How Storytelling Shapes Strategy: Peter W. Singer on China, Cyber, and the Future of Conflict

Show Notes

In this episode of Cyber Focus, host Frank Cilluffo speaks with Peter W. Singer, strategist at New America, professor at Arizona State, and founder of Useful Fiction. They revisit Singer’s influential book Ghost Fleet and examine how the strategic landscape—particularly U.S.-China competition—has shifted over the past decade. Singer discusses China’s military reorganization and the lessons it’s drawing from the war in Ukraine. He also explores how AI is reshaping the nature of cyber threats.

The conversation highlights the growing intersection of cyber, physical, and cognitive warfare. Singer explains how storytelling can make complex strategies easier to understand and more likely to drive change. He emphasizes the need for cross-domain thinking and a more dynamic approach to building the cybersecurity workforce.

Main Topics Covered:

• China’s military reorganization and the emergence of the Information Support Force
• Lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war and implications for China
• The role of narrative and “useful fiction” in cybersecurity policy and strategy
• Hybrid threats: cyber attacks, cognitive warfare, and disinformation
• Emerging risks tied to AI, automation, and operational technology
• Breaking down silos and redefining the cybersecurity workforce

Key Quotes:

• “If you are telling yourself that there is not a state of intense cooperation alliance between Russia and China, you are telling yourself fiction.” – Peter W. Singer
• “[In 2015’s Ghost Fleet] we portrayed a world where there was China catching up to us in technology capability… we’re not as ahead in the race as we were back then.” – Peter W. Singer
• “If we were to see such a kind of scenario [a conflict with China or Russia], the private sector would be touched by it and therefore it needs to start scenario building for it.” – Peter W. Singer
• “[China] didn’t enter into a [U.S.] water system because it wanted the intellectual property… No, it was setting up a beachhead in case there was a conflict.” – Peter W. Singer
• “If you read a white paper, one part of your brain lights up. If you read it as told in a scenario—and it can be a true story or it can be a fictionalized story—four parts of your brain light up.” – Peter W. Singer

Relevant Links and Resources

Useful Fiction
A storytelling consultancy founded by Peter Singer that helps organizations use narrative to drive strategic thinking and communication.
https://www.useful-fiction.com/

Ghost Fleet: A Novel of the Next World War
Singer’s bestselling speculative novel that explores how future warfare might unfold, blending real-world research with fiction.
https://www.ghostfleetbook.com/

Peter W. Singer – Personal Website
Singer’s official website, featuring his books, articles, media appearances, and professional background.
https://www.pwsinger.com/

Peter W. Singer at New America
Singer’s profile at New America, where he serves as a strategist focused on defense policy, cybersecurity, and emerging technologies.
https://www.newamerica.org/our-people/peter-warren-singer/

China Intelligence – Defense One & BluePath Labs
A collaborative project analyzing Chinese military and strategic developments using open-source intelligence.
https://www.defenseone.com/topic/china-intelligence/

Guest Bio:
Peter Warren Singer is a strategist at New America, professor of practice at Arizona State University, and founder of Useful Fiction—a company that helps organizations communicate strategy through storytelling. He’s the bestselling author of books like LikeWar, Wired for War, and Ghost Fleet, and has advised everyone from military leaders to Hollywood producers. Described by The Wall Street Journal as “the premier futurist in the national-security environment,” he’s spoken everywhere from the White House to the Sydney Opera House.

Transcript

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It’s challenging that our adversaries are information sharing better and better at the
very same time that the United States and its allies are getting worse and worse at our

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information sharing and coordination.

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Welcome to Cyber Focus from the McCrary Institute, where we explore the people and ideas
shaping and defending our digital world.

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I’m your host, Frank Cilluffo and have the privilege to sit down this week with Peter
Singer.

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Peter is a strategist at New America.

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He is a professor of practice at Arizona State, and he is the founder of Useful Fiction,
which is a fascinating company that uses storytelling to be able to inform organizations,

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to help with their strategies and the like.

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He is a bestselling author of numerous books.

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I still remember to this day when Ghost Fleet came out, it was handed out in every
national security conference that I was in, whether in the IC itself or around the

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perimeter.

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And bottom line, Peter, thank you so much for joining us today.

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I appreciate you having me on.

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You know, you were also a regular columnist in Defense One, writing about China, writing
about technology, writing about competitiveness.

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And I thought we’d start with some of that thinking as well.

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And maybe to begin with, when you released Ghost Fleet in 2015, you envisioned not only
conflict, but a war between the United States and China.

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And I’d be curious how you think

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It looks a decade later.

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gosh.

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Yeah, so you’re bringing together two different parts of my work.

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So one is the project that we have with Defense One and Blue Path Labs that’s called the
China Intelligence.

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And what we do is every few weeks we put out a report using open source intelligence.

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So sourcing from China, you know, while it is a censorship heavy state, there’s still a
massive amount of data that’s out there.

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they’re waiting to be translated, but translated in two different ways.

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One, the language translation, but two, there’s a need to translate it for the rest of us,
so to speak.

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It’s not of great use if it’s only going to a 20 page report in the China Watchers
community.

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And so that’s what we’ve been putting out.

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And yeah, across the years that we’ve been doing this,

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As you’ve hit it, we’ve seen a massive amount of advancement and advancement in just a
wide range of areas.

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We had a recent report looking at DeepSeq, but not what are Americans saying about
DeepSeq, but what is the PLA and China saying about what it means for them to looking at

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space operations and the like.

