Maps the bigger Maps larger competitions conflicts and potential Wars is vitally important from uh National and Global traditional security and defense standpoint but all the more so from an econ economics and um National NGO economics economics standpoint we are once again living in an era of neomercantilism an age where economics and economic statecraft matter most we're seeing most of the competition and conflicts playing out through the economic instruments of force and power and I think it's having a a hard it's presenting difficult ulties to us who are used to putting in the nice tidy little separate boxes a security and defense challenge being a military affair right all about physical military military um Dynamics and therefore a military solution quite the contrary quite the contrary we're going we're we're moving forward in back to our futures kind of way to an earlier time where conflicts and Wars competitions and wars were geoeconomic Wars right these were G in competing economic systems in competition in conflict and in war in and at Warfare with and against each other if we don't see those Dynamics as a security and defense human security existential threat Rising our radar our radar Scopes aren't even calibrated properly for us to to understand that we may even though we're not calling it uh an arm conflict because it's not about arms it's about economics or information um we we may not we may be prey to a power game in a great power competition um being played against us and we're not even we're not even in the right uniform playing on the right field right well and and you know we haven't hit on China much uh at all yet but yeah because it's so ubiquitous right I think yeah and and you see you see so much of at least in the current Administration and even the previous administration viewing us China competition heavily through the lens of economics and trade and investment you know in just the last two years we've seen significant legislation from the bid Administration both from the chips act right uh to try to kind of Nearshore and buy down risk on uh semiconductors and then the inflation reduction Act as a way to kind of think about uh subsidies for Green Tech and uh Renewables to try to build back in basically resilience in AEM resilency exactly an economic system that for 30 years you're beat over the head about just in time maximize efficiencies yes right An Elegant uh Global value chain or supply chain now that's all kind of up in the air and I think also a big aspect of that is what industries do you have at home how quickly can they be excited right um you know there's this thinking that we can just sprinkle pixie dust and mobilize the defense industrial base with the private sector to get what we need quickly but I think the war in Russia or between in in Ukraine from Russia is showing that once Warfare takes an industrial nature it is of such a scope and scale it it literally outstrips Supply demand will go up right all the war games that look at a scenario of the US fighting Taiwan sees both sides running out of a lot of missiles within the first two weeks that's right we're seeing right now in um in there's a scramble in Europe to rearm uh to not only support the ukrainians but to rearm themselves and we're finding bottlenecks here within our private sector on uh kind of rearmament and and getting the base up and know we talked at the very very beginning of our discussion about some of these issues and in many ways almost everything that we're talking about right now it doesn't matter about Ukraine trying to get a a a sustainable peace in the Middle East how the US views its relationship with China what is the role of tech these are questions that were being asked in the 1990s we never really got the solutions so as as you advise both private sector and public sector people particularly when it comes to kind of the economical Foundation of Amer power right our military can't do what it what it does without a strong economy and our strong economy is a function of how competitive our private sector is that's right um but the strength of that private sector is different in peace verse War so so what are some of the kind of the cautionary tales that you've come across either in your scholarship with your um with your current Consulting that that many of our private sector uh guests who are listening in kind of need to think about and that our government may be you know needing to think about to too as well if we're going to be the arsenal of democracy as president has said what has to change how how are we suffering from decisions that were made in the past and how do we need to evolve yeah let me I I love the fact that you mentioned arsenal of democracy first and foremost right because I would say I would say it's going to it's going to be heard starkly I'm going to say it starkly um because we have to shock our system we have to shock ourselves we're we we we do not have the the industrial capacity and more importantly the I would I would offer the the talent wherewithal to provision what is needed as the AL arsenal of democracy that we were going into World War II we see this in starkest ways in the Russo Ukraine war and um just one sector one vital sector um called en energetics in in Munitions and energetics that go into Munitions like 155 um millimeter rounds for AR artillery as one as one example but a major example in a war that is becoming in showing itself to be more of a long War not a short war not a limited War but a a compounding War a compounding war in a war that is more about attrition then maneuver and an attrition um if we if we if the west verbial west allows Vladimir Putin to have his way a war of of attrition that with with an Annihilation intended outcome those that's a big war in military Parliament we call that large scale um uh combat operations those are big Wars of a World War of a World War II Type in fact Ukraine Russia