The Coalition You’ve Never Heard Of—But Can’t Afford to Ignore

In this Memorial Day edition of At the Boundary, host Jim Cardoso sits down with Colonel Allan Peterson, the Danish senior national representative to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and the new chairman of its 35-nation military coalition. Based in Tampa, Florida, this enduring coalition was born out of the post-9/11 fight against terrorism—but its mission has since evolved dramatically.

Colonel Peterson offers a rare insider’s look at how partner nations are collaborating on today’s most pressing security challenges, from freedom of navigation in the Red Sea to the uncertain futures of Iraq and Syria. As global attention shifts to the Indo-Pacific and Ukraine, why does the Middle East still demand a dedicated multinational presence? And what makes this coalition, quietly operating inside MacDill Air Force Base, such a strategic asset?

If you're interested in defense policy, military coalitions, or U.S. foreign relations in the Middle East, this episode delivers timely insight into a vital—but often overlooked—pillar of American national security strategy. 

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

EP 82 The Coalition You’ve Never Heard Of—But Can’t Afford to Ignore

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

Memorial Day, US armed forces, CENTCOM coalition, Colonel Alan Peterson, military personnel, Axis of Resistance, Iran, Afghanistan, intelligence studies, freedom of navigation, Red Sea, Houthis, US foreign policy, Tampa, GNSI.

SPEAKERS

Jim Cardoso, Col. Allan Pedersen

Jim Cardoso  00:12

Jim, hello everyone. Welcome to this Memorial Day episode 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 from our entire team at GNSI. While we hope you're enjoying the last day of this three day weekend, please take a moment or two to remember why we celebrate this holiday, to remember and honor all our military personnel who've made the ultimate sacrifice while serving in the US armed forces. The origins of Memorial Day date back to the American Civil War with the first national day of observance in 1868 when it was originally called Decoration Day, as 1000s of Americans across the country decorated the graves of the Civil War soldiers. So while you're enjoying time off with friends and family, and you should treasure that time, take a moment to reflect on those heroes who gave their lives for this sometimes imperfect but always precious American democracy. With that in mind, I'll truncate our what's happening in GNSI part of the podcast, a bit. I do want to highlight an excellent virtual discussion on our YouTube channel, led by GNSI Research Fellow, Dr Armon mahmoudian, as part two of our Axis of Resistance Research Initiative. Focus of that discussion is Iran's leading role in the axis, and he's joined by Alan ayer, the State Department's first ever Persian speaking spokesperson, Dr Sanam bukhle of Chatham House and Dr Sina Zadie from George Washington's Elliott School of International Affairs. Also draw your attention to our latest genocide decision brief, written by non resident fellow, Dr Jonathan schroeden, Chief Research Officer at the Center for naval analysis, and former Research Director for the Afghanistan war commission. His analysis is titled policy options for securing US interests in Afghanistan. You can find it under the publications tab on our website. Today, on the podcast, we're going to provide a unique glimpse into US central command here in Tampa, focusing on the CENTCOM coalition. Our guest today is Colonel Alan Peterson from Denmark, the Danish senior national representative to the coalition and its new chairman. The CENTCOM coalition represents 37 partner nations, bringing senior representatives from around the world to Tampa. It formed following the 911 attacks, specifically to fight terrorism, but now encompasses a wider range of activities to promote peace and stability in the Middle East, Southwest Asia and beyond. All right. Well, Alan, welcome to the podcast. Thanks for coming. No

Allan Pedersen  03:04

thanks for having me. It's, it's an honor. Thank you. So first,

Jim Cardoso  03:08

you know, give us, give us a little background on yourself. You know your military career and and kind of what brought you to CENTCOM in Tampa. Sure,

Col. Allan Pedersen  03:14

I'm a colonel in the Danish army. I've been in the Danish armed forces for like, 33 years, maybe a bit on unconventional way of start, as I was a conscript and I was private for two or three years before going through the NCO school and eventually the officers Academy. So once I was through the officers Academy. It was like a basic Army career up until now, with the, you know, deployments to, in our case, to Bosnia, Croatia, even Afghanistan twice. And I guess that the two latest positions before coming to the States as the I was the acres j2 at the Danish joint command. And after that, I was the I was at NATO headquarters, at the Danish representation, and also working with the European Union. And those two positions sort of formed this job, actually, and it make me just to fit right into it. So when, when they needed any replacement for for being the Danish senior national representative at CENTCOM, it was kind of natural for me to apply for it. In our army, we have to apply for positions. So I applied for this position. And yeah, like I said, it was a perfect match all

