This episode kicks off season 2 of The Punch Up — a happy place where wonky and human talk converge on topics of digital change, geopolitics, and business.

Mark and Kent are spotting the gorilla in the room and, as always, dissecting events for strategic insights. The gorilla is the fiasco brewing if we let polarization continue to dominate national strategy. This and other political and cultural critiques come from personal reflections about the stewing pot of unpreparedness that is polarized American politics.

In this stew that mostly older generations cooked up for us, there’s a big question: Why can't Gen X and Baby Boomers unplug from the political hype and be real? Do they know they are hyped? Do they realize how weary people are of left-right frames and games? How is that divide serving society?

They’re diving into election cycle drama, global perspectives, and why younger generations will inevitably flip the hype script. How? By taking us back to an age where ears rule over eyes. (Spoiler: Plato would be proud.)

Hear a thread of insights about Michael Jordan, AI, China, philosophy, and certain spooky skills we each have. What we have in common has much to teach us. Tune in and discover how ignoring the noise to heed those insights might just be the ultimate superpower!

Show notes:
🗽 September 11th, a day after the debate: the gender gap is widening in many ways in the US. 00:39
🎩 Spooky skills and analysis: Mark Vancil is joining the Punch Up with open-source intelligence (OSINT) starting next episode. 01:53
📚 American Strategy Press and new projects: a new publishing brand. 03:54
🏀 Michael Jordan: We learned in 2023 from Mark Vancil’s The Last Excellent Man how MJ didn’t seek justice or vengeance for his dad’s killers or for Oprah rudely pressing him about it on live TV. 07:48
☯️ Strategy and wholeness: what to ignore and what not to ignore as a leader or individual. 11:11
🎤 Harris and Trump Debate: who owned the debate, and how is it handled in simple language with a high-level background? 14:29
📺 The psychology of communication on television: 17:41
⚠️ Game-ready-daily: digital data flows have a cascading effect across markets and cultures. 19:53
🦅 The US political system has been in a hype machine for too long: people can’t be split into left and right - people are more complex than that. 24:43
🤩 Being bipartisan: translatability is not hard when you're kind and honest. 29:04
⏭️ The elections, technology, national security, and global order: what to expect in the next Punch Up episodes. 34:42
🥛 Glass half-full thoughts: there are good things to come, as well as the crazy stuff that Elon Musk predicted. 38:21
👂 Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death: shift from eye to ear. 39:24

Links:

Connect with Mark: www.linkedin.com/in/markfedeli

Connect with Kent: www.linkedin.com/in/kentgustavson

Publish a Book with American Strategy Press: www.americanstrategypress.com

It will take a team effort to utilize the American system to solve modern-day problems, but can we find the talent we need with the industrial, siloed model that the government is stuck in? Today's digital natives live in a world where finding talent is driven by the unlimited freedom of digital communication, but are largely gate kept from sharing their digital perspectives within the system. It's time to cross-pollinate the wisdom from these antiquated silos and integrate this contextual knowledge into a multigenerational think tank of stewards for our country. We need more voices from more people who are willing to venture out of Plato's cave and reclaim the American system out of the hands of the siloists and into the strategic flow state that the future requires. The American system is an instrument worth playing right, but can we find the talented musicians that America needs?

Show Notes:
🎃 Pumpkin spice and coffee: college football season and a crispy October means the holidays are near. 00:31
🏀 Movie ‘Air’: How Michael Jordan got signed. 02:09
🏛️ Signing talents on a daily basis: the stove-piped and siloed world of Washington makes things hard. 06:35
😎 Flow in basketball and government: how to get data you need out of publicly available data and find talents. 08:30
✌️ Leading the world in a state of flow and freedom. 12:47
⚡ Being an idealist is hard, but America should work with the design it was given, and play the board. 15:23
👂 The media ecology of the eye evolved to a new phase: perceiving things with our ears connecting, and listening. 19:49
🔥 Long forms of Coltrane’s live songs: we are telling stories from the beginning of humankind. 24:47
⚠️ The thing we need to be aware of to stay out of Plato’s cave: algorithms and the influence of people's minds and perceptions. 27:47
✍️ Washington is not going to solve all the problems: today’s storytelling needs to speak about change, and we need new ideas published. 32:15
🤔 Branding and the brutality behind it: the personal ownership of branding.  35:57
💥 Combining what's unique in you, and your contribution to the collective: it takes a team effort to build a system. 37:35
🎯 Web3 is both dystopian and communal: the young need the guidance of humanists and the world needs reformation. 40:41
💎 Pippen, Longley, Rodman, Jordan - pain, promise, and play: the American system is participatory.  42:35
📚 People have a book in themselves: capturing the wisdom from your core.  48:14

Should America’s strategy be calculating and Machiavellian in the age of AI? Do the Framers get a vote? Or did they create the matrix with ratification of the Constitution permitting slavery to continue. Today, this system is still open to being abused to support the interests of K Street over Main Street on behalf of special interests and powerful elites. The digital natives seem ready to pioneer a different future. Can we handoff a national strategy that reflects the logic of the Declaration of Independence in a spirit of equality, diversity, and inclusion? Will the new generation of thought leaders take the red pill and learn to orchestrate our systems to tackle the problems facing the country, or will they only look to enjoy the good things the system offers?

