Project Category: 2024

Defense Writers Group

9 April 2024

Moderator:  It’s great to have you here.

Normally I ask the first question.  Because their Center for AI Security Research is so new, I’d like for them to kind of sketch a little bit about what it is and what they’re doing, and then three people emailed in advance to get on the questioner’s list.  We have an hour.  There will be time for everybody so no need to throw shoes or anything.

So gentlemen, tell us about what the heck you’re doing.

Mr. Begoli:  Thank you.  My name is Edmon Begoli, and I’m a founding director of the Center for AI Security Research.

We really started forming the Center the beginning of last year.  The whole motion was triggered by multiple motivators.  One was, from my point of view, very personal as being a researcher in this field, and really I got myself attracted to AI in 1989 when I was in high school and studied logic and psychology and math....

Defense Writers Group

5 April 2024

Moderator:  Good morning everybody, and welcome to this Defense Writers Group with Dr. John F. Plumb, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy.  This is Dr. Plumb’s first time with us, so I promised everybody would behave except for me.

The ground rules are as always, this is on the record.  You can record it for accuracy of quotes but there’s no rebroadcast of audio or visual.

A few of you emailed me in advance for questions.  We’ll get to those, then we’ll go around the table for the hour, saving a few minutes at the end for Dr. Plumb.  So sir, thank you for joining us today.  It’s an honor to have you here at this important time.

ASD Plumb:  Thank you, Thom.

Moderator:  The department just released its first-ever Commercial Space Integration Strategy.  That was the day before yesterday.  So talk a little bit about what drove the decision to do that, and if you would give us your two or three major goals to come out of that, what would they be?

ASD Plumb:  First of all, thanks.  It’s great to be here.  I appreciate this opportunity...

Defense Writers Group

4 April 2024

Moderator:  Greetings, and welcome to a very special Defense Writers Group with Roger D. Carstens, the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs. 

Some of you are here for the first time.  Our ground rules are as always, this is on the record.  You can record for accuracy of quotes but there’s no rebroadcast of audio or video.

I’ll ask the first question.  Three of you have emailed me already to get on the list, but we have lots of time to go around the table.

First, I do want to call on my special co-host today, Paul Beckett of the Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Beckett:  Thank you, Thom.  Thank you, Roger.  We appreciate you being here.  Thanks to all of you for coming.

The Journal, obviously this is an area, hostage-taking of foreign governments has been very much a focus of ours in the last year, since our colleague Evan Gershkovich was unlawfully detained in Russia...

Defense Writers Group

4 October 2023

Moderator:  Good morning, everybody, and welcome everyone to this Defense Writers Group.  I always introduce people who need no introduction.  Everybody here knows the work of Lt. General Alexus G. Grynkewich, Commander of Air Forces, US Central Command.  He’s going off his next assignment, one of the best jobs I think, most interesting jobs in the military.

The ground rules as always, this is on the record,.  You can record for accuracy of quotes but there’s no rebroadcast.

I’ll ask the first question.  About 13 of you emailed me in advance to get on the list.  We’ll go through as many of those wrapping up in an hour with the General having final comments.

So General, thank you for joining us, sir.

Grynkewich:  Of course.

Moderator:  You were here almost six months ago to the day, and only a few days before the terrorist Hamas attack in Israel, October 7^th.  And events since then have kind of flipped the Middle East on its head.  I wanted to talk a little bit about your changing priorities in the mission given all of these changes, and of course working those issues back here, but speaking with your current hat, sir.

Grynkewich:  Sure.  It brings up a couple of thoughts that I thought I’d start with for you all today.

First off, thanks for having me back.  It was about six months ago that I was here last, and it was right before the attacks of 7 October by  Hamas on Israel.  This will be the last time that I get to speak to you in my current role, so I also appreciate the opportunity to do that.  Thank you guys for making the time to be here...

Defense Writers Group

28 March 2024

Moderator: Greetings everyone, and welcome to this very special Defense Writers Group. Under the cliché of someone who needs no introduction but I’ll do it anyway, is General Charles Q. Brown, Jr., Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Quickly, our ground rules are, as always, this is on the record. You may record for accuracy of quotes, but there is no rebroadcast of audio or video.

I’ll ask the first question. A number of you emailed in advance to get on the list. We’ll go through those. If there’s any time left, we’ll move to others, saving the last few minutes for the Chairman’s wrap-up. We have a hard stop at 2:30, so we will be efficient about that.

General Brown, thank you for being here, sir.

General Brown: My pleasure.

Moderator: My opening question. You’ve been in your role as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs for right about six months. Crises around the world, it’s a new age of danger, an incredibly volatile period. I would just like your reflection, sir, on what you’ve learned, how it feels, what the world looks like to you as the nation’s highest ranking military officer.

General Brown: First of all, thank you for the opportunity to be here. Just to your last part, the highest-ranking military officer, I never really imagined myself in a position like this. I was going to do four years and get out. But I also say, as you described, Monday will be six months and it’s hard to believe it's been six months just because of how quickly time has flown...

Defense Writers Group

18 March 2024

Moderator: Welcome to this Defense Writers Group with Senator Jack Reed. Senator Reed as everyone knows is Chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee. As I told him before we logged on, this is one of our largest gatherings of the year which shows the intense interest in what you have to say. The ground rules as always. It’s on the record. You can record for accuracy and quotes, but there’s no rebroadcast of audio or video.

The first question is mine, power of the chair, and then I’ll go around the room. Almost 20 of you emailed in advance to get on the list. We’ll get to as many as we can, and we save the last five minutes for Senator Reed’s closing comments.

