Former National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone is the founding director of the Institute of National Security at Vanderbilt University. He spoke on Thursday about ways to bring more young talent into national security roles. Photo courtesy Vanderbilt University
New Vanderbilt center aims to place national security students at unexpected government agencies
Ex-NSA chief Gen. Paul Nakasone envisions students at Vanderbilt’s new Institute of National Security pursuing the roles in non-traditional federal offices, a sign of the evolving nature of today’s threats.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Vanderbilt University students who want to land prestigious intelligence, defense or public safety internships in Washington, D.C. may soon find themselves working at a government agency where national security isn’t the most obvious mission area.
That’s the hope from Gen. Paul Nakasone, who is leading the effort to make this vision a reality at Vanderbilt’s newly launched Institute of National Security. Nakasone spent the final years of his decades-long career in an encryption and signals intelligence capacity, but he said that the threats facing society have taken on new forms.
“A lot of the time, we think only of the military element of our national power, but there’s a diplomatic and informational and economic element to it,” he noted.
The Commerce Department, for instance, has closely monitored semiconductor supply chains as officials work to onshore domestic chip manufacturing and strengthen U.S. military capabilities.
“Why not have an internship — someone here from Vanderbilt — being in the Department of Commerce? Hard to believe that there’s any place more important right now with regards to semiconductors than the Department of Commerce,” he said.
He also floated the idea of a student internship in the State Department’s Bureau of Cyberspace and Digital Policy. While State has a separate intelligence bureau, its cyberspace service has focused more on shaping international internet governance norms and managing emerging tech matters like AI and quantum computing.
Nakasone, who retired from his dual-hat post as head of NSA and U.S. Cyber Command in February, spoke to reporters at a news conference leading up to the launch of the Vanderbilt institute, where he is slated to head the program meant to jockey younger talent into national security roles.
These less-expected positions than those at DOD, CIA and other parts of the defense and intelligence community let students build more diverse critical thinking skills to address global security problems, he said. The institute is setting a “25 for 2025” goal to put 25 Vanderbilt interns into different government national security roles next year.
The center will be housed in the university’s engineering school but plans to connect students across engineering, medicine, education, business, law and the humanities, according to a university press release. The center builds on Vanderbilt’s annual Summit on Modern Conflict and Emerging Threats, which has brought in military and intelligence community officials to discuss the state of the global threat landscape.
Officials in 2024 have frequently warned of a peak in global threats, citing Chinese hackers infiltrating U.S. critical infrastructure and increased U.S. military spending in congressional bills. Heightened election participation worldwide has further amplified concerns, with AI-driven disinformation playing a key role in the space.
Policymakers are trying to address the issue by focusing on cyber and national security workforce matters, opening up pathways for young Americans to enter the arena at educational institutions.
“Gen Z will be the number one sector within our workforce. Okay, that’s great. But it also requires that knowledge and skills and ability that have just left us — whether or not they’re baby boomers like myself or millennials — you’ve got to be able to pass that information on,” Nakasone said earlier this year at the DEF CON hacker conference in Las Vegas.