Beginning this day, we had an amazing panel of military personnel, including David Brigham, a Colonel in the U.S. Army, Ethan Griffin, a Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, Kevin Hickman, a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Air Force, Mark Hooper, a Captain in the U.S. Navy, and Jon Totte, a commander in the U.S. Coast Guard.
They spent the entire hour answering questions about their professional lives in the military, their daily struggles, delightfully entertaining stories about their time in the military, and offering advice to us as we prepare to enter the working world after college. I only wish we would have had longer, because one hour split between 5 great men with hundreds of stories to tell went by very quickly.
After the military panel left, we heard from Cristopher S. Ploszaj, who spoke to us about Terrorism and Transnational crime. He presented us with some very hard-hitting statistics. In 2009, $2.1 trillion was generated through terrorism alone, that is 3.6% of the total global GDP. An alarming 90% of all serial tracked weapons in Mexico that are used for crime are U.S. originated. He also spoke about some of the major crime names around the world. These names include the FARC, which we heard about from Mr. Meacham, the corrupt government in Venezuela, and the Hezbollah, an Islamic militant group in Lebanon (more foreshadowing).
The last speaker for the day was Mr. James A. Lewis , the directer of the Strategic Technologies Program at CSIS. He also, as I recently found out, played a major role in the creation of our school's cybersecurity academic program. During his talk, we heard about some of the problems in 3D printing. Mr. Ploszaj touched on this as well, there was one man who, with only purchasing one vital piece, was able to completely recreate an M16 through the means of 3D printing. This is a scary realization. There is minimal regulation on 3D printing at this time, and Mr. Lewis says that it will be the 4th industrial revolution. Some other topics covered by Mr. Lewis were Netscape, privacy and protection, and Stuxnet.
Simulation time!
After all of the speakers for the day were gone, we were split into groups. We were briefed that three american reporters had been kidnapped by the FARC on the Columbian/Venezuelan border. We were told that the FARC had demands for money, release of Hezbollah and FARC prisoners, and that the U.S. should stop arming rebel opposition groups in Syria. We gained this information and were then told to brief "the president" on the news.
After briefing the president, we were told to have each group come up with 3 plans of action, a hard option, a soft option, and one option possibly utilizing both tactics that could be more reasonable. We were also told that we were not to enter Venezuelan soil, due to tension between our countries.
My group decided that hard action was the way to go. We said we needed to act fast before the terrorists could make it to Venezuela, which would only further complicate our situation. We wanted to send in troops as quickly as possible to try and regain the hostages before they crossed the border.
After more information was given to us, it was revealed that one of the hostages has been murdered, and one of the remaining hostages was an undercover CIA agent. After this, we found out that the Venezuelan government had an overtaking, and the new leader reached out to the U.S. hoping to better our relations. We took this information and ran. We decided to send in our troops and find the hostages as soon as possible. If they crossed over Venezuelan borders, so be it. We could try to mend the relationship if it caused a strain, but regaining the safety of our citizens was more important.
After sending in troops, we lost another hostage, but we saved the remaining one, and the president told us the mission was a success.
They spent the entire hour answering questions about their professional lives in the military, their daily struggles, delightfully entertaining stories about their time in the military, and offering advice to us as we prepare to enter the working world after college. I only wish we would have had longer, because one hour split between 5 great men with hundreds of stories to tell went by very quickly.
After the military panel left, we heard from Cristopher S. Ploszaj, who spoke to us about Terrorism and Transnational crime. He presented us with some very hard-hitting statistics. In 2009, $2.1 trillion was generated through terrorism alone, that is 3.6% of the total global GDP. An alarming 90% of all serial tracked weapons in Mexico that are used for crime are U.S. originated. He also spoke about some of the major crime names around the world. These names include the FARC, which we heard about from Mr. Meacham, the corrupt government in Venezuela, and the Hezbollah, an Islamic militant group in Lebanon (more foreshadowing).
The last speaker for the day was Mr. James A. Lewis , the directer of the Strategic Technologies Program at CSIS. He also, as I recently found out, played a major role in the creation of our school's cybersecurity academic program. During his talk, we heard about some of the problems in 3D printing. Mr. Ploszaj touched on this as well, there was one man who, with only purchasing one vital piece, was able to completely recreate an M16 through the means of 3D printing. This is a scary realization. There is minimal regulation on 3D printing at this time, and Mr. Lewis says that it will be the 4th industrial revolution. Some other topics covered by Mr. Lewis were Netscape, privacy and protection, and Stuxnet.
Simulation time!
After all of the speakers for the day were gone, we were split into groups. We were briefed that three american reporters had been kidnapped by the FARC on the Columbian/Venezuelan border. We were told that the FARC had demands for money, release of Hezbollah and FARC prisoners, and that the U.S. should stop arming rebel opposition groups in Syria. We gained this information and were then told to brief "the president" on the news.
After briefing the president, we were told to have each group come up with 3 plans of action, a hard option, a soft option, and one option possibly utilizing both tactics that could be more reasonable. We were also told that we were not to enter Venezuelan soil, due to tension between our countries.
My group decided that hard action was the way to go. We said we needed to act fast before the terrorists could make it to Venezuela, which would only further complicate our situation. We wanted to send in troops as quickly as possible to try and regain the hostages before they crossed the border.
After more information was given to us, it was revealed that one of the hostages has been murdered, and one of the remaining hostages was an undercover CIA agent. After this, we found out that the Venezuelan government had an overtaking, and the new leader reached out to the U.S. hoping to better our relations. We took this information and ran. We decided to send in our troops and find the hostages as soon as possible. If they crossed over Venezuelan borders, so be it. We could try to mend the relationship if it caused a strain, but regaining the safety of our citizens was more important.
After sending in troops, we lost another hostage, but we saved the remaining one, and the president told us the mission was a success.