Show notes:

💊  “Red pill or blue pill: rabbit holes and fried chicken.” 00:12
🧅 To be in the language Matrix of Washington, D.C.: the tripartite system.  02:02
🆚 Mark’s college days in blue pill world: the “who gets what” system. 06:07
⚠️ Constitution and Declaration of Independence: the calculative vs play concept of the US system. 08:30
🦅 K Street or going down the rabbit hole and learning the system if it was explained simply. 12:40
🎼 Concept of design vs. practice of the design: Beethoven and John Coltrane were two geniuses. 14:24
👦🏽 Two types of cool -  existential cool, and superficial cool: black kids were the coolest to grow up with because of how they spoke about the world around them. 17:03
😈 The slave power calculation: the Founding Fathers made a pact with the devil. 22:44
🇺🇸 The American strategy is to strive towards equality and protect it through government design. 26:01
🥅 American strategy in the global world: multi-generational, multi-ethnic decision inclusion. 29:53
🎻 Stradivarius' violins played correctly: the executive branches of government should be played like an orchestra. 33:12
⛹🏽 Be like Mike Jordan: Jordan played in the system that was given to him. 36:28
🌞 American Strategy book: move our thinking from calculative to truly strategic. 40:33
🎯 American Strategy Press is a place to turn your book idea into a book - getting your thoughts out without being blue-pilled. 45:03

Can America 'stay ahead and catch up' in the world of increasing cybersecurity threats, or will the red tape be our demise? Brian Gallagher is the CEO and Co-Founder of CodeLock, where he pioneers technologies emerging in the intersection of physical security and cybersecurity. Most of today's industry and government-run on software, making both the average citizen and our country's infrastructure susceptible to major security threats. Due to the hurdles of America's policies and legislative process, we are seeing a lack of funding in the sectors that would help drive innovation and security advancements at a governmental level. While the government relies on entrepreneurs and industry elites to set the benchmark for innovation and push for policy mandates, getting policies implemented is a precarious trial. The threat of security attacks in the digital age is increasing exponentially every year, can we find the balance between morality, rules and strategy?

Notes:
🚐 FBI and Secret Service vehicles: what does the FBI car look like? 00:10
💻 Cybersecurity warriors are America’s important and unsung heroes. 02:04
👨 Brian’s a product of 9/11: from being homeless to security consulting. 05:46
⚠️ Working for the Secret Service: the intersection between physical security and cybersecurity.07:11
🤔 Why sequestration is bad? 09:30
📘 Behavioral data science is combining psychology, data science and math: Stay Cyber Safe: What Every CEO Should Know About Cybersecurity. 11:45
🤯 Nation-state attack in December 2020: attacks on the source of the software. 14:21
📈 Cybercrime is exponentially growing: new threats are being created every second. 17:21
⏩ Two things we have to do to get ahead: fix bureaucratic issues to get projects moving and increase venture capital money to support innovation. 21:25
🔴 The threat is fast: strategy vs morality, and the red tape that is stopping us from succeeding. 24:36
💸 Machine learning and usage of AI in government: issuing funds to solve problems vs multimillion dollar all-in-one contracts.  28:35
🗽 The White House realizes the threat associated with cyberattacks: positive movements in the last 4 years. 32:37
🎯 The importance of requirements in the government procurement process. 34:41
👉 When action isn't being taken: a "people problem" that led to a technology problem.  37:07
▶️ You can't learn without taking action: we're all exposed to software supply chain attacks. 39:58
✌️ Protecting people, property, places, and products as a life mission for Brian. 43:10
🌞 Why we need intrapreneuers in our world. 44:26
🇺🇸 Visit American Strategy Press.com to share your story. 47:05

Is war with China inevitable, or is the American strategy out of touch? Thomas P.M. Barnett is an American military geostrategist and Dale Moore is an innovation and technology leader, and together they join the panel to discuss the bastardization of America's Grand Strategy and what it means for different generations. Seemingly stuck in an era of political tribalism, America's grand strategy is fixated on the traditional appeal of focusing on the player instead of the board. Post-white-majority American is not interested in the wall-building and war-minded calls to action of the past, and want politics and strategy to focus on the bigger picture. With so many advances in technology and so many global problems on the horizon, there is an opportunity to embrace generational change and start looking at the board with a new anticipatory and imaginative mindset. Can the digital natives break the log jam and start strategizing with a new long-term perspective, or will we all fall victim to the weaponization of nostalgia?

