GNSI’s 2025 Roadmap: Programs, Goals, and Events

Kick off 2025 with the Global and National Security Institute (GNSI),  host Jim Cardoso and the team unveil the institute’s ambitious plans for the year. This episode highlights the goals of the Future Strategist Program, introduces new Fellows and partners, and previews an impressive lineup of thought leaders, speakers, and events shaping the conversation on global security, policy, and technology.

Stay informed about cutting-edge insights in international relations, emerging technologies, and strategic foresight. Subscribe for more from GNSI!

Links from the episode:
• The International Security and Intelligence Programme
• GNSI & USF World Event
• Full Speaker Lineup and Agenda at STCWA 2025
• Rethinking Afghanistan: Strategic Competition in the Heart of Asia on Youtube
• GNSI Publications

At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.

A "boundary" is a place, either literal or figurative, where two forces exist in close proximity to each other. Sometimes that boundary is in a state of harmony. More often than not, that boundary has a bit of chaos baked in. The Global and National Security Institute will live on the boundary of security policy and technology and that's where this podcast will focus.

The mission of GNSI is to provide actionable solutions to 21st-century security challenges for decision-makers at the local, state, national and global levels. We hope you enjoy At the Boundary.

Look for our other publications and products on our website publications page.

Transcript

Jim Cardoso: 0:00

Jim, hello everyone. Welcome to our first episode in 2025 of at the boundary, the podcast from the global and national security Institute at the University of South Florida. I'm Jim Cardoso, Senior Director for GNSI, and your host for at the boundary. We hope you all had a terrific break for your holidays. Our team at GNSI enjoyed some well deserved time off with friends and family. Now we're ready to get back in the saddle with fascinating guests, insightful analysis and unwavering commitment to keeping you informed on what's going on in the world of global and national security. Starting out on only our third full year at GNSI, we're excited about what's on our to do list for the next 12 months. On today's episode, we'll take a peek ahead to 2025 with three irreplaceable members of the GNSI team, Dave Oakley, Tad schnaufer and Jeff frog. Before we do that, a couple quick notes. Our first event of the year will happen this Thursday night as we collaborate with USF world to bring you a fireside chat entitled post US election global diplomacy and security opportunities and challenges. The GNSI Executive Director, retired Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie, will sit down for an evening of conversation with Barbara Stevenson, former ambassador Panama and currently the Vice Provost of Global Affairs at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. We'll drop a link to register in the show notes. We're also excited to announce that John Kirby will be a keynote speaker at Tampa summit five in early March. Kirby is a proud USF grad class of 85 and is currently serving as the White House National Security communications advisor. We'll have more announcements on Tampa summit five in the near future. Check our website and follow our LinkedIn and X accounts or sign up for our newsletter for the latest updates. There are a lot more projects and programs coming up in 2025 and we're going to use today's episode to give you a little preview. So let's go to the brain trust or the crack squad, or whatever euphemism you prefer. We'll start with Dr Dave Oakley, GNSI, Academic Director He oversees all our programs focused on current and future practitioner education. What's on the horizon?

Dave Oakley: 2:25

Hey, Jim, thanks for inviting me today. Very excited about this next year of our focus on educating the practitioner initiative. Some of the things that we're going to be looking at doing within the current practitioner initiative. We're continuing our work with the School of Interdisciplinary global studies to develop opportunities for practitioners to get a master's in international affairs. So during this year, we're going to be working on some of the curriculum and then also advertising the program to get the students here. Another thing we're very excited about is GNSI and USF will welcome its first PME fellow in the fall of 2025, we're finalizing the PME fellows experience now by working with him to tailor a research project. And so we're very excited about this program. We're also starting to look at new ways to bring other people and other practitioners into this program. So real quick,

Jim Cardoso: 3:19

what's in PME? Exactly What does PME, for some of our non military folks, yeah,

Dave Oakley: 3:23

so it's professional military education. So if you're familiar with the war colleges, so whether it's Naval War College or Army War College, where lieutenant colonels and Colonels are sent later in their career for education to professionally develop, we're going to host an equivalent program here at USF,

Jim Cardoso: 3:41

excellent. Thanks. Yes, sir, Ted and I were ready to jump on you for not defying P and me. So yeah, got to keep you on track in 2012 Thank you. Press on please with other stuff. And