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and sort of circle back to your question, you know, when Ghost Fleet came out, it was
about a decade back, I think there was a couple things that have changed.

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One, we could put this in the good and the bad category.

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There is greater awareness of that we’re in a world of competition and, you know, we don’t
want to be in a world of conflict, but it’s a risk.

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When we were doing Ghost Fleet, most of the focus back then was on counterterrorism,
counterinsurgency,

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The cyber side of the story was a little too much focused on criminal networks.

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And so what we wanted to do is say, hey, what would happen if the trends as we see them,
which is headed more towards great power competition and conflict, play out?

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Secondly, what might advance in areas like AI and robotics and the like?

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there’s obviously a lot more attention being paid to these topics now than back then.

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The bad side of that is the challenges only grown worse.

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likelihood, the risk of conflict is only higher.

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And unfortunately, we portrayed a world where there was China catching up to us in
technology capability.

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et cetera, we’re not as ahead in the race as we were back then.

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And so that’s not a good news story either.

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Excellent.

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No, no, and I’m definitely going to pull that thread.

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You’re a little younger than me, but when you…

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I grew up reading fibbes.

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I would get the hard copy every day of what the press was saying around the world.

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my office was a complete disaster and mess because I had them stacked up as high as you
can imagine.

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And seems like you’re fulfilling that mission in this particular space, which is
essential.

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not only mirror imaging what we think, but actually getting a sense of exactly what they
are thinking, saying, and doing, whether it’s propaganda or whether it’s actual policy and

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strategy, I think that’s essential.

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Hey, let me ask, so given these investments that they are making, and it’s across the
board, and I do think you’re right, it’s…

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probably beyond even a pacing threat in many ways.

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But what do you think some of these investments and what indicators do you see in terms of
how conflict, both physical, cyber, convergence, whatever that may be, how does that look?

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Yeah, I was at a recent session where we were exploring, okay, there is a risk.

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one says that it’s a net.

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Sorry, I should put it this way.

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No one wants it to be inevitable.

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But it is a it’s not a black swan that the United States could go into a conflict with a
major state power, be it a Russia, be it a China, or even an Iran.

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They’re planning for it.

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We have to in turn plan for that kind of scenario.

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But one of the aspects that’s maybe not paid as much attention to is how would that play
out not just for the US military, but for the rest of the network, for the corporate

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world, public sector, you name it.

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And a number of issues emerge from that and ones that we’ve actually been exploring too
with our Useful Fiction project.

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So some of the aspects I think that we can…

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reasonably project, at least based off of what they have revealed about their plans, what
we’ve seen in conflicts like Ukraine, what in turn discourse here is on.

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So one is the idea that, you know, during the dating of things, how old we are, you know,
both of us are very close to the age of the terminology cyber pearl harbor.

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We’ve been worrying about, thinking about, talking about a cyber Pearl Harbor for much of
your and my life.

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If there was to be a conflict with a Russia, with the China, it probably would not just be
merely that one Pearl Harbor incident.

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It would be a series of attacks again and again and again, a campaign.

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We explored this in a project where we talked about how the US network is so disparate.

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There are so many different entities.

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There’s different types of vulnerabilities.

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There’s different levels of security that it isn’t this scenario of everything going down
at once or the EMP fantasies and we’re all thrown back to the Middle Ages.

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It’s more likely that it would be

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you know, day after day, a network goes down in Nevada of a water system and air
communication network goes down for the Air Force on Guam, it gets built back up, oh, hold

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it in Washington state, the financial sector is hit or whatever.

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So you’d have that kind of campaign aspect to it.

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Another part that I think is reasonable to project is we’ve seen the internet shift from
being primarily about communication to more and more about operation.

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So we would see targeting of the internet of things, physical change.

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I think a good indicator of that are the typhoons.

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Yep, blacks in particular, yeah, yeah.

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Yeah, know, China didn’t enter into, you know, a water system because it wanted the
intellectual property of that water system, which, you know, that used to be the challenge

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from China was theft of IP.

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No, it was setting up a beachhead in case there was a conflict.

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think another aspect that we can reasonably predict is the hybridization between
traditional, putting in quotation marks, cyber threats.

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And whatever you want to call them, information operations, disinformation campaigns,
cognitive warfare, farm align influence.

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There’s a lot of different terminology for it now.

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But basically, the idea that we would see trying to hack not just the networks, but the
people on the networks.

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And that might be either a campaign that is running alongside traditional cyber threats.

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Think about the real world case of colonial pipeline where it wasn’t actually the hack
that caused most of the disruption.

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mean, people reacting to it, that’s why they’re lining up at gas stations.

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so any threat actor looking at that can go, hmm, that happened without us even trying.

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Okay, let’s do it together.

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And we’ve seen examples of that in Ukraine where Russia

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after its invasion has done a cyber attack simultaneous to an information operation
spreading disinformation about it or trying to heighten the effect.

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Or we could just see cognitive warfare attacks that are just staying on their own.

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So micro-targeting of corporate leaders, political leaders, military leaders, sending them
deep fakes as if they’re from family members.

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mean, we could go on and on, but I think the point is

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if we were to see such a kind of scenario, the private sector would be touched by it and
therefore it needs to start scenario building for it.

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Again, in the same way that something like a pandemic was not a black swan.

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We’ve been warned about it, we’ve been talked about it, but all of us put our blinders and
said, let’s not think about what we would do.

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Same parallel here.

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And I’ll just end by saying,

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He’s us here, Peter, but yes.

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You know, Peter, you teed up my next question perfectly, and it was looking at you and
your colleague have, and is it Graham?

