OPEN ECHOES Episode #7 An interview with Dr. Lawrence Kuznar OPEN Echoes reflects the original thoughts, analyses, and viewpoints shared by academics, thought leaders and non-military experts — spreading ideas, perspectives, and insights across the globe. It’s our hope that the insights shared in these episodes will help to impact and influence thinking and conversations long after you take off your headphones. OPEN Echoes alternates episodes between compelling interviews with non-NATO subject matter experts, and readings from OPEN's wide range of publications. In this episode, we interview Dr. Larry Kuznar. —Dr. Lawrence Kuznar is an Emeritus Professor and distinguished anthropologist whose academic journey spans over three decades. Adding a unique dimension to his research, he acquired a master's degree in applied mathematics, employing mathematical and computational models to enhance his studies. In his most recent venture, he explores the dynamic 21st-century information environment, providing invaluable insights into the challenges and opportunities within its physical, cognitive, and virtual dimensions. This OPEN Echoes interview explores:- NATO's interests in the physical, virtual, and cognitive dimensions, as well as STEEP: social, technological, economic, environmental, and political impacts. - The history of transformative moments in human history, including the advent of stone tools, cognitive shifts, and more. - Challenges of predicting change beyond a certain point. - The theory of "adjacent possible:" that what can happen in the near future is contingent upon current developments. - Rapid changes currently happening, and the challenge of predicting the  information environment of 2040. - The interplay between technologies, services, and needs as a continuous cycle of generating new things. - The need for military decision-makers to adapt and navigate the information environment. - The importance of managing the social, political, and environmental impacts of AI and information technologies. - The need for societies to educate and prepare their workforce for evolving roles, echo chambers and polarization. - Aristotle's principles of persuasion as relevant tools for navigating the modern information environment. Dr. Kuznar’s article “21ST CENTURY INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT TRENDS OUT TO 2040: THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN THE INTEGRATION OF ITSPHYSICAL, COGNITIVE, AND VIRTUAL DIMENSIONS” is available in full here.  The audio recording of ““21ST CENTURY INFORMATION ENVIRONMENT TRENDS OUT TO 2040” was featured in episode 4 of OPEN Echoes, and can be listened to here.   — Welcome to OPEN Echoes. OPEN stands for “Other Perspectives Exchange Network.” Our mission is to explore diverse, insightful and sometimes disruptive viewpoints on matters crucial to NATO. The lightly-edited transcript of this episode’s interview with Dr. Kuznar follows: --- Dave Summers: Larry. Welcome to Open Echoes. Dr. Lawrence Kuznar: Thanks for having me. I'm honored to be here. Dave: If you, if you don't mind before we get started, I think it's important for the audience to know a little bit about you. Can you give me the short version of who you are and how you got to where you are? Dr. Kuznar: Glad to. So I am an Emeritus Professor of Anthropology from Purdue University, Fort Wayne in Indiana. I was there for 30 years. I now work for a consulting firm and continue to do the kind of research that I did throughout my academic career. Now, my academic career was a varied one. I began back in the early 1980s as an archaeologist. But during that period of time, I transformed into a cultural anthropologist. I was working in the Highlands of the Andes in Southern Peru. looking at initially the domestication of llamas and alpacas. but also how conflict formed human societies and influenced them. And there's a lot of that conflict in the small-scale village, tribal societies that I was working in. And so I studied that in the field. Meanwhile, I also acquired a master's degree in mathematics, applied mathematics. And so I would take a lot of my field observations and data and then I would develop mathematical models and computational models of them. One thing led to another and I had these models of conflict that I was publishing on and eventually that attracted funding from the US Department of Defense and to help further that research, which then got me working with the United States Department of Defense and ultimately, people like NATO, which ultimately then led to this article published by NATO. Dave: I'm just curious, it appears to be a very future forward, forward facing type of article, at least the title implies that. Actually, before we get started, I didn't mention the entire title of the program. I said the main title, but there's also a subtitle. Would you mind just briefly giving us the entire title of the document? Dr. Kuznar: Oh, by all means, the whole title is “21st Century Information Environment Trends out to 2040”. The subtitle is “The challenges and opportunities and the integration of its physical, cognitive, and virtual dimensions”. And if I can expand upon why that title is so long and what's in it? NATO was very interested in the physical dimension of the new information environment. What was its impact going to be on the environment? What resources would it need, et cetera. But also the virtual world, this emerging world. And just today, Apple announced its I believe Vision Pro and spatial computing platform. And so there's things happening virtually in terms of how humans are going to interact with this information environment. And then finally, the cognitive dimension, which is what's it going to do to our brains or variously, how are our brains going to adapt or not adapt to these new changes? I inserted challenges and opportunities because so often things are seen as problematic, but there's often opportunity as new technologies and new ways of doing things emerge. It's very hard to predict what those are going to be because humans dynamically create those new opportunities. But I think it's very important for us not to lose sight of the fact that along with the challenges and things that will disturb us, there's going to be new horizons that will emerge from this, that at this point in time, it's quite difficult to know. Dave: How did you, well given all of that and given your background, how did you approach the whole process of both the analysis and the presentation of what sounds like pretty complex information? Dr. Kuznar: Yeah, great question. NATO helped with how to frame it. You could frame this new environment and its impacts in so many different ways, and no way is necessarily better than another. As I said, NATO is very interested in the physical, virtual and cognitive domains and dimensions. And they're also interested in what it in an acronym called STEEP, which is social, technological economic, environmental and political impacts. So across the board, what does this mean for our environment as we embrace these new technologies? What are those social implications going to look like? What are the political dynamics that are going to come out of it, et cetera? So that was the general framing. But in a more general way than that, I am an anthropologist. For us all of human history and all of human experience, what we like to call the human condition, is fair game. And so that's how I approached this. And so my first step as I started