Conversations on Strategy Podcast – Ep 18 – Lukas Cox – On “Countering Terrorism on Tomorrow’s Battlefield and Critical Infrastructure Security and Resiliency”

In this episode of Conversations on Strategy, Lucas Cox shares his thoughts on being an intern working on two collaborative studies for NATO.

Read the collaborative study Countering Terrorism on Tomorrow’s Battlefield: Critical Infrastructure Security and Resiliency (NATO COE-DAT Handbook 2) here.

Read the collaborative study What Ukraine Taught NATO about Hybrid Warfare here: https://press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs/956

Episode Transcript: On Countering Terrorism on Tomorrow’s Battlefield and Critical Infrastructure Security and Resiliency

Stephanie Crider (Host)

You’re listening to Conversations on Strategy. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the authors and are not necessarily those of the Department of the Army, the US Army, War College, or any other agency of the US government.

Today I’m talking with Lucas Cox, who at the time of this recording was an intern with the Strategic Studies Institute and a graduate of the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies. He assisted with two collaborative studies: What the Ukraine, Taught NATO About Hybrid Warfare and Countering Terrorism on Tomorrow’s Battlefield: Critical Infrastructure Security Resiliency.

Welcome, Lucas.

Lucas Cox

It’s a pleasure to be here. Thank you.

Host

Tell us how you ended up working on not one, but two books for the Army War College.

Cox

So, this is all a great opportunity from my dear professor and mentor Dr. Sarah Lohmann. She’s a University of Washington professor at the Jackson School, which is where I got my undergrad in international studies. And so, we do this great project called “the task force.” It’s sort of a capstone project. And it’s a great opportunity to work as a team and to get into the real sort of meat of policy issues and present our findings to actually someone on the ground, someone that’s actually in the field, which is something that you don’t really get at four years in the university, especially in Washington state where we’re away from the the policy world.

And so, I had the privilege of being in her task force and being chosen as the chief liaison for our task force to deal with NATO Center of Excellence for Defense Against Terrorism (COE-DAT), as well as everyone here at SSI under the guidance of Dr. Carol Evans. That led to me leading the writing of the first chapter of this main book.

I was able to present our findings on that chapter remotely at two conferences in Turkey at the COE-DAT at conferences over there and there’s another one coming up in October, which I’d love to attend as well. And so that led me to the great opportunity that Dr. Evans and Dr. Lohmann said, “Why don’t you come aboard and keep working on these projects and sort of see the project through for that book at least?”

And then the energy security hybrid warfare book is another project of Dr. Lohmann’s that she’s been working on for the last couple of years, at least, with NATO Science and Technology Organization. Those are two simultaneous projects, and I volunteered to help in any way I could with those. It’s been really exciting.

Host

It sounds exciting. What do you see as the most important take away from the chapter you wrote for the critical infrastructure book?

Cox

I had the great pleasure of wrapping up my internship here over in Upton Hall at the US Army War College, and I chose the issue of foreign acquisition of European infrastructure. And so, this is an issue that has to do . . . it’s continent wide . . . it has to do with the EU and with NATO and with the US, as well. Is that over the past few decades, a lot of critical infrastructure (and when we say that a lot of it is infrastructure that’s needed for military operations), it’s become privatized, which is great for competition and consumer choice and innovation and all that stuff. But it also means that sometimes you sacrifice resilience and redundancy for profit and price in a way that you wouldn’t if it were under government leadership with the security apparatus in place. And more than that, since . . . mostly since the early 2000s, a lot of that has come under foreign control.

So, you think about Russian gas pipelines and being able to get a hold on an energy supply for Europe because a lot of not only the gas and the oil, but the infrastructure that delivers it, is at least partly owned by Russian companies. And so, there’s that as well as a lot of Chinese firms are coming into Europe and buying infrastructure and constructing ports. It’s part of that Belt and Road Initiative that is so in the news. It’s a huge decades-long project for the PRC (People’s Republic of China). A lot of those concerns come from the closeness or direct supervision of these firms from the Chinese government and fears that either through direct control or through political influence or predatory financing, especially in countries that are strapped for cash and need new infrastructure, that those pieces of critical infrastructure being under control of Russia and China pose real threats to their usability and their reliability for European defense. And a lot of these points are a port or a railway where if that goes down or that’s unable to be used, then a whole NATO or US or local military mission could collapse. We made a few policy recommendations for NATO to take a more assertive role as an advisor and as a supervisor working together with the EU because the EU is the one that has authority over laws and regulations in Europe but NATO also having an important role to play in, hopefully, guiding that process in a way that local governments can’t or don’t when they have their own local standards that may not be up to snuff.

Host

What was your experience like doing analyst work for the first time and on such an important project?

Cox

It was daunting, but also really exciting. Probably my favorite thing, despite all of the crazy deadlines and the 300 pages of spellchecking that I just came here from doing was really the delegation of Dr. Lohman to me to be able to do some of the real important work. It took me a little bit by surprise, but definitely not surprised by her trust in me—and her guidance.

So, a previous intern had constructed these maps in the hybrid warfare energy security book where we’re looking at vital points of European infrastructure for each of the 12 case studies that authors have written. And so there were, say, ports or energy grids or pipelines detailed on these maps, and we were assigned with giving them a threat assessment, are these under cyber risk or disinformation risk in a time period of six months, a year, two years. That was especially difficult being assigned that and, for example, here are all these energy grids and wind turbines and nuclear plants in Germany and Poland and Belgium. And my job was to learn as much as I could about them, learn as much about the overall security situation and come up with a threat assessment—whether these places were going to be attacked in six months by Russian cyber operations or disinformation. And so that was really important work to do for an intern. But I was very honored to have that role and, going forward, hopefully in my career will be sort of a great foundational experience.

Host

What’s next for you? What are your future plans?

Cox

I am finishing up here at the Army War College, going home to Seattle, and then I’m going to be traveling a bit starting in September, ultimately to end up in Brussels working as an intern, which this experience allowed me to do with the Science and Technology Organization, which is the outfit that is overseeing and partnering with us for that hybrid warfare energy security book.

I am very excited for all the work that they do. I know it’s a small office in Brussels, sort of in the middle of the action at NATO headquarters, which is very exciting for me. It’s been a dream to work for that organization for a long time and then after that we’ll see.

Host

This was a real treat. Thanks, Lucas

Cox

It’s so nice to talk to you.

Host

Listeners, if you’d like to read the collaborative studies, visit press.armywarcollege.edu/monographs. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to hear more, you can find us on any major podcast platform.

About the author: Lucas M. Cox, at the time of writing this publication, was an intern with the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College and a graduate of the University of Washington Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies with a degree in international security, foreign policy, peace, and diplomacy and a double minor in political science and Russian, Eastern European, and Central Asian studies with a focus on the former Soviet economic and security spheres. He is also the 2023 University of Washington Triana Deines Rome Center Intern and will begin an internship at NATO’s Science and Technology Organization in April 2023.