WEBVTT
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Welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Mr.
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Jason. Lucy and Saris are on the mic today with
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me. And we have the privilege of hosting Dr.
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Renana Miles -Joyce today as our guest. Here's
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an introduction with some background information
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for our listeners. Dr. Renana Joyce is currently
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an assistant professor of security studies in
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the Walsh School of Foreign Service and Center
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for Security Studies at Georgetown University.
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Her research spans international security and
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U .S. foreign policy and how powerful states
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try to shape their security environments. She
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is also a research affiliate of MIT's Security
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Studies program. She previously served as assistant
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professor of politics at Brandeis University,
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was an adjunct political scientist at the Rand
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Corporation, and an external advisor for the
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U .S. Institute of Peace's Security Sector Governance
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and Reform Program. She has also held fellowships
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with the Irregular Warfare Initiative, a jointly
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sponsored program between the Modern War Institute
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at West Point, the Empirical Studies of Conflict
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Project, and Harvard Kennedy School's International
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Security Program and MIT's Security Studies Program.
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and George Washington University's Institute
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for Security and Conflict Studies. All right.
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She received her Ph .D. in political science
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from Columbia University in 2020. And before
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moving into academia, she was an analyst at the
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Department of Defense. All right. Did I get all
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that correct? Yes, you did. Thank you, Mr. Jason.
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And it is a pleasure to be here talking to you
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today. All right. Good. Thank you again for joining
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us. It's an honor to have you on the show. So,
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Lucy, we'll kick off our first segment. Hello,
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and it's very nice to meet you. So, for our first
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question, before academia, when you worked as
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an analyst, students often hear the term analyst.
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Why does an analyst actually do week -to -week,
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and what sparked your initial interest in international
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security? Thank you, Lucy. That's actually two
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questions in one. Let me take them separately.
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So let's start with policy analysis, because
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for those of you who may be considering careers
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in this field, there are some important differences
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between policy analysis and academic research
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that focuses on policy problems. And in some
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ways, these are two sides of the same coin, but
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they have different approaches to dealing with
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problem sets. So policy analysis tends to be
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very case specific. It is time bound and it's
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often working on very compressed time frames.
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Right. So so policy problems come up and you
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have analysts who try to work on solving them,
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whether that's through designing and implementing
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new processes, new programs, whether that's through
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sort of identifying solutions to diplomatic,
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military or security problems. But again, very
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much focused on the immediate problem that is
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confronting the organization or the government
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or the international community. Academic research,
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on the other hand, tends to focus more on patterns
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across time and space. So let me make that really
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concrete. So, for example, I am a scholar who
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works on U .S. foreign policy problems. Policy
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analysts in Washington right now are very concerned
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with questions like how what can the United States
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do to reopen the Strait of Hormuz? Right. There's
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a conflict with Iran. This strait has been closed
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intermittently and that's causing sort of. economic
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repercussions across the world, including in
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this region. So a policy analyst would say, what
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can the U .S. do today to reopen that strait?
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A political scientist like myself, on the other
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hand, would ask a different question, such as,
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under what conditions does coercion work against
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regional powers? How do great powers from outside
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the region get smaller powers to do what they
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want them to do? What kinds of threats or inducements
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work? And so that's a very general question that
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if answered well, could potentially have insights
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for policymakers across many different issues
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and regions in different periods of time to come.
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But it's sort of a different focus. And so that's
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sort of one way to think maybe about what an
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analyst does day to day. And it's hard to be
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more precise than that because they cover such
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a broad range of problems. So what got me interested
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in all of this to begin with? Well, I think like...
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Many of you in this class, I grew up as sort
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of a student who came from one country and was
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raised in another. So I was sort of what you
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could call a third culture kid. I actually lived
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in the Middle East. My parents were doing mission
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work there. And so I grew up sort of with an
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interest in international affairs just by having
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lived internationally for most of my childhood.
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I went back to the United States for college.
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I studied international community. development.
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I had a general sense that I was interested in
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international affairs, but didn't really know
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a lot about what that meant, what it would mean,
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for example, to have a career in foreign policy
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or foreign service. After I graduated, I got
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my first job in Washington, D .C., working as
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an analyst at a company there that was supporting
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the government with contracting work. And this
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was, I'm dating myself here a little bit, but
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during the height of the U .S. war in Iraq. And
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I found myself within six months after graduation
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in Baghdad, Iraq, on a contract as a civilian
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supporting the U .S. Army in Baghdad. And that
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was really my very first sort of exposure to
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the security world. Right. And it was puzzling.
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What is the United States doing out here trying
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to rebuild this state under fire, trying to stand
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up an Iraqi army that can handle local security
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problems? tamped down on the insurgency. As you
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may know, this is in the history books now, that
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effort didn't go very well. There were a lot
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of problems. And so I became very interested
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in sort of these puzzles and these problems.
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And I took that interest back to Washington with
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me after I was in Iraq for a year. And I think
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at that point, sort of the interest really crystallized
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into saying not just international affairs, but
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specifically international security issues are
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what I want. work on. And from there, there was
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sort of a more winding path to academia, but
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I'm sure we can talk about that more. Thank you
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for such a fascinating answer, Dr. Ranana. Our
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next question for you would be, what was the
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biggest shift for you when transitioning from
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hands -on government policy work to pursuing
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your PhD at Columbia University? Draws on the
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distinction that I made between policy analysis
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and academia when we started the conversation.
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And I think, again, it was, you know, I was coming
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very much from the analyst role. So I continuously
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had sort of discrete problems that were put on
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my desk to work on, to solve. You know, how do
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we solve this specific problem that this organization
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is having doing whatever thing they're tasked
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to do? And you try to troubleshoot and assess.
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And so moving from these sort of specifics to
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the generalities. Right, of academic... Theories
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of international relations, moving from the complexity
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of working within large government bureaucracies
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to the more abstract demands of thinking in theoretical
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terms about cause and effect in international
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politics was a big shift. So you could be looking
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at the same problem, but just through a very
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different lens. And through a different language,
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there's a translation process that happens. And
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so, again, I suspect that many of you are growing
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up and studying in environments where you translate
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frequently, whether that's between languages,
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between the classroom and the home, between the
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classroom, the home and the community outside.
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Right. That there's constantly this translation.
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And it's also very true when you shift from the
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policy world to the academic world. And so, you
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know, when I was in Washington, D .C., before
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my Ph .D., I did a master's degree at Georgetown
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in the security studies program where I now teach.
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And that was sort of the catalyst that specifically
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got me interested in academia. And so I went
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through the policy master's and I thought I knew
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all about academia. Because I had the master's
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degree and I had read the texts, but I was still
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speaking the language of policy, right? Because
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in our master's program, we really train future
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generations of policymakers and practitioners.
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We're not so much training professors there.
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So if you want to be a professor, I will give
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you slightly different career advice. So I had
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to really sort of learn to translate the language
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of that world to the academic world. But then,
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you know, in turn to be able to translate it
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back. Because if you do want to do research that
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is very policy relevant, that policymakers and
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practitioners can use to inform the kinds of
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things they're working on, to inform the policies
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they craft and the decisions they make, then
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you have to be able to speak both languages fluently.
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Thank you so much for your answer. I think the
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language translation metaphor you used is pretty
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interesting. Next question is, looking back at
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your time as a student, what core skills did
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you build that turned out to be your biggest
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superpowers in international relations? Well,
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let's see. Superpowers. I'm not sure I have any,
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but useful skills. So I think the first one,
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again, is this idea of translation. Learning
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to speak both languages so that you can actually
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do rigorous, cutting -edge research. communicate
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that back to communities of practice in ways
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that are accessible and useful, right? One of
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the biggest complaints that you hear is like,
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well, this academic research is great, but nobody
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can understand these dense academic texts that
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are full of jargon and they're too long to read.
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And so they're just not used. So really, how
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do you take good, rigorous research, but communicate
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it in ways that policymakers who are operating
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under tight deadlines can easily digest and use
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to inform their work. And that, I think, is the
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second skill really is designing and conducting
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research in ways that are very rigorous, right?
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Because one of the core problems that we all
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tackle, regardless of the field we're in, is
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the question of how do we know what we know?
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How do we know? And really, at the end of the
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day, most of us most of the time are relying
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on implicit ideas about cause and effect. If
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I do X, Y will probably happen. But how do we
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actually know that X will cause Y? Well, a lot
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goes into, so this is where research comes in.
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This is where the idea of basic research is sort
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of understanding these causal relationships.
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And so, and that's really hard to do in some
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disciplines, especially the social sciences,
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right? Politics, war, peace, conflict, these
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are very fuzzy, complicated concepts that have
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many causes and many effects and trying to untangle
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them is challenging. And so really learning how
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to design and conduct good research that allows
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us to say something probably never with certainty,
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but with more confidence that we know. the effects
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that things will have can be very, very useful
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and very hard to do, right? And in the U .S.
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government, for example, one of the perennial
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issues is assessment, monitoring, and evaluation.
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How do we assess the programs or the activities
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that we do around the world? How do we evaluate
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the effects? That's really hard. And that actually
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takes some good social science skills. And those
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are something that you can learn in higher education,
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particularly at the PhD level. Moving on from
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that. You've held research fellowships across
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different institutions. How did moving through
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these different environments shape the way you
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think about state power and military cooperation?