Dave Oakley: 3:51

one of the, one of the other areas we're looking with this, and this ties to the War College, is we're getting involved in a event, a very fantastic event that's held annually every spring at the Army War College, which is the Army War College strategy competition, where teams not just from the service war colleges or the National Defense University, but also from civilian universities like the University of Texas, New York University in Columbia, compete over three days in a strategy competition. So we're hoping to start moving forward to developing our own team to send to the competition 2026 now that's the current practitioners, so people who are currently national security professionals. We also are putting a lot more focus in the current students at USF who are interested in national security career, and that's the future practitioners right now, or actually right before break, we advertised an opportunity to students to apply to go to Cambridge University in the United Kingdom to attend the International Security and Intelligence seminar. That is held for four weeks in the summer. So it's a fantastic opportunity to go there and learn from both scholars of national security and practitioners and GNSI, we're funding an individual, paying their airfare and then for their fees, and then for the room to stay there. And so that's something we're excited about. And in future, we'd like to expand the other thing I'll touch upon, and this is complimentary to the the Army War College strategy competition, we're looking to take lessons from that event, that fantastic event, and give an opportunity for our undergraduate students to compete in an undergraduate strategy competition. So over the next year, we're going to be working on that and developing that competition and another opportunity for undergrad students here at USF,

Jim Cardoso: 5:46

that's, that's great stuff. The, you know, I like how you, you know, with the Cambridge International Security and Intel seminar. Mean, like we said, we're going to do one this year. But how do you see that evolving in future years, potentially? Yeah, so,

Dave Oakley: 6:00

you know, working with our partners there at Cambridge University and King's College of London, who convenes, convenes the program, we've gotten approval to send up to four select, up to four USF students in sin. And so we'd like to max that out in future. So we'd like to get students send four a year eventually. But like anything else, funding

Jim Cardoso: 6:21

is an issue.

Dave Oakley: 6:24

You know, the more generous our listeners are, the quicker we can get to

Jim Cardoso: 6:30

those. And this is, I mean, we have our, you know, future strategies program, which Jeff is going to talk about more in depth later. But this type of program, it's, it's, this can be open to just anybody at USF, any student at USF, correct, any undergraduate student, undergraduate

Dave Oakley: 6:44

or graduate, yeah, the only requirement to apply is that your USF student,

Jim Cardoso: 6:48

okay, yeah. So I would say for any USF students listening, or any parents of USF students listening, this is something to definitely keep on your keep on your radar. There talk to us about we have a single PME fellow and what? How's that experience been so far, getting our first one coming to us in the fall? No,

Dave Oakley: 7:06

it's been a good experience, a learning experience to you know, understand how the services select and identify programs to send them to. But it's started to gain speed, and now we're working through just some of the administrative kind of aspects of bringing the the the fellow, into the USF family. So we're very excited. The student himself, very excited, has already started to plug away and reach out to to us, and then other other folks to help shape his research plan for the year. Yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 7:40

and there's just so many, you know, there's so many advantages. There's so many things that we have at USF here, not just the university. We have central command and Special Operations Command right across town. We have, you know, the incredible growth of the Tampa Bay community, the the commercial side, the industry side. There's just a lot, it seems to me. And we've seen that there's a lot we can do with these students as they come in. And there is a from discussions we've had the services, the Air Force and other future services. Well, they want to participate in this. We have an ability to tailor the programs right so that way the officer, once they complete their year, they are exactly where this the Service wants them to be to continue on to senior leadership roles in the future. Yeah, and

Dave Oakley: 8:23

I think, you know, to build on two things you said, you know, when you mentioned the community here at USF, the community at USF has been very supportive in preparing for the arrival of the individual. And so a lot of people across USF just not with the academics, but the staff, administrative staff and others have been helping with this individual, so it's gonna be a fantastic experience. And then the second point that you mentioned, you know, I look it's, it's, even though it's a year, we're setting up the program to where the individual will maintain connections once they leave USF, and so it's a, it's a year experience, but it's a, it's a career connection, if that makes sense. And so once they leave here, there will, they'll still have access to resources, the access to the university, and they'll become, you know, basically a USF alum,

Jim Cardoso: 9:17

yeah, no, that's great. I'm looking forward to seeing, I've seen this first year. I think we're going to do a really great job with the student coming in as a Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and and then expanded out for other more, maybe more Air Force officers, and hopefully some officers from from other services as well. So it's it's come along nicely, and appreciate all the work you've done on it as well. Been fantastic. So we'll turn next to Tad schnaufer, our strategy and research manager. He manages our conferences, and the research that flows from those conferences as well and also our journal of strategic security. Got a few things on your plate. I already know your 2025 is going to be busy. We've already talked about this, but tell our listeners a little bit about it from your own words. Sure.

