Intelligence, defense expert David Shedd to speak at UNM Friday
Topic is complexity of current national security environment
The Albuquerque International Association, with the Center for International Studies, is hosting retired military defense intelligence leader David Shedd for a presentation on Friday.
The presentation, scheduled from 3-5 p.m. at the University of New Mexico’s Continuing Education Conference Center, will be followed by a reception with the speaker at a private residence.
Shedd served in the federal Department of Defense for more than 30 years before retiring in 2015. For a while, he served as the Acting Director of the National Defense Intelligence Agency following four years of service as Deputy Director. Until January 2015, he ran the bureaucracy, including oversight of 16,500 employees, at the Defense Intelligence Enterprise. That department is a “national-level combat support agency expert in all-source analysis focused on foreign military and defense-related matters,” according to the Homeland Security Digital Library.
Shedd describes the purpose of the agency as “support (for) the secretary of defense” by “gathering information and using information” to help agency staff and people in the battlefield with “kinetic action,” a phrase for active warfare usually involving lethal force.
In his speech he will share his perspective on just how “complex the national security environment has become and ... what are the implications of that” to the U.S. abroad and domestically.
“I’ll be talking about the complexity of the 21st century and how well prepared are we to address those issues,” he said.