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So one of the key things that fellowships serve
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to do is to expose people to new communities.
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New communities bring new ideas. And new ideas
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can serve to sharpen thinking. And so really,
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one of the things that higher education serves
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to do is to help students or people who participate
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in fellowships to learn critical thinking skills
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and then to refine those skills. And we get smarter
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by interacting. engaging with each other's ideas.
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And the intent or the hope is that that process
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of interacting and engaging and hearing other
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people's work and sharing your work and getting
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feedback really leads to sharpening and refining
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the ideas themselves. And so I think to answer
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your question about fellowships, that really
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has been the biggest. value is not so much learning
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a new fact about state power or institutions,
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but really sort of bringing the ideas that I'm
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working on to the table and having other people
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engage with them critically. And I think that
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process has been enormously valuable in refining
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and developing the research and the ideas that
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ultimately come out of it. Yeah, for sure. I
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think we can also see that in school environments
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where students interact with other students and
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get new ideas that we maybe haven't thought of.
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So now let me ask you our last question for this
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segment. If you could travel back in time and
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give your student self one piece of advice about
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building a career in foreign service, what would
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it be? One piece of advice I think I would have
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offered my former self is to really understand.
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How big a field foreign policy or foreign service
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is. There are many ways to contribute. We've
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already talked about some of them. The policy
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analysis. You could be a policy analyst in government.
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You could be outside of government at a think
00:15:37.799 --> 00:15:40.860
tank or a research institute through academia
00:15:40.860 --> 00:15:44.519
as a professor or an instructor. You could be
00:15:44.519 --> 00:15:48.799
a teacher teaching at different levels of education.
00:15:49.240 --> 00:15:52.889
And so I think. You just to understand that there
00:15:52.889 --> 00:15:55.970
are so many ways to contribute, all of them meaningful,
00:15:56.090 --> 00:15:59.690
and people can and do move around quite a bit
00:15:59.690 --> 00:16:03.230
within this sort of foreign service or foreign
00:16:03.230 --> 00:16:07.769
policy environment. And so I think sometimes
00:16:07.769 --> 00:16:12.440
as students, there's a... we can feel or perhaps
00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:15.879
I felt sort of pressure to know very early on,
00:16:15.960 --> 00:16:18.419
what is it that I'm going to do? What am I going
00:16:18.419 --> 00:16:21.600
to be in the world? And instead of sort of, you
00:16:21.600 --> 00:16:24.340
know, really feeling free to just explore broadly,
00:16:24.600 --> 00:16:27.879
try things. As a student, this is the time to
00:16:27.879 --> 00:16:30.539
try and you will learn what you like and what
00:16:30.539 --> 00:16:32.860
you don't like. You will develop skills. What
00:16:32.860 --> 00:16:35.200
you like may change as a function of what you
00:16:35.200 --> 00:16:37.500
do, right? It turns out that when we learn skills
00:16:37.500 --> 00:16:39.279
and we're good at them, we start to like those
00:16:39.279 --> 00:16:43.240
things. So just try things, take opportunities,
00:16:43.700 --> 00:16:46.279
always be exploring different opportunities.
00:16:46.740 --> 00:16:51.279
Some of the best silly but really profound career
00:16:51.279 --> 00:16:56.759
advice that has always stuck with me as a senior,
00:16:56.860 --> 00:16:59.500
a woman in the field that I wanted to be. And
00:16:59.500 --> 00:17:02.019
I met with her and I asked her sort of a similar
00:17:02.019 --> 00:17:04.140
question for career advice. And she said, remember,
00:17:04.319 --> 00:17:06.940
you always want to be choosing between cake and
00:17:06.940 --> 00:17:09.950
ice cream. And I thought that was very silly
00:17:09.950 --> 00:17:12.309
when she said it, but it stuck with me years
00:17:12.309 --> 00:17:14.470
later. It's like, I always want to be choosing
00:17:14.470 --> 00:17:16.430
between cake and ice cream, right? You want to
00:17:16.430 --> 00:17:18.789
be choosing between good opportunities. And so
00:17:18.789 --> 00:17:20.329
how do you choose between good opportunities?
00:17:20.529 --> 00:17:23.750
You apply broadly, you learn broadly, you explore
00:17:23.750 --> 00:17:27.109
broadly. And so I think just to take as an expansive
00:17:27.109 --> 00:17:31.029
view as possible as a student, this is your time
00:17:31.029 --> 00:17:34.829
to do that. All right. Thank you so much for
00:17:34.829 --> 00:17:37.420
those. answers and all that good insight. We'll
00:17:37.420 --> 00:17:39.579
take a quick break and we'll be right back with
00:17:39.579 --> 00:17:41.720
part two right after this short announcement.
00:17:41.859 --> 00:17:48.039
So stick around. A quick reminder for you guys,
00:17:48.240 --> 00:17:51.200
school photo day is during September 14 to 18.
00:17:51.559 --> 00:17:54.559
So wear your uniforms, comb your hair, and be
00:17:54.559 --> 00:17:57.339
sure to look your best for the yearbook. Seniors,
00:17:57.339 --> 00:18:00.730
don't forget your white shirt and jeans. Also,
00:18:00.789 --> 00:18:03.569
here's a quick fun fact. The first yearbook was
00:18:03.569 --> 00:18:06.950
made in 1809 for Yale's graduating class and
00:18:06.950 --> 00:18:10.650
became a tradition in the early 1900s. The earliest
00:18:10.650 --> 00:18:13.170
renditions relied on ink silhouettes because
00:18:13.170 --> 00:18:16.349
photography had not been invented yet. Fortunately
00:18:16.349 --> 00:18:19.930
for us, we shall be using actual cameras. Mr.
00:18:19.970 --> 00:18:26.890
Jason, back to you. We are back with part two.
00:18:26.950 --> 00:18:29.410
I'm Mr. Jason here with student co -host Lucy
00:18:29.410 --> 00:18:32.329
and Saris and our guest, Dr. Renana. Saris will
00:18:32.329 --> 00:18:35.150
lead us off with part two. Thank you, Mr. Jason.
00:18:35.450 --> 00:18:38.750
So, Dr. Renana, we understand you are teaching
00:18:38.750 --> 00:18:41.569
at Georgetown University. What are you teaching
00:18:41.569 --> 00:18:43.890
and what type of students do you interact with
00:18:43.890 --> 00:18:47.990
each week? So my core appointment at Georgetown
00:18:47.990 --> 00:18:51.559
is in the School of Foreign Service. And specifically
00:18:51.559 --> 00:18:54.599
within the Security Studies program. Now, the
00:18:54.599 --> 00:18:57.759
Security Studies program is primarily a master's
00:18:57.759 --> 00:19:02.259
generating program. So at this point, the courses
00:19:02.259 --> 00:19:04.680
that I am teaching and the students I'm interacting
00:19:04.680 --> 00:19:08.119
with primarily are our graduate students who
00:19:08.119 --> 00:19:11.680
are pursuing Masters of Arts and Security Studies.
00:19:12.059 --> 00:19:15.859
However, as a core member of the School of Foreign
00:19:15.859 --> 00:19:19.099
Service faculty, I also... regularly meet with
00:19:19.099 --> 00:19:22.039
and advise undergraduate students there, and
00:19:22.039 --> 00:19:25.319
I will be teaching undergraduate courses in the
00:19:25.319 --> 00:19:28.619
future. So if any of you are interested in learning
00:19:28.619 --> 00:19:31.180
more about Georgetown or the School of Foreign
00:19:31.180 --> 00:19:34.299
Service, you are welcome to contact me. I'd be
00:19:34.299 --> 00:19:36.380
delighted to talk to you about it. Thank you.
00:19:37.130 --> 00:19:40.230
So our next question is, we read that you were
00:19:40.230 --> 00:19:43.230
recently awarded a Department of Defense grant.
00:19:43.529 --> 00:19:46.210
What was that grant and how would you explain
00:19:46.210 --> 00:19:49.269
what security assistance actually means and why
00:19:49.269 --> 00:19:51.750
is it such an important tool in foreign policy?
00:19:52.509 --> 00:19:55.990
So this grant that you mentioned was to support
00:19:55.990 --> 00:19:58.769
my current book project. I have a book manuscript
00:19:58.769 --> 00:20:01.230
that is under review right now that looks at
00:20:01.230 --> 00:20:04.069
security assistance as a tool of influence in
00:20:04.069 --> 00:20:07.089
U .S. foreign policy. By security assistance,
00:20:07.369 --> 00:20:12.170
I mean... the provision of weapons, equipment,
00:20:12.410 --> 00:20:16.609
training, and advice to foreign militaries. The
00:20:16.609 --> 00:20:19.650
United States, like all great powers, uses security
00:20:19.650 --> 00:20:23.549
assistance not only to make its allied and partner
00:20:23.549 --> 00:20:27.190
militaries more capable, but also to try to influence
00:20:27.190 --> 00:20:31.569
them and to shape their behavior. And so the
00:20:31.569 --> 00:20:34.809
book project looks at security assistance specifically
00:20:34.809 --> 00:20:39.490
as a tool of influence. Now, I mentioned that
00:20:39.490 --> 00:20:41.670
the United States, like all other great powers,
00:20:41.829 --> 00:20:44.869
uses this tool to try to influence. But it also
00:20:44.869 --> 00:20:47.650
often does not get what it wants. Right. It turns
00:20:47.650 --> 00:20:51.150
out that it's very hard to influence partners,
00:20:51.470 --> 00:20:56.049
particularly in the security domain. So how should
00:20:56.049 --> 00:20:58.089
we think about security assistance then? Is this
00:20:58.089 --> 00:21:03.309
just a bad tool? And the answer is no. But we
00:21:03.309 --> 00:21:06.410
need to understand under what conditions it is
00:21:06.410 --> 00:21:09.170
more. likely to deliver the desired results.