Jim Cardoso  04:41

positions you need to apply for, just the should leave special duty type assignment, no,

Col. Allan Pedersen  04:45

in principle, all of them, really. And we'll have that system for, like, I don't know, seven, eight, no more, 10 years now, and now they are changing it back to sort of the old system where we are appointed positions. We can, of course, we can maybe make 123, wishes, and we'll see how it ends up. But we haven't been informed when it will take effect yet, but it'll be in one or two years.

Jim Cardoso  05:13

Okay, did you say you were the j2 Are you an intelligence background? Yeah, not.

Col. Allan Pedersen  05:17

You know, originally by, you know, immediately after the officers Academy, but at some point in my career, it switched into that one, yeah, okay.

Jim Cardoso  05:27

I mean, you know, as we because you're going to be here for, and we'll talk about it more, but you're going to be here in Tampa for, what, at least a couple more years. Yeah, our

Col. Allan Pedersen  05:35

deployment usually three years, and I've been here a year and a half now. So yeah, and we have in our system, we have the possibility of getting another year, if we wish, or and if you know the guys back home and you're

Jim Cardoso  05:49

doing okay, and they're okay, like anything else, you got to be doing the job well and, or if you but then again, if your home country wants you back, I guess they can. They can pull you back, right? And

Col. Allan Pedersen  06:00

you know, coming to the end of 26 I'll be, I'll have been out of Denmark for like, six years, and it's, you know, being away from your normal organization, it's kind of trigger as well, because nobody knows you by then. And you, you know, you have to be aware of that as well. Yeah,

Jim Cardoso  06:20

it's the same for the for the for the US military. I mean, it's good to have these joint combined jobs, somewhat unusual jobs, I guess. But if you're you get too far away from the home station, then they forget about you. For for future opportunities. It's interest here in Intel, because I think we do a lot at GNSI, actually, we've just kind of settled what our strategic areas of focus are going to be at GNSI, and one of them is going to be intelligence studies. So even beyond your role as the senior national rep to Denmark and as the chairman of the coalition, which we'll talk about, you know, maybe you could be involved in some of that as well, and some of our intelligence studies, we got a couple really excellent scholars on the team here doing that, yeah? Actually,

Col. Allan Pedersen  07:02

in Denmark, we have one of our universities. You can opt to major in intelligence and cyber. So it's, I guess it's a growing sort of thing, yeah, in the university, yeah, business or university, yeah. USF

Jim Cardoso  07:17

grown that as well. We have, you can get an in, you can get degrees in Intel. And you can also, now we're starting the the College of cybersecurity, cybersecurity, cybersecurity, artificial and artificial intelligence and computing. Yeah, those are the and so that college actually starts off this fall. So I would imagine, as their degree offerings start going out there, we may see some, maybe some people from the base looking to take some of their, their, you know, even their masters courses and things like that, don't see that. So I talked briefly about the coalition already, but, you know, for some people listen, and then they may not be familiar with this, this coalition thing. And so it could talk a little bit more about the the partner nation makeup, and kind of what the coalition does today.

Col. Allan Pedersen  08:00

Yeah, I don't know if you're aware, but the coalition actually started right after 911 911 yeah, as you know, Global Coalition to Counter and by then al Qaeda, and then it sort of, you know, developed and spread, I could say, into Iraq and ISIS as well. So when in I guess it was 2014 ish, the real fight against ISIS started. It sort of grew again. So it has been, you know, ups and downs for the coalition. It's been developing in one direction, going back to the original and, of course, yeah, even now it's a it's uncertain which way it will actually develop from now, but we can talk about that later, maybe. And also it to me when, when I got here and we started talking about the coalition, it occurred to me that we have to be careful about how we talk about a coalition and what we actually mean by the coalition, because behind all this, there's a global coalition against ISIS. That's like 85 countries, but that's sort of a political thing, whereas we at CENTCOM, we are more like the military part of that one. So it's in nature. It's smaller because some of the 85 countries have not decided to join the fight in Iraq and Syria, and some are even, you know, pulling out now due to other priorities. So so we have to be careful about which coalition we are talking about. But here at CENTCOM, we are talking about the military coalition, and the by now, 35 countries at CENTCOM, and then we have some dual headed national representatives that are also embedded or working with the US SOCOM.