thinking about the article was what have been the great transformations in human history going back to 2.5 million years ago. And I'm not a real technology person, I'm not a technology advocate, but it is very clear that technologies would be happened upon by chance or by intention, who knows? And some of them were genuinely transformative of human life of that human condition. And so, you know, the very first stone tools about 2.5 million years ago, gave humans an ability to acquire high quality fats and proteins that they couldn't before. a million and a half years ago, there was a major cognitive shift in the structure of the human brain that led to even more sophisticated and useful tools that could go on and on and on each of these things. Dave: I'm just curious. Is there something magical about the year 2040? What made you choose 2040 or was that was that year given to you? Dr. Kuznar: That year was given to me and there is a section in the article where I have a very heavy qualification about just how far out one can project change. I'm a great fan of the complexity theorist Stuart Kaufman. He's a biologist by training but he's, I think best known for his many books on complexity theory and he coined something called the theory of the “adjacent possible”. And it's an evolutionary look at not just biological evolution but the evolution of any system. And his argument is they all follow very similar principles. And the adjacent possible means that what can happen in the near future is contingent upon what is happening now. In other words, not just anything is possible. So there's a constraint. However, with each new advance, in time new technologies emerge or very often new ways of thinking about things or doing things emerge. And when those emerge from the old stuff that we had before, that generates new technologies and new services and new needs, which then leads to the next iteration of the generation of new things. And mathematically this leads and you can measure this, it leads to what we call hyper exponential increases. So if you look for instance, at the numbers of different kinds of tools to time, it changes very, very slowly over that vast time period that I was referring to earlier. And it starts picking up in the early modern period around 500 years ago. And then with the industrial revolution, it shoots straight to the stars, it goes right! And we see this in so many different things. We see it also in the biological evolution of life which you know, with mass extinctions can occasionally gets a setback. But then you get this similar advance, whether it's counting numbers of species or numbers of general  or some kind of tax. This seems to be a general evolutionary principle and I think it very much is and it applies to the history of human social transformations because of technology. And I think it's very operative in the here and the now with regard to the subject matter of this article, which is the new information environment every day, new services, new technologies are emerging on the internet that are very hard to predict and then they're leading to even new things and new things and new things beyond that. Who would have thought that the internet security industry would be as vast as it is today back in 1990 you know, I would defy anyone to have made an accurate prediction of that all the, all that long ago. But as people found ways of exploiting the internet to acquire all kinds of information about individuals or about groups of individuals, all these new security needs come up and it just keeps going on and on and on. Dave: I'm kind of curious you have in your mind or does the article sort of take us down a path of when do you anticipate seeing some of these tangible changes or progress in relation to specific issues in this publication? Dr. Kuznar: Yeah, it, it's happening now. Knowing what things are going to look like in 2040 I think that's a challenge because it's happening so rapidly. Once again, this is a hyper exponential increase in developments and it's not just the technologies I want to stress, it's also the services. So there's so many things our smartphones do for us now that were unheard of 10 years ago and now they're doing it. But then that leads to another set of needs. another set of services and of course, another layer of technology and these technologies and this is a very important part about the physical dimension. There are so many layers of technology piled on top of one another to make that phone tell you what the weather's going to be like in the next three hours or is it time to take your medicine or you know who you're going to date this week and what you know, whatever it is that people are using them for, it takes a tremendous amount of technology and a tremendous amount of energy that I think people don't often realize. And that's one of the things that hopefully people will take away from this article. It's, the article is mostly about social impacts, political impacts, transformations of our lives, but undergirding that there is a tremendous amount of just basic energy that were drawn from the environment and technology that is required to power this machine that humans have collectively created. Dave: I'm curious, how do you believe that your publication will contribute to a broader conversation and understanding, further understanding of this type of issue or concern? Dr. Kuznar: Yeah, I've published a number of things about information how it's used in my career. This particular publication because it was requested by NATO, I tried to bear in mind that it would be a NATO audience. And so there are many people in NATO in the US military, militaries around the world that are now struggling with. What do we do about all this? My impression, this is just my impression is they're feeling very overwhelmed. There's an irony in that because it was DARPA that invented the internet in the first place. That's the Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency. You know, so the military invented something that now has taken on a life of its own. And I feel anyway that a lot of these militaries are feeling overwhelmed. So my objective in the article was to provide not an in the weeds, detailed expert view but rather a higher level view of OK, here's what it means for the physical aspects of our lives. Here's what it means for our cognition, either how it's going to challenge our cognition or augment it. And here's this kind of weird new emergent world of this virtual dimension. And just to give them some things to think about as they, as decision makers are making their decisions for how to train and equip and adapt to this new environment where they're going to have to operate. So that was one level of contribution to that conversation. It was really a conversation among military decision makers, however, more generally, I actually want to plug a couple of other recent publications mainly because they are published by Centenarians, which I think is richly ironic and beautiful. The first one is James Lovelock. If anyone knows he came up with the GAIA Principle back in the sixties when he was doing work research for NASA this notion that the physical system of the earth was like a breathing organism. It was so highly integrated, that it had its own rhythms and everything. In 2020 he passed away recently he published a book called The Novacene. And anthropologists such as myself have been saying in the last really about 10,000 years or so, since the advent of agriculture, we've been living in the Anthropocene where humans through their own activity have been impacting the environment. And it's not just since the industrial revolution and global warming, this has been going on for a very long time. His point is that we're now into the novacene, which is where information is becoming that new environment. And I, and here's a guy 100 years old who writes this book. I think that's wonderful. Another centenarian or at least soon to be if he isn't already is Henry Kissinger. And he co-authored a book in 2021 I believe entitled “The Age of AI and Our Human Future.” Thew other authors were Daniel Hutlocker, and Eric Schmidt. You have to forgive me. I'm an academic. I always have to get the citations, right. But, here are people who are 100 years old and they are deeply thinking that we are now in the midst of a true transformation of human life at the level of what the industrial revolution was, or the computer age was or the Neolithic revolution when humans settled down, started farming. And I have to agree. So my hope would be that this brief work might help to contribute to those conversations as well. Dave: And just to wrap up here, it's hard to distill anything down to a single key point. But I'm wondering if you could point the audience at a key takeaway that you would recommend either to the NATO organization and or the audience that they should they should take away from this topic or look for in this topic. Dr. Kuznar: A great question. I think there's one takeaway that I want to address to three different levels of society if I may. The takeaway is that the new information environment, it is here and now. It is nothing that anyone is going to control. That's a challenge for military organizations generally. They like to be able to control things and I think people need to be disabused of that notion. It's like a wave and you're not going to control the wave, you need to be able to surf the wave and navigate it. At best you're going to manage its effects. I think that they probably do need management. People are going to create what it's going to be in a very organic way and that's why it's going to be difficult to kind of predict exactly what it's going to look like and what its effects will be. As a symptom of that, in 2015, famous astrophysicist, Stephen Hawking, and then Elon Musk, person of notoriety and in business and, and everything. They and a couple dozen other authors had a statement in which they were asking governments to take seriously what the social impacts of artificial intelligence would be. That was 2015. Now, I think it was a week or so ago, there's a website that was put up called safe.ai. And once again, it's all industry leaders, including many of the people that have created the new AI or what people are calling generative AI, that's starting to take on aspects of intelligence. And their statement, and actually, I would like to read the statement, I think it's profound. I don't know if it's over the top, but here's a word from them. The statement is “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal skill risks such as pandemics and nuclear war”. So here are the people that invented this new information environment, raising an alarm that if we don't manage it well, it could not end well for us as human beings. I don't know that I, to be honest, I don't know that might be hyperbolic or not. I'm still trying to wrap my own head around it. But I think it's telling that very serious intelligent people, those who actually have a stake in this are asking those questions. I find that fascinating. And so if I could wrap up, I think for militaries, they need to figure out how they're going to train, equip, and adapt to this new environment. And that means what's their doctrine going to be? How are they going to organize? They need to fundamentally organize differently. Who do they bring into their organizations? How should those people be trained? I think all this is going to be changed very much. One of the big things from NATO as an alliance is interoperability. And already we are so interoperably integrated with our artificial intelligence and the way it impacts all of our lives. And once again, it's all those different layers of communication technologies, et cetera, data forms and everything that are required to make any of the technology work. I think an organization like NATO needs to think very long and hard about it and I've read some of their doctrine and they are. But for societies, they need to think how to educate their workforces for us. So much of manufacturing now is done by robotics that the regular line worker is being displaced. Where does that person go? How does that person retool? And now with artificial intelligence, the decisions that the programmers would make for the machines to reprogram are now being automated. So what kind of a workforce do we need? How do we prepare our young people for that future so that they can be productive in it and have productive lives? And then the other societal level thing that I think really needs to be thought of very carefully is how do we prepare people on how to deal with this? Already we see through the balkanization effects in social media and everything, people can so easily fall into their own little bubbles and echo chambers and our brains evolved to do that. Educators like myself hate that fact, but it's a fact. It's the way our brains, we it's homophily, we go to those that are like us. We like hearing things that we like to believe in et cetera. So how do we prepare people to deal with that? So, that they don't fall prey to those things. And as perhaps, I don't know if there's a closing remark or not. But once again, I'm an educator and an anthropologist. Aristotle, 2400 years ago, close to 2500 years ago, had no clue that the modern information environment would exist. And yet he provided us with tools to his three pillars of persuasion to how to persuade but also not be persuaded against our own wills or interests. And many of those lessons I think need not to be forgotten. Dave: This has been a, an unbelievably great conversation. I want to thank or guest, Dr Larry Kuznar. He’s the author of the article: “Information Environment Trends and Implications out to 2040 and Beyond”. Larry, thank you so much! Dr. Kuznar: Thank you very much for having me.

OPEN ECHOES Episode #6 An audio reading of “NATO – Latin America Future Cooperation” by Dr. Carlos Gustavo Poggio Teixeira. Listeners can access the original publication here.  The reading length is approximately 38 minutes. OPEN Echoes reflects the original thoughts, analyses, and viewpoints shared by academics, thought leaders and non-military experts — spreading ideas, perspectives, and insights across the globe. It’s our hope that the insights shared in these episodes will help to impact and influence thinking and conversations long after you take off your headphones. OPEN Echoes alternates episodes between compelling interviews with non-NATO subject matter experts, and readings from OPEN's wide range of publications. In this episode, we present an audio recording of the OPEN Publication, “NATO – Latin America Future Cooperation” by Dr. Carlos Gustavo Poggio Teixeira. Listeners should note that this audio reading does not include the references, images or diagrams included in the original publication. References, images and diagrams can be found in the original publication, which can be accessed and downloaded here. 

OPEN ECHOES Episode #5 An interview with Dr. Stavros Karamperidis OPEN Echoes reflects the original thoughts, analyses, and viewpoints shared by academics, thought leaders and non-military experts — spreading ideas, perspectives, and insights across the globe. It’s our hope that the insights shared in these episodes will help to impact and influence thinking and conversations long after you take off your headphones. OPEN Echoes alternates episodes between compelling interviews with non-NATO subject matter experts, and readings from OPEN's wide range of publications. In this episode, we interview Dr. Stavros Karamperidis . — Dr. Stavros Karamperidis is a lecturer in Maritime Economics at the University of Plymouth and serves as the Head of the Maritime Transport Research Group. With over 15 years of experience in academia and strong industry involvement, he has established himself as an expert in maritime security, including piracy, decarbonization, and digitalization. His research is driven by a commitment to understanding and addressing the challenges facing the maritime industry. Dr. Karamperidis is particularly passionate about shedding light on the hidden heroes of global trade—the seafarers—and highlighting their critical role in maintaining the global supply chain. His work on piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, which has cost the blue economy an estimated 1.9 billion USD annually, underscores his dedication to uncovering the root causes of piracy and advocating for comprehensive solutions. Dr. Karamperidis' research contributes not only to enhancing our understanding of maritime security issues but also to finding practical ways to mitigate their impact on both the industry and the broader economy. This OPEN Echoes interview explores: - Recognition of the vital role of seafarers in global trade, the impact of COVID-19 on maritime industry and realization of its significance. - Exploration of piracy's economic impact and root causes, including the annual 1.9 billion USD cost of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea. - Examination of historical piracy incidents and patterns, including Somalia's piracy spike. - Interaction of piracy with geopolitical factors, the influence of political conflicts on piracy activities, and the connection between oil prices and piracy in the Gulf of Guinea. - Strategies for addressing piracy, including the importance of land-based issues and root causes; coordinating efforts among local authorities, NGOs, and naval forces; and optimizing resource allocation in the face of limited naval assets. Summary and conclusion: - The need for a comprehensive, coordinated approach to tackling piracy. Dr. Karamperidis' article (in partnership with Dr. Fotios Moustakis) "The Gulf of Guinea (GoG) and Maritime Security," is available on here. — Welcome to OPEN Echoes. OPEN stands for “Other Perspectives Exchange Network.” Our mission is to explore diverse, insightful and sometimes disruptive viewpoints on matters crucial to NATO. The lightly-edited transcript of this episode’s interview with Dr. Karamperidis follows: --- Dave Summers: Stavros, so nice to meet you. Dr. Stavros Karamperidis: Likewise, Dave. It's a great pleasure to be here. Dave: Let's just jump in. If you don't mind, I typically have our guests introduce themselves. So, if you don't mind, just give us a short introduction as to who you are and how you got to this point in your life. Dr. Karamperidis: OK. So, my name is Stavros. I'm a lecturer in Maritime Economics at the University of Plymouth and Head of the Maritime Transport Research Group. And I've been working in the academia in the last 15 years, but I'm also having great involvement with the industry and that's why if you see my CV, you will see that I have a good interaction with a lot of research that I'm doing. And one part of that is the article that you're discussing from NATO where part of my research I'm having three main pillars. The first one is on decarbonization. The second is on digitalization. The third most important, the security and security is in two sub pillars. One is the physical security and the other is the digital security. So you will see a lot of publications coming from me on cyber security, physical security about piracy and the one that we're going to discuss later on. But also how parts can be secure, what kind of actions they can take and all that kind of stuff. Dave: I'm wondering Stavros, who or what inspired or influenced you to write about this particular issue? Dr. Karamperidis: What really inspired me to write about this specific issue was that there are a lot of seafarers that are suffering at the moment and they are the hidden heroes. Recently, I've done another podcast about the welfare of the people living on board and working on the various vessels and working in various ports and in general, working in the maritime transport sector. And what we have found out is that they're usually hidden, you can recall what has happened to Los Angeles a couple of months ago when we had the COVID issue with the big container vessels piling up for a long period of time outside the Los Angeles port. And then suddenly everybody realized that oh my God, shipping is so important for our economy. Just to remind you that nearly 80 to 85% of the goods that we're consuming. And I'm not talking about only our laptops, the mobile phones, whatever we're doing the headset we're wearing. Now, in order to the podcast are coming on containers. Also, the energy that we're having is coming through tankers or L NZ carriers, depending if it's gas or diesel. the food that we're consuming is coming with dry bulk, usually come from Brazil or other places like Ukraine. For example, you've seen what happened with the fight over there between Russia and Ukraine and the problem that we had in order to export a lot of grains. And that was the real motivation that because we have pirates nowadays, believe it or not, you know, it's a very, very famous pirate Jack Sparrow and you know, the, the Pirates of the Caribbean and all that kind of stuff. And everybody will start, you know, familiarizing themselves with the movie and all that kind of stuff, I think. Yes, in a matter of movie of Hollywood, it is nice to see someone doing that kind of stuff. But in real life when you have 20 to 25 people on board a vessel and some nasty pirates getting on board with real arms, try to, dictate the vessel, dictate their lives and all that kind of stuff. It's very scary and to be frank, you know, being a sailor, it's a very, a difficult job by definition because you're remote from your family, from your friends, everybody, you're in some cases you are isolated from the web because satellite is not providing good coverage and all that kind of stuff. You know, you don't really need to have on top of that piracy, which is another layer of risk and uncomfort. So that was the overall motivation of doing that because I thought by bringing a bit of more understanding about the issue, we could probably try to solve it easier. Dave: I'm wondering how did you approach the whole process that's involved in analysis and presentation of this rather complex information? Dr. Karamperidis: So I started by providing a general overview of what has happened in the last couple of years for me. I really want to understand what had happened in the past. And as I'm saying, in the report, there are various regions around the globe that some of them, they're increasing in terms of piracy and some of those they're decreasing in terms of piracy. So for instance, if we go back to another movie, Captain Phillips, which was a hostage of the captain of Maersk Alabama with Tom Hanks. of course, acting as Captain Phillips, it was demonstrated about the coast of Somalia. Back then, pirates were dominating the region. A lot of vessels have been under attack and Maersk Alabama was one of them. And the peculiarity of Maersk Alabama was a vessel with an American flag. And of course, the US Navy went over there and thankfully managed to solve the situation. But back then 2009 until 2014-15, if I'm not mistaken, sorry, time is not helping now to find the actual date. But it was a couple of years that we had a huge spike in piracy. And thankfully NATO with the, the overall operation, ocean sealed, they went over there and they managed to tackle piracy. Of course, why in that specific area? Because Somalia as you may know is a state that didn't really have a government or actually doesn't really have a government so far. And that was a very fertile land for pirates because they knew that there was no laws. If they were doing something bad, nobody is going to go after them. And Somalia if you check, it is actually at the exit of the Suez Canal. And from going back again in the news, nearly two years ago when the Ever Given was stuck in Suez Canal, we suddenly realized that 9.5 billion of trade per day are passing through that corridor. So actually Somalia is at the exit of the Suez Canal. So for them, it's, it's like fishing at the end of the lake. You know, it's easy, it was easy for them to go and catch those vessels and attack those vessels that they were having valuable cargo and of course valuable crew on board because they can ask for ransoms and so forth and so on and of course, asking ransoms for the vessel. But as I said, you know, the operation NATO operation has managed to help to tackle  that issue. But of course, the operation took on in that specific area, but not in others. And unfortunately, we seen spike in terrorism, not in terrorism, sorry, in piracy in other attacks like the Gulf of Guinea. And that was the reason why I've said, ok, let's try to get a bit of more understanding of what is happening in the Gulf of Guinea and how probably we can tackle that problem as piracy by having better knowledge, better understanding of what's going on. Dave: I'm wondering when do you anticipate seeing, tangible changes or results or progress in relation to this specific issue? Dr. Karamperidis: Actually, if we check the latest data that has been released like a month ago. So the data for 2022 we've seen some changes, so we've seen a drop in the pirate attacks because of the coordination of the virus forces with the naval operations down there. Nigeria has taken a lot of actions in terms of piracy and all the coordination that is taking place with the US, the European Union and other member states. They have managed to help the reduction of the overall piracy attacks. Of course, I'm not quite sure if that's only due to the fact that we had that kind of coordination and the overall naval forces operating there. Because as you may know, a lot of naval forces since the invasion in Ukraine has been redeployed in the North Sea and in other regions. So they can keep an eye on what is happening for the conflict that we have between Russia and Ukraine. But what we have found in our report, was that piracy was linked with oil in the region. And because of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, as you know, oil price has dropped in the last couple of months. And because we anticipate that because the oil has dropped, then the interest of the pirates has dropped as well because they are not seeing the same economic benefits they used to have in the past. So I think it's a core combination of a lot of good things that they led to the outcome of seeing a drop in piracy. And of course, that's tailor made to the specific region because if we see other regions in the globe, like for example, the Singapore Straits, we're seeing a constant and decrease in terms of the piracy attacks here and here. So, that's why we wanted, I wanted to focus on a specific region to find out what is happening in the Gulf of Guinea. And I hope that my report has helped people to take actions and those actions at least, they seem to work at the moment. Dave: And that's great. And that leads into my next question, which ishow, do you believe that this publication, your article has contributed to a broader conversation and better understanding of this issue? Dr. Karamperidis: To be honest, I haven't really been following up what happened after the publication. But my gut feeling says from the feedback I've got from various people reading the report, it was that that was a useful piece of work that was very enlightening. And because of as you know, knowledge is the key, it's like if you want to do something, you have to have intelligence, you have to have knowledge. And that report I think had helped people operating in the region to understand what was the root of the problem. I think the main key area and the root of the problem was oil. And by the time they managed to tackle the oil and, and to give you a fact for, for Nigeria, 6% of the oil being produced in Nigeria is going to the black market. So instantly we have a huge black market that the oil can be distributed. And of course, that was the problem with piracy because there was a big black market in the region. The moment they were able to tackle to get a tanker, they were able to sell the product in the black market and make a lot of money. And of course, at the same time as for ransoms for the crew and the vessel, and I think providing that kind of information that protect that kind of infrastructure, try to tackle first what is happening in the land in order to tackle what is happening in the sea. I think that has helped a lot because at the end of the day, as I mentioned, also for, for Somalia, if you have good law laws into the land, into the land elements, then pirates will be determined to attack vessels because they will know for example that  if they're going to be caught, they're going to end up in a court. They were not going to find easy access to the black market to sell the goods. They're not going to be able to hide easily then victims of the pirate attack. Because as you can imagine if the vessel stays with the crew into the sea for a long period of time, naval forces will come along and they will try to rescue the people as what happened with the Maersk Alabama case, as we mentioned before. So what is happening with the pirates is they putting the crew into small digi boats and they send them to into the forest or in places that they are not going to be easily be tracked from the authorities. And that's why I'm saying it's like if the authorities were able to tackle that kind of illicit activities in the land, then there is no room for the pirates to hide themselves. Same story with going back to the story of Jack Sparrow, Jack Sparrow had to hidden the gems somewhere into the land because you cannot hide things into the sea. So having that kind of, even that we're looking forward into the sea for, for tackling the problem. Actually, we have to look back and to see how the overall operation is taking place in the land and tackle some of the roots of the problem. Dave: This is interesting because I mean, there's the historical perspective of piracy and you've talked about that here and then there's the real world today, issues and challenges that are associated with it. I mean, when did you realize the importance of addressing this specific issue, was there a specific kind of tipping point for you? Was it a triggering event? Or was it just kind of like: “Enough, I'm gonna write about this.”