00:21:09.529 --> 00:21:11.509
So again, going back to the beginning of this
00:21:11.509 --> 00:21:13.730
conversation, this is one of the things that
00:21:13.730 --> 00:21:15.809
academic research is particularly good at is
00:21:15.809 --> 00:21:19.869
not asking, how can the United States, for example,
00:21:23.139 --> 00:21:26.740
convince this specific partner military to do
00:21:26.740 --> 00:21:28.619
what it wants on this specific policy issue,
00:21:28.740 --> 00:21:30.839
but rather to ask sort of more generally, under
00:21:30.839 --> 00:21:35.019
what conditions is this a better tool? And so
00:21:35.019 --> 00:21:40.000
the answer hopefully will, you know, either change
00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:43.319
when policymakers reach for this tool out of
00:21:43.319 --> 00:21:47.279
the sort of toolkit of statecraft or perhaps
00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:50.710
change what they ask the tool to do. So if we
00:21:50.710 --> 00:21:53.430
find that, for example, it is less likely to
00:21:53.430 --> 00:21:56.670
be effective under certain circumstances, then
00:21:56.670 --> 00:21:58.430
you maybe use it in different circumstances.
00:21:58.549 --> 00:22:00.589
Or you use it in those circumstances because
00:22:00.589 --> 00:22:03.130
it's still the best tool available, but you have
00:22:03.130 --> 00:22:05.250
more modest expectations of what it will deliver.
00:22:05.789 --> 00:22:09.769
And so I look at efforts. Now, when we talk about
00:22:09.769 --> 00:22:12.910
influence, it's always important to specify influence
00:22:12.910 --> 00:22:16.569
over what. And so I specifically look at efforts
00:22:16.569 --> 00:22:19.670
to bring allied and partnered militaries. into
00:22:19.670 --> 00:22:23.349
security and normative alignment, meaning support
00:22:23.349 --> 00:22:26.750
for the United States' preferred security policies
00:22:26.750 --> 00:22:30.750
and preferred political and military values.
00:22:31.109 --> 00:22:34.930
So I look at this across time and space, looking
00:22:34.930 --> 00:22:40.509
at different cases, and hopefully that book will
00:22:40.509 --> 00:22:44.250
be out sometime soon in the future. And that
00:22:44.250 --> 00:22:46.930
is the project that I've just recently concluded.
00:22:47.559 --> 00:22:50.279
For our last question, we'd like to ask our guests
00:22:50.279 --> 00:22:53.299
for advice. For high school or college students
00:22:53.299 --> 00:22:55.920
who dream of entering some form of foreign service,
00:22:56.240 --> 00:22:58.799
what is the best first step they can take right
00:22:58.799 --> 00:23:03.019
now? What a good question. So I think I'm going
00:23:03.019 --> 00:23:08.920
to offer potentially incongruous advice. So my
00:23:08.920 --> 00:23:12.819
advice to my former student self was to be as
00:23:12.819 --> 00:23:15.500
broad and expansive as possible. Try all the
00:23:15.500 --> 00:23:19.029
things. Take all the opportunities. I think that
00:23:19.029 --> 00:23:24.190
is particularly important today because the nature
00:23:24.190 --> 00:23:26.329
of work is shifting. The nature of opportunities
00:23:26.329 --> 00:23:29.690
for students is shifting. The landscape for internships
00:23:29.690 --> 00:23:32.049
and entry level jobs is going to look different,
00:23:32.150 --> 00:23:35.450
I think, across the board, including in foreign
00:23:35.450 --> 00:23:40.920
policy field. And so really. Be as broad as possible.
00:23:41.099 --> 00:23:44.200
Now, that said, the advice to someone who wants
00:23:44.200 --> 00:23:46.980
to break into the field that I would offer, again,
00:23:47.079 --> 00:23:51.880
is be as broad as possible. Yes. But also. Start
00:23:51.880 --> 00:23:55.960
to think now about two or three things that really
00:23:55.960 --> 00:23:57.779
interest you, because, again, foreign policy
00:23:57.779 --> 00:23:59.799
is a very vast field. Are you interested in.
00:24:00.279 --> 00:24:03.079
or foreign service? Are you interested in economic
00:24:03.079 --> 00:24:06.599
statecraft, political statecraft, military statecraft,
00:24:06.759 --> 00:24:11.299
use of force? And in what kinds of regions? Do
00:24:11.299 --> 00:24:13.279
you have a region that you're interested in,
00:24:13.380 --> 00:24:16.880
a particular problem set? And so I would encourage
00:24:16.880 --> 00:24:20.940
students to really think about two or three things.
00:24:22.059 --> 00:24:24.920
that they're interested in and whether that is
00:24:24.920 --> 00:24:28.500
a region, a place, a problem set, a tool, and
00:24:28.500 --> 00:24:31.519
start to learn a little more about that issue.
00:24:32.119 --> 00:24:34.319
Have an answer. When you say to someone, you
00:24:34.319 --> 00:24:35.740
know, when you meet someone who's working in
00:24:35.740 --> 00:24:37.279
the field, you know, I'm interested in foreign
00:24:37.279 --> 00:24:39.700
policy or foreign service, they will likely come
00:24:39.700 --> 00:24:43.359
back to you and say, oh, what issue? What country?
00:24:43.440 --> 00:24:47.579
What case? And having two or three answers that
00:24:47.579 --> 00:24:51.160
you are able to give readily, I think, can help
00:24:51.160 --> 00:24:54.299
set you apart by signaling that you're not only
00:24:54.299 --> 00:24:56.400
generally interested in international affairs,
00:24:56.519 --> 00:24:59.039
but that you have some specific ideas that excite
00:24:59.039 --> 00:25:01.160
you, right? And not that you're an expert on
00:25:01.160 --> 00:25:03.259
those ideas or those issues yet. I mean, you
00:25:03.259 --> 00:25:06.599
will develop the expertise by working, by doing
00:25:06.599 --> 00:25:09.309
the internships. taking the courses and studying.
00:25:09.970 --> 00:25:13.529
But having ideas ready can sort of help you immediately
00:25:13.529 --> 00:25:16.289
launch into a more substantive conversation than
00:25:16.289 --> 00:25:19.609
one that is just sort of not quite concrete enough.
00:25:20.289 --> 00:25:22.710
And it also then gives you something to read
00:25:22.710 --> 00:25:25.089
about, talk about, and start learning about.
00:25:25.289 --> 00:25:28.150
And you're by no means, you know, the things
00:25:28.150 --> 00:25:30.109
that people start working on are rarely the things
00:25:30.109 --> 00:25:32.769
they end working on. People move around quite
00:25:32.769 --> 00:25:37.019
a bit. They develop extensive expertise across
00:25:37.019 --> 00:25:39.019
a range of issues over the course of the career.
00:25:40.119 --> 00:25:42.900
But you have to start somewhere. And so thinking
00:25:42.900 --> 00:25:44.940
now about what are the issues you'd most like
00:25:44.940 --> 00:25:48.259
to learn about and having those ready to have
00:25:48.259 --> 00:25:50.380
those conversations when they come up, I think
00:25:50.380 --> 00:25:52.720
can be a very sort of helpful way to help you
00:25:52.720 --> 00:25:54.859
get your footing more quickly. All right. This
00:25:54.859 --> 00:25:57.440
is a perfect way to end this final segment. So
00:25:57.440 --> 00:26:00.779
thank you so much to Dr. Renana. Thank you for
00:26:00.779 --> 00:26:04.500
your time, your wisdom and your insight. So next
00:26:04.500 --> 00:26:06.660
up, we'll have the headline news, so stick around.
00:26:13.700 --> 00:26:16.680
The first headline of the day is titled, How
00:26:16.680 --> 00:26:18.920
this Australian airport is setting the global
00:26:18.920 --> 00:26:23.059
security standard the TSA's 781 million rollout
00:26:23.059 --> 00:26:26.200
can't match. The Sydney International Airport
00:26:26.200 --> 00:26:29.339
completed a full security overhaul, including
00:26:29.339 --> 00:26:32.200
an updated high -tech security scanning system.
00:26:32.759 --> 00:26:36.420
A TSA administrator said, they provide our dedicated
00:26:36.420 --> 00:26:38.980
frontline officers with one of the best tools
00:26:38.980 --> 00:26:41.539
available to screen passenger carry -on items
00:26:41.539 --> 00:26:44.359
and also improve the passenger experience by
00:26:44.359 --> 00:26:47.119
allowing passengers to keep more items in their
00:26:47.119 --> 00:26:49.400
carry -on bags during the screening process.