Tad Schnaufer: 9:59

Sure. Absolutely in 2025 will be busy for all of us, not just me, but for I'll start with our events to get us started. So Jim did mention a couple events. I'll touch on those in chronological order to make it easy to follow. So our next upcoming events next Thursday, as mentioned, the post election global diplomacy and security event where General Mackenzie and former ambassador Barbara Stevenson will be discussing the opportunities and challenges coming up in 2025 for the new administration and the US as a whole. There's a lot going on in the world, and you're getting two vastly interesting perspectives from a former ambassador, and then also a former four star general. So you're getting kind of military lens on these issues. And then, as well as a diplomatic that's gonna be an excellent event here on campus at the CW, Bill Young Hall. And any additional information will be in the show notes for that event. So we're looking forward to that to kick, to kick the 2025, year off. After that, our next major event that we're looking at is at our st, Petersburg, Florida, universe USF campus, just to be clear, nobody travels to Russia, so, but you know, we'll see what we can do. But thank you for that addendum. It's really just one crystal clear audience. So we are in partnership with the St Pete conference on world affairs, and we're having a conference from February 11 through 13 titled the ties that bind us, focused on allies and alliances. So during that conference, we'll be looking at NATO, be looking at aukus, we'll be looking at other alliances around the world and partnerships, as well as some key things that bring allies together, whether that might be sharing intelligence, things like five eyes. We're also economics and trade, and then also we'll have a regional view going in and zooming in on Asia, Africa, Europe, in the Western Hemisphere, and seeing what are the big issues that are facing partnerships and allies throughout those regions. We have some great speakers, a lot of former ambassadors, a lot of former high ranking military officers and current people who are in the diplomatic service and military service will be there. And that event again, we'll cover those three days, and we're really looking forward to that as we move on into early March. We have, as Jim mentioned earlier about highlighting our speaker, John Kirby, coming in, is our GNSI Tampa summit number five, which is the Russian Ukraine war and lessons for future conflict. So really looking at what's going on in the Russia Ukraine war, but through the lens of what does this mean for future conventional conflict? So what does this mean for a possible future conflict between maybe the US and China over Taiwan, or further Russian aggression in Europe? We have an all star lineup of experts coming in across the three domains that we always reach for speakers from so we're looking at academia for the theoretical piece, the government slash military leaders, so those practitioners who are on the ground fighting conflicts or executing them, and then also from industry. So we've we've seen a lot in the Russia, Ukraine conflict, how supply and demand play a role, particularly when countries are not ready for such a large scale fight. They're used to the low intensity conflicts that we've seen in Afghanistan and Iraq. So that con that conferences cover those things, as well as some a little bit more niche topics, including, what does medical care look like on the battlefield in future conflicts? The Golden Hour, which was known very well during Afghanistan Iraq, we had about an hour to get a casualty to a hospital or a field center. That's no longer going to be the case when air space is contested by a near peer adversary. So what does that mean with our newest technologies? What role does AI play with that? And then, in addition, another example would be obviously drones, whether they're on the land, sea or air, they're playing a massive role in the war in Ukraine and also, now increasingly throughout the Middle East, as the conflict there continues to spread. So we'll touch on all that during that conference. Again, a very exciting two day event, March four or five here at the USF Tampa campus, at the Marshall Marshall Student Center. Yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 13:53

I want to make clear and just you you touch on this, but I do want to just make sure it's understood that it's not the conference is not about, we're not going to talk about, you know, the ground tactics and the trench warfare that sort of eMERGE, and that's not worth talk, but it's more about some of the innovations and some of the new ways of waging war that have emerged. You discuss drones, you discuss the goal now, or there's other areas, like misinformation, disinformation, the use of cyber warfare, the use of open source, social media, and how intelligence is gathered and utilized after that. So I think, you know, it's not so much, you know, for those are thinking we're going to be talking about, you know, guns and bullets and artillery. No, it's going to be really a lot of ways that war is innovative, innovatively executed these days, which will have an impact in any large scale conflict or even smaller scale conflict that's going to occur elsewhere in the