Jim Cardoso  09:49

Yes, that's right. SOCOM does have a smaller, smaller number, much smaller coalition over there than CENTCOM has, as well, not as well developed either. Like you said, it's been gone now for what coming on 20. 425, years since 911,

Col. Allan Pedersen  10:02

but you know, to me, that's sort of signals the strength of it as well, and sort of how it adapts and develops over time. Because some of the main issues, the fight against terrorism, they haven't gone away. They're still there. So, yeah, but you're looking at other

Jim Cardoso  10:19

things too, right? I mean, I would, you know, obviously started with the fight against terrorism. That doesn't go away. But it would seem to me, it's not the sink as much as singular focus, though there's probably some other areas Exactly,

Col. Allan Pedersen  10:30

yeah, because when we work in the coalition, it's very easy to get this common ground with regard to the fight against ISIS, but they when we have an area of responsibility like the one at CENTCOM, you have individual countries seeking bilateral agreements or bilateral cooperation, either with the US or even amongst themselves, on specific topics. Yeah. So we this, yeah, both last year and this year, we have had this situation about the Red Sea and the Houthis, which was not, you know, back when it started, it wasn't a terrorist organization. But then it sort of there was a small coalition within the coalition, or community of interest, whatever you'd like to call it. So it sort of morphs into different directions depending on the actual problem at hand. And you know, who is actually going to participate, who has the political will to participate in a certain operation, or whatever it sort of materializes. Yeah,

Jim Cardoso  11:36

it really, if you think of it, there really is something that it's lasted this long. I mean, that countries, for years now, have sent senior national representatives over here. I mean, you say, you know, 30 some odd countries now, but maybe a little smaller when it's at its heyday. But still, that's, that's still really something, that there's still that level of support and understanding that this is, this is good for our nation's, you know, military strategy overall. Yeah,

Col. Allan Pedersen  12:00

I'm, you know, sometimes I'm not sure if it's, you know, it's a because of the region that will be constantly

Jim Cardoso  12:06

a place to be fair enough. So if we were someplace else, you know, maybe it would be different. But that, look, that's okay, though. I mean, it's, I think that's something. And one of the reasons I was excited to have you on the podcast is to let the Tampa area know that this exists, that this incredible resource of partner nation officers exist right here. And I think you and I have spoken before, it's something we would like to let more people know about. And really, you know, leverage all the possibilities with it.

Col. Allan Pedersen  12:35

You know, fortunately, we have, each week we brief the new Jonas at CENTCOM about the same thing. So yeah, say we are trying to promote the coalition as well, because it's a huge source of information, detailed information about the countries from the region, but also coming from from a European country. Myself, if you know they need anything or need information about this, how we see the world, or how we see a specific situation, we are huge source of information, and all they need is to sort of reach out for us to ask, yeah, but, but sometimes even, you know, there's like, three, 500 yards between the buildings.

Jim Cardoso  13:17

This is a moat, and there's, you know, it's sharks in the boat between you and and all that that's, yeah, I can, you know, when they Yeah, when they have you I know where that building is, and there's this, I can see how there could be a separation that could kind of just sort of come into being. And it's, it's, it's a shame, but look, I think it's still, I think it's still success story that has existed for so continue to do this now. I mean, you talk about, you know, foreign nations, you know, and some of their points of view on things you know, current US, foreign policy right now can be best described as dynamic, okay, I mean, it's what, where, what's the unique value of the coalition at a time of this significant change with the US, and especially some of the Us, you know, relationships with some of our longtime allies and partners, and there's some changes going on there. Yeah,