00:26:49.880 --> 00:26:52.720
For people outside of Sydney who are not planning
00:26:52.720 --> 00:26:55.509
on taking a trip, The updated security system
00:26:55.509 --> 00:26:57.829
shows a glimpse of the future of air travel,
00:26:58.009 --> 00:27:00.190
while setting a new standard for international
00:27:00.190 --> 00:27:03.349
airports and raising expectations for a faster
00:27:03.349 --> 00:27:05.970
and more seamless security experience worldwide.
00:27:06.470 --> 00:27:09.730
Our next headline on global security comes from
00:27:09.730 --> 00:27:13.049
the 25 -square -kilometer country of Tuvalu.
00:27:13.130 --> 00:27:16.789
The article is entitled Tuvalu Launches New Police
00:27:16.789 --> 00:27:20.119
Strategy for Safer Communities. The prime minister
00:27:20.119 --> 00:27:23.279
launched the new plan this year in which he congratulated
00:27:23.279 --> 00:27:25.579
members of the police while broadening government
00:27:25.579 --> 00:27:29.339
agencies, civil society and regional law enforcement.
00:27:29.700 --> 00:27:32.779
The plan has a stronger emphasis on partnership,
00:27:32.940 --> 00:27:36.240
professionalism and accountability. He has reaffirmed
00:27:36.240 --> 00:27:39.740
the service's commitments to the plan to assist
00:27:39.740 --> 00:27:42.559
the Tuvalians. For the rest of the world, this
00:27:42.559 --> 00:27:45.059
is a signal that even microstates with a tiny
00:27:45.059 --> 00:27:47.740
domestic force can make a difference in global
00:27:47.740 --> 00:27:50.869
security. Our final headline comes from another
00:27:50.869 --> 00:27:54.890
very small country, Liechtenstein, a 160 square
00:27:54.890 --> 00:27:58.789
kilometer country. The article is entitled, Liechtenstein
00:27:58.789 --> 00:28:02.289
Opens Throne to Women in Historic Secession Reform.
00:28:02.789 --> 00:28:05.609
The crown is now open to either gender, male
00:28:05.609 --> 00:28:09.430
or female, but must be the firstborn. This marks
00:28:09.430 --> 00:28:12.210
a cultural milestone for the traditionally conservative
00:28:12.210 --> 00:28:15.329
country. While there is no immediate shift as
00:28:15.329 --> 00:28:18.730
Prince Hans Adam II is still the current reigning
00:28:18.730 --> 00:28:21.470
monarch, this update may push other countries
00:28:21.470 --> 00:28:24.190
to also have a stronger sense of gender equality
00:28:24.190 --> 00:28:27.269
when it comes to the crown. And that is our headline
00:28:27.269 --> 00:28:29.230
news for this episode. Thanks for listening.
00:28:32.390 --> 00:28:36.250
Did you connect with today's topic? If so, share
00:28:36.250 --> 00:28:39.329
it with a friend or tag us on social media. We'd
00:28:39.329 --> 00:28:41.789
love to hear your thoughts. And we're signing
00:28:41.789 --> 00:28:44.759
off until next time. We are Students Incorporated
00:28:44.759 --> 00:28:46.160
because your voice matters.
00:00:03.080 --> 00:00:05.120
Welcome back to the show. I'm your host, Mr.
00:00:05.280 --> 00:00:08.160
Jason. Lucy and Saris are on the mic today with
00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.259
me. And we have the privilege of hosting Dr.
00:00:11.539 --> 00:00:14.660
Renana Miles -Joyce today as our guest. Here's
00:00:14.660 --> 00:00:16.420
an introduction with some background information
00:00:16.420 --> 00:00:20.160
for our listeners. Dr. Renana Joyce is currently
00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:23.120
an assistant professor of security studies in
00:00:23.120 --> 00:00:26.059
the Walsh School of Foreign Service and Center
00:00:26.059 --> 00:00:28.480
for Security Studies at Georgetown University.
00:00:29.359 --> 00:00:32.259
Her research spans international security and
00:00:32.259 --> 00:00:35.340
U .S. foreign policy and how powerful states
00:00:35.340 --> 00:00:38.520
try to shape their security environments. She
00:00:38.520 --> 00:00:41.560
is also a research affiliate of MIT's Security
00:00:41.560 --> 00:00:45.000
Studies program. She previously served as assistant
00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:48.100
professor of politics at Brandeis University,
00:00:48.420 --> 00:00:51.880
was an adjunct political scientist at the Rand
00:00:51.880 --> 00:00:55.039
Corporation, and an external advisor for the
00:00:55.039 --> 00:00:58.200
U .S. Institute of Peace's Security Sector Governance
00:00:58.200 --> 00:01:01.780
and Reform Program. She has also held fellowships
00:01:01.780 --> 00:01:05.079
with the Irregular Warfare Initiative, a jointly
00:01:05.079 --> 00:01:07.859
sponsored program between the Modern War Institute
00:01:07.859 --> 00:01:11.939
at West Point, the Empirical Studies of Conflict
00:01:11.939 --> 00:01:14.939
Project, and Harvard Kennedy School's International
00:01:14.939 --> 00:01:18.439
Security Program and MIT's Security Studies Program.
00:01:19.019 --> 00:01:21.540
and George Washington University's Institute
00:01:21.540 --> 00:01:24.859
for Security and Conflict Studies. All right.
00:01:24.879 --> 00:01:27.319
She received her Ph .D. in political science
00:01:27.319 --> 00:01:31.060
from Columbia University in 2020. And before
00:01:31.060 --> 00:01:33.959
moving into academia, she was an analyst at the
00:01:33.959 --> 00:01:37.060
Department of Defense. All right. Did I get all
00:01:37.060 --> 00:01:41.000
that correct? Yes, you did. Thank you, Mr. Jason.
00:01:41.099 --> 00:01:45.519
And it is a pleasure to be here talking to you
00:01:45.519 --> 00:01:48.540
today. All right. Good. Thank you again for joining
00:01:48.540 --> 00:01:50.879
us. It's an honor to have you on the show. So,
00:01:50.920 --> 00:01:53.739
Lucy, we'll kick off our first segment. Hello,
00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:57.659
and it's very nice to meet you. So, for our first
00:01:57.659 --> 00:02:00.980
question, before academia, when you worked as
00:02:00.980 --> 00:02:04.040
an analyst, students often hear the term analyst.
00:02:04.379 --> 00:02:07.599
Why does an analyst actually do week -to -week,
00:02:07.700 --> 00:02:10.219
and what sparked your initial interest in international
00:02:10.219 --> 00:02:13.900
security? Thank you, Lucy. That's actually two
00:02:13.900 --> 00:02:18.639
questions in one. Let me take them separately.
00:02:19.199 --> 00:02:22.319
So let's start with policy analysis, because
00:02:22.319 --> 00:02:24.879
for those of you who may be considering careers
00:02:24.879 --> 00:02:27.560
in this field, there are some important differences
00:02:27.560 --> 00:02:31.099
between policy analysis and academic research
00:02:31.099 --> 00:02:35.120
that focuses on policy problems. And in some
00:02:35.120 --> 00:02:38.139
ways, these are two sides of the same coin, but
00:02:38.139 --> 00:02:41.780
they have different approaches to dealing with
00:02:41.780 --> 00:02:45.159
problem sets. So policy analysis tends to be
00:02:45.159 --> 00:02:49.780
very case specific. It is time bound and it's
00:02:49.780 --> 00:02:52.419
often working on very compressed time frames.
00:02:52.560 --> 00:02:55.500
Right. So so policy problems come up and you
00:02:55.500 --> 00:02:58.580
have analysts who try to work on solving them,
00:02:58.659 --> 00:03:01.680
whether that's through designing and implementing
00:03:01.680 --> 00:03:05.900
new processes, new programs, whether that's through
00:03:05.900 --> 00:03:08.819
sort of identifying solutions to diplomatic,
00:03:09.099 --> 00:03:13.219
military or security problems. But again, very
00:03:13.219 --> 00:03:15.819
much focused on the immediate problem that is
00:03:15.819 --> 00:03:18.560
confronting the organization or the government
00:03:18.560 --> 00:03:22.990
or the international community. Academic research,
00:03:23.090 --> 00:03:26.770
on the other hand, tends to focus more on patterns
00:03:26.770 --> 00:03:29.889
across time and space. So let me make that really
00:03:29.889 --> 00:03:33.030
concrete. So, for example, I am a scholar who
00:03:33.030 --> 00:03:36.710
works on U .S. foreign policy problems. Policy
00:03:36.710 --> 00:03:39.569
analysts in Washington right now are very concerned
00:03:39.569 --> 00:03:42.569
with questions like how what can the United States
00:03:42.569 --> 00:03:45.250
do to reopen the Strait of Hormuz? Right. There's
00:03:45.250 --> 00:03:49.250
a conflict with Iran. This strait has been closed
00:03:49.250 --> 00:03:51.919
intermittently and that's causing sort of. economic
00:03:51.919 --> 00:03:55.300
repercussions across the world, including in
00:03:55.300 --> 00:03:57.599
this region. So a policy analyst would say, what
00:03:57.599 --> 00:04:00.360
can the U .S. do today to reopen that strait?