Tad Schnaufer: 14:50

globe, right? Really looking at the strategic level and the technological implications. So those two kind of branches we're looking at during that conference. Jim, no, and that's great, and going. With our publication side a little bit for this first couple months of 2025 we're having a number of decision briefs coming out the next few months related to these topics. Our decision briefs are short, two to three page papers that are focused directly in on a policy recommendation or policy issue to address it. The first one we're having coming out in February 5 will cover allies and what keeps them in the fight. So discussing what has kept us allies at war, whether if it's in Iraq or Afghanistan for years and sometimes decades, what keeps them going when the US is fighting the long war, and then addressing what have we learned from that, and how do we apply that to future conflicts where the US might need allies to fight, whether, again, that's something with China and Taiwan or somewhere else in the Middle East in the future. So we talked about these first three events, and then we're going to kind of push out a little bit more for the rest of the year. So in May, we're excited about going to DC, our first out of town, if you will, outside the Tampa Bay region conference. We'll be up in DC, and we'll be doing part two of our Afghanistan conference series. Our first Afghanistan conference was back in November, if you recall, and were able to attend, if you would not. Conveniently, it was recorded, and those videos are on our YouTube page. But from that conference where we've compiled our notes, we also had a workshop afterwards, and we are compiling our notes and preparing to publish a report, which we will have printed and will take up with us in May of this year to the US Institute of Peace, which will be hosting our conference in May. And in that part two, we'll be discussing policy recommendations and analysis for the new Trump administration on how to possibly address some of the issues with Afghanistan and how to approach its dealings with the Taliban. So it'll be very fascinating for you, and it'll be up in DC, hopefully being able to let policy makers know the great research and findings that we came out of our past conference, as well as additional reading. In that same vein, our journal strategic security, which is a top 18 war studies journal According to Global or, excuse me, according to Google Scholar, we're having a special edition on Afghanistan, which will be coming out in June of this year. Again, a lot of the authors either attended or spoke at our Afghanistan conference back in November, and many of them will be at our conference in DC in May. So with that springtime events and publications, I'll just lightly touch on the fall, which right now our big event for the fall will be in early November of 2025 this year, and it will be on maritime security. It's going to be part of our Florida security forums, our FSF branch of events. So this is focused on what state what role states and local authorities play in national security. So we think about the big picture stuff we just talked about with Russia and Ukraine, with the State Department and the military playing these major roles, but at the state level, they also have a keen role in what's going on for the security of our citizens, particularly in this case with port and maritime security, with Florida being obviously a maritime state, having a number of major ports, so we're partnering with a number of local entities, and we'll get good speakers again across that realm of academia, government, in this case, the Coast Guard and local law enforcement agencies and industry, where we're looking at partnering with the port and other local authorities again To decipher how states play a role in national security. This under researched topic, we're looking to, looking forward to bringing to the forefront of the national security discussion. Yeah, and I

Jim Cardoso: 18:29

know we have some on that one. We have some good partners already set up. We're working with the Port of Tampa, the national maritime law enforcement agency. There's several professors at USF that are deeply engaged in this topic cyber Florida, because there's going to be some cyber security. Clearly, cyber security aspects to what goes on at a port, especially so they're already on board. And that's that's really truck along well, and I'm really looking forward to that one, yeah, because

Tad Schnaufer: 18:54

you might not think like, oh, maritime security or port security. What's that to do with national security? But I mean everything from reports of Chinese microchips and cranes and counting the number of containers that are we offloaded at ports. Kind of a spying, cyber spying type role. There's national security has a role even at those lower levels. And again, we're not seeing a lot of coverage on that, and we're looking to, again, bring that to light. Yeah, we're

Jim Cardoso: 19:15

looking forward to have a good, a solid state, and even, you know, cross state, you know, other states have ports as well. And I think they can. They're there. They'd love to have them join us,

Tad Schnaufer: 19:24

as well as to make Florida, as always, the beacon. And example,

Jim Cardoso: 19:28

the beacon. And example, I like that. We gotta, we gotta, we have to copyright that and get money every time somebody says that. The Afghanistan one as well looks. I'm looking forward to that. I mean, all these are great. This is incredible year. We've got a lot going on. It's gonna be very busy. You know, the Afghanistan conference Part one was, was good, you know, and it really brought some things out. I think that, to me, Afghanistan is one of those. There's so much going on in the world right now. I mean, there's so many things dominating the headlines. You don't see Afghanistan on there like ever, but it doesn't mean it's disappeared. From being a national security issue that needs to be at least considered in the new presidential administration, and I'm hopeful that we'll be able to provide some things that as they make those decisions, it'll help inform those decisions well. And

Tad Schnaufer: 20:14

that's the problem with a lot of the policy making, is we want to keep bringing those topics up, because there's a lot to learn, and also these events didn't happen in a vacuum. So perhaps if history was studied more greatly before, we wouldn't have had some of the outcomes that we've had policy making in the last Yes,