Col. Allan Pedersen  14:05

yeah. It is, as you say, it is challenging for us, mostly because of the uncertainty about the future US policy on, you know, the different countries within the region, or on different sort of topics that come up. But, and this is something I've experienced during my deployments as well, that we as soldiers, we tend to sort of be at eye level, so we focus on the military parts of it, military to military relations. And when we do that, and we are honest with it, with each other about what we know and what we don't know. We can all understand that. So it's, to me, it's, it's actually quite easy to explain. You know, when people back home, they ask me about what's going on and what, what direction are you going through in next or what's going to happen in Iraq? I say, Well, I. Explain the American process for them so and even with, you know, within the coalition and the community, we even, you know, we come from different countries, and we come from different cultures on this topic about the military to military relations, we all agree, and we can all understand being sort of, I don't mean it that harsh, but the puppets of our political masters, so, so we get that, yeah. And then once that, you know, it's put aside, we move on, yeah? And we sort of go into the details about what we can actually coordinate and how we can actually cooperate, yeah.

Jim Cardoso  15:39

I mean, that's, you know, I I'm not in the coalition, but I've, you know, I was deployed, I've worked downrange with foreign partner nations when I was in the Air Force. And it was the same way then, too. I mean, your individual nations have their individual interest and their individual strategy and their orders, and you know, you have to align with the, you know, the highest level of orders and intent of the senior leadership at the same time. There's always ways that, you know, okay, now you're on the ground, okay, we have some there's some type of mission, some type of objective we're seeking to obtain. And how do we okay, how do we do that? And like you said, military folks just tend to get to the go. How do we solve the problem? Doesn't really matter. We're from. How do we solve the problem?

Col. Allan Pedersen  16:16

Yeah, I think it's a military mindset, yep, just solving problems. That's what we do.

Jim Cardoso  16:22

You know, the coalition, it supports primarily issues within CENTCOM. I understand that. But do coalition members participate outside of CENTCOM? Are they doing things external to CENTCOM, or working with other national security areas within the United States, in the local area, or just nationally, or is it pretty much focused solely inside CENTCOM?

Col. Allan Pedersen  16:43

It's not focused solely inside CENTCOM. And there's no easy answer to your question, because every country is different. So some countries, they have a lot of industrial cooperation as well taking care of their own industrial or own companies supplying the American defense industry. Perhaps we have a lot of some of the European countries, the Spanish, for instance, they have a large Spanish community here within Florida. So they have national obligations as well, going as the national representative to, yeah, you know, different events and so on. And some of them, like I said before, are dual headed, so they also sort of cover the US SOCOM. And it's basically, it's a different story for each country,

Jim Cardoso  17:39

yeah? So, yeah, no, that makes sense. I mean, you know, there's going to be some shared objectives, but each each nation has their national interest, okay? And there's different things that are important to them, like you said, the different areas. I mean, from a US, you know, we use the diamond, diplomatic, information, military, economic, and I think that's fairly universal. And different I guess, priorities along that dime spectrum, and

Col. Allan Pedersen  18:04

even, you know, amongst all the senior representatives, it's different who they actually relate to in their home countries. So for my instance, I relate to the Joint Staff. Some relate to the ministries of defense. And, you know, it differs some even, you know, have to inform the Ministry of Foreign Affairs about something, yeah. So, yeah, it's, it's really a mix of everything

Jim Cardoso  18:30

well. And you know, there's, you said 30 I thought there was 37 countries in the maybe 30 is that with the dual hatters, there's 37 total nations, or is it 35 was 37 Yeah, 35 now. Okay, 35 now. So, okay, so 35 different nations, 35 different national senior national representatives. That means there's 3035 different national interests at play there. But have you seen in your time there, the year, year and a half, you've been there already, and now, as you're coming in this new position, do you see that the the coalition maybe tracking towards there's one or two big issues that a large portion of the coalition, or all of it, is, sort of all tracking together in any way.

Col. Allan Pedersen  19:13

If, if the countries of the coalition are tracking one single thing, it would be the fight against ISIS. That's sort of the one that's the common denominator. Well,

Jim Cardoso  19:24

no, that's kind of generate, that's the generation of exception to begin with.

Col. Allan Pedersen  19:27

But like I said in the beginning, we also had a point where, you know, both the Iraqi Government want to sort of decide more in their own country, and we sort of let both Iraq and maybe, maybe now Syria as well, conduct the fight against ISIS themselves. So maybe it's, you know, the time to step back a bit and sort of just mentor or let them do the fighting. And that means that, from a coalition perspective, the next few years. Will be interesting, because we don't know which direction it will go in and what, but I'm pretty sure the coalition will be here. But how they will sort of how it will develop from now on, it's it's going to be interesting.