00:04:00.780 --> 00:04:03.400
A political scientist like myself, on the other
00:04:03.400 --> 00:04:06.259
hand, would ask a different question, such as,
00:04:06.360 --> 00:04:10.439
under what conditions does coercion work against
00:04:10.439 --> 00:04:13.900
regional powers? How do great powers from outside
00:04:13.900 --> 00:04:17.459
the region get smaller powers to do what they
00:04:17.459 --> 00:04:21.569
want them to do? What kinds of threats or inducements
00:04:21.569 --> 00:04:24.470
work? And so that's a very general question that
00:04:24.470 --> 00:04:28.589
if answered well, could potentially have insights
00:04:28.589 --> 00:04:31.209
for policymakers across many different issues
00:04:31.209 --> 00:04:33.829
and regions in different periods of time to come.
00:04:34.009 --> 00:04:38.009
But it's sort of a different focus. And so that's
00:04:38.009 --> 00:04:40.050
sort of one way to think maybe about what an
00:04:40.050 --> 00:04:42.269
analyst does day to day. And it's hard to be
00:04:42.269 --> 00:04:44.389
more precise than that because they cover such
00:04:44.389 --> 00:04:49.300
a broad range of problems. So what got me interested
00:04:49.300 --> 00:04:52.360
in all of this to begin with? Well, I think like...
00:04:52.699 --> 00:04:55.620
Many of you in this class, I grew up as sort
00:04:55.620 --> 00:05:02.100
of a student who came from one country and was
00:05:02.100 --> 00:05:04.199
raised in another. So I was sort of what you
00:05:04.199 --> 00:05:07.120
could call a third culture kid. I actually lived
00:05:07.120 --> 00:05:10.060
in the Middle East. My parents were doing mission
00:05:10.060 --> 00:05:12.339
work there. And so I grew up sort of with an
00:05:12.339 --> 00:05:14.459
interest in international affairs just by having
00:05:14.459 --> 00:05:17.019
lived internationally for most of my childhood.
00:05:17.600 --> 00:05:19.879
I went back to the United States for college.
00:05:20.079 --> 00:05:22.360
I studied international community. development.
00:05:22.879 --> 00:05:25.560
I had a general sense that I was interested in
00:05:25.560 --> 00:05:27.660
international affairs, but didn't really know
00:05:27.660 --> 00:05:30.040
a lot about what that meant, what it would mean,
00:05:30.060 --> 00:05:32.920
for example, to have a career in foreign policy
00:05:32.920 --> 00:05:37.009
or foreign service. After I graduated, I got
00:05:37.009 --> 00:05:39.829
my first job in Washington, D .C., working as
00:05:39.829 --> 00:05:44.750
an analyst at a company there that was supporting
00:05:44.750 --> 00:05:47.889
the government with contracting work. And this
00:05:47.889 --> 00:05:50.829
was, I'm dating myself here a little bit, but
00:05:50.829 --> 00:05:54.879
during the height of the U .S. war in Iraq. And
00:05:54.879 --> 00:05:57.899
I found myself within six months after graduation
00:05:57.899 --> 00:06:01.740
in Baghdad, Iraq, on a contract as a civilian
00:06:01.740 --> 00:06:04.879
supporting the U .S. Army in Baghdad. And that
00:06:04.879 --> 00:06:07.540
was really my very first sort of exposure to
00:06:07.540 --> 00:06:12.319
the security world. Right. And it was puzzling.
00:06:12.319 --> 00:06:14.839
What is the United States doing out here trying
00:06:14.839 --> 00:06:18.560
to rebuild this state under fire, trying to stand
00:06:18.560 --> 00:06:22.579
up an Iraqi army that can handle local security
00:06:22.579 --> 00:06:26.329
problems? tamped down on the insurgency. As you
00:06:26.329 --> 00:06:29.230
may know, this is in the history books now, that
00:06:29.230 --> 00:06:31.949
effort didn't go very well. There were a lot
00:06:31.949 --> 00:06:34.490
of problems. And so I became very interested
00:06:34.490 --> 00:06:37.069
in sort of these puzzles and these problems.
00:06:37.110 --> 00:06:39.589
And I took that interest back to Washington with
00:06:39.589 --> 00:06:43.550
me after I was in Iraq for a year. And I think
00:06:43.550 --> 00:06:46.889
at that point, sort of the interest really crystallized
00:06:46.889 --> 00:06:49.310
into saying not just international affairs, but
00:06:49.310 --> 00:06:52.370
specifically international security issues are
00:06:52.370 --> 00:06:55.550
what I want. work on. And from there, there was
00:06:55.550 --> 00:06:59.310
sort of a more winding path to academia, but
00:06:59.310 --> 00:07:02.329
I'm sure we can talk about that more. Thank you
00:07:02.329 --> 00:07:05.649
for such a fascinating answer, Dr. Ranana. Our
00:07:05.649 --> 00:07:07.769
next question for you would be, what was the
00:07:07.769 --> 00:07:10.050
biggest shift for you when transitioning from
00:07:10.050 --> 00:07:12.370
hands -on government policy work to pursuing
00:07:12.370 --> 00:07:16.230
your PhD at Columbia University? Draws on the
00:07:16.230 --> 00:07:19.029
distinction that I made between policy analysis
00:07:19.029 --> 00:07:21.810
and academia when we started the conversation.
00:07:22.589 --> 00:07:24.370
And I think, again, it was, you know, I was coming
00:07:24.370 --> 00:07:27.649
very much from the analyst role. So I continuously
00:07:27.649 --> 00:07:30.910
had sort of discrete problems that were put on
00:07:30.910 --> 00:07:34.490
my desk to work on, to solve. You know, how do
00:07:34.490 --> 00:07:39.230
we solve this specific problem that this organization
00:07:39.230 --> 00:07:41.870
is having doing whatever thing they're tasked
00:07:41.870 --> 00:07:44.470
to do? And you try to troubleshoot and assess.
00:07:45.290 --> 00:07:49.089
And so moving from these sort of specifics to
00:07:49.089 --> 00:07:56.839
the generalities. Right, of academic... Theories
00:07:56.839 --> 00:08:00.759
of international relations, moving from the complexity
00:08:00.759 --> 00:08:04.759
of working within large government bureaucracies
00:08:04.759 --> 00:08:10.000
to the more abstract demands of thinking in theoretical
00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:14.060
terms about cause and effect in international
00:08:14.060 --> 00:08:19.540
politics was a big shift. So you could be looking
00:08:19.540 --> 00:08:21.279
at the same problem, but just through a very
00:08:21.279 --> 00:08:24.629
different lens. And through a different language,
00:08:24.870 --> 00:08:27.709
there's a translation process that happens. And
00:08:27.709 --> 00:08:31.370
so, again, I suspect that many of you are growing
00:08:31.370 --> 00:08:34.350
up and studying in environments where you translate
00:08:34.350 --> 00:08:37.070
frequently, whether that's between languages,
00:08:37.289 --> 00:08:39.590
between the classroom and the home, between the
00:08:39.590 --> 00:08:41.370
classroom, the home and the community outside.
00:08:41.669 --> 00:08:43.690
Right. That there's constantly this translation.
00:08:43.950 --> 00:08:46.409
And it's also very true when you shift from the
00:08:46.409 --> 00:08:50.460
policy world to the academic world. And so, you
00:08:50.460 --> 00:08:53.139
know, when I was in Washington, D .C., before
00:08:53.139 --> 00:08:56.799
my Ph .D., I did a master's degree at Georgetown
00:08:56.799 --> 00:09:00.000
in the security studies program where I now teach.
00:09:00.679 --> 00:09:04.039
And that was sort of the catalyst that specifically
00:09:04.039 --> 00:09:06.220
got me interested in academia. And so I went
00:09:06.220 --> 00:09:08.059
through the policy master's and I thought I knew
00:09:08.059 --> 00:09:10.990
all about academia. Because I had the master's
00:09:10.990 --> 00:09:13.490
degree and I had read the texts, but I was still
00:09:13.490 --> 00:09:15.710
speaking the language of policy, right? Because
00:09:15.710 --> 00:09:18.409
in our master's program, we really train future
00:09:18.409 --> 00:09:20.769
generations of policymakers and practitioners.
00:09:21.470 --> 00:09:23.750
We're not so much training professors there.
00:09:23.889 --> 00:09:25.710
So if you want to be a professor, I will give
00:09:25.710 --> 00:09:29.230
you slightly different career advice. So I had
00:09:29.230 --> 00:09:32.509
to really sort of learn to translate the language
00:09:32.509 --> 00:09:36.940
of that world to the academic world. But then,
00:09:36.940 --> 00:09:38.940
you know, in turn to be able to translate it
00:09:38.940 --> 00:09:41.679
back. Because if you do want to do research that
00:09:41.679 --> 00:09:45.159
is very policy relevant, that policymakers and
00:09:45.159 --> 00:09:49.399
practitioners can use to inform the kinds of
00:09:49.399 --> 00:09:51.799
things they're working on, to inform the policies
00:09:51.799 --> 00:09:54.799
they craft and the decisions they make, then
00:09:54.799 --> 00:09:57.179
you have to be able to speak both languages fluently.
