By Washington Post Live
On March 30, as part of his series Securing Tomorrow, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius interviewed Robert Work, the deputy secretary of defense, who has been a leading voice for the Pentagon in cyber defense and innovation. (Washington Post Live)

Securing Tomorrow @ The Washington Post | March 30

The next commander in chief will face complex challenges in a world marked by wars and cyber crimes, polarized by ideological beliefs and divided by seismic shifts in geopolitics.

The U.S. is struggling to contain a growing Islamic State, and Syria’s humanitarian crisis and civil war has deepened and become more complicated. Seas are rising and communities imperiled by climate change face severe erosion. Disease and natural disaster have devastated parts of the world laden with shortages and aggravated by drought, famine and lack of infrastructure. China’s economy is contracting, rogue players have access to the Internet and how the U.S. keeps pace in a rapidly changing world will take epoch-making consideration.

In a year voters are anxious and angry, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius will interview newsmakers in defense, intelligence and national security in live onstage conversations to better understand what’s at stake for the world in 2016 and beyond.

[The killer robot threat: Pentagon examining how enemy nations could empower machines]

Ignatius’s first conversation was on March 30 with Robert Work, the deputy secretary of defense, who has been a a leading voice for the Pentagon in cyber defense and innovation. Watch the full conversation above and highlights below.

"The momentum against ISIS is more than any other time in our campaign," Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work told Washington Post columnist David Ignatius Wednesday at a Post event called Securing Tomorrow. (Washington Post Live)
According to hundreds of emails released by the Defense Department, Secretary Ash Carter used his personal email account for government business for nearly a year until December 2015. Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work told Washington Post columnist David Ignatius Wednesday it was an administrative mistake. (Washington Post Live)
Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius discuss machine learning and other emerging technologies changing combat and the way the U.S. deters adversaries. "We will not delegate lethal authority to a machine to make a decision," Work said. (Washington Post Live)

[View photos from the event on our Facebook page.]

Washington Post columnist David Ignatius asks Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work whether he's ever used his private email server during his time as deputy secretary of defense. (Washington Post Live)
Robert Work, the deputy secretary of defense, says hyper-partisanship worries him most. (Washington Post Live)

Before becoming second in command at the Pentagon, Work was chief executive of the Center for a New American Security, undersecretary of the Navy and a leader for Navy issues in President Obama’s Department of Defense Transition Team. Ignatius wrote in a recent column that Pentagon officials, Work included, are discussing more openly how advances in artificial intelligence and robot weapons are powerful and necessary to combat and deter threats.

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