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I cannot remember who you’ve been writing with.

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August Cole.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And you talked about sort of the information support force, which…

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That’s one, yeah.

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That gives a sense of how…

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Again, the PLA and China more broadly are looking at conflict.

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Anything you want to add there?

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And then I do want to ask, what do you think President Xi, what lessons do you think he
has learned about what’s playing out, unfortunately, in Ukraine?

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So it’s a great way of going at that idea of what makes a capability.

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It’s not just the technology side.

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It’s having the right organization, the right people around it.

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And that’s a lesson for whether it’s US military in the IC or you’re a corporation or
whatever.

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And so the creation of the Information Support Force,

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reflects a couple of things.

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One, it shows a learning and a willingness to change.

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This comes out of the strategic support force.

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Essentially, she and the leadership looked at the situation, one of their prior signature
reorganizations, and as best as we could see, said, it’s not enough.

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rather than sticking with it, they altered their organizational structures.

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secondly, so that’s a good business and political practice.

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You don’t like to see it your adversary’s doing.

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Secondly, that reorganization reflected their sense that this is a crucial critical area.

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And in fact,

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it was, I think, pretty strong indicator.

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Xi only showed up personally at the founding ceremony.

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So you had multiple different new organizations created.

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So space, info support, et cetera.

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He showed up at the cyber one.

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And at it, he basically said, your mission is to win the nation’s future wars.

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there’s no doubting his personal interest and the value that he places on this space.

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And there’s a lot that remains to be seen on how effective the reorganization will be, how
much learning can be done and change can be made and organizations that are still at end

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of the day authoritarian, so they’re not as dynamic as they might be.

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But yeah, it certainly, I think they feel it’s put them in a better position than they
were previously.

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And that goes to your other question.

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What are the lessons that they’re taking from Ukraine?

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They’re looking, I mean, I think there was a little bit of a shock at how poorly their
Russian partners performed at the start.

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There’s interestingly, they, in some of the writing, talked about they felt the Russians
were insufficient.

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and the level of their fires, the level of violence that they were inflicting upon
Ukraine.

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Now we’re like, well, what do you mean?

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But what they were getting at is that Russia faced two issues, one in the early stage of
the conflict, it thought it was going to take over Ukraine.

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So it was not striking at every facility, civilian, political, military.

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Secondly, Russia has limited magazine depth.

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It doesn’t have as many missiles.

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So the Chinese writers are looking at it and going, why are you using onesies and twosies
and missiles?

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Drop 100 on them.

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And so that’s one lesson they’ve taken is be with a higher level of intensity.

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The second, they’ve taken a lot of lessons about the need for quality, NCOs, et cetera.

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Most importantly, I think the big keys that matter to us is they’ve taken away a huge
amount of lessons learned related to robotics and AI.

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You’ve seen the huge takeoff within drones, and that’s been reflected in Chinese military
maneuvers that have been publicized to what they’re showing off at their military trade

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shows.

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They jumped on board this full speed.

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And then the other is there is clearly a information

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So it’s not just technology, but an information sharing complex between Russia, China,
North Korea, and Iran, where they’re sharing with each other everything from physical

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drones to drone designs to cyber tactics.

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People are literally going back and forth.

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I think there’s a couple takeaways from that.

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One.

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and

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Some of that self-inflicted, right?

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Yeah.

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Secondly, anyone who sees Russia as our pal, then ask yourself, why are they doing that?

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If you are telling yourself that there is not a state of intense cooperation alliance
between Russia and China,

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you are telling yourself fiction.

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Yeah, yeah.

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No, and one thing that I have seen as well is that they’re actually taking some of these
lessons and literally shifting their doctrine and strategy, which is a big deal.

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It’s not as simple as, we got a cool toy and we’re going to play with it.

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It’s actually enabling that into their war fighting strategy doctrine and the like.

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And ultimately that will mean

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the TTPs, the tactics, techniques, and procedures will be refined.

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And there’s a little hubris, tell me if I’m wrong, I wish I were, but there’s a little
hubris in the strategy community that they’re still imitators.

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Truth is, is they’re innovating now, they’re innovators.

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And in some ways they’re outpacing.

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And that’s where I wanna get to at some point, but before we jump there,

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How does someone at a Belfour Center, how does someone who has all the credentials in a
traditional policy making and think tank environment bring storytelling, which I think is

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so essential to strategy?

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I think it’s sort of making strategy stick is your expression.

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remember, I think it was Chip Heath making story stick.

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It’s a great, great set of issues.

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So tell me how you got there.

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So.

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You went against the grain.

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I’m telling you, in my world, I thought it was pretty cool.

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No, thank you.

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There’s two different answers, and it’s essentially the fusion of the two.

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So the wonky side, I’m a professor, I work in our national security community, is all the
science and research shows that narrative is a more effective means of conveying newer

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complex information.

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It comes down to the way the human brain works.

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If you read a white paper,

196
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a threat report, one part of your brain lights up.

197
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If you read it as told in a scenario, and it can be a true story, or it can be a
fictionalized story, four parts of your brain light up.

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Another value of narrative is narrative brings in emotion.

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And while we like to think that all decisions are made by cold logic and facts,

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That’s just not the case.

201
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It’s not the case in voting behavior.

202
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It’s not the case in whether you buy a used car.

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It’s not the case in national security decisions.

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Indeed, when they’ve pulled transcripts from the cabinet, even decisions on when to use
military force or not, emotions weighing in.