Jim Cardoso  20:14

Yeah, that was, and actually that was sort of, my next question is, how you know the coalition evolved from a fairly singular focus on counter terrorism, which is still important, but doing some other things as well. If you were again, we're not going to hold you to this forever. But if you were to look into the future, where do you where do you see the coalition? Maybe going

Col. Allan Pedersen  20:35

well. First of all, I don't think that any of the conflicts within the Middle East will be resolved, very true. So yeah, to some extent. And you know, even last year with the Red Sea, we needed sort of a new focus, or refocus on that problem set just within the headline of freedom of navigation. So, and that has nothing to do with terrorists. It was only later that the Houthis were sort of designated a terror, terrorist group. So I'm pretty sure there will be some, some kind of problems coming up and some disappearing as well. It'll be hard for me to say, well, there'll be a coalition supporting the situation in and around Israel, there will be a coalition focusing on Iran. Because I, you know that's, that's, yeah, well, yeah, too much to it. There's a lot to go to look into the future, but it, seems to me that the, you know, the consists of both the Middle East and Central Asia. It seems that everything is sort of, you know, focusing on the Middle East now. So that would probably be what's going to happen in the future as well. And nobody, really, nobody knows what's going to happen in Syria tomorrow. If, if the President will stay in power, or how it will develop. Hopefully it will be a calming effect, and hopefully they will come about having their own country in a good place. But yeah, we really don't know, yeah. So a lot of the countries are just waiting, at the moment, waiting to see what's actually going to happen

Jim Cardoso  22:21

Yeah, it's funny. You keep saying hopefully, in the old military saying hope is not a plan, but at the same time, it is such a dynamic area. I mean, like you talk about the Houthis, you know, three years ago, nobody would have really seen that one coming Syria. I mean, very few people saw that coming, just almost overnight. Bucha, you know Bucha, you know, you know, Assad went from seemingly being invincible to gone. You know the Israel and Gaza and that whole area where that's going to develop into everything. You know, seeing Lebanese Hezbollah being not dismantled, but defanged quite a bit, I don't think really. I mean, in the last few years have been, I mean, just really, on your time you've been here for 18 months, and your time here, it's been astoundingly dynamic. And how many, how much things have changed. So it's like the US, for example, at the US has national strategy seems to be focused more on the Indo Pacific and China, which is a threat. But you know, the Middle East remains extraordinarily unstable, and who knows what the future holds over the rest of your time here and even beyond that,

Col. Allan Pedersen  23:36

yeah, I think one of the key elements will be freedom of navigation. To be honest, most of the European countries, at this moment, they're focusing on supporting Ukraine and rebuilding their own defense forces, and at the same time trying to sort of keep the fires down everywhere that's not needed, and to be honest, also supporting the US in the Indo Pacific, but the Middle East is right in between. And if we were to sort of move troops to the Indo Pacific area, we have to go through this area, yeah. Or we could, of course, go south of Africa. But, you know, it's a very long journey. It's,

Jim Cardoso  24:19

yeah, it's a tough journey. So

Col. Allan Pedersen  24:21

and on the you know, being the Masters, or being at the will of our masters, the political masters, most of the time it's economy that's driving all the needs. But this crisis with the Houthis, I think it's showed that the economic system, whether it's more container ships going around Africa. They will adapt. The consumers, they will adapt. They'll pay a little bit more for their goods. So it's not, it's not really about, you know, the economic situation. It's more about adhering to the international based rule, or world law. World, yeah, and upholding the freedom of navigation, a single

Jim Cardoso  25:03

nation cannot hold the rest of the world hostage by, you know, claiming a level of ownership, or or whatever you want to call it, over the Red Sea that area. I mean, that's still, yeah, you're right. I mean, people, we can adapt and go around the horn of Africa, but it is a much longer journey. It's going to add some costs. And, you know, I know that from a US perspective, they're looking very hard. And then there's been some kind of an uptick in activity as well against the Houthis where that's going to lead to, you know, nobody really knows at this time, but, but, yeah, it's, it's something that it is part of the natural border you're supposed to have freedom of navigation in certain areas, and that is being hindered right now, and eventually that's going to have to be settled out one way or the other, I guess. Yeah,