Jim Cardoso: 20:29

absolutely. So speaking of policy so policy making and policy makers, this is the segue portion of the show, Jeff, so get ready, put your phone down, stop texting. I'm just kidding. Well, maybe I'm not, but anyway, oh, he's looking he's ready, actually. So speaking of policy making, policy makers, one thing we we kicked off last year was our future strategist program, and that's being led by Jeff Rog, dr, Jeff, he's a senior research fellow here at GNSI, and he steering the program. It was started so that we could provide students with additional experience and mentoring towards careers in national security. So what's cooking in the world of our future national strategist? Jeff, thanks.

Jeff Rogg: 21:14

Jim, well, you beat me to my first note on the phone, which is introducing or reintroducing the future

Jim Cardoso: 21:19

strategist. I only hit a small piece of it. You can expand on it. So, yeah,

Jeff Rogg: 21:23

just to reintroduce it to the listeners, the future strategist program, the idea behind it was to help prepare USF students for careers in national security, because that's something that GNSI is well positioned to do. And so it started in August 2024 we had nine students that, you know, I sort of found over the summer through connections with other USF, faculty and staff, and it's grown to over, over 40 already in one semester. And that's

Jim Cardoso: 21:47

our initial talking. We were talking about, well, hopefully we'll get nine or 10, you know, and then we'll build from there. And I just, it just exploded really quickly

Jeff Rogg: 21:55

I did. And I mean, I was sweating at the beginning of the semester, and I said, Well, you know, it's a start, and I was always confident, because I think, you know, based on my prior experience teaching civilian academia, national security, I see the interest in it. I see the need for it. Students see the need for it because they want careers. And so I was optimistic. And if I can say one thing about the students that we have, they have mirrored and exceeded my optimism and enthusiasm for this program, because they're amazing. It's already in the process of becoming a student organization. And so there's a student leadership. And what the leadership has done, by the way, when it comes to technology, just going on teams, and they have, they have notebooks and documents and tracking functions. And I mean, these, this is why they're so important to national security, because they know how to do things. The rest of us just don't know how to do the receding

Jim Cardoso: 22:43

hairlines and salt and pepper beard, sitting around this table right now, you know are aren't exactly at that level. Is that what you're saying right

Jeff Rogg: 22:50

there with you receiving hairlines and salt and pepper. Beard, again, speak for yourselves about the receding hairline. Oh, thanks. One person at the table. However,

Jim Cardoso: 22:59

the beard is pretty salty there, Santa. Well,

Jeff Rogg: 23:02

you know what, though, and these are the students who are putting us all to shame, because, again, they are doing a fantastic job already with FSP. And one thing that we're going to reciprocate by is we're going to start aligning GNSI more closely with giving the students opportunities with existing GNSI events and conferences and functions. And so this includes putting students on panels. So there'll be a student panel at the St Pete conference on world affairs, which tad had mentioned. So a completely student panel, because they bring new ideas and approaches that those of us who have almost spent too long thinking about these issues, we're sort of entrenched in our thinking, and so I'm already very impressed by the type of thinking, the ideas, the new insights that these students have. So that's just one example. We're also going to have students do book talks with GNSI Senior Scholars and non resident fellows and practitioners. So when they come to town, the students will be reading their books and interviewing them, which again, is a different format than those of us who probably are familiar with a lot of the material already, so we're bringing old perspectives rather than new questions that might even catch some of them by surprise. So I'd look out for that. You know, fair warning to those who are listening, who are going to be coming to Tampa, because our students are ready, and then we're also going to have one student who on her own initiative, and I think it's a great model for not just USF and genocide, but the state of Florida, a student is taking the initiative to put together a conference on cyber security in April, and that's in collaboration with the Institute for Strategic policy solutions. And so we're building out through FSP connections within the USF community, connections within the Florida academic community. And ultimately, what we're looking to do is really build connections with the policy maker and practitioner community. And so we're showcasing the students, they have great ideas. And I think above all, this is a new model and approach to cultivating the next generation of national security practitioners.

