Shock, Stress & Innovation Reinventing Global Resilience for the Information and Knowledge Age

The National Defense University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS), the Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes (PfP-

This Roundtable Workshop will serve as the primary planning meeting for a 300-person event to be held at the National Defense University on 2-3 November 2017 entitled, “The Global Resilience Readiness Symposium.” All participants of the interactive Roundtable Workshop in May will also be invited to participate in the fall Symposium.

• 
  Humankind is moving quickly towards a knowledge-based Smart Society in which the networking and cross-fertilization of ideas through an innovative education and training development hub can foster smart collaboration. To this end the concept of Integrated Learning will play a major role.
  
• 
  At a time when more people have access to knowledge and highly sophisticated technologies than ever, vulnerabilities and threats have grown, stress and shock have become permanent companions, resilience has become an on-going concern, thus requiring constant adaptation and innovation. Aiming at the ability to withstand natural and man-made stresses and shocks, creating conditions for resilience can foster greater adaptability and innovation, and enhance decentralized, self-organized and emergent, adaptive behaviour.
  
• 
  Altogether, this will constitute a dynamic approach to the discovery and co-development of new Internet-based knowledge capabilities that can help build trust and collaboration, effectively empower readiness through enhanced resilience, connect generations, and cultivate a wide array of new global partnerships. Promoting greater resilience toward complex emergencies and shared global threats posed to the environment, human security (including health), maritime and cyber security, and energy security, as well as challenges posed by terrorism and hybrid warfare require our utmost attention.
  
• 
  In response, the inaugural 17-18 September 2015 launch of Global Knowledge Networking (GKN) co-convened by the U.N. Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) and the Global Challenges Forum led to the Geneva Declaration, which established a “Global Resilience Readiness Initiative.”
  
• 
  NATO’s Heads of State and Government have underlined at their Warsaw Summit, 8-9 July 2016 their commitment “… to enhance resilience, i.e. to maintain and further develop the Alliance members individual and collective capacity to resist any form of armed attack. In this context, we are today making a commitment to continue to enhance our resilience against the full spectrum of threats, including hybrid threats, from any direction. Resilience is an essential basis for credible deterrence and defence and effective fulfilment of the Alliance’s core tasks.”¹
  
• 
  In support of this NATO Summit commitment, Headquarters Supreme Allied Command Transformation (HQ SACT) will hold in Norfolk, Virginia on 2-4 May 2017 a major conference, entitled “Interdependency in Resilience” with the aim of bringing better visibility of interdependencies between military, civil and private sectors and identify existing issues in the field of civil-military resilience.
  
• 
  The Roundtable Workshop identifed below will take place at the National Defense University two weeks immediately following the NATO SACT Conference. It will be carried out in an informal manner to maximize discussion through a facilitated, design-inquiry approach, seeking to incorporate the benefits and insights achieved at the Norfolk SACT conference, as part of the preparation for the November Symposium.
  
• 
  The 15-16 May Roundtable Workshop brings together practitioners from disparate fields to generate new ideas on how to build partnerships through shared consciousness leading to empowered execution. To this end, it invites professionals/experts of diverse disciplines to contribute to a collaborative production where all parties profit; a program that will not stop when dinner is served.
  

07.00 – 09.00 Breakfast and Registration

09.00 – 09.30 Welcome

Dr. Richard Hooker, Director, NDU Institute for National Strategic Studies

Mr. Frederic LaBarre, Partnership for Peace Consortium, Garmisch-Partenkirchen

09.30 – 10:00 KEYNOTE:

RADM Pete Gumataotao (USN), Deputy Chief of Staff for Strategic Plans and Policy, Headquarters, Supreme Allied Commander for Transformation

Introduced by Dr. Walter Christman, Chairman, Global Challenges Forum
10.00 – 11.30 DISCUSSION GROUP 1:
Reinventing Resilience – What`s new? What to provide? What to expect?
Moderator: Dr. Walter Christman
Discussants: Mr. Sam Carter, Rockefeller Foundation

Mr. Dick O’Neill, Highlands Forum

Mr. Jan Boyer, SOFRA Advisory

Dr. Stephen Flynn, Center for Global Resilience Institute, Northeastern Univ.

MG (Ret.) Mohammed Farghal, Jordan National Defense College
Against the background of striking natural disasters and increasingly complex hybrid challenges to security and prosperity, preparing for an uncertain future means understanding the risks and being vigilant for the unexpected. To this end not only governments and international organisations, industry and the military need to strengthen ties to support each other during times of need, but more than that: resilience builds on the involvement of all stakeholders to include individual actors.