00:09:57.620 --> 00:10:00.620
Thank you so much for your answer. I think the
00:10:00.620 --> 00:10:03.200
language translation metaphor you used is pretty
00:10:03.200 --> 00:10:07.539
interesting. Next question is, looking back at
00:10:07.539 --> 00:10:10.080
your time as a student, what core skills did
00:10:10.080 --> 00:10:11.919
you build that turned out to be your biggest
00:10:11.919 --> 00:10:15.320
superpowers in international relations? Well,
00:10:15.320 --> 00:10:21.159
let's see. Superpowers. I'm not sure I have any,
00:10:21.240 --> 00:10:25.419
but useful skills. So I think the first one,
00:10:25.460 --> 00:10:27.720
again, is this idea of translation. Learning
00:10:27.720 --> 00:10:30.580
to speak both languages so that you can actually
00:10:30.580 --> 00:10:35.220
do rigorous, cutting -edge research. communicate
00:10:35.220 --> 00:10:38.659
that back to communities of practice in ways
00:10:38.659 --> 00:10:42.360
that are accessible and useful, right? One of
00:10:42.360 --> 00:10:44.399
the biggest complaints that you hear is like,
00:10:44.460 --> 00:10:46.620
well, this academic research is great, but nobody
00:10:46.620 --> 00:10:51.120
can understand these dense academic texts that
00:10:51.120 --> 00:10:53.700
are full of jargon and they're too long to read.
00:10:53.759 --> 00:10:56.279
And so they're just not used. So really, how
00:10:56.279 --> 00:11:01.820
do you take good, rigorous research, but communicate
00:11:01.820 --> 00:11:04.500
it in ways that policymakers who are operating
00:11:04.500 --> 00:11:08.480
under tight deadlines can easily digest and use
00:11:08.480 --> 00:11:11.179
to inform their work. And that, I think, is the
00:11:11.179 --> 00:11:16.019
second skill really is designing and conducting
00:11:16.019 --> 00:11:19.860
research in ways that are very rigorous, right?
00:11:19.980 --> 00:11:23.980
Because one of the core problems that we all
00:11:23.980 --> 00:11:26.600
tackle, regardless of the field we're in, is
00:11:26.600 --> 00:11:28.879
the question of how do we know what we know?
00:11:29.379 --> 00:11:34.809
How do we know? And really, at the end of the
00:11:34.809 --> 00:11:37.710
day, most of us most of the time are relying
00:11:37.710 --> 00:11:42.110
on implicit ideas about cause and effect. If
00:11:42.110 --> 00:11:45.850
I do X, Y will probably happen. But how do we
00:11:45.850 --> 00:11:48.830
actually know that X will cause Y? Well, a lot
00:11:48.830 --> 00:11:51.870
goes into, so this is where research comes in.
00:11:51.929 --> 00:11:54.070
This is where the idea of basic research is sort
00:11:54.070 --> 00:11:56.309
of understanding these causal relationships.
00:11:57.269 --> 00:12:01.230
And so, and that's really hard to do in some
00:12:01.230 --> 00:12:03.570
disciplines, especially the social sciences,
00:12:03.690 --> 00:12:08.240
right? Politics, war, peace, conflict, these
00:12:08.240 --> 00:12:11.919
are very fuzzy, complicated concepts that have
00:12:11.919 --> 00:12:16.100
many causes and many effects and trying to untangle
00:12:16.100 --> 00:12:19.659
them is challenging. And so really learning how
00:12:19.659 --> 00:12:22.620
to design and conduct good research that allows
00:12:22.620 --> 00:12:26.259
us to say something probably never with certainty,
00:12:26.340 --> 00:12:32.330
but with more confidence that we know. the effects
00:12:32.330 --> 00:12:35.190
that things will have can be very, very useful
00:12:35.190 --> 00:12:37.730
and very hard to do, right? And in the U .S.
00:12:37.730 --> 00:12:39.690
government, for example, one of the perennial
00:12:39.690 --> 00:12:43.049
issues is assessment, monitoring, and evaluation.
00:12:43.799 --> 00:12:47.379
How do we assess the programs or the activities
00:12:47.379 --> 00:12:49.220
that we do around the world? How do we evaluate
00:12:49.220 --> 00:12:52.179
the effects? That's really hard. And that actually
00:12:52.179 --> 00:12:56.399
takes some good social science skills. And those
00:12:56.399 --> 00:12:59.879
are something that you can learn in higher education,
00:13:00.179 --> 00:13:03.340
particularly at the PhD level. Moving on from
00:13:03.340 --> 00:13:05.919
that. You've held research fellowships across
00:13:05.919 --> 00:13:08.559
different institutions. How did moving through
00:13:08.559 --> 00:13:11.039
these different environments shape the way you
00:13:11.039 --> 00:13:14.080
think about state power and military cooperation?
00:13:14.799 --> 00:13:20.460
So one of the key things that fellowships serve
00:13:20.460 --> 00:13:26.759
to do is to expose people to new communities.
00:13:27.580 --> 00:13:32.649
New communities bring new ideas. And new ideas
00:13:32.649 --> 00:13:36.950
can serve to sharpen thinking. And so really,
00:13:37.110 --> 00:13:41.389
one of the things that higher education serves
00:13:41.389 --> 00:13:47.690
to do is to help students or people who participate
00:13:47.690 --> 00:13:50.450
in fellowships to learn critical thinking skills
00:13:50.450 --> 00:13:53.470
and then to refine those skills. And we get smarter
00:13:53.470 --> 00:13:58.100
by interacting. engaging with each other's ideas.
00:13:58.519 --> 00:14:03.960
And the intent or the hope is that that process
00:14:03.960 --> 00:14:07.279
of interacting and engaging and hearing other
00:14:07.279 --> 00:14:09.620
people's work and sharing your work and getting
00:14:09.620 --> 00:14:14.000
feedback really leads to sharpening and refining
00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:19.700
the ideas themselves. And so I think to answer
00:14:19.700 --> 00:14:21.500
your question about fellowships, that really
00:14:21.500 --> 00:14:28.049
has been the biggest. value is not so much learning
00:14:28.049 --> 00:14:32.110
a new fact about state power or institutions,
00:14:32.330 --> 00:14:35.950
but really sort of bringing the ideas that I'm
00:14:35.950 --> 00:14:39.649
working on to the table and having other people
00:14:39.649 --> 00:14:42.889
engage with them critically. And I think that
00:14:42.889 --> 00:14:46.690
process has been enormously valuable in refining
00:14:46.690 --> 00:14:50.169
and developing the research and the ideas that
00:14:50.169 --> 00:14:53.000
ultimately come out of it. Yeah, for sure. I
00:14:53.000 --> 00:14:55.039
think we can also see that in school environments
00:14:55.039 --> 00:14:58.480
where students interact with other students and
00:14:58.480 --> 00:15:01.320
get new ideas that we maybe haven't thought of.
00:15:01.580 --> 00:15:05.399
So now let me ask you our last question for this
00:15:05.399 --> 00:15:08.080
segment. If you could travel back in time and
00:15:08.080 --> 00:15:10.899
give your student self one piece of advice about
00:15:10.899 --> 00:15:13.659
building a career in foreign service, what would
00:15:13.659 --> 00:15:16.320
it be? One piece of advice I think I would have
00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:19.419
offered my former self is to really understand.
00:15:21.819 --> 00:15:26.279
How big a field foreign policy or foreign service
00:15:26.279 --> 00:15:29.759
is. There are many ways to contribute. We've
00:15:29.759 --> 00:15:32.600
already talked about some of them. The policy
00:15:32.600 --> 00:15:35.139
analysis. You could be a policy analyst in government.
00:15:35.399 --> 00:15:37.799
You could be outside of government at a think
00:15:37.799 --> 00:15:40.860
tank or a research institute through academia
00:15:40.860 --> 00:15:44.519
as a professor or an instructor. You could be
00:15:44.519 --> 00:15:48.799
a teacher teaching at different levels of education.
00:15:49.240 --> 00:15:52.889
And so I think. You just to understand that there
00:15:52.889 --> 00:15:55.970
are so many ways to contribute, all of them meaningful,
00:15:56.090 --> 00:15:59.690
and people can and do move around quite a bit
00:15:59.690 --> 00:16:03.230
within this sort of foreign service or foreign
00:16:03.230 --> 00:16:07.769
policy environment. And so I think sometimes
00:16:07.769 --> 00:16:12.440
as students, there's a... we can feel or perhaps
00:16:12.440 --> 00:16:15.879
I felt sort of pressure to know very early on,
00:16:15.960 --> 00:16:18.419
what is it that I'm going to do? What am I going
00:16:18.419 --> 00:16:21.600
to be in the world? And instead of sort of, you
00:16:21.600 --> 00:16:24.340
know, really feeling free to just explore broadly,
00:16:24.600 --> 00:16:27.879
try things. As a student, this is the time to
00:16:27.879 --> 00:16:30.539
try and you will learn what you like and what
00:16:30.539 --> 00:16:32.860
you don't like. You will develop skills. What
00:16:32.860 --> 00:16:35.200
you like may change as a function of what you
00:16:35.200 --> 00:16:37.500
do, right? It turns out that when we learn skills
00:16:37.500 --> 00:16:39.279
and we're good at them, we start to like those
00:16:39.279 --> 00:16:43.240
things. So just try things, take opportunities,
00:16:43.700 --> 00:16:46.279
always be exploring different opportunities.
