“Building a school like this at Brown is such a wonderful thing, because that interdisciplinarity that is needed to make progress on the world's most difficult policy problems, it just comes here naturally in the air,” Friedman said. “People are so committed to reaching out to find those connections, and that's how the Watson School is going to build and thrive.”

While it may be a challenging political moment for Brown to launch a policy school, he added, this moment in history calls for innovation: “It's exactly because of the challenges in the world — whether it's higher education or the very quickly shifting policy landscape here in the U.S. [and] internationally — what better moment to have the opportunity to build something that's really new and forward-looking,” he said. 

Milley, a retired four-star general of the U.S. Army who served as the 20^th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and retired after 43 years of service, asked Brown and Watson School students to study the nation’s foundational documents as well as the guidelines of international order established at the end of WW-II. 

Even at the nation finds itself amid political challenges, it’s important to view current events through the lens of history, he added. While the systems of governance that establish order domestically and internationally are currently “stressed,” he said, “we have to be careful about thinking that today is the worst it’s ever been,” referencing tumultuous moments of the past, including the economic devastation of the Great Depression and the political unrest of the Vietnam War-era. 

“We are in a period today where there’s… contention, there is anxiety, domestically and internationally…” Milley said. “We need to maturely work through that with a degree of rationality and civility amongst ourselves, but we ought not also think that the sky is falling and the walls are coming in and it's all over. I have lived a good part of my professional life in countries that are actually in civil war. That is not the United States… I'm not saying there are not red flags waving in the wind. I'm not saying there are not challenges. That's true, but let's not jump to conclusions as to where we are as a country.”

For those considering careers in public service, he stressed the importance of integrity, candor and the “willingness to speak to the truth.”

“You want to be able to do that every single day, day in and day out, no matter who you’re dealing with,” Milley said. “And fundamental to character is having a genuine and real sense of humility.”

After Milley’s formal remarks, he and Friedman engaged in a wide-ranging discussion that covered everything from Milley’s experiences growing up in a military family and playing high school hockey outside of Boston, Massachusetts, to his views on China as a threat to America and technological innovation in the military. 

Milley explained that the role of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the country’s highest ranking military position, is to be the principal military adviser to the president, secretary of defense and National Security Council: “Your advice is independent of political influence,” he said. “It must be non-partisan, non-political advice. So you can't give advice to the president thinking there's going to be a certain advantage or disadvantage to any internal U.S domestic politics.”

Asked through a student submitted question about the recent use of military troops in some U.S. cities, Milley said that under the Constitution, “the president is the commander-in-chief [of the military], and he has enormous authorities with respect to the deployment and employment of the U.S. military overseas or inside the boundaries of the United States.” 

But he emphasized that that the military is not a law enforcement agency or police force. 

“When you use the military in the streets of America, inside the body politic of America, you are introducing a different instrument, and they're not cops,” he said. “And be very, very careful with that instrument.” 

Before the keynote event, Milley spent time meeting with Brown students, many of whom are veterans or active-duty military members in the Watson School’s Military Fellows Program.