Col. Allan Pedersen  25:53

if they keep shooting, are they stuff? Yeah, some, some people tell you, it's only a small pause and they will Rearm, regroup. But nobody knows at this point. Well,

Jim Cardoso  26:03

we have one area of research going right now. It's on the Axis of Resistance. And so in the axis, you know, it's, it starts with Iran, and then it moves out from there. But the Houthis are one of those countries along the axis. So it'll be, I think it's going to be interesting to see as that that research campaign moves forward and what happens over the next few months, and how? Because Iran had a bad year last year, had a terrible year last year. But that doesn't mean they've given up on their on their desires to you know, not only you know, hold their their regime in place, but also, you know, expel Western powers out of the Middle East and claim a level of hegemony over it. Does that mean re empowering the Houthis going forward? So long term, they can keep doing that. I guess we'll see. That's what that's what makes your job so interesting,

26:58

right? We've used two good words now, hopeful and interesting,

Jim Cardoso  27:00

yes, yeah, and dynamic. It's very dynamic. Yeah, there's, you pick those words carefully so you took over as a chair. What just, just a couple months ago, right? Yeah, by first of March. Excellent. Yeah. Well, congratulations for that, but thank you very much. How does that work? Do you do you volunteer? Is there a vote? I actually don't know how you are, like, to become the chairman of the government.

Col. Allan Pedersen  27:22

Is this an election? It's a, you know, I'm elected by all the other seniors. But having said that, you know, there's always some dynamic in that as well, because some are leaving, some just arrived. So when you narrow it down, it's probably going to be a smaller number of countries that would like to be eligible, and and then we go through a process of, you know, nominating candidates. And finally, in this case, there wasn't an actual vote, but nobody wanted to sort of stand up, other than me. Nobody

Jim Cardoso  28:01

else wanted it basically, is that what you're saying? Oh, I don't think it like that. But, yeah, it's a little bit extra work, I guess for you, obviously a little

Col. Allan Pedersen  28:09

bit, but it's interesting as well. Yeah, you know, I get to come here and talk to you. I get to go to a lot of interesting places in Tampa. We talked about the interaction with the community. That's a huge to me. It's quite interesting or surprising even how big the interest is for the military here in Tampa. So you have a lot of small communities that will invite both the international community, but also the people on base to different activities and support, actually, the troops and support the coalition. Yeah, really good. It is good to

Jim Cardoso  28:49

see that in Tampa, because sometimes when you have a larger metropolitan area like Tampa, is they don't care. It's not as much a care. Smaller communities do, because I understand to a certain extent, the military base really supports their town, but a larger community, not so much. But I do think that there's an appreciation for what MacDill brings, and also the fact there's not just one, but two large combat and command headquarters on MacDill that are doing, you know, that are doing amazing work, that are overseeing amazing work happening all over the world, right here, from Tampa. And I think when people understand that. They go, that's, that's, that's pretty neat.

Col. Allan Pedersen  29:22

Yeah, we also have to acknowledge that the coalition has been, like we talked about, for almost 25 years. So it's, it's probably, it's made a huge footprint in Tampa as well. Oh, yeah, throughout the years. Yeah,

Jim Cardoso  29:34

yeah. Um, so in your time, you've got, what, maybe you're a year and a half couple years doing this, any do you have any key objectives or any things that like in your mind that you'd like to when you leave here that you'd like to have gotten done?

Col. Allan Pedersen  29:48

Well, first of all, I'd like to be known as the one that didn't end the coalition,

Jim Cardoso  29:55

but you may not have too much control

Col. Allan Pedersen  29:58

over so no. Yeah, that's fair enough. Bill, no, I've been trying to sort of advocate that the this being within a coalition, it's working against a common goal, but it is also taking care of your own national priorities and sort of getting along and and to me, this working together is really the essence, because if we don't have, like, the openness or the willingness to talk to each other even in this place, then it's not going to work even out, you know, in the real world as well, or anywhere else. So to me, it's really putting a sort of a footprint with regard to cooperation, because we can at the coalition village, we can go each or every one of us can go into our offices, and we can stay there the entire day and come out in the evening and say, Well, it's good day, but that, you know, that's not how it should be working? Yeah? No. We should be open. We should be sort of having all the offices open so we can consult with each other and talk to each other. So this mindset, I felt it when I got here as well, all almost like everybody's expecting you to know everything from the beginning, and you, sort of, you walk around the aisles, yeah, look at the closed doors and say, Oh, good. I wonder what's happening, what's happening behind those doors? Yeah, so, so being, you know, just opening up doors even, yeah,