Senator, thank you for joining us. It’s good to have you here. You recently returned from a very important trip to Ukraine. Given your military experience, what you know as Chairman now, can you share your battlefield assessment? How are things going there on the ground? What is your sense for coming weeks and months? And also if you can comment on the other battleground, sir, the one in Congress over funding.

Senator Reed: We had a great opportunity to first link up with our team lead by Ambassador Brink. I also preceded my entry into Ukraine by visiting our Army posts and Air Force posts in Germany -- Stuttgart, Wiesbaden, Grafenwoehr, et cetera. I wanted to get a sense of what we’re learning from the Ukrainians and what we’re teaching the Ukrainians and have a better perspective as I entered.

Defense Writers Group

6 March 2024

Moderator: It is my great honor to welcome Bob Hale, the Chair; and Ellen Lord, the Vice-Chair, of the Congressional Commission on Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution Reform. I don’t want to embarrass you, but since I’m no longer a New York Times reporter I’m allowed to have opinions. One of the reporters I was talking to about this event said it’s great to
be at a meeting with Bob and Ellen because you know there are at least two grownups in the room. [Laughter].

Mr. Hale: I hope we can live up to that.

Ms. Lord: Yeah.

Moderator: This report is so important and so breathtaking in its sweep that I’ll ask a small question and let you both have a
moment to have a big answer. Even though you’re not supposed to have a favorite among your children, I do want to ask about which of the recommendations you think are the most important and the most significant.

Mr. Hale: I’ll start. There are 28 recommendations. We think actionable recommendations. We’ve tried hard to make them specific. Fourteen of those, the Commission --

Defense Writers Group

Project for Media and National Security
George Washington School of Media and Public Affairs

27 February 2024

Moderator: Good morning and welcome to this very special Defense Writers Group. We have as our guests today the Secretary of the Army, the Honorable Christine Wormuth; and the Army Chief of Staff General Randy A. George. I’m sure you know the ground rules, but let’s go over them quickly. This is on the record. You may record it for accuracy of quotes, but there’s no rebroadcast of audio or video. I’ll ask the first question as always, and then a whole bunch of you emailed to get questions in advance. I’ll go through as many as we can. If there’s time after that we’ll go around the table. The final minutes will be reserved for closing comments from our guests. Madame Secretary, General, thank you so much. We are honored to have you. The first question is a pretty obvious one. The war in Ukraine has entered its third heart-breaking year. The Army is great at harvesting lessons learned but also incorporating them. So what are you both of you seeing? Madame Secretary, you were just in Munich. General, I know you travel to the AOR and talk to counterparts. What are you learning and seeing from the war in Ukraine that will help drive Army transformation across the board. Personnel, capabilities, networking, UAS, counter-UAS. Madame Secretary?

Secretary Wormuth: Thanks, Thom, and thanks everybody for being here. I don’t know how special this will be, but we’ll try to make it special. I did just come back from Germany where I was seeing what our Security Assistance Group to Ukraine is doing as well as the training we’re doing with the Ukrainians. There was a battalion there that was finishing up their training. So I had the
opportunity to really see first-hand some of what we’re doing, and frankly, some of what we’re getting back from the Ukrainians.

Defense Writers Group

9 February 2024

Moderator: Obviously this is an incredibly special event, Defense Writers Group with General Bryan P. Fenton, the Commander of Special Operations Command. A quick reminder of ground rules. We’re on the record, as always. You can record for accuracy of quotes but there is no rebroadcast of audio or video. I’ll ask the first question. A bunch of you emailed me in advance to be put on the list. We’ll get to as many as possible in the hour. Probably can’t get to all. If there is time, we’ll go around the room. We’ll save
the last few minutes for General Fenton’s final comments. General, welcome. It’s great to have you here. I hear this is your first on the record press engagement since taking over command. Thank you for that.

General Fenton: I cannot confirm or deny.

Moderator: That’s all right. That’s all I wanted to hear.

Defense Writers Group

19 January 2024

Moderator: Good morning and welcome to this Defense Writers Group on Human-Machine Collaboration and Teaming in National Security. It’s timed to the release of an important new report from the Special Competitive Studies Project and the UK’s Royal United Services Institute for Defense and Security Studies.

Welcome, and thank you. A special thanks to Tara Rigler of SCSP for helping in planning this discussion and to giving us an early copy of this important report. I’ve had the honor of working with Tara ever since she was one of the very best senior press officers at the Pentagon in OSD/PA, and looking at Secretary Austin’s recent comms challenges, I think they need some of that professionalism back there, but that’s for a different Defense Writers Group.

Our ground rule, as always, we’ll be on the record today. You can record for accuracy and quotes, but please, no rebroadcast
of audio or video. If you want to ask a question just raise your chat hand or drop me a direct note. We have a full hour,
so I’m sure we’ll get to everybody. Normally Defense Writers Group strategy is we’re a correspondents’ forum and I usually start by asking the first question, but because this report is incredibly thorough and thoughtful and detailed, I’m going to make my first question asking all four of our special guests to give just a one or two minute introduction to what they think are the top line
headlines from the report, and then of course we’ll go around the room to correspondents. So thank you all for coming. First, to Ylber, please.

Mr. Bajraktari: Good morning everybody, particularly for those of you down here from the East Coast. It’s great to be here
with you. Thom, thank you so much for having us. I’m Ylber Bajraktari, Senior Policy Advisor with SCSP focusing on defense
and intelligence matters. I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the report with you.