Decoding the Pentagon Bureaucracy

The war in Ukraine has demonstrated the importance of resiliency and using the total strength of society to ensure the survival of a state. As a part of the CSIS Conflict in Focus series, Dr. Kathleen McInnis sits down with Lieutenant Colonel Scott Murphy, visiting U.S. Marine Corps military fellow and Iryna Nykorak, Ukrainian Minister of Parliament, and founder of ArmWomenNow, about the importance of resiliency and how to prepare the entirety of society for conflict.

On this episode, host Kathleen McInnis spoke with Pavlina Pavlova, a #ShareTheMicInCyber Fellow at New America and Cybercrime Expert at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Pavlina shares insights from her recent research on the weaponization of data, highlighting how data breaches and cyberattacks have a gendered dimension, especially throughout the healthcare system.

Before OpenAI was the household name it is today, the leading artificial intelligence company began as a non-profit organization with an uncertain future. In 2018, Ashley Pilipiszyn had a decision to make: take a risk and be an early employee of a start-up or focus on finishing her PhD. On this episode, Kathleen McInnis and Lauren Bedula explore Ashley’s decision and delve into the growing space race between China and the United States.

Nina Jankowicz knows what it’s like to be attacked for defending the truth, and she is now on a mission to increase the cost of lies that undermine our democracy. On this episode, Dr. Kathleen McInnis dives into Nina’s past, from leaving government, suing Fox News, and ultimately using the sum of her experiences to inspire the creation of the American Sunlight Project.

How can Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) be better utilized to accomplish U.S. strategic objectives? Recently, the Smart Women, Smart Power Initiative released their latest brief: Countering China and Russia: The Hidden Advantages of Women, Peace, and Security. To discuss the findings of the report, Dr. Kathleen McInnis was joined by Dr. Kyleanne Hunter, Director, RAND Women, Peace, and Security Initiative, and Monica S. Herrera, Acting Director for International Humanitarian Policy and Senior Gender Advisor, Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, U.S. Department of Defense.

In this episode, Dr. Kathleen McInnis is joined by Dr. Janine Davidson, who currently serves as president of Metropolitan State University of Denver and the chair of the Defense Policy Board. The pair discusses Dr. Davidson’s years of navigating the bureaucracy within the Pentagon and the lessons she has taken with her to higher education.

As a part of the tenth-anniversary celebration of Smart Women, Smart Power, Dr. Kathleen McInnis hosted a panel discussion that explored women’s leadership during Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine and how women are leading the charge in both prosecuting the war and planning for peace. The panel featured Amb. Kelley Currie, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council and former Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues; Dr. Kyleanne Hunter, Director, RAND Women, Peace, and Security Initiative and Senior Political Scientist; Ms. Susan Markham, Co-Author, Feminist Foreign Policy in Theory and in Practice and Partner, Smash Strategies; and Ms. Shelly Stoneman, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs, Lockheed Martin.

On October 15, Smart Women, Smart Power celebrated its tenth anniversary! The celebration kicked off with a discussion with HON Kathleen H. Hicks, Deputy Secretary of Defense, who sat down with Beverly Kirk, Director of Washington Programs at Syracuse University. The pair discussed her approach to the world’s simultaneous challenges, including the Russia-Ukraine crisis and China - plus she takes a lot of questions from the audience.

Suzanne Spaulding, Director of the CSIS Defending Democratic Institutions Project, joins a special crossover episode with the CSIS Smart Women, Smart Power podcast to discuss election security, the role of election officials, and how to fight disinformation as early voting begins across the nation.

Dr. Kathleen McInnis sat down with Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) for a conversation on her new memoir, where she reflects on her time in Congress. Additionally, the pair discusses the current and future U.S. landscape, including what the U.S. should be doing to counter China’s aggressive authoritarian expansionism and more.