Show notes:
🌟 Partnering to find authors: American Strategy Press. 01:37
▶️ Punch Up Roundtable: what kind of society do we want? 02:20
📘 “America’s New Map” launch day: Tom’s book is out. 04:14
📋 Grand Strategy in National Security: playing the player vs. playing the board. 06:59
🤔 Anticipatory leadership: the exponential acceleration of technology and the power of AI. 12:51
🆚 US versus China: bottom-up approach vs episodic approach.  15:36
👉 A non-commissioned officer in the US military has more agency than a three-star general in China: the US is unpredictable and highly responsive. 20:10
🏀 Commanding the fleet with no humans: Roomba basketball. 22:58 
👁️ Having systems out at the tactical edge with extraordinary computing capability vs. a closed bubble with mission command guidance. 24:22
🤖 Warfare with robots: AI in war and the power of humans running AI - the Centaur model. 26:35
📈 Leverage platform technologies 32:33
🪖 MMOWGLI Design for Maritime Singularity: usage of quantum and ‘artificial general intelligence’. 33:22.
🤯 The issues with left and right in America: trusting elitism and Trump as an elitism crusher? 38:27
⚠️ 2024 election cycle: a four-decade gap and the difference between young generations, superpowers, and supremacy. 41:15
⚖️ Errant behavior is typically rooted in fear and insecurity: the need for balance of support, structure, and opportunity in society, so it can compete internationally.  46:17
🎯 The importance of inclusivity in the election process: the media sets the agenda. 49:19
🟢 Dealing with the climate change shocks with preventative and integrative measures. 52:26
🧠 Exploring complex problems requires critical thinking: the media is building walls and fear. 56:02
⌛ Being stuck in the mindset where we can't question, and we can't experiment: it is time for old politicians to step down. 58: 43
🥅 We need leaders who will not look at left-right direction, but into problem-solving: new political leaders. 1:00:00
🌞 American democracy is based on the middle class: leading with head and heart to get to the best possible place. 1:04:43
 

 America needs to redefine itself as the world deals with the price tag of globalization, and it's time to address the symptomatic churn.

Thomas P.M. Barnett is an American military geostrategist and the author of 'America's New Map: Restoring Our Global Leadership in an Era of Climate Change and Demographic Collapse', and he shares his gritty and eye-opening take on the future reevaluation of the American strategy.

In the wake of globalization, America finds itself at the edge of a critical strategic intersection, where the middle class is unhappy, and the old, white traditions of America are in jeopardy. Gen Z and Boomer ideologies are at a hard impasse, demographics are shifting, and the global economic drivers of the future are uncertain, initiating a need for a new American strategy and identity that is fit for the future. It's time for America to adapt to reality and move forward, away from the octogenarian, ‘culture wars mindset’ of the past, and to upgrade its brand to be competitive on the world stage. The coming events may feel apocalyptic, but if we reopen the kingdom of The United States, we may stand a chance.

Show Notes:

‼️ The USA and China are on a collision course. 00:56
📘 The Pentagon’s New Map book: a vocabulary about sending US military forces in crisis response since the Cold War. 03:56
👉 “Globalization was ultimately pacifying, but when it first hits, it’s entirely destabilizing.” 08:16
🚩 Whenever the middle class emerges, elements from the left and the right want to control that: demographic collapse. 11:27
September 11th was a reordering principle: unifying a fear-threat reaction. 17:16
⚡ What are the new prairies, and who is going to ‘sell’ new identifiers to younger generations? 18:32
🌱 ‘Bulldog tenacity’ with younger generations: climate change as the big structural and economic driver going forward. 21:22
⚠️ The business adopting to the economy: the least racist superpower wins. 26:02
✌🏾 Choose color or choose country: 2024 election-level issues. 27:06
📈 A different way: the power of immigrants and north-south merging and connecting. 32:42
🌎 Regionalization for growth: the Monroe Doctrine and the USA as a natural dominant integrator with South America. 36:04.
🌟 The soft power in an integrating, regionalizing world: threw down the borders. 39:42
⬆️ Climate migrants desperately heading northward in the whole world. 41:38
🤯 A younger generation is disassociating from the manias of the older generation: more people killed on the US south borders than on the Berlin Wall. 43:35
🛣️ Great powers of the world are thinking bigger, but America is thinking smaller: a smaller and divided America is the road to nowhere. 45:36
🗝️ The key is a bigger America, a bigger union, a redefinition of America: deal with problems in advance, or they will gang up on us. 48:40
🎶 LCD Sound System: the North American Scum: the kingdom of the United States needs to reopen. 51:40
🤓 When the middle class is unhappy, nobody's happy. 56:24