Lieutenant Colonel Marquay Edmondson, representing the US Space Force, is a national security affairs fellow (NSAF) for the academic year 2024–25 at the Hoover Institution. He is a career intelligence officer with extensive experience in military and intelligence community operations, data science, air defense, and aerospace/space operations in both the US Army and the space force. He wrote about what he hopes to achieve in his year at Hoover.
What did you know about Hoover before you applied to become an NSAF?
I had very limited knowledge about the Hoover Institution. I knew it was a prestigious institution in California involved in public policy and research, but I didn’t know at the time its ties to Stanford University and the greater intelligence community, and political wealth of senior leaders over the years.
Aside from reconnecting and recharging with your loved ones stateside, what are you most looking forward to doing with your year as an NSAF?
What I look forward to the most is engaging and participating weekly in seminars along with the great minds and academic experts of the Hoover and Stanford community. Also, I have a passion to learn artificial intelligence/machine learning concepts and how disruptive technologies will impact national security, public policy, and senior decision making at all levels of the national security apparatus.
Have you met with your student mentees yet? What is the most interesting question they have asked you?
I met with my students the first week before class, and one of the interesting questions they asked me was about my perspective on how I see national policy, security, the political spectrum, and academia from my 20+ years serving in the military.
In your view, what is the biggest misconception the civilian public has about life in the military?
One view could be how we see, fail to see, objectively see, or don’t see activities happening within the political spectrum and whether or not we have any type of opinions or emotional responses toward those political motives, actions, selections, or even senior-level decisions made across the political/military spectrum at times that could impact us as military leaders.
Staying objective and the duty to serve have always been the cornerstone of my responses to these questions in my line of work, I’ve always appreciated the openness from our students/mentees and their political awareness of what’s going on in the world. They are very bright minds who inspire me to do more.
Which Hoover fellow are you most looking forward to meeting or working with? Why?
I always look forward to working with Dan Berkenstock, key cofounder of Skybox, who has expertise and extensive experience in Silicon Valley, venture capital, and most importantly, space policy—all directly nested in my line of work and profession in the space force.
What is your capstone project for the year going to be?
My research focus this year is twofold: (1) publish a significant intelligence topic in one of the premier air and space journal publications focused on leveraging artificial intelligence to empower analytic tradecraft for all-source space intelligence and reinforcing analytical efforts on closing command-and-control kill chains; and (2) work with Freeman Spogli Institute colleagues this coming spring on a second iteration of a Hackathon event, where we integrate key datasets for students to develop, create, streamline, and model innovative solutions and simulations against complex problem sets. One of the new additions for spring 2025 is introducing LeoLabs data to incorporate space domain awareness (SDA) data into the event to cover SDA implications and solutions as well.
What are you hoping to bring back to your service from your year at Hoover?
I hope to bring a wealth of insight, knowledge, and institutional connections from academia and integrate key aspects of these areas back into the service. I see the Hoover Institution, Stanford, and the greater academic community as keys to accessing world-class expertise, former senior leaders, and national security advisors, etc., and connecting with innovators from venture capital and Silicon Valley as the cornerstone to enhance and further the space force’s mission, human capital, and growth for the future!
What is America’s principal national security challenge today in your view? Why?
I think one of our principal national security challenges of today is great-power competition and being able to outcompete China’s and Russia’s growth in disruptive technologies and innovation. China is expanding its space commerce enterprise, enabling it to reach our southern hemisphere in various areas of information, economy, security, intelligence, and defense spending—all nested with Russia in certain aspects to bolster its national needs and requirements militarily and economically.
At the end of the day, it’s about securing the high ground in space, seizing and optimizing the edge in R&D, and most importantly, finding innovative solutions to incentivize our education system and big industry that will establish and enhance our foundation in innovation and technological growth.