Jim Cardoso: 24:53

Yeah, I mean, I It's one of you know, we've done, I think we've done a good job over the last two and a half total years of our existence. And building some of the capabilities within GNSI, you know, getting analysis and content out there that's value added to current practitioners. But we've, sort of haven't done as much with the future practitioners. We thought about it. And I really think that 2025, is a year we're gonna, we're really gonna pull that in and just leverage the incredible resource that is the 50,000 strong student body here at USF again, in a large urban environment as well. There's so many you know. You just really I think if we do this in 2020 the end of 2025, and do a review, there'll probably be so many other things that we'll be talking about that you didn't touch on here, that will have happened over the course of the year, like you said, not just because they're going to be part of some of the things that we in GNSI are dreaming up, but because they are going to self generate things that they want to do and helping again, helping set themselves up so that as they go through their college career, they get their degree, but Then after getting the degree, they need a, J, O, B, and they need to do something with that degree. And hopefully this is that piece, that missing piece, that gets them the mentoring, the experience and the and just the further seasoning towards that, that that job in the national security arena, that's

Jeff Rogg: 26:16

right. And you know, as far as new things, social media, you know, I mentioned the technology piece, they are so far ahead of us even some ways on social media and how to communicate and communicate within their age group. And so we've talked about it before here at GNSI, you just mentioned it, 50,000 students USF is an enormous campus. I mean, think about just the intellectual capital that's sitting here alone. And so I think that's what all of us, including the FSP students, are most excited about too, is they are excited to do even more outreach with other students and other student organizations. And I really do see GNSI and FSP growing together. Yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 26:52

you said, in some ways are way ahead of us in social media. In what ways are they not ahead of us in social media? What I was like, you know, they don't all use Facebook. What are you talking about? Yeah, I like to say that to him, just so they look at me with that quiz, a quizzical dog look. So, okay, just old man, stop talking about social media. You're you're wasting our time. You know, it's funny. You talked about the St Pete conference of world affairs. We have a student panel, but today we had a meeting about that, and there, I don't even know is going to be a student. One of our FSP students was on the meeting today, and she's going to be working in the background, working on the conference, working with the other speakers coming in. So again, that's just a that's another level of experience and mentorship and insight that she's getting as well, and that'll happen at all our events going forward.

Jeff Rogg: 27:41

That's right. And I should also have mentioned, you know, this is graduate and on graduate students, the graduate students are even taking on a mentorship role with the undergraduate students. And then, you know, I think that's how we build the bridge, because the we can help mentor the graduate students, they're more probably proximate to getting jobs, and then they're excited to help the undergraduate students. One of the students one of the students already, who, you know, had a former career before he decided to go back to school, he's been offering just on, we have a teams chat and telling students about, hey, you know, this is an opportunity take this training course in cyber security functions. It's free. And, I mean, so he's been very, you know, leaning into helping the students with basically what we want to do anyways, which is lessons learned. A lot of us here at the table took the hard road, right, and we learned the hard way, and now we can impart those lessons and make things a little bit easier for these students,

Jim Cardoso: 28:30

yeah, and their, um, their their understanding of the need for that for themselves. Is it, to me, it looks like it's off the charts that they really get it, and they want to lean forward and find that. And like we say, we have what said 40 students now, but, but there's 50,000 students here. So, I mean, I think there's going to continue to grow, but, you know, we're going to manage it as well. It's not going to get unwieldy. It's going to be so but I would say for again, to to students and parents that may be listening. You know, give us a give us a shout. Go on our website. Dr, Jeff Rogge, R, O, G, G, you can email him. He's on the USF global, and you can contact him as well if you're interested in being a part of this program. And it'll evolve over over future semesters. I have no doubt about that, so Jeff, I'll tell you what I'm gonna go backwards now, as we start to wrap up, I'll start since you're already warmed up. So all the things you're looking Is there any, like, one thing that's out there of this next year that you're going, Ah, this is, this is going to be really cool. This is going to be, this is, this is, like, really one thing I'm looking forward to seeing how this this turns out. I

Jeff Rogg: 29:35

think when I mentioned the student led conference, you know, as an academic, I go to a lot of conferences. I'm going to a lot of conferences. In the spring, we've put on a lot of conferences, having students put on a conference. Now, I know from when I'm organizing myself, that's a lot of work, but it's good experience, and it sort of is inverting, again, that paradigm of having established people who already sort of know what what they're going to say. Be you know, their notes have been formed by 2030, years in their careers. Instead having the students bring the panel topics, bring the questions they're asking, and in a way, they're going to put some of the practitioners on the hot seat, because they're going to come at them with things that they haven't thought of before, or new approaches to looking at ideas. So I'm very hopeful I'm going to be working with that student from FSP and I think that this is something that hopefully gains attention from our colleagues across the state of Florida, academic institutions here, and then ultimately, because of the topic cybersecurity, pulls in and attracts attention from cybersecurity practitioners.

