Radio Stockdale

ADM Kurt Tidd, USN (ret.) last served as the Commander, United States Southern Command. Prior to that assignment, Tidd served as Assistant to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He also served as the Director for Operations, Joint Staff (J-3), and as Commander, United States Naval Forces Southern Command and United States Fourth Fleet. He is a 1978 Naval Academy graduate, and holds a Masters in Political Science from the University of Bordeaux.

Carol Graser is a Senior Fellow at the Stockdale Center, leading the training for Company Officers and Senior Enlisted to use a coaching approach to develop leaders. Carol is certified in Leadership Coaching through the Georgetown Leadership Coaching Program. She earned a certificate in Brain Based Conversations from the Neuroleadership Institute. Previously, Carol was a leader in IBM, Hewlett Packard, and Merck pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Tony Pfaff is currently the Research Professor for Strategy, the Military Profession, and Ethics at the Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, Carlisle, PA. He is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Atlantic Council. A retired Army colonel and Foreign Area Officer (FAO) for the Middle East and North Africa, Dr. Pfaff recently served as Director for Iraq on the National Security Council Staff. Dr. Pfaff has a bachelor’s degree in Philosophy and Economics from Washington and Lee University; a master’s degree in Philosophy from Stanford University, and a PhD from Georgetown University.

Jovana Davidovic (PhD, University of Minnesota, 2011) is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at University of Iowa, where she also holds a complimentary appointment at the Law School and the Center for Human Rights. Her research focuses on military ethics and philosophy of international law and has been published in venues such as Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Journal of Military Ethics, Ethics and International Affairs, Journal of Applied Ethics, and others. Davidovic has also worked extensively as an ethics consultant, most recently serving as the Chief Ethics Officer for BABL AI, an algorithmic bias auditing and ethics consultancy. She is a resident Fellow at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership.

In this second of a three-part series, we continue our discussion of potential uses of neurocognitive science in military operations. In the United States, programs are examining ways that brain science can be employed to augment warfighters’ and intelligence operators’ performance, and alter adversaries’ capabilities with regards to key cognitive and physical tasks. Similar projects are being conducted by others around the world, by friends and potential foes.

We colloquially refer to "winning hearts and minds'', but might brain science enable us to "win hearts by affecting the mind?" What are the most cutting-edge developments and probable uses of brain science in such national security, intelligence and defense operations? In 20 years, what is on the horizon of possibility in the ways brain science might be used in such ways?

We talk with Dr. James Giordano, a Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Biochemistry at Georgetown University Medical Center and a Senior Fellow at the Stockdale Center. In this three-part series, we discuss what are some of the latest developments in brain science and technology related to military applications? These include brain scanning tools, directed energy, trans-cranial magnetic and electrical stimulation, and deep brain stimulation - all of which can be used in military and intelligence operations. How might differing values around the world address the development and use of these technologies? What are the relative costs and the burdens or risks associated with these possible values?

Dr. James Giordano is Chief of the Neuroethics Studies Program, Scholar-in-Residence, leads the Sub-Program in Military Medical Ethics, and Co-director of the O’Neill-Pellegrino Program in Brain Science and Global Health Law and Policy in the Pellegrino Center for Clinical Bioethics. He is a Professor in the Departments of Neurology and Biochemistry at Georgetown University Medical Center. He is also Distinguished Visiting Professor of Brain Science, Health Promotions and Ethics at the Coburg University of Applied Sciences. He served in the Navy as a Naval Aerospace Physiologist, and was the director of the aerospace training center at Marine Corps Air Station, Cherry Point. Dr. "G" is a Senior Fellow at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership.