Retired Maj. Gen. Byron Bagby spoke to high school students attending the Westminster Institute for National Security (WINS) at Westminster College Tuesday morning.
Bagby, a Fulton native and a 1978 Westminster College graduate, met 20 students for breakfast to discuss how his 33 years of highly decorated military experience have shaped his stance on international security and diplomacy issues.
Bagby's discussion focused on defining the four main elements of national power - diplomacy, information, military and economic - and how involving every element best serves the U.S.' national interests. He provided examples of each element by referencing current events, and by reflecting on events he experienced and leadership positions he held during his military service.
One experience he elaborated on was serving as a senior defense official in the Office of Military Cooperation - Egypt in Cairo, Egypt, where he directed all operations at the world's largest security assistance office and managed annual programs worth about $1.3 billion.
Bagby mentioned the importance of talking about national and international security issues with high school-age students.
"They need to understand that no matter what profession they go in to, no matter what they major in in college, everything that they will do has something to do with national security," he said. "And I think to be an informed citizen, you need to understand national security from watching television or by talking to your friends, you at least understand what that means. But all professions have some degree connected to national security."
16-year-old Rachel Corrigan, a senior at Lake Zurich High School in Lake Zurich, IL, attended WINS because of her keen interest in national security, especially analysis on fraud embezzlement crimes. She said she wanted to learn more about government security issues and career opportunities with the FBI involving office and fieldwork.
Bagby said students came prepared with "well thought out questions." He answered a wide array of questions on current events and the importance of transparency in mitigating the difficulty of international negotiating.
"International negotiations is hard," Bagby said. "I've done that before - I've negotiated with the Omanis, with the Egyptians, with the South Koreans, the Egyptians almost every day when I was in Egypt, the NATO Russian Council - I have a lot of international negotiation experience. International negotiations are very, very hard in their simplest form."
One of the topics Bagby discussed extensively was U.S. diplomatic relations with foreign powers such as Cuba.
"I think that we have more to gain by re-establishing our context, our openness to Cuba to raise the flag at the embassy after severing ties for 51 years with them," Bagby said, answering a student's question.
Other questions he answered pertained to the Iran Nuclear Deal, Russia as a long-term threat to U.S. stability, ISIS as a short-term but well-funded threat, China as an economic threat and other topics.
Bagby told the students to look beyond what they see on the news to better understand international negotiations, otherwise they'll only be informed about one side of an issue. He encouraged students to make up their own mind on all major current events receiving coverage in the media. He also advised students on the benefits of reading a major newspaper every day to develop a critical eye for national and global affairs.
When asked about his outlook on the type of wars the U.S. will face in the next 25 years, he predicted an increase in "hidden wars" instigated by notorious terrorist groups.
"I think we'll see more hidden wars like cyber attacks," he said. "We're going through a transnational phase where we have ISIS, we have al-Qaida, the Abu Sayyaf group that works in the south east pacific out in the Philippines kidnapping westerners and Americans. We're going through a phase where we'll see more hidden conflicts about how they'll cycle economic information and how they'll steal money."
Bagby retired from the U.S. Army in 2011. He was one of four national security experts who spoke to students attending WINS, which was held July 19-21.