ISSP Leadership Forum

 THE INTERNATIONAL SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM (ISSP) LEADERSHIP FORUM 

The ISSP leadership forum is a unique and impactful opportunity for Fletcher students to engage in sequential, small group dialogue with senior civilian policy and military leaders operating at the highest levels of command and decision making. ISSP will host 20 graduate students, military fellows, and senior leaders in an intimate “fire-side chat” format in which students are encouraged to dialogue and learn from these senior leaders’ experiences and personal stories about leadership in military command, embassies, intelligence agencies, and the defense industry.

The fourth year (2024) of the ISSP Leadership Forum centered on the theme “Technology in National Security.” We invited senior defense and retired military leaders along with other prominent public and private sector leaders in the fields of technology, intelligence, cyber security, and defense policy who have furthered technological change in the greater national security enterprise. Defense Secretary Robert Work (32nd Deputy Secretary serving in the Obama and Trump Administrations), Ylli Bajraktari (CEO of the Special Competitive Studies Project), General (retired) Richard Clarke (12th Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM)), and Trae Stevens (Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Anduril Industries) each shared their experiences across four broad topics of discussion: the history of and trends in emerging technology; defense policy regarding AI; Department of Defense (DoD) and commercial sector collaboration; and technology leadership.

In 2025, ISSP will convene its fifth ISSP Leadership Forum focusing on the theme of “Moral Courage in Conflict and War.” Tactical military historians often document instances of physical courage and bravery on the battlefield. But in his personal memoir, Ulysses S. Grant stressed the importance of moral courage, which he described as the ability to care for others and behave with restraint and equanimity in the chaos of war. More recently, authors have defined moral courage as behavior taken to ensure that societal and ethical norms are adhered to in wartime without concern for negative political and social consequences (e.g. the protection of enemy prisoners of war or civilians in conflict). We will invite senior defense and retired military leaders along with prominent specialists in the field of military ethics and wartime behavior to discuss the concept of moral courage through the lens of recent cases of moral courage during the wars following the terrorist attacks of 9/11.