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Another value of narrative is it brings in innovation.

206
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It allows you to look at issues from multiple points of view, characters, understand
underlying complex causes, plot.

207
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Another value of it, and indeed there was a study out of Harvard that found that it had,
if I recall it roughly like a 70 % increase in innovation.

208
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Another and a big one for those of us working in corporate or government world is
narrative is more likely to drive change.

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about 30 % of change programs succeed.

210
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And change programs, know, the leadership says, here’s our new strategy.

211
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Does it actually, you know, aside from announcing it like six, nine months later, is it
actually being implemented?

212
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And what usually happens, and they’ve done studies on this, is that it fails largely
because of narrative reasons.

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One, they’ve either not made the case,

214
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for why we need to change.

215
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They’ve not told that story.

216
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Secondly, they’ve not told the story of where we’re headed to.

217
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But third, and I think this is so huge in bureaucracies and corporate and government
world, often strategies fail because of an internal bureaucratic insurgency.

218
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The middle layer basically says, new strategy, sir, yes, sir.

219
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and then walks away and is like, yeah, we’re not implementing that.

220
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And even sometimes sabotages it.

221
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And the reason it actually comes down again to story, it’s because that layer either
doesn’t see themselves as a character in the story of change, or worse, they’re like,

222
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yeah, I’m a character in the story.

223
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I’m the victim.

224
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And so if you don’t change that, they will sabotage it.

225
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And so.

226
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All that coming together are the wonky reasons for why we’ve used what we call useful
fiction, which is taking nonfiction and wrapping it with a narrative.

227
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But the other part of it is the fun side.

228
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People are more likely to read a narrative.

229
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They’re more likely to share it with others.

230
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If I say to you, hey, I’ve got this incredible 75 page white paper.

231
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or a 30 page explainer on what quantum technology means for cyber.

232
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I’m giving you real world examples.

233
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If you are either a leader who’s busy or you’re a student at Auburn, go, But if I say,
hey, here’s a story that helps explain cyber and it’s a story about a commando mission

234
00:23:35,101 –> 00:23:39,432
hunting down a terrorist who’s trying to sabotage the World Cup.

235
00:23:39,834 –> 00:23:45,439
But like a smoothie, you’ll get the vitamins of how quantum works by reading it.

236
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Which one are you going to choose?

237
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And that’s really what we’re after with this useful fiction approach.

238
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lastly, it’s fun to be on the creative side to figure out, it’s like a riddle.

239
00:24:00,051 –> 00:24:01,623
How do you tell the story of X?

240
00:24:01,623 –> 00:24:03,494
What are the best characters to go after that?

241
00:24:03,494 –> 00:24:09,118
So we’ve been doing some of these on cyber, which has just been phenomenal because I think
I’ll end here by saying,

242
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People think of cyber as highly technical and it is, but the importance of story is to
find the human side of it.

243
00:24:17,004 –> 00:24:23,478
And that also goes back to all the issues that we need to drive organizational change or
to understand threats.

244
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It keeps coming back to the people.

245
00:24:25,009 –> 00:24:27,054
So there is story in cyber.

246
00:24:27,054 –> 00:24:32,974
And there is a human behind the clickety clack of the keyboard until it’s all automated in
AI.

247
00:24:32,974 –> 00:24:35,654
But there’s even someone behind that initially.

248
00:24:36,014 –> 00:24:41,394
So I think that does often get lost in the discussion.

249
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And I think most notably, if you want to change and actually have impact, I think it does
resonate.

250
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And I think it gets to the why in a way that

251
00:24:55,874 –> 00:25:08,328
we all tend to skirt over in the policymaking where we’re looking at the how, the when,
the where’s, and not always spending enough time on why it matters.

252
00:25:08,328 –> 00:25:11,918
And I think that’s very cool.

253
00:25:12,279 –> 00:25:16,560
I think you did a great job framing useful fiction.

254
00:25:16,560 –> 00:25:24,522
Maybe giving a real world example, I was on the Solarium Commission and you wrote a very
powerful foreword to the report that

255
00:25:25,206 –> 00:25:31,570
not to pat ourselves on the back, had a lot more impact than most reports in DC.

256
00:25:31,570 –> 00:25:33,671
You want to maybe pull that thread a little?

257
00:25:33,671 –> 00:25:46,218
Because I think it did help in terms of putting into perspective what some of these
recommendations are, and more importantly, promulgating them into law and policy.

258
00:25:46,294 –> 00:25:52,218
Yeah, so that’s a great example of this idea of a fusion.

259
00:25:52,218 –> 00:26:07,699
So on the nonfiction side, the starting point, we had a set of key ideas that the
commission wanted to share of both threats, but also the opportunity that if we acted upon

260
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them, we could prevent bad things from happening.

261
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Secondly,

262
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there was a very specific target audience.

263
00:26:18,740 –> 00:26:22,582
And we run these workshops with a corporator.

264
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And we’ve even run them with Cyber Command on how to be a better communicator.

265
00:26:26,714 –> 00:26:35,267
And one of the key parts of it is that idea of really understand your target audience, not
just who it is, but what motivates them, how can you connect to them.

266
00:26:35,267 –> 00:26:41,580
And so with the Solarium report, now while it was a public report, its audience was

267
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Congress you want legislation, but even within that there’s a more specific audience which
was hey It’s the staffers because they’re the ones that write the legislation and you can

268
00:26:52,702 –> 00:26:58,082
see that you know even in the slam report like at the end of it it had Sample legislation.