Jim Cardoso  31:31

now it's, I mean, I mean, what it's like? What's the point of the coalition if everybody's just doing their own thing? But there's challenges in company with that as well. I can, I can understand that I, I came out. You know, your your predecessor, Eric Andreessen, he invited me out to speak about GNSI early days, and we've talked about, I like to come back out again, because now we developed a bit more. Now we're doing more things that I think the coalition members would be interested in being a part of. So indeed, hopefully we can, we can. Hopefully I can return the favor. As you've come out to visit us, I can come out to visit you, maybe a couple members of our team to the coalition. Any as we wrap up the podcast, any final thoughts that you'd like to discuss, or any any things that we didn't discuss that you'd like to hit on before we before we wrap it up?

Col. Allan Pedersen  32:21

No, it was just like putting, you know, the two things on front of my head is that we, as a coalition, we have this common goal that we work towards. But the, you know, in order to get to that point, it's not just a matter of minding your own business, because we can all focus 100% of our own and trying to get the like 100% best solution for ourselves. But that might not be, you know, the best solution for the coalition. So going forward, that's one of the main points as well, sort of making sure that if we are to work together, everybody has to sort of adapt to each other. Is this, it isn't just a matter of, you know, I know what you are planning to do and I know what I'm planning to do myself. So we try to not step in in front of each other. But it's also making more of it. So it's more like, you know, two and two gets to five, because we will actually interact and, of course, meet our own expectations, our own targets as well. But being able to get more of it, more of the same effort that we were going to, you know, going to do anyway, yeah,

Jim Cardoso  33:39

you know, I think it's that's why I wanted to do this podcast. First of all, just, you know when to have you over here. We met before. Want to continue the conversation, but also just to let you know people know as well that this thing exists in Tampa, and to highlight it. And hopefully, you know, we can, in GNSI, we can do our part to help you get to where you want to get to go, to provide opportunities to engage to, you know, work together. We it's not the same, but we do the same sort of thing that we do across the university and bringing people together. And sometimes it's easy to go into your offices, into your spaces, but what's the point? You really don't accomplish anything if you do that. And so if you do come together with like minded but different. You know, people different dreams and goals and interests that. But if you can work together towards, you know, one single, common goal, that a lot can happen. It's hard sometimes it's really hard sometimes, but it's worthwhile. In the end, that's something we're doing as well. So maybe we have more in common than I thought. Maybe colonel, Alan Peterson, thank you so much for coming today. I really appreciate it. You're welcome. Many thanks today to Colonel Alan Peterson from Denmark, the Danish senior national representative to the US Central Command coalition here in Tampa. And its new chairman, he gave us an insider's look at the CENTCOM Coalition, which plays a vital role at the command and across 37 partner nations. I hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as we did. Next week on at the boundary, we'll turn the mic over to GNSI nonresident fellow, Dr Andrew whiskeyman. We'll chat with Milo McBride, research fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the two of them will reignite our conversation about critical minerals and resources, specifically the geopolitics surrounding energy technologies and how the near future will be shaped by the global competition for these resources. We appreciate you listening today. Be sure to tell your friends and colleagues to subscribe, and if you have an idea for something we ought to cover on the future podcast, we'd love to hear from you. There's a link in the show notes to get in touch with us. Also be sure to follow GNSI on our socials. There's a lot of great work going on right now at GNSI, books, decision briefs and research articles, the Axis of Resistance, research initiative, and the best way to keep up with everything is to follow us on LinkedIn, X and YouTube. 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, maybe controversial, but overall, just worth talking about. We'll close out today with one final reminder to remember and honor all those Americans who've served the United States Armed Forces and have given their lives for our nation. I'm Jim Cardoso, and we'll see you at the boundary. You.