Russo Ukrainian War looks like on the ground in terms of the Geo the Geo strategy picture some hybrid between the trench warfare of of World War I and the the the mass the mass um War fighting organizations at josed against one another at a line of at a line of Confrontation a line of of of departure but for L for Wars of attrition these are Wars of mass and we are you know to say the least we are having a major Challenge and not just because of the parish political Dynamics though those don't help at all that are going on here in the United States in a lot of the of the capitals of of the alliance in the Coalition um nation states supporting Ukraine our friend Ukraine um we are we are challenged to produce to literally produce the numbers of Munitions required to maintain a stalemate status quo at the at the at the for line of troops in in the war fighting right we're having a major problem at doing this where does this come from many places but you have to go back 20 years prior you go back and look 20 years prior actually you know closer to 30 years prior in the end of the Cold War and the want and the desire and the expectation after you know a hard fight through 40 plus years of cold war with the Soviet um an expectation for a peace dividend and what that yielded was really starting in around 1988 89 a what was called a reinvention of government among the Western industrial Powers right and that Reinventing government was looking for efficiencies coming out of Decades of war in an expectation that we need to now transition and convert armaments to plowshares right that peace dividend yeah so eff efficiency in streamlining of government of all sectors around the mid uh early to mid 1990s this Reinventing government streamlining of defense and security um uh industrial capacity had hit the Departments of defense and the ministries of Defense AC Across the Western Advanced industrial um Powers um nation states and so you know as an example from a from a um uh Aero AER Aeronautics you know to defense the the Aerospace industry early 80 early uh uh 1990s late ' 80s early 1990s we had 50 you know count you count them 50 Prime defense defense Prime Industries 1995 February I believe if I remember the month correctly of 1995 um defense secretary us defense secretary Will Bill Bill Perry William Perry brought all the CEOs of those defense Industries into what became known as The Last Supper The Last Supper yes the last supper and they said he's told them look look to your left and right two of you won't be here within five years yeah I think he was wrong because he got it he he got the it was less than 5 years within 5 years that 50 were down to a rer leaner meaner less National Champion more na multinational Survivor group of five yeah five conglomerations right um we we are facing today the need for more a a broader base defense industrial base that is multinational but positioned in with Manufacturing in the nation hoods in the nation state hoods of the of the western liberal community of of Democratic states right so what I for what I foresee you know from from my forecasting standpoint we need a to build resilience back into the the International System of democratic and Democratic like states that ascribe and prescribe to the small W small o western western liberal rules and value based system system to build a resiliency back in for a true undercarriage for realizing integrated deterrence win without fighting right right because of a showing of a capability and a capacity to absorb unwanted and unwarranted strikes and to respond in a and Prevail in an overmatching way in order to to Baseline that that um suasive in literal physical power potential we need a diversification of that def defense industrial base in all of our enduring with within the the nation states uh and economies of our enduring allies in specifically emphasis on specifically those foreign country partners that are what I'd call Anchor Partners yeah and think of think L figuratively but also in a in a near literal way of what an anchor does to you you need an anchor in a very specific place to hold the ship of State steady I I'm we may have anchor States in and around places like those those Maritime choke points right or places that where the world has turned like the Western Balkans like Ukraine like a Taiwan right in Indonesia like a Vietnam and a Thailand right there are places uh like a like a Colombia right there are places that are essential anchoring foreign country Partners from a defense development um diplomacy diplomatic and Commercial most imperatively so that's the commercial foreign direct investment is our lead our most non-lethal Leading Edge positive aims approach to Anchor ourselves in in a resilient way not just as the United States but as the United States as a leading power of a community a world system community of of democracies and Democratic like and aspiring in inspiring nationhood to reaffirm and reinforce um uh uh free market capitalism and constitutional small r republican Republican democracy that's the big game that's the greater the bigger the larger Maps bigger War the big great game that is in conent cons uh that is in contention now and I think we're having a hard time realizing that we may already be in the Leading Edge you know I'll use the frightening words for for dramatic effect that we may already be in a in a World War III pathway and scenario but we're trying very hard not to call it that because we don't want to accept that we may be on on on those on those trails and on those Pathways already that's not anticipation that's not foresighting and that's not forecasting and that's the stuff of self dark self-fulfilling prophecy so um it starts with the defense industrial base though you right I'm a geost strategist I'm a mil I'm a foreign military officer but I have to to do my job comprehensively right I've got to start at Terra Firma and the Tera Firma is always