Jim Cardoso: 30:38

Yeah, there's a lot there. It's in, yeah, I think that with the the student, the student focused conference, it that could be a point of interest for other students as well. So other students at the campus, they go, Wait, there's there's you. I know Joey. Joey putting this thing on, Joey to be the moderator. I'll go see, if nothing else, I'll they may go there just to see him make a fool of himself. But any it doesn't matter. They're there and they're learning, and maybe they're understanding some of these national security issues that that it's very valuable for them. That's right. Nah, that's fantastic. So going backwards. So you guys, so you guys got a chance, you know, you didn't know what's coming, but now you got a chance to listen to Jeff's finance are actually on the spots. And now you should even be better, because you got to think about it. Tad all this stuff going on in tad world these days. What is, what's the one thing that you're really looking forward to?

Tad Schnaufer: 31:25

Well, I'm gonna pivot slightly to wrap up a comment you guys made earlier about what GNSI brings, not to the students, but as well as all the other people that we bring in for our conferences and events. And that's the thing that I'm most excited about, is the networking opportunities and the people to get so many individuals with different backgrounds. You have former ambassadors in a room with in a room with sometimes current ambassadors, current military officers, students that are undergrad and graduate. And then we have our, you know, fellows in the room as well. Some of them are active duty colonels. Some of them are from other countries. And so to be able to pull those individuals together at all of our different conferences and event is just such an amazing experience. And it's just great to be able to have all of them in the same room, and again, to have that background of academia, military, government, whether they're from the State Department or USA ID, as well as having the students. I mean, it's just an amazing networking opportunity. And to see the career field, I know what we talked about taking the hard road in if it's being able to jump a lot of rungs in a ladder, just because you understand the system a little bit more, because you can talk to someone from the, you know, the Department of State, or talk to a foreign ambassador, but, like, how did you get there? Like, what's that look like? It's such an amazing opportunity. So, but of all the events, for me personally, obviously, having studied a lot and followed closely the Russia, Ukraine, where I'll be looking at March, and really hoping to get an amazing report out of that as we get our speakers to contribute to our publications there. Yeah,

Jim Cardoso: 32:48

I think that's come along at that that conference is in real good shape right now. That'll be a two day event and and I agree, and I think that again, with your your experience, your background, your your your insight and your in your research, but also not just what's going on in Russia and Ukraine, but then thinking about, what's that going to affect future conflicts? How could that affect a future conflict between US and China? How could it affect a future conflict maybe in the Middle East, where some of these things look everybody's seeing these lessons learned. Everybody's seen how drones are being used. Everybody's seeing how misinformation, disinformation is being used, and so you know how, how these lessons impact these different conflict areas, maybe even in Sub Saharan Africa, which is getting more and more unstable, or conflict that's going on right now between China and Philippines, how these can affect that'll be very interesting. I agree. Dave with you. Over to you to wrap us up, what are you looking forward to? All the different things going on that is really exciting to you.

Dave Oakley: 33:46

Yeah, you know, of course, I'm excited about the professional military education Fellowship, which has

Jim Cardoso: 33:51

been explained. We all know what that is for that PME, okay,

Dave Oakley: 33:56

yeah, that's it, the PME fellowship and the one year masters, I mean, the opportunity for practitioners to come USF and intellectually grow. I'm excited about with that said, you know, I'm seeing that we're getting close to fruition with that. And so there's one thing that I'm particularly excited about, and it's because it's kind of tied to something that both Jeff and Tad said and I would describe as possibilities, and that's the strategy competition, undergraduate strategy competition, because I think that that will provide the opportunity to really grow the the future practitioner programs, while also building it out and connecting with other universities, not just in the state of Florida, but elsewhere. And so I'm excited about the possibilities of what that could produce for USF students and other students interested in national security careers.

Jim Cardoso: 34:53

So to quote, miles Finch from the movie Elf that's here, yes, moment, right there. Huh? Yeah. Come on, Christmas season just passed. Somebody in this room, or somebody listening within the sound of my voice must have watched elf over the Christmas season. Yes, that's my Oh, yeah, you're killing me. Come on, man, give me a bone here. So now that that will be, you know that that will be neat, because there's so much untapped potential with that we were, you know, we had a meeting today where talk about some maybe future evolutions of where that could go, and how we could link that in with some other kind of even athletic competitions that are going on at USF, and how the the ROTC units Interplay as well, and how these can all mix together into these, these, these larger scale events where, you know, really, you can have this ongoing, you know, competition in different areas of both, you know, athletics, national security, thinking, policy, I don't know there's just a lot there. Again, it sounds like I'm railing. I am a little bit. But I mean, there's just a lot there that we're going to mine in the months and years at months and years. Ed,