269
00:26:58,082 –> 00:27:06,866
I’m gonna make your job easy for you not because it’s exciting compelling But you know so
is understanding that audience and so what we did

270
00:27:06,866 –> 00:27:18,771
is, you know, it was like an introduction, but kind of like an executive summary, but told
in scenario form is the scenario that we built for it was written from the point of view

271
00:27:18,771 –> 00:27:27,895
of a congressional staffer who’s experiencing maybe that most powerful emotion of all,
which is regret.

272
00:27:28,335 –> 00:27:35,858
And they are writing, they’re sitting down to write legislation in the wake of

273
00:27:36,034 –> 00:27:47,560
a major cyber attack that’s living out all the threats that the Solerian Commission said,
these are the things we’ve got to prepare for.

274
00:27:48,461 –> 00:27:58,027
we’ve got little Easter eggs that a staffer would kind of, it really connects to their
experience, like whether they’ve got a window in their office or not.

275
00:27:58,027 –> 00:28:03,682
But the point is, is they’re sitting down to write this legislation and regretting that

276
00:28:03,682 –> 00:28:06,603
this had not been all done beforehand.

277
00:28:06,603 –> 00:28:12,825
And then it closes with the text of the legislation.

278
00:28:12,825 –> 00:28:20,967
And again, drawing from the real world, it’s the actual text of the legislation issued
after 9-11.

279
00:28:20,967 –> 00:28:33,034
to flip to the, when we talk to the Slayered folks, your fear was we’re going to be like
all those commissions that write

280
00:28:33,034 –> 00:28:41,060
a report and then no one listens to us like what happened to all the commissions related
to terrorism pre-911.

281
00:28:41,060 –> 00:28:52,490
This idea of the staffer, sort of say, don’t want to be like those staffers who ignored
past commissions and then had to write legislation when it was too late.

282
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And so that was the scenario that was built.

283
00:28:55,052 –> 00:28:57,334
And yeah, it resonated really well.

284
00:28:57,334 –> 00:29:01,837
It’s a great, I think, example of the lessons learned of…

285
00:29:02,382 –> 00:29:06,659
You can share facts, but you can also target an audience, bring in emotion.

286
00:29:07,854 –> 00:29:10,035
And there was an actual story arc, as you said.

287
00:29:10,035 –> 00:29:16,729
So it starts with the story, and then there are the bits and pieces to get to a conclusion
that I think you’re right.

288
00:29:16,729 –> 00:29:18,940
It is about regret.

289
00:29:18,940 –> 00:29:22,683
And many of us, I think that’s what drove us.

290
00:29:22,683 –> 00:29:24,884
So very well said there.

291
00:29:24,884 –> 00:29:35,820
One thing before we sort of jump on what’s coming over the horizon from a tech
perspective, I would like to, when you look at useful fiction,

292
00:29:35,848 –> 00:29:51,341
often the Hollywood version is worst case scenarios and it’s not that bad day, it’s that
really gosh darn bad day and that could cause paralysis, it could cause, if it’s not

293
00:29:51,341 –> 00:29:56,605
likely, people could undermine its credibility and say, we don’t have to worry about that.

294
00:29:56,605 –> 00:30:00,322
What are your thoughts on that from a useful fiction perspective?

295
00:30:00,322 –> 00:30:02,627
Yeah, I mean, well, it’s also from a policy side.

296
00:30:02,627 –> 00:30:08,610
think our cybersecurity community has suffered from this.

297
00:30:08,610 –> 00:30:10,139
Those Pearl Harbors,

298
00:30:10,982 –> 00:30:17,064
It’s the one like Pearl Harbor, Pearl Harbor, and then we have this sort of broader
phenomena of, know, fear, uncertainty, doubt.

299
00:30:17,064 –> 00:30:19,804
And we kept just trying to get people’s attention.

300
00:30:20,405 –> 00:30:24,886
And at a certain point, that loses its effect.

301
00:30:25,026 –> 00:30:27,857
And, you know, we can see that within businesses.

302
00:30:27,857 –> 00:30:37,450
Like we’ve had supporting like, you know, CISOs who are, you the board is like, you came
in here last year, scared me about stuff.

303
00:30:37,450 –> 00:30:39,200
We gave you what you wanted.

304
00:30:39,372 –> 00:30:43,055
Why are you back a year later telling me bad things will happen?

305
00:30:43,055 –> 00:30:44,195
We gave you what you wanted.

306
00:30:44,195 –> 00:30:47,117
This is challenging.

307
00:30:47,117 –> 00:30:49,429
It’s different than regular IT.

308
00:30:49,489 –> 00:30:55,353
There’s a, just as we were talking about earlier, there’s a threat actor who’s learning
and always changing and reorganizing.

309
00:30:55,353 –> 00:31:05,920
And so if you’re going to have an effect on someone, you can’t just lay out the numbers,
shoot at them bullet points.

310
00:31:05,920 –> 00:31:08,726
You have to be able to tell a story of it.

311
00:31:08,726 –> 00:31:13,448
And an effective story, like we were talking about before, makes someone feel.

312
00:31:13,868 –> 00:31:22,622
And so you have to find the emotional contact point for that target audience.

313
00:31:22,622 –> 00:31:26,574
So let’s go to that example, the cyber-celerium one.

314
00:31:27,294 –> 00:31:35,642
A major cyber attack has happened in the United States, but we’re telling it through the
personal experience of someone sitting down to write something that they really don’t want

315
00:31:35,642 –> 00:31:36,232
to do.

316
00:31:36,232 –> 00:31:37,222
Right?