11.30 – 12.00 Coffee Break

12.00 – 13.00 PARTICIPANT INTERACTIVE DISCUSSION

Moderator: NDU Facilitator

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch

14.00 – 16.30 DISCUSSION GROUP 2:
A Comprehensive approach – Connect & Prepare; Partner & Innovate; Transform & Create Synergies
Moderator: Dr. Alex Crowther, NDU INSS

Discussants: Mr. Serge DaDeppo, Director, NATO ACT Innovation Hub Mr. Ben Zweibelson, Director JSOU Design Program

Mr. Peter Schechter, US Atlantic Council

Dr. Tomas Reis, Swedish National Defense College Mr. Evariste Karambezi, UN Institute for Training and Research

Enhancing resilience has become a strategic task. To this end a resilience strategy needs to be developed that takes a comprehensive approach towards military and civil/societal needs. Three key elements will likely instruct the intended strategy deliveries focusing to design appropriate action in building adequate resilience readiness.

• 
  Connect & Prepare – Networking relevant actors and capabilities is at the core of the UN and NATO`s network enabling capabilities.
  
• 
  Partner & Innovate – Resilience requires to capitalize on the collective problem solving capacity in organizations, nations, and societies, clearly not only within identified sectors, but rather cross sectoral, employing the creativity of involved actors thus leveraging advances in information and knowledge, research and observations to address emerging resilience challenges.
  
• 
  Transform & Integrate – resilience needs to be embedded into security and prosperity (related) operations and systems by transforming the approach to societal, industrial and military resilience.
  

19:30 Dinner at …TBD with Keynote – Dr. Linton Wells, former CIO of the US Defense Department and Principal, Global Resilience Strategies, Inc.

07.00 – 09.00 Breakfast

09.00 – 10.30 DISCUSSION GROUP 3:
Organizing Resilience – Network Knowledge and Building Resilience Readiness
Moderator: Dr. Alex Crowther, NDU INSS

Discussants: Mr. Greg Knapp, Office of the Secretary of Defense

Ms. Sae Schatz, Director, US ADL Co-Lab

Mr. Paul Thurkettle, NATO ACT ADL Program

Mr. Ivan Labra, Principal, Digital Mind, Inc.

Ms. Greta Keremidchieva, Rakovski Defense College, Bulgaria

Building resilience is a matter of people, structures, processes and technology. These should embody the characteristics of resilient systems and be iterative, inclusive, integrated, adaptive and flexible. They should provide for the constant infusion of new information and knowledge. They should have a structural flexibility fostering continuous reassessment and reprioritization to adequately address new risks and opportunities.

From the outset, a bold and innovative approach is required, yet building on existing efforts, but also recognizing that there is an opportunity to build on the new energy emerging in the context of the unfolding resilience initiative. Plenty of opportunities will arise for example to position the military, government administration and the private sector as a connected testbed for new technologies, integrated learning, innovative partnerships and creative thinking.

10.30 – 11.00 Coffee break

11.00 – 12.30 DISCUSSION GROUP 4:

Risk Management – Dealing with Cyber Vulnerabilities

Moderator: Dr. Mark Pullen, George Mason University C4I & Cyber Center

Discussants: Mr. Ralph Thiele, Cyber Expert, German Political-Military Society

Dr. Anne Bader, International Cyber Security Dialogue

Mr. Derek Bryan, USPACOM Cyber Warfare Innovation Center

Dr. Itamara Lochard, NATO Cyber Center of Excellence

Ms. JC Hurz, Founder, JoyStick Nation

Broad reliance on cloud computing and big data has increased vulnerability to hybrid threats. Via the cyber space everything is connected to everything else: systems, machines, people, departments, organizations. And everything can be damaged, disrupted or put out of service practically from anybody anywhere. Defenders don’t know when an attack is being launched, where it will strike, and how. The resulting ambiguity makes an adequate reaction difficult. This is true for societies or multinational organizations that operate on the principle of consensus. Consequently, improving the resilience of communication and information systems is important for both civil preparedness and military readiness. Industry needs to be involved. Public-Private Partnership on cybersecurity could improve protection. It could also ensure continued research and innovation.

12.30 – 13.30 Lunch

13.30 – 15.00 DISCUSSION GROUP 5:

Driving innovation – Information Technology to Catalyse Disruptive Innovation

Moderator: Mr. Philip Stockdale, Center for Technology & National Security Policy

Discussants: TBD – NDU CTNSP to determine

Discussion concept note: TBD

15.00 – 16:00 PARTICIPANT INTERACTIVE DISCUSSION

• 
  To foster imagination and discovery, produce enlightened experience, foster innovation and promote sustainable development, we will explore ways to:
  

• 
  Support community decision-making in partner nations and in international bodies through “composable organizations,” where people, ideas, processes and technology can be brought together as needed;
  
• 
  Pursue “whole of stakeholders” approaches and enhanced information sharing in disaster preparedness;
  
• 
  Build new learning tools with partners to improve common understanding and shared procedures for rapid, decisive, resilient responses to complex emergencies;
  
• 
  Contribute to significantly enhanced training and readiness capabilities for security and resilience through co-development of a global network of regional Resilience Readiness Centres;
  
• 
  Evolve to meet new security challenges, and adapt to the pace of change of information and communications technology (ICT) that underpins the development of the Smart Society.
  

Dr. Walter Christman, Chairman, Global Challenges Forum Foundation.