Jackson School partners with US Army War College on technology and international security
April 16, 2021
At least once in a student’s academic lifetime, they will ask what purpose their assignments, discussion posts, and projects serve for their future professions. The quiz due Sunday, at 11:59 p.m., or the post-finals GPA may or may not have real-world applicability for students.
The spring 2021 collaboration between the UW’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies (JSIS) and the U.S. Army War College (USAWC) is pivoting away from turning in assignments for a grade and toward creating research papers with the potential to reach the desk of a NATO member.
Milagro Castilleja is a first-year graduate student with the UW communications leadership program taking the course “NATO, Energy, and Cyber Security in Europe.”
“This is a real-world application of working on an international stage and contributing to possible policy in an international context with allies,” Castilleja said.
The class is taught this quarter by acting assistant professor Sarah Lohmann at the Jackson School and Amb. John Koenig, former U.S. deputy permanent representative to NATO in Brussels, Belgium.
The initiative includes courses, public events, and workshops which focus on the changing sphere of technology and international security, as well as cyber resilience, energy security, and counterterrorism in the United States and Europe.
This project Lohmann is co-leading is meant to strengthen energy security as a whole and survey how emerging technologies are impacting international security.
Lohmann notes the current state of international security and technology is vulnerable. While emerging technology is helping to ensure the stability of grids, these weaknesses have become more prevalent because of the internet, emerging technologies like 5G, and the shift to other renewable energy sources.
“If you hacked one person’s home assistant, you could actually throw off the equivalent of the entire city of New York,” Lohmann said.
The class includes a variety of students — graduate students and potential Ph.D. candidates from JSIS and the communications department, as well as active duty fellows from the USAWC.
“I think so far, it’s a huge asset to have students from different disciplines,” Frank Kuzminski, a first-year Ph.D. student at the Jackson School and a sponsored active U.S. Army officer, said. “I think it’s great, I hope to learn from all of them.”
The spring 2021 collaboration between the UW’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies (JSIS) and the U.S. Army War College (USAWC) is pivoting away from turning in assignments for a grade and toward creating research papers with the potential to reach the desk of a NATO member.
Milagro Castilleja is a first-year graduate student with the UW communications leadership program taking the course “NATO, Energy, and Cyber Security in Europe.”
“This is a real-world application of working on an international stage and contributing to possible policy in an international context with allies,” Castilleja said.
The class is taught this quarter by acting assistant professor Sarah Lohmann at the Jackson School and Amb. John Koenig, former U.S. deputy permanent representative to NATO in Brussels, Belgium.
The initiative includes courses, public events, and workshops which focus on the changing sphere of technology and international security, as well as cyber resilience, energy security, and counterterrorism in the United States and Europe.
This project Lohmann is co-leading is meant to strengthen energy security as a whole and survey how emerging technologies are impacting international security.
Lohmann notes the current state of international security and technology is vulnerable. While emerging technology is helping to ensure the stability of grids, these weaknesses have become more prevalent because of the internet, emerging technologies like 5G, and the shift to other renewable energy sources.
“If you hacked one person’s home assistant, you could actually throw off the equivalent of the entire city of New York,” Lohmann said.
The class includes a variety of students — graduate students and potential Ph.D. candidates from JSIS and the communications department, as well as active duty fellows from the USAWC.
“I think so far, it’s a huge asset to have students from different disciplines,” Frank Kuzminski, a first-year Ph.D. student at the Jackson School and a sponsored active U.S. Army officer, said. “I think it’s great, I hope to learn from all of them.”
Lohmann said this diversity of students allows for a range of perspectives from technology, military, and foreign and political policy to collaborate.
“Those of us in the Department of Defense call it the soft power side of it,” USAWC fellow Lt. Col. Alex Elmore said. “We may be focused more on the hard power than the soft power, the tanks and airplanes, versus the diplomacy and the conversations.”
Lohmann, Elmore, Castiellja, and Kuzminski all said the difference between this course and others is its move away from a traditional lecture style to focusing on real-world application.
“You’re treated much more as an independent researcher than you are a student in this class,” Elmore said. “So if you like the freedom of that, as opposed to just sitting and getting a lecture for an hour or two, as here in this course, you’re going to find your niche, find something that interests you to write something that has real-world applicability.”
Lohmann said plans after the class include publishing a book with all of the students’ research to be shared for a NATO ministerial.
“This is going directly into the hands of policymakers,” Lohmann said. “So we’re wanting to really make an impact with our research and with proposals for specific action on how we can improve cybersecurity across the alliance.”
Plans for this initiative extend to winter 2022 through a series of courses, workshops, and public events. The first public event of this collaboration is called “How Emerging Technology is Changing International Security” and is scheduled for May 13.
The UW and USAWC plan to expand collaboration with other parts of the Jackson School, like the Center for West European Studies and the Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies.
“I would say this is the quintessential Jackson School of International Studies experience,” Castilleja said.
“Those of us in the Department of Defense call it the soft power side of it,” USAWC fellow Lt. Col. Alex Elmore said. “We may be focused more on the hard power than the soft power, the tanks and airplanes, versus the diplomacy and the conversations.”
Lohmann, Elmore, Castiellja, and Kuzminski all said the difference between this course and others is its move away from a traditional lecture style to focusing on real-world application.
“You’re treated much more as an independent researcher than you are a student in this class,” Elmore said. “So if you like the freedom of that, as opposed to just sitting and getting a lecture for an hour or two, as here in this course, you’re going to find your niche, find something that interests you to write something that has real-world applicability.”
Lohmann said plans after the class include publishing a book with all of the students’ research to be shared for a NATO ministerial.
“This is going directly into the hands of policymakers,” Lohmann said. “So we’re wanting to really make an impact with our research and with proposals for specific action on how we can improve cybersecurity across the alliance.”
Plans for this initiative extend to winter 2022 through a series of courses, workshops, and public events. The first public event of this collaboration is called “How Emerging Technology is Changing International Security” and is scheduled for May 13.
The UW and USAWC plan to expand collaboration with other parts of the Jackson School, like the Center for West European Studies and the Ellison Center for Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies.
“I would say this is the quintessential Jackson School of International Studies experience,” Castilleja said.