317
00:31:37,462 –> 00:31:43,374
A different example that we did for that one that I mentioned of the CISO who’s got a
board that wasn’t listening to them.

318
00:31:43,374 –> 00:31:48,866
And it was particularly, I mean, the non-sexy topic of, we’re doing a cloud migration.

319
00:31:48,866 –> 00:31:51,846
We need to invest in the cyber side of it.

320
00:31:51,846 –> 00:31:54,677
And they felt they weren’t being paid attention to after their briefings.

321
00:31:54,677 –> 00:32:04,750
And so what we did is we turned what they wanted the board members to know and the CEO to
know, but as told through a story where

322
00:32:05,396 –> 00:32:08,747
It’s the nightmare scenario of a business leader.

323
00:32:08,747 –> 00:32:17,079
They’re flying to Washington to have to answer questions in congressional testimony.

324
00:32:17,079 –> 00:32:24,419
basically what we were portraying is not, there’s a ransomware attack, your stock price is
gonna go down.

325
00:32:24,419 –> 00:32:25,572
People know that.

326
00:32:25,572 –> 00:32:27,973
It’s what drove changes.

327
00:32:27,973 –> 00:32:31,154
This is what your life is going to be like.

328
00:32:31,154 –> 00:32:33,122
And for powerful people,

329
00:32:33,122 –> 00:32:36,283
the idea of being on the back foot.

330
00:32:38,364 –> 00:32:49,599
React to the demands of the hackers of the ransom react to the press that’s calling you
shareholders to I’ve got to go do this meeting and I’m not leading the meeting they’re

331
00:32:49,599 –> 00:32:59,944
asking me the questions and so even down to I’ve got to fly to Washington and I can’t fly
my personal jet because that looks bad I got a flight commercial all that and it was this

332
00:32:59,944 –> 00:33:00,974
idea of saying

333
00:33:00,974 –> 00:33:03,555
you know, this is why you want to act.

334
00:33:03,555 –> 00:33:13,149
And again, so I think that’s, you when we’re framing our stories, we need to bring in
these other aspects of it.

335
00:33:13,149 –> 00:33:15,680
And again, we’ve talked about emotions of regret.

336
00:33:15,860 –> 00:33:19,582
There could be, you know, emotions of FOMO.

337
00:33:19,582 –> 00:33:28,105
We can portray what success looks like so that someone goes, man, that’s incredible.

338
00:33:28,105 –> 00:33:30,026
How can we make that happen?

339
00:33:30,466 –> 00:33:40,983
We did a project for, it relates to cyber, it was for SOCOM where Special Operations
Command is feeling that it’s for very good reason.

340
00:33:40,983 –> 00:33:49,479
It’s got a pivot to these new kind of threats, China that we’re talking about, but also
that it’s no longer just bullets on foreheads.

341
00:33:49,479 –> 00:33:56,184
We’re bringing in electronic warfare cyber and so that their people need to be skilled in
these other areas.

342
00:33:56,184 –> 00:33:59,234
And so the way that we accomplished, we took their strategy.

343
00:33:59,234 –> 00:34:14,250
the way we shared it out was it was a soldier at their retirement ceremony 20 years from
now looking back on their career and all the training that they received to be so

344
00:34:14,250 –> 00:34:15,541
successful.

345
00:34:15,621 –> 00:34:19,322
the idea is someone reads that and goes, man, they had a great career.

346
00:34:19,434 –> 00:34:22,244
I want someone to have a career like that.

347
00:34:22,244 –> 00:34:25,814
Huh, what do we have to start doing now?

348
00:34:25,814 –> 00:34:29,662
so that someone 20 years from now can have that kind of retirement ceremony.

349
00:34:29,666 –> 00:34:30,277
That’s awesome.

350
00:34:30,277 –> 00:34:31,378
That’s very creative.

351
00:34:31,378 –> 00:34:37,793
And that’s a perfect segue to sort of look at emerging technologies and what’s over the
horizon.

352
00:34:37,793 –> 00:34:47,652
I think, I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but you also highlight here that the
adversary is not static, but dynamic.

353
00:34:47,652 –> 00:34:50,484
And in part, they base their actions on our actions.

354
00:34:50,484 –> 00:34:55,619
And we need to keep up with that level of thinking speed and everything else.

355
00:34:55,619 –> 00:34:57,310
And I would argue that

356
00:34:57,772 –> 00:35:03,006
Behavioral science is very much a part of this as much as the zeros and ones are.

357
00:35:03,006 –> 00:35:14,034
So I’d be curious not to lead the witness here, but what are some of the key tech or
geopolitical trends you think the US isn’t taking seriously enough right now?

358
00:35:17,771 –> 00:35:28,635
I think we’re taking seriously the central one that, you know, it’s not a podcast or a
business meeting or a military meeting that we don’t talk about AI.

359
00:35:29,356 –> 00:35:43,682
am worried that we’re forgetting some of the lessons of the Cold War and, know, what led
to, you know, before the Cold War, Manhattan Project or the creation of the internet

360
00:35:43,682 –> 00:35:44,506
itself.

361
00:35:44,506 –> 00:35:49,150
There, you can’t rely solely on the private sector to fill the gap.

362
00:35:49,150 –> 00:35:54,782
There is value and a role for government and a role for supporting research.

363
00:35:54,782 –> 00:35:58,423
More than valuable, I’d say essential, but that’s me speaking.

364
00:35:58,760 –> 00:36:02,341
but you know, it seems controversial to say some things like that right now.

