Steve Blank Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition

We just wrapped up the third year of our Technology, Innovation, and Great Power Competition class, part of Stanford’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation.

Joe Felter, Mike Brown and I teach the following classes:

Give students an appreciation for the challenges and opportunities facing the United States in ongoing strategic competition with China, Russia, and other competitors.
How commercial technologies (AI, autonomy, cyber, quantum, semiconductors, space access, biotechnology, hypersonics, etc.) are fundamentally changing the way states compete in all elements of power: diplomatic, intelligence, military, economic, etc. Provides insight. , finance, intelligence and law enforcement (our influence and footprint on the world stage).
Provides students with experiential learning about policy questions. Students formed teams and came out of the classroom to engage in dialogue with stakeholders and develop policy proposals.

Why this class?
The recognition that the United States is engaged in a long-term strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China and Russia became the core of the 2017 National Security Strategy and the 2018 National Defense Strategy. The 2021 Interim National Security Guidelines and the recently released 2022 National Security Strategy make it clear that China is rapidly becoming more assertive and is the only competitor capable of posing a sustained challenge by combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power. A stable and open international system. And as we saw in Ukraine, Russia is determined to wage a brutal war to play a destructive role on the world stage.

Winning this race requires more than simply taking advantage of the technological revolution. A paradigm shift in thinking is needed about how this technology can be rapidly integrated into new capabilities and platforms to drive new operational and organizational concepts and strategies that transform and optimize the way we compete.

class organization
Readings, lectures and guest speakers explored emerging approaches. advertisement Technology poses challenges and creates opportunities for the United States in strategic competition with great powers, led by the People’s Republic of China. We focused on the challenges that arise when U.S. government agencies, federal labs, and government contractors no longer have exclusive access to these advanced technologies.

The course includes everything you would expect from a Stanford graduate-level course in the Master of International Policy: comprehensive readings, guest lectures from current and former senior officials/experts, and a written thesis. But here’s what makes this class unique: this is empirical policy class. Students formed small teams and took on quarter-length projects outside the classroom to:

Identify priority national security challenges…
Validate problems and propose detailed solutions tested with real stakeholders in the technology and national security ecosystem.

The class was divided into three parts.

Part 1, Weeks 1 through 4: The dynamics of interstate competition among great powers, international relations theory that seeks to explain U.S. national security and defense strategy, and the policies that guide our approach to great power competition with a particular focus on the People’s Republic of China. has been covered. PRC) and Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Between Parts 1 and 2, students worked on individual midterm projects. They had to write a 2,000-word policy memo explaining how U.S. competitors were using specific technologies to counter U.S. interests and suggestions for how the U.S. should respond.

Part 2, from weeks 5 to 8, covered commercial technologies including semiconductors, space, cyber, AI and machine learning, high-performance computing, and biotechnology. Each week, students were required to read 5-10 articles. here.) And every week we had guest speakers on great power competition, technology and its impact on state power, and lecture/class discussions.

guest speaker
In addition to the teaching team, the course leveraged the experience and expertise of guest instructors from industry and U.S. government agencies to provide context and perspective on: advertisement Technology and national security.

Students were privileged to hear from special guest speakers of considerable experience and credibility on a variety of topics related to course objectives. Highlights from this year’s speakers include:

On National Security and American Exceptionalism: U.S. Marine Corps General Jim Mattis (let.), former Minister of Defense.

China’s Activities and Efforts to Compete with the United States: Matt Pottinger – Former National Security Advisor, Elizabeth Economy – Leading China Scholar and Former Senior China Advisor at the Department of Commerce, Tai Ming Cheung – Author of Innovate to Dominate: The Rise of China’s Technology Security nation.

U.S.-China Policy: Representative Mike Gallagher, Chairman of the Special Committee on China.

On Innovation and National Security: Chris Brose – Author of The Kill Chain, Doug Beck – Director of Defense Innovation, and Anja Manuel – Executive Director of the Aspen Strategy and Security Forum.

In biotechnology: Ben Kirukup – Chief Biologist, U.S. Navy, Ed You – FBI Special Agent Biological Countermeasures Division, Deborah Rosenblum – Defense Assistant Director of Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs, Joe DeSimone – Professor of Chemical Engineering.

For AI: Jared Dunnmon – Director of AI Technology, Defense Innovation Agency Lt. Gen. (Retired) Jack Shanahan – Anshu Roy Joint Director, Center for Artificial Intelligence – CEO of Rhombus AI

Cyber: Anne Neuberger – Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber

Semiconductor Field: Larry Diamond – Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution

In particular, students were able to hear China’s perspective on the US-China competition from Dr. Jia Qingguo, a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese Central Committee.

The class concluded with a moving speech and call to action from former National Security Advisor LTG ret HR McMaster.

In the intervening weeks, we’ve had speakers lead team lectures and then discussions about important commercial technologies.

Team-based experiential project
The third part of the lesson was unique. It was a quarter-long, team-based project. Students formed teams of four to six people and selected a national security issue facing an organization or agency within the U.S. government. They developed hypotheses about how the United States could use commercial technologies in new and creative ways to help exercise its national power. And in keeping with all Gordian Knot Center classes, They left the classroom. More than 20 beneficiaries, policymakers and other key stakeholders were interviewed to test hypotheses and proposed solutions.

Hacking for Policy – Final Presentation:
At the end of the quarter, each student team’s policy recommendations were summarized in a 10-minute presentation. The presentation told the story of the team’s learning journey, where it started, where it ended, and the key inflection points in understanding the problem. (Next, a 3000-word report was written focusing on recommendations to address the selected security issue and explaining how the solution could be implemented quickly and urgently.)

By the end of the class, every team realized that the policy problem they had chosen had transformed into something bigger, deeper, and much more interesting.

Their policy announcement is below:

Teaching classes is as tiring as listening. We have great teaching assistants.