00:16:46.740 --> 00:16:51.279
Some of the best silly but really profound career
00:16:51.279 --> 00:16:56.759
advice that has always stuck with me as a senior,
00:16:56.860 --> 00:16:59.500
a woman in the field that I wanted to be. And
00:16:59.500 --> 00:17:02.019
I met with her and I asked her sort of a similar
00:17:02.019 --> 00:17:04.140
question for career advice. And she said, remember,
00:17:04.319 --> 00:17:06.940
you always want to be choosing between cake and
00:17:06.940 --> 00:17:09.950
ice cream. And I thought that was very silly
00:17:09.950 --> 00:17:12.309
when she said it, but it stuck with me years
00:17:12.309 --> 00:17:14.470
later. It's like, I always want to be choosing
00:17:14.470 --> 00:17:16.430
between cake and ice cream, right? You want to
00:17:16.430 --> 00:17:18.789
be choosing between good opportunities. And so
00:17:18.789 --> 00:17:20.329
how do you choose between good opportunities?
00:17:20.529 --> 00:17:23.750
You apply broadly, you learn broadly, you explore
00:17:23.750 --> 00:17:27.109
broadly. And so I think just to take as an expansive
00:17:27.109 --> 00:17:31.029
view as possible as a student, this is your time
00:17:31.029 --> 00:17:34.829
to do that. All right. Thank you so much for
00:17:34.829 --> 00:17:37.420
those. answers and all that good insight. We'll
00:17:37.420 --> 00:17:39.579
take a quick break and we'll be right back with
00:17:39.579 --> 00:17:41.720
part two right after this short announcement.
00:17:41.859 --> 00:17:48.039
So stick around. A quick reminder for you guys,
00:17:48.240 --> 00:17:51.200
school photo day is during September 14 to 18.
00:17:51.559 --> 00:17:54.559
So wear your uniforms, comb your hair, and be
00:17:54.559 --> 00:17:57.339
sure to look your best for the yearbook. Seniors,
00:17:57.339 --> 00:18:00.730
don't forget your white shirt and jeans. Also,
00:18:00.789 --> 00:18:03.569
here's a quick fun fact. The first yearbook was
00:18:03.569 --> 00:18:06.950
made in 1809 for Yale's graduating class and
00:18:06.950 --> 00:18:10.650
became a tradition in the early 1900s. The earliest
00:18:10.650 --> 00:18:13.170
renditions relied on ink silhouettes because
00:18:13.170 --> 00:18:16.349
photography had not been invented yet. Fortunately
00:18:16.349 --> 00:18:19.930
for us, we shall be using actual cameras. Mr.
00:18:19.970 --> 00:18:26.890
Jason, back to you. We are back with part two.
00:18:26.950 --> 00:18:29.410
I'm Mr. Jason here with student co -host Lucy
00:18:29.410 --> 00:18:32.329
and Saris and our guest, Dr. Renana. Saris will
00:18:32.329 --> 00:18:35.150
lead us off with part two. Thank you, Mr. Jason.
00:18:35.450 --> 00:18:38.750
So, Dr. Renana, we understand you are teaching
00:18:38.750 --> 00:18:41.569
at Georgetown University. What are you teaching
00:18:41.569 --> 00:18:43.890
and what type of students do you interact with
00:18:43.890 --> 00:18:47.990
each week? So my core appointment at Georgetown
00:18:47.990 --> 00:18:51.559
is in the School of Foreign Service. And specifically
00:18:51.559 --> 00:18:54.599
within the Security Studies program. Now, the
00:18:54.599 --> 00:18:57.759
Security Studies program is primarily a master's
00:18:57.759 --> 00:19:02.259
generating program. So at this point, the courses
00:19:02.259 --> 00:19:04.680
that I am teaching and the students I'm interacting
00:19:04.680 --> 00:19:08.119
with primarily are our graduate students who
00:19:08.119 --> 00:19:11.680
are pursuing Masters of Arts and Security Studies.
00:19:12.059 --> 00:19:15.859
However, as a core member of the School of Foreign
00:19:15.859 --> 00:19:19.099
Service faculty, I also... regularly meet with
00:19:19.099 --> 00:19:22.039
and advise undergraduate students there, and
00:19:22.039 --> 00:19:25.319
I will be teaching undergraduate courses in the
00:19:25.319 --> 00:19:28.619
future. So if any of you are interested in learning
00:19:28.619 --> 00:19:31.180
more about Georgetown or the School of Foreign
00:19:31.180 --> 00:19:34.299
Service, you are welcome to contact me. I'd be
00:19:34.299 --> 00:19:36.380
delighted to talk to you about it. Thank you.
00:19:37.130 --> 00:19:40.230
So our next question is, we read that you were
00:19:40.230 --> 00:19:43.230
recently awarded a Department of Defense grant.
00:19:43.529 --> 00:19:46.210
What was that grant and how would you explain
00:19:46.210 --> 00:19:49.269
what security assistance actually means and why
00:19:49.269 --> 00:19:51.750
is it such an important tool in foreign policy?
00:19:52.509 --> 00:19:55.990
So this grant that you mentioned was to support
00:19:55.990 --> 00:19:58.769
my current book project. I have a book manuscript
00:19:58.769 --> 00:20:01.230
that is under review right now that looks at
00:20:01.230 --> 00:20:04.069
security assistance as a tool of influence in
00:20:04.069 --> 00:20:07.089
U .S. foreign policy. By security assistance,
00:20:07.369 --> 00:20:12.170
I mean... the provision of weapons, equipment,
00:20:12.410 --> 00:20:16.609
training, and advice to foreign militaries. The
00:20:16.609 --> 00:20:19.650
United States, like all great powers, uses security
00:20:19.650 --> 00:20:23.549
assistance not only to make its allied and partner
00:20:23.549 --> 00:20:27.190
militaries more capable, but also to try to influence
00:20:27.190 --> 00:20:31.569
them and to shape their behavior. And so the
00:20:31.569 --> 00:20:34.809
book project looks at security assistance specifically
00:20:34.809 --> 00:20:39.490
as a tool of influence. Now, I mentioned that
00:20:39.490 --> 00:20:41.670
the United States, like all other great powers,
00:20:41.829 --> 00:20:44.869
uses this tool to try to influence. But it also
00:20:44.869 --> 00:20:47.650
often does not get what it wants. Right. It turns
00:20:47.650 --> 00:20:51.150
out that it's very hard to influence partners,
00:20:51.470 --> 00:20:56.049
particularly in the security domain. So how should
00:20:56.049 --> 00:20:58.089
we think about security assistance then? Is this
00:20:58.089 --> 00:21:03.309
just a bad tool? And the answer is no. But we
00:21:03.309 --> 00:21:06.410
need to understand under what conditions it is
00:21:06.410 --> 00:21:09.170
more. likely to deliver the desired results.
00:21:09.529 --> 00:21:11.509
So again, going back to the beginning of this
00:21:11.509 --> 00:21:13.730
conversation, this is one of the things that
00:21:13.730 --> 00:21:15.809
academic research is particularly good at is
00:21:15.809 --> 00:21:19.869
not asking, how can the United States, for example,
00:21:23.139 --> 00:21:26.740
convince this specific partner military to do
00:21:26.740 --> 00:21:28.619
what it wants on this specific policy issue,
00:21:28.740 --> 00:21:30.839
but rather to ask sort of more generally, under
00:21:30.839 --> 00:21:35.019
what conditions is this a better tool? And so
00:21:35.019 --> 00:21:40.000
the answer hopefully will, you know, either change
00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:43.319
when policymakers reach for this tool out of
00:21:43.319 --> 00:21:47.279
the sort of toolkit of statecraft or perhaps
00:21:47.279 --> 00:21:50.710
change what they ask the tool to do. So if we
00:21:50.710 --> 00:21:53.430
find that, for example, it is less likely to
00:21:53.430 --> 00:21:56.670
be effective under certain circumstances, then
00:21:56.670 --> 00:21:58.430
you maybe use it in different circumstances.
00:21:58.549 --> 00:22:00.589
Or you use it in those circumstances because
00:22:00.589 --> 00:22:03.130
it's still the best tool available, but you have
00:22:03.130 --> 00:22:05.250
more modest expectations of what it will deliver.
00:22:05.789 --> 00:22:09.769
And so I look at efforts. Now, when we talk about
00:22:09.769 --> 00:22:12.910
influence, it's always important to specify influence
00:22:12.910 --> 00:22:16.569
over what. And so I specifically look at efforts
00:22:16.569 --> 00:22:19.670
to bring allied and partnered militaries. into
00:22:19.670 --> 00:22:23.349
security and normative alignment, meaning support
00:22:23.349 --> 00:22:26.750
for the United States' preferred security policies
00:22:26.750 --> 00:22:30.750
and preferred political and military values.
00:22:31.109 --> 00:22:34.930
So I look at this across time and space, looking
00:22:34.930 --> 00:22:40.509
at different cases, and hopefully that book will
00:22:40.509 --> 00:22:44.250
be out sometime soon in the future. And that
00:22:44.250 --> 00:22:46.930
is the project that I've just recently concluded.