365
00:36:02,341 –> 00:36:03,652
don’t know.

366
00:36:03,652 –> 00:36:10,893
But and so we are seeing that kind of investment and strategy coming from a China.

367
00:36:11,054 –> 00:36:17,575
So but, know, on the AI side, I think, you know, what comes next is a couple of things.

368
00:36:17,575 –> 00:36:26,858
One, greater use of AI as a a tool within cybersecurity.

369
00:36:27,490 –> 00:36:37,716
You know, we’ve already seen Chinese cybersecurity companies adopt DeepSeq into their
work.

370
00:36:37,716 –> 00:36:39,437
Same thing if you work for me.

371
00:36:39,437 –> 00:36:47,521
So one, helping to create more effective tools either on the offense or the defense.

372
00:36:48,682 –> 00:36:53,104
Secondly, and we see that in coding or finding vulnerabilities or whatever.

373
00:36:53,685 –> 00:36:56,674
Secondly, weaving it in

374
00:36:56,674 –> 00:36:59,055
with those information operations.

375
00:36:59,055 –> 00:37:17,280
So we talked about deep fakes and we’ve seen everything from already hacking attempts
using faked CEO voices to even zoom video to try and persuade people to authorize a

376
00:37:17,280 –> 00:37:20,995
This is the real Peter Singer just for our audience.

377
00:37:21,522 –> 00:37:24,883
Yeah, who knows.

378
00:37:25,603 –> 00:37:30,282
But so we’ll see that more and more and on a conflict side.

379
00:37:30,282 –> 00:37:39,867
But then you have what I think is interesting is the targeting of AI as we use it more and
more in our society.

380
00:37:39,867 –> 00:37:49,420
And so that kind of targeting might range from trying to poison the well before the
conflict going after

381
00:37:49,420 –> 00:37:55,935
the training data, trying to warp that or trying to inject malware into a design or
something like that.

382
00:37:55,995 –> 00:37:59,688
Then you have targeting it during an attack.

383
00:37:59,688 –> 00:38:09,366
So providing inputs that try and trick sensors.

384
00:38:10,147 –> 00:38:15,541
So basically if you’re using AI for some kind of decision making, it’s pulling off of
information.

385
00:38:15,541 –> 00:38:19,584
So how can I trick it by going after its sources of data?

386
00:38:19,584 –> 00:38:28,981
And then finally, and I don’t know if we’ve explored this enough, which is the good side
of AI crossed with IoT is that we get these huge efficiencies.

387
00:38:28,981 –> 00:38:34,565
We have less people working on our factories or ships or whatever it is.

388
00:38:34,866 –> 00:38:45,856
But that also means if I can target a system that’s highly automated, it’s really
difficult to almost impossible for you to recover and get it back going.

389
00:38:45,856 –> 00:38:56,010
So one of the scenarios that we built for Cyber Command to help explain this was in
shipping.

390
00:38:56,010 –> 00:39:00,692
Freighters right now are becoming more more automated.

391
00:39:01,172 –> 00:39:06,455
It means they can operate with crews that are like 1 100th the size they used to be.

392
00:39:06,455 –> 00:39:13,858
Huge efficiency, but we also know that ships are quite vulnerable.

393
00:39:15,072 –> 00:39:18,493
Stuxnet went after SCADA systems, which ships used to.

394
00:39:18,493 –> 00:39:21,365
I and that’s a data malware.

395
00:39:21,365 –> 00:39:26,587
And so can you bring the ship back online if the systems go down?

396
00:39:27,067 –> 00:39:33,210
So those are the, and again, we could be having a discussion about a factory, a water
system, whatever.

397
00:39:33,210 –> 00:39:44,396
And so I think that’s that part, these different aspects of how we’ll not just use AI as a
tool, as a weapon, but how it might be targeted.

398
00:39:44,396 –> 00:39:46,906
is something we’re going to have to put a lot more thinking into.

399
00:39:46,906 –> 00:39:59,690
Very well said and and and I couldn’t agree more and and we’re doing a little bit of work
in that space my penultimate question is sort of and this isn’t to make the case for grand

400
00:39:59,690 –> 00:40:14,113
strategy, although I would argue we have a lot of tactics masquerading as strategy over
the past 10 years and US thinking I have a hard time delineating and differentiating air

401
00:40:14,113 –> 00:40:15,014
land

402
00:40:16,136 –> 00:40:28,132
C, space, cyber, they’re all kind of coming together, but we like to look at the world
through our boxes and org charts and understandably, how do we get over that hurdle?

403
00:40:28,132 –> 00:40:41,108
And if you’ve got a good answer for that, I’m all ears, because I do think we need to have
unique TTPs around all these issues and strategy doctrine and add on top of that.

404
00:40:41,110 –> 00:40:45,253
I have a hard time differentiating economic security from national security these days.

405
00:40:45,253 –> 00:40:47,941
The battlefield includes all of society.

406
00:40:48,063 –> 00:40:54,834
How do we as a country marshal and mobilize our resources to think about this differently?

407
00:40:55,590 –> 00:40:57,792
I think you’ve hit it in a couple of ways.

408
00:40:57,792 –> 00:41:02,056
So one is absolutely the silos are breaking down.

409
00:41:02,056 –> 00:41:15,347
And if you are a organization that only focuses on one domain or one geography, you’re not
going to be effective.

410
00:41:15,347 –> 00:41:21,373
If you are an individual who only has the ability to operate and have knowledge of that
one domain.

