M6 Leadership Spotlight: Joshua Hastey
This week, we’re highlighting Joshua Hastey, Deputy Regional Advisor, INDOPACOM at M6. His work at M6 focuses on collaborating with U.S. and allied partners to address complex security challenges in the IndoPacific region. With a fascinating background growing up abroad and deep expertise in gray zone strategies, Josh brings invaluable perspectives to our work with the Irregular Warfare Center.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you ended up joining M6.
An interesting thing about my personal background is that I grew up outside of the United States. I was born in the U.S., but my parents were Baptist missionaries, so I grew up in Paraguay, Costa Rica for one year, and then Paraguay again for 16 years. We came back to the States a couple of times while I was a kid – for fourth grade, for instance – but I was pretty much in Paraguay until I came back to the States for college.
So, I knew that whatever I studied for, whatever career I wanted to pursue, I wanted to be able to deal with life in the U.S. and abroad. I have a broader perspective, and wanted to have a broader impact. This was different from most of my friends at my tiny Missouri college. Many of them hadn’t been outside of the 50 mile radius of where they were born. I ended up studying political science as an undergrad, and also met my now wife then.
When we graduated, we were really determined to start off without going into major debt. We both worked multiple jobs during college, but we had some student loans. So, we decided to teach ESL in South Korea for three years to pay off our undergrad loans before starting grad school. We had many wonderful experiences and saw a new corner of the world – this really ignited my interest in studying Asia and in studying China’s influence in the region. When I started my M.A. in Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University, I was already laser focused on studying security and studying China.
Then, I moved to Norfolk to do my Ph.D. at Old Dominion. I was focused on security studies, international relations, and increasingly interested in this whole spectrum of conflict that happens below the threshold of war – all of the competitive, conflictual behaviors and the subterfuge that states can employ against each other that falls short of major conventional battles, and where most of most conflict happens. It’s where most battles are won and lost. I ended up writing my dissertation on China’s maritime gray zone activities, with special focus on its faits accomplis at sea: seizures of territorial waters and island-building.
Tell us about your responsibilities with M6 and the Irregular Warfare Center (IWC).
My study of island seizures – the island hopping campaign in the South China Sea using a game theoretic model – is what put me on the radar for the Valens and M6 teams when they were first standing up the Irregular Warfare Center. They needed somebody with expertise in the IndoPacific and gray zone strategies. In December 2022, when we were first putting the larger team together, I was the guy in the room with no title, just because they needed somebody with an INDOPACOM background.
Today, I’m the Deputy Regional Advisor for IndoPacific and U.S. Forces Korea. I help advise on the IWC strategy for the region, and focus my work on collaborating with key partners of the U.S. and their various commands.
What’s been your most rewarding experience so far with m6?
There are two that I’m excited about, one of which has already started to bear fruit and the other that’s coming up.
My background is as an academic. We have a tendency in academia to write for each other and not for the policy makers who need to implement the research that we’re doing. In my previous role before I was the Deputy Regional advisor [at the IWC], I was the chair of research. I used to run our annual research colloquium and I’ve brought that kind of work into this position [to try to bridge that gap]. During this, we take on 12-14 students – mostly M.A. and PhD. candidates, but we’ve also had a med student, a few postdocs, and one undergrad – who are interested in studying irregular warfare as fellows. They’re interested in everything from delivering medical care in contested and denied environments and disaster areas to cyber- and influence-operations – the whole gamut. Because they’re often the only person in their department studying this particular niche thing, we bring them together with a bunch of like-minded scholars who are their peers at their cohort level, and we connect that cohort with senior scholars and practitioners. That brings new blood into the community and gets them networked so they can get trained and mentored. It also creates a two-way dialogue so our practitioners can hear what the newest bleeding edge of research ideas are. This is a great way to connect academics and policy makers.
Just this past September, we held our second annual program, which is intentionally small – we want everyone to be able to really know each other. In the past year, four of our university fellows who presented in our first colloquium got their work published – some of them in really prestigious journals, one in Joint Forces Quarterly. Others went on to postdocs or secured teaching positions. So we’re really excited to see this networking opportunity continue to blossom.