00:22:47.559 --> 00:22:50.279
For our last question, we'd like to ask our guests
00:22:50.279 --> 00:22:53.299
for advice. For high school or college students
00:22:53.299 --> 00:22:55.920
who dream of entering some form of foreign service,
00:22:56.240 --> 00:22:58.799
what is the best first step they can take right
00:22:58.799 --> 00:23:03.019
now? What a good question. So I think I'm going
00:23:03.019 --> 00:23:08.920
to offer potentially incongruous advice. So my
00:23:08.920 --> 00:23:12.819
advice to my former student self was to be as
00:23:12.819 --> 00:23:15.500
broad and expansive as possible. Try all the
00:23:15.500 --> 00:23:19.029
things. Take all the opportunities. I think that
00:23:19.029 --> 00:23:24.190
is particularly important today because the nature
00:23:24.190 --> 00:23:26.329
of work is shifting. The nature of opportunities
00:23:26.329 --> 00:23:29.690
for students is shifting. The landscape for internships
00:23:29.690 --> 00:23:32.049
and entry level jobs is going to look different,
00:23:32.150 --> 00:23:35.450
I think, across the board, including in foreign
00:23:35.450 --> 00:23:40.920
policy field. And so really. Be as broad as possible.
00:23:41.099 --> 00:23:44.200
Now, that said, the advice to someone who wants
00:23:44.200 --> 00:23:46.980
to break into the field that I would offer, again,
00:23:47.079 --> 00:23:51.880
is be as broad as possible. Yes. But also. Start
00:23:51.880 --> 00:23:55.960
to think now about two or three things that really
00:23:55.960 --> 00:23:57.779
interest you, because, again, foreign policy
00:23:57.779 --> 00:23:59.799
is a very vast field. Are you interested in.
00:24:00.279 --> 00:24:03.079
or foreign service? Are you interested in economic
00:24:03.079 --> 00:24:06.599
statecraft, political statecraft, military statecraft,
00:24:06.759 --> 00:24:11.299
use of force? And in what kinds of regions? Do
00:24:11.299 --> 00:24:13.279
you have a region that you're interested in,
00:24:13.380 --> 00:24:16.880
a particular problem set? And so I would encourage
00:24:16.880 --> 00:24:20.940
students to really think about two or three things.
00:24:22.059 --> 00:24:24.920
that they're interested in and whether that is
00:24:24.920 --> 00:24:28.500
a region, a place, a problem set, a tool, and
00:24:28.500 --> 00:24:31.519
start to learn a little more about that issue.
00:24:32.119 --> 00:24:34.319
Have an answer. When you say to someone, you
00:24:34.319 --> 00:24:35.740
know, when you meet someone who's working in
00:24:35.740 --> 00:24:37.279
the field, you know, I'm interested in foreign
00:24:37.279 --> 00:24:39.700
policy or foreign service, they will likely come
00:24:39.700 --> 00:24:43.359
back to you and say, oh, what issue? What country?
00:24:43.440 --> 00:24:47.579
What case? And having two or three answers that
00:24:47.579 --> 00:24:51.160
you are able to give readily, I think, can help
00:24:51.160 --> 00:24:54.299
set you apart by signaling that you're not only
00:24:54.299 --> 00:24:56.400
generally interested in international affairs,
00:24:56.519 --> 00:24:59.039
but that you have some specific ideas that excite
00:24:59.039 --> 00:25:01.160
you, right? And not that you're an expert on
00:25:01.160 --> 00:25:03.259
those ideas or those issues yet. I mean, you
00:25:03.259 --> 00:25:06.599
will develop the expertise by working, by doing
00:25:06.599 --> 00:25:09.309
the internships. taking the courses and studying.
00:25:09.970 --> 00:25:13.529
But having ideas ready can sort of help you immediately
00:25:13.529 --> 00:25:16.289
launch into a more substantive conversation than
00:25:16.289 --> 00:25:19.609
one that is just sort of not quite concrete enough.
00:25:20.289 --> 00:25:22.710
And it also then gives you something to read
00:25:22.710 --> 00:25:25.089
about, talk about, and start learning about.
00:25:25.289 --> 00:25:28.150
And you're by no means, you know, the things
00:25:28.150 --> 00:25:30.109
that people start working on are rarely the things
00:25:30.109 --> 00:25:32.769
they end working on. People move around quite
00:25:32.769 --> 00:25:37.019
a bit. They develop extensive expertise across
00:25:37.019 --> 00:25:39.019
a range of issues over the course of the career.
00:25:40.119 --> 00:25:42.900
But you have to start somewhere. And so thinking
00:25:42.900 --> 00:25:44.940
now about what are the issues you'd most like
00:25:44.940 --> 00:25:48.259
to learn about and having those ready to have
00:25:48.259 --> 00:25:50.380
those conversations when they come up, I think
00:25:50.380 --> 00:25:52.720
can be a very sort of helpful way to help you
00:25:52.720 --> 00:25:54.859
get your footing more quickly. All right. This
00:25:54.859 --> 00:25:57.440
is a perfect way to end this final segment. So
00:25:57.440 --> 00:26:00.779
thank you so much to Dr. Renana. Thank you for
00:26:00.779 --> 00:26:04.500
your time, your wisdom and your insight. So next
00:26:04.500 --> 00:26:06.660
up, we'll have the headline news, so stick around.
00:26:13.700 --> 00:26:16.680
The first headline of the day is titled, How
00:26:16.680 --> 00:26:18.920
this Australian airport is setting the global
00:26:18.920 --> 00:26:23.059
security standard the TSA's 781 million rollout
00:26:23.059 --> 00:26:26.200
can't match. The Sydney International Airport
00:26:26.200 --> 00:26:29.339
completed a full security overhaul, including
00:26:29.339 --> 00:26:32.200
an updated high -tech security scanning system.
00:26:32.759 --> 00:26:36.420
A TSA administrator said, they provide our dedicated
00:26:36.420 --> 00:26:38.980
frontline officers with one of the best tools
00:26:38.980 --> 00:26:41.539
available to screen passenger carry -on items
00:26:41.539 --> 00:26:44.359
and also improve the passenger experience by
00:26:44.359 --> 00:26:47.119
allowing passengers to keep more items in their
00:26:47.119 --> 00:26:49.400
carry -on bags during the screening process.
00:26:49.880 --> 00:26:52.720
For people outside of Sydney who are not planning
00:26:52.720 --> 00:26:55.509
on taking a trip, The updated security system
00:26:55.509 --> 00:26:57.829
shows a glimpse of the future of air travel,
00:26:58.009 --> 00:27:00.190
while setting a new standard for international
00:27:00.190 --> 00:27:03.349
airports and raising expectations for a faster
00:27:03.349 --> 00:27:05.970
and more seamless security experience worldwide.
00:27:06.470 --> 00:27:09.730
Our next headline on global security comes from
00:27:09.730 --> 00:27:13.049
the 25 -square -kilometer country of Tuvalu.
00:27:13.130 --> 00:27:16.789
The article is entitled Tuvalu Launches New Police
00:27:16.789 --> 00:27:20.119
Strategy for Safer Communities. The prime minister
00:27:20.119 --> 00:27:23.279
launched the new plan this year in which he congratulated
00:27:23.279 --> 00:27:25.579
members of the police while broadening government
00:27:25.579 --> 00:27:29.339
agencies, civil society and regional law enforcement.
00:27:29.700 --> 00:27:32.779
The plan has a stronger emphasis on partnership,
00:27:32.940 --> 00:27:36.240
professionalism and accountability. He has reaffirmed
00:27:36.240 --> 00:27:39.740
the service's commitments to the plan to assist
00:27:39.740 --> 00:27:42.559
the Tuvalians. For the rest of the world, this
00:27:42.559 --> 00:27:45.059
is a signal that even microstates with a tiny
00:27:45.059 --> 00:27:47.740
domestic force can make a difference in global
00:27:47.740 --> 00:27:50.869
security. Our final headline comes from another
00:27:50.869 --> 00:27:54.890
very small country, Liechtenstein, a 160 square
00:27:54.890 --> 00:27:58.789
kilometer country. The article is entitled, Liechtenstein
00:27:58.789 --> 00:28:02.289
Opens Throne to Women in Historic Secession Reform.
00:28:02.789 --> 00:28:05.609
The crown is now open to either gender, male
00:28:05.609 --> 00:28:09.430
or female, but must be the firstborn. This marks
00:28:09.430 --> 00:28:12.210
a cultural milestone for the traditionally conservative
00:28:12.210 --> 00:28:15.329
country. While there is no immediate shift as
00:28:15.329 --> 00:28:18.730
Prince Hans Adam II is still the current reigning
00:28:18.730 --> 00:28:21.470
monarch, this update may push other countries
00:28:21.470 --> 00:28:24.190
to also have a stronger sense of gender equality
00:28:24.190 --> 00:28:27.269
when it comes to the crown. And that is our headline
00:28:27.269 --> 00:28:29.230
news for this episode. Thanks for listening.
00:28:32.390 --> 00:28:36.250
Did you connect with today's topic? If so, share
00:28:36.250 --> 00:28:39.329
it with a friend or tag us on social media. We'd
00:28:39.329 --> 00:28:41.789
love to hear your thoughts. And we're signing
00:28:41.789 --> 00:28:44.759
off until next time. We are Students Incorporated
00:28:44.759 --> 00:28:46.160
because your voice matters.