411
00:41:21,373 –> 00:41:22,513
you could be

412
00:41:22,894 –> 00:41:26,115
If you are an Africa specialist, well guess what?

413
00:41:26,115 –> 00:41:31,136
You have to have greater awareness of what China and Russia are doing in Africa, too.

414
00:41:31,136 –> 00:41:40,859
You have to understand everything from cyber threats to the change in importance of rare
earth minerals.

415
00:41:40,859 –> 00:41:42,619
I was just an Africa specialist, right?

416
00:41:42,619 –> 00:41:51,802
On flip side, if I’m a cyber specialist, well, by the way, I’ve got to understand its
integration with IoT, or I got to know the law or policy.

417
00:41:52,482 –> 00:41:53,322
and

418
00:42:21,408 –> 00:42:24,140
who can’t code, shame, shame, shame.

419
00:42:24,140 –> 00:42:30,503
And there’s the flip side, which is to people like, hold it, it’s not about coding, it’s
about law, it’s about policy.

420
00:42:30,503 –> 00:42:36,706
Well, by the way, to do effective law and policy, you need to understand the technology.

421
00:42:36,706 –> 00:42:47,712
And so I think what we’re seeing more and more is the need for people that can operate
across multiple silos and organizations too that can operate that way.

422
00:42:48,133 –> 00:42:50,794
So the two versions of

423
00:42:50,924 –> 00:43:05,020
ways that if that’s been dealt with, one, if you are being trained in China’s National
Defense Academy, you learn about, I wish I could show you the diagram of it, but it

424
00:43:05,020 –> 00:43:14,364
basically lays out there’s the physical world, there’s the information world, and then
over everything is the cognitive, our understanding of it.

425
00:43:14,364 –> 00:43:16,465
That’s how they’re being trained.

426
00:43:16,645 –> 00:43:19,826
Alternatively, Star Trek.

427
00:43:20,408 –> 00:43:22,140
three-dimensional chess.

428
00:43:22,262 –> 00:43:27,190
The chessboard moves in lots of different ways.

429
00:43:27,592 –> 00:43:33,184
either one, I think, gives us insights for how we should be thinking about the future.

430
00:43:33,184 –> 00:43:33,955
Roger that.

431
00:43:33,955 –> 00:43:51,524
And maybe in addition to 3D chess go, because I think that has some cultural, many moving
parts and outcomes that you can’t predict based on one individual’s actions, but the

432
00:43:51,524 –> 00:43:52,465
engagement.

433
00:43:52,465 –> 00:43:55,616
Hey, Peter, what questions didn’t I ask that I should have?

434
00:43:56,749 –> 00:44:03,512
gosh, well we need to, you as you and I recording this, who’s going to win the final four
and all that, but…

435
00:44:04,418 –> 00:44:07,267
I have my views, they’re biased.

436
00:44:07,310 –> 00:44:11,370
I know it’s a deer there.

437
00:44:13,170 –> 00:44:31,790
So for me, I think a question that I wish we could explore a lot more is this idea of not
merely the technology or the organization, but how we’re thinking about the human talent

438
00:44:31,790 –> 00:44:33,150
side of things.

439
00:44:33,730 –> 00:44:37,250
To put it quite directly, if we are

440
00:44:37,952 –> 00:44:46,164
recruiting the same way, training, educating the same way, assessing people, promoting
people the same way.

441
00:44:46,404 –> 00:44:50,426
Why would we think we’re going to have different outcomes?

442
00:44:50,426 –> 00:45:03,669
And what I just said could be applied to the changes in universities, but also
professional military education or government education, but it could also be applied to

443
00:45:03,949 –> 00:45:06,466
workforce again in the

444
00:45:06,466 –> 00:45:14,430
government cyber community or in the corporate cyber community, I think we need to put a
lot more attention on that side of things.

445
00:45:14,971 –> 00:45:17,412
What are the new requirements?

446
00:45:17,412 –> 00:45:21,434
What are the changes that we’re gonna make to reflect everything that you and I talked
about?

447
00:45:21,434 –> 00:45:29,278
How is AI changing not just the organization, but what people need to know within that
organization?

448
00:45:29,839 –> 00:45:36,330
But there’s another part of it, which is how are we gonna bring in this new talent when

449
00:45:36,330 –> 00:45:42,111
all of our messaging right now is you’re back, get out.

450
00:45:42,412 –> 00:45:56,035
And so we’re going to have to start to think through not just the next days and weeks of
workforce, but the next year, years, decade.

451
00:45:56,035 –> 00:46:04,678
And I think an approach to do it is a little bit of how we were talking earlier, which is
let’s start from our destination.

452
00:46:04,678 –> 00:46:06,072
What do we want?

453
00:46:06,072 –> 00:46:12,386
that workforce to look like 10, 20 years from now.

454
00:46:12,386 –> 00:46:22,360
What needs to be in place to have that kind of human talent, to have talented people want
to be in that role, and then say, what are we doing right now to make that happen or to

455
00:46:22,360 –> 00:46:23,952
make that not happen?

456
00:46:23,952 –> 00:46:29,322
So I’d just love to see a lot more about the workforce side of the discussion.

457
00:46:29,322 –> 00:46:43,218
Peter Well said, keep opening people’s eyes, keep most importantly getting people to think
and act in a way that’s needed and really glad you’re continuing to fight the good fight.

458
00:46:43,218 –> 00:46:47,600
Thank you so much for spending so much time with us today and onward and upward.

459
00:46:47,600 –> 00:46:48,780
Thank you, Peter.