Lt. Gen. Blaise Frawley discusses security challenges in the Arctic as part of his keynote address to the 2023 N3SP Fall Workshop. N3SP
DERON R. JACKSON
A Colorado-based education partnership is tackling the dilemma of how to lure more of the brightest minds to study national security issues and strategy. Thanks to a 2021 gift from the Anschutz Foundation, the cooperative effort was begun by the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and the United States Air Force Academy. Having set out to improve the interaction among their faculty and students and increase the attention devoted to the study of national security, partnership leaders also decided to cast a wider net to engage government agencies, military commands and private industry. Finally, they also decided to reach out to national security experts across the country to tap existing expertise in certain subject areas.
The resulting project was given the title National Security Strategic Studies Partnership (N3SP), and it was tasked with developing programs that inspire participants to explore national security issues and then apply what they learn in their careers. The N3SP does this by various methods, including convening joint events in person twice a year, creating new developmental opportunities for future national security professionals and showcasing individual work being done on national security topics through a podcast series.
The most recent event was the 2023 Fall Workshop. Each N3SP workshop is designed to turn the traditional model on its head. Rather than having a panel where presenters talk for most of the hour, each session starts with brief introductory remarks by subject matter experts before the remaining time is opened to all participants. To ensure a free and open exchange, each of the four discussion sessions, as well as the keynote address, are conducted under the Chatham House rule, which protects participants from direct quotation or attribution outside the group.
Lt. Gen. Blaise Frawley, deputy commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), served as the keynote speaker and addressed national security concerns of the U.S. and Canada in the Arctic. His keynote was flanked by discussion sessions led by local and national experts. The first focused on improving space domain awareness, which used to be a highly classified topic, but now increasingly relies on partnerships with the commercial sector. The second panel examined ways in which cybersecurity represents a “soft underbelly” for a wide variety of space and critical infrastructure systems. Unlike other national security threats, cyberattacks don’t require a direct “line of sight” to affect their targets but can be launched from anywhere on Earth.
The third panel built upon Lt. Gen. Frawley’s address and looked at increased strategic competition in the Arctic and how the region presents challenges due to the distance, extreme weather and the need for greater infrastructure to support an expanded presence. The final panel sought to draw lessons from the war in Ukraine and apply them to deterring Chinese aggression against Taiwan.
The expectation is that the experience will lead to collaboration among students, faculty, industry members and government experts on new research. Thus, the companion event to the Fall Workshop is the N3SP Spring Forum, which shows off research on national security as the academic year draws to a close. The forum combines traditional panel sessions with a more open “poster session” in the middle of the day where participants speak with researchers one-on-one.
Once final exams have finished for students, a new undertaking dubbed the N3SP Summer Staff Ride takes a group of students and cadets to walk the metaphorical “battlefield” in Washington, D.C., where the struggle to shape national security policy takes place. Participants meet with people who are part of that process in Congress, the Pentagon, State Department, National Security Council, think tanks and others.
In addition to programs organized around groups such as the workshop, forum and staff ride, the N3SP also provides an opportunity to focus on specific national security-themed work by individuals. The venue for this is the new N3SP Podcast series, which can be found at www.n3sp.org and serves as the partnership’s website. The podcast lets researchers talk about how they became interested in national security and discuss the focus of their work.
What began as a partnership among three universities in Colorado has grown significantly in its first two years. The 2023 Fall Workshop was the first to include students and faculty from the Korbel School at the University of Denver as well as Colorado State University in Fort Collins. The inclusion of NORAD and U.S. Northern Command also reflects the successful expansion of the N3SP’s focus to raise awareness of issues in homeland defense to match often similar and related security concerns in space and cyberspace.
Deron R. Jackson is executive director of the National Security Strategic Studies Partnership.
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