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…it started when the Soviet Union fell apart and there was a real desire to ensure security of nuclear materials and pathogens, and that scientists with [WMD-related] knowledge could get paid so that they wouldn’t go to countries and sell that knowledge.

Amb. Jenkins

Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins has had an incredible career in diplomacy and global security.

Today she’s a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and president of Global Connections Empowering Global Change, where she works on global health, infectious disease and defence innovation. And in 2017 she founded her own nonprofit, the Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security and Conflict Transformation (WCAPS).

But in this interview we focus on her time as Ambassador at the U.S. Department of State under the Obama administration, where she worked for eight years as Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs in the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation.

In that role, Bonnie coordinated the Department of State’s work to prevent weapons of mass destruction (WMD) terrorism with programmes funded by other U.S. departments and agencies, and as well as other countries.

What was it like to be an ambassador focusing on an issue, rather than an ambassador of a country? Bonnie says the travel was exhausting. She could find herself in Africa one week, and Indonesia the next. She’d meet with folks going to New York for meetings at the UN one day, then hold her own meetings at the White House the next.

Each event would have a distinct purpose. For one, she’d travel to Germany as a US Representative, talking about why the two countries should extend their partnership. For another, she could visit the Food and Agriculture Organization to talk about why they need to think more about biosecurity issues. No day was like the last.

Bonnie was also a leading U.S. official in the launch and implementation of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA) discussed at length in episode 27.

Before returning to government in 2009, Bonnie served as program officer for U.S. Foreign and Security Policy at the Ford Foundation. She also served as counsel on the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9/11 Commission). Bonnie was the lead staff member conducting research, interviews, and preparing commission reports on counterterrorism policies in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and on U.S. military plans targeting al-Qaeda before 9/11.

She’s also a retired Naval Reserves officer and received several awards for her service. Bonnie remembers the military fondly. She didn’t want that life 24 hours a day, which is why she never went full time. But she liked the rules, loved the camaraderie and remembers it as a time filled with laughter.

And as if that all weren’t curious enough, four years ago Bonnie decided to go vegan. We talk about her work so far as well as:

  • How listeners can start a career like hers
  • The history of Cooperative Threat Reduction work
  • Mistakes made by Mr Obama and Mr Trump
  • Biggest uncontrolled nuclear material threats today
  • Biggest security issues in the world today
  • The Biological Weapons Convention
  • Where does Bonnie disagree with her colleagues working on peace and security?
  • The implications for countries who give up WMDs
  • The fallout from a change in government
  • Networking, the value of attention, and being a vegan in DC
  • And the best 2020 Presidential candidates.

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The 80,000 Hours Podcast is produced by Keiran Harris.

Highlights

When the Soviet Union fell apart there was a real desire to try to make sure that there was going to be security of materials and pathogens and things like that and that, you know people and scientists with knowledge could get paid so that they wouldn’t go to countries and sell their knowledge.

So there’s a huge programme called carbothermic reduction that was started by Sam Nunn and Dick Lugar to really put a lot of money into the Russian infrastructure to secure material to build fences everything from that to getting jobs for scientists, basically. And that’s matured throughout the years.

And when I was working at the State Department, my job was really to help coordinate the work that the State Department was doing on those issues. To coordinate with other departments in the US and with other countries. So that has continued. During my time, towards the end of my time in government, there were a number of problems because Russia was not wanting to stay a part of that anymore.

I think they felt that it was a remnant of days past. They were saying that “We don’t need to be doing as much to assist them now because they could take care of it themselves”. So that was a real problem because it really closed off a lot of ways which we could work with them, to keep track of all the money we put in there to help to make sure that facilities remain safe and secure.

There’s a lot of exercises that can be done to help prepare the people who have to deal with [situations like a dirty bomb being set off in a US city]. One of the things you do these simulations is you help people know who their partners are so that you don’t have to wait till something happens so that you know helping the health people to know who to work with, with the first responders and things like that is helpful and that will help prevent over reaction.

You can always put policies in place or something in place to prepare for something like that. Big cities do more of that than like the federal government in terms of you know, how to deal with some kind of a disaster. When I was working at the Ford Foundation, we visited several cities and one of the things that we were doing was asking questions about how do you deal with a disaster whether it’s weapons of mass destruction, or it’s an earthquake, or how do you deal with it? And seeing how different cities are prepared or not prepared to deal with those things. So having that said ahead of time is probably the best way to do it. It’s the cities really before the federal government that will deal with those kind of things. They’re immediate.

You have to start by talking. We have to get people around the table to have a conversation to figure out what we all want to do, what’s the strategy, how are we going to go forward, what’s the mission, what’s the goal, how are countries going to be involved? But then it has to move to action and all of these things were things that moved to action and we actually use the word action in a lot of things we did.

So for the Global Health Security Agenda, we have something called action packages. You know, which we developed a name on purpose because we wanted to focus on the fact that this is not just talk, it’s action. And in the Nuclear Security Summit, we have something called action plans and then the G7 Global partnership was about activities that were actually going on and how do we coordinate it? And I’m very much an action kind of person. I like to see things at the end of the day having gotten done. So yes, it is a part about bringing people around the table. But that’s just the first part of it. That’s a necessary part of it, but you really have to move forward after that.

I think you can still be working on your issue but at the same time have an appreciation for what others are working on, or at least understand the role that they play. I do a simulation at the University of Pennsylvania on infectious disease and we have students from different schools come together and just work together. And the goal of it is to say we’re not asking you to be a specialist in every one of these fields. You’re in the business school or medical school or nursing school or vet school or communication school or school of mental health or whatever.

What we want is for you to come here and bring your specialization. So as part of the team we are going to look to you to answer certain questions because that’s your area. That’s a good thing. You know, we need to know that there are people who, that’s what they do, that’s their job. That’s what they went to school for. However, at the same time, you’re not by yourself. And on these Global Threat Issues, like infectious diseases, you have to work with other people.

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About the show

The 80,000 Hours Podcast features unusually in-depth conversations about the world's most pressing problems and how you can use your career to solve them. We invite guests pursuing a wide range of career paths — from academics and activists to entrepreneurs and policymakers — to analyse the case for and against working on different issues and which approaches are best for solving them.

The 80,000 Hours Podcast is produced and edited by Keiran Harris. Get in touch with feedback or guest suggestions by emailing [email protected].

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