? Dr. Karamperidis: Yeah, I think the triggering point it was. And if I remember on top of my head correctly, it was I read the report because I'm working a lot with the blue economy. And as I said, I'm economist. So I like to see what is happening over there in terms of operation and the economic impact. And what I have found out is that the piracy in the Gulf of Guinea is costing per year 1.9 billion in terms of the blue economy. And when I'm talking about blue economy is about fisherman, not having the ability to go out and fish. And you know, not having the ability, for example, cruises, cruise vessels to come and have some tourist activities there or even to more complicated stuff, creating green energy, for example, not been having the ability to have any wind powered electric mills over there that they are able to generate electricity. And of course, that is a burden to the local economy. And you know, we're talking about Nigeria, for example, is the prominent economy in the Gulf of Guinea and the forecasts for the economy in Nigeria. We're talking if I'm not mistaken again, but the population is going to triple by 2050. We're talking from 80 million to go up to 200 million people and things like that. So as you can imagine an economy that's growing rapidly as the economy of Nigeria with a huge population that is expanding having the right economic opportunities for the local people. I think that will help them to prosper because prosperity, I think that should be the thing that we should care about everybody. And that helps human beings. I like to see prosperity and I like to see happy people because the more money you have, the more happy you will be. Dave: I cannot argue with that. Just as a wrap up question here and this is the question that pretty much all my guests dread, but I have to ask it anyhow: What is the single key point or maybe one or two points that youwould recommend to either the NATO organization or the greater audience for this program that they should take away from this topic? Dr. Karamperidis: Oh, that's a big $1 million question as we give to say. Dave:  Go for it. Dr. Karamperidis: OK. The one recommendation to NATO. Oops. OK, let me think for a sec. I think the, the key message that we came out from the report is as I said, if, if you really want to tackle something like piracy, don't look for the obvious, don't look in the sea, see the roots of the problem. It's like a tree, you know, you see a tree blossoming and all that kind of stuff. But if the tree doesn't have solid roots, then you're not expecting for that tree to blossom for a long period of time. So I think even though we're talking about piracy. And the problem is that over the years, pirates have become more and more sophisticated and from a range of 30 nautical miles of operation now, they managed to expand to 200 nautical miles of operation, which is a massive area when we're talking about the Gulf of Guinea and it's mission impossible for NATO or anybody else to patrol in such a big area. I think the best thing to do is try to tackle what is happening on land and try to create coordinations, try to coordinate with the local authorities, try to bring NGOs into the game, try to bring naval that they want to contribute naval forces that they want to contribute in the region for whatever reason they want to contribute over them, try to bring everything together in the same table and try to coordinate the resources because as we know, resources are not fast, you know, naval forces, they've seen a decline because of the cost of maintaining all that they can be everywhere because at the moment, unfortunately, we have a lot of issues because of geopolitical tensions, you know, mentioned earlier on Russia, Ukraine War, the tensions in the Pacific Ocean. So it's like we can't have as many vessels as we need in any region. So in terms of prioritizing, try to be clever in terms of how you redeploy your assets there and that will save energy resources which are key and paramount for the today's military I think. Dave: That’s brilliant. We've been speaking to Dr. Stavros Karamperidis. Stavros, this has been enlightening , even with all the Johnny Depp, Captain Jack Sparrow stuff brought up there. This has been fascinating and, obviously piracy is something we should all be paying very close attention to. Thank you for your time today. Dr. Karamperidis: You're welcome. Thank you very much, Dave. -- A reminder that Dr. Karamperidis’ article can be found on the OPEN Publications website, and you’ll find a link for that at the top of these show notes. OPEN Publications are produced by Allied Command Transformation Strategic Plans and Policy. However, OPEN Publications are not formal NATO documents and do not represent the official opinions or positions of NATO or individual nations. OPEN is an information and knowledge management network focused on improving the understanding of complex issues, facilitating information sharing, and enhancing situational awareness. OPEN products are based upon links to open source information from a wide variety of organizations, research centers, and media sources. However, OPEN does not endorse and cannot guarantee the accuracy or objectivity of these sources. The intellectual property rights reside with NATO and absent specific permission, OPEN publications cannot be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes. Neither NATO or any NATO command organization or agency, nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made on the information can contained therein. OPEN Echoes is a free thinking, open discussion program that aims to stimulate dialogue, broaden understanding, and foster relationships that can help prepare NATO for future challenges. OPEN Echoes is a production of the OPEN editorial board. Producer Dan Chichester, engineer Dave Summers.

OPEN ECHOES Episode #4 An audio reading of “21st Century Information Trends Out to 2040” by Dr. Lawrence A. Kuznar. Listeners can access the original publication here. The reading length is 55 minutes. OPEN Echoes reflects the original thoughts, analyses, and viewpoints shared by academics, thought leaders and non-military experts — spreading ideas, perspectives, and insights across the globe. It’s our hope that the insights shared in these episodes will help to impact and influence thinking and conversations long after you take off your headphones. OPEN Echoes alternates episodes between compelling interviews with non-NATO subject matter experts, and readings from OPEN's wide range of publications. In this episode, we present an audio recording of the OPEN Publication, “21st Century Information Trends Out to 2040: The Challenges and Opportunities in the Integration of its Physical, Cognitive, and Virtual Dimensions,” by Dr. Lawrence A. Kuznar. Listeners should note that this audio reading does not include the references, images or diagrams included in the original publication. References, images and diagrams can be found in the original publication, which can be accessed and downloaded here.

OPEN ECHOES Episode #3 An interview with Dr. Christian Matt OPEN Echoes reflects the original thoughts, analyses, and viewpoints shared by academics, thought leaders and non-military experts — spreading ideas, perspectives, and insights across the globe. It’s our hope that the insights shared in these episodes will help to impact and influence thinking and conversations long after you take off your headphones. OPEN Echoes alternates episodes between compelling interviews with non-NATO subject matter experts, and readings from OPEN's wide range of publications. In this episode, we interview Dr. Christian Matt. — Dr. Christian Matt is a professor and co-director of the Institute of Information Systems at the University of Bern in Switzerland. He is also the author of "Strategic Aspects of Digital Transportation for Military Organisations." Dr. Matt is fascinated by how digital technologies lead to new opportunities and paradigm shifts for business, public institutes, society, and individuals. With a focus on the managerial aspects of digital transformation and the responsible design of artificial intelligence applications, Dr. Matt conducts research, teaches, and consults with various organizations on their digital future. This OPEN Echoes interview explores: - How digital transformation goes beyond technology and requires a comprehensive organizational approach. - The four dimensions of digital transformation are technological, value creation, organizational changes, and resource planning. - Where military organizations face challenges in digital transformation, including high security standards and regulatory constraints. - An emphasis on the need for a balance between agility and security in digital transformation for military organizations. Dr. Matt’s article, "Strategic Aspects of Digital Transportation for Military Organisations," is available on the OPEN Publications website. [LINKTO: https://issuu.com/spp_plp/docs/open_publication_digital_transformation?fr=sMjRlYzU4MzM2MjU] — Welcome to OPEN Echoes. OPEN stands for “Other Perspectives Exchange Network.” Our mission is to explore diverse, insightful and sometimes disruptive viewpoints on matters crucial to NATO. The lightly-edited transcript of this episode’s interview with Dr. Matt follows: Dave Summers: On today's program we're speaking to Dr. Christian Matt. He's the author of Strategic Aspects of Digital Transportation for military organizations. Hello, Christian, how are you today? Dr. Christian Matt: Hello, Dave. I'm doing well. Thanks. How are you? Dave: I'm doing fine. Thank you. The standard question I ask all of our guests is if you don't mind, please introduce yourself to the listeners and give us some background about how you got to where you are in life. Dr. Matt: . First of all, many thanks for your interest and for having me. Dave, it's a great pleasure. My name is Christian Matt. I'm a professor and co-director of the Institute of Information Systems at the University of Berne in Switzerland. And as part of my work, I do research and teaching on the topics of managerial aspects of digital transformation, as well as the responsible design of artificial intelligence applications and on these topics, I also consult companies of various clients, supporting them and finding suitable ways into their digital future. Dave: Who or what inspired you or influenced you to write about this particular issue. Dr. Matt: Well, in the past 10 years or so, have shown us that digital transformation is often not just a technological challenge. In fact, we see a number of examples of firms and other institutions that might have decent technological skills, but that still do not achieve the level of digital transformation they were actually hoping for. And in many cases, part of the problem is actually a too strong focus on technological aspects at the same time neglecting one or even several other key dimensions for the success of their digital transformation endeavor. So along with the aforementioned technological component, three other dimensions matter at least equally. So first institutions should clearly analyze the effects of digital transformation on their value creation. So how they can create value for the different stakeholders they service. Second, institutions also need to analyze which organizational changes are required for them to support and sustain their digital transformation endeavor. And third institutions need to plan and secure the required financial and non-financial resources that are needed to perform their digital transformation. And even as of today, we see that many organizations still struggle with finding the right balance between these four different dimensions. And we also see that those challenges are even harder for institutions from particular sectors and with particular characteristics. So typical sectors here include for instance, public services, the health sector, the legal sector, but also military organizations. Dave: I'm curious if you do if you don't mind, could you give us the quick Dr. Christian Matt definition of the term digital transformation. Dr. Matt: Sure. And that's an excellent question. Dave, and if you talk to different people, you might get very different answers. And in fact, we have even seen changes of what we understand of digital transformation. So decades ago, this was mostly centered around digitizing previously analog signals. So from an analog signal, they were brought into the 01 world of digital signals. However, that's still accurate in a way but it's not complete anymore. So today, we understand much more of digital transformation. So we can say digital transformation relates to the usage and effects of digital technologies for organizations. And it describes their transformation towards using such digital technologies. And these effects are far more than just having a new software installed in a certain business unit. For instance, it also relates to substantial changes to business processes for instance, but also to business models. So what the organizations do, how they create value to their stakeholders. All this is comprised under the term digital transformation in our current understanding. Dave: That's very helpful. Thank you so much. So if you don't mind, give us a little behind the scenes here. How did you approach the process of acquiring, analyzing and presenting this rather complex information? Dr. Matt: Well, underlying to this process are mainly two main challenges and considerations. So first of all, when talking about digital transformation — and this was also part of the understanding I wanted to bring across — we often have to deal with audiences that are quite heterogeneous. So they comprise often experts from technology domains. But at the same time, also experts from various kinds of non-technology domains and units. And therefore, also the readers of the publication are likely to have a very different expertise when it comes to technological aspects. So one goal of the article was therefore to connect technology specific characteristics with strategic organizational challenges and measures. And to describe this on a level that is comprehensive both for the tech but also the more organizational non tech experts. And the second challenge was well, the sheer breadth of potential topics of interest around digital transformation. So indeed, digital transformation can comprise various topics and it can consist of very different projects also dependent on the organization or the specific organizational unit in question. It can comprise indeed a software installation in a single business unit or organizational unit. It can also comprise changes to the entire organization and their business models. So therefore, my goal here was to present an overview of recent key challenges and measures of strategic aspects of digital transformation. And importantly, those challenges and measures do not necessarily originate from or are unique to military organizations. However, I paid particular attention to adopting these topics to the particular context of military organizations. Dave: That's an excellent point. Seeing as it just seems so much of technology and military thinking and planning and strategy seems to have evolved in parallel so many times throughout history. I'm interested here. When do you anticipate seeing any tangible changes or progress or movement in relation to some of the issues that you've raised in this publication? Dr. Matt: Excellent question. And well, digital transformation is a cross organizational transformation that typically consumes lots of resources and also, time. Here, in the case of military organizations, this also involves , quite a strict organizational and regulatory framework, but it also involves numerous partners on an international scale. And therefore, the whole undertaking typically becomes even more complex and also more time consuming. And therefore, it would be naive to believe this will happen overnight. Nevertheless, the transformation here and the importance of such strategic factors have already been recognized. So, something is already happening, and I assume that the publication here will further stimulate these processes and provide additional inspiration to them, bringing different stakeholders on one table. Dave: How do you believe that this publication, this article that you've written contributes to the broader conversation? There's an awful lot of noise out there right now. There's an awful lot of everybody's got an opinion about this type of thing. How do you think your publication contributes to the broader, perhaps more intelligent overview of this understanding? Dr. Matt: So while the general literature and digital transformation is quite broad, there's far less works directly for the particular context of military organizations. So, for most the publication here seeks to provide a structured overview of recent key topics here and what they mean in particular for military organizations. So therefore, one goal is also to bring together these diverse stakeholders, some from a technology part with others, more from the organizational domain to  initiate discussions in an ideal case here. The publication will make those rethink who have so far only had the technological glasses on to make them realize the relevance of non-technological organizational aspects. And here we have ample evidence especially from the private sector that a too strong focus on technologies can be a big mistake. However, in addition to that, I also see the particular contribution by presenting those very specific organizational challenges for military organizations also for our learning beyond what is necessary in this particular case. So here we have a case with particularly high hurdles in in this domain. May it be high security standards? May it be a strong regulatory framework, the international complex collaborations involved here. And while this environment may not be unique, we can still say it's characterized by being particularly severe. So, learning how we can transfer insights from other less severe domains and apply them here in this particularly difficult case, will also provide us with important knowledge beyond the concrete application case. So here we already know that unfortunately, there is no one fits it all solution when it comes to digital transformation strategies, and these contextual factors are immensely important, and I believe applying them here to military organizations will also be fruitful for other cases that are less severe. whether they are in the military domain or also in other sectors. Dave: I'm an Ex-IT guy and I've often been fascinated by the paradox of technology. Way back when, when everyone was working on mainframes, you had that sort of centralized access to information and the power of that information and whether it's analysis or forecasting or whatever it might have been planning. But over the decades —  PCs, networks, client server or smartphones — all of this super high-end speed and technology has been pushed way out to the fringes to everybody and that's liberating, but it seems to all tie back to networks. And you can sort of gate things at the networks. Where's your, where's your head at? What are your thoughts about this sort of paradox of pushing out power, but yet controlling networks? Dr Matt: Right, that's an excellent point. And indeed, we see along with digital transformation, we see numbers of aspects here that drive further toward a network centric view. So, one aspect here are for instance, digital ecosystems where different stakeholders work together on providing value to consumers, and stakeholders of various kinds with potentially very different interests. Another example here would be open innovation. So, the previous narrow centered closed look of we develop everything internally is often, not really appropriate for developing digital solutions anymore. So also, here we have a network perspective. And those two examples show that again for the context of military organizations, they might be a particular challenge actually. Why is that? Because here we have high security standards. We have a regulatory framework that may not allow for instance, storing data outside of the country or storing and exchanging data with particular stakeholders. So, all these aspects here present a challenge which could restrict military organizations, from getting the fruits of digital transformation. So that's a problem here and the problem becomes even more problematic. Why is that? Because also for the development of such solutions, more agility is needed when you work with partners on an international scale. The agility requires things such as for instance, an experimenting culture learning from failure, things like that. This is all not given in a classical chain of command structure, where you have explicit control rights where you may not question certain things. So that's a challenge. And here, I think military organizations need to find a suitable balance for them. Digital Transformation requires them to change their way of thinking of collaborating with others. However, of course, there will still be security concerns and things like that which may not allow them to a degree of openness, flexibility and agility that we see from the private domain. So, I think they need to find a balance that is right for them. But I think it also requires a certain change of thinking in their head independent of what the regulatory framework allows them to do. And that in some cases should be the first step. Dave: Excellent. And just to wrap up, what would you say is the single or point or maybe two points that override this whole article that you would recommend to both NATO organization folks and the general public that they should take away from this topic? Dr. Matt: Well, I think there's a number of important aspects to consider about if I had to choose one. My main point here is that digital transformation is not just about technology, it's more in comprehensive organizational matter, that requires, as I said, new ways of thinking, collaborating and acting in order to establish a fruitful basis that is necessary to pursue digital transformation successfully. And I would recommend that those organizations that are indeed hampered by additional obstacles, may be the regulatory framework, security concerns and so on and so forth that those organizations should not shy away from digital transformation. They should rather approach this even more systematically and importantly, they should see digital transformation, not as a one-off project, but rather as a continuous process. And the earlier they start with that, the better. Dave:  We've been speaking to Dr. Christian Matt, he's author of “Strategic Aspects of Digital Transformation for Military Organizations”. Christian, it's been so great to meet you and spend time with you. Dr. Matt: Thank you very much, Dave. It was my pleasure. -- A reminder that  Dr. Matt’s article can be found on the OPEN Publications website, and you’ll find a link for that at the top of these show notes. OPEN Publications are produced by Allied Command Transformation Strategic Plans and Policy. However, OPEN Publications are not formal NATO documents and do not represent the official opinions or positions of NATO or individual nations. OPEN is an information and knowledge management network focused on improving the understanding of complex issues, facilitating information sharing, and enhancing situational awareness. OPEN products are based upon links to open source information from a wide variety of organizations, research centers, and media sources. However, OPEN does not endorse and cannot guarantee the accuracy or objectivity of these sources. The intellectual property rights reside with NATO and absent specific permission, OPEN publications cannot be sold or reproduced for commercial purposes. Neither NATO or any NATO command organization or agency, nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made on the information can contained therein. OPEN Echoes is a free thinking, open discussion program that aims to stimulate dialogue, broaden understanding, and foster relationships that can help prepare NATO for future challenges. OPEN Echoes is a production of the OPEN editorial board. Producer Dan Chichester, engineer Dave Summers.