Welcome to the War on the Rocks Podcast on Strategy, Defense, and Foreign Affairs.

I am War on the Rocks managing editor, Ushahsa Saha'a, coming to you with a very special episode from Newport

Rhode Island, specifically a beautiful gilded age mansion

called the Chandler in Newport, Rhode Island.

And we've just finished up a really great day and a half

of conferencing on synthetic training,

integrated operations, and a lot of other exciting topics, and we're

excited to get into them with you guys on this episode. So without further ado, let's go

around the table and say who we all are. I'm Lieutenant Colonel Tanya

Estes. I'm an associate professor at the United States Military Academy and I'm the program

director for the information technology major.

I'm Jennifer McCardall.

I'm an assistant professor at Salvve Regina University and a non-resident

fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

I'm Jackie Steider.

I'm an assistant professor at the Naval War College.

And with that goes my standard disclaimer that nothing I say

here represents the views of the US Navy, the Department of Defense, or the Naval War College.

So Jenny let's kick it off with you because you've been our host the last two days

for a really exciting event.

Tell us a little bit about sort of the genesis of this conference.

Why did you decide to have it and what sort of

...