Dave Oakley: 36:03

yeah, I know it's very exciting, and I have to get credit with credit. Dude, the creator of the Army War College strategy competition, Tino Perez, is a non resident Senior Fellow here, and he has been very involved in mentoring and kind of helping us think about this for the undergraduate, yeah and

Jim Cardoso: 36:24

yeah, and he's, he's been helpful. He's a he is one of our fellows, right? He is one of our non residential Senior Fellow. So any I know, he has been very, very helpful and very forward leaning and helping us, you know, bringing his, his his background, in that to continue to develop our program. So shout out to Tino Perez, appreciate that any final thoughts from anybody at the table as we close out this podcast about their programs or about anything that's that you're looking forward to or hearing about in 2025 you

Tad Schnaufer: 36:52

know, actually, I got a story. We can cut this if you want, but I remember speaking of some of our speakers coming in. You mentioned John Kirby coming in, and I remember the first time I saw him speaking was, I was deployed to Ukraine right before the Russian invasion happened. And we were literally watching John Kirby speak, you know, pretty much every day, he was giving an update on the Ukrainian situation, the Russian buildup, how they were storing, how they were storing blood, how there was all these indications that this could be an actual invasion. And I was sitting, I was with the Florida Army National Guard at the time, and we were in Ukraine training Ukrainians. Like, man, this is getting kind of intense. And it was every day. I was like, I was John. He's talking about us. Yeah, exactly. Like, okay, this unit is in Ukraine currently. He's like, Wait, that's us. Like, it's like, this is, you know, so watching him talk about the actual events going on, and then following him he because he's been with the administration now for the last few years, is very, very interesting to see what he has to say after with the one the turn of administrations and him being able to talk to us in March.

Jim Cardoso: 37:48

Yeah, no doubt, man on the inside. But I you know, nobody knows exactly what he's going to be doing on january 21 but is the way of most presidential administrations, probably he won't be in his current position, but, but we'll see. But the exciting thing about him, too is obviously as that experience and but he's a USF guy, and so I think that he's looking forward to coming down. He's looking forward to and I think in the future, that he's going to be more engaged with GNSI activities, as well as a USF grad, seeing what GNSI is doing, growing that. And I think that can also impact what we do with our students as well. Get somebody like him with his background experience, he can interface with the students as well, because he kind of combines national security and sort of communications ability as well and Public Affairs. And there's probably some that are interested in being in that world. Any any other final thoughts?

Dave Oakley: 38:36

Yeah, I think your final thought, for me would be for the audience. And you know, one of the the energy that you're hearing about, the different you know, whether it's the students, the events that's developing, and the momentum, a lot of it's because of the collaboration we've done. And so you know, if you're listening to this podcast, you're probably interested in national security, interested in USF, there's something that drew you in. And so I would encourage listeners, whether you're a student, a community member, whoever you are, to reach out to us like a ways to to engage, you know, you know your time, talent, treasure, to help further GNSI mission and then benefit students and the practitioner.

Jim Cardoso: 39:11

No pressure Jeff, but if you have anything, now's the time. But if you don't, that's fine too. How

Jeff Rogg: 39:17

can I atop that? Dave? Dave Oakley is my boss.

Jim Cardoso: 39:22

Note to self, let it go. Let Dave have the last word. Got it so that wraps this up. I want to thank Dave Oakley, Ted schnaufer and Jeff frog for this look ahead to an exciting 2025 and for overall, making sure the trains run on time around here next week, on at the boundary, we're going to we're going to go to the far side of the world to check in on the deteriorating situation in the South China Sea between China and the Philippines. Our special guests will be Ray Powell and Jim Caruso, host of the YouTube podcast. Why should we care about the Indo Pacific, that region is becoming more confrontational, turbulent every day. I'm looking forward to that conversation, and I hope. Hope you'll join us. Thanks for listening today. If you like the podcast, please share with your colleagues and network. You can follow GNSI on our LinkedIn and X accounts at USF underscore GNSI, and check out our website as well, at usf.edu/gnsi where you can also subscribe to our monthly newsletter. You Jim. That's going to wrap up this episode of at the boundary. Each new episode will feature global and national security issues we found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall, just worth talking about. I'm Jim Cardoso, and we'll see you throughout 2025 at the boundary you.