about the way to hearts and minds and the way to hearts and Minds in the most literal and Broad sense of the term is through wallets and stomachs and households right in the community of democracies our household is increasingly brittle um less resilient that it must be to withstand the waves of atar and authoritarianism that are forming by unnatural and natural tendencies driven by compound security Dynamics and dilemas in into into the next into into the next great Collective great power War a World War III if you will type of scenario we may already be in the early stages of it I'll pause there no Ike uh no that was that's a that's a great way to kind of wrap up uh our discussion with just really kind of pointing to the crucial role that the private sector and and commerce really really plays in all this that at the end of the day these are two competing visions of not only politics but but what is the role the private sector do you want to run your own business or do you want to be a state-owned Enterprise that tells you what to do right right those are the two competing models right now and the better that that we as kind of an educated uh you know electorate within the United States particularly in an election year knows these things but also even our elected officials right we could talk for hours about our energy policy and and how could it change or different different things um but but despite all the United States and the West setbacks and challenges have a significant amount of potential right it's just the question of how do we orchestrate these things together and as we have kind of said this is not a military only thing it's not a diplomacy only thing it's not a development only thing it's the way in which the private sector plays a role in this that's right right maximize profits absolutely right but we have to conent conceptualize this in a much much more comprehensive manner we're in an election year there's massive elections happening globally right um and uh it it's just very very important for our listeners to kind of keep this in mind as I always like to say sometimes the competition between the United States and China may be more settled by Wall Street and Walmart than anybody inside the Pentagon and the quicker that we are to understand that the better and the more equipped that not just the US government the American people and our allies and partners will be uh going forward Ike I'll I'll turn to you for your for your uh yeah perfect I mean thanks again so much for this opportunity any opportunity as you know to to um parlay with you uh is is a great day for me and I'm just happy and hopefully this is helpful to your your listenership and and the audience here uh I would just add um couple of paradoxes that come with this idea this this reality I would say this you know you know as an academic a theory of the case of compound security and compound security dilemma couple of paradoxes you really you really spoke to them very important to understand and appreciate that part of the Paradox of this Dynamic is that the Instinct our in the instinctual thing will be and has been for each of us individually whether we're an individual human being within our own households or an individual nation state in a community a global community of nation states the Instinct will be to self-help and to go into a uh metaphorical fetal position to solve all these compounding Dynamics and dilemas singly unilaterally and individually that is a dynamic that is true to form of an earlier age of geopolitics and geoeconomics called mercantilism and it is a tendency of beggaring Thy Neighbor in fact it's called beggar Thy Neighbor you know e economic Dynamics in it's in it lends itself more towards at best transactional client relationships that prove necessary but insufficient in terms of producing an a sustained outsized treatment regimen if you will to these compounding Dynamics the tendency will be to try to throw more unilateral individual force in our own ways and our in the same old ways we've always done at the same old problems and the same old places and same old directions um but an increasing realization after the fact that I'm I'm I'm putting the same Force to Bear but it's not producing a power solution in fact it's metastasizing the the negative externality and that's the wicked problem Dynamic that comes from that we that we have a great description of but the compound security um factors actually offer a bit of a studable-winter place and you know these this natural tendency to think that we can pick and choose and go our own way the tendency will be to go your own way in a zero sum I've got mine I've got mine I'm secure the equivalent of a gated community um philosophy I'm going to go and we're going to go into a Bastion and close the gates and get under the covers and and and hide away the answer the solution is the exact opposite you've got to go more with multilateralism we say rhetorically and have for years you know all of our national strategies security defense commercial with with large contingent on allies and partners we've got to get beyond the rhetoric of that we actually start that has to be embedded within the DNA of all of us our household is all of us it's a western oest phalan if you want to go with that rubric household it it does literally in this in this case take all the villages coming together right and on that turn a phrase I'll I'll turn the mic back to you thanks again Scott this has been a lot of fun and hopefully informative and useful folks great Ike well thank you so much on behalf of leyi and and the uh geopolitics of Commodities podcast series we thank you so much for having uh having us on uh for our listeners Ike is is very very active on LinkedIn you can also reach out to him at Wilson wise.com and uh thank you all for being with us today and looking forward to the next episode Ike thank you again so much thank you [Music] cheers