Defense Writers Group
3 June 2024
Moderator: I want to welcome everyone to really a most unusual Defense Writers Group. One, we’re not at our usual location at the Fairmont. Two, we do not have sitting public officials with us, which is our bread and butter, but I’m approached all the time by people who are releasing reports. Please host a Defense Writers Group on this. Frankly, all of them are good. Some of them are well, full stop, back in the safe. But I really thought this was important enough to try to convene the session even with a somewhat smaller group be because of the value of what you all have done. So thank you for allowing us to do this. Thank you for hosting it.
Ground rules, as always, this is on the record, but there’s no rebroadcast of audio or video because that’s just who we are as writers.
I have a whole sheet of questions, but I’ll ask the first one, then we can go around in sort of roundtable form.
In your report you describe this axis of disrupters -- China, Russia, Iran, North Korea. They’re joined together in some ways formal and in some ways informal because they don’t really need to plan. They don’t need a Yalta Summit or a meeting.
I’m personally concerned that when we look back on this period -- invasion of Ukraine, what’s happening in Gaza, China moving on Taiwan, North Korea and Iran. Just World War III has started and we don’t even know it yet because often it is something in retrospect.
So when you think about your report, what you advise as a grand strategy, what does the US government need to halt this coming together of this axis of authoritarianism? What should we do to preserve global stability and the values that are important to us?
Mr. Bajraktari: This meet and greet -- but really I lead SCSP. Mac Thornberry is a member of the board of the SCSP. Thank you for coming. Thanks, Thom, for bringing this group together. I know some of you, I had a chance to meet Ken twice in Tokyo before, so thank you for coming to our new office space, and hopefully we can host you much more frequently here.
