Click here to read the official Summit Report from the GNSI Tampa Summit: The Current Rise of the Great Powers - The Struggle for Influence in the Middle East, Central and South Asia.
Day 1 (US CENTRAL COMMAND CENTRAL AND SOUTH ASIA DMI CONFERENCE)
On March 7-9, the first ever GNSI Tampa Summit convened at the in Tampa. The GNSI Tampa Summit is a new platform created by the Global and National Security Institute to bring together the best strategists, analysts, academics and policy influencers.
The signature event of the GNSI Tampa Summit is the Great Power Competition Conference 鈥� a semi annual series of conferences focused on the strategic competition between
the United States, Russia and China, specifically in the Central Region, and the many
varied issues that challenge U.S. and our allies.
The Central Region is the Area of Responsibility (AOR) for the United States Central
Command (USCENTCOM), headquartered on MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. The
region consists of 21 countries in the Middle East, North Africa, as well as Central
and South Asia.
The first Summit also featured the 2023 U.S. Central Command Central and South Asia Directors of Military Intelligence Conference, which annually brings together members of leadership from USCENTCOM with intelligence leaders from some of the countries in the Central Region.
That DMI Conference kicked off the Summit on March 7, as high-ranking intelligence leaders from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan were in attendance.
, Director of Intelligence at USCENTCOM, opened and closed the DMI conference, which focused almost exclusively on Russia鈥檚 role and future activities in the AOR. GNSI Executive Director and former commander of USCENTCOM, General (Ret) Frank McKenzie, spoke briefly on the importance of the Central Region and cautioned against deemphasizing the region in relation to other priorities in the USA鈥檚 overall global strategies. The keynote address was given by , former senior defense official/attach茅 in Moscow and now a Global Fellow at the .
A global intelligence address was delivered by , Deputy Director for Global Integration at the
Two discussion panels examined critical intelligence issues in the region, from both the perspective of the United States as well as the countries located in the region:
Panel 1: The War in Ukraine - Russian Hybrid Warfare, Lessons Learned and the Future
of the Russian Way of War
Panel 2: Strategic Competition 鈥� Russia鈥檚 Future Strategy and Friction Points
Each of the foreign delegates also spoke at the conference, presenting their ideas and strategies, while sharing their experiences with the growing influence of Russia in their countries.
This was the first year that USCENTCOM had coordinated the annual DMI Conference with
the GPC Conference and the GNSI Tampa Summit.
GNSI Senior Director, Jim Cardoso, said that putting the two events together made a lot of sense and it was a big success
for both sides:
鈥淚t was a natural fit to bring together the Great Power Competition conference with
the DMI conference, under the umbrella of the GNSI Tampa Summit series. GNSI鈥檚 vision
is to bring together coordinated networks to address complex and emerging issues.
GPC鈥檚 ability to convene the finest thinkers and practitioners from academia, government,
and industry, combined with DMI鈥檚 connection to key U.S. partners in the Central and
South Asia region, created an unmatched forum that yielded actionable contributions
to today鈥檚 national security solutions.鈥�
DAY 2 (FIRST DAY OF GREAT POWER COMPETITION CONFERENCE)
The second day of the GNSI Tampa Summit kicked off its Signature Event 鈥� the 7th Great Power Competition Conference: The Current Rise of the Great Powers 鈥� The Struggle for Influence in the Middle East, Central and South Asia. GPC7 focused primarily on the long campaign of influence being executed by China in the Centra