The second experience I’m excited about is the process of acquiring PRISM from the National Defense University. I’m inheriting the good work of my colleague Dr. Sandor Fabian. Next to Joint Forces Quarterly or the Naval War College Review, the premier peer reviewed journal read by leadership in the Joint command is PRISM. Hopefully we’ll be able to carry on the good work the previous team did with the publication. It’s been really exciting to see IWC taking on really a premier, top flight academic journal that’s read by really senior leadership in the Pentagon and across the interagency.
Is there any M6 value that clearly shines through in your work or that resonates with you and your role the most?
That’s easy: Warriors First. I was really happy to see that M6 had its roots supporting Veterans Affairs (the VA). My dad uses the VA regularly. Before he was a missionary, he was in the Air Force during Vietnam, and he gets VA care related to his service. We’ve all heard the horror stories about this or that VA mishap. But, where he is in Cheyenne, Wyoming, he’s always said he’s never received anything but the best care, the most sympathetic ear. Hearing that M6 is helping the VA be that way for more veterans made me proud even before I stepped a foot in the door in this fully remote job.
Also, I really see how the values that our country stands for – the values of honor and fair play and equal standing under the law – how much of that is truly at risk with some of our partners. Last fall, my colleague helped with an exercise in Taiwan. We’ve committed to standing with our partners and that is very much on the line. There are certainly strategic reasons to be where we are, to be doing the work that we’re doing, but beyond the sort of the cold strategic calculus, there’s doing the right thing. I see that very much in our efforts and that’s motivating – getting up and giving 100% every day.
Finally, I noticed my colleague Paul quoted one of his mentors in his interview and said nobody has a monopoly on good ideas, and that spirit is very much alive on the IWC team. We challenge ideas and wrestle with them together, and all of us are better for it. We walk the walk.
How does working at M6 align with your career goals or personal values?
As an academic, I’ve always looked for ways to be impactful because sometimes there’s a gulf where you just sort of fling your research out and hope somebody sees it. Prior to coming to M6 or to the IWC, I was looking for ways to use my professional skill set to study strategy in a way that would benefit the U.S. and its values, its mission, and its interests. I want my writing to be relevant to policy and be helpful to the people down towards the tip of the spear.
I still teach occasional classes as a part-time lecturer, but my work with M6 has really enabled me to be laser-focused on and heard by the people who need my research because I work with them everyday. I have moved a little bit from researching to application. Taking the 15 years of study that I’ve put into this field and turning it into informing our allies and partners makes my work much more impactful.
What’s something interesting or unique about you that others might not know?
Between growing up with parents who were missionaries and working overseas for a while after college, I’ve lived abroad more for more time than I’ve lived in the U.S. And, I’ve lived in Norfolk now longer than any other place.
Rapid Fire Questions
What’s the best title you’ve ever had – personal or professional?
I really did dig being Chair of Research. That was a lot of fun.
What can we find you doing in your free time?
I spend a lot of my free time these days as the family Uber: taking my oldest son to Muay Thai, my middle son to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and my daughter to gymnastics. When I’m not doing that, I’m either playing chess with my middle son, reading to one of the three of them, or planning the D & D campaign that I run for my two boys and their friends.
What’s your go-to news source?
For international security stuff, I read Foreign Policy and The Diplomat out of India. I also read The Economist semi-regularly and I have a news aggregator on my phone, so it just sort of pulls together a bunch of different headlines. For news in the States, I read The Hill, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
Are there any books or movies that you’ve watched or read lately that you think are amazing that you want to tell people about?
Right now I’m reading Pekka Hämäläinen’s Indigenous Continent. I’m loving its insight into the geopolitics of North America before the arrival of Europeans. I just finished Michael Sobolik’s Countering China’s Great Game: A Strategy for American Dominance, which was an excellent read. I’m also about to finish reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire to my kids.
Who would you most like to have dinner with or be stuck on a desert island with?
Teddy Roosevelt really exemplifies overcoming adversity to me, and, by all accounts, he was a riot to talk to. From overcoming asthma as a kid to being the big advocate of our national park system and always being outdoors to leading the Rough Riders in the Spanish American War…there’s so much to admire and emulate.
I’d also say Winston Churchill because of his spirit of tenacity and defiance to the face of oppression is really admirable. Being able to rally the leadership required to rally his country – at the hardest of times – is really inspirational. And, he was a prolific writer, which people often overlook. He wrote four volumes on the history of the English speaking peoples and six volumes on the